Unlocking Real Estate Success: Chris Salerno on Deal Compass Innovations

John Harcar (01:31)
All right. Hey, guys. Welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with Chris Salerno. And what we’re going to talk about with him besides, you know, his journey in business and real estate up to what he’s doing today, we’re going to talk about a cool CR, our cool tech software that he has, not a Sierra tech software that he has that I think is really going to going to make life a lot easier for folks. ⁓ Remember, guys, that investor fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers.

Really all real estate entrepreneurs, to 5X their business. You know, with the tools, the resources, the community to scale your business really helps you live the life that you’ve always dreamed of. So Chris, man, welcome to our show.

Chris Salerno (02:12)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

John Harcar (02:14)
Yeah, I’m excited to learn a little bit more about the new tech software that you have. Anything that can make our lives easier, I think we all would appreciate. But before we get into that, can I tell our audience a little bit about your background, how you got into business and real estate, and what brought you to today?

Chris Salerno (02:32)
Yeah, so I’m recent grad from the University of Notre Dame, really approaching the business. My brother went here as well, and he’s more on the tech side of things. So he was building out this software, and I joined alongside him, more on the business side. But our interest in real estate really came from our father, is a real estate agent in Los Angeles. So really grew up around real estate, kind of saw everything he was doing, and piqued our interest. then we, Matt saw, my brother saw the need for the software in the market, kind of really built it out.

was able to hop in and help more on that business and sales side of things for him as well.

John Harcar (03:06)
Okay, and you said your father was it was he a real estate agent in LA? Okay, he was a real estate agent. Okay. And what did you guys go to school for? He went your brother sounds like he went more on the tech side and you had more business side.

Chris Salerno (03:11)
Yes. ⁓

Yeah,

yeah, so my brother went to school for computer science got his master’s in computer science I went to school for business so marketing and economics ⁓ And really just able to bring those two approaches together to build this company

John Harcar (03:33)
Okay, you mentioned that he saw a need, right? What happened to where he saw this need and what need did he see?

Chris Salerno (03:42)
Yeah, so he took an internship at a real estate investment firm one summer during school, just out of pure interest because we had grown up around the industry and saw that the company was really struggling to find a CRM system that worked for them, that worked how they worked.

They had a bunch of spreadsheets, maybe paid for a couple different systems that just didn’t work well and they were losing a lot of data and information and their follow-ups and everything wasn’t meshing well. So we really saw the need to have one simple space to bring everything together, which is where he decided to build Deal Compass. And Deal Compass was initially built out as a CRM. We still do have a CRM component for those who want it. But now we’ve implemented an even simpler system for people where they can just chat with us and

We handle everything on the backend. send them reminders, updates, if they need info on a property or something they looked at, they just text it to the system. They can come back to the system, say, Hey, I looked at property ABC a month ago. What, what information did I have on that? We can text it right back to them as well. Um, it’s really just eliminating all the tech headaches for people, uh, making life super simple. It works how they work. You can use it on the run. You don’t have to pull out your computer when you’re at a listing or at an inspection or something like that.

and really making it super easy for people and they’re not scrolling through crazy CRMs 24-7.

John Harcar (05:52)
Okay, so what were some of the biggest hurdles that you guys had to overcome or challenges in starting this business?

Chris Salerno (05:59)
camera.

I think you cut out there briefly, but I think you asked about some challenges and start.

John Harcar (06:04)
Yeah, what were some of the challenges

when you guys, you know, started this business?

Chris Salerno (06:08)
Yeah, think ⁓ figuring out that initial target market was very difficult a couple years ago and it’s constantly changing. ⁓ Obviously, when we started the business, we were both still in school, still playing sports. So that was a challenge in itself of kind of juggling all of that while still trying to get this on its feet. ⁓ But I think finding that niche in the market and standing out with.

Everyone says they’re simple CRM. Everyone says they’re simple software, but who can really deliver on that and have a differentiator? And so I think having this, this tech systems really brought us out ⁓ of we really are simple. Everyone knows how to send the text. You’re not having to sit there and train yourself on how to use the system really is what is making us stand out and be different in this market.

John Harcar (06:47)
Hmm

Okay, that’s awesome. So, I mean, when you started reaching out and doing some marketing, mean, were you targeting, and I think you said this is for real estate agents, correct? Okay, so you’re targeting, were you going after maybe some of big brokers? Were you going after the individual guys? I mean, who does that, who does this kind of help the most?

Chris Salerno (07:04)
Yes.

Yeah.

So initially we were targeting investment firms at the very beginning of a years back, because that’s where the idea was discovered. And we realized pretty early on that, you know, this fit more on the brokerage side of things. ⁓ and as we’ve dove deeper into that, we’ve realized it’s really more on the residential side, even though it can kind of fit either commercial or residential. ⁓ so yeah, really just reaching out to everyone we could, using our network as best as possible, talking to our dad who was a broker. he’s on the commercial side, but.

John Harcar (07:42)
Mm.

Chris Salerno (07:44)
saying, how would you guys be using this if you were? And getting their feedback as much as possible before building it out and then continuing to grow and taking that feedback, even as we have our current customers using it. Hey, maybe this little tweak here or there would make this a lot easier for us. So really that market research of getting people to use it, get their feedback, and then refresh that as we go without overdoing it and making sure we’re getting the whole market feedback.

John Harcar (08:12)
Got it. All right. So you guys started this when you were in school. Are you still in school? Okay. Congratulations. Nice. So how big is your client base? Like how many people have you reached? mean, what type of feedback are you getting, et cetera?

Chris Salerno (08:16)
No, I actually just recently graduated about a month ago now, a little over a month. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Yeah, so we have about 10 to 15 clients right now. So still fairly small, still growing. ⁓ The feedback we’ve received from these clients is fantastic so far. They love the product. They love using it. The new text updates that we’ve just recently added, they love even more. So that’s been really big for us. It’s really more of, we got to reach these people now. So we have the product that they like. It’s finding these people that we know are new target market of these residential realtors, more people who have been.

Maybe in the industry for a while, been alienated by all these other systems that claim they’re simple, claim they work well, but just don’t really work for people who maybe aren’t as tech savvy or just don’t want to adopt a new system. ⁓ And the great thing about our new tech system is that it flows right in with your current system that you have in place. So you don’t have to use our CRM with it. You can just use the texting version. We’ll connect it to your current CRM and it updates everything for you, which is fantastic. So.

John Harcar (09:26)
Okay.

Chris Salerno (09:28)
I think reaching those people who feel alienated or feel like they need that just one little extra piece to make their life even easier.

John Harcar (09:34)
Sure, okay, so with this text system, you’re loading a bunch of data in, you’re sending text and all that stuff, but you said there is a CRM component, correct? But you can also just attach it to whatever CRM you’re using now, kind of like via Zapier type of thing, right? Okay, what is the benefit of someone just tagging it onto what they’re currently doing versus maybe just having an all-in-one system with yours?

Chris Salerno (09:47)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yes. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Yeah, so there’s benefits to both. Obviously, if you use our system, we’re even more familiar with it. We’ve built it to be extremely simple and easy to navigate, which makes everyone’s life a lot easier. But we get that some people, it’s either really hard to get their data out of their current system, or they’ve just been using it for so long that it’s not really worth all the time and effort to switch over. So that’s where it does make sense to connect to what they’re currently using.

Or maybe their company makes them use a certain system to make sure they can monitor everything, stuff like that. But using ours is still very extremely helpful. We’ve built out our CRM over many years too, gotten that same feedback, have people using our version of the CRM system. So it just is good to attach it along to ours because we know you do sometimes still need that little bit of extra information. Maybe you do want to go in and look at your data or see things.

on a computer screen but it just doesn’t always work out where you’re on the run and you can’t pull out your computer and see everything you need right then and there.

John Harcar (11:36)
Is it all complied? Did you guys have to go through all the compliance, attend DLC or whatever all that is and all those texting regulations?

Chris Salerno (11:44)
Yes, we’ve had, we’ve been dealing with the texting regulations and got it up and running. I use our texting system as well, just to keep myself updated, which has been very helpful. So it’s been good to, use our, our systems ourselves and kind of figure out those little kinks that maybe there might’ve still been when we were early on starting.

John Harcar (12:01)
So are these agents texting off market buyer sellers or what are the agents using this for specifically? Who are they texting?

Chris Salerno (12:08)
They’re texting. So they text the system. So they text deal compass. ⁓ And I can text deal compass and say, Hey, remind me on for example, they remind me on Tuesday that I have a meeting, John, and I have to hop on the podcast. And then Tuesday morning, I wake up and deal compass text me reminder, these are your tasks due today. And so it really just makes life easier if I’m not logging into a system or if I’m like I said, you’re out of the showing you’re out wherever inspection or just on the run and you’re like,

John Harcar (12:11)
Okay.

Okay, I got it.

Chris Salerno (12:38)
I need to remember to text this person, email this person when I get back to the office, but I’m probably going to forget that. And I can’t pull out my computer and put a reminder in my system. So I’m going to text deal compass. It will upload it to my CRM and it will text me when I get back or when I tomorrow, whenever it is to do that so I can remember to do it.

John Harcar (12:54)
Okay.

Okay, what are the pros and the cons? What are the, yeah, let’s start with the cons. What are the cons of using this? Like what does, what limitations might there be? What things does it do, not do?

Chris Salerno (13:07)
Yeah, so some of the cons is it’s still learning a little bit with the system of learning how to respond to very exact text messages at times. Sometimes it can run into a couple problems and you might have to retext your information to it. But it does work pretty well. You can you have to give it a little bit of time. You can’t text it at 730 and say, remind me to do something at eight. That’s a little bit too fast of a turnaround for it. But

John Harcar (13:33)
Sure, sure.

Chris Salerno (13:35)
So that could be a con, but I think some of the pros are…

John Harcar (13:38)
I say, tell me now why people have to use this thing.

Chris Salerno (13:41)
Yeah,

the pros are you’re on the run. I mean, your life’s busy. We know, I mean, from the experience of our dad, our dad was at all of our events and he’d also get a phone call or I have to follow that person tomorrow now, but I’m going to forget. And I met my kids football game or soccer game, whatever it might’ve been. And you’re out and about. ⁓ and just the ease of use for people who maybe are afraid of tech or

John Harcar (13:44)
Yeah, heck yeah.

Chris Salerno (14:04)
I’ve been using just spreadsheets for a while and they switch over to a system like this. It just makes their life so much simpler. It gives them more freedom. They’re not as stressed out. ⁓ I mean, I forget tasks all the time, but now that I put them in the system, it makes life easier. Because when I wake up and here it is right there for me. So I think those are some of the biggest pros of switching over to a system like this and something that will really stand out. And because we are a smaller company, we’re willing to work with you.

John Harcar (14:17)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Salerno (14:32)
We’re really committed to all of our clients in a big way.

John Harcar (14:35)
That’s awesome. So where do you see this company going? Like what, what, is your, your growth path look like? I mean, are you guys just local in Indiana? Do you guys look going to go nationwide?

Chris Salerno (15:27)
Yeah, so we have clients nationwide right now, very spread out. I’m in Indiana. My brother is in Nashville, Tennessee, and our third partner is in Chicago. So we are fairly spread out as a company and can work with anyone anywhere, which is another great bonus of this system. You don’t have to be just in South Bend, Indiana to be working with us. ⁓ And I think the company structure is we do want to definitely keep growing, grow quite a bit, but we don’t want to become

John Harcar (15:29)
nice.

Chris Salerno (15:54)
some big system where we have thousands of employees and we don’t know who our customers actually are. are, as I said, very committed to our customers. We want to have that personal relationship. We want them to be able to shoot us a text or an email and say, hey, maybe this happened or I want to see this. And we want to be able to get back to them right away. So I think keeping us generally a smaller company and just continuing to grow that customer base to where we can still withstand it.

John Harcar (16:18)
Awesome, awesome.

⁓ What do you kind of attribute your keys to success, right? You’ve obviously, you played football at Notre Dame, you graduated from Notre Dame, now you started this new business. It seems like you’re on the right track. Like what do you attribute your success to?

Chris Salerno (16:34)
Yeah, I mean, I’ll definitely give my parents a big shout out and stealing that in us. But I think it’s just that that mindset of I want to build something and build something for myself, which has been a lot, one because of my parents, but the people around me, mean, coaches, teachers ⁓ and even my brother and I pushing each other all the time. You know, there’s a lot of ups and downs starting a business and one of us gets too high. The other one’s got to level each other out a little bit. It gets too low. Bring the other one back up. So I think.

Working with someone, one who knows you very well, grown up around you, but also gets the way you think and can bring you back down or bring you up in a positive way has been very helpful in really pushing each other to be what’s best. And when it’s a product you believe in, you’re willing to work extremely hard for it. So I truly do believe in our product and I think that’s extremely helpful as well.

John Harcar (17:23)
Do you think the athletics, that the team sports, has lended a lot to, you know, working together? Like you said, highs and lows, ups and downs, bringing each other together.

Chris Salerno (17:31)
Yeah,

I definitely think it did. ⁓ I mean, even this this past season you can see ups and downs in the season itself. So things like that. ⁓ I mean, it’s it definitely keeps you level headed and we’ve compared it to sports a lot of times. So technically like man, this reminds me of this thing in sport when we lost this game or we won this game and now we feel super high, but we can’t get overjoyed. gotta keep working. So I think it definitely has helped us throughout our journey so far.

John Harcar (18:01)
Awesome. Well, I mean, it seems like you guys are kind of on the lead lead edge of maybe some type of trend. Do see any other trends in the industry? Things that are coming down the pipe that, you know, might make things a little bit easier on life in real estate?

Chris Salerno (18:13)
Yeah. I mean, I think

the trend that we’ve noticed is obviously people don’t like their CRMs. They want to go with them. So kind of where we’re coming in. ⁓ But yeah, I mean, I think the trend is a lot of these younger people do want to have some sort of tech system in place. Now they’re no longer sitting there just using a spreadsheet, which is where it came from. ⁓ And so I think the trend of people wanting to use technology, but use it in a more efficient way. They’ve realized that a lot of these

John Harcar (18:18)
Yeah, right. Nobody does.

Chris Salerno (18:43)
Big tech firms aren’t really their friends like they claim they are. And so we’re trying to be that company that truly is working there for you.

John Harcar (18:51)
Awesome. If there are some folks that are listening to this, they want to try to get in touch with you, what you said maybe resonated with them and they want to learn more. You know, what’s the best way to reach out to you guys?

Chris Salerno (19:02)
Yeah, you can go to our website deal compass.co. ⁓ You can sign up there, log in, put your phone number in. takes 10 seconds to put your phone number in and get started. And our contact information, mine and my brothers are all on the website as well.

John Harcar (19:16)
Nice. Guys, I hope

you enjoyed this show. know, Chris, I definitely appreciate you coming on and sharing that information. You know, reach out to him, check out the new software. It sounds incredible. And guys, hope you took some good notes. I hope you enjoyed it. And we’ll see you out there on the next one. Cheers.