What is up everyone we are live with the Payneless Wholesaling podcast where we have awesome people come on the podcast to let us know about their experience in real estate and how they can help us make our journey in real estate painless, because we all know it can be painful if you don’t know what you’re doing. So we try to make it so you don’t have to experience that pain. And today I have with me, I got Nick Jackson. He works with call rail. And he’s going to dive in deep with us today to talk about how you can use call rail to scale up your business to get deals to make money. That’s what it’s all about. So Nick, what’s going on?
That’s right now. Hey, happy to be here. Thanks again for having me, as you know, Nick Jackson. So it’s a little bit different than your normal guests. I’m not a wholesaler, I’m not in real estate investment. I work in software,
right, which is very important. And for right.
And in little background. I’ve been at call rail for a little over six years, our big tagline is we help businesses turn more leads into better customers, right. So that’s the high level. And along that time, I’ve worked with real estate investors and wholesalers specifically, because there’s some of our best customers, right? There’s things that we do that will go in and we’ll cover that just happened to align pretty well, depending on you know, where you’re at, whether you’re starting out, you’re getting a little bit more advanced, or you know, you’re running the whole gambit, bunch of digital ads, and stuff like that. So it’s really interesting industry, and I’m happy to provide some of the things that I’ve noticed that they use, and that seems to be beneficial.
Yeah, that’s awesome. Thanks for giving us that intro. Have you always been into the technology space? Cuz you said six years? So were you doing that before as well?
No, not always. Before I wasn’t sales before that. It was not technology. And before that I was a high school football coach. Coach, I was actually at Harrison High School and Justin Fields was the quarterback coach, no line. So that was pretty sweet. But yeah, different background, but got into it, because it’s a software that’s very valuable to a bunch of different industries. And anything that provides value is a good thing to sell.
So I love that. So to help the audience connect with my man, Nick, football coach, how did you play football back in the day?
Yeah, back in the day, played high school football, played in college for a little bit and then got injured and then just a guy or what? Yeah, I’m 665 to 40 right now, which is a little lighter. And for me, you know, back in the day, but you know, thank goodness, I’m not there anymore.
Wow. So you were were you lying? Did you say you were on the offensive line?
Yep. offensive line. I played center most of the time.
Yep. offensive line. I played center most of the time.
You were snapping that ball? Oh, yeah.You were snapping that ball? Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah. I had holes in my yard from going out there with my dad and practicing shot.
That’s amazing. That’s so cool. Because you know, it’s cool. When you meet with people on podcasts or virtually you don’t know how big they are anything really other than their face. I’m, I’m not big, unfortunately. Like five seven. And I wouldn’t say unfortunately, it’s whatever it is what it is, but you know, I five seven like 170 I’m not you would crush me on that online, bro. You take me out?
Not anymore. Duck into steps and fall down. You know, one of those?
Yeah, that’s cool, man. So So you’re in? Is it? Technically SAS? Is that what it call rail is? Okay. So so you’re in that industry and call rail? How long has it been around for? since 2011?
Wow. Okay. And what’s the target market? Like it just happened to be that wholesaler started using call rail? Or were you trying to build this to solve that problem of like the all the marketing that real estate investors are doing great question wholesalers started using us.
So you know, call was call row was created for hey, if a business uses the phones and does anything with marketing, getting some tracking in place could be a benefit now wholesalers in this is why I love working with you all make it happen. You will if you find something new, interesting, that could be of benefit, you will adopt it. And that’s exactly what happened. Right? From tracking advertising, you know, via things like bandit signs paid search, we aligned with that. So they found us and we noticed, oh, hey, there’s something here. So you know, it’s an industry that we’ve served for years now. And we’ve intentionally, you know, worked with, you know, we have a team dedicated to it, basically. So it’s something that we’ve certainly doubled down on after we realized like, oh, man, there’s something here.
Okay. Well, I like that. So I’m curious, are you able to see the results in the data of like, what marketing channels are working best is like Colorado have that information? Or is that only specific to like the user and you’re not allowed to like see the results of, you know, mailers, for example, you know, that they’re sent out.
So are you saying like, on the whole when people that weren’t using call rail have access to that information?
No, you you as a company, are you able to be like, Wow, we’re seeing that when right now mail it, like, let’s say a company that’s using Mail, it says they’ve sent out 10,000 mailers and you’re like, wow, as a company, we’re seeing that the response rate on a male of calls that come back from Millson is this. We should tell our users to do this because it’s working now.
That’s, you know, hey, that’s is a great question, we actually do get that quite a bit. But that can get a little bit dicey because depending on like, who they’re reaching out to, or what the purpose of what they’re doing, especially if you get digital involved making recommendations, it could be a little dicey if you try and interpret it at too high of a level. But that question, so that’s a great question. And for our customers, it’s basically depending on what you’re doing, and what you’re trying to get out of it. That’s what dictates how you set it up. Right? So So to answer your question for, you know, someone that’s they’re targeting specific regions, right? They don’t want to do the national paid search thing, right? Like, because they really care about their dispositions, they want to make sure that they’re targeted with that. It’s about understanding, okay, which things are we sending out are resonating and actually resulting in offers getting sent to action, we should double down on that. And then it’s also just the fact of recognizing, hey, someone’s calling us from our advertising, we have got to have a process in place to ensure we’re answering these we’re following up and that this isn’t slipping through because as you know, it’s it’s competitive. And speed is like the overlying thing throughout all of this. So it’s tracking, converting them. And it just depends on what you’re doing.
So what do you think, especially with technology in the future in AI, do you think there’s going to be a way for when people call in and someone’s not available to answer the phone? Or is there something to implement to cap that speed? Because for example, if I send out mailers, and I’m not available from like seven to six, seven nights to six in the morning, morning, because I’m sleeping is Is there something that like call rail is thinking about doing? Because I know right now it goes to voicemail or it gets redirected. Right. But yeah, that’s a question I would have.
Yeah, absolutely. So we do have things in place right now. So a lot of that it gets to auto response. So if you happen to get a missed call sending that personal text message right now, okay. Things that you can do as well, where you can see those texts. So if you wanted to, after hours, respond to text messages, start a conversation that way, you certainly could. The main thing is, though, is if you get to that point where something gets missed, it’s immediately following up with them with a clear message, right? That builds trust to know that, like, Hey, I’m here for you, this is important to me, I’m a professional. So for us, we have alerts in place that will email you, right, the second you get a missed call. And we’ll also do things like send out text messages to those people and whatnot to make sure that you’re continuing that loop and that you’re not letting it slip.
So is that like a workflow that is set up that anyone can set up and call rail?
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s really easy. And, you know, as far as the nuts and bolts, like, if anyone were to sign up, you have a person that like, helps you do it all. It’s pretty straightforward, though. As far as setting up the alert, you would just basically click on alerts, and then turn it on. And that’s it.
Wow. Okay. So super easy. You don’t have to like create some intensive workflow. It’s just like saying, hey, I want a response. If I miss a call, yeah, that’s exactly it.
And, you know, it’s easy to set up the way our teams approach it is it’s intended to be product, but it’s product lead growth company, which is, you know, its own thing. Thinking is, is the product can do it for you. And yes, it can, you could totally sign up and do it all yourself. We found though that our customers find more value if we teach them how to use it initially, while making sure it’s set up. And then they’re good, as long as they know where the stuff is, you know, to turn on the alert. And that’s it.
So tell me how you teach it. That’
So as we go through, we understand first, Hey, what are you doing, so we’ll understand someone coming in if they have marketing that they need to track if they’re doing outbound calling, what we do is as we go through, if it’s something that they’re going to need to do, again, create new numbers for tracking, we tell them, hey, this is important. This is something that you will do again, so as you’re going through it, this is it. Basically, how you think about it is just go through, follow the prompts. And for your situation, this is the way to approach this. And we do that as we’re setting it up for them initially. Oh, yeah. And as they don’t if they don’t get it right or something, we just run through it again and create another one for him. Because, you know, we’re setting it up.
So we’re in this onboarding process, is that is that when that happens?
Yep, that’s right. So of course, like, if someone wanted a demo, we wouldn’t be setting it up. We just, you know, show them how it works and stuff. Yeah, if they sign up for a trial, that’s part of the process, you’d have a point of contact that basically just talks to you to understand what you’re trying to do. Because you can set up all sorts of stuff. It’s really just showing you like, Hey, this is what you need.
Can you tell me a little bit more about the demo process of like how that they would someone would set that up? Like a seven day free trial and they want to learn more? How does that work?
No, great question. So if you go to our website, there is a button where you can request a demo so I would say like if they’re just wanting to learn more, that’s going to be a great resource where you know if you just want to check it out, signing up for a trial though, same thing if you intend like hey, yeah, this I think this could be something I would need to track marketing and or, you know, place calls, whatever it may be. If you sign up within like a few hours, your person We’ll reach out and then basically just hop on a call with you.
Is that a new feature? Or have you been doing that since, you know,
it’s a newer it’s, it’s an it’s a relatively newer process with regards to the way that we approach the setup. Because, you know, at first it was more so just, hey, just leave it to them, let them do it, you know, kind of sit back if they reach out, like, let them know, answer their questions, but we just found that it was a lot easier if you just offered it up as a service, just hey, like, we just helped you, if you want to set it up, basically, it made it a lot easier for everyone.
I’m assuming customer attention. Is it? Have you noticed the increase in customer retention as well?
Definitely. And that’s, uh, you know, I’m in sales, you know, I manage our sales teams. And retention is a huge metric for us. And it is we know, anyway, you look at it, people that we speak to meet with and help always stay longer, they get more value, they use the product more. I mean, you know, it makes sense on its face. So yeah, it’s one of those things.
Yeah. Cuz I think a lot of people that use like, products like that software products they take off just because they don’t know how to use it.
Yeah, 100%. And that’s, that’s what we don’t want to avoid, you know, because we’re not trying to push anything on anyone. You know, some of the people listening to this, it may not be a fit for our goal is just, hey, uncover if it is for you, and if you need help setting it up, just make sure you’re good with it.
Can you tell like, let’s say the majority of the people that listen to this podcast are new, how would they I guess how would they use the service to benefit them to get a deal? What Tell me a little bit about kind of the the topic that we’re talking about of how this can help them win more deals?
Can you tell like, let’s say the majority of the people that listen to this podcast are new, how would they I guess how would they use the service to benefit them to get a deal? What Tell me a little bit about kind of the the topic that we’re talking about of how this can help them win more deals?
Absolutely. So when you’re just getting started out, right, you might have a couple things going on. Maybe you’re doing cold calling, maybe you’re using Podio to send ringless voicemails a lot of people start there. Is that fair?
Yeah, I I’ve never really gotten into ringless voicemails too much. But I did, I did. flyering. So that’s, that’s kind of what I did.
And I was I was gonna bring that in from a marketing perspective. So here’s, here’s a real quick way, we create phone numbers for you, like we tell you how to do it, you create them for the area that you’re trying to target. So if you’re sending out a flyer to you know, Kennesaw, Georgia, you choose a 770 area code, you would name it Kennesaw flyer, put it on the flyer, right, yeah. Now, if anyone calls that number, you know, right now, this is related to a property from that mailer that I had sent out, I need to answer this right now. You’ll see it right here. And if they, if you miss it, you’ll send an auto text to them. And then you’ll have that alert, so that you’ll make sure you’re following up with it. So for your people, right now, an easy win is, hey, local presence, and then making sure that if you get in touch with any of these people on a cold call that you’ve placed, or they’ve reached out to you from a flyer, you know, how they found you. And you’ve ensured that you’ve uncovered like, hey, is there a way that we can get an offer in place? You know, if not, how, and if we’ve got an offer out? Are we indisposition, you know, what, where are we at with these deals. So to start with, it’s, Hey, if you’re running advertising, put a tracking number on it, you got to know where these leads are coming from and know that it’s a lead. And then from there have a system in place to ensure that if anything could slip through the cracks, there’s alerts and failsafe to make sure that you’re following up with them. So to start out, that’s like one of the main ways that people will use us.
So if you’re someone’s brand new, if they have like one flyer that they send out, they probably will be like, let me just use my regular phone number. But call rail is useful if you’re sending multiple different texts on fliers or multiple bandit signs or different messages is that is that kind of how it works is you want to test what’s working.
So yeah, and then that it to your point, if you’re in a situation where you are doing a lot of it. Yeah, that’s how you use it. Now in the example where they have one number and one mailer, our product starts at 45 bucks. And that includes five numbers, and 250 minutes. So in that case, what we hear most often is, I don’t like using my cell phone, everyone calls myself, I don’t know, if it’s a friend, I don’t know, if it’s a buyer. I don’t know if it’s a seller, I don’t know who it is. So sometimes I can’t follow up with them with us. I mean, it’s literally just, you know, in that case, for 45 bucks, you get a number that you set up that you know, it’s what it’s for. And then anyone that calls that, you know, full visibility into that. And it’s not on your cell phone, you’re not handling with your personal device. So if that’s important, right, if people get things lost in the mix using their cell, yeah, that’s that’s one of the reasons literally, just to have it off of it.
And I hate all the calls I get on my phone. And I’m like, I don’t know who this is. So yeah,
I mean, it’s an I don’t really answer my phone, hardly ever, you know. So it’s one of those things if you don’t know what what it’s about, you’re less likely to answer.
So yeah. And usually my thought is like they’ll leave a voicemail or a text if it’s important, right? Yeah. So I’m curious, how would you set up cold calling? Let’s say I have three cold callers that are blasting people. And I’m getting a ton of calls that are returned calls and most of those calls are I missed the call from this number. Who is this? How would you use call Ral to help you with that process like of all those people calling back and just inquiring about like, what the call is for got that all the time?
Great question. So depending on how they’re doing the cold call, are you talking about where they like basically upload a list? They call a bunch of numbers at once? And yeah, no, exactly. Okay. Here’s how you do that. All right, you create call rail number. And in those tools that you do that with, you can basically choose whatever you want to show on the caller ID, right? Use our number there, it’s totally fine. If anyone calls or texts back, they’ll be calling or texting back the call rail number. So you know exactly what it’s for what it’s related to. And if you have like virtual assistants, even if they’re based overseas or whatnot, if they’re using the portion of call rail that is like a communications tool, they can be overseas. And if someone calls back from that number, they’ll know what it was related to what it was about. And then they can start that process to see you know, if it’s someone looking to sell or whatnot,
and what they could you set up a response, like a text message response to all those people calling back?
Absolutely. So if they call back and you missed it, like missed the call, absolutely. Okay. It’s lit up that text response, like, Hey, I’m so sorry, we missed your call. Like, it’s very important to us, we will be back to you momentarily. And then that would typically trigger an email also, to those people. Hey, guys, you missed a call, like, yes, your senior team, correct? Right?
Yes. Let’s see. So they get a text message to this call rail charge for text messages that our sent because of the response, like the if a missed call.
Yeah. So this is a little bit in the weeds, depending on the mix of products that you’re using. We have one, which is really it’s not like the communications tool, it would just be to know that it was a call back from one of these numbers, but a different system. In that case, yeah, there’s a component we include 100. And then after I believe it’s like two cents. It’s not a ton. And for the system that most people would use, because often they do have virtual assistants, it’s unlimited SMS. Cool. Not Applicable. But yeah, that’s depending on the nature. You know, that’s one of those things that we would just see if it makes sense for you. And if it did help you get it
Have you noticed any big wholesaling companies or not even big any wholesaling companies using a call rail as a CRM versus like a Podio? Or going into using like HubSpot, or any of these other CRMs.
Great question. So no. And the reason for that is you’ll see it sometimes like at a smaller scale, but at a large scale. A CRM has one very important capability that we don’t have, and that’s the final revenue, right? Like, you know, how much did you actually sell that property for in a small scale, you can totally do that and call rail, like you just put it on the thing, or on the contact, right? But at a large scale, what they’ll do is they’ll use call rail, it’s totally fine and just integrate with their CRM.
Got it? Whatever. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. I was just I think I there was like one coach, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them outs, Youngblood. But he tells his students to that are new to us, at least as far as I know, to use it as a CRM in the beginning.
So I’ve been totally totally tenable. Like, yeah, in the beginning, that’s absolutely good messaging. Because in the beginning, you know, it’s not quite to the scale of where like you can’t manage it. You need like your billing automated into it and stuff like that. And as far as knowing how they came in, and what’s been done since Yeah, it can absolutely be a really useful tool for that.
Awesome. Well, what what else can you give the audience that would help them to understand how to use call rail or a calling service in general? Hopefully, it’s call rail right? You get a deal. What else? Can you tell us about that?
No, in this gets back, I listened to your last show with Michael McDonald. So it gets back to hey, if if people are reaching out to you, in some fashion, need to understand if you’re marketing, which marketing channel drove it, right? That’s, that’s very important. How did they find me, and then from there, you have to have a system in place to ensure that they are being followed up with very fast and that you are able to ensure they’re moving through the process quickly as well. So all that means, right is a system of alerts, whether it be to the person that called you, your internal team, and a system where you can go back and have a record to make sure that you’re converting everything, you know, within reason that could be so it’s really just about tracking visibility and and having something in place to move the deal along, because that’s, that’s really the big trend. We see. I love it.
And it sounds like a common theme. What you’re saying is speed. It’s because these people are calling and for my experience, they don’t just call one mailer or one Pandit sign or one pay per click ad they call probably a couple if, especially if you’re not responding quickly.
Yeah, and that’s exactly right. I mean, you know how it goes. It’s like that for a lot of stuff. If you need a plumber, you call multiple if you’re if you need to sell your home, you need to sell your home, you know, you’re not just going to call one person like call me back.
So the only way I would say to mitigate that is like, if you answer that thing quick, and you solve that issue for that seller, or that plumber, or whatever quickly, and they’re like, it’s not worth my time, but if you’re gonna get calls and not be quick to them, and you’re hope there’ll be around in two days or a day, you know, maybe someone’s already that good that they’re able to get it done. So my advice is, for anybody listening, this is like, if you’re going to spend money on marketing, you 100% have to be have speed, its people data speed, you have to have good people on your team, if you’re building a team out great data, and then speed is gonna set you apart. Because, again, you’re spending money, you got to get back to it, or I’m gonna get it or someone else is gonna get it. Yep, that’s exactly right. It’s awesome, man. Well, I’ve asked a lot of questions that I had on my mind, is there anything I know you go on a couple of podcasts or anything specific that you guys tried to that you specifically try to get out there that you want people to know about with call rail or that you’d like to talk about?
Well, as far as what I’d like people to know, I would say that there’s a lot of noise out there. Right. And there’s a lot of different software’s and things like that. If you’re evaluating software’s, I would say, you know, before moving forward, when you’re evaluating it, just say, hey, was this person focused on understanding my business, my needs, and simply helping me address those and get where I need to be? Or did it seem like they were just telling me about them the whole time. So I guess that’s just something I’ve noticed in going through, you know, talking with different types of companies. And that’s what my experience is in. So if anyone is evaluating any of these tools, just be looking out for Hey, what is the viewpoint of the person I’m talking to? Are they making this about how I can improve? Or is it all about them? If it’s all about them? Probably not in the right spot.
So curious about competition, maybe evaluating other people, other companies? Do you find that your pricing is competitive, overpriced, under price to the competition, because I don’t really can’t really think of too many other services other than call rail that we use for marketing, curious to how you guys do against the competition, we tend to be very competitive.
I’ll put it that way, as far as the pricing is concerned, especially at the scale at which you know, most people would be using it for for wholesaling, and that sort of thing. So price is not something that we would typically see, as an objection coming up too much. And nor functionality. I mean, the people that created our product, were very smart. So it works well.
So yeah, which is super important. The functionality, like have a good experience, right, or people will will bail off, even if it’s cheaper if it’s not easy to use? It’s not worth it. Right?
Yeah. 100% 100%
Cool. Well, do you have any? I guess we can wrap up but do you have anything left that you want it like a gold nugget or something like a tip you want to leave with the investor Thrive audience the Payneless Wholesaling people out there?
Yeah, um, I would say, you know, I heard you and Michael McDonald, talking the other day, whenever you’re going through one of these, like programs to get something going. If it seems way too good to be true, it probably is. And if you’re paying a lot more for that person than anything else, you know, be wary. If there’s anything I can give that would be relevant, you know, for your audience. And I think you know, what, you’ve got everything I’ve heard you all are doing it the right way. So just, you know, Hey, be wary, make sure you’re you’re objectively evaluating, like, is this a process I can do? And then after that, just start a lot of people that come to us they haven’t got, they haven’t really, they’ve looked too much. And they haven’t just just start. Yeah, that’s usually once people start learning. So if that’s helpful for your audience, you know, that’s what I’ve got, I think it’s most relevant.
Wow, that is extremely helpful. Because I coach, a lot of people, I teach people how to get started and get their first deal. And a lot of them they come and they want to learn, and they’ll just go and I’ll beg what questions you have. And a lot of them don’t have questions, right? And that comes down to they’re, they’re not taking action, and they don’t know what questions to ask. They’re just like, I’m just here to soak it all in. It’s like, well, if you I guarantee if you made 1000 cold calls right now, over the next week, you would have 1000s of questions, because you would say okay, what do I say to this? What I do this? How do I use this? All these calls are coming back? How do I respond? So a lot of the time, people just want to soak in information and they feel like they’re doing something when like you said, the learning starts once you pick up the phone, take the action and and that’s that’s how I got started. I got started by just knocking doors and saying, Do you want to sell your house? And I had no idea what was after that, but I just need to find someone that sold their house that was selling, right?
That’s, that’s, that’s awesome, man. That’s why I love working with this industry. Because you know, like, you just made it happen. And that’s the thing once you start trying to make it happen, that’s when you have the relevant questions that actually answers so yeah, that’s it’s good stuff.
Yeah, if you knock 100 doors, and no one wants to sell you sit there, you’re like, am I saying something wrong? It was my pitch suck. Do I not know what I’m doing? Then you have you’re like trying to reevaluate so. It’s so true that like once you take that action, you’re like, Okay, I can’t spend all day cold calling people and I don’t know what to say I gotta practice something. So that’s just an example. And I’m sure it’s the same with your product like people got to use In order to know like, okay, the best way to like keep it and utilize it so cool. Well, hey everybody that was awesome to having call rail on here. Usually I have guests that are industry that are in the industry, but I think it’s well, I guess like investing but this is really cool to have them because I, I’ve used call rail, I think they’re awesome. I would just be transparent like I have a CRM that has the capability that works for our company, but I know I’ve used call rail I think it’s an amazing product. That’s why have you guys on here. I think it’s a great thing to use, especially if you’re doing multiple marketing channels. The strategy that I use right now it’s it’s pretty low key on the marketing side, because the market shift happened. I’ve gotten more into like low marketing and more relationship based with my cell phone, but especially when the market when I go back into doing more marketing call rail is a perfect solution to being able to track everything.
Yep. And now as a pleasure, thanks. Thanks again, Nathan for having me on. If anyone wants to check call rail out go onto our website, you can request a demo or sign up for a free trial. I believe Nathan has an affiliate link as well.
Yeah, when we post this, I’ll throw it in there. And if you guys are listening to this, and this has already happened, just reach out to me if you need that link or go to Colorado I’m sure you can tell him that you heard it from here and they’ll hook me up. They hooked me up because we’re good. We’re good buddies. You know the stuff. Yeah. All right. Thanks, everybody, and we’ll see you on the next one.
Alright, thanks. See you
