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The Titanium Vault hosted by RJ Bates III
RJ Bates III, affectionately referred to as the Viking Wizard by his students, started his real estate investing career in 2014 after attending a real estate education program that put him $65,000 in debt. RJ contracted his first deal he found on the MLS and wholesaled it for a $7,500 assignment fee. That was the end of his former life and the beginning of his venture into becoming a real estate investor. Since that moment, RJ has become an influential figurehead in the real estate investing industry. He has successfully purchased and sold over 2,000 properties all across the USA including wholesale deals, rehabs, rentals, owner finances and short term rentals. One of his passions is being the host of The Titanium Vault Podcast where he interviews the top real estate investors and finally, RJ has won back to back Closers Olympics earning him the reputation as the King Closer!
The Titanium Vault hosted by RJ Bates III
More Lead Sources Won't Make You Rich...But This Will
Want to work directly with me to close more deals? Go Here: https://www.titaniumu.com
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If you’re new to my channel my name is RJ Bates III. Myself and my partner Cassi DeHaas are the founders of Titanium Investments.
We are nationwide virtual wholesalers and on this channel we share EVERYTHING that we do inside our business. So if you’re looking to close more deals - at higher assignments - anywhere in the country… You’re in the right place.
Who is Titanium Investments and What Have We Accomplished?
Over 10 years in the real estate investing business
Closed deals in all 50 states
Owned rentals in 12 states
Flipped houses in 11 states
Closed on over 2,000 properties
125 contracts in 50 days (all live on YouTube)
Back to back Closers Olympics Champion
Trained thousands of wholesalers to close more deals
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With over 2,000 Videos, this is the #1 channel on YouTube for all things Virtual Wholesaling. SUBSCRIBE NOW! https://www.youtube.com/@RJBatesIII
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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
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Grab Titanium Profits: Our exact system we use to comp and underwrite deals in only 4 minutes. (Only $99) https://www.kingclosersformula.com/titaniumprofits
Want to know what the best markets to wholesale in are? Grab my breakdown of all 50 states here: https://www.titaniumu.com/markets
More lead sources won't make you rich, but this will. So I've determined that there's two different types of wholesalers. There's the first one that doesn't like to spend money on anything. The wholesaler that looks at PPL systems, processes, mentors and says, ooh, I'm broke, I don't want to invest in myself, I don't want to invest in my business. How could I do this using $0? And then there's the other type of wholesaler that loves every shiny object, every different lead source, every different opportunity to swipe that credit card. Oh, you're going to do it because you can't help yourself. And so today I want to specifically talk about lead generation sources.
Speaker 1:Now written down the different types of lead generation sources out there. Of course, you guys probably know me as the paper lead guy PPL, speed to lead, lead, solo property leads. That's what we like to do here. Now let's talk about some of the other ones that we have done previously but we no longer do here at Titanium Investments driving for dollars. And then the miscellaneous the billboards or the ads in the newspaper and the newsletters, and even, like JW Epstein, and the little restaurant ads and the retirement home ads. I mean every opportunity we get to spend money, I get it. Maybe we can get a deal out of it. So here's what I want you to realize I am not a fan or a believer in having all of these different types of lead generation sources. Because you don't become an expert in any of them, it becomes cumbersome to track your metrics and your KPIs. Now I get it. There's CRMs like Resembly and there's systems out there that can help you with this. But really, as the business operator, are you sitting down and making the correct decisions for your business based off of the results that you're getting, or are you really just spending money so you can brag and have that vanity metric saying look at all these different ways that I generate leads? I see the posts on Instagram and Facebook where investors will talk about how they spent $250,000 this year on direct mail and they generated $600,000 in revenue. But then I'll see them also talk about how they spent $200,000 on PPL and generated a million dollars in revenue.
Speaker 1:And my question is why wouldn't we spend $450,000 in PPL and generate $2.5 million in revenue? See, this is what happens when you become an expert in one specific lead generation source, and that's what we've done here at Titanium. And that's what we've done here at Titanium. See, we went all in on PPL because, for one, we realized that it became to the point where we could predict what our business was going to do. We could look at it and we could say, if we only look at Speed to Leads Coupon Club and if we were to buy 50 leads every single week, we're going to get two contracts and then we're going to get $15,000 average assignment fee on each of those contracts and we'll close 70% of those contracts. And then if we do nationwide marketing using LeadZolo, we can get one contract a week from that. And if we do nationwide marketing with property leads, we could get one contract a week from that. And so when we look at this we can say we can almost always predict that we're going to make somewhere in the range of $160,000 to $225,000 a month in our wholesale operation.
Speaker 1:Previously we had done a lot more in revenue. We had months of doing $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 in revenue. The problem was is it wasn't predictable and there was a lot of overhead and expenses that come along with that. Why? Well, because we had massive teams of virtual assistants that were cold calling for us. We had a lot of seats inside of our dialers. We had a lot of seats inside of our dialers, data and our bandwidth was taken away from doing what we should be focused on inside of our wholesaling business, which is solving sellers' problems and providing discounted properties with equity and cash flow to our end buyers. That's what we should be doing as a wholesaler, but previously we were so consumed with the marketing aspect of our business that the talking to sellers and the providing discounted properties with equity and cash flow suffered because we were worried about marketing.
Speaker 1:So now when I look at why am I? I get this question all the time. Rj, why are you such a fan of paper lead? Because it's taken that seat, that need, that bandwidth, that just mental fortitude of what are we doing to generate leads away. See, like when we look at Kogai I just used the examples of virtual assistants, data, just the expense, right, we're talking about thousands of dollars a week going out and then having to go in.
Speaker 1:Who's going to take the time to listen to the conversations that the virtual assistants are having with the motivated sellers? Who's going to go back and look at the metrics and the KPIs of each individual campaign, the data, the virtual assistants themselves and then the closers after the leads are generated. It takes a lot of time. Closers, after the leads are generated, it takes a lot of time. Direct mail is expensive. Talking about, hey, we're hoping for a 1% response rate. And then we're having to track hey, each one of these campaigns, what was the response rate? What was the close rate off of that? How much money did we spend and how much revenue did we get? What was our contract to close ratio on those? And as we looked at this, it's like man. We're talking about hours upon hours of just data analyzation to understand whether or not our campaigns were successful or not.
Speaker 1:Then we move into other things like TV and radio. Right, what time slot are we going to be in? What show is this going to be featured on? Is it hitting the right audience? Are the leads coming in truly motivated to want to sell the property for a discount?
Speaker 1:Then you move into some of the more affordable lead generation tactics, like for sale by owners or direct agent, and I totally understand the reason why some of you might need to do these tactics right now. That being said, if you're all in on for sale by owners or direct agent, guess what happens? You can become an expert inside of that strategy and that helps you become better because you're focused on it. Just like I always talk about the hedgehog concept and not chasing the shiny objects like novations and sub twos and flips and rentals and seller finance and airbnbs and midterm rentals and all these things, it's the same thing when it comes to lead generation sources. See, if you're doing direct agent right now, you can do what jameel damji says and truly build relationships with those agents, but it takes time to build relationships with those agents. But it takes time to build relationships with those agents. And then you're also putting your reality, your business, in the hands of a third party to hope that they go out and generate leads and then bring that back to you based off of the relationship that you have established. This is why I don't like that as much as hey.
Speaker 1:I can see very clearly when Speed to Lead says we have a lead right now in Fort Worth, texas. I can see what the motivation, what is the reason why that homeowner wants to sell the property, what is the condition of the property? How soon do they want to sell the property? What is the condition of the property? How soon do they want to sell that property? How long have they owned it? And how many buyers cash buyers do I have in that location? I can't really do that with these other sources.
Speaker 1:Some of these sources I have to make assumptions, like when I cold call, direct mail or even for sale by owner or direct to agent. I can go to them and I can say, okay, I'm going to pull a list for cold calling or direct mail. I'm going to say I want pre-foreclosures, I want vacant properties, I want tax delinquencies. But they the seller, did not in their own words say here is my motivation for wanting to sell this property. See, we make assumptions that when someone is in pre-foreclosure or they have tax delinquency, that they need to sell that property for a discount. But that's not always the case and we don't find that out until we do that cold outreach and they say, yeah, I'm just going to do a loan modification or I'm going to refi the property or I'm going to sell for full retail value because the property is not physically distressed. But inside of PPL, I actually know that the property is also physically distressed. That's why I like that.
Speaker 1:Now, moving on to these miscellaneous shiny objects, when it comes to lead source, that we can chase like the billboards and the bandit signs and the door knocking, all these things, or even, I guess, the ones that kind of make me chuckle when we think that if we run an ad on a restaurant menu or in the newspaper or in a retirement homes newsletter yes, all of these I have heard about and I've seen okay, do you really think that that lead source is going to move the needle enough for your business? Someone that I know that has done this successfully is Eric Brewer. He is well-established in York, pennsylvania, and he runs a billboard with his mother and it says Eric and his mom want to buy your house and it works and he continues to do it. But you know what else? Eric has a lot of other lead sources because he's been well-established and he's been running his business for decades. Now he's actually testing this out and he has the time and the bandwidth to track the metrics and the KPIs. So more lead sources won't make you rich, but what will? Becoming an expert in one lead source and then expanding to the next and becoming an expert in that as the business operator? But understanding the metrics and the KPIs that you need to get the positive return on your investment? And here's what I would ask you. You could almost look at all of these lead sources and get a positive return on your investment. That is a fact. I know people that do each and every one of these. I could go down this list and name someone that is highly successful with cold calling and direct mail and TV and radio and direct agent. Okay, here's the thing. They didn't just start out being great at 10 different lead sources. They built themselves up. They actually sat there and analyzed the results and figured out the processes that are necessary inside of their operation to become successful at that lead source.
Speaker 1:So, wherever you are in your journey right now, if you're newer or you're struggling, here's my suggestion Sit down and decide. This is what I am going to do to generate leads and make a commitment and I ask this all the time Give it at least at least 90 days. If you don't give it 90 days, you're not giving the lead generation source an opportunity to perform, because each and every one of these lead generation sources needs the time to mature to the point where follow-up leads start to close. When I talk about closing one out of 25 speed to lead coupon club leads, I'm not talking about on the first dial I'm talking about. Over the course of the next six months, we might buy a lead today. In fact, we will buy a lead today that we will close later this year in 2025. That's a guaranteed fact because we're constantly doing it. We're committed to that lead source.
Speaker 1:I'm right now not in the position where I want to make a commitment to direct mail. I previously was committed to cold calling for the past decade December of 2024, we stopped completely because I made the decision based off of the analytics that we had the mental bandwidth, the energy and our resources into this lead generation source that is underperforming, to pay per lead when we can become better at Speed of Lead. Leadzolo Property Leads and as we're seeing those sources become better, we're working with the owners of each one of those companies. I just went live last week using LeadZolo's marketplace now with discounted leads, where I spoke to three sellers, got one property signed under contract and made two other solid offers that are pending the timeframe that that seller has to accept it. They need more time. They have to figure out what's going on in their life. But I talked to three leads and all of them were great. I spent less than $50 on those leads, and I still had 14 leads to follow up with leads, and I still had 14 leads to follow up with. Those leads take time to mature and get to the point to where we can close them. So right now I get it.
Speaker 1:You are either in a position where you're struggling budget-wise this is why I point to the budget items like Speed, leads, coupon Club. The budget items like Speed Leads, coupon Club, leads, zolos essentially Coupon Club now it's their marketplace Property. Leads is talking about coming up with a budget item very soon on Nationwide Leads. You might be looking at cold calling. I will tell you, cold calling takes time and it takes just as much money, if not more, because of the opportunity costs that you are going to miss out on all of these other sources. Make a commitment to one of the sources today, though. Give yourself a minimum of 90 days and become an expert at understanding what you are doing inside of your wholesale business to generate leads.
Speaker 1:Don't sit there and fall into the shiny objects of someone that you see on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube saying you need to have 5, 10, 20, 25 different lead sources. You will suffocate your business. You will be wasting money. I guarantee you you will be pissing money in the wind and not knowing where it's going.
Speaker 1:I have sat down with titanium university students and said let's look at where you spent your money and going. Why did you invest $10,000 and you didn't even get a contract? Well, so-and-so said this was working, but over here you spent $10,000 and you didn't even get a contract. Well, so-and-so said this was working, but over here you spent $10,000 and you got 10 deals. Why didn't you take that exact same $10,000 and make that $20,000 spent and got 20 deals?
Speaker 1:This is where wholesalers will kill their business. Don't end up being one of them. More lead sources is not the solution. Becoming an expert at one and then expanding from there. When you've got that down to the T, you know exactly what to expect. I absolutely love where we are inside of our wholesale business because I can predict exactly what's going to happen every single month, and that's something the majority of people say. In wholesaling is impossible to actually predict what's going to happen inside your business, but we have gotten there because we got rid of lead sources, not added more. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. Appreciate each and every one of them. Make sure you like today's video. We'll.