Gene Blinkov: Speed to Lead

Embark on a transformative journey with me, RJ Bates III, as I engage with the visionary Gene Blinkov from Speed to Lead. Together, we unpack the incredible synergy that's driving the sales force behind Titanium Investments. From Gene's leap from Boston's drone videography scene to software prowess in Ukraine, to the inception of a game-changing platform, we're peeling back the layers of innovation and strategy that have revolutionized PPC campaign management for users like you.

In the whirlwind world of real estate wholesaling, the necessity of rapid lead connection and the psychological edge of subscription models can't be overstated. This episode lays bare the entrepreneurial spirit, resilience in adversity, and the critical need for reliable business tools. Gene's riveting account, from the shock of war in Ukraine to the abrupt loss of a key business resource, underscores the tenacity required to thrive amidst chaos and change. We're taking notes on how to adapt, innovate, and form unbreakable bonds in the toughest of times.

Prepare to be inspired by the future-focused ambitions of Speed to Lead, as we reveal plans to cultivate a productivity-rich ecosystem for the real estate industry. Expect to hear how integrating cutting-edge technology, like AI and deal predictor tools, into our platform can potentially reshape how you prioritize leads and close deals. Every step of the way, we're committed to refining our service, ensuring that your financial success story is just a lead away. Tune in and let the insights from today's conversation fuel your next bold move in the market.

Speed to Lead PPC Marketplace: https://app.ispeedtolead.com/TITANIUM

With over 1,300 Videos, this is the #1 channel on YouTube for all things Virtual Wholesaling. SUBSCRIBE NOW!    / @rjbatesiii 

_________________________________

RESOURCES FOR YOU:

If you want my team and I to walk you through how to build or scale your virtual wholesaling business from A to Z, click here to learn more about Titanium University: https://www.titaniumu.com

(FREE) If you want to learn how to close deals just like me, The King Closer, then download the free King Closer Formula PDF: https://www.kingclosersformula.com/close

(FREE) Join our exclusive FB group community for real estate investors and wholesalers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/titaniumvault/

(FREE) Click here to grab our Titanium fleet free PDF & training: Our battle tested strategies and tools that we actually use… and are proven to work: https://www.kingclosersformula.com/fleet

Grab the King Closer Blueprint: My Step by Step Sales Process for closing over 2,000 deals (Only $37): https://www.kingclosersformula.com/kcblueprint

Grab Titanium Profits: Our exact system we use to comp and underwrite deals in only 4 minutes. (Only $99) https://www.kingclosersformula.com/titaniumprofits

_________________________________

Learn more about the systems I use to virtually wholesale nationwide using the links below!

Get 66% off LeadZolo Motivated Seller Leads using our exclusive link: https://www.leadzolo.com/titanium

Make Your Data Work at REISift at https://www.reisift.io/titanium

Close 30% More Deals Using our preferred TC ezREIclosings: https://titaniumtc.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey guys, welcome to the Titanium Vault. I'm your host, rj Bates III, and today is going to be an absolute banger because I'm talking to a man that has really changed the trajectory of titanium investments. Met Gene back in 2021 after I won the Closers Olympics. We had talked previously, but that was really when our relationship kind of took off and we really were one of the early users of Speed to Lead in the PPL model. I remember doing my first Closers show with them and just being like man. This is so much easier than what we're doing with our outbound marketing, with texting and cold calling. So, mr Blinkoff, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 0:51

What's going on? Rj Doing very well. Incredible to be here, man. Very cool to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Well, I appreciate you being here, man, and so, gene, you're in Boston right now, is that correct?

Speaker 2: 1:01

Correct, right now.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Yeah yeah, but you're not normally in the States, so tell everybody a little bit about where is Speed Elite actually based out of and where do you live.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Yeah. So, first of all, RJ, thank you for the introduction. You also changed the trajectory and that's been the trajectory of my own career. So I'll always, I'll always appreciate that and never forget about that man. It's been, it's been a great, it's been a great friendship and partnership. But, um, yeah, so, uh, speed to lead is well, we're, we're an american company, right, we're we're headquartered in in us and in delaware, but we've got kind of a crazy story of how we came about. I've got a crazy story, and so does Speed to Lead, because we were started, actually, when I was living in Ukraine, right.

Speaker 2: 1:56

So a few years ago, I used to own a video company here in Boston it was called Drone Boston company and uh, here in boston, it was called drone boston and I was, like you know, one of the top three guys here that was doing real estate videos for uh, real estate agents with drones. Like just when drones kind of came about, you know, and I was like my I was working at ibm before that I was just looking for something, dude, something out of the cubicle and uh, this like x gave me this drone for as a gift and I started flying. I'm like dude, this is cool and I bought like the professional one. And then I'm like all right, you know what this is, this is way cool, like I can be above, take pictures, like this is cool, kind of creative. And then I started like all my lunch breaks, all my evenings after work, I would just go and like practice to be better at this thing. And so I eventually started this business.

Speaker 2: 2:50

But then I started filming a bunch and I started you know, do like four listings in one day. And then you got to go edit them and so I'm like well, I just spent a night editing, I didn't sleep, and I got in the morning, I got to go film more and I'm like whoa, I just spent a night editing, I haven't slept, and in the morning I got to go film more and I'm like whoa, this is crazy. And I had this guy from Ukraine that reached out to me Ivan, not Ivan that I'm working with now, but a different Ivan, ivan Priden and so he reached out to me. He's like hey, we do these edits and stuff. So, long story short, I hired them, they started editing in ukraine and they did such a good job like we became basically like number one in boston and the listing videos number one, number two, and so at some point I was like, all right, you know what, I'm going on a trip with my parents to europe. Let me stop buying ukraine, because I want to see these guys you know of, my family is ethnically Ukrainian. I'm like, let's do that, let's go there. I go there, hang out with these guys, we take them to. We went to Dubai for a couple days, took them on a little trip just to thank them for good work.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Then I was sitting in Ukraine one day I was super bored. I went on Tinder and basically met my wife, okay, and so so I started, you know, kind of going back and forth from ukraine, you know dating and stuff like that. Uh, then I moved to ukraine, basically full-time like we moved in together, got married and uh, at that point I was doing ads as an agency, right. So we were just an agency, you know PPC agency, doing leads done for you, lead generation and stuff. And we got we started making like quite a bit of money with the agency, and so I'm like you know what Agency is cool. We have like 80 customers right now and like quite a bit of staff was like 10 people, I think.

Speaker 2: 4:46

Well, at that point it felt like quite a bit and I'm like but you know what? Taking this to 500 clients would be a freaking nightmare. It'll be like 50 people will have that. So let's work on a model. Let's like let's, let's not buy a bunch of stupid shit with the money right now. Let's, let's, let's invest some money in, like into software, because I, like, I'm a software guy. I used to spend all this time at startups, at IBM and all that. And Ukraine's got so many software engineers. It's crazy, right. So I'm like yeah, this is, this is happening.

Speaker 2: 5:16

And so and we thought about it like, what's the what's a way to democratize PPC for people, to where somebody can go, instead of going and spinning up a campaign, spinning up a website, spinning up a landing page, filming ads or writing good copy like, let's do that for them and post the lead there and let them buy it. Okay. And so we did that put a freaking dirty, dirty product together. The first version of speed delete was like a nightmare, and you could also. We also let sellers actually write their little story in there, and some of them would just go and write ridiculous stuff. Some of them would write like paragraphs about what's going on with them and I was like, all right, this, this, but eventually we improved it, right and so and that's how um, that's how speed to lead was born and and we've just been growing, growing, growing, growing.

Speaker 2: 6:07

Then we started, like you know, the big growth came when we started doing shows. When we started doing shows, you know we did so after the Closers Olympics. We did I basically kind of growth hacked Closers Olympics. And when I bought a ticket, you, you know, I was in the chat there with everybody in the live and I'm like whoa, 300 real estate investors in here. I've got all these leads. You know we're trying to sell and we're trying to get users and stuff like that spending money every day on adspend. I'm like, hey, closes olympics after party on this youtube channel right here, come over, okay. So a bunch of people actually came over. We did like our first basic show and at that point and that's how we met Liam Liam was one of the people there. At that point he was like he wasn't even showing his face on the camera, and so Liam came and then I think we made one of the best decisions is like Liam came and then we're like let's approach rj with this thing yeah, and so we're approaching.

Speaker 2: 7:07

The rest is history, man. We like closers cage matches never done before, like stuff you know, like it's only been done at closers olympics. But we kind of democratize right, like with you.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Well, it's funny how that, that, how that came about, right? So you guys reached out to me and you said, hey, we've got to get the king closer on the closer show, right, because that's what y'all were calling it, which was brilliant. And so you brought me on for one episode and you know, we went live an hour and a half, two hours calling leads. I got a signed contract on it. It it was like everyone was excited. There was a couple hundred people watching.

Speaker 1: 7:46

And then afterwards what happened on my side was is that in 2020, in the Closers Olympics, everyone was on my side because I lost and everyone was like, dude, you should have won, you got robbed. But then I go and win and I thought, oh, man, should have won, you got robbed, but then I go and win. And I thought, oh man, this is going to blow up and everyone's going to be so excited for me, because everyone for the past year had been saying you should have won. And then what came out of the woodworks was I was getting all these DMs that were like, oh, dude, you're not that good of a closer, I could have beaten you and I was like what is happening right here? And so that's where we came up with the idea of like all right, listen, why do people like the Closers Olympics? It brings a competition atmosphere, so it was like let's do these Closer cage matches.

Speaker 1: 8:38

I think Liam was the one that actually came up with that title and, of course, the first one we ever had to do was between me and aaron bevins, because of the trash talk and everything like that. Dude, do you remember? We did that on december 23rd, yeah, the night before christmas eve. And, dude, we were, we were struggling to get people to answer the phone because we did it like at nighttime. I mean, it was like I think we started like 3, 4 pm but, man, we had some really quality conversations. And, dude, I think that video has like 10,000 views on my channel. I think y'all's has a couple thousand views on it.

Speaker 2: 9:20

We had more live viewers than the Olympics had.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Yes.

Speaker 2: 9:25

I mean it was great. Yeah, we had like 400 people watching it live, basically almost on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 1: 9:33

And it was such a cool moment to be a part of because it was the first I'd done so many lives doing SMS and getting my teeth kicked in, where this was like, boom, I'll take that lead right there. And then I'm dialing and then every time a seller answered it was like we weren't having a conversation about how did you get my information or why would I want to talk to you. It was just about yes, I want to sell, how much do you want? Let's talk about it and see if it's a good deal. That's where it really took off. And then from there, we actually started using Speed to Lead inside of our business and things have just been crazy for us ever since. Man, when you came up with this idea for Speed to Lead, I have to ask because I've said this before, it's one of the most brilliant names of all time who actually came up with the name Speed to?

Speaker 2: 10:30

Lead. I'll tell you, man, and probably nobody knows this at this point, but the name, so the name was actually originally one of our team members. We had a team member, Veronica, and she thought that we should name it that because that's what we used to put on every single email that notified our agency customers about a lead. It was like speed to lead. You've got a new lead. But I took that from Chris Rude. So Chris Rude was my first mentor right when I was working at IBM. I bought a coaching program of his, bought it on a corporate IBM credit card, Didn't have the cash to buy it. Bought it on a credit card, bro. So I got a sales guy to do two payments and I bought it on a corporate credit card. Thanks, IBM, I mean I paid for it after. But that was the the definition of pulling the trigger man. So, yeah, anyone gives me a price, objection ever.

Speaker 2: 11:28

I'm like, yeah, try doing that right exactly and so, um, and he, he always had this thing. He has these like simple, funny, like little silly things like skills, get the deals right, speed to lead, and and so that's where I took it from.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Dude. It's one of the best names I've ever seen. I love branding and when you think about it it's like even inside of your name. And as much as I've been talking about speed to lead for years now, I still get people that ask me like, all right, well, say the lead comes in. I mean, how quickly do I need to call it? And I'm like it's in the name speed the lead, like dude. When the lead comes in, they're on the site right there. Call them immediately before they go to another site. They're gonna go uh, they're gonna go find someone to buy their house. That's what they're doing. That's what they're working on right now. So I've always loved the name. I will say sometimes it is a tongue twister, though, when I'm like you know, when you buy these Speed to Lead leads because you have to say lead guys.

Speaker 2: 12:38

You know, yeah, so Liam's been saying for years now to like just call them Speed to Leads, just get everybody to call them Speed to Leads, yeah that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 12:51

I should do that, but it just comes out Speed to Leads, you know. But when you came up with it, it was originally just a marketplace, right? Did you always know that you were going to transition to other offerings, or was your plan just to stick with the marketplace?

Speaker 2: 13:08

So the plan initially was basically all right, let's get people. The mission, and the mission to this day is to allow somebody to get their next customer within five minutes of signing up, and the mission to this day is that and that's something that we really try to try to always keep that in there that, like you can log in or your first time encounter speech, lead and boom, in five minutes you're already talking to somebody, right, and so, yeah, that was the first, the first idea. But then then we quickly realized that, okay, so that's a cool way for somebody to experience the platform and encounter the platform the first time. But then there's quite a bit of folks that wanted, you know, they're like, okay, well, I'm a busy guy, right, maybe I got a job, maybe I actually I've got, I need a lot of leads guy, right, maybe I got a job, maybe I actually I've got I need a lot of leads.

Speaker 2: 14:08

And so quickly realized that there's demand for people that want to automate that, and so that's why we launched fixed price mode. Uh, it used to used to just be called auto buy, but then we figured, like, you know what, let's fix the price so people can expect which price they're getting, instead of because it used the price on auto buy used to jump all the time. You didn't know what you're getting and um, so yeah, and that actually accounts for more than half of our sales, like just around, just around half so walk me through what is fixed price mode?

Speaker 1: 14:36

so if I'm I'm signing up for speed to lead, that means my, my price is fixed and I tell you what locations I'm willing to buy deals in.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Yeah, so fixed price mode. You define which counties you want leads in. You define which parameters you want the leads to have. So if you don't want downsizing leads, you check that box off or you uncheck that box. If you don't want things where foundation has issues and seller listed that you don't want to deal with those, uncheck that box. If you don't want houses that are newer than 2000, you uncheck those boxes Like 2000, 2010, and 2010 and beyond.

Speaker 2: 15:23

You uncheck those boxes. So you basically 2010 and beyond. You uncheck those boxes. So you basically customize like what's a perfect lead for you.

Speaker 2: 15:29

We tell you what the price for that lead is and that price is higher than, like, let's say, a coupon club lead or something, because you're getting lead instantly and you're getting lead exclusive. So that lead will never be resold to anybody again until unless the owner changes on that address, right? So that's basically the rule. So that address will not be resold until the owner changes on it, right? And so you're paying a price that would be comparable to you running your own local campaign on Google. To you running your own local campaign on Google Probably even less, because you'd have to be a very, very good marketer to run a local campaign in Phoenix or in LA to get the prices that we sell them for, because we obviously buy them in bulk. So we get better pricing from Google and from YouTube and all these other platforms.

Speaker 2: 16:22

But, yeah, fixed price. You customize your perfect lead, set it on autopilot, you set a budget and then, boom, they go to your CRM. They go to your speed to lead CRM to your own CRM. We integrate it. But they're still refundable if there's an issue with any lead. We do have a quality control team that quickly does a bunch of checks before publishing the lead to you, but they're still refundable If there's an issue, the lead goes dark, changes their mind we still refund those.

Speaker 1: 16:50

And on that, the fixed price mode is the price dependent upon certain counties Like, for example, like you know, dallas County is going to be a lot more hot than, say, like you know, a random county in West Texas. Does it change the price based off of the counties?

Speaker 2: 17:14

So right now it doesn't, but soon there will be some adjustments based like some counties will get cheaper, some counties will get cheaper, but right now it more so depends on, like, the more budget you have, the cheaper that price is, the more, uh, the more parameters you have, the more customizing of the lead that you do, uh, the price actually goes up a little bit for for for when you're customizing it.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Um, if you set a wide area, if you got, like, counties from across the country, your price is going to be lower because we're getting it for lower from, you know, social networks and from Googles and YouTubes. So we're like all right, let's pass those savings on to the customer and also make it cheaper for them. So you know, we're just going to capture a little profit in the middle and allow our customers not to deal with the campaigns and all that stuff as much as we can't. Right, we're trying to get, we're all trying to get the volumes up, um, but that's the mission is to is to, you know, marketing, doing your own lead generation marketing stinks.

Speaker 1: 18:17

So you know, one of the things gene for me is is as a business owner. When I have to rely on a third-party business like yourself to generate leads for me, one of the biggest concerns that I always have is about your sustainability as a business, because I'm essentially relying on Speed to Lead to generate leads for me and my business. I just did a live yesterday. I said the five tools of being a successful wholesaler. What's number one? Legion. Without Legion, guess what? You can't do acquisitions, you can't cop an underwrite, you can't disbone. You got nothing to TC, so it all starts with Legion.

Speaker 2: 18:56

That was a cool title, by the way. I was really enticed Like what does he mean? Like what tools?

Speaker 1: 19:07

So mean, like what tools? So I? I love that. Uh, that you know, hey, legion is so important, but I'm relying on you. So one of the things that you did that really like and it is people are probably gonna look at this and like, oh rj, you're being a kiss ass or whatever. Well, I'm not, because this is how my brain works as an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1: 19:19

One of the things that you came out and you did early on was is you added premium mode and fixed price mode, coupon club.

Speaker 1: 19:29

You added some different things that were essentially subscription model, residual income for speed to lead, and the thing that I loved about that was is I was like, okay, for $89, I can sign up for premium mode, and now I get to see additional information about a lead before I choose to buy it or not. And it was vital information. It was the size of the house, the repairs that are needed, right, what type of house is it? Is it a condo? Because I don't want a condo, but if it's a single family home, that makes a big difference, right, and for me, I saw that and I said, dude, this is really intelligent buying this premium mode. This allows me to feel more confident in the sustainability of speed to lead. Talk about the decision that you made there and kind of how different that is from almost every other PPL provider out there. No one else is really doing these things that you've done, and I'm assuming you're a pretty creative guy. Those are like your little brainchilds that you're coming up with there, right.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Well, I would downplay my creativity. I'm a freaking learning guy. I'm reading every day, man, and I'm watching every day, every minute that I have free. I'm consuming information from sources that I, you know, respect somewhat, or like somewhat, meaning like sometimes I'll read someone new that I don't know, but that's where I. So, for example, if you like, taking the subscription part of it. Here's the thing.

Speaker 2: 21:11

So we were encountering a problem because we didn't always have premium, and so we were like all right, we're looking at this customer on on speed to lead and they've got an incredible success story. So the guy bought, like you know I don't remember exactly, this was two years ago, but let's say it was like three to 10 leads close the deal, cause we can, you know, we, we see the stats inside of our lead statuses Close the deal. We call them and we're like, yeah, dude, make like 20 grand. It was awesome, like sweet, cool. So we market in CRM, you know success story. Then we look back and we're like guy's not buying leads, what's up? And so we're like, all right, you know what? So we started thinking like, all right, people get like a little bit of success and we do this all the time. I think entrepreneurs do this all the freaking time Is you do something that works, but then you stop doing it Because you're so used to this hamster wheel where you're looking for the new thing, you're looking for the thing that gets a little traction. And so sometimes, in marketing especially, we'll do a successful thing and then we'll A, b test ourselves out of it and forget that that thing was making us successful. And so we're like all right, that's not cool. Because he's successful, we can ethically say that this customer should keep buying from us because they've made money and they'll make more, like it's in their best interest.

Speaker 2: 22:40

And so I started reading like how do we? You know how to reduce churn? How do we how to get people to keep coming back from the subscription coach that subscriptions actually reduce churn, because a person is somehow more committed to the platform when there's a subscription going. They've got that little zinger in the back of their head that's like hey, you're paying for this. Go and check what's going on there. You're paying for this. You paid three bucks for for this. Go and check what's going on there. You're paying for this. You paid three bucks for this today. Go and see what's up there. Maybe you can get a little benefit out of it.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Get your ROI, get your ROI and that was one of the reasons to put that in there. And, of course, we saw that there are certain parameters of leads that people really care about. So you know what, let's kind of a little bit future-proof our sustainability and, like you said, uh, and introduce that and so, but as far as the sustainable, that's a great question. As far as the platform being here today, we're not being there tomorrow. In fact, I always want I always forget to ask you about propel you, like whatever happened to that to that, yeah, I I mean.

Speaker 1: 23:53

That's a great example, bro. Fact of the matter is, propelio was the tool that I like to use for nationwide comping during the initial 50-day challenge in 2020. And then, just one day, I couldn't comp and it said we're working on it, and then the next thing you know it was we lost MLS access, we have problems, we're shutting down all these states and guess what? It was gone. That is a perfect example. Now I think they're coming back and I've heard that the tool is bigger and better and badder.

Speaker 1: 24:30

But here's the thing as a business owner, bro, what was I supposed to do for those two years that had just disappeared? That's why it's like I care about the health of the vendors that I'm using, right. Why do I go out and I talk about speed to lead? Well, the fact of the matter is I need people to use speed to lead because I can't buy enough leads to sustain speed to Lead's entire business, right, and I want Speed to Lead to succeed because it helps me succeed. And, yeah, I mean, there's affiliate marketing and you pay me some money on that, but, bro, you're not paying me life-changing money. It's not enough money to sustain what I'm making on wholesaling right, and so it's more about the fact that I need Speed Leader here 10 years from now and I want to succeed, so I don't have to worry about that. That's why I brought that up, man.

Speaker 2: 25:24

That's a great example of portfolio. Yeah, that's a great one because like and we're big on it I mean we had to. We had a war happen in Ukraine and I woke up in Kiev that morning and literally started driving, so we lived a couple hours away from the capital. I'm driving away from the capital and there's tanks on the road Bro.

Speaker 1: 25:50

I saw the post on Facebook. That was insane. I was worried about you, bro. I remember reaching out to you.

Speaker 2: 25:56

I was worried about me too. I was like are you?

Speaker 1: 25:58

okay, dude, you're posting videos of tanks passing you. I mean, how scary was that.

Speaker 2: 26:07

So I woke up at like 5 am that morning and I was like way too early Go back to bed, but it already happened by then. It started at 4 am that morning and I was like way too early Go back to bed, but it already happened. By then it started at 4 am and so I woke up at 5. It already happened. I went back to bed, woke up at like 8, you know, went outside and I see like all this activity, like people running around with like shopping bags and stuff like that, with like groceries I'm like was it Thursday morning? Morning, I think it was. I'm like this is weird, strange.

Speaker 2: 26:36

So I get in my car and my phone died. My phone died while I was sleeping again and I was at a hotel because I was staying in the capital, uh, for one day we just had our like team get together, right, these quarterly get togethers went bowling and all this stuff. And so I'm like turn on my phone, see all these missed calls from my wife, like what's going on, uh. And then I look at the news and like putin started the war. I'm like oh shit. I'm like oh shit. And then I'll read. And then I'm I'm reading, I keep reading and they're like 40 something missiles already hit the country and more are coming and I'm like dude, I'm in the capital right now. This is like where they're coming. All right, I got to get out of here.

Speaker 2: 27:20

And so I start driving. I had my windows rolled down, just smoking a butt had my windows rolled down and driving to see my co-founder Because I had actually brought. We knew that the war might happen, like we knew it might happen. So I brought, um, I brought some cash for like a little bit of payroll. I think I brought like 30 grand back from us, actually that the, the border guards freaking caught me with it and had to pay them 600 a bribe just to freaking get the cash in. That was kind of annoying, 600 bucks gone.

Speaker 2: 28:01

But. And so I'm like I drafted my co-founder and I'm like here's a little cash to you know, if you need it. We might not see each other for a while. Who knows, like, if you, if you can pay people, banks might shut down, banking system might shut down. We never know.

Speaker 2: 28:14

Let's keep, keep, make sure, like, because our business is in us, nobody gives a fuck right that there's shit opening in ukraine. So like, if you need to pay people here's, you know here's, here's 10 g's or whatever, um, pay people with with cash if you can. Like, if you see somebody, I see somebody, I'll pay them. So okay, and but on the way to driving him.

Speaker 2: 28:34

I see I hear this freaking explosion. I hear this like thunder and there's no lightning, and that's that's how I would describe it like there's no lightning, but you hear this like thunder thing and I'm like shit roll the windows up. And I'm like you got to get out of here, buddy. So I just booked us from there and while I was driving away, there's tanks moving into the city to basically protect the city. And let me tell you, man, when you're sitting in the car and you're driving your it was a big car, but you're driving your big, big rover and there's a guy, there's four tanks, and there's four tanks, and he's sitting on top of the tank, like this, you know, and he's chilling and he's looking at you and he's got and there's the tank gun, and he's got a gun, and he's looking at you and I'm like, and I looked at him for a second and I'm like, just look the fuck away, don't make eye contact.

Speaker 1: 29:42

That was like, because I'm not you know that might be the only time in my life. I was like do not make eye contact with that man. I mean, when you're going through something like that man, I mean, first of all, you're a dad, right You're a husband.

Speaker 2: 29:52

I was a dad at that point already. Yeah, you're a dad, right, I was a dad at that point already.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Yeah, you're a dad, you're a husband, you're a business owner and then also you're by yourself. I mean you're worried. I mean, where's your mind going during that moment of like? Are you thinking about Speed Delete? Are you thinking about just getting to your family? Are you worried about your family, or you thinking about just getting to your family? Are you worried about your family, or were you pretty sure?

Speaker 2: 30:20

that they were safe. I mean, where's your mind going with that? No, the first thing was like figure out what's going on with the wife and the baby. And they were in a town in the city where we lived in, a couple couple of hours away. So the first thing was like, all right, go to the, go to your grandmother's house. It's in the country. You know, the countryside is an in-game bomb. There's no like military, uh, military infrastructure or energy infrastructure there or anything like that less likely to get bombed.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Although at that point stuff was missing where it was supposed to go. Planes were getting shut down, like russian planes were getting shut down, and they were like, you know, a plane gets hit, that thing's still flying somewhere and it's falling somewhere because the guy ejected out of it or got killed, and then you know whatever. And so, um, that was the first thought, like get to the family, get to the family, you know. But but I did drop off some money on the way there to, to, to my co-founder, um, but that was the whole thing. And then, once I got there, once we're in the country, you know that at that point, and her, her grandmother's house, had such bad reception, so I had to drive out to this hill. It was like it was kind of like it's just in the ukrainian country, and so I had to drive out to this hill.

Speaker 2: 31:34

It was like it was kind of like it's just in the ukrainian country, and so I had to drive off to this hill where I get cell reception, we do these conference calls and, and at that point, once the family was safe, um, it was just like let's avoid any downtime. How can we avoid any downtime? And we didn't. We did not have like a day even that we didn't operate or had to pause or shut down. And that's like big props to that whole team, um, even some of the members from the team that moved on, that we that were with us back then. Um, I think that was a monumental, that that whole thing carried us through a whole year, that the fact that we like managed out of that crisis. I was using that to motivate our team the whole year. After now it right now it's not, as you know we're finding new ways to motivate people right right it worked.

Speaker 1: 32:21

It worked real well for for I I have to say, as as a client, I mean, when I saw, I mean obviously we're friends on facebook, um, so I I knew what was going on. Obviously, when the news broke here in the united states, the first thing that popped in my mind was like, oh my god, uh, you know, is gene okay? Then I saw your post on facebook. Then it was like, oh my god, is he really okay? Uh, I was messaging you on whats out like bro, why are you posting videos of tanks? Like get the fuck out of there, what are you doing? We, we, we joke about you being a crazy man. But that was the first time I was like, okay, no, he might actually be crazy, but, man, we never saw any dip. There was never a like speed of lead is postponing or pausing any leads? That never happened. So kudos to you, man, and your system and your team. Like you said, um, you guys really carried through there um, yeah, so it's really the team.

Speaker 2: 33:19

Yeah, the team just did it all. So that was that was cool, that was awesome. Yeah, yeah, even that post that I made, the post that I made with the tanks, that post was like focused on like we don't have any downtime, everything's okay. Come back. Come, come and buy leads. You want to help us? Don't send money. Pick up an affiliate code and tell your friends about it. That's how you can right exactly.

Speaker 1: 33:43

Well, let's talk about the. The new thing that you guys are working on and you know you and I've had conversations about this and you're what you're really trying to accomplish with speed elite is kind of make it that one-stop shop across the board where it's like, as a wholesaler or as just a real estate investor, you can come in and you can say, hey, I want my leads. Um, so many different options to buy those leads. But now you've added a dispo tool and it's new. Talk about that. And and what? What do you get inside of this disco tool?

Speaker 2: 34:16

yeah, so we, we had a bunch of customers that came to us and our we're, we're basically like all right, well, there's a deal here that I closed in, uh, you know, in a town that's like 30 000 people, um, you know, and it's a, it's a, you know, it's a regular wholesale contract. Uh, you know, it's not like a novation or or any power return or anything like that. And so they're like do you guys?

Speaker 2: 34:44

have any like a day on like dispoing this thing and we're looking at this person. They're like not in any position to purchase any expensive tools and stuff, and the tools that are out there for this, both are incredible. Okay, let me just say that. And so we're like, all right, well, we kind of have a responsibility here to help these people. And so at first we just basically worked really hard to buy a bunch of buyers lists, buy them, source them, trade them with other people. You know all kinds, all that type of stuff, and we got a pretty sizable chunk at that point and we would just give a person a list, you know. But then we started like thinking about it. You know what, what can we do so a person doesn't have to leave the platform to get a lot of stuff done, so they can like spend a couple hours on Speed to Lead and feel super productive? What can we do to give people a couple of hours of productive time in their day? That was kind of the mission, and we're still on that mission. We're still not there yet. But, like you know what, sit down for a couple hours, be productive with our platform, right, and that's why we're, you know, right now you can buy leads and they'll go to your, you know, speed to Lead CRM. This quarter you'll be able to add your own leads there if you want right. We're not going to compete with CRMs. We're not going to try to build out, you know, a go high level like we can't. That's, that's an incredible platform. You can't compete with it. Uh, but the little stuff, that, the bare bones that people need, we're gonna, we're gonna have it in there.

Speaker 2: 36:27

Um and so the, the, you know. So you put your leads in a CRM and now the Dispo tool. So it's a marketplace where you can post your property and it's a big. We call it the BFD, the big flipping database. It's a big BFD of buyers that's got millions of buyers and the millions of buyers thing is it sounds cool, millions of buyers and the millions of buyers thing is, you know it sounds cool. But tell you like many people know there's only like a hundred thousand people that are actually super active, right or active and so, and so we've got all those on there, their contact information, so you can do email blasts right From speed to lead. You can download that list and do your own call campaign. You can see when a buyer has checked out property, has checked out your listing, you can see how many pictures they clicked and all that stuff, um and and and so, and you can get the, the software monthly.

Speaker 2: 37:23

You, we're not requiring people to to do the whole year because we're, you know, our goal is not we, whenever we make our goal, revenue, uh, only we. We. We see, being a software company, being a service provider, we see bad things happen. When we make our goal. Let's make this helpful and help people make money and make it accessible so maximum amount of people use it. That's when we see progress. And so that's why we're like, yeah, we're not going to, we don't need to charge for a whole year, right, and so even though that's like you know, there's a concern that somebody. I think the concern there is that somebody that might come in and download a bunch of buyers. But I think anyone that's worked with any of these tools, with any of these Dispo tools, will understand that, like, having the having the buyers list is not the only problem there yeah, I mean listen, I I was just talking about this yesterday during that five tool live, where you know.

Speaker 1: 38:21

When I got the dispositions, um, I said you know the way the, the format of the the live was, is. You got to have your system and then you got to have your process and so I talked about investalift being the tool that we use for dispositions. I brought up hey speed elite is just now adding a dispo tool. We look forward to looking into it. But at the end of the day, the system is only as good as the process that you create around it. And it's not that damn list, the list. That list exists on prop stream and batch and it's always existed there.

Speaker 1: 38:53

I mean, bro, I mean I did a live with, uh, with burton over at prop stream and he was like here's how you find your buyers. You just go right here you search cash buyers past 12 months and they bought three or more houses. He's like, okay, there you go, there's your, there's your investors. Skip, trace and call. But that's the problem. Now you have to skip, skip it, call them. You already have all that information in there and providing a place for them to easily Listen. Dispositions is no different than acquisitions. You got to do marketing.

Speaker 1: 39:24

It's for sales, yeah, you got to do sales. It's the same thing, so I love that you've added this on to the Speed Elite. How much are you going to be charging for that per month?

Speaker 2: 39:36

It's $2.99 per month. There's an option to get it for a year and that's significantly cheaper per month, Right? So per year, I think it's like $1.70 per month or something.

Speaker 1: 39:50

So let's talk about this real quick because, listen, I've been using you guys since late 2021. There's a lot of tools, a lot of competitors right that have come out. You guys are constantly innovating, making your product better. How much are you concerned about competitors coming out and trying to compete with speed lead and how much do you not think about that on a daily basis?

Speaker 2: 40:21

Yeah. So I used to be kind of, I used to be very competition agnostic in my previous work with our agency when we had, you know, when we were really focused on the agency, where, with my video business, I would just try to be like the most expensive thing, uh, with leads for sale, that's not really, especially with with with our um customers, like they're so discount conscious, right, you're trying to find houses for a discount. So, of course, like wholesalers are, real estate wholesalers are are always trying out, they're trying to get deals, you know, and and I kind of love it because you you hang out with these people, like you hang out with chris rude and he'll show you a freaking collectible truck that he bought for like 40 percent retail right, 40 percent retail. And and you're like, yeah, because this guy is like he's all about getting a good deal on on anything is like in his life, so, and that really works with with with the lead game too, and so we're what we, what we have a try to maintain a careful balance of. You know, know there's the VIP customers that are not so price conscious, that are more conscious of like getting the exact type of leads that they want, and the folks that are price conscious. And for the folks that are price conscious, we played with a lot of different models and we came out with a with a coupon club model. That's barely profitable for us, but I think the fact that the amount of impact that created and the amount of deals that people closed on it for 29 bucks a lead, you know, and depending on when you're hearing about this, we may have to raise it because it's barely profitable. But you know, hopefully, hopefully, we don't have to raise it, and so that's the careful balance that we try to maintain.

Speaker 2: 42:21

As far as competition, I think about it and I don't, because if you think about it all the time, you're going to always be in reactive mode. I try to get myself out of it and think about the customers instead of the competitors. How can I get the customer a better experience? How can I get the customer? Another feature, another thingy Right now we added a thing where we're going to get these buyers traffic on the platform and they're also going to go and check out Speed to Lead, and so some people are actually worried like, well, what if buyers are going to start going buying leads and cut me out? Don't worry, your cash buyers are not going to sit there and negotiate with a seller for three hours. They're not cut out for that.

Speaker 1: 43:12

These end buyers already knew about direct to seller marketing. They're choosing not to do it because they're busy with what else they're buying from wholesalers, are going to continue to buy from wholesalers. I mean, that's, that's the facts. Um, so I I would never worry about that. What, what I want to know is, though, real talk, like when you see, like me, yeah, me and you, we've been doing this for a while now. Yeah, I, does it bother you when I say here and I'm like, hey, I got this lead from lead zolo or hey, I closed this many deals from lead zolo, does that bother you? Or you're like, no, I'm not worried, because I also know how many deals you got for speed delete no, no, it doesn't bother me.

Speaker 2: 43:56

It did bother me at first and, uh, and I tried to figure out and I'm like, okay, let's look at the, let's look at the space of big influencers. Can I control? Can I control what they promote, or or not? No, I cannot control it. Why the fuck worry about it? Like, yeah, that's, that's one part of it. Um, but at first it was like, oh, another, you know another thing we got to worry about, or or?

Speaker 1: 44:24

whatever here, here's the thing here, the reason why I brought this up. It was for a reason because I I sit here and I've thought about this for a while. I am loyal to a fault. I remember when Liedzolo approached me it was like, dude, I've got a relationship with Gene and, like you know, we've got all this stuff that we do with Speed to Lead. Speed to Lead has been a part of our business and, like, the vast majority of our conversation revolved around you and your business, and that's my loyalty right.

Speaker 1: 45:04

Here's what I've realized Pardon the disruption, by the way, tomorrow, last episode ever of Pardon the Disruption we are going to have something that replaces it a little bit different style. Steve Trang, chris, jefferson, leon, eric, whoever it is I get to hear their thoughts and what they're doing inside of their business and what I've realized is that when I disagree with something that they say or that they're doing, it makes me so much better at what I am doing and I've become more passionate about my message and my purpose and my vision. And what I've seen is that there are times where, when competition breeds excellence out of the top-notch people, I've seen speed to lead. I've seen you seen you, gene, step your game up with competition coming into the, the marketplace, and one of the worst things that can ever happen is when competition dies inside of an economic client, a climate, because, essentially, the person who owns the monopoly says what does this mean? I jack the prices up and my service goes down because I have no competition to worry about.

Speaker 1: 46:33

And so, for me, what I've seen is is the more that come along inside of this, the better it's going to be, because the ones that are truly great at this and I think you are great at this step their game up and come up with innovative ideas to make this even better. And that's, for me, what I've seen you guys do, and that's why I've always wanted to be aligned with Speed to Lead and you, because I've seen you constantly working to get better, whereas I don't know if some of these competitors that are coming out I don't know if they're going to be here in 2025, 2026, but I do know Speed to Lead is going to be here because of the sustainability that I've seen you build and also because of the innovation that I've seen your company come out with. So that's.

Speaker 2: 47:18

You know what. That's a great point. The fact that you mentioned that, like you're sitting there with your competitors and talking, that's actually. I've never looked at it that way, because you think about it like, yeah, you've got, you guys have competing offers and that's me, me, steve and cj.

Speaker 1: 47:36

Specifically, people have to make a decision. I got five thousand dollars I'm gonna give to either cj, steve or rj and they're watching a podcast with all three of us, that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 47:49

We should do that in PPL.

Speaker 1: 47:51

Right. But, gene, here's a classic example of this. Okay, we had a question on PTD, which was what is the biggest waste of time for a newer wholesaler? Okay, steve gave his answer, cj gave his answer and my answer was cold calling. You should not cold call when you are a new wholesaler. I was like we have things like speed to lead, like lead solo, where you can go, swipe a card and for the exact same amount of money that it costs you to generate a lead cold calling, you could have an inbound. And now, instead of getting your teeth kicked in and wrong phone numbers and wasting all this calling, you could have an inbound. And now, instead of getting your teeth kicked in and wrong phone numbers and wasting all this time, you could only be talking to motivated sellers and dude. They wholeheartedly and adamantly disagreed with me and called me an idiot. It's literally on the intro of the show. You watch the intro tomorrow you will hear it at the end where they go to. Whatever you do, do, don't listen to rj.

Speaker 1: 48:50

he's so wrong on this that's awesome you know what I did the next day? I came right here. I turned on my red lights because I was angry and I said I call. I named the video stop cold calling. And I said I don't give a shit what they say. Stop cold calling, they're wrong.

Speaker 1: 49:10

And I backed it up with facts, not feelings. Facts, numbers, kpis. This is the reason why you've got to stop doing that. That's why I love this shit, because it's like nah, dude, I don't want to sit in the silence and not act like I don't have competitors. I don't want to not talk about it. No, I got competitors. I know who they are. I know that I disagree with a lot of what they do. That's where you make a decision. Do you want to do business with me? It's just the same thing with you. Hey, do you want to do business with Speed of Lead? Because we're the first PPL provider that now has provided a way for you to dispo deals. What is the number one complaint people have about PPL? I get a lead and bump up nowhere and I don't know what to do with it. How do I dispo it? You solved it.

Speaker 2: 49:57

I mean how?

Speaker 1: 49:58

many times have you gotten asked that question, Gene? What do I do when I go get this lead in the middle of nowhere? How do I sell it?

Speaker 2: 50:06

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it happens all the time and some people walk by those marketplace leads that are they're probably great leads they are. That's why I love it when on the show we have a chance where you can grab one of them. And then you know you start calling it and like, hey, you know what it's compable, like there's comps. So if there's comps, that that means like hey, there's. If this sold comps, you could sell the thing. So Gene.

Speaker 1: 50:40

Part of my closing process in the past has been I've literally teach this seller answers the phone. I copy and paste the address. I put it into Google street view just to make sure I could see what I'm buying. Right, Is there something across the street that I don't want? Is it falling down? What does it look like? Guess what. The second thing I do is I put that address in the investor lift to see how many buyers I have. Guess what, With Speed to Lead, I wouldn't have to do that, because you have it inside of the platform. It would already tell you how many buyers you have, correct?

Speaker 2: 51:13

You just told me what to do here. We're going to have that next to each lead. This is awesome.

Speaker 1: 51:21

It's literally the thing I'm going to put your face on there.

Speaker 2: 51:26

We're going to put your face on that feature. We're going to put your face on that flag that says how many buyers are on this.

Speaker 1: 51:34

Dude, literally, if you did this on speed of lead, put a Google street view. Okay, Put a little widget right there where I can spin around and I can see what does my street look like? Okay.

Speaker 2: 51:47

We can't do, because people will figure out the address. You have no idea. No, no, no.

Speaker 1: 51:50

I'm talking about after you bought the lead.

Speaker 2: 51:52

Oh, after you bought it. Oh, I see.

Speaker 1: 51:54

I'm talking about before you bought it.

Speaker 2: 51:56

We're going to show you how many buyers you have before you bought it.

Speaker 1: 51:58

I'm talking about after I buy it. I've got the address, I've got all the information anywhere outside of the platform, google Street View, thank you. How many buyers do I have? And then I'm comping it. That's all I'm doing. That's it. That's all of my actions that I'm taking. The only other tab that I would need open would be my contract. This is incredible Contract to DocuSign. That's it. That's my entire Gene. Do you know how many times I've had people ask me to share my screen just so they can see what tabs I have open?

Speaker 2: 52:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:33

Those are the tabs that I need right there. I need Google Street View, I need to know how many buyers I have, and then I need to be able to comp the property, then I need to send a contract. I closed the deal straight from that man. This is like that's why I'm saying right here for me the relationship that I have with you guys, because this is not the first time we've had this type of conversation it's funny, it's happening on a podcast. But repeatedly we have come to you guys and said, hey, we could do this, this would make the platform better. And you're one of the few people that's like got it. And then the next thing you know, it's like a week later it's like in the platform where I'm like, holy shit, you're actually listening.

Speaker 1: 53:19

Like you're not a wholesaler, You're a business right and that's what I'm saying, I've always said it where it's like hey, vendors, listen to your clients, we're the ones in the trenches actually needing this help. So let me ask you this We'll wrap up here in a second because we're approaching an hour, but moving forward, what is your vision with Speed Elite? Where do you want to take this? I mean, is this the end game for you, or is there something bigger and better that you want to do?

Speaker 2: 53:49

So we're not thinking about anything else, but becoming an ecosystem where people can be productive and make money, and so, you know, we just added this poll where we have a few users on there. Now, depending on when someone's listening to this, you know we're going to have a big launch, and so that's there. Depending on when someone's listening to this, you know we're going to have a big launch, and so that's there. We're adding CRM features that are going to make it easier for somebody that there's a lot of people that don't even have a CRM Right. There's a lot of new entrants into wholesaling all the time.

Speaker 2: 54:24

There's new entrants that don't even have any CRM Right, and so we want them to be able to to, like you got a lead from us, cool, you got a lead from somewhere else, plug it into the CRM, okay, and then that lead you'll be able to enrich with information from speed to lead, like buyers that you wouldn't be able to in any CRM that doesn't have a lead component, right. And then and so we're also we're I want to say this we're full speed working on AI, but we're also 100%, incredibly skeptical of it. Yeah, so we're trying to come up with a thing where you go on the marketplace on Speed to Lead, click a button deal predictor and it shows you which lead is most likely to close. That would be nice, and we have data scientists working on that right now. Is it possible, don't know? I want to try to be skeptical here, because the AI thing is the new. Com is the new, crypto is the new. Whatever the hell man.

Speaker 1: 55:36

Right.

Speaker 2: 55:36

There's AI.

Speaker 1: 55:37

Yeah, I will say this On the AI side of things, man, and specifically with those data scientists. I've done so many closings and track KPIs on that. I'd love to tell you some different things that I think could help with that prediction. That's one of my skill sets that I've developed over the years of like knowing dude. Why do you think I'm able to go inside? I can go inside speed lead. Every single time I've gone live with Speed to Lead, I've come out with a signed contract, not a verbal, a signed contract. It's the only platform that I can say that about In existence. There is no other platform that I've ever gone live every single time and gotten a signed contract. And why is that? Because of the data that you've provided me and because of the skillset that I've developed over the years of knowing this is a person that wants to sell me a house right now, because of the information that you show me.

Speaker 1: 56:38

The other thing is is going back to what we were talking about with the buyers on the lead. I need you to break that down into two different categories. Okay, this is important. When you say buyers, it needs to be buyers by the city and buyers by the county. Here's the reason why you need to separate that, because in a rural location, if you say there are buyers in the city, it could say there's 10 buyers, but then you go by the county and it can say there's 3000 buyers and what will happen is is majority of people would pass on that lead because they would say, oh, there's no buyers there.

Speaker 1: 57:20

What they're not realizing is is that is a highly desirable location because to the county buyers, what's probably happening is happening is they don't ever see leads and they don't ever get wholesale deals in that location. And so that's one of our hacks right there is that we go get deals in locations where there's quote unquote no buyers, but there are buyers. They're just looking in the wrong place. So that's important to separate that by city and county, all right. Well, there you go, guys. Not only did you hear Gene's story, but you saw some new features are going to be added to the platform.

Speaker 2: 58:00

It's going to be on the platform probably by the time this thing comes out.

Speaker 1: 58:04

I don't know bro, it's going out today. It's coming out today. I don't know bro, it's going out today.

Speaker 1: 58:10

It's coming out today. I don't know. I mean, your company is called Speed Elite. I don't know if you're that fast on it, but, man, I appreciate you coming on here and honestly dude. So much for what you do for the community.

Speaker 1: 58:27

And I will say, sometimes people give you a hard time because you have no problem calling people out um, you're a little spicy like me, um, and and some people, they don't understand us. That's why we gel, okay, you know, that's why we go. Well, I, I understand you, bro, I I understand you, um, and I appreciate what you guys do and, at the end of the day, man, you have been Speed Elite has been such a foundational element for Titanium and I'm looking forward to continue growing. Last thing I'll say is, man, yuri was such a huge addition to your team and he is amazing for our clients. I feel like y'all's customer service is second to none in this industry and I think that's spearheaded by Uri. So shout out to Uri, man, if you've ever talked to him before. He always points people in the right direction and he's awesome, gene. Any final words before we sign off.

Speaker 2: 59:30

Guys, get leads and listen to RJ, and life will be good.

Speaker 1: 59:38

There you go.

Speaker 2: 59:40

I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 59:42

Get leads for speed to lead and then listen to RJ. All right guys, Hope you enjoyed this episode. Gene, appreciate you hopping on here. Guys, make sure to like the video. If you're listening on Apple, make sure you leave us a five-star review. You can leave reviews on Spotify too. I think we got like a few. Leave more. I know you guys are listening. I see the stats. All right guys, we're out of here. We'll see you guys tomorrow.