How Wholesalers Use VAs to Generate Direct-to-Seller Real Estate Leads

Dave Henderson (00:00)
we have this mentality that each and every call or each and every text is a lead and it’s a deal at some point.

So we always recommend to have as much leads as possible into your CRM in order like to have a strong follow-up process with with each and every lead that you have in your CRM. And you know, you need to sell your house one day. You need to sell your house one day. Maybe it’s not now, maybe it’s next month, maybe it’s next week, who knows? So you need to have like a strong follow-up process in place in order to know when this person needs to file to sell his property so you can make some profit out of that.

Meghan Escobar (02:08)
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast, hosted by Investor Fuel. I am your host, Meghan Escobar. And today I have the pleasure of sitting down with a fine young gentleman here by the name of Dave Henderson, CEO and founder of DFU-VA. Stands for Done For You Virtual Assistant.

And I’ve been looking forward to this conversation because Dave’s bringing something a little bit different to the table. And I I think our audience will definitely be able to walk away with some great insights from your journey and the way that you’ve inserted yourself and the way that you’ve built your business. And so Dave’s focus at Done for You is really providing quality leads and his avatar or hyper focus as far as who he’s ⁓

offering this service to right now is predominantly investors. So I think you guys are gonna really like what Dave has to say here. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us at ⁓ Real Estate Pros podcast. Ready to dive in?

Dave Henderson (03:10)
Yep, let’s go.

Meghan Escobar (03:11)
All right. So first and foremost, for those people who might not be familiar with your name or what lead generation it even is or provides, can you give us a 30,000 foot view of what your focus is these days and what markets you’re operating in?

Dave Henderson (03:28)
Okay, sure. So ⁓ I’m working mainly, as you have just mentioned, with wholesalers and flippers. So the thing is, what is the biggest challenge that they are facing each and every day or they are trying like to get over it? It’s like getting good deals, like really direct-to-seller good deals. So what we do is we try to reach out to those homeowners who might be interested based on the buy box of each and every investor that we’re dealing with.

⁓ either by call calling or by direct mail or ⁓ by maybe ⁓ if if they have like a website who are who who ⁓ like the the the homeowners just signed up on him ⁓ on that website and they are trying to like to get SMS or an offer through SMS for their homes, we do so too. So basically what we’re doing is we are just trying to reach out to all the homeowners in the buy box of

This investor who is trying to get some deals. And we just vet each and every lead that we’re getting. Like we are c qualifying each and every lead based on the asking price, based on the condition, based on the closing timeline. And the most important thing is the motivation that each and every lead is having like to sell this property. After vetting those leads, we are just sending those leads to the client CRM in order for him to follow up with those leads and get some appointments, you know.

⁓ we also can offer like someone like an as an appointment setter for them to set some appointments. And here we go. You just need to attend to those show-ups and do your math, check your ARV, calculate your maximum allowable offer, and take it from there, you know. ⁓

we have this mentality that each and every call or each and every text is a lead and it’s a deal at some point.

So we always recommend to have as much leads as possible into your CRM in order like to have a strong follow-up process with with each and every lead that you have in your CRM. And you know, you need to sell your house one day. You need to sell your house one day. Maybe it’s not now, maybe it’s next month, maybe it’s next week, who knows? So you need to have like a strong follow-up process in place in order to know when this person needs to file to sell his property so you can make some profit out of that.

And all of the leads that we are providing are exclusively for the clients that are who are subscribing for our services. And ⁓ they are all direct-to-seller leads. So for flippers, flippers mostly deal with wholesalers, but I know some flippers who have their own like team in order to generate direct-to-seller leads. And for sure, wholesalers are like mainly working with us to get those those deals in order to source them to the flippers.

So yeah, this is like a quick thing that we are doing right now.

Meghan Escobar (06:16)
Well, it sounds like you have a good pretty good process in place for, you know, these investors to get really qualified leads, which I think some people may struggle with today. And, you know, what I really thank you for sharing that. ⁓ a great breakdown. I love the way you kind of, you know, made it personable. And one thing that caught my attention during our discovery was when I asked you about, you know,

what you guys do and who you are as a company, you highlighted the culture in the company being a strength for you guys and, you know, kind of puts you guys at an advantage to competitors and the consistency also plays a role in that.

Dave Henderson (06:58)
Percent, 100%.

Meghan Escobar (07:00)
Not a lot of people can say that about their company where, you know, they they feel qualified or whatever the case may be. So can you talk to us a little bit more about what’s keeping the machine running so smoothly at DFU?

Dave Henderson (08:02)
100%. So the key in the real estate game is consistency. Consistency, consistency, consistency. And I keep saying this like till the end of my life. Because you know, sometimes you might get a deal in a week, sometimes you might get a deal in three months. Who knows? You know, but it’s a numbers game. But what makes like DFU’s culture and ⁓ process that strong is consistency and believing in our people. Okay.

So first of all, like ⁓ I have this saying that I always tell to all of my employees, if you believe it, you can do it. Because I’m not just giving them like a job that they can do some money and that some money out of it, and that’s it. No. I have like a career path for them. And all of them are or most of them are college students. You’re studying engineering, they are studying like business administration, which help them like have

which helped them in having this like mindset of an engineer, a mindset of entrepreneur entrepreneur. You know, this is hard to get. And Egypt is full of talents that it’s hard like to get hands on them. But thanks God I have the ability to have hands on those talents and they are working with me like with confidence. They trust our vision, they trust our mission.

They know what we are exactly doing and they know what they should do in order to grow in this company. So that’s why I have like very strong employees, or I won’t I won’t say employees, I will say success partners. I have very strong success partners that I would I wouldn’t be able to do anything without them. You know, they are people who are spending like eight plus hours.

⁓ on the dialer and on the systems with with with a lot of people just just because they are believing in what they are doing. They are not just like waiting for the salary at the end of the month. No, they are waiting to grow in this company. So that’s what makes us really stand out. All of our all of our success partners are working so hard, you know, because they feel like it’s their own company. They’re not just people on the payroll.

No, they are working for themselves to grow here in DFUBA. And we have a lot like of ⁓ showcases of people who just got their degree and they have decided just to keep going with me. And they don’t work like they don’t want to work in in in the field that they have studied because they sew it all. They saw it all growing up. They saw it all all the hard work and the vaccines, you know. So

They believe in our vision and mission. That’s why they provide us with consistency that made us provide consistency for our clients.

Meghan Escobar (10:50)
That’s really an incredible perspective in the way that you give them that type of title, right? So they’re not looking at themselves and it as an employee, but labeling them as a success partner is such an incredible psychology piece of this because this gives now them a a different view of looking at the company as like I’m not just here for a paycheck.

I’m actually a huge part of the sex success of this company and I’m considered a partner, which puts me almost at like

An owner type that the company doesn’t run without me if I’m not doing my job.

Dave Henderson (11:27)
percent.

Meghan Escobar (11:28)
Incredible. Okay. And every operator, every entrepreneur that I know, Dave, there’s there’s been a moment in time throughout their journey where things got real for them. You know, this this could have been a deal that had gone sideways or ⁓ a time that they had to pivot really fast. Do you mind sharing, Dave, one of those moments for you?

Dave Henderson (12:22)
Yeah, sure. So ⁓ how I got in that field in the first place. So I started as a cold caller for one of the most famous companies, ⁓ which is called ⁓ RES- VA or R-E-S -VA. And ⁓ I started with them as a cold caller and I stayed there like for almost four and a half years. Yeah. And my last and my last title there was their vice president. I was their vice president.

So ⁓ we came at a moment where we decided just to part ways. And since then, ⁓ I told myself that I need I need like to have something ⁓ either as good or maybe a little bit better, you know. So ⁓ yeah, this was like ⁓ a very, a very good moment or a very like changing moment that I have been through.

when ⁓ when I parted ways with ⁓ with my old company that ⁓ I was working for. And ⁓ you know everything has to start. And ⁓ I have implemented like some of the gaps that I thought we are missing in our previous company here in DC UVA. they they are they are very good. They are one of the best our out there, you know, but for sure I have some gaps. They have some gaps. Other companies have some gaps.

So I’ve just worked on the things that I saw that I need to fix and the F U VA.

Meghan Escobar (13:48)
Nice. So in that moment of time for you, it was like a door was closing and maybe it was a little overwhelming, but it also gave you an opportunity to create something new. And so if that if that door didn’t close, you know, maybe this new journey wouldn’t have happened. Is that

Dave Henderson (14:10)
I don’t think so. I don’t think so because actually when I first started with my old company, ⁓ my thought was just or or my goal was just to stay with them like for three months and gen and then just leave and get like my own my own thing. But ended up like three months when it were like four to four years. So this was my goal since since day one, but I was just postponing it because I was studying ⁓ my major in oil and gas engineering.

And once ⁓ now as I’ve as I’ve mentioned earlier, earlier earlier, I just got my degree like ⁓ four weeks now. Yeah, just four weeks ago I just got my degree in oil and gas engineering, but I don’t work to work on those offshore platforms in the middle of the sea, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Decided like, yeah, I’ll put just hundred percent focus in what we are doing. And actually this was my decision.

since day one even when I got into college because I actually I didn’t like I didn’t want this major at the beginning but I just I just I just went with it because actually my family like suggested it. I wanted to be a pilot in the first place, but it wouldn’t it didn’t go well so I just switched to the engineering thing. Wow because of numbers. I’m very I’m very nerd when it comes to numbers.

Meghan Escobar (15:28)
Well, numbers are the o one of the only things that don’t lie, right? So

Dave Henderson (15:32)
Exactly.

The universal it’s it’s a universal language. This is the universal language that everyone understands.

Meghan Escobar (15:39)
Yeah, that’s a whole fact. And you know, I think I wanna thank you for sharing that with me. You know, I think it’s important to talk about that kind of stuff because we live in such a highlight society where people are living on social media seeing the highlights of success, but not really, you know, the stories behind the work it takes to to build, to grow. And so I I also think it’s one of the real reasons of

what separates folks who are, you know, here to just dabble and make a quick commission check versus those who are in the game long term and really ready to to expand. So talk to us a little bit about what you’re what you’re focused on solving next, Dave. Like what’s the next real big goal for you guys at DFUVA?

Dave Henderson (17:07)
⁓ our goal is to keep this environment and culture we have. ⁓ this is regarding like DFU and ⁓ regarding like DFU VA cultures and operations. But regarding like the business goal that we are seeking for is to offshore as much operations as we can because we can do it. And it’s a win-win situation. We we might cut like cut costs for business owners or leasing investors by more than a 50%.

Sometimes it reaches 75%. So yeah, like ⁓ I wanna like let each and every like client working with us how talented the Egyptians are, how workaholic the Egyptians are, how ambitious the Egyptians are. You know, we we have a message that we wanna deliver.

Meghan Escobar (17:55)
That is really powerful. Thank you for sharing that. And I think it’s important too for people to understand that there are other cultures out there that work hard like the Americans do. Yeah, it doesn’t, you know, there of course doesn’t match with every other culture. But so your next real good big goal is to not only expand on what you’re currently doing, bringing in more talent, providing more services for people to

reduce their costs, but give them so much more on the back end to be able to grow their business, but also to educate the people on the culture of Egypt.

Dave Henderson (18:34)
Yep. Yep. Beautiful.

Meghan Escobar (18:35)
Wow. That’s huge. You know, and I feel like that’s that’s gonna really help you guys compound things to the next level, maybe create some chaos in between. But like we said, Dave, without chaos or problems that come up, there there’s there’s no there’s no business. Awesome stuff. Now I know a lot of people that are listening in, they’re either very early on their journey, you know, very green to the real estate industry.

Or they’ve been in the game for quite a while and they are looking to level up and and find the next best thing to expand and to grow. And I really think that they would benefit from hearing this. We talked a little bit about networking. You’ve, you know, came all the way from Egypt to network in the Tampa area because of the the real estate market, the ⁓ the networking events that are there. So for you, when it comes

comes to building relationships and growing your network, what do you feel has made the biggest difference for you? And and another reason that I’m asking this question is because I know one of the areas that ⁓ you you guys are looking to hone in on is to be seen more. A lot of that will come from networking. Talk to us a little bit about how and why that’s important to you.

Dave Henderson (19:52)
You know, you don’t know when you’re gonna use this contact at one day. So we have like very good relationships with contractors, wholesalers, flippers, realtors, ⁓ pressure washing services. ⁓ I’ve built like a a very strong network where I can like make each and every person with like in this network ⁓ have a one-one situation.

like ⁓ for example, I have ⁓ I have a contractor who I have connected with a flipper and they are working alongside together now. I have a wholesaler that I’ve connected with another flipper and they are having some good deals now. So networking is the is the key. So networking is the key. You need to share what you’re doing, you need to share your success in order to bring more success to you to yourself and to the other.

person or to the other success partner that you’re look l looking to work with. So networking is the key for anything.

Meghan Escobar (20:50)
I can’t agree more. And from somebody who, you know, started a business from scratch and has put the hard work in, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that you qualify to say that without creating relationships and proper networking, it’ll be difficult for you to be able to expand, right? With without being

Dave Henderson (21:09)
No one in this world can do everything on his own, you know? You can’t wear all of the hats.

Meghan Escobar (21:13)
That is very true. Sometimes I think that’s difficult for people to let go of control and delegate, you know, areas where they don’t really have the best strengths. So

Dave Henderson (21:14)
Yeah.

You need to delegate those. Yep.

Meghan Escobar (21:25)
Yeah.

Exactly. And it’s something you can’t fake, right? Like relationships are everything in this space. You want to be in a business owner or operator. Yeah.

Dave Henderson (21:34)
Hour percent.

Meghan Escobar (21:35)
Perfect. Before we wrap things up here, Dave, if someone wanted to connect with you and learn more about the services that you are providing or learn more ⁓ or or even potentially collaborate with you, what would be the best way for them to reach you is that email, phone ⁓ socials.

Dave Henderson (21:52)
Okay, so all the way works. But the the main thing is our Calendly link on our website. You can just go ahead and book an appointment ⁓ or just send us a text saying that you’re interested in our services and one of our sales team is gonna reach out just in like from 10 to 30 minutes maximum. ⁓ and yeah, text and email and our calendar link on the website are the best ways. But the best, best, best way is just to send an SMS to the number on the website.

Meghan Escobar (22:20)
Okay, perfect. And we’ll be sure to provide those back links here on the actual live podcast so that way you can click on it and get directly connected with Dave over at DFU. So don’t worry, folks, we’ll be sure to provide all those resources on the podcast below. So listen, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story, most importantly, your perspective and the gems that you provided here today. So

Definitely think we need more people in the space who are doing things the right way. Culture is huge for you guys at DFU. And it sounds like you’ve got a pretty good team behind you. Looking forward to seeing where you guys grow and maybe having you back on the show. So thanks again for being here, Dave.

Dave Henderson (23:05)
Appreciate it and appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Meghan Escobar (23:07)
And for those of you that are tuning in, if you got any value from this, please be sure to hit subscribe and like. We’ve got more conversations coming in with operators and owners, just like Dave Henderson here, who are out here building real businesses in real time with real people. We’ll see you on the next episode.