How Motivated Seller Leads Are Booming With Bryan Driscoll

You should have a deeper understanding of the real estate market if you want to experience true wealth. Listen to Julie Houston as she talks with Bryan Driscoll about how motivated seller leads are booming and how you should deal with those. Bryan is the Co-Founder of Motivated Leads, a digital marketing agency that helps real estate investors expand their portfolios quickly by generating quality motivated seller leads. In this episode, he shares online marketing techniques for investors to stay focused on goals and success. He also discusses changes that are coming up that he could do on the marketing side and how he foresees the future. Tune in to learn more and watch your revenue grow!

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How Motivated Seller Leads Are Booming With Bryan Driscoll

I am super excited. We have Bryan Driscoll with us. Bryan, welcome to the show. It’s such an honor to have you here, welcome.

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

I’m so excited to have you. To give our readers a little bit of your background. Do you mind giving a little background about yourself and what you are doing?

My background is I’m a digital marketing guy. I have been doing digital marketing since the early-2000s when Google started being online. I got into SEO. I have been doing that for a long time. Also, I’m a real estate investor. I got involved with that years ago. It works well going together because I market for my own deals. An interesting thing is I only buy properties in one ZIP code because I don’t like driving far, which is a little bit of a challenge but also, I was able to accumulate a nice portfolio all within five minutes of my house. I like marketing and real estate a lot.

What did you do before you got into real estate? What did you do prior to this?

When I was eighteen years old, I was a salesman at Comcast. I was one of the top sales there in the US. After that, my family had an insurance business, so I went into the insurance side and always was doing marketing on the side as a side hustle. Eventually, it made enough money that was a no-brainer to leave the 9:00 to 5:00.

Good for you. That’s incredible. Now you are an investor and you are more on the marketing side. We have a lot of seasoned and some beginners as well. In the same boat as you, marketing in their local areas or specific areas, how is it working for you now? Are you seeing any changes with it, especially with the economy in the market, or what’s your feedback for your own personal business in what you are doing?

My feedback would be don’t listen to other people. Look at your market. I see everybody’s in these groups and everyone’s like, “The sky is falling.” I’m seeing the same leads and the same motivated people. People die all the time and someone inherits a house. That doesn’t matter what the market is. Sometimes people have hoarder houses, they can’t afford to fix them up. That’s happening.

That doesn’t matter what’s going on with interest rates, things like that. We will see some things, especially before whenever you weren’t allowed to evict people. Some foreclosure stuff wasn’t popping up but there are still motivated people out there that want to sell their houses. I would say to people, “Be careful who you are listening to. If they are trying to sell you a BS and get you all hot and bothered or they are looking out for your best interest because there are deals out there all the time.”

That’s good to hear. I invest locally in a small little radius. Not at the magnitude of most investors but we are still getting qualified leads and buyers in our little niche out in the middle of the country literally in a rural area. What are some of the techniques on the marketing side for investors and entrepreneurs that have been beneficial for you that you are working on and having success with?

On the marketing side, I see a lot of people trying to do marketing on their own and some are successful and some are not. The ones that are successful, I see have extremely direct messaging, and everything’s transparent. For example, the ads will mask the landing page, which matches the message afterward. It’s all saying like, “Sell your house fast,” or being transparent that you are an investor. That you are looking for people that want to sell their house. A lot of the people I see that are failing are going after people like, “Find out how much your house is worth to get a home valuation.” They are generating a ton of leads, basically a telemarketing list because the close rate will be so small.

I see a lot of people doing digital that way. They are spending a lot of money on the lead. The leads aren’t motivated people. If you get a whole bunch of people that want to sell for top dollar, that’s never going to work for you versus like, “I’m an investor. I can’t pay top dollar but I can make this convenient for you or I can come up with creative ways to solve your problems.” If you have the messaging in your ads, things like that, it all matches. The people that come through your website or whatever marketing avenue you are using, will be more likely to convert.

It’s a more dialed-in message.

That’s a big thing I see. Dialed-in message. Be extremely direct with it because everyone wants to get cheap leads but it doesn’t matter how cheap the lead is. It matters what your close rate is and how much the deal costs.

With the messaging, how do you make sure you have the right messaging and traffic? Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

We will say for example on Facebook. We do a ton of testing. We will test different messages in ads. If it has a picture of a family, if it has a picture of a male or a female, things like that. The three core messages I see are that convert well though or sell your house fast. We buy houses and we are cash home buyers. Sell your house for cash as different variations of that.

Sell your house. That’s targeting people that want to list on the MLS, want top dollar, and things like that. You have to have those phrases like cash, as is, no repairs needed, and fast, those types of phrases in there so people know, “You are an investor. I’m not going to hit you up. If I’m looking for 100% on what the house is worth.”

You are clarifying that right off the gate?

I clarify that right off the gate and say someone clicks an ad. I send them to a website. The website’s purpose, I look at it to disqualify people. I want people to go to the website. I want them to see what we do and disqualify all the people that aren’t a fit. I don’t want them to fill out a form because then I have to call them. Once you are in the final, I’m following up with you for months. It’s a waste of time. I’d rather not have you fill out a form. Disqualify those people. Have more qualified people go through the website and that’s building a nice pipeline. We will get way less leads so it’s manageable. The lead cost will be more expensive but we are closing 1 out of 10 versus 1 out of 50.

Talk to me more. You got me intrigued because I’m thinking in my head, “This makes sense. Why am I not doing this?” How would the format work for someone if they were starting?

If someone starting out, what you want to do is, number one, you want to get the traffic. You want to get people to your website. If you are doing digital. It’s not saying digital is the only way to get deals. Mailers and text messages works. The text message is a prime example of the shotgun effect. I get so many text messages that are spammy being like, “Is this Bryan?” I’m like, “Who’s this?” They are like, “We saw you own property here.” It’s like, “Okay, you got me.”

That stuff works. It depends on what type of business you want to run. If you are starting out, you may need to go after the shotgun approach. It’s either you are trading sweat or money. If you don’t have a whole bunch of money and you are starting out, you may need to go put bandit signs up. You may need to go driving for dollars. Once you get to a certain level, then it’s like, “My time’s more valuable than the money and I could pay for marketing to send mailers, have people manage tax, cold callers, and digital, things like that.”

I only do digital now. We used to do mailers. We have a way better return now on the digital side. To answer your question, the way it flows out is you would do ads online. They would go to your website. After that, you have leads. Somebody came to your website and they filled out the form. They have raised their hand, told you how fast they want to sell, how much work their property needs, and what their goals are.

Now it’s the investor’s turn. This is where I see a lot of people fail. You have to call an online lead within seconds. If you are doing digital marketing on a website and you don’t have a CRM that can send text messages, number one, get that set up immediately so you or your team get a text message right when that person fills out a form. If you wait an hour to call them and you are in Pittsburgh and they fill out my website also. I’m already on the phone with them. We are locking something up then they are not answering phone calls anymore because they already got what they need.

A couple of tips I got for you on that side is to get a CRM, number one. Whenever someone fills out a form on your site, send them to a thank you page that has a link to a calendar saying, “Thanks for filling out a form. Here’s a link to our calendar to book a time for us to come give you an offer. If you have a big team, book a time for us to hop on a call.” If it’s hard to get different people to different places. We also send a text message and an email to that lead in real-time saying the same thing. “Thanks for filling out a form. Here’s a link to our calendar to book an appointment.”

We get about a 34% conversion on that. They book appointments. I like that because if at 3:00 in the morning when a lead comes in, say on Google pay-per-click. People are going down the list like throwing out everyone’s website. Once you come to ours, if you book that appointment, there’s a chance we pulled you away from filling out the competitor’s website because they feel like they found what they were looking for and then are going to wait for a day.

No one’s awake at 3:00 in the morning. I’m not going to call them but if you have that automated texts go out. They scratch that itch that they have, and then that’s good. Also, most investors I talked to are like, “The leads aren’t picking up the phone.” I’m like, “How fast do you call them?” “Within a couple of hours.” I’m like, “That doesn’t work on digital.” You have to drop what you are doing or have someone that can drop what they are doing if you are going to do digital ads.

You have to respond immediately. No questions asked.

You have to respond very quickly. A lot of times we will call them like, “I’m still filling out your form on a website,” and it makes you look good too like you are on top of things. The other one is going to be doing that too, so it’s a game of speed.

You actively invest and you are using the marketing that you are the expert at and having success with it personally, which speaks volumes. What you said earlier like don’t listen to people that haven’t done it or don’t have the experience.

I got into digital marketing in this space because I wanted to invest. My background is dealing with larger companies, which are more competitive like big eCommerce, national and international companies. When I got into investing, I got my first deal and it was a $15,000 wholesale deal.

Who gets a $15,000 wholesale deal on their first one?

I’m looking at it and I’m like, “I should slap up a website, put some ads behind it and see what happens.” We did and we crushed them like this makes sense. There’s nobody in the space. There aren’t many players offering digital marketing that understand the space as well. That’s why we do so well because I know what a motivated seller is. I deal with them. I know how to target them. A lot of digital guys don’t know the difference between someone that wants to sell their house versus somebody that wants to sell their house fast.

I would agree with you on that.

Huge difference on that side.

It’s a tremendous benefit for people when you are doing what you are an expert at like you are an investor and your services on marketing, you are actively using it and proving it. That’s rare. I have never met anybody on the digital side with homes and finding motivated sellers like the system and process that you have in your business.

It’s unique. We finished up a property. We do a lot of the BRRRR method. Dealing with all the contracts as I get them. The whole process is from start to finish, which is fine. I enjoy real estate. It’s my side hustle now.

It is for me too. It’s become my side hustle. If I do a couple of houses a year, I’m happy. I’m good. I remember the days. I’m not going to lie, when I started, it was sweat equity. Summers of finding these properties. I do the owner-finance model. I’m doing a few rentals now and mowing. It was sweat equity. I couldn’t fathom. I was like, “This is hard.” Putting bandit signs out and doing all the things that you mentioned. That’s how I started.

The rental side sucks. I know that because I used to do that myself too like you are talking about. I used to rent the tenants. I found that that’s my weakness. Dealing with tenants because I will meet somebody that has crappy credit. They give me the sob story and I would rent to them. If I tell them, “Don’t screw me,” and like six months later, I got a trashed house. They are not paying rent. Things like that. One thing I learned is to learn where your weaknesses are. I have a property manager, so it’s just numbers me now. Learn and find the people that are strong where you are not and it works well together.

Are there any changes you think coming up in the way that you are going to be doing marketing or you are not even concerned like you are set where you are at? Do you foresee any changes?

I’m always keeping an eye on what’s going on. More properties are going to come available for investors. The price will go down. People will be more motivated because there’s going to be more supply than demand. Not necessarily more. It’s not going to be overweight but it’s not going to be like it was earlier in 2022, where you put a property on the market and you get ten offers. Some sellers are going to lose some of the balls that they have now, saying, “I want 20% over market.”

It’s going to get back to an even game that investors are going to be able to crush it. I don’t think it’s going to happen now. It’s going to happen maybe spring is where I would predict but make sure you are positioned right too to be able to jump. When that opportunity pops up, you have to be in a position because there may be multiple deals you want to grab and you have to have the funds to do it or be creative.

I would agree with you. I’m sitting back waiting for the opportunity to open up while everyone negotiates the overpriced house.

You have got to buy rights. Especially now, you have to buy right. In Pittsburgh, our real estate doesn’t go up a ton and down a ton. We don’t experience it in a lot of places like Vegas and Florida. That big fluctuation. We don’t have to worry as much but in some of the places, you got to make sure to buy right because who knows? Property values could drop 20% to 30%. It’s a big money.

It’s a lot of money. Let me ask you this. How many houses are you doing a year?

I have about twenty properties in total. Twenty-six in my area. The average is worth $200,000 maybe or something like that. They are all rented. I was running numbers. They are probably valued at around $4 million. I got about $800,000 in loans, $200,000 cash.

Do you use private capital?

No, I buy them cash. I will buy property cash, fix it then I go to the bank and pull the money back on. As long as we buy them right, they give us 100% back. If anyone’s in the Northeast like S&T Bank up here does not have a seasoning. I know a lot of banks say, “You have to hold it for six months or you have to hold it for a year.” I can go buy property now, fix it up, turn it around in a month and pull 100% of my cash out as long as it appraises like we are pulling 80% out. Which is huge, so that’s why I was looking. I’m like, “We only have $200,000 cash into $4 million in real estate with only $800,000 in debt.” It’s crazy. It’s low capital to get in it.

I do a lot with private money then owner finance it. I’m in Texas too. The housing market prices skyrocketed. I was blown away. We went out to look at a few and were blown away by some of the prices for what they wanted. I’m talking about a little more acreage in a rural area. My husband’s a plumber and there was one property, for example, we went to. The shower was so disgusting in this $599,000 home that’s been empty for years. He wouldn’t even step inside of it. He was like, “I’m not even touching that and I’m a plumber.” It was mind-blowing like some of these properties. I was like, “Texas went up but it’s starting to regulate a little bit more for sure.”

I’m seeing that because I talked to a lot of investors. Everyone’s saying it’s crazy. They are saying now that some people are having a problem with selling. They are getting properties, especially if you are flipping a property. A lot of people are saying, “It would normally be gone. Now we are having to hold it like we normally would for a month or two.”

I don’t do a lot of flips.

Me either. I have never sold a property in my life.

I have sold them but I saw them on terms 20 and 30-year notes. That makes sense but I’m in Texas, so it’s different than up in Pittsburgh. The housing market’s way different where you are at. What would be some of your top three things for seasoned and new investors that you would highly recommend to anyone based on what you are actively using and doing that would be beneficial for them?

For the new investors, I would tell them to go out and do it. I know a lot of people get hung up on books because they don’t have the confidence. They never did the deal before. They get hung up. They keep learning. I need to keep learning. I need to partner. I need to do this and that. Go out and find a deal. Even if you lose your shirt on the first deal. Even if you break even. You don’t make a bunch of profit. You are going to learn. Go find the first property. Don’t try to lose money trying to get the best deal you can but take that action. Once you find it, you will figure out how to sell it or whatever your exit plan is.

Someone was telling me, it’s like, “If we are going to a bridge and it’s a mile away, don’t worry about what you are going to do when you get to the bridge. Start walking to the bridge because things might change and you might take a different direction by the time you get there.” Start doing something active and take action. For the season guys, I always look at KPIs. Look at your key performance indicators. Look at your numbers and see where things are broken.

Let’s say you are doing digital or any marketing, how many leads do you get? How many of those book appointments? How many of those appointments show up? How many turn into contracts? How many turned into deals? A lot of times, there are a lot of waste in there and a lot of different things you can optimize.

For example, if you get leads that don’t book appointments, maybe implement a text message to book that appointment. If you book a whole bunch of appointments and they are not showing up, look at how you are booking them. If it’s quality or if you need to call to confirm or find out what it is. If you are not getting contracts, find out what’s happening between when they booked that appointment.

When you show up, do you need to take a deck with you or do you need to show them testimonials and build that credibility and look at the different stages of the process? The only thing that matters is the deal at the end. You need to find out if there’s any way you can optimize that entire process that you have to get a better return.

That’s great feedback. Thank you for that. I know for our readers that if they want more information about what Bryan and I discussed here with digital marketing, we are going to have some information for you at UndergroundWealthSecrets.net/motivatedleads. That will go more into the digital marketing side that Bryan has reviewed with us. Before we finalize our interview now. If you could drop a few nuggets, maybe one golden nugget. What would that be? Was something you found that changed the way you do your business? Is there any one thing or person possibly that influenced you or helped you in the direction where you are at?

The one thing that changed which I realized. One thing that has helped me a lot is to quit relying on other people. A lot of times, I’d be like, “I want to learn how to public speak,” for example. I go take a Dale Carnegie course. I have learned the basics. I want to take it to the next level, so I would hire one of their consultants. I find out half the people are selling it. In that situation, I’m like, “I need to do this stuff on my own. Go get the knowledge but then take the action.” It’s not lazy because I’m not trying to be lazy but take the action and do it yourself.

An interesting thing is you can find out about somebody’s life for $10. People will write a book. You get them for $10 or $20 and they spent a lot of time writing the book. That’s one thing I saw. If you want to learn something, go buy the book and then take the action. The action is the hardest part that most people don’t do.

Go do it because everyone thinks they are doing what is right. You wouldn’t do what you are doing now if you didn’t think it was the right thing to do. To change, you have got to do things that you don’t think are right because you’d be doing them right. It’s to take action and start doing different things and surround yourself with the right people. If I surround myself with the right people, I want to be the stupid guy in the room. I want to be with some people crushing. They are also ethical. If you surround yourself with those types of people, you are going to elevate yourself. I don’t down if that answers your question there.

It does. That’s great feedback. For our readers, for more information that we discussed here with Bryan, you can go to UndergroundWealthSecrets.net/motivatedleads. Bryan, I want to thank you so much for being here with me on the show. It’s such an honor having you. We would love when we get to connect. I want to thank you for joining me.

Thanks for having me on. It’s fun.

It’s been a blast.

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