You're listening to the “REI Marketing Nerds” podcast, the leading resource for real estate investors who want to dominate their market online. Dan Barrett is the founder of AdWords Nerds, a high-tech digital agency, focusing exclusively on helping real estate investors like you get more leads and deals online, outsmart your competition, and live a freer, more awesome life. And, now, your host, Dan Barrett.
(00:42): All right. Hello everyone. And welcome to this. Week's so of the REI marketing nerds podcast, it's always, this is Daniel Barrett here from AdWords nerds.com. And look, if you need help, getting more motivated seller leads and deals online, you know where to go. It's AdWords nerds.com. Go there, request a call with my team and we will help you out. So without any further do, let me introduce this week's guest, because this was one I was really excited about. I am talking this week to Darren Dawson. Who's the co-founder and president of Baba. That is B om, B B om, b.com. Now, if you don't know Baba, they were one of the O original sort of personalized video communications software companies. In fact, I had been using bomb bomb for a long time. I was a big fan of what they were doing. They were on this kind of personalized video, sort of in a text messenger in a video thing way before anyone else, they have done tons of work in the real estate, a space specifically working with agents and investors to help them connect on a more on a deeper level, on a more profound level level with sellers.
(01:56): Darren is an absolutely fascinating person who leads all the sales, marketing, customer success and product development at Baba who is a fast growing company. He's done all this work, building us set of values into his team. He just charitable work. He's an investor himself. He's just a fascinating person with a wealth of knowledge, and I cannot wait for you to listen to this interview with him. So without any further ado, let's get into my interview with Darren Dawson. All right, this is Danny Barrett, Emma, here with Darren Dawson from bomb bomb.com bomb bam.com. Right bomb bam.com. Thanks for thats. Amazing. Well, welcome to the show, man. I, we were just talking about this a little bit before we got started. I'm super excited. I'm a fan of the company and yeah, I have been for a while, so I'm, I'm pumped to get into this. So for people who don't know what bomb bomb, and aren't familiar, give us kind of like the, the high level overview of what the software is and what it's supposed to do. And we're a video messaging platform that allows you to create simple
(02:58): Messages and deliver them anywhere. You're currently delivering a text message. So if you're on email, you can send a video. Instead, if you're on your phone with a, instead of a text message, you can send a video messenger and Facebook link or LinkedIn outlook Gmail, anywhere you're currently communicating with text. We allow you to create videos, to communicate, build better relationships, and then track the results. The most important thing know that they watched it know your communication was received. And then moreover give human experience in that communication. I, I don't like text. I think we're better face to face that the human beings have value in the way we communicate is not simply black texts and a white screen. That the way I'm talking with tone and emotion, and I'm moving my hands. If you're seeing the video, if you see my eyes, this all communicates far more than just text. So I wanna enable people to do that in any way, shape or form so that we can be more human build, better experiences for our customers build better experience for employees and anyone that we're engaging with.
(04:01): Yeah. It's, it's so funny to me. Like I was, I was having this conversation recently. We were, I was talking to my son who's six and he was like, who invented emojis? Right. And I was like you know, I was like, I think it's wanna find that person. Yeah. I was like, I think it's unit code. Like, I'm not really sure, but we're talking about it. And I was like, you know, emojis are there being, because texting or email is very hard to read that's right, right. It's and it's, it's very easy to project, you know, like Freud would love it, but it's very easy to project your own insecurities into someone's email. You know what I mean? And just be like, I was talking about this with my wife, where she was saying, if someone, if I send someone a message, like I would say, I said like, Hey, let's meet up for six, you know, at six for drinks. And they text me back the thumbs up emoji, she takes that as an insult. She that's like a deli deliberately insulting thing. Right. So even that it doesn't even, it doesn't even work. Right.
(04:53): So it's like this idea of bringing back that layer of human connection is so, so critical. And I just, just love that. So can you walk so for, for people who aren't, haven't used the software before, let's say so we'll put this in, in the perspective of the, the people who are listening to this. So obviously if you're listening to this, you're a real estate investor you're working with motivated sellers, walk them through kind of a workflow for how Baba could like, you know, build onto their existing follow up process. Like what's a way they might use it to perhaps deeper or more deeply connect with a seller. Yeah. I think I'll start with the problem. The problem is when you're doing that activity, that we're just all being inundated constantly with stuff like all the time, I'm getting a text or I'm getting a LinkedIn message. I'm getting email UNS it constantly. And I, I, I call that digital pollution. Right. And, and I think since the pandemic onset that we've escalated this digital pollution and it is constant now. So let's just say like four years ago, if you would've sent me an email, even if I didn't know you, I, because you're a human being, I might have felt like I had to respond to you and say, you know, I'm not interested. Right, right. Like it's reciprocity because we're humans. What, what I think this has done this digital pollution, this constant bombardment of stuff is made me not feel reciprocity for people anymore because I don't even even believe it's real people.
(06:18): Like I don't think it is. I think it's artificial intelligence. I think it's a robot. I think it's robo calls. Like if you're not in this phone, you do not. It does not get answered. Period. If it's, if it's a text and I don't know the number I'm afraid I don't click on anything. I think it's a virus. Like the assault on us has made us desensitize. And so in my inbox, I go click shift, delete everything. I don't care. I feel no reciprocity, human beings develop trust through meeting each other, building relationships. So Babo, we really focus on these, these companies, these industries, where we believe repeat and referral business is tantamount is, is where you get most of your business also where a human being is really necessary in the transaction. And it's a complex transaction. Okay? So we focus in real estate and mortgage and financial services and insurance taxes, CPAs lawyers, like all this type of communications complex requires a human being and they rely on repeat and referral business to grow their businesses.
(07:23): So that's kind of the premise of it. But again, like back to the problem, the problem is ignore you, ignore everybody. Right? So if you send a quick video, as you're in process with someone, it helps me look, build trust with you. If you're an investment person, look, you're, you're trying to buy a house for me. That's not on the market. Like, I don't know you. I don't trust. We have no rapport, no trust. Again, people build trust through interactions with other humans. That's it, that's it. We don't really trust each other, especially anymore. I don't think until I feel like I can trust you and how humans build is through interactions like we're having right now. Okay. So when you send a video, Hey, Dan, how's it going? My name's Darren, look, I'm sure you get a lot of this all the time. And, and maybe this isn't a good time for you to sell that property, but this is what I'm trying to do. It could be a really good thing for you. If, if you're at a point now that you're, you're ready to move that, like, just be more human. If you were to type out the email, you need to type out, you can't put the emotion out there and the email would be 10 pages long. No, one's gonna read it anyway. Does that make sense?
(08:30): Yeah. Well, and it proves, I mean, this is the thing, so, and like Darren, it, you know, Darren walks the talk, right. Because when we were setting up this podcast, interview me a video via email. Right. And I watched it and I was like, okay, great. Like it proves, this is kind of getting back to the reciprocity issue that you brought up, but I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but it it's really insightful. I think, because part of what the video does is prove that you took time that's right. And that you gave, you know, 2 cents about my message, because it isn't like the email could be 10 pages long, but you could copy paste or it could be automated or it could be whatever. Right. And the video just kind of says, oh no, they're not doing that. This is a specific video for me, for me, shot it for my message. It really does add this layer of now I'm actually in a conversation. And the reason that I, one of the reasons I was really excited to have you on the show is because I've been talking a, on this podcast about this shift in the investing industry specifically. And I think you know, Baba works in real estate quite a bit. And we were talking about this like real estate is kind of one of your biggest sort of areas of focus. And I think that other, a other parts of the real estate industry, you know, reals real estate agents, et cetera, have been a, on this relationship building train for a really long time.
(09:59): And they got it very early and they've been building those relationships, whereas investors haven't needed to like forever investors did just, all you had to do as an investor to market was show up with a postcard, says, I wanna buy your house for cash. It doesn't even say my name on it just as it's literally just a description of what I did. Right. And that was enough. But now there are so many investors, there are IBU coming into that market, right? Big brand first companies, you know, Silicon valley backed companies. These are more mom and pop investors than ever before flat fee realtors. There's so much more, more competition from every potential angle that it's no longer a question of like, well, should I sell to an investor? You know, what does an investor do? It's a question of why this investor versus that investor. That's right. And that's a relationship question, right? So just this element of, Hey, I took an extra step and you're not the 5000000th person I've texted today, you or email today or whatever. I just think that's such a huge diff difference maker. And I don't think many people in investing are doing this at all. I don't think people are, no,
(11:12): I've never, I've I've gotten a lot of videos from real estate people because of maybe who I am. I don't know, but I I've never gotten one. Like I was telling Dan, I have a couple rental properties in that they, they I get texts all the time. We get postcards all the time. But I've never, ever once I got a phone call last week, you know, that actually took cuz I thought it was some somebody else. Right. Or I would've it. And you know, asking to buy these properties. But yeah man, I, I think you're on this. Look, the reciprocity back to the reciprocity, the thing is when I make a video just for you, you go, they did that for me. They gave me time. Right? And so time is our most valuable asset as human beings. It is period where it's a finite thing that we only have so much of it. And the idea that it is just for me, that I did take the time it goes back and triggers that reciprocity again in a way that we're, we haven't seen in a long time. And so in a way that a voicemail can't, cuz don't believe the voicemail anymore. Either the voicemail, I don't believe it's just for me. Right. Cause that's robo. You know, you could deep fake a video, but when it comes to that, I just hope I'm done. Like it's over for me.
(12:26): We're deep faking real estate investment videos, then forget it. Oh my God. That, yeah. That's it's way. But it, it look it's, it's a perfect example of my dear friend, Patty Estio who, who runs a wonderful SEO agency down in Philly. She would always say her, her thing was always marketers ruin everything. We ruined literally everything. We get our hands on because we figure out how to just make it take less manipul we call it scaling. But, but some things just, you shouldn't scale, like I'm I'm scale the business in my life, but some things it's about the experience we're providing and you you're so right. I, I tell people this way, you, you said it's I gotta choose between this person and this person and in this market, you're choosing between the agent who wants this, sell the house because there's no inventory. Right. So why should I sell it to an investor? I can get multiple offers on this thing or whatever. Right.
(13:21): You're not gonna sell it in cash a day after I put it on the, the MLS or whatever. Yeah. Percent. So I always like company, a company B comes to your house. They are a landscaper. They're whatever it might be, doesn't really make. But their service offering is predominantly the same. You know, like if you had to choose Dan between company and company B and they had the same service for the same money and overall things were pretty much it's ind like indiscriminate, you couldn't decide. How do you decide in that case? Hmm. You typically decide because you like a company a better than you like the other one. Yeah. That's the only way you can. And the only way you can do that through human interaction, like if one just shipped you a bid on your proposal without ever meeting you and the other one came out and you talked to 'em for five minutes and you had any kind of personal interaction about your family or whatever it is, you're gonna pick them gonna like 99% of the time. Even sometimes if the price is higher, you're gonna pick them. Yeah. So I'm just like, you know, we do a lot of research on this psychology and the interpersonal relationships of people. That's what the that's what video is about more than just another way. It's not a magic trick. It's not just another, you know, a arrow in the quiver. So to speak for marketing, it's deeply connected to who we are as people. Yeah. Why our book is called human centered communication because we are not being human centered in our communication right now. We're being dehumanizing. I think in a lot of ways that we communicate. So yeah. I don't wanna go too much on that. Oh no, no. I can talk about that for a long time. I won't go
(14:58): That's okay. Well, geez, you got a lot of opinions about this whole video thing, Darren, who would've guessed? No, no. I'm, I'm pretty motivated on the topic. Well, I it's literally, I think this is something that I, I think realist is state investing as an industry really needs to hear. They, we really need to hear it because I think as an industry, we are slowly getting our lunch eaten by these big companies that are, they are gonna outcompete on marketing spend and they're gonna outcompete on offers because they don't care if they lose money for the first 30 years or whatever. And so you have to compete on human connection and in, you know, it's like, I'm a technical marketer, right? Google ads is where I made, you know, my bones still, what I love the best. And that is a, it's a technical marketing platform. But the, the clients that we have at AdWords nerds that are the most successful time. And again, when you talk to 'em about it, they're just like, I just know how to talk to people.
(15:56): It's like what it comes down to. If they have, they just care, they make a good, they make a good first impression. So I'm curious cuz you've, you've, you know, you've been doing this with so many different people. I'm curious if you see some kind of patterns or sort of best per practices in terms of when you are making video in order to connect with people. You know, we talked a little bit before we started recording on it's not necessarily that you gotta have the fancy background and you gotta have like the perfect lighting and you gotta have like the right microphone. I think this sort of prevents people from getting started cuz they think it's like, well I don't wanna, I don't, I don't know how to do a green screener. I don't. Right. So what are the things that like separate, you know, the videos that do really well are the people that do videos really well from videos to perhaps don't make a connection with people. Is there some kind of like best practice there or good practice there? Yeah.
(16:49): So we have a, we have a saying in our marketing department be of value and abundance will follow mm. Be of value and abundance will follow the big mistake, no matter what the communication is. I I'd argue. Even if it's not a video that most of the time, the communication we're sending is about us and not about Ben. Right. And this is a huge tip. Cause if you change this up and what you're doing, you'll change your outcome. Right. So how am I being a value to this person? Or is this about me and what I want? Yeah. I want to buy your house so I can be an, because I'm an investor. I don't like that doesn't feel good to me at all. Like right. You're rich and I'm not, you know what I mean? That's we just, we put these things out there, but how do I help them understand more about the right time to sell and, and not about a quick transaction.
(17:36): How do you play the long game a little bit and help them to know what's going on in the market. Why it might be a better time to sell or maybe why they should hold onto it. So the best thing, I was a great story. My, my realtor, ed bear, great guy here in Colorado Springs. Yeah. I thought about SEL my, my rental property two years ago. One of 'em. He goes, you shouldn't sell this that's that's the worst. I that's why he's a great friend of mine because he did what was right for me, told me what was right for me, not what was right for him. Yeah. For him. It's like he would've had that household in a day gone like to an investor, whatever they would've bought it. And but that wast best for me. How do we deliver communication that has the recipient in mind, that's the best video.
(18:20): That's the best email. That's the best postcard. It has the recipient outcomes in mind, not ours. That's, that's the main tenant of, of human-centered communication. And then when you do that in a video format and you can see that I care and you see that the gratitude or empathy, any, any of those types of things in a video, thank you for watching this video. Right. Thank you for calling me back yesterday. I really appreciate that. That goes a look. We just don't do it. And so human beings get triggered releases in our brains when other human beings, thank us, give us compliments, show gratitude, show empathy, these, our human characteristics of communication that are sorely lacking in our, in our society. And so when you see them, your brain receives them. It actually triggers a chemical response. That's in a positive. Yeah. And we're getting really, really in the weeds here about some like psychological triggering that in a good, but it's, it's just normal communication.
(19:24): But we got shoved in our basement. I'm still in there obviously for years now in this pandemic. And so we're desperate for our brains are desperate for it. And you can stand out by simply putting their need in front of your need. And you're gonna, you guys are gonna know what that is better than I do. You could, you could help someone understand, again, a complex thing about, you know, what, what's the lifetime investment of this neighborhood. Like they think they should hold on forever. Maybe, or maybe they can't sell, what is my problem? What're am I gonna go live? If I sell this house, right. That's one or the problems that put, you know, empathy, put yourself in their shoes and help them understand the problems that they're facing. If you get what you want they're what do I do? Right? Like yeah. Help them understand that you wanna stand out from every investor who's ever called me. Tell me why I should sell. Yeah. Besides, besides making money. Cuz that might not be my problem.
(20:16): Yeah. Right. It's like, especially in your case, right. It's it's kind of like the wrong, almost the wrong angle, right? Yeah. Want to find motivated seller leads online, but don't know where to start download our free motivated seller keyword report today. Adwords nerds have spent over 5 million this year researching the most profitable keywords for finding motivated seller leads. And you can grab these exact keywords when you download our report at www dot a words, nerds.com/keywords. I love that, you know, one of the things you said, it really stood out to me because you know, you were talking about, you know, sort of a, a value you have in your business where you say, you know, to be of value and abundance will follow, talk about doing what's in the, that, that other person's best interest. Similarly at, at, at AdWords there's we've been doing this kind of values where we've been really trying to define the values that we have. And one, one of our longest standing ones, very similar, we call like we, we say like we are holders of a UC. So it's like the ideal is you are doing what is in the client. Client's best interest, including when that is not in our best interest. Right. It's our goal to grow the client's funds. And if that means like, Hey, you should get outta Google ads or whatever, then we're gonna say that.
(21:43): Right. That's that's the value we hold. And I, I wanted to transit there talking about values because you know, you've talked about values multiple times, even in this conversation. And I know the values are kind of important part of how you run your business. I was, I was saying I'm in the middle of like a hiring process. And my old hiring process was I would go on Facebook and say, who needs a job? Because I just thought I could teach anybody anything. Right. I was like, I could teach work, work ethic. I could teach values. I could teach blah, blah, blah. And I don't really think that anymore. You can't teach work ethic. That's for sure. No, my God. Oh my God. So anyway you know, clearly I've got some, some work to do, so we've been really trying to build a values centered team in and I've been very lucky. The team that I have is, is wonderful. And they're, they're great at it. But whenever you bring in someone new it's, it's kind of like a little nerve wracking. Right. I don't wanna make the wrong decision. So tell me a little bit about how you think about values in terms of your business. Like how you, how you work with your team. Like how has that kind of informed your business journey? Because BA BA you know, I think part of the thing was like, you know, you've had this story of growing from basic, there's nothing to 20 million a year in, you know, annual run rate. I mean, it's this really incredible success story. How did values play into that? Like how do you think about that?
(23:04): They were the first thing that we did. So we wrote the values before we had a employee or a customer. So it's relationships, humility, service, flexibility, and fun are the core values of Baba. And we hire and fire by our core values. Predominantly if you get, let, go in our business is because of one of those things, right. You know, we're just Fitten, like, you know, and so, and that's rare, but it does happen. It has happened. I would tell you a great story. We hired our CFO. First hire we had at the business was Patrick MCD David. And he was this like young guy, kind of a, you know, rogue coder dude. And he was up against a guy who had had a lot of credentials. He showed up in a suit. The other guy did Patrick showed up in like flip flops and shorts. The first question we asked, cuz we had these core values on our website and we had sent them ahead of time to the two candidates. And we asked, asked, I was saying, we asked the first gentleman what he thought of the core values. He didn't even know what they were or didn't care. He was like, whatever guys then was like, like very dismissive, right?
(24:15): Asked Patrick. He's like, that's why I took this interview. I thought that was so cool that you guys had. So again, we hired Patrick if he had the worst credentials over the guy and he did, he was less credentialed, but we wanna care about people. Relationships matter, human beings matter, humility matters knowing that you don't know everything and that you need to be open to learning fun matters to us flexibility, we're doing a startup. You gotta change on a dime and, and new role with it, right? Like service service to our community service, to each other. These were the tenants that then we just, and, and people came to the business because of them. They still do. Moreover like most people say, man, I love, I saw your core values, humility. I've never seen a business have a core value of humility before. Right? I'm like, yeah, well, this is what this means to us.
(25:02): You know, we, we kind of define what we mean by humility and in service and gratitude relationships or relat is number one. And it's core to also what our product does. We feel builds better human relationships. So, you know, it's a big deal to us. It's center to who we are. And then we try and live that out. I mean, we're our big hair, audacious goal is to rehumanize the planet. And that has to do with like dehumanize peoples in different countries. In our own backyard. We, we, we humanize the planet through our software and the communication that we offer. But we give back to our communities and our country and our world through the resources that we create through the business. I think people want a why to, to it's more than making money. They want a, why they pick up the phone and make sales calls or a why to the 500 customer or service call they made for you.
(25:49): Right? Mm everyone, why am I making this code for your company? And I, cuz I could go work for 50 companies right now. Like we have this great problem right now. The great resignation is what it's called. People are leaving the business they work for, for other businesses. I believe people need to have more of a why they work here. Then there cuz if it's only about money again, back to company and company B, why do they choose you? Because they like working here and the people they work with and they feel like it's for a bigger purpose than just financial gain. I think that that point of retaining employees, because the employees like the people they're working with. Right. And Listen that, take this in, everybody's remote now. So if you're not together working together, how do we do that? Like how does, where is that connection point, right? Yeah.
(26:36): I, I think it's such a critical thing and it's it's, it's fascinating to me because you you've done it so deliberately from the beginning. I'm very jealous of that because we're, we're sort of, we're coming to it later, but with the same idea, right. We're gonna hire and fire based on values, right? Yep. Based on our values and have been doing that and just been difficult in some ways. And it's been amazing in other ways, but it's, it's a, had this really positive effect, but the follow on effect of that is, okay, now everybody who's here shares a kind of ethical, moral north star and they share kind of a, not the same world view. We're all different. No, no, not at all. But you're all kind of headed in the same direction. You value a lot of the same and it's very hard to put your finger on sometimes. But like I would say like the vibe is very different and it's, you know, vibe to steal the terminology from my, my you know, my gen, whatever they are Z you know, whatever brethren, but I'm not gen Z. I'm, I'm too old, but you get what I'm saying, right. It's like,
(27:43): I'm the most exer you've ever met in your entire life. I know. Yeah. Right. There you go. So yeah, me too. So it's like, I, you know, it's this sense of, there's a feeling of comradery and a sensibility to a group that really helps to cohere the, to, to get right. And it, it just has had this major effect on, on how we work and how it feels to show up to work. And I was saying like, part of the reason I'm I kind of struggle with hiring is I haven't had to do it very right. Yeah. Right. I don't get, I don't get, I don't, people don't leave. So that's I just think it's such a powerful approach. I don't know. I think great. Tell me, tell me a little bit about that's values. I'm very curious about, you know, you were saying you started with values, you did values before you had your first employee, which I love what's the story of Baba specifically, cuz you have had this like massive success. I mean the platform is great. It, it really was the very first kind of personal video form I remember seeing and I remember thinking, you know, how cool that was? That that was a while ago now. Yeah.
(28:51): I always compare, we're like a country music star that just played a thousand little bars and telling anybody knew about us though. That's how I feel about right. And yeah. Processes because we've talked, we've already hit on a couple different things. Right. We've hit on values. We, you you've hit on the fact that like not all marketing should be scaled. Right. You've hit on the fact that like, you know, personalization, you know, rehumanizing communication between people so critical to you guys. So like how does that play out in, you know, when you're starting a company and you're, you're hustling and you're kind of scraping to get by there's a lot of pressure to do those things, right? So we, ou know, we started the business cuz we wanted to give back to community in Africa. That's why, so like in 2006 is when we formed the business, my buddy Connor wanted to go live in Africa. Like we met this dude and he was taking care of these kids in his orphanage. And we're like, man, if we started a business somehow, then we could really sustain that community. And so we were always trying to figure out a business that could do that. And then Conner wanted to go live there. So long story, really long story, really short. We came up with the idea for bomb bomb. That would be better to send video emails and it would be emails. And we actually tried to buy a service app, but there was no service. This was in 2006, there was no phone. Like there was no iPhone was gen one. There was no camera in it. Like I know
(30:11): It's I, I mean, I really, it's funny cuz it's, it's easy to move past that. So that's so early in the, we all take for granted now it's like, yeah, John, just send a video and a text message. You could not do anything like that. None of that. So yeah. That's why we put a server in a closet and hosted the video on it. Like just kinda like this, like this wire frame thing. It was really, really bad, but we sent it out to like 200 people. Basically. We knew if we could scale our time, face to face time we call, we still call it face to face time. We called it face to face time before there was FaceTime. I know, you know, you know, face to face time for us was we need to scale our face to face time with clients, right? And then we could scale then our ability to deliver our uniqueness to those people. We knew if we get meetings, that's every salesperson's problem. Get meetings, get face to face, get a deal done. Right? How you collapse the time to do that scale. The now I was trying to scale face to face there. And so we sent one video to hundred people, Hey, how's it going? We got this thing going on. It was very evergreen and it's approach. So I didn't say your name in that video, but everybody loved it, but they loved that. They wanted to do that. What, what we had done, we were like, oh my gosh, this is the product. This would be great. We could build this business and then you could move to Africa. Yeah. That was gonna be the deal. If we could get five, if we could, if this business could create $5,000 a month, you could move to Africa. That's what we were trying to do. Yeah.
(31:43): Yeah. I love that. That's so cool. We quickly realized that this was much larger than that, that this, and, and so anyways, we, we started that business that was in 2006, you know, we, I quit my day job in 2011. We probably had, it took us two years to get 500 customers. I remember that like I had two wins at the time is brutal, but wow. When you ask about what keeps you going, it, it was the community in Africa because that's what we wanted to do. Like the business was always a means to an end to what the greater thing was. And that was before it was cool. Can I just say that, like now I feel like we companies attached to these things, but that's just who we are in is humans today. Then 10, 11 years removed from that it's we still are doing it. Now that community, we have another community that's tied to that one. We got a K through 12 school, we got a tractor. And then we're we got Columbia farms, woodworking shop. We're making like that. Community's 50% self-sustaining in Africa and it's taking kids off the streets. You know, we help the people who can't help themselves. That's what we want to do. That's what bomb bomb does as a company now. And now we had a really fun thing where we got the, the, those kids in Africa got to choose bomb, bomb employees to connect with and we matched. And we said, you know, if you wanna do this, we're gonna let the kids choose you. We're not gonna let you choose these kids. And then we matched whatever the be said, it's 15 bucks and we'll match. And of course that's feeding healthcare education for this kid whose parents are gone. Right. So that's a, why a bomb bomb too. And we do things with the homeless in our community with, with homeless families in our community with free healthcare for women in our community. So again, like, that's just, that's why we sell video products. Yeah. So it's, it's almost not about that. It's about this and, and that changes everything. It flips it upside down.
(33:42): Well, I love that. I mean, the thing that strikes me is I think a lot of people set goals or, you know, whatever they want to do this, whatever thing that, the big thing they want to do. But it strikes me that like one of the differences with yours is like, it's such a tangible, real world impact right away. You know what I mean? It's like, you can, it sure you don't have to, it's not theoretical. Like I'm gonna donate to, you know, whatever. It's like, I can picture it. I know where it is. It is so tangible and real. Oh yeah. We got, you know, back in the office, you got pictures all over what we're doing. Like you're like, look, you were the, a bomb bomb. We're we're helping people. Yeah. Period. It just, we are, it isn't something like marketing's contriving to figure out that we can then cuz no one even knows that we do this. We it's not even on our website dude. Like I'm not doing it so you can see how awesome I am. Right. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And I want, if you wanna do it, come do it with me.
(34:43): Right. It's not a marketing angle Zero. Yeah. No one even knows typically that we do it. Yeah. We didn't. Whenever I get this question, like why did you start bomb bond? Right. That's why that's awesome. I, I love that so much. I, and the other thing that strikes me about your story, which I love, and this is is on my, my, because I sort of looking at it in terms of somebody marketing to me and kind of this, this disconnect as you guys were, as my friend, Nick Peterson likes to say eating your own dog food, you're using the product to market the product. Right. And so people see it in action. And recently I've been getting this person that got their list or whatever, and they've been mailing me. So they've been mailing me little cards and the, you know, little card envelopes or whatever. And they're handwritten. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna open this. It's coming to my office. Yeah. And it's printed out, you know, the thing, they print out a letter and they say, Hey, it looks like you missed this Facebook ad. So I printed it out, mailed it to you. And I'm like, well, that's clever. It's funny. But your marketing, he's selling a Facebook ad course. And I'm like the fact that you have to mail me because I'm not looking at Facebook ads anymore.
(35:53): That's bad. There's a real disconnect. Right. I'm like maybe send me the, a direct mail course or whatever. You know what I mean? So it, I love when there's a real synergy between you're saying like, Hey, this thing that I just sent you, that you engaged with, you can immediately imagine how you could use it in your business. I'm curious. And we we'll kind of start wrapping it up cuz I know we're, we're sort of going a little bit long, but you know, there's so many different points in the relationship with the client, especially like you said, someone, you know, a company like Bob, mom's working in a lot of complex transactions where there's, there's not just, Hey, thanks for becoming a lead, but there's, you know, five different touch points along the way. And then there's post purchase and all, all this stuff are, is there like a certain rhythm or timing to when you've noticed effective kind of videos going out? Is they like, yeah, you wanna make sure like in the beginning and the end or you know, is there some kind of like pattern to where people use video in, in more, in more perhaps deeper ways in, in their kind of in real? Yeah. I,
(36:55): I think this is, I just 0.2 things real quick. Our two core competencies in our business are speed to video and make it easy and fastest end video and then guidance to success. We are the guide. So there's now other video companies out there, but I believe that none of them understand what you just asked better than we do. And we cuz we call those things, moments that matter. And we understand these moments that matter and along the buyer's journey or your customer's journey, especially in real estate, financial services, insurance, mortgage, title, all these different things, these complex things, we've worked with the thousand, hundreds of thousands. Now these people, so these little journeys, we try and create them with you, but we know what they are. So like the lead response is one on that needs to be personal. In our opinion, it should be personal. It can be what we call evergreen a video that's done once. And repeat it again and again, and again kind of depends on the, the volume and velocity of your leads.
(37:52): You're an investor. There's just not many. They should be personal. So if you're a volume is not greater than 10 a day or more, I mean really 20 a day in, in terms of leads coming at me, in my opinion, those should be personal over that. We can talk about an evergreen video. Okay. But then other things are like questions you get all the time. If you get a question, like every time I interact with a customer, I get the same question, create one video. That's what we call an evergreen video that you can use again and again, and again, either triggered from a CRM at some points. Like we can trigger that within a CRM experience. So once they hit this stage, like in a, in a loan, as an example, if you're doing a mortgage yeah. Once they hit acceptance, boom, video goes out, Dan you're accepted. Congratulations. I know this is a big deal. So here's, what's gonna happen next, blah, blah, B B. You'll also get videos from me along the way. As we do this experience together. Now your brain goes, he's talking to you, even though everybody gets that video because in a, in a, in a video I can say, Hey, you're congratulations. You're accepted. I can do that in a way that feels insanely personal. If I did that same, I did that same thing in a text email, your brain goes, Hmm, that's generic. They sent it to everybody. I'm to you instantly. Isn't that? Isn't that interesting. Right? Like everyone listening this call, you hear what I'm saying? Like you put that same idea in the text. It's generic. It's automated. If you do an evergreen video and say, okay, here's the deal. It didn't appraise for what we needed it to. So here's what we're gonna do next. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I used tone. I use, I slow down there because it's bad news, but now I don't have to have that phone call with you.
(39:43): I can send that video. Yeah. And then have the phone call and the phone call goes a lot easier. I'm saving you time. I'm building a better customer experience for you than my competitors will. Okay. This is why you're going to refer me in the future. Cuz you, the way I made you feel through this transaction going, I'm hitting back all of the things that we talked about, right? Feel trust, empathy, building relationships. So you can be referred and build a bigger business. Yeah. And that's the most and you, I mean, it strikes me as such a powerful channel and a medium for setting X expectations. So I think one of the best ways to build trust right. Is to tell someone what's gonna happen before it happens and then have it happen. And you're like, remember how it's all stuff was gonna happen. Right. So it just, it's such a powerful way to do that. I, you know, one of the, the reasons I was excited to do this call was I used to do a lot of video, a little personalized video and then sort of things happened to the business. And I had to jump into a lot of client work and I fell off it. And I, I view it as a real, like bad habit on my part. Like it's, it's just such a powerful relationship builder. When you do it, I'm gonna get back into doing it. If you are listen to this, you should go to bomb, bam dot and sign up for it. Now for people that wanna know more about you, Darren, you've got, you've got a book out. There's so much stuff going on. You know, bomb, bomb.com. So BOM B om, b.com is the software. Where else can people follow up with you? Like, is there a best place to follow you or do you want people to check out the book? We'll put all these links in the show notes. Yeah,
(41:18): I think LinkedIn's the easiest place to follow to find me. I'm not a, I'm not a huge social media person. It might surprise you. Maybe not like, I think there's other issues going on there, but I'm on, I'm on, I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah. If you friend me, I will follow you back. But I always just say just send a personal message. Doesn't have to be a video. But when you connect with someone, it just says, you know, send a message. Like send me a message. Cuz if you just blindly, I just say no because I don't, I don't know. Let's build relationships. I'm really into that if you can't tell. But yeah. The book is written by Ethan Butte and Steve Paselli are chief Angelist and our CML, they wrote two books. First one's called rehumanize your business. The second one is human center, communication, bomb, bomb.com/book. You can find both of those or, and Amazon of course I would really have, if you like anything remotely about what I've been talking about, you might like reading that book. It did hit wall street journal, bestselling book. So we it's really pod. I think we're on the something around, especially coming off the pandemic that we need to change some of this. Again, we need to pivot here folks like if you're blasting away and just banging away and not getting the results you want, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you that ain't gonna get better. That is not gonna get better. That is going to get worse. So if you think it's bad now keep, keep burning cash on that stuff. So, or, or maybe think about how you can build better relationships, increase referral business again, like get back to these tenants of human communication that like, we gotta get back to that, but you know, I'm pretty passionate about it.
(42:52): Well, I, I love of it and I just wanna say thank you for coming on and, and sharing that message with the audience. I think, you know, look, you look at it, purely mercenary sort of worldview doing this kind of follow up is going to increase the ROI of every single type of marketing you do. So if you wanna just grow your revenue there and by, by the way, in the process, making the world the kind of gentler place, I mean, I don't know about you, but I would rather get a video that's personalized than an anonymous text message or whatever. So Darren, thank you so much. I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to this and you really delivered so much. It was fun. It was good. Yeah. My pleasure, man. Thanks for coming up. Appreciate you. Okay. As always you can go over to AdWords nerds.com/blog or slash podcast or slash whatever to get all sorts of free information. The show notes for this episode and more. And we also have a free Facebook group, which you can get to@adwordsnerds.com slash group, go there, request to join. We would love to have you as always, I just want to take 'em all to say thank you for listening to this podcast. It really means a lot to me. And I hope you will be back next week until then this is Daniel Barrett signing. Cheers.
(44:10): This is the podcast factory.com.
