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Dave Zajdzinski: 85% net profit with virtual buyer representation | Otter.ai

Dave Zajdzinski: 85% net profit with virtual buyer representation

Frank Klesitz20min

Frank Klesitz

00:00

So, I want you to meet Dave Zajdzinski, Phoenix, Arizona, you'll meet him at the spring mastermind, coming up in 2025. I just want to introduce you to him. So when you see him inthe room, you kinda get some backstory of how he can help you. You can also hear what he needs. That's the whole idea behind this podcast. So Dave, couple quick questions to set the tone here, of who you are, how long have you been selling real estate?

Speaker 1

00:28

Yep. So Dave Zajdzinski, a lot of people know me by Dave Z because of last, last name is a little hard, but I am in my 20th year of selling real estate.

Frank Klesitz

00:40

1,500 homes. Is that right?

Speaker 1

00:43

About 1,500 homes? Yep, not counting all my new builds. I did a lot of new home sales those first four years. So that's really like a 16 year resale business.

Frank Klesitz

00:56

So to kind of cut to the chase, I know you pretty well. You've seen the whole trend of like building a team and the traditional sense, and that didn't quite work out the way that you wanted to work out. And why is that?

Speaker 1

01:09

The reason it doesn't work. There's a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is the profitability you're just reversing. You almost turn on its head. The opposite of what any good book would tell you to do, like buy back your time. By Dan Martell would tell you to outsource your time for 25 cents on the dollar. What you find in a typical real estate team, you're outsourcing your time for like 75 to 90% of your hourly once you really break it down. So you think, if I get big enough, you can overcome that, and the personal production of the Rainmaker is what hides all of the flaws of the real estate team. And soon as you try to step out of production, the wheels fall off. And it's really because the splits, right? The split to the agent, you grow a team and say, All right, agent, come work forme. You take this lead. I take this lead. If you do it on a 50/50, split, you're really only goingto see about 15% of that, and that is a, you know, you're outsourcing for 85 cents of your hourly.

Frank Klesitz

02:23

So long story short, because I know you well, is you decided to kind of burn that typical team model down, and you decided to get back and take responsibility of production yourself, but lever yourself up with virtual assistants in the Philippines. Yep, effectively. So right now it's pretty much you and what an agent and a team in the Philippines. And, yeah, your kind of thing is profitability. You want to share what you brought to the bottom line last year, what you think it's going to be this year, on this new model.

Speaker 1

02:56

Yeah, on this new model. When 23 was all done. My net, net was in the mid 80s, like 84% and my cost of sale was under 4% which is really hard to do on a traditional model. I'm, you know, I'm still on some calls. I still, and I'm a hybrid, right? Like, I've got a dozen agents that do Zillow Flex leads for me, and they're still on the traditional but that's like a side business. Like, that's not the Dave Z home team. So they don't show up on Zillow. You don't see them in my escrow accounts, but I so I'm still in some of these rooms, and I was on a call yesterday with 125 team leaders, and a lot of them are doing, you know, 1,000 units. And it's always about profitability. They can't figure out how to be profitable. So, and it's the cost of goods, the it's, it's having those splits. And what did it for me was I, I had a coach that showed me how to separate those so when I coach agents, I have, I have a software for them that I send to them and say, you're going to put, you're going to put all of your expenses to run your business as the Rainmaker in this side of the spreadsheet, this side of the Excel, you're gonna put all of your sales in there. Then on this side of the spreadsheet, you're going to put all the expenses for the agents and everything you made there. And it gets really clear, you know, he was the first one to tell me, look at your business like a you own a grocery store chain. You've got all of these grocery stores, and what you're finding is you as the Rainmaker, you're subsidizing like, seven stores that are losing money, one or two that are breaking even, and like maybe two or three that are making you a little bit of money, but because they all go into one big bank account, it's really hard to see it. And so once I started segregating that, it was clear to see. And then I have an easy exercise for people to do really quickly, that I draw on a whiteboard or a piece of paper to. Show really what you're making. The last team leader I did it with, he's making $165 every time an agent sells a home. And then we did okay, well, you make when you sell a home, the ratio Frank was 38 to one. Sounds like so what's easier for you to sell a home, or for you to get an agent to sell 38 homes in a year? And where are you spending your time?

Frank Klesitz

05:23

So here's the model again, just to speed this up, of what Dave's found, again, I just this will be different, because I know you really well, is you get leads, buyer leads from different lead sources, and the virtual assistant calls and follows up and gets them on a zoom, meeting with you wherever you are in the world, yep, on that Zoom, meeting you present the buyer with options. I can open a door for you. You can work with a junior agent on my team, or you can work with me for the highest price. And they pick from their options. Then from there, you review houses with them on Zoom. You do it all on Zoom, and then we want to go see the houses. You use a showing agent model, whether for some people, that can be done internally. And you're in a market where there's a service called Showami that works, where you can bid out someone to open the door, and then you work with the whole buyer virtually, where you don't physically have to be there, which gives you the freedom that you want in your business. And in addition to that, you're not paying any large agent splits, because you maintain the relationship with the buyer done virtually, with your virtual support staff. Is that the gist? Yes,

Speaker 1

06:37

that's the gist of it. And you know, the way we utilize the virtual assistants, right or wrong, they are me and my CRM and so that's just a choice I've made where I don't tell the buyer, hey, you're going to be dealing with other people, because it comes from my cell phone number, and we do a lot of texting, so the client has this connection with me that is almost like a like a celebrity. And, you know, I'm not putting myself in those terms, but, you know, you see a celebrity, you feel connected to them. They don't feel connected to you at all. Right? It's this, this unequal relationship. It's like, I know you, I've watched you, have seen you, and so I have videos that go out pre like, I have, I don't know, 20 filmed videos. Hey, congratulations, you're in Escrow. congratulations, you passed the appraisal. So I'm getting face time with them. So we know, psychologically, when they get videos, it's it they equate you to like a news anchor or a film star. Like, there's really no distinction in the human mind, whether you're a movie star or you're just filming a professional video. So I get the videos, and then when somebody texts me on my cell phone, Dave, I'd like to see this home.Dave responds, great, we're available. What time you want to go see it? So that's a unique way I use the virtual assistants is to is to provide constant communication, but I'm getting the equity, I'm getting the credit for it, and I'm building the brand in your name. Yep, it's in my name, right? And so that is what gives me that freedom of having, you know, four interchangeable VAs that are basically running that role of managing the communication, managing the buyers, and so I can pull up one buyer in my CRM that might be touched by all four of them from the same phone number.

Frank Klesitz

08:31

So at the mastermind, if you're looking for a little different model for profitability of the core team and you want to be the star. Still, you're not outsourcing the whole relationship to someone else, which is expensive, like Dave said. Ask Dave what his lead sources are. Ask Dave where he finds his EVAs and what he pays and how he trains them. You'll need one to follow up with leads on your behalf. And then just kind of like overcoming. I think one of the things you can talk to Dave about is overcoming the limiting belief that you can just do these meetings on Zoom versus having do them in person, right? Dave, right, yeah. I mean, that's, that's normal now, but before it wasn't that probably wasn't, yeah, you had to overcome, right?

Speaker 1

09:19

I think because I didn't start this till covid, I it was easy, right? Like, we kind of had to do it, so I didn't really start doing this now, I started this model with salaried people six years ago, so I'd already moved out of the I don't show houses anymore, but a lot of those meetings were in office versus zoom, but covid definitely, definitely put it towards zoom. And I think, Yes

Frank Klesitz

09:50

It's been a little culturally easier to ask for a Zoom meeting over an in person meeting.

Speaker 1

09:54

It is, and then I think it is better. It is better because I I'm a data person. Maybe not everybody is. I would say less people are data people. In my field, you know, a lot of high D's, very charismatic. I'm a lower D I like data. So the way I can present that is, you know, I want to make sure you can win in this home buying process. Like, the market is really different. And I want to show you some things. I want you to see what the market looks like. I can't do that from a coffee shop. Can't do that in the living room. So that's how I lead into my appointments. Like, has anybody showed you how to really win in this market? Has anyone taken the time to, like, give you the absorption rate and see what your odds of getting that home are, you know? So the last home I put in escrow, not the last one. I just see I'm checking my emails right now. We just put one in escrow at 1.45 I don't even know what they look like. We've only done phone calls. We did, we skipped the zoom. Only did phone calls, and so that's going out that one escrow. But the one I did in Asia, we got the appraisal back, 75 grand over our offer price, we hammered them on the negotiations. And that's part of my proposition to my clients is, listen, I'd love to negotiate, and I want to get on a call with you so I can show you how we can do that, how we can take advantage of the market. You know what I look for personally when I buy properties. And with this buyer, I'm looking at him. He came into my database in April. We didn't put him in escrow to September. I think he looked at five houses, but on his on a 530 purchase price, the appraisal just came in at 605, and we really hammered the negotiations. And I I don't know what he looks like, and I don't know what his home looks like,

Frank Klesitz

11:43

but I think and you earned, here's the deal, Dave, you earned your fee. And even with the buy side changes in the commission you're getting paid, your fee. Is

Speaker 1

11:51

that correct paid more than I used to correct. Okay, so

Frank Klesitz

11:54

let's just break this down for the second time when Dave's in the room, Dave has a really cool model, good lead sources VA following up for an appointment on Zoom, a killer, killer buyer. Presentation like, positioned as like a real law firm with junior associates senior associates. Like, what level of expertise do you want on this buyer? And the way you show that is incredible. And then coming with data and options, and they have to go see the houses. You're not the one driving around, you basically bid out other licensed agents to open the door while they're you're shepherding them through zoom to make decisions, which is a which all this technology, zoom and post covid and VAs and showing services has you kind of blended all these things together to bring 85% of the bottom line. Dave, it's really good.

Speaker 1

12:54

It's it's not bad. I mean, I will tell you, on the call I was on yesterday, there's a lot of people that know me and and everybody was just kind of crying about it, crying about profitability. And somebody flat out said, I guess we're all going to become Dave Z, but I don't want that to be the case. I want all of those team leaders on the car big teams, but I'm working with about four big teams right now where they're still going to sell 1,000 homes, but the team owner, one of them in Phoenix, has nine in escrow. Personally, he has nine pending, and his team did 92 units last year. He or not last year, last month. So my philosophy was, somebody's already running this like, don't burn it to the ground. Like, at it. I was just Zillow at the Zillow flex, Zillow unlock, and I sat with a number of big, big agents where we are going to roll this out internally. And I said, Okay, get all right, how many homes you sell last year? 700 great. If you sold the first 50, would anybody notice? How many people really notice? And we just looked at what selling 50 would do to his bottom line. You know, yeah, do that for four or five.

Frank Klesitz

14:06

Oh gosh, he could skim the best stuff off the top for him to make it easy. Great.

Speaker 1

14:11

Yeah. Never her, yeah, yeah. And he's earned it, right? He's built, oh yeah, 25 and he's given it all the way. So for guy like me, it made sense doing 140 units to burn it down. But if you've got a well-oiled machine, you're selling a lot of homes, let's just supplement 40 or 50 sales, like the one that just hit my inbox, where a 1.45 million, and I got my 2.75 on that one. And I don't know what they look like. I don't know what the house looks like, but the buyer is very happy with the terms that we just put together. They won on the terms, and the consumer has made it loud and clear, we don't care who opens the door. We just care who negotiates this.

Frank Klesitz

14:52

And Dave, I'll leave this for the sake of the interview, in my opinion, what you did is you kind of look. How the real estate team model worked, and what you found is how a professional firm scales. So you really built your model around a real professional firm with junior agents, senior agents, staff, like how a law firm works and you're not outsourcing the relationship to someone else, and that's where you found your profitability, but you were still able to do it in a way where it's leveraged, and you found that perfect Goldilocks. And I'm excited for you to share that. Let me ask you this. So that's the that's the strategy you can talk to Dave about in the room. Dave, what bait Do you want to throw out there to everyone else in the room that you want to get better at? What do you want to know? What do you want to know? What do you want someone to approach you with advice on in the room to solve the problem you have?

Speaker 1

15:49

I think, I think for me, it is more being better with with my assets for, like, exit strategies, like, what are some really good like, I got into padsplit. Somebody brought me padsplits a year ago. Explain that real quick. Yeah, padsplits are somebody I shared this model with that person that now has nine in escrow. It was October. Is about a year ago. We were at a conference in Vegas, just kind of commiserating over like the agents don't do their job, they don't call. I'm not making money, making money, but I'm not really making money. So we implemented this, and he said, Let me pay you back. Let me tell you about Padsplits. And he helped me get my first two off the ground. But we took four bedroom homes in older communities, non HOAs, and we chopped them up into eight bedrooms. Cost me about $40,000 to put in four bedrooms AC's in those places and furnish them, and then we rent them by the room through Padsplit. They're an actual company like the verbo or Airbnb, and it took one home that was renting for 2,800 a month brings in 6,000 a month. Now, because you're charging about 200 bucks a week per room. And these are strangers. They don't know each other, they share bathrooms, they share common space, but the cash on cash return is massive. You've got, I think I've been running 94% occupancy since I've had these. So once you get them rented, they stay rented. We have a housekeeper that goes in every other week. I get eyes on the property, change the air filters, we restock the toilet paper and things like that. But it's solving the housing affordability issue, right? You're getting a room for 200 week that's got internet in a kitchen, and it greatly increases your profitability, and I think it insulates you from Airbnbs and things like that. Like it for me, Airbnbs, I know people that make home runs, and I know people who lose money on them. I was out two nights ago with a group of people. One of them just lost their right to have an Airbnb in Los Tendis, and they took community up in Arizona, and they tried to sue them, and now they're having to pay fees for trying to sue them, and they can't do the Airbnb. So I think it insulates you. It's far better than a long term rental. And my VA's manage it. It's a very easy process, but that's something I think they're in 16 or 17 states, but I'm a big fan of putting my my cash into those right now. And so that's kind of where I'm at, is like, When I need help, like, Where can I put my extra cash? Where can I put my profit? What are people doing for long term wealth building?

Frank Klesitz

18:38

Got it. Great! Dave, thanks. There you go. So I think someone can listen to this that's going to be in the room. You're like, Dude, I listened to the little podcast about you, and let's have a convo. I have some questions to ask, and you're happy to share.

Speaker 1

18:52

I'm happy to share. I've got it all built out. I've got it all in bite sized pieces and courses, and it's easy for VAs to do. I think I've trained now. I brought about 142 agents through this program, and it's cool. It's cool to see them go do it and to get your life back. And for me, you know my passion, you know me. I got five kids. I want to spend time with them, and I have not found a better way to get more time and more money and more freedom than this.

Frank Klesitz

19:21

And Dave actually just hired Vyral. I gotta look at your stuff like you just texted me your blog. But yeah, you hired us to commute you like, it's good, good. I'm glad to hear that. I gotta look at it today, and so busy. But um, what's the blog we built for you? What's the URL that Vyral did?

Speaker 1

19:38

It's leverage agent.org, leverage.

Frank Klesitz

19:42

Okay, so we got leveraged. Agent.org leverage, leverage

Speaker 1

19:46

No "d" in there, though, everybody wants leveraged, and I left out. Okay, so leverage, Agent org, yeah, I think you guys did a great job. I love it

Frank Klesitz

19:54

all right, so you can go there. And Dave's kind of publishing videos of his strategy, and he has a model you can buy, but he's happy to share a lot of this in the mastermind that has, like, all of his standard operating procedures. And he can also set you up with virtual assistants. He can show you where to go to get the right ones to get onboarded correctly, that know what they're doing, that you can trust.

Speaker 1

20:17

Yeah, so cool. I will tell you that. I'll leave that you don't want my unless you have vas, because selling 76 homes in a year and you're doing it, it's that's no fun. But 76 homes with a bunch of VAs impersonating you can feel like 10 or eight. It's pretty easy. So the VAs will ultimately be the key

Frank Klesitz

20:39

Dave, I'll see in San Diego. Excited for you to share all this. All right. Look forward to it.

Speaker 2

20:43

Thanks for having me on.

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