← The MORE Show
The MORE Show
How a Triple Immigrant Turned Real Estate Leads Into a Multi-Million Dollar Business | Gene Blinkov
00:32:42
Loading summary
Transcript210 lines
- [00:01]
Bombas Ad
This is a mini meditation guided by Bombas. Repeat after me. I'm comfy. I'm cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes. Blisters. And that's because I wear Bombas. The softest socks, underwear and T shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombas.com listen and use code listen for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S.com listen and use code listen at checkout.
- [00:31]
Capella University Ad
Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication. And you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu.
- [01:01]
Chris
You can create the life you really want. It is really up to you to create it right. You have created a US business, triple immigrant living in Italy, essentially never really running the business within the United States. And you live in what?
- [01:16]
Gene Blinkoff
I don't.
- [01:16]
Chris
I don't even know. But I know Lake Cuomo. You probably live in one of the more beautiful places in the entire planet and you have a company that you can run completely virtual. And so I just want to highlight if you are somewhere that you don't want to be financially, physically located, whatever you have the decision to change Gene is a perfect example that you can move, you can start the business, you can get going, but you have to make the decision to do it. What is up science and flipping family? I'm super excited. If you are in real estate and you are trying to find more motivated seller leads, reduce your lead costs and increase your conversion, this is the episode you need to listen to and watch. I have Gene Blinkoff from I Speed Delete is here. What is up, bro?
- [01:59]
Gene Blinkoff
Hey, great to be here, man.
- [02:00]
Chris
Yeah, man, I'm excited. So we were just together in a mastermind shocker. All the major players are always investing in themselves, always paying to play, always getting in the rooms. You and I were just in a mastermind down in Tampa. Yeah, Hurricane came. We both made it out safely. We're back in Miami. But let's talk about ISP2Lead. Listen, my podcast is all about real estate investing. Everyone here is either an active real estate investor already doing deals or they're getting into the game. ISpeed to Lead has been around for a While you have a very high reputation, let's talk about how people can find more leads without having to have this massive marketing budget that is a big deal these days. Let's talk about how the Ispeed League system works.
- [02:44]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah, man. So our whole premise at Ispeed is that you should not have to worry about Lead Gen so much. And the whole mission of Ispeed to lead is to allow you to go from jumping onto our platform for the first time the next five minutes, be talking to your next seller that's motivated and already filled out their information that already wants to sell. So not a prospect, not a list of leads, but a real lead that wants to talk to you. And we've done probably about 200,000 leads at this point.
- [03:13]
Guest
Wow.
- [03:13]
Gene Blinkoff
And so we've got. We try to kind of serve the whole industry. So both we have something for the newbies.
- [03:19]
Guest
Yeah.
- [03:20]
Gene Blinkoff
Where they can, you know, get in at a very minimal cost. And that's the beauty. Like no setup fees. You don't got to be qualified or fill out any questionnaires.
- [03:29]
Guest
Yeah.
- [03:30]
Gene Blinkoff
Make it really easy to sign up. We'll give you some promo codes to start with to kind of get your gears going and you're off to the races. You can be. We have people that are doing want a contract the first week.
- [03:40]
Chris
I love that. So I already know people are like, all right, where do I need to go for the promo codes? Because I always want a deal. So just go to what, iSpeedLead.com and then from there they'll be able to get these promo codes.
- [03:49]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. Go to iSpeed.com you're going to get a message as soon as you join. Going to get an automatic message with a promo code. And then our. And then you also have an option for a completely free training, not a sales pitch from our team to get a claim to the platform. Because we have a leads marketplace and we Also now, for three months now have a dispositions marketplace with 6 million buyers. So I speedily has a lot of superpower, like a lot of horsepower.
- [04:20]
Guest
Yeah.
- [04:20]
Gene Blinkoff
You it help. It's helpful to get in that free training as well.
- [04:24]
Chris
What is. So if I'm speaking just to the newbie and then we'll move on to more the experienced investor. What is the system for them to go immediately start getting leads. Right. Because as a newbie and I coach a lot of newbies, their biggest challenge is like, where do I even start? Where do I find a seller? Right. And so this being a great resource, talk to the newbie right now about ISP to lead and what actually happens.
- [04:47]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah, absolutely. So when you jump on Ispeed to lead, you're going to get a promo code for, like, 66% off on your first three leads. And so just to compare it to, like, Google Ads or Facebook ads, if you were doing it yourself, our prices are actually lower than, Than you would pay if you were going to Google Ads yourself.
- [05:04]
Chris
Economies of scale.
- [05:05]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. Which is crazy. Right. And then also, if you go to Google or Facebook, you're never gonna get a refund or you're never gonna be able to customize what lead you want. On Ispeed, you can see what that lead is. You can see how many bedrooms, bathrooms. You can see what their motivation is that they filled out. You can see if it's a vacant home. Everything about the lead before you buy the lead, you can see. And so you can get leads cheaper than Google and Facebook, and they're refundable in case something. Let's say they sold the house already. Let's say they changed their mind. So we refund actually about 15% of the whole volume. Fifteen, right, about 15%, yeah. Because sellers are, you know, sellers are fickle.
- [05:46]
Guest
Yeah.
- [05:46]
Gene Blinkoff
And so we've got a great support team of actual live people. And you don't even have to prove that, like, something's wrong with the lead. We take the responsibility.
- [05:55]
Guest
Yeah.
- [05:55]
Gene Blinkoff
To go make sure, like, to check, like, hey, is everything good with Elite? Or if they're, you know, need to be refunded. So you just use the support button and. Yeah.
- [06:05]
Chris
I mean, listen, at the end of the day, if I'm a newbie, that gives, like, a safety net Right. Where you like. So, for example, if you're doing Facebook ads, you're doing Google Ads. The lead comes in and they just listed it for top dollar. There's no safety net. Like, you just spent money on that lead.
- [06:20]
Gene Blinkoff
What.
- [06:20]
Chris
What are some of the criterias that they can. I don't want people to refund, by the way, but it gives a nice safety net for the newer investor who maybe doesn't know as much. What are some of the qualifications to get or ask for a refund?
- [06:32]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. So I mean, if, if the house is already closed, if they want too much. Okay, so that's a big one.
- [06:39]
Guest
Yeah.
- [06:39]
Gene Blinkoff
Facebook, Google.
- [06:40]
Guest
Yeah.
- [06:41]
Gene Blinkoff
You're. You're. You're out of pocket on those. Right. If they, if it's already under contract. If they under contract, whether it's with a, you know, Realtor or another wholesaler.
- [06:53]
Guest
Yeah.
- [06:53]
Gene Blinkoff
Because you can buy leads that are older on speech lead, like the older they are, the cheaper it is.
- [06:59]
Chris
Sure.
- [06:59]
Gene Blinkoff
And it's a lot more hustle, but people still close a lot of those. And if they don't, it's refundable. It's like if it's already contract, it's either contracted or they're still selling and they're still motivated. If they want too much, it's a refund. If it's already contracted, it's a refund. So it's like it's very little risk. You into hustle and there's leads that you don't have to generate. Already generated for you.
- [07:21]
Chris
Do you guys have some data conversion ratio now? There's a difference. A lot of people blame the lead provider. Name the name, it doesn't matter, oh, I need more leads or I'm not getting good enough leads. So they go and blame. But I know as an educator, a lot of times it has more to do with their conversion. Are they good salespeople? They know how to get the deal versus blaming the lead. Right. So in my opinion, even the older leads have so much gold because there's a reason why that lead is still around. People didn't know how to convert the lead. They didn't get creative enough. Maybe they didn't know how to convert a high leveraged deal. So for example, a homeowner has a reverse mortgage or a homeowner has two or maybe three liens. Most wholesalers don't know what to do with that. So they're going to blame Ispeed or they're going to blame the lead provider. Not fair. Get better at your conversion. Right. We have a reverse flip method that I can go and convert that lead where 99% of the wholesalers would never be able to convert that lead. But it's about conversion. It's not about the lead. So I just think that's an unfair thing that happens in our space is the lead provider gets blamed. No, no, no. Get better at being a tactician. Get better at the X's and O's and you'll convert more of those leads.
- [08:36]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. And I've got a crazy example, right. So we have a customer that just sent me a story. It's like fresh in my mind. Two deals about. I think it was about 48 or something like that. Total, total profit on them. And so she, she's actually in Florida. Natalie. And so she's just in Miami. Yeah, yeah. And so first lead it. The lead picked up on the 12th call.
- [09:09]
Guest
Okay.
- [09:10]
Gene Blinkoff
The first time that they even connected with Him. And so these were all, in this case, these were older leads. Okay. So when you buy exclusive leads on high speed and they're automatic, like they're fast, they, you get them the second they come in.
- [09:24]
Guest
Yeah.
- [09:24]
Gene Blinkoff
Obviously the open rate, the, the pickup rate is a lot better because they're, you know, they're at like 90 degrees at that moment and they're in the buying mode. They just had that pain fresh in their mind and they know where they filled out the form. So they're ready to pick up older leads. They might be doing something or not know who's calling them. First lead, it was the 12th call when they first even had a conversation. Second was the 17th call. Wow. But that's 48 grand.
- [09:52]
Chris
48 grand.
- [09:53]
Gene Blinkoff
40 grand that they made on those two deals. And so the thing is like most wholesalers would probably file for a refund by then.
- [09:59]
Guest
Yeah.
- [10:00]
Gene Blinkoff
And you know what, we probably would give it to them because like we'd probably try them. The seller also.
- [10:04]
Guest
Yeah.
- [10:05]
Gene Blinkoff
And he wouldn't be picking up. I mean we only have like five people on the support team only. But you know, sad. So that's, that's the tenacity piece alone. Right. And then there's the exit strategies.
- [10:17]
Chris
Right, Right.
- [10:18]
Gene Blinkoff
Like reverse flipping.
- [10:19]
Chris
Right.
- [10:19]
Gene Blinkoff
This exit strategies is everything you need to be reverse.
- [10:23]
Chris
And just to define reverse flipping, so no one know, if you don't know, is essentially being able to find a seller that needs to, not even needs, they're going to lose their home. Like there's no more options. So we'll buy the deed from them and we'll negotiate against the bank for you. So that's reverse flipping, but that is an exit strategy. Wholesaling, fix and flip, buy and hold, short term rentals, midterm rentals, they're all underwritten differently. And so for the newer individual, they may not have that skill set yet. And that's why I don't like that a newer individual just starts blaming lead providers. You're newer, you don't have the skill set yet that someone like myself, after 17 years, I can convert at a much higher level because of it. Right. And so you just brought up something that I want to highlight for I speed to lead, which is you have an exclusivity package that I think would be a lot more for the more experienced investors, active investors. Talk, talk to the exclusivity package.
- [11:21]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. So we have, you know, leads for the new folks for like more Mercer starting out and wholesaling. They're a lot cheaper, but you know, you're gonna, you're gonna hustle a little more. And so. And then we have the premium leads that are. That come in. The second they come in, you're getting them in your ispeed platform. There's a little mini CRM parking area for them. And then it integrates with every CRM out there. Yeah. So it just, it's in your CRM the second the lead came in. And that lead is exclusive to you. And so the. Our rule is that it's exclusive to you until the ownership on that address changes. So if we get that lead again, it's going to. The system's going to kick it back out. And because we have a storefront, there's an actual interface and a store in a marketplace. And it's actually beautiful. You can see that, hey, your lead's been sold out. It's never going to be touched again. We even in one of our ads, because it's a. This is a big concern in the industry. Like, are they reselling the same lead to everyone without selling? Yeah, we have leads that are not exclusive, and you'll see how many people have picked them up or if no people pick them up. And then we have the exclusive thing. We even ran an ad where we have a little piece of code that's responsible for marking that lead sold out for, you know, eternity, that seller, to address combination. And we just ran it to address that objection from people because it's very valid. PPLs are very new. People are kind of, you know, listening to it. And so. And we've been trying to be the voice of just not just talking about our platform. And that's what our sales team like, they'll talk about all the ppl providers and they'll even give a comparison on the call instead of just being, you know, pushy. Because that's what people want more like they want to get a claim to the whole ppl industry, what it is. Right. We're a lot more than just a ppl provider, but it's still a big part of what we do.
- [13:17]
Chris
Well, maybe talk about how the expansiveness of ispeed to lead. I mean, I think a lot of people think about the lead, the ppl side. Talk about what you really built out.
- [13:27]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. So it's, you know, it's a transparent marketplace where you can pick what leads you buy before you got buy them. And even within the ppl space, that leads doesn't really exist where you can really customize the leads and you can choose them in a visual interface based on their Parameters. And so that's just the leads part of it. But then we've got, you know, our customers came to us and they're like, dude, we need to dispel these things. We need help. You guys know stuff. You guys build beautiful interfaces. Can you do something? And so we build deal speed, which is actually in the same, in the same login as iSpeed, delete. And Dealspeed is a dispo platform. So there's like 3,000 deals on there already in just the couple months since we launched. And so every day there's a bunch of deals that our customers and even people that are not buying leads from MySpeed are just using Dealspeed specifically for dispo. We paid like quarter million for just all the data that's on there, the cash buyer data. We cleaned a bunch of emails. We got our open rate up to like 20% on our cold blasts to those cash buyers.
- [14:33]
Guest
Yeah.
- [14:33]
Gene Blinkoff
And you can see which cash buyers have checked out your listing. There's a way for them to message you. So you have a little inbox from cash buyers where they ask questions. They can make an offer.
- [14:42]
Guest
Yeah.
- [14:43]
Gene Blinkoff
And it's like. Yeah, you can. All the levels of them interacting with your deal. Yeah, they can actually. So either whether they just looked at and flipped their pictures, you'll see that. And you can call me like, hey, I see you spying on my stuff.
- [14:56]
Chris
Right.
- [14:57]
Gene Blinkoff
Or they send you a message, they're a little more interested or they make an offer. Like all of those happen, obviously, like in cadence.
- [15:03]
Guest
Yeah.
- [15:04]
Gene Blinkoff
But it's a really cool platform and we've got rent comps sold comps on there. So the cash buyer can immediately see and kind of not have to leave the platform. Wow. And just be focused on your deal and following the family mastermind. We're going to be adding some creative stuff there too, specifically for creative deals. Some functionality that's going to help to dispo those. Love that's. I'm really excited about that.
- [15:27]
Chris
So you've really turned and you've been around for several years now, but you've turned into a full fledged almost business in a box. I don't want to say that because I think it's a little played out. But like you really are a service provider to find the leads and to get it sold, especially on the wholesale side. Right. If you are looking to wholesale, that is an avenue now that you could just go to ISP to lead. You can find the lead, contract the lead and then sell the lead. All in the same platform.
- [15:54]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. And that's, that's. I'm so glad you hit on that because it's one of our just kind of values in the company is to be able to, to allow the customer to stay on the same platform for a number of hours and stay productive without leaving.
- [16:09]
Guest
Yeah.
- [16:10]
Gene Blinkoff
And so we've, we've bought a title company database. Like, we have every title company that's in the states listed there. I have some preferred partners too, that are, you know, investor friendly, innovation friendly, creative friendly. So you can find the title companies there. Obviously there's a lot of things that you, you know, you can't, you know, you can't have a lawyer check your contract or whatever on ISP 2 lead, but there's that, there's a lot of stuff that we cover and we keep, keep adding more conveniences for the customer so they can just stay, be productive and go back to the beach.
- [16:44]
Chris
Well, that's the, yeah, but that's the key to any business, right, Is you want your clients to stay with you.
- [16:49]
Guest
Right.
- [16:49]
Chris
That's the reality, is to have longevity, a long Runway with these clients. Because the more you have clients with you, the better you're going to serve them over time.
- [16:56]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. Like, man. So, Dan Martel, SaaS Academy.
- [17:01]
Guest
Yeah.
- [17:02]
Gene Blinkoff
I was watching one of the modules on SaaS Academy, and so every time you need to switch screens, it's like, have you ever heard that stat when somebody distracts you from deep work, you have to, you know, there's like, takes like 15.
- [17:15]
Guest
Yeah.
- [17:15]
Gene Blinkoff
Minutes to refocus.
- [17:16]
Guest
Yeah.
- [17:16]
Gene Blinkoff
Back into the zone. Same thing when you switch different platforms or screens. It also takes you a long time to, like, recalibrate. You know, you might. That's when you'll be tempted to, like, go for a coffee or do whatever.
- [17:29]
Chris
So. Really, because you already broke your. I'm. I'm a super victim of this. Right. I'm in deep work. All of a sudden I gotta go do something and jumps over to a screen. And then I kind of finish this little thing I'm doing and going back to deep work, I'm like, this is gonna be a lot. Let me go grab a cup of coffee. Then I go grab a cup of coffee. Then I go start talking to my wife or I talk to someone. And then next, you know, it's an hour and a half later.
- [17:52]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. And then you get an appointment.
- [17:53]
Chris
And then I, then I'm like, oh, I'm not gonna get back to my deep work. That is like a super problem for me. There's no doubt about that. So for you, your business model is like, I don't want you leaving my screen.
- [18:05]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah.
- [18:06]
Chris
You can do the entire thing on one screen, right?
- [18:08]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. I want you to be productive for a while. Get stuff done. Actually do stuff that moves the needle. Yeah.
- [18:15]
Chris
What's. So what's the avatar that you would want to be reaching out to right now? You have. You're going to probably have 200,000 people hear this, see this, Right. Who are you saying you guys need to come check out lead to speed. Obviously, you have the newbies and you have the experienced.
- [18:30]
Gene Blinkoff
Is it both?
- [18:31]
Chris
Is it everybody? Is everyone a good fit for this platform at this point?
- [18:34]
Gene Blinkoff
In fact. So anyone that's doing real estate and is dealing with sellers should be on high speed.
- [18:40]
Guest
Okay.
- [18:41]
Gene Blinkoff
Like, we have not had the time because we've been just so busy with real estate investors and the wholesaling and flipping industry. But the agents that do jump on are, like, ecstatic because the seller. Lead is. With an agent is, you know, you get like.
- [18:55]
Guest
Yeah.
- [18:55]
Chris
And they can promise them the top number. Right.
- [18:57]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah, it's.
- [18:59]
Chris
Are you even targeting agents?
- [19:00]
Gene Blinkoff
We're not even targeting them. Yeah, we're not. We should be. We just haven't. We just haven't even gone there. We had our hands full with serving customers. We're serving customers here, but we're also adding. We're adding a couple of features. I can't. I can't even call them features. It's like. It's like a whole big daddy project.
- [19:22]
Guest
Yeah.
- [19:23]
Gene Blinkoff
That will just provide another point of convenience and valuable way to present yourself to the marketplace if you're a real estate professional. And so that's coming up. And we're going to be offering it to our existing users first, and that should. That should be another kind of game.
- [19:44]
Chris
So is it essentially like training modules on.
- [19:46]
Gene Blinkoff
No, it's just. It's going to be more. Because we're more like a software company than anything. We're a software company with a giant marketing production department that generates the leads.
- [19:55]
Guest
Okay.
- [19:56]
Gene Blinkoff
It's going to be. I don't want to tease it out yet. It's. But you will stay tuned, right? We'll hear about it first.
- [20:04]
Chris
I love that. What do you like a whole success part of your thing when people are getting deals and they're like, in the community saying, got another deal, Got another deal. I think that is a huge motivator for people to, like, stay within the program.
- [20:17]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. So actually. Not yet. Not yet. So we. We're thinking about it.
- [20:22]
Guest
Yeah.
- [20:22]
Gene Blinkoff
Thinking about it. We're obviously in some communities, we support certain communities around the industry because we work with quite a bit of influencers that provide coaching because we want our user base, our customer base, we want them to be coached.
- [20:37]
Chris
Totally.
- [20:38]
Gene Blinkoff
We like if there was some kind of a, I don't know, certificate or something, some kind of diploma. Ish.
- [20:46]
Guest
Yeah.
- [20:46]
Gene Blinkoff
Thing out there, they just like, you got some training.
- [20:50]
Guest
Yeah.
- [20:50]
Gene Blinkoff
You're not. Because number one, I'm worried about the seller too. You know, I don't want the seller to be talking to somebody completely inexperienced who just has some money. Right. And there's a lot of people, industry that just have some money, but they're, you know. So I fully recommend getting coached. I mean I'm, I'm getting coached. We're paying, we're paying quite a bit for coaching.
- [21:10]
Chris
Like and I do the same thing. I mean I have a six figure budget for coaching and masterminds every year.
- [21:14]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah.
- [21:14]
Chris
And I spend it every year because just like you, your business has grown a lot and I've seen it grow. But dude, I want to get so much higher than where I'm at within business. I can only get there by people pulling me there instead of me just trying to figure it out.
- [21:29]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. And even, and even like a family. Right. A lot of people are, it's a real, it's really like a family environment in there.
- [21:35]
Chris
Isn't it cool.
- [21:36]
Gene Blinkoff
And a lot of people are like, dude, no. Yeah, just, we'll have a, don't worry about it. We'll have a free call. I'm like, no, I don't want the free. Yeah, like I want to, I want to, I want to be your favorite customer. If you're a coach or a consultant, I want to be your favorite customer. I don't want the free. Yeah, like just do the regular thing so you can do your best work. Be like super motivated, not have to hold anything back. And any problem with our company now that we have, that's the first thing I'm like, who? Not how, which consultant. Like, who's the best out there? The most expensive coach we can hire for that specific problem. Let's go talk to them. And so I give my guys like, dude, if it's, if it's under like a thousand bucks decision to hire a coach or a consultant, you don't even have to call me and approve. Yeah, just, just go and go do it. Just call me, call me for the call because I want to learn. I want to learn and listen in too.
- [22:23]
Guest
Yeah.
- [22:23]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah.
- [22:24]
Chris
Well, so you, you're Working with Dan Martell. I love him.
- [22:27]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah.
- [22:28]
Chris
He is a go giver to the 10. He calls me, says, hey, I want to come in, pour into your students. I'm like, this is amazing. Now, they're not all in SaaS, but they're in business. And he is a hell of an entrepreneur, right?
- [22:38]
Gene Blinkoff
Oh, yeah.
- [22:39]
Chris
So I love that you're coaching with Dan. That is incredible. But let's talk a little bit about you and where this whole thing started. Right. You are a three time immigrant, triple immigrant. That's a triple immigrant. And here's what I would say. I love the United States, But I'm going to ask you this question. I feel like people have some level of entitlement because I don't see the same type of work ethic from people that have born and raised the United States as I do from the immigrant population here. I see the immigrant population here. I live in Miami, so there's a lot of them. But even nationwide, I feel as if they understand you need to work, you need to grind, you need to never give up. You got to keep going. More so than even the people that were born and raised here. Would you maybe agree with that?
- [23:29]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah, I think I agree and I think about this a lot, but I don't really think of it as anything bad. I just kind of take it as it is. Sure. And I think the thing is, you know, it's like I was listening to this gentleman earlier and he was like, don't ask God for strength, because what he's going to do is he's going to send you situations that will make you strong. He's not just going to make you strong, he's going to put you in debt. Difficult situations that will develop that strength. And I think just some immigrants have in common, like, there's no choice. Yeah. For you. But to go through those situations. Like we got. I got to us. I was born in Kyrgyzstan. It's like when I was born, I was still Soviet Union. And so we moved to the States. I spoke like almost zero English.
- [24:15]
Chris
Sure.
- [24:15]
Gene Blinkoff
And so for two years, it was a pretty awkward experience in high school too. Right. In rural New Hampshire, where they don't really see a lot of immigrants.
- [24:23]
Chris
No.
- [24:23]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. So. So those situations that you're put in, you're kind of forced to figure it out.
- [24:30]
Guest
Yeah.
- [24:31]
Chris
And I mean, you, you've only been here for what, 15 years. I mean, your English is really immaculate.
- [24:36]
Gene Blinkoff
Thanks, man.
- [24:37]
Chris
Yeah.
- [24:37]
Gene Blinkoff
What? 15, 15, 16 in U.S. wow. And then I kind of kept. Kept going.
- [24:43]
Chris
So triple immigrant, you now live. Where do you. You're here. You're still. You still have family, so in Europe.
- [24:51]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. So we, we live in Italy full time now.
- [24:55]
Chris
Nice.
- [24:55]
Gene Blinkoff
And I'm in US about every quarter.
- [24:57]
Chris
What part of Italy?
- [24:58]
Gene Blinkoff
So north between Milano and the Swiss Alps.
- [25:03]
Guest
Okay.
- [25:03]
Gene Blinkoff
Milan. It's 20 minute drive from Lake Como, where we live.
- [25:08]
Chris
Sounds pretty beautiful.
- [25:09]
Gene Blinkoff
It's really nice. I kind of wanted to stay there for a while. When we ended up there, we didn't plan on moving to Italy at all.
- [25:15]
Guest
Yeah.
- [25:16]
Gene Blinkoff
But we were living. I was actually living for some time in Ukraine.
- [25:20]
Chris
Okay.
- [25:20]
Gene Blinkoff
Because we have a pretty large team there.
- [25:23]
Guest
Yeah.
- [25:23]
Gene Blinkoff
And so I traveled to see my team a few years back.
- [25:27]
Guest
Yeah.
- [25:28]
Gene Blinkoff
And met my wife there.
- [25:29]
Chris
Oh.
- [25:30]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. And so we, I kind of stayed there and we had a baby.
- [25:35]
Chris
Nice.
- [25:35]
Gene Blinkoff
And we were living there for a while because it's so much easier to be next to the marketing and the software team.
- [25:40]
Chris
Sure.
- [25:41]
Gene Blinkoff
It's a lot like we got a lot of stuff done. That's how this was launched without stepping on US soil, basically. That's great to, you know, like thousands of users at this point. And so. But then the war started and so we moved to Europe. Just bounced from countries, kind of checked out this country, that country. Poland, Czech Republic, France. We were driving to Croatia just to see what it's like because I heard good things about it. Driving through Italy. Never been to Italy. And we stayed there for one night. I was like, this is great. We got it. Like, let's do a couple more nights. Do a few more nights.
- [26:16]
Guest
Yeah.
- [26:17]
Gene Blinkoff
A few more nights turn into like two more weeks on the Ligurian coast. A few more weeks turned into two. What's been two years now and babies going to Italian kindergarten.
- [26:27]
Chris
Like, that's so cool. I think what people need to take from that just little segment is just understanding you can create the life you really want. It is really up to you to create it. Right. You have created a US business. Triple immigrant living in Italy. Essentially never really running the business within the United States. And you live in what?
- [26:47]
Gene Blinkoff
I don't.
- [26:48]
Chris
I don't even know. But I know Lake Cuomo. You probably live in one of the more beautiful places in the entire planet. And you have a company that you can run completely virtual. And so I just want to highlight if you are somewhere that you don't want to be financially, physically located, whatever you have. The decision to change. Gene is a perfect example that you can move, you can start the business, you can get going, but you have to make the decision to do it. And you're, you're a highlight. You're. You're a, you know, star student and that.
- [27:17]
Gene Blinkoff
And let me just say this, for anyone that's afraid of taking that journey or is afraid of like leaving your job or whatnot, you know, I don't lose an hour or a minute of sleep about the time, about the times when I have to sleep in the office because I had nowhere to live and I was like, you know, under cash wise, like overspent and didn't make enough. You know, like six years ago I literally had some times when I slept in the office because, like, I didn't have a hotel or whatever. Basically kind of like homeless, right?
- [27:48]
Guest
Yeah.
- [27:49]
Gene Blinkoff
And you know what? I kind of reminisced on those times because it was like, that's when you really get tested. So for anyone that's like afraid of the, afraid of the journey, the more you want, the more like, the more interesting the journey will be. You're going to have some disappointments. So.
- [28:04]
Chris
But, well, this goes back to the kind of the US versus the European. There's a lot of tough times in Europe. Right. And the life is a lot tougher a lot of times. Lake Cuomo is not exactly that, but, you know, you come from a very tough country. Right. And so when people in the United States kind of bitch and complain about like, I'm not making as much as I want and I'm not, you know, I don't want to work that hard and I don't want to India just go. You could go live in Ukraine or Soviet Union, wherever. Obviously it's not like Soviet, but you get my point. It's like you could be not living in the United States. Like, pick and choose what you're trying to achieve here. And Gene's a highlight. Like, he literally is running a multi million dollar business with thousands of clients in the United States While living essentially 20 minutes from Lake Cuomo. Right. Like, that's awesome, dude. So now why did you decide I speed. Why did you decide real estate? Why did you decide, like, where did that come from?
- [29:00]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah, so real estate. So it, I actually had a. So I was working at Boston tech firms basically most of my career. Okay. You know, my parents are, you know, they, they were, they were big on like, hey, we got you here to the States, go to college.
- [29:16]
Guest
Yeah.
- [29:17]
Gene Blinkoff
And I, you know, got through college and like did all that and then started working at these tech companies. And so that was cool for a while, but I just, I just always had the bug man. And I. When I was like 27 or something. I was like, I can't do this anymore. I was at IBM too. And it's like.
- [29:33]
Chris
You mean the entrepreneur bug? Yeah, and it's a tough bug, man. You can't shake that bad boy.
- [29:38]
Gene Blinkoff
No, you can't. You cannot quench it. Like, that's it. If you try to quench it, you're going to be super disappointed.
- [29:43]
Chris
That's right.
- [29:44]
Gene Blinkoff
If you get old.
- [29:44]
Guest
Yeah.
- [29:45]
Gene Blinkoff
And so IBM is like a super structured environment too, man. Like, if you're, if you're a rebel, you're gonna, you're gonna be crying at night, like, because you're just so rigid in there. So. And that was like the last drop for me. And so I experimented with different businesses. Different. Like a drone video business back in Boston, which kind of got me into real estate, you know, ish. Because I was like talking to a lot of agents. I was pretty big in Boston actually with that business, but it's so seasonal that I was like, no, dude.
- [30:13]
Guest
Yeah.
- [30:14]
Gene Blinkoff
And then I was looking for, you know, an opportunity to really break out and like, be able to quit IBM because I was kind of semi important there. Like, pretty big salary. You thinking about, like, I want to cover that.
- [30:24]
Guest
Yeah.
- [30:25]
Gene Blinkoff
And wholesaling ad. Like an ad from. From a coach, from Chris Rude with. He was like out there with Grant. Yeah. And I was like, what is this thing? Let's see. And I already advertised my other businesses because I had to, like, do it, you know, I couldn't cold call. I had to be at work managing people at IBM. So I had to set out some ads in the morning for my business, go to work. And then, you know, everything had to happen in the background. So I knew the ads piece. And then Chris Roots program, I bought it. Dude, I had so little cash because I had two arbitrage AirBNBs back then, I think seven years ago. Two arbitrage AirBNBs. I just opened one of them in Cambridge. Like, kind of expensive.
- [31:05]
Chris
Sure.
- [31:05]
Gene Blinkoff
And so I had cash in that. Like, no free cash at the moment, but I'm like this wholesaling thing and the sales guys, he's like, dude, do it. It's like, you gotta. You're gonna do well. It's a cool community. Everyone's a hustler. And I'm like, you know what? So I swiped the corporate credit card on that thing, man.
- [31:23]
Chris
It's great.
- [31:24]
Gene Blinkoff
I mean, I paid it later, but like, pretty sure you're not supposed to do that.
- [31:27]
Chris
Well, you probably shouldn't swipe IBM's credit.
- [31:29]
Gene Blinkoff
Card to pay for me to like, for like my team's get together and stuff and like travel, I swipe the thing, man. So anytime someone tells me like, dude, of course I don't recommend doing that, but.
- [31:39]
Chris
But you want to keep your job. Maybe don't. I think Gene was on his way out.
- [31:43]
Gene Blinkoff
My way out.
- [31:44]
Chris
Yeah. Listen, there's never an excuse.
- [31:46]
Gene Blinkoff
There's.
- [31:46]
Chris
It's never a lack of resource. Resources is a lack of resourcefulness.
- [31:50]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah.
- [31:50]
Chris
Time and time I had to call a friend to borrow 25 grand to pay for my first coach. A friend. That's an awkward conversation. You used a corporate credit card. It's never a lack of resources. It's a lack of resourcefulness.
- [32:03]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah.
- [32:04]
Chris
So listen, I. Speed to lead is something that all real estate go to ispeedlead.com right now. You're going to get some credits. You have a full platform, right. That they can find the lead. They have old leads, they have new leads, they have exclusivity. They have 6, almost 6 million active buyers in the marketplace.
- [32:23]
Gene Blinkoff
Yeah. We have all the buyers, all the cash buyers that have bought something in the past three years. And then we rank them based on how much stuff they bought.
- [32:31]
Chris
And do you do skip tracing through there? Reach out to them?
- [32:34]
Gene Blinkoff
Phones, emails, everything already.
- [32:37]
Chris
So if I already skip trace something and someone else wants that same buyer, is it already there for them? They don't have to skip trace or do they got to skip trace?
- [32:42]
Gene Blinkoff
We, we front loaded. We spent a lot.
- [32:45]
Guest
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:45]
Gene Blinkoff
Front load. The top 20% of that 6 million.
- [32:48]
Chris
That's great.
- [32:49]
Gene Blinkoff
Is already. We already. We already did that for our customers. Yeah, dude.
- [32:54]
Chris
ISpeedLead.com Everyone needs to go there. If you're in real estate in any vertical. Right. If you're doing wholesaling, fix and flipping, reverse flipping. We need to talk about that to all these people. We need to teach people more about that because they'll convert higher and they'll just keep buying more to show our guys. Yeah, it's insane. Any last words from my man Gene?
- [33:13]
Gene Blinkoff
Hey guys, be diligent, don't give up and everything's going to be great. Just keep, keep going.
- [33:20]
Chris
Keep your head in there. Great. Actually, end of this episode, Jean, blink off. I speed the lead. You need to get there, check it out, get the credits right away. If you enjoyed this, you know other people that need more motivated seller leads. Share this with two of your friends. I'll see you on the next episode. With another great guest.
- [33:43]
Capella University Ad
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@capella.edu.