Drew Farnese owns Revamp 365, a real estate wholesale company just outside of Philadelphia, operating in about 20 counties in the PA, DE, & NJ Tri-state area. After years in the fix & flip and landlord business, Drew founded Revamp 365 as a lead-gen company out of necessity to feed his real estate pipeline. After cracking the code to getting great deals and maxing out on construction capacity – Revamp started selling deals to friends and other investors to keep the machine rolling and to always uphold our word and our reputation with our sellers, buyers, and everyone in between.

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Welcome to the Real Estate Masters podcast, where we interview the top names in the Real Estate game. If you want to grow your Real Estate business, see more podcasts, or get free resources – Go to www.REMmastermind.com. The only podcast that allows you to directly connect with the guests and many of the highest level names in the real estate game.

You are in for a treat with our next guest. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast, leave us a review, and don’t forget to go to www.REMmastermind.com to connect with some of the highest level Real Estate professionals in the United States through our community and through our high-level masterminds. Let’s go.

Itunes – www.TonyJavier.com/itunes 

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Show Transcription:

Tony: (00:00)
Welcome to the real estate masters podcast, where we interview the top names in the real estate game. If you wanna grow your real estate business, see more podcast or get free resources, go to www.remcommunity.com. The only podcast that allows you to directly connect with the guests in many of the highest level names in the real estate game, you are in for a treat with our next guest. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast, leave us a review. And don’t forget to go to REM community.com to connect with some of the highest level real estate professionals in United States through our community and through our high-level masterminds, let’s go

Tony: (00:40)
Alright. Welcome everybody to today’s show. I’ve got drew Farnese with me. Uh, my name’s Tony Javier, your host as usual. Uh, we’re here to talk about an untapped marketing channel that most people don’t know about that Drew’s been doing, uh, for about six weeks now. That’s absolutely crushing it. So I wanted him to get on here and talk about what he’s doing in his market drew. What’s going on, buddy?

Drew: (01:03)
Yeah, Tony man Hey, thanks. I appreciate it. And, uh, before we get started, I wanna say, you know, shout out to my buddy, Gabe, the SIL that hooked me up with you, you know, got me connected and told me about what it is that you’re doing and how you’ve had experience and traction with, uh, this TV program. So shout out to Gabe. Thanks for that. Um, um, so yeah, you know, we got connected what probably we got going fast, man. We just started talking what, eight weeks ago?

Tony: (01:30)
Uh, three, probably about three months ago. Yeah.

Drew: (01:32)
Was it okay? Okay. I know that as soon as we started talking, I was like, cool, let’s just get going. Let’s get rolling. Let’s get set up and uh, let’s get it turned on. Um, so yeah, you know, um, in the Philadelphia region I’ve been doing wholesale for about three years now spent about the last eight years in real estate doing fix and flips, um, transitioned into primarily wholesale three years ago, still do flips, still buy rentals and everything, and have been aggressively scaling the wholesale company for the past, uh, you know, year. And we do a lot of direct mail. Um, we don’t really do too much text messaging or these other like low entry barrier things where there’s already a lot of people, you know? So when I heard about the TV program, like that’s probably right up our alley, you know? Um, so we got that started and that’s been awesome.

Drew: (02:29)
It’s been a great lead source for us. Most of the stuff that we do, it’s a lower quality higher volume lead. So for our sales team specifically, it’s like, this is like a breath of fresh air, you know, it’s a high quality, lower volume lead, I guess. I shouldn’t even say low volume, I guess. Uh, in reality, looking at our numbers that we just went over Tony, right? Like 200 leads in, uh, six weeks. Isn’t really low volume to a lot of people. So, uh, you know, yeah. Looking forward to jumping into some of those stats here with you, man.

Tony: (03:00)
Yeah, yeah. Actually you could be right. It might have been two, two and a half months ago cuz you’re, you’re one of those guys, like when we, when we talk to people about TV, we’re like, it takes about 30 to 45 days to get you on the air. But some people are like, no, I want on like tomorrow. Right? Yeah. So you were, yeah, you were probably one of the guys that got on it about two to three weeks. So, uh, you be right in that, in that two-month timeframe or so, but uh, yeah. So you kind of dove into the numbers already. We launched you on TV, uh, six weeks ago. Um, you’re spending 15,000 a month right now, which is on the high end, you’re in a big market. So like when we look at markets, you know, some markets are, you know, have, you know, few hundred thousand people, 500,000 people, but your markets you’re hitting, I can’t remember what, the number is 6 million, I think 8 million, like it’s a huge market.

Tony: (03:45)
So to spend 15 K is on the very high side of what we typically, uh, have our clients spend. And so let’s, let’s talk about the lead volume. You just gave me the stats, which I was, uh, you know, not blown away by cuz you gave me a 30 day stats, but six weeks in you’re spending 15 K a month. Right? So 22, 5 ad spend, you got over 200 leads, right. Which like you said is high volume. But um, when you look at how many you got under contract compared to how many leads came in, that’s, you know, pretty standard one out of what is it, 20. Cause you got, actually, I take that back. It’s a little bit more you got about 16 under contract. I know you said you may have a few of those fall through which happens in this business, but most likely around, you know, 8, 9, 10, 11 of those will go through.

Tony: (04:32)
And right now you already have 96,000 of profits assigned from those deals waiting to close and another 50,000 you’re projecting from the other deal. So that’s $146,000 on a $22,000 ad spend. So tell me, tell me what it’s like compared to your other lead sources. As far, you kind of touched on the quality of lead is typically higher. The conversations are easier, but from a standpoint of, uh, kind of how that compares management wise to your other marketing, as well as, um, you know, just anything you wanted talk about in, you know, maybe returns comparison to what else you’re doing.

Drew: (05:11)
Yeah, sure. So it’s like in comparison to most of the other marketing and lead gen strategies that we’re doing right now, it’s totally like night and day difference. And like we were touching on a bit, yes. Out of the 16 deals that we brought in from this campaign. So far we have five that have already fallen out. Um, it’s like, since it is a high ad spend and everything, we’re kind of adapting our sales process too. We haven’t even figured it out yet. Right. It’s like right now we’re just kind of going at everything, trying to throw some things at the wall and shake out everything that we can from it. Like it’s a different, not a different sales process, but it’s, it’s slight little things that have shifted. So we’re like a one call close shop, you know, a lead comes in typically, um, we get a verbal contract over the phone and within five minutes we send a DocuSign.

Drew: (06:09)
Sometimes we’re still on the phone. We get the contract back before we ever even go out to the property. Right. So that’s a normal lead, a normal sales process for us with a lot of the TV leads, I guess, with the demographic that we’re hitting. It makes sense. Um, it’s a lot of elderly people that just aren’t tech savvy. So they’re like DocuSign. I don’t even have an email. What the hell are you talking about? You know, like I have a fax machine. Um, so it’s changing our sales process slightly. I know that sounds like complaining to like, oh man, we gotta go out on an appointment to get a contract. Um, cuz we’ll totally do it. You know, we’ll do whatever we have to. Um, but it is slightly changing our sales process and we’re adapting to that. Right. So six weeks in, we’re just trying to get all the kinks worked out, you know, but absolutely the quality of lead is significantly higher than thing else that we’re doing. So the conversations are easier because we’re not, we’re not qualifying these people as much. Right. Like they’ve already qualified themselves. They’ve already funneled themselves. Um, so yeah, I think there’s a lot to be said about that.

Tony: (07:14)
Yeah. Cool. I know most people are, are happy with three times on their money, um, as a minimum and then five times is doing really well. But right now you’re doing about seven times, which is great. Um, so tell us, you know, I guess what you see, um, with your process. So actually one, one nugget that you said that I got from our mastermind, you were at a few weeks ago with a lot of our TV clients. There is a lot of people are locking up the deals over the phone, right? So I’ve been in this business 20 years now and my team typically gives a price range over the phone and we don’t get the contract till we go out and actually look at the property. So it’s interesting guys like you that are doing high volume, uh, you guys are getting the deals under contract, even go out, which is very smart because if you’re getting 200, some leads in, you wanna filter out the, the people that aren’t serious and it’s like, Hey, if you’re serious, here’s what we feel like we can pay, sign the contract, we’ll come look at it and verify, you know, condition and all that and then move forward and, and, and go from there.

Tony: (08:16)
So that’s, that’s a really good, uh, thing that we can share with, with, to everybody else. Um, anything else you can talk about TV, tell us about the process of just getting it set up. Like, you know, how much time did it take you, um, you know, how was it working with, you know, our media buyer, all that kind of stuff, any kind of insight you can give there.

Drew: (08:33)
Yeah. Yeah. So definitely what’re talking about right. Um, I know that, I mean, for me personally, it’s like, Hey, it, it was this scary thing, right? Like we’re talking about uh, $15,000 a month ad spend plus the cost to get everything set up, you know, and record the commercial and everything. It’s, uh, it’s a big commitment to make, especially for something that is so different and that I don’t really know a whole lot about, you know? So I remember when we first spoke, my number one question is because I knew you had a track record. I knew that you were recommended to me by like a high level, heavy hitter guy. Like I had no questions about the legitimacy of your program, who you are and what you do. My only a question I think was how much time is this really gonna take? Like, what’s this gonna add to my plate?

Drew: (09:21)
Like I’m already at capacity right now, man. Like, I feel like I’ve been at red line for a while and I, I operate pretty well there. So, um, I just knew that I couldn’t add an extra five or 10 hours worth of workload to my week, you know? Um, cuz this probably wouldn’t be something that I could delegate, you know? And when we talked about it and you’re like, man, look, honestly, you’re gonna have to go through the videos that are gonna show you how to prep for your commercial may take a half hour and then you’re gonna have to go to a studio that will, we’re gonna set up. We’re gonna schedule for you. We’re gonna have everything prepared. And that may take an hour of your time. Like, all right. So I can, you know, reasonably say that I’m gonna spend two hours of my time to get this campaign rolling and off the ground and some money. I love it. I’m in

Tony: (10:14)
Yeah. So two, two hours pretty good return time. Right? Because you know, doing the media buying, I think is the biggest thing. Like when people talk about getting on TV and negotiating rates with stations, not only is it hard to get ahold of a rep that you, uh, trust and will give you, you know, shoot you straight, but they’re gonna wanna say expensive stuff. They’re gonna want to go around with you and having someone it’s kind of like having a buyer’s agent on your side, if you’ve never a house before chances are a good buyer’s agent is a good investment. And actually you’re not even paying the buyer’s agent because they’re getting paid by the seller. Whereas, you know, media buyers getting paid by the station. Right. So to have someone to be able to negotiate the, the right rates for you kind of know, um, it’s kind of like comp you know, pulling comps, right? Like, you know, you don’t wanna pay $180,000 for 150,000 house. So you want an agent to be able to tell you what it’s worth media buyer does the same thing. It’s like, Hey, we know what the rates are, what they should be. We’re gonna negotiate the best price and get you the best deal kind of thing. So I’m glad you’re happy. And his name was drew. His, his name is drew also. So yeah. Uh, you know

Drew: (11:15)
I liked him from the jump.

Tony: (11:17)
Right, right. So cool. So anything else that you can share about, about the TV program? I mean, it sounds like, I mean, you’re already doing pretty good volume of business, but this is obviously just gonna add to, to what you’re doing. Um, I don’t know if you’ve seen this feedback already. Has anybody commented on your direct mail about, you know, maybe calling you and say, I haven’t seen your commercial or anything like that? Cuz that’s, that’s something that sometimes take a little to little bit of time, but you know, sometimes right off the bat, people are like, Hey, I saw your commercial. I’ve had your direct mail piece for a few weeks now, but I saw your commercial and decided to call you. Right.

Drew: (11:48)
No, I haven’t had any of that yet. But like the direct mail that we do, it’s uh, there’s not really branding involved in it, so okay. Mail pieces in the future. Yes. We’re gonna start, uh, integrating that into it. Cause I think just having that piece and being able to say, you know, as seen on TV, it just kind of adds that layer of credibility and everything to what you do. Um, and that, that earth noting too, like with the leads that we’re bringing in from the TV commercials, it’s like that authority is already there. You know, some, sometimes these sellers are saying to our sales team, like, yeah, well, you know, we spoke with other people, but they didn’t really, they kind of seemed like a fly by night, like operation. Like they didn’t really have a company, they didn’t have an office. And I know you guys are on TV and you have a physical office. That’s only like down the street or whatever. Um, it really adds that layer of legitimacy to who you are, what you do and helps establish that rapport with the person. They feel like they already know us, you know?

Tony: (12:49)
Yeah. Have you been recognized in your area already around town? Oh,

Drew: (12:51)
Absolutely. Yeah. I get texts all the time. You know, a couple times a week from people saying, Hey, I saw your commercial. Is this you? What are you doing?

Tony: (13:02)
Yeah. But what about when you’re walking around town, people are like, are you the TV guy? Are you the, the real estate guy?

Drew: (13:07)
I haven’t had that yet.

Tony: (13:08)
Really? Wow. Not yet. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, cool. Well, I appreciate your time drew. I mean, you know, this is something that, you know, a lot of people are having similar success to you where they’re getting, you know, pretty quick returns within a short amount of time. So I appreciate you sharing your, your story taking time outta your day. I know you’re doing a lot of deals over there, so anything else you wanna share? Anything else you wanna, you wanna give to the audience before we jump off?

Drew: (13:31)
Yeah, no, I would just say if anybody’s, uh, on the fence about like jump been on in doing this program with you, it’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s gonna be scary. It’s gonna be, uh, probably a big monetary investment, not a good or not a huge time investment. Like I said, which is the biggest for me. Um, I would say as long as you have a good sales process in place and a way to convert those leads, jump in, just do it, you know, it’s gonna work.

Tony: (13:58)
Yeah, yeah. That, that, that’s probably, that’s probably the biggest complaint we have is like, I just can’t handle all the leads, you know, once we turn on the faucet. Um, so some people don’t have a really good process and they’re forced to get a good, good process. But now that I’ve seen the volume of, of leads coming in, I’m trying to work more with clients on good, getting their sales process a little more together with getting an answering service if they need to, and you know, potentially getting a lead manager and you know, things of that nature. But, uh, but yeah, no, I appreciate your time and I appreciate your leap of faith, cuz I know we were connected by someone that we both know and that, you know, helped with trust, trust factor, but anytime someone, you know, trust their time and their money with me, I really take it seriously and, and wanna wanna deliver. So I hope you’re happy and you know, look forward to many years of, uh, bringing your leads and uh, you know, hopefully changing your business a little bit for you.

Drew: (14:50)
Sure, man. I appreciate you brother. All right. Have a good one, man. You too.

Tony: (14:54)
Thanks for listening. Now. Go to www.remcommunity.com to connect with today’s guest. See your high level masterminds and to get free resources. Don’t forget to share this with a friend and leave us a five star review while see you on the next episode.