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Hi, this is Neil Clemens and this is the real deal with Neil. Today we're talking about free leads. What? What more could you ask for? How to grow a business while also doing free lead generation. We're going to hit three top lead sources that you probably aren't using that you should be using. So, let's get into it.
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So, I was sitting at the Retipster Inner Circle event. This was in Wyoming a few weeks ago. I'm not ready to be back, by the way, but here we are. And here I am. Had a ton of fun and there were several six-figure, seven-figure land investors sitting around in a circle masterminding for several days. And during that event, we started talking about, you know, revenue and profit and lead sources. And through the course of my hot seat, it came out that my lead generation cost for the whole year was less than $10,000. And my business is multi-seven figures, hopefully approaching eight figures next year. And so, a lot of people were asking, "How is it possible for you to run that big of a business but not spend a ton of money on leads?" And so, I wanted to make this video to really dive into that because I believe that a lot of people need more free leads and more free lead sources that they don't have to pay for. Especially the newer land investors just getting into this business could, I think, really benefit with what we're about to go through. So, we're going to hit the top three and get into it.
Before we get into that, I want to make sure that y'all know about the Retipster Inner Circle event coming up in the Smoky Mountains in 2026. Short plug for it. Apply below and get your name on there. It's a life-changing event with other six and seven-figure land investors, maybe even an eight-figure land investor that Seth and I are putting on. So, we'd love to have you there. Apply now.
All right. So, number three lead source is going to be wholesalers and your sphere of influence. And so, what is a wholesaler? A wholesaler is somebody who locks up a deal, say for $100,000, and then goes out to other people and tries to sell it for $110, $120, $130,000 and make the spread between. So, what makes a wholesaler free? Well, a wholesaler is free because you didn't have to spend any marketing to get that wholesaler. You went out and built a relationship with an individual who is hunting for deals. They're spending the marketing. You're not having to take that risk. And then once they have a deal under contract, they bring it back to you. You agree to pay them a fee for the contract, not for the lead, right? You had no lead generation. You pay them a fee for the contract and then you get to take over the purchase. And so, you could do the exact same thing with your sphere of influence. You could create bird dogs and you could have them go under contract and then assign it to you. Or you could just agree to pay them a referral fee at closing for any deal that they bring your way. And so, a really good way to do this is reach out to 10 wholesalers. Reach out to 10, maybe even 20 of your family, your friends, of anybody who you think would like to make money, probably everybody, and tell them what you're looking for. If you're looking for a certain type of land, you know, a certain size, a certain price range in a certain county, a certain state, a certain geographical area, why not go into even Facebook groups and find the wholesalers in that area? Reach out to people, build connections. If they know what you're looking for, then they can find deals for you. And it becomes very, very simple because then you're just reminding them, "Hey, I'm still in the game. Still looking for deals. Here's what I'm looking for. You find something, send it my way." And the trick with wholesalers is that the wholesalers send the best deals to the ones that they like. Cuz a lot of people say about wholesalers, it's like, "Well, I'm only getting their emails and I get all the crappy deals. And wholesalers don't actually have good deals. They just lock up properties above market value and try to send it to me." Well, if you're like C-tier, D-tier, that's correct. But if you're like A-tier on their list of, "This is the property they want. I'm going to send it to them. They're going to give me an answer same day or within a few hours." That's how you get the good deals from wholesalers. And then the same thing with your sphere of influence. You got to respond to them fast. You have to be on it. That way you can get the best deals.
All right. Number two, realtor relationships. And now, take it with a grain of salt. This is coming from a realtor. But let me tell you what realtors want, how you can, how to fill that gap, and then how they can benefit you as well. So, realtors want buyers. We can all agree. Yes, realtors want to work with buyers like you. Two, realtors want easy transactions. And not only that, they want double-sided transactions. You give them the ability to do that, right? If a deal is good enough for you to make, say, buy for $50, sell for $100, like you can throw a realtor a bone and pay them 10% commission, right? And and you're still way positive on what you're trying to accomplish. Now, you might not have to, but the reality is if you want business from realtors, you need to throw them bones and you need to give them either some of the profit or you need to pay them really well. That way, they come to you every single time. What else about realtors? Realtors want to make the highest dollar per hour. So, if a realtor knows, "Hey, I have a buyer in my back pocket. He wants this type of property in this area for this price." And all he's doing is making matchmaker between a buyer and a seller. Again, realtors want the highest dollar per hour, just like you do as an investor. Realtors also want the front end and the back end of the deal. So, if a realtor brings you a deal, not only do you pay them commission on the front end when they bought it to you, you're also going to pay them commission to list it on the back end. Because a real big problem that I see with a lot of land investors is that in general, we as a population of land investors don't like realtors. And and that was very apparent just by every land investor I've talked to, even the ones who reach out to me for comps. It's like, "Hey, I want your comps, but I don't want to list with you. I want to go list with a discount broker. I'm going to list for $100 over here." And I would just say that you're missing the point. You're trying to save what is a few thousand dollars on one transaction or even 10 transactions that you're selling on the disposition when you could be looking at these realtor relationships on the acquisition side and building a really deep relationship with your agent and also they send you back deals. And I mean, imagine this, even just between these two that I've shared with you so far, which is, you know, wholesalers, sphere of influence, and realtors. Imagine you had a deal army that you trained exactly what you were looking for. Again, price, area. You're very specific. And imagine deals flowing into your inbox, hitting your phone as a text, people calling you all day long and saying, "Hey, I got one for you. Here's the price. Here's the property." And you're basically just doing due diligence and putting out offers and making sure that everything looks good. And that's your whole business. Well, the reality is is that is a lot of people's business. It's just not yours yet or it's not to the extent that I just said. And so, what you need to do is start building these relationships. Well, how do you start? Well, you pick up the phone and you cold call, just like you would cold call like a landowner for leads. Well, why aren't you cold calling realtors? Why aren't you trying to build relationships with them? Because the reality is is that these wholesalers, sphere of influence, and realtors, if you go to one of them, for every one person that you talk to, they're going to talk to say 10, 20, 30, 50 people a day. Each realtor, each wholesaler. And so, your reach is magnified by 20x, 30x, 50x for every person that you talk to and you bring into your sphere versus every cold lead you talk to from a mailer, from a texting campaign, from a cold calling campaign, PPC, etc. That's a one-to-one, right? One seller talks to one person versus a 1 to 20, 1 to 30, 1 to 50 relationship, which is business to business versus business to consumer. So, you see how powerful this can get and how exponential it can get when you build relationships. Not to mention, this is all free. Like I said before, we're talking about free lead generation, yet also this free lead generation can be superior to paid lead generation.
All right. So, my top one, my top source, and this is in my business, is actually MLS searches. And stay tuned, you know, don't click off. The MLS is a gold mine of opportunity. And so, personally, I've got over 20 different searches set up. My different counties, my different types of properties, my platted versus my metes and bounds. I've even got some mobile home searches set up. I've got some commercial properties set up. I've got some houses on land set up, cuz I also like to do those country type properties. And all that it is is you set it and forget it. You set up your search criteria. You put in, again, all your specific criteria that you want to see. And then you get a daily auto-email, whether it's from the MLS, like I do cuz I'm an agent, or it's Zillow, Redfin, Trulia, Realtor.com, you name it, wherever you like to get your information from, you just get a daily email. You look through the properties, you click through the ones that you want to look at, and most days you're not going to find anything. But the one day a month that you do find something, you put in an offer immediately and you call the agent and you build a relationship. And then again, look at it. You start with the MLS search. You maybe buy a property, then you build an agent relationship for life, and then that agent brings you future deals, right? The whole system fuels other parts of the system and grows and expands it. And so, what am I looking for when I look at MLS searches? Well, specifically for me, I'm looking for subdivisions. So, I can easily look and see if if it's a flag lot, you know, small entrance, big back, it ain't going to work. I can look and see if it's, I don't know, landlocked, it's not going to work. I can see if it has an easement access, it's not going to work. I'm looking for road frontage. I'm looking for desirable counties, looking for desirable areas. And the reality is is I have to sort through a lot of riff-raff. But that's also similar to a mailing campaign, cold calling campaign, texting campaign, you name it, is that you're only looking for one out of 20, 50, 100, etc. on these campaigns. It's the exact same thing when looking at MLS properties. Some things that I like to see. I like to see a property that's not well advertised. What does that tell me? The agent sucks. Okay, what does that tell me? Probably going to get a good deal. I like to see especially properties that don't even have a property ID that are really, really hard to find. Like it's the agent listed the property and you have no earthly idea what they actually listed. Well, those are a gold mine because nobody else takes the time to them. And I bought several properties that way. I like to see no pictures. I like to see residential agents that are being land agents who don't know what they're doing. And so, a lot of times I'm finding properties that nobody else is paying attention to. And in the same way, you would do the same when you're doing your MLS searches. But yeah, this is the most profitable lead generation lever in my business. I mean, it literally takes me maybe 30 minutes to an hour a day to look at these, you know. So, what is that? 20 hours a month, 250 hours a year or so. And just from this MLS search alone, we produce seven figures a year. And so, when you look at it that way and you combine the other lead sources that I talked about being realtors, wholesalers, SOI, and the MLS, you can see how a really, really big business doesn't necessarily need a huge lead generation budget to be able to be fueled.
So guys, hope you enjoyed this. Really, every lead source can be incredibly lucrative, but I I really wanted to take the time to share with y'all today about free lead generation sources because especially in this time of risk and potential recession, which we'll talk about more in in other videos, I I want to be really conscious about people putting a lot of risk into lead generation and not getting a lot of return out because I feel like that's where a lot of land investors fizzle out. So, I hope this helps. If you have any questions, let me know and look forward to talking to you.
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