From Oil & Gas to 200+ Deals a Year, and Dominating TV Ads | Luke Winter

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast Title: The Science of Flipping
Episode: From Oil & Gas to 200+ Deals a Year, and Dominating TV Ads | Luke Winter
Host: Justin Colby
Guest: Luke Winter
Date: August 29, 2025

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Overview

This episode features a deep-dive conversation between host Justin Colby and guest Luke Winter, a former oil & gas executive turned prolific real estate investor and marketing strategist. Luke shares his journey from the corporate world to scaling a real estate business to 200+ deals per year and discusses how he now helps other investors dominate their markets using data-driven TV advertising through his company, Hello Pro. The episode is rich with practical advice on entrepreneurship, executing marketing at scale, and the mindset needed to succeed in today's tougher real estate market.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Corporate Oil & Gas to Real Estate Entrepreneurship

• Luke’s Decision to Leave Corporate (01:44–05:58)
  • Climbed ranks in oil & gas, reaching the "high water mark."
  • Lack of fulfillment and the birth of his daughter sparked self-reflection.
  • Desired a life of meaningful stories, leadership, and risk-taking.
  • Chose to leave corporate for full-time real estate investing.
  • Quote:
    “I wanted a lot more of life. I wanted really to look up to the people that are in my network. ... Prove to myself also that I can do more. I was built for more.” — Luke Winter (05:16)

2. Mindset & Self-Actualization: The Fuel for High Performance

• Chasing Growth and Meaning (06:29–07:57)

  • Justin and Luke discuss the “chip on your shoulder” and intrinsic drive.
  • The importance of believing you are built for more and seeking fulfillment.
  • Luke introduces the "human action model," requiring:
    1. A vision of a better state.
    2. A sense of unease with the current state.
    3. A belief you can get there.

• The Role of Community and Masterminds (08:05–11:07)

  • Both emphasize the power and ROI of paying for access to networks and mentorship.
  • Community builds both business development and mindset.
  • Quote:
    “There’s not a lot of shortcuts in business, but [masterminds] are one. Just get straight to the people who have the answers, who have been through what you are trying to do.” — Luke Winter (11:07)

3. Scaling a High-Volume Real Estate Business

• Operational Excellence (15:10–19:15)
  • Luke recounts scaling a “messy” business from 40–50 to 200+ deals annually.
  • Focused on streamlining operations, dialing in recruiting, and implementing data-driven marketing.
  • Negotiated equity upon joining the real estate company, eventually leading to a successful exit.
  • Notable Moment:
    Justin points out that actually exiting a flipping/wholesaling business as intended and documented is "very unique and a feather in your cap" (18:48).

4. TV Advertising for Real Estate Investors

• Transition to Marketing & Hello Pro (19:16–22:00)

  • After his exit, Luke sought to innovate in investor marketing.
  • TV advertising was core to his own investing success, due to its scale and quality of leads.
  • Outlines differences between brute force cold calling and efficient TV lead gen.
  • As TV spend goes up, stations provide more value, ad placements, and higher efficiency—unlike list-based cold outreach.

• Ideal Clients for TV Ads (23:13–24:12)

  • Best for investors closing 2–3+ deals/month, with an established consumer-facing brand and a converting website.
  • TV advertising has a higher cost-per-lead, but delivers higher quality, more profitable leads.
  • Beginners should use cheaper channels before adding TV for scale.

• Practical TV Ad Strategies (25:48–27:19)

  • Minimum budgets: $5,000/month in smaller markets; larger for metro areas.
  • Frequency (multiple spots per week/day) is critical; daily exposure in same time slots builds recall.

• The Importance of Branding and Consumer-facing Business (27:19–29:39)

  • A memorable, unified brand is vital—cannot run a scalable “hustle” with generic names.
  • Consistency across web, TV, and print builds trust and conversion.

• Website, CRM, and Lead Conversion (30:04–33:31)

  • Many clients come unprepared: non-converting websites, poor forms, lack of after-hours response.
  • Half of TV leads will check your website before reaching out.
  • Luke consults clients on web and lead flow best practices.

• Follow-Up, Nurture, and Accountability (32:44–34:26)

  • TV leads require strong CRM, follow-up, and automation.
  • Luke meets monthly with clients to coach and suggest improvements.
  • Quote:
    “I'm only going to keep you as a client as good as you are at converting these leads, so if you suck, you're going to leave me. And it's not because I'm not doing my job, it's because you can't convert the leads I'm giving you.” — Justin Colby (32:28)

5. Success Requires Relentless Ownership

• Entrepreneurial Realities (35:43–40:57)
  • Many investors fail by working only “business hours” and not answering leads after hours.
  • Owners must be prepared for “24/7, 365” mentality at least in early years.
  • Justin: “Entrepreneurs need to wake the up. It is a hundred percent, seven days a week, 24, seven, all on your shoulders until the point of scale.” (36:00–37:12)
  • Technical tips: Use live answering services (Call Porter, Answer Connect, etc.), call routing for after hours.
  • Plugging marketing dollars into a leaky conversion process is wasted money.
  • Most people blame the marketing, not their own systems.
  • Quote:
    “You got a leaky bucket. You're pouring more water into a leaky bucket. And they're gonna blame the marketing company.” — Justin Colby (38:26)

6. State of the Market: Tough Times, More Opportunity

• Winners Double Down, Losers Wash Out (38:49–42:03)
  • Only dialed-in operators thrive during hard markets; marginal players are being washed out.
  • Now is the time to double down, take market share, and be remembered when the dust settles.
  • Wholesale is much harder than during “unicorn” COVID years; the industry is weeding out the uncommitted.
  • Focus now is on higher-margin, lower-volume business over “chasing deals.”
  • Quote:
    “It is massive opportunity if you know what you're doing. Massive opportunity to take market share, because the average players are getting washed out.” — Luke Winter (38:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I wanted the war stories. I wanted the trials and tribulations. I wanted the successes.” — Luke Winter on why he left corporate for entrepreneurship (04:13)
• “A vision of a better state, a sense of unease, and a belief you can get there”—the three prerequisites for making real change, according to Luke. (07:35)
• “It’s a shortcut. There’s not a lot of shortcuts in business or life, but that is one of them.” — Luke Winter on masterminds (11:07)
• “Direct mail, PPC, TV—if you have a few of those as your foundation, the world is your oyster.” — Luke Winter, on scalable marketing (25:34)
• “Frequency is very important… If you air one ad a month, nobody will remember you.” — Luke Winter (26:49)
• “You're building a consumer facing business, not a hustle. Invest time and energy so your brand looks and feels the same everywhere.” — Luke Winter (29:20)
• “Entrepreneurs need to wake the up. It is a hundred percent, seven days a week, 24, seven, all on your shoulders until the point of scale.” — Justin Colby (36:00–37:12)
• “You got a leaky bucket. You're pouring more water into a leaky bucket.” — Luke Winter (38:26)
• “You take market share, you go deeper when everyone’s running out… because you’re able to eat up that market share now.” — Justin Colby (39:13)
• “Only the best of the best operators… are spending their way there.” — Justin Colby, on today’s wholesale business (41:29)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Luke’s Journey Out of Corporate/Oil & Gas: 01:44–07:57
• Entrepreneurial Mindset & Masterminds: 06:29–11:22
• Scaling a High-Volume REI Business: 15:10–19:15
• TV as a Marketing Channel: 19:16–27:19
• Brand Building & Consumer Focus: 27:19–29:39
• Web, CRM, and Lead Conversion Essentials: 30:04–34:26
• After-Hours & Team/Process Failures: 34:26–38:29
• Market Cycles, Opportunity for Operators: 38:49–42:03

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Conclusion

Luke Winter’s story showcases the challenging but rewarding leap from a secure, well-paying corporate life to entrepreneurial risk and growth in real estate. Through his perspective as both a high-velocity investor and marketing strategist, listeners gain a transparent look at what it takes—mindset, systems, brands, smart marketing, and pure hustle—to succeed in today’s real estate industry. Both Luke and Justin stress that in the current market, only the most committed, systemized operators will thrive, and that trusting in and investing into the right voices, networks, and scalable marketing (like TV ads) is more critical than ever.

For more on Luke Winter and his TV ad services, visit: thehellopro.com (41:58)

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If you’re a growth-focused investor wanting a scalable edge or more fulfillment, this episode delivers both inspiration and tactical insight.

Transcript

[Justin Byzabel]

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[Luke Winter]

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[Luke Winter]

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[Luke Winter]

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[Luke Winter]

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[Justin Byzabel]

Eduardo, what is up? The science Clipping fam. We are back with another incredible guest. This man is a master investor, a master marketer, but also has a lot of corporate background. So if you're listening to this and you are in the corporate world, he comes from the oil and gas space, left oil and gas to go do over 200 deals a year. And now as a master marker with hello Pro tv, we got Luke Winter here.

[Luke Winter]

Thank you for having me.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah, be here. Man, this is going to be good. You know, it's always fun for me to be able to interview experts and understand why they do what they do, the challenges they've had. So for all those out there, if you are still doing the nine to five, if still in the corporate world, if you're not yet all into real estate, Luke is going to be a great interview. Let me just go right after what brought you from oil and gas to say, screw this, let's jump into real estate.

[Luke Winter]

That was not an easy decision. So I worked my way up through the ranks in oil and gas, worked at one of the premier oil refineries, really across the nation.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

From a profitability perspective, from a operations perspective, we were the high water mark.

[Justin Byzabel]

Okay.

[Luke Winter]

And so when, when I looked at that, I, I looked at, well, what is my trajectory here? I looked at where am I going to go in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years? Do I want my boss's job? Do I want my boss's boss's job? And really that was about the ceiling. Looked at both of those and said, no, thank you. Yeah. And so if it wasn't going to be for two more years, it's not going to be for two, for two more weeks and it's not going to be for 2 more days.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And so it kind of got to the point where I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. I'd been doing some real estate investing on the side, bought an apartment building, did some flips, some wholesale deals, and so I. I left that corporate engineering leadership role cold turkey in search of what is next. And what is next. Took a few months to. To come together, but ultimately went full time into real estate investing.

[Justin Byzabel]

So would you. You know, usually what I find is people need to be going through enough pain or discomfort to make a change like that for any reason. Right. What. Whatever this thing is. Right. And so were you at a place of genuine, like, just unfulfillment? Because it's probably not pain. Right. They were still paying you. You weren't. But was it a lack of fulfillment? Was it just like, hey, I meant for more. What was the thing internally that you were going through that said this? Like, I. I want to go create something on my own.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah. Yeah, we'll get deep here. Right away. So what was. What was big for me is the birth of my first daughter and getting an understanding of, like, well, what does parenthood mean?

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And what does it mean to be a father and a leader of our household? You know, when. When you're married, dual income, no kids, life is good, right?

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

Got a lot of flex. It gave me a lot of purpose in what I'm doing and the actions that I take and what I do every day once my first daughter came around. And so that's really where my mindset set started to shift in what type of father do I want to be? And really, what type of stories do I want shared when I'm not here anymore? What was Luke's life like? And so I wanted the war stories. I wanted the trials and tribulations. I wanted the successes.

[Justin Byzabel]

You wrote. You wanted to run into the storms.

[Luke Winter]

Yes.

[Justin Byzabel]

Sheesh.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

There's not a lot of. You know, it's funny you answer it the way you do. I would argue out all the interviews and people I've met and then the people that aren't on a platform like you're at. I would say. Most people would say, because I was becoming a father, because I wanted the security of the job. I'm the. You know, most men would say, I don't want to leave that security. Yep. You and I are probably built a little different. We are the guys that are like, bro, there's a store coming. I'm the buffalo. I'm running into it. So that was more of your thought process, like, yay, who am I going to be as a father? Who am I going to be as a leader? Who am I going to be as a, you know, the, the family patriarch, like, and so that's really kind of where your mind was at.

[Luke Winter]

Exactly, exactly. You know, in the corporate space, my roles were very, very technical. I was working on projects that it was difficult to communicate to my boss in leadership what, what we were doing, the technology that we were developing and how we were using it and how it would be advantageous, let alone talking to my family about what I'm doing and why it's meaningful. It would, it would make people's eyes gloss over and go straight over their heads.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And so for me, I thought, is that, is that the story that I want? Are those the relationships that I want in my life? Are those the relationships that I want for the next couple decades? And not that there's anything wrong with that. Very, very solid career path, but for me, I wanted a lot more of life. I wanted really to look up to the people that are in my network. I wanted to build those stories of success and, and get a good understanding of like, hey, this didn't work out. Why didn't that work out? And prove to myself also that I can do more. I was built for more. And so that, that's really what set that trajectory off.

[Justin Byzabel]

That's a unique. What you just brought up, I think is, is I'm hopeful a lot of people can actually have some self actualization like that. Right. Because I actually just did a episode myself where I talked about, like, something very similar is like, I'm built for more. Like, I'm not okay with just kind of doing this. And that is not a common trait. And you have to have some level of self actualization. Like, I'm willing to go for it. I know I deserve it. And a little bit of a chip on the shoulder. Like, I know people won't expect me to win and they're probably banking on me failing.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

I'm going to go prove them wrong. And have that chip on your shoulder say, just watch. Like, go ahead and snicker. Go ahead and think, I can't do it. Go ahead and talk behind my back, because you're all doing it. I get it. Yeah, I'll still have a beer with you. But then to be able to say, look, look what I did, look what I built. Look who I am as a father, look who I am as a leader. So I love that. I'm hopeful. A lot of people are already listening to this. Like, I Need to do a little bit more what Luke's doing.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's important to me and that, that's really what fuels me and provides me a lot of fulfillment, is knowing that, that I'm on the journey that fills my cup up. And you know, I don't think that most of our, most of our entrepreneur groups are really built that much different, but maybe they haven't connected with the vision of the better state. I look at, we used to use a term like the human action model, and there's three things necessary to make any change or major change in your life or your job or your role. A vision of a better state is one. And I think that's where a lot of people just don't have an understanding of what is entrepreneurship.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

What. How would I be a full time real estate investor? I can do it on the side, I can hustle it, but what would that look like to build a real business around it? So the other component is a sense of unease with the current state. And the last component is a belief that you can get there. And so if you have those three components, then you can start to move the needle a little bit.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah. So you and I are in a mastermind together, Board of Mastermind, where we officially, I think, connected. Officially.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

You talk about the community to help you get there. And I think that's a big thing that a lot of people, they shortchange themselves. Right. You and I cut a very big check to be a part of these masterminds. We cut a check to sit at the table with the people that we know can help us move our needle. In large part, this is why we're here. Like I'm here to help you move your needle for your company. TV Pro. Right? Yeah. For all those real estate investors. TV ads is an incredible. I've done TV ads for a long time. TV Pro. Talk really quickly about that.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, we'll show you back.

[Justin Byzabel]

But yeah, TV pros and access, where can they find you and learn a little bit more about that?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the company's hello Pro. We really specialize in TV advertising. Just go to my website, the hellopro.com.

[Justin Byzabel]

The hello pro.

[Luke Winter]

The hellopro.kind.

[Justin Byzabel]

I'Ve been saying TV pro. Just I'm thinking about TV ads. So my fault. So hello pro TV ads. I think a lot of people need to understand the value of like getting to the table that can move your needle. And you made that investment. I make that investment every single year. Talk to, to, to that Point like you just brought up four kind of main pillars that you genuinely believe and one of them being a community. What is community? What is boardroom? What is other masterminds? What has that done for your business that you know, hello pro.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah. So it, not only does it help build a network of people like yourself that have audiences that can help coach, coach you and provide some interaction with prospective clients and people that my business can help, but it also helps my mindset too in how are people running their businesses? What do they think about when they hire people, how do they think about growing their business? How do they, you know, manage their lifestyle? What types of things are they doing in their life that are impactful from a health and fitness perspective, from a recruiting perspective, from a personal branding perspective. And those two components, to me, not only from the business development side, but also from the mindset side is incredibly value.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

Almost invaluable.

[Justin Byzabel]

I would, I would say there's probably not. When you're in the right community, when you're in the right mastermind, when you have. It is invaluable. Like the check probably can't be big enough because what it can do for you. Absolutely. You obviously know this, but a lot of people have to understand it's more of a long tail play anyways. The network, the people. Luke and Justin will be closer today from this day forward than we were before. Today in that long tail relationship will pay dividends over years. People want the how do you go making money? Right. The second. How do you make money? The second, Justin? Well, Luke has. Hello pro. Right. I mean that's how you can help people make money in the real estate space. Absolutely. And so I encourage all, all people to have some actualization of like are you even playing in the league? You should be. And then pay your way to the table. I do it every year. I cut massive checks whether it's individual coaching masterminds, whatever it may be. I have a financial coach that I have that's very expensive, but he's had 30 years of financial advising. Like I pay him because he has the experience I need. It's a simple job.

[Luke Winter]

It's a shortcut. There's not a lot of shortcuts in, in business or life, but that is one of them. Just get straight to the people who have the answers, who have been through what you are trying to do or in, in some parallel path to that.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And it, it gives you that, that shorter path.

[Justin Byzabel]

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[Luke Winter]

I don't know if we we could call it a quite a quite a shortcut because you still have to put in the work. And certainly if you want your business to be around in the long term, you have to think about things in the long term. Feeling for quick wins. You probably won't be around in the long term. You always have to have that long term mindset from a relationship perspective. From a business perspective, uh, if you're looking for immediate ROI on your investment in something like a mastermind, a coach like that's that might be difficult to produce.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yep, I agree 100%. So the the thing That I, I wanted to bring up is immediate returns. Let's get into marketing a little bit. Let's talk about your company and what you do for real estate investors, but also marketing as a whole. Because the concept you just brought up I think is, is a misunderstanding of what marketing really can do for your business.

[Luke Winter]

Yep.

[Justin Byzabel]

I will make an art Now. TV ads is better than most marketing strategies. You find real sellers that usually for the most part are pretty highly motivated. Right. Cold calling, way less motivated. So I encourage you guys, again, find Luke, find the website, engage with them, fill out the forms. What again, let's drive them back to the. Where do you want them to go? Thehellopro.com go there, talk to them. Right. The reality is people need the very fast way to get in front of motivated sellers. That's what your company does. But the mindset of a real estate investor needs to have a longer tail. That's the challenge. It's not hello pro's fault that the seller didn't want to sell at your price, which is 50% of value. And in the next seven days you need to have the ability to sell that person over time.

[Luke Winter]

Correct.

[Justin Byzabel]

So talk to the business, what you do, how you're helping investors. And let's talk about the, the ideology of marketing in general.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And to provide a little bit of context, I'm a former real estate investor.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

Have, have scaled up a business to where most people aspire to be at. CEO and managing partner of a real estate investing company. We were doing about 100 flips a year in about 100 wholesale deals a year. And so just to give people some.

[Justin Byzabel]

Perspective on my background, some random TV company and you're like yeah, yeah, so, so go in that a little bit of your background. Then how does so going from true real estate investor to now, you know, still an investor, but now you have, you know, this marketing company that focuses on TV ads. How did that transpire?

[Luke Winter]

Sure.

[Justin Byzabel]

Why did you do that?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I left oil and gas.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

Went into an existing organization. They were doing maybe like 40 or 50 deals a year. I'd say pretty young from an operations perspective. Not a lot of systems or processes in place. Not a good understanding of what marketing was working or not working. You know, we were when I came into the business, pretty unorganized, but had deal flow, which is good.

[Justin Byzabel]

Right.

[Luke Winter]

That's the foundation for any good business.

[Justin Byzabel]

And fix the pains. Although it's not optimized.

[Luke Winter]

Right, Correct, correct. And so the way that my brain works Works and the experiences that I've had in the corporate space, it was a, it was a very good fit in order to streamline our operations, in order to scale up and understand, hey, how do we do that? If we need to put our foot on the gas, where do we do that? Yeah, recruiting, hiring, training people. I could do that in my sleep as well. And a lot of, a lot of project management experience, construction experience. So it was a good fit. So I grew in an equity stake in that business as we scaled up and which was important to me leaving the corporate space. I did not want just a standard job, I wanted equity. That was very important to me and something we negotiated right out of the gates. And so we scaled up the business really over the course of about three and a half years we were doing went from about 40, 50 deals a year to about 200 deals a year. And that's not even including some of the retail deals like that was that you just had. That goes to the company party fund, you know. Yeah, that's difficult to run an off market real estate business off of that. But you always have to capture that revenue, of course. So, so, you know, we, we kind of got to the point where we needed to come up with what's next in our business. Do we continue to scale the off market side? Do we add more retail team members? Do we get into lending title, that type of stuff, Franchising, licensing, kind of everything was on the table. And it was really difficult between me and my partners to get an understanding like, well, where do you want to go? Where do I want to go and how do we fund that? Right. Who's going to pay for it, who's going to staff it? And so we got to the point where we looked at selling the business. Ultimately we reached an agreement where my business partners bought me out of the business. And so it looked like a pretty standard exit.

[Justin Byzabel]

Sure.

[Luke Winter]

And so, you know, took some time to again reflect on, well, where do I want to go, what do I want to do? What do I want?

[Justin Byzabel]

By the way, my story to actually work out to the, to the letter of the law that was on the paperwork. Like the exit happened, the money was exchanged, actually happened. Yep. That is unique and you know that, but very for, for business owners and business partners to have a divorce and for it to transpire in a way that actually is how it was set out to transpire.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

Very unique.

[Luke Winter]

Correct. So actually, yeah, there's just not a lot of people that have had a sale or exit out of a flipping and Wholesaling business. Yeah, that's right. And so it's a, it's a feather in my cap that I wear proudly because to me not, not take away the monetary exchange and all of that kind of the title of exiting a business. But for me, it's a feather in my cap that I'm proud to wear because we built something of value.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

We built something where there, there's real momentum, there's real processes, there's a real expectation that revenue will continue, that profits will continue and that to me is much more fulfilling than the monetary side for sure. So yeah, after that took place, I started to shape a few business ideas. What happens next? Met with a handful of advisors who have spent a lot of time in the advertising space and started to shape the idea of what is now hello pro cool. I'm a strategist. So put a lot of business plans together and wanted to make a true innovation in the space. How TV ads are served to real estate investors.

[Justin Byzabel]

So your previous company that you just bought out of, did you utilize TV as a marketing strategy? Is that because you're like, dude, this really works? I know it works. Is that kind of the.

[Luke Winter]

To no surprise, it was a huge component of our success. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I still think it's one of the most slept on marketing strategies for real estate investors. It can deliver massive impact. It's incredibly scalable without a lot of operational headache. You try and scale up a cold calling team and you're going to lose sleep, you're going to pull your hair out, you're going to be reaching points of diminishing return.

[Justin Byzabel]

I've done that. I've had in house, not, not VAs and not companies in house. 20 to 30, 20 year olds that you know were going to ASU. This is when I was in Phoenix. Yeah. You know, and they come in part time. And when I say it is a brute force like brain damage. It is. And scaling that in house is a whole nother story. It's doable and it can be profitable, but. Or you could just give, you know, you 10 grand a month to run ads and let the leads come in.

[Luke Winter]

Correct, Correct. And there is a very predictable process to scaling that up to 15,000, 20,000, 25,000. And really what's unique about our offering is that we are using data to understand what's working best for your marketing. Yeah, real data. And so when we see that opportunity to put our foot on the gas, we know exactly where to do it and how to scale up and from, from the operator's perspective, certainly you have to write a bigger check, but there's very limited operational headaches associated with that. You're not trying to recruit and hire and retain more cold callers. You're not pulling the next list of lower motivated people. You know, there's, there's a diminishing return with kind of the list way to market. Yeah, you're reaching the highest motivated people first. List stacking, AI rankings, whatever that is. And the more that you want to push that marketing, the deeper into the barrel you have to reach. And generally that means a lower motivation. TV works almost the opposite. The more that you spend, the more favorable treatment we get from the stations, the more value ads that we can get, the more freebie spots that we can get, the better programming that you can get. And so it almost has the opposite effect. The more that you lean into it, the more that it gives you back. So it's not a one to one relationship. As you scale up, it starts to become one and a half to one and two to one and two and a half to one.

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[Justin Byzabel]

So what's your ideal avatar for a client? Like, who would you ideally like to come from this podcast to talk to you about being client?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah. So if you're doing more than two to three deals per month, if you have a brand and a decent web presence, you know, a consumer facing brand, you've got your Google My business page filled out, you've got a website that converts pretty well. That's a great time to go into TV marketing.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

If you don't have those pieces together, you can start to build that. TV is an expensive marketing channel.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

Generally your cost per deal is going to be a little bit higher, but you make up for it on the margins on those deals.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And so if your first few deals, if you're looking for those first few deals. Use other marketing channels.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And as you start to get momentum and you want to advance and start to buy back some of your time and start to buy back some of your operational overhead, then TV is a great time to do that.

[Justin Byzabel]

I, I love tv. Done it for a long time. Your point is very valid. I need people to understand, like, if you're trying to get your first two or three deals, there are cheaper ways. Like you could call listing agents. Right. I mean, I just had a student close a deal totally free. But if you have some money behind you using this strategy, you do need to be looking up Luke, you need to go contact him. Because I, I just think if you have any level of good salesmanship in a CRM that has good nurture sequences, spend the money for better leads.

[Luke Winter]

Correct.

[Justin Byzabel]

Right. And I think TV is just regardless of the market, I think it just offers the value of the lead above. I would argue probably most, if not all other strategies.

[Luke Winter]

That's correct. To me, there are three main scalable strategies for real estate investors. TV is one of those components. Direct mail is another one of those components. You can get high margin deals out of direct mail. Very high motivation, good conversion rates. I don't care about response rates. Like, that's a total vanity metric because we've all been on the receiving end of those calls and yeah, we know what the responses are and they're not all positive. Yeah, sorry. But from a conversion rate perspective, like, those are generally quite motivated. Ppc, I would say, is the other scalable marketing channel.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And so if you have a few of those as your foundation in your business, the world is your oyster even you can continue to scale up significantly. But TV is generally a front runner in conversion rates and margin of deals.

[Justin Byzabel]

How much would be like a minimum marketing threshold. So walk through the business model, Right. So you guys manage it. You're a managed service. You're not technically running the ads. Right. This station is. What do you think? Between a management service plus the ad spend, where would they want to be monthly? You know, so they understand, like, oh, this is probably the safe number.

[Luke Winter]

Sure.

[Justin Byzabel]

Derivative.

[Luke Winter]

Sure, sure. In smaller markets, we can generally work quite well with a marketing budget of $5,000 a month.

[Justin Byzabel]

Okay.

[Luke Winter]

And that's usually going to get you, we'll say a hundred ads a month or so.

[Justin Byzabel]

Okay.

[Luke Winter]

In some markets we can work with that budget and get much more. But it just depends a lot on how many stations are there, how many viewers are watching the programming that we want to air on. And that determines the price ultimately on our side, in larger markets, you might want to start out with a larger budget. Frequency is very important in TV advertising. If you were, if you air one ad per month, nobody will remember you.

[Justin Byzabel]

That's right.

[Luke Winter]

You air one ad a week, maybe you have a chance.

[Justin Byzabel]

Maybe.

[Luke Winter]

Maybe. Generally we're trying to get daily programming. So in the same time slot we have the same viewers. And so anything that's more frequent than daily is generally good. Same station programming. We play with a lot of those different things on our side to build an optimized schedule. But frequency is very important. And so we look at those metrics to do the best media buying that we can.

[Justin Byzabel]

What about branding? So I use Justin Byzabel Jama is, is the brand.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

And so it has a little rememberable. Right. So maybe they haven't seen my commercial while and they could be like Jasmine. Does that make sense? Do you, does that play into anything? Is it irrelevant? Is it more my thought of what I think works? What do you think?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah. So I, I work with a lot of different businesses across the country and people are married to their brand. For better or for worse.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah, yeah. I created that brand up for the marketing purpose. It's not even an llc.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

Because it's marketing brand that brings them in doing business as my actual LLC that's going to contract and buy the deal.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah. So let's go down a little bit of a rabbit hole here because I think it's important for people to realize the difference between running a hustle and doing deals and running a consumer facing business. And if you're trying to run a hustle, you can run a business under Luke Winter Equity llc. I cannot run a consumer facing business as right as that. That's right. That will engage zero people in my services. They don't know what it's for. It doesn't tell people who we are, the values that we stand for or what we even do. And so when we look at a consumer facing business, it's important to have a name that's memorable. It's important to have a logo that's memorable. Colors and fonts that are uniform across your brand. So that when people see your TV ad or a Facebook ad and they land on your website, they recognize that I'm in the right place. And if they don't recognize that, there's either going to be a red flag or lack of continuity amongst your brand and so you're not building that trust and credibility throughout your all of your omnichannel marketing channels.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

So it's important for people to understand that you are in a consumer facing business. If you're trying to buy houses direct from somebody and so your brand has to support that. Not everybody who approaches a business like mine has that ready to go.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And so I'll work with people and provide a little bit of advice on that. But from a business perspective, get out of the hustler mode. You are building a consumer facing brand and business and it's very important for, for you to invest some time and energy so that your brand looks and feels the same everywhere that you are.

[Justin Byzabel]

Do you have a lot of people that don't have a lot of that infrastructure? You kind of mentioned it, but like, is it a good amount of people that come to you and be like, hey, I want to get working with you? And you're like, okay, what's your website? What's your brand? And people like, yeah, well, I don't know. I have this company called Justin buys real estate. And you're like, okay. And it's not pointing to the market or what you're actually trying to do. Do you have a lot of that is. Are people like, I'd say about a.

[Luke Winter]

Third, maybe half of the people that want to start airing ads on TV don't have everything buttoned up.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah. They need a thumb.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah. For example, one of the key components of having successful TV ad campaigns is does your website convert? And as much as I try and push people to call a phone number because that's generally the urgent lead, that's who's going to be selling your house. Those are the people that will sell their house quickly. There will also be people that want to search you online. Look at the reviews. They might submit a web form. A few days later, they want to read an about us page. They're going to nose around.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

It's about a 50, 50 split. So. So you have. So you have to have a good web presence.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And so for example, I was looking at somebody's website and it was first name, last name, property, address, phone number, a consent form. I authorize you to text me. I give away my firstborn child. And a captcha. And I was like, you are turning everybody away as a web form. If you want nobody to submit a web form, then this is a good way to do it.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And they're like, well, I was getting a bunch of spam leads. So this is why I built it this way with the capture, blah, blah, blah. And you think about the person selling their house for cash. They are probably not going to be able to navigate a captcha very well. I can hardly navigate where's the stoplights and sidewalks. And I get it wrong and somebody's going to get frustrated by that and go to a competitor's website where it's really easy to fill out the library. And so those are little things that, that will optimize, you know, before we launch a TV campaign. But it all works together. And so we provide little bit of that perspective just because we have seen what works well across all of our client accounts.

[Justin Byzabel]

But about their nurture. Let's, let's take it to now they're working with you. The leads are coming in. What about their nurture, their sequence, the followup, the CRM, the automation, the AI? Do you kind of like guide them to say, hey, I'm only going to keep you as a client as good as you are at converting these leads, so if you suck, you're going to leave me. And it's not because I'm not doing my job, it's because you can't convert the leads I'm giving you. Which as a coach that is a large part of our world. As you know, these real estate investors want to blame the lead provider, but they don't want to look at the mirror and say, oh, I actually am not very good at conversion. I actually don't know how to comp properties. I actually don't make as many offers as I should be. I actually suck on my side. It's not actually the, the marketing strategy, right?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

Do you help them with that kind of stuff? Do you suggest things or you do you have any type of like consultative, like hey, if you're going to come on as a client, I need to see even how your CRM works because I need to make sure that like you have some level of follow up, some nurture. How's your team built? Who do you have on? Like, do you do any of that?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, a little bit. And what's unique about my, my business and, and how we're set up is I meet with all my clients monthly.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And it's not only just from a, hey, how are your TV ads performing and what can we do from a marketing perspective? Some of it is providing perspective from groups like Boardroom.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

Not everybody wants to pony up all that money to be a part of the group.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah, you can offer, yeah, you can offer some insights that you're seeing. You did. So you're saying, hey, I'm going To help out my community.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, here's a lender. Here's what trends are across the industry. Here's what my other clients are up to. You know, dispo strategy is a huge component of people's success and what their ultimate ROI will be. So, yeah, there's a certain degree of it. I wouldn't consider it a core service, but ultimately that will determine their success and, and probably my, my business's success as well.

[Justin Byzabel]

I would make an argument that, well, you and I should just talk off camera about it because I would make an argument you would want stickiness and their, your client's ability to actually convert the leads you're already giving them knowing TV and how good they are. Yeah, they're dropping the ball more than you are by far. And it's because they don't have some automation and they don't have their CRM set up in a way that can nurture a conversation. When a seller says, no, I'm not really interested, they probably go next. Or they say, oh, these leads suck. It's not your fault. It's. They got to be able to wait long enough for that motivation to, to hit. Right?

[Luke Winter]

Yep.

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[Justin Byzabel]

So we'll talk often because I have some ideas to help you kind of keep your clients. They already have.

[Luke Winter]

That's great. That's great. And here's, here's a perfect example of it. I was working with a client for a couple of months. We were airing their ads and through, through some of the data that we were looking at. We can see when there's more or less engagement throughout the day. Right. We kind of plot that over time and that helps us optimize our media buying which ads are working better at what time of day. And so we saw a pretty large increase in volume around 9pm at night.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

I said, well, what's your after hours answering look like?

[Justin Byzabel]

And exactly.

[Luke Winter]

Because it looks like there's quite a bit of engagement in my business around this time. I want to do more of that. But I'm curious, can you handle after hours calls? Well, and it was more just a curiosity like, hey, here's what I'm seeing. What are you doing on your end to make sure that that is being monetized? Well, and I wasn't quite satisfied with Their answer, as you could guess, they didn't have an after hours answering service.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

And only answered the phone during normal business hours and actually sent people to voicemail. Which if you're in a service business and you push people to voicemail. Goodbye to that lead.

[Justin Byzabel]

That's right.

[Luke Winter]

So I was like, wow, really? Friday at 9pm, they're not getting a call back until Monday. At what time? Like, well, probably around 10 or 11 when we're done with our Monday morning meetings. And I was like, wow, you're probably not getting any of those opportunities.

[Justin Byzabel]

See, people just need to understand if you're an entrepreneur, your 9 to 5 world is gone. You are 24, 7, 7 days a week. It is the biggest misnomer and frustration when you just said that. It triggered me because, dude, people think, oh, I own my own business, I get more time with my family. It's actually, especially in the first, probably five to 10 years, it's actually probably the opposite. Yeah. Because you got to work longer, harder. It is all on you to go when. You cannot blame your boss, you cannot blame anything. You are bringing leads, you are paying for those leads and you are not calling them at 9 o' clock or not Saturday morning or not, any day, Saturday or Sunday, because you are the business owner that gets to go, you know, to the beach all weekend. You are not going to be very successful. You might have some level of success, but nowhere near the level you should. Entrepreneurs need to wake the up. It is a hundred percent, seven days a week, 24, seven, all on your shoulders until the point of scale. Most people in your world are not at the point of scale. Same thing with me. In my world, when I'm coaching people, I crawl up their ass and I say, guys, this is why you're sucking. Because you want to say you have the lifestyle you don't deserve yet because you're not working. Right. Yeah, sorry. You just triggered me on that because it's so frustrating. You're like, I'm giving you the golden lead. It's right here. It just came in at 9 o' clock on a Friday. Okay, fine, you're putting the kids down. But there's not answer. Like you don't have someone calling them back, answering the phone or minimum, God forsake, someone calling them at 9am on Saturday. Like you're gonna wait till Monday.

[Luke Winter]

Correct. Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

Fires me up.

[Luke Winter]

Yep. It is just unacceptable. And as a picture yourself on the consumer side, when you call a local service provider and you get pushed to voicemail, don't be that business that doesn't answer their phone. It is the most simple thing to do.

[Justin Byzabel]

And what is, by the way, what is a good service provider that you would say, hey, here's a good provider that'll answer the phone off hours.

[Luke Winter]

I have a fair number of clients that are using things like Call Porter, Answer Connect. There's a bunch of. Almost everybody uses Call Rail.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah. Or, but do they, but they have a live answering service at CallRail.

[Luke Winter]

Not, not CallRail, but I'm saying call routing.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah.

[Luke Winter]

You know, you can have a, you can have a hierarchy amongst your team members.

[Justin Byzabel]

100%. They're all hoarders and answering service. All right.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

Right. Yep. There used to be, they may be a Ruby something Ruby. Anyways, there's been, I've used a handful over the years. A lot of them, they get bought out and whatever. I, I think people, if you're gonna spend money, make sure you actually have efficiencies. That's why you and I will talk to see if I can even help your own clients. Because if you're gonna go spend 5, 10, 15, 20 grand a month and you don't have efficiencies, you're just missing out on money. It doesn't do you any good. Yeah, right.

[Luke Winter]

You got a leaky bucket. You're pouring more water into a leaky bucket.

[Justin Byzabel]

And they're gonna blame the marketing company. Right? That every time. Whether it's direct mail, cold calling. Oh, your lists suck. Your cold callers don't speak, rating, whatever, name the complaint, the, the customer is going to blame them versus themselves. And that's like that whole I'm big on the self actualization, look in the mirror and figure out who the you are and where are your weaknesses.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

They don't.

[Luke Winter]

And look at the industry. It's not all rainbows and roses out there right now. Ladies, you need, you need to be a dialed in operator to be successful. Right now the people who are marginally okay are being washed out of the industry. It is massive opportunity if you know what you're doing. Massive opportunity to take market share because the average players are getting washed out.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah, yeah. It's one of my original mentors talked about, he phrased in a way, but essentially is like you take market share, you go deeper when everyone's running out. Because when the, when it's all done, you're gonna have so much more market share. You're going to be the name brand, right. You're going to be the one that everyone looks to because you're able to eat up that market share now. It's tough to be able to have the stamina during these times. Right. You need to dig deep, you need to work longer, you need to work harder. I mean, I've been in this business almost 20 years. This specific business. I will argue I'm working harder now than I did over the last five years during COVID For sure. Yep. My wife sees it, my kids, like I'm not seeing the kids as much as I want to now. That's by choice because I'm trying to create more market share and more growth so we can have those moments. I again, I get frustrated a little bit by these, you know, so called gurus or people on the Internet talking about B, you know, take your life back and earn your time and, and vacations and all this shit. As an entrepreneur, I'm like, guys, it is actually the opposite for the first five to 10 years. And I'm two decades into this and I'm still working harder now than I was during COVID Because sometimes it's seasonal, sometimes there's a season that you got to dig deeper, work harder and work to get what you want. And right now in the real estate space, we collectively are in a season. It is harder now than it was during COVID I hate Covid. Not because of all the, you know, health issues. I hate it because it weakened our society, weakened everyone. Everyone expects free money. Everyone's expecting, you know, these easy ways to make money. That's just not the case. It's never been the case. It was a unicorn event, Right?

[Luke Winter]

Yeah.

[Justin Byzabel]

And now everyone's weak because of it.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah. If, if you are still riding high off of YouTube university wholesaling will not make you rich. In today's environment. It, it is very, very difficult to do what was being done four years ago, which you, you could be an incredibly successful wholesaler, marginally good at sales and operations. Just because people were paying a very high premium for wholesale deals. Yeah, it is, it is very, very, very difficult. Only the best of the best operators.

[Justin Byzabel]

Are doing wholesale exclusive and are spending their way there. They are cutting massive marketing checks every single month to make sure they're bringing the best leads so that they can have the biggest margins per deal versus volume. You talked about how you got started. You're doing 200 deals a year or whatnot. It's a big number. Yeah. Now those same type of operators doing like maybe 80 deals a year, 50 deals a year. But they're trying to focus on the bigger margins, less volume. Right. Yep. These are all things that everyone should be hitting you up. Make sure you're going to Luke. Luke Winter. He's all over my social media right now. Send him to the website one last time.

[Luke Winter]

The hellopro.com. you can book a call direct with me on our website.

[Justin Byzabel]

Yeah, guys, if you're interested in marketing, in finding a vertical maybe you're not utilizing, make sure you hit them up. They're phenomenal. I appreciate you showing up and being so genuine and authentic about it. It's been great.

[Luke Winter]

Yeah. Thanks, Justin.

[Justin Byzabel]

Absolutely. All right, guys, if this was helpful and you think actually maybe someone needs to know. Luke, share this with at least two of your friends. I'd appreciate it. See you on the next episode.

[Capella University Announcer]

At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Edu.