If you’re tired of “just run more ads” advice that drains your budget and your energy, this episode of the BizBlend Podcast hosted by Sana is for you. We dig into why relationship-driven sales systems can compound over time—while ad-only growth can feel like feeding a machine that never stops.

This conversation is for founders, sales leaders, and service providers who want sustainable deal flow, clearer metrics, and less chaos. Jaben Makings breaks down how he scaled a real estate investment business with zero ad spend by going where sellers already go—and why structure, not workload, is often the real burnout issue.

About the Guest:

Jaben Makings runs Onyx Investments, a real estate investment company built on partnerships with realtors rather than paid ads. He focuses on repeatable relationship systems, measurable sales activity, and structured time-blocking to reduce burnout.

Episode Chapter:

1. 03:06 — Why relationship-driven sales can beat ads long-term
2. 06:41 — “Go where sellers already go”: partnering with agents
3. 09:31 — The actual system: cold calls, texts, and on-market listing calls
4. 11:33 — Follow-up is the real money: why deals rarely close on call one
5. 19:16 — How to measure relationships like ads: talk time, conversations, offers
6. 24:04 — Burnout isn’t always workload: it’s often lost structure

Key Takeaways:

1. Build distribution where your customers already go (agents, partners, ecosystems).
2. Use a simple 3-lane outreach system: cold call, cold text, and listing-based calls.
3. Treat follow-up as the main job: most wins happen after multiple contacts.
4. Track inputs daily (talk time, conversations, qualified contacts) to control outcomes.
5. Reduce burnout with structure: 60–90 minute time blocks beat constant reaction mode.
6. Avoid “shiny object syndrome”: commit long enough to refine systems before pivoting.

How to Connect With the Guest:

Instagram: jaben.makings — DM the word “Sana” to receive his agent-calling scripts.

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Sana: Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I am Sana, And if you are here, you're probably tired of the same recycled business advice. That sounds good, but it doesn't actually work when you try to implement it or execute it. This show is different because we have real conversations with people who have built actual businesses. They have made actual mistakes and they have figured out what works when the Instagram highlight reel ends and it says, today's topic is one that's going to make some of you uncomfortable. And honestly, it should. We're talking about relationship driven sales systems versus ads and why one might beat the other long term. Now, before half of you click away because you've already spent thousands on Facebook ads, meta ads, or hired a marketing agency. Hear me out. My guest today runs a real estate investment company. But don't tune out if you are not in real estate. His business is built entirely on partnerships and relationships, not ads. Zero ad spend. And before you think this is some kind of anti-technology or old school networking pitch, it is not. This is about system design. It's about whether you are building something that compounds or something that stops the second you stop paying. And he is someone who will tell you straight up that he struggled in traditional environments, bounced between ideas for years, and had to learn the hard way. That commitment beats curiosity when you are actually trying to win. And he works with the real estate agents to move deals that most people can't, but the frameworks apply way beyond that. So whether you are building a team, structuring commissions, or just trying to figure out why you feel burned out even though you are doing everything right, this conversation's for you. So listeners, meet my incredible guest Jabin makings. Jabin, welcome to Beslan and I'm really, really excited for this one.

Jaben Makings Yes, I'm super excited to be here.

Sana Are super, super uh uh, I think our listeners, they are going to find this unbelievable. Uh, but but personally, I find some kind of relevance here, and I am able to make some logic out of it, because one thing that I can definitely say is, even if as a business person, I am intensively, I'm absolutely dependent on generating revenue through ads, especially through social media channels and all these ad marketplaces, I don't think we should be completely dependent on these platforms. Because, um, I mean, you don't know they are here today. Tomorrow. Maybe you are not able to even run your business or put some ads or run your page on these social media platforms. So it absolutely makes sense to me. But let's begin with our our first question. Um, I mean, you run a sales driven company, real estate built on partnerships, not ads. Now, those listening who are running ads right now or they're told that they should be what's what's the actual difference here between a relationship driven sales and buying leads and running ads?

Jaben Makings Yeah. So when I started Onyx Investments, we asked a very simple question what do most homeowners. Homeowners do when they decide that they want to sell? Right? They call a realtor. So most wholesalers and investors fight for the sellers. So they're sending out mailers to the sellers. They're running Facebook ads, Google ads. They're running TV commercials. We built Onyx by going where the sellers already go, which is to these agents. So that one decision is why we're scaling. So we positioned ourselves a little bit differently as

more of a cash offer resource for them and their clients. So that positioning really changed everything for us.

Sana Hmm. So you basically you went backwards. You went into the system, like how the entire flow or the how how the entire like in, uh, technical terms, sales cycle works here. That's what you actually focused on?

Jaben Makings Exactly. Yeah. Instead of instead of spending thousands and thousands of dollars every single month going to these sellers, we figured out that that most people already go to these agents, and that's free, right? Our average deal size is pretty close to a lot of people who go direct to the direct to the seller. So it's really nothing changes except for our ad spend. And another thing that's great about it for us is it's a little bit less salesy, right? So that was that's one thing about wholesaling is there's a lot of sales involved. Right. When you're going direct to the seller now we're going, you know, more business to business because we're reaching out to these agents who also own their own real estate businesses. And so it's a lot less there's a lot less sales involved and it's more numbers based. And you're talking to essentially another business owner.

Sana Absolutely. And I also think it's it's also kind of, you know, the word of mouth, uh, uh, thing like because you are building relationships here with these businesses, with these realtors. So yeah, that makes sense.

Jaben Makings Yes, exactly. And like and another great thing about this, if you're thinking about getting into real estate investing or wholesaling or starting any other businesses is with us. These agents consistently bring us deals over and over again. So when you're going direct to the seller, the odds of that seller being in a troubled situation where they need a cash offer again is very, very low. Like that's probably never going to happen to them again. Uh, the odds of these agents coming across another deal six months later is very, very high. So we get consistent recurring deals coming from these agents without having to spend any more.

Sana Mhm. Okay. Okay. That's kind of an interesting insight Steven. Um, so uh, let's let's get specific like, uh, this is actually focusing and highlighting the value of relationship. Um, so are we also talking about you like personally building relationships with hundreds of people or is this like, you know, uh, actually a system that other people can run, like, you know, because I think a lot of listeners, they hear relationships and they would think that, okay, so I need to be a natural extrovert who loves networking events. Like what does the actual system look like on a day to day basis?

Jaben Makings Yeah, that's a great question. Sana Um.

Jaben Makings I think everything, everything in life is learned, right? So there's some people with, uh, more natural ability to talk to people, and there's some people with a less natural ability, but I think it's all learned. So if you read enough books and you watch enough videos, you can you can naturally, you can become good at being able to talk to people, which you do have to get somewhat decent at being able to talk to these people. But don't worry if that's not

you yet, because you can learn it. Right? So we reach out to these, these agents, um, one of three ways. Right. So we have cold calling, we have cold texting. So we'll send out a mass text. And then number three would be we call about current listings that they have. So we'll call about a specific property. And I'll kind of break down each one real quick. So cold calling is very simple. The calls are fairly short. Um we call them. We're just trying to build a relationship. Cold texting. We send out a text to a bunch of realtors, and when they respond, we typically try and get them on the phones to talk to them and build a relationship. And then the third one, which is my favorite, is calling about on market properties. Right. It takes a little bit more time, but you build a much better relationship because you're able to actually call and have something to talk about. So when you're cold calling, we're essentially just calling and trying to provide value in any way we can, but it's typically a fairly short call.

Sana Yes.

Jaben Makings Whereas when we call these on market properties, we're calling about a specific property. So we actually have something to talk about. And we have more time to build rapport with these people. Right. So then after that we add them to our pipeline. Right. And then we, you know, not not very much money is made by that initial call. All the money is made in the follow up. I think in my entire career I've closed maybe one or two deals, uh, from that initial call. So it's it's very rare that you're going to get a deal from the first call. And it's the same thing with any, sales cycle, right? Most, most sales are made on the minimum of the fifth contact. So you have to be really a master at follow up if you're going to master one thing, master, following up and staying in touch with these people. And we'll follow up anywhere from one to four weeks, uh, with these people depending on on how active they are and the relationship that we build. And so we just continue touching base with them, seeing how we can provide value. And when they come across a deal, hopefully they think of us and they send us the property.

Sana Um, and uh, I mean, statistically, it's safe to say that, uh, obviously the third, third one is one of the most in terms of the numbers and output is the most, uh, is the best one for you. But of course, cold call and cold text. I mean, people would still say that, you know, it's it's an old school technique, but I would still say that, you know, it's it's actually one of the most fundamental part of the sales cycle to begin with, especially when you are doing actually B2B sales. So um, and yes, the follow up part, I mean, it's kind of, you know, like, um, Bible for me or, or um, like, you know, eighty percent follow up and twenty percent, uh, you know, cold call or maybe the first conversations, but it's it's all about the follow ups, like how, um, efficiently you can nurture that connection, that conversation, build up the rapport and, and establish that trust and of course, understand the pain point and all that. But yeah, that makes sense.

Jaben Makings Yes, exactly.

Sana Super. Um, okay. Moving on. Um, now we understand a bit of this. Um, let's talk about speed here. Um, like, one of the biggest arguments for paid ads is speed here. Like, you turn them on, you get the leads. Um, you you scale the budget, you increase the budget, you increase the suspense and you scale the results. At least you know that is what is is kind of expected in theory. Um, relationship building it, it starts low. So it's, you know, it sounds like

months or maybe a longer period of time before you see real ROI. So how do you compete with that when someone's trying to build a business quickly or they need cash flow right now?

Jaben Makings Um, I would I see where that makes sense with other businesses. Like it takes it takes a little while, uh, to get things going for relationships and and it definitely can um, and in some businesses. Right. And you turn on the ads and you start getting clients right away, um, whereas with, with us, what's kind of nice about it, like, if you need cash quick, uh, typically you're not going to have cash to spend on the ads, right? So you can get going on these agent deals. And what I've, What I've found is that you can create a bunch of volume, you can call a bunch of realtors and probably lock up a deal within thirty to forty five days. And if you start sending out direct mail to these homeowners, that's going to take months to see a good return on investment there. If you're running Google Ads, I mean, that'd probably be closer to, uh, the to the bottom of the funnel there. If you're running running Google ads and those still take a lot of nurturing and following up in order to get a deal right. Some might argue that's a little bit quicker, but overall, this is this is the best way to do it in real estate. Uh, because it's very little to no cash upfront. And the deals actually come a lot quicker than most people think.

Speaker 3 Mm mm.

Sana And I think our listeners will have this, uh, kind of pushback here that okay, maybe it's just irrelevant in a, in an industry, something like real estate. But I would still say that, you know, for even a, um, D to C brand or uh, uh, any any kind of business. I think that relationship building is such an essential part. I mean, if you are, because here for for running ads and everything, you need to know where exactly your target customers are. You know, if you are, um, into services or any product wherever or how exactly the flow, how exactly that discovery path is there for your leads, potential customers to find and search for your kind of service or product. I think that is exactly going to dictate how we're going to strategize here. Still, I would say that completely or entirely, depending on ads, it's it's not a not a not the best way to begin with. Even if there is a there is a quick need for having a cash flow. You still need to have good connections with our vendors, maybe with, uh, you know, different kind of stakeholders in there. Uh, because what if your marketplace or your platform is there today, it's not there tomorrow. Then maybe your entire business is getting completely affected because of that.

Jaben Makings Yes, absolutely. I agree, um, one hundred percent. And it really translates into a lot of other businesses as well. So yeah, partnerships go much further beyond, uh, real estate. And, and I could see it taking a lot longer with, with other businesses, but it's very fruitful and very profitable. And you simply just have to provide value and, you know, be a resource for these people. Um, and then you're going to get consistent deal flow. And I definitely think, like in other businesses, that paid marketing is important to add on at some point, right? If you want to scale it to be a massive business, I think it is important to add, um, at some point. Right. And you could you could scale it and have a successful business without it. But really, you just want to layer different things on. So if you're looking to break into a new industry and you don't have that much money, partnerships is absolutely the way to go. And as you start to get some cash flow and consistency, then start to stack on those other channels,

but don't don't try and do a bunch of different marketing channels at once. Just pick one thing and go all in on that. And then once you have that perfected and you have consistent income from that, then you can start adding on different marketing channels.

Sana Of course, of course. Here's something I think this is kind of a kind of something related to the control factor here. Like with with ads, we still have kind of control here. Like we can do the tests, we can measure, we can optimize, you know, exactly what you're spending and what you're getting. Like there's data, there's analytics on everything. Um, relationships once again, there's a kind of variability there. Um, the dynamics they can change, they can go good or they can go bad. Um, how how do you measure whether a relationship driven system is actually working or, or is it just kind of a more of an intuitive based or faith based marketing where you hope that, you know, it eventually pays off?

Jaben Makings Not at all. Right. I track everything down. I track everything down to the T, essentially the same as I would be if I was running ads like, the numbers are extremely important, because if you're not tracking what's working, then you're not going to be able to continue to improve your business. Right. So our biggest metrics and we track these every single day. Right. It's talk time. Right. So how many hours are we spending on the phones per day. Right. And talk time for us. We can track it within our CRM. And it's not It's not time spent on the dialer. It's time actually spent talking to people. Um. How many? Number two is how many conversations are we having? Right? How many people are we talking to every single day? How many qualified realtors are we adding every day? That's number three. And then those three are one hundred percent in our control, right? We control the inputs. And then these next metrics are going to be kind of our outputs. Right. And which we have we have all the numbers broken down. So we know exactly how many conversations we have to have. We know how many qualified realtors we need to have. We know how much talk time we need to have in order to get one deal right. And so the outputs are going to be total deal leads. So how many off market properties are getting sent to us. And of those deal leads how many properties are we actually offering on and out of those offers made? How many contracts are we signing and then how many deals are we closing? Right. So we have we have all of this stuff tracked. And it really helps us, um, understand what's working and what's not. And so let's say we're having like last week we things kind of slowed down a little bit. We had some good closings, but we didn't have anything under contract. And I was I was looking at all of our numbers, and I realized that we had only made four offers last week. Right. I'm like four of four offers is not not going to work. No wonder we don't have any properties coming in because it takes about ten offers to get one one contract locked up. So I'm like, guys, we need to be a little bit better on the phones and get get some more properties inbound that we can offer on. Right. Because if and I wouldn't have been able to know that that was the issue last week had we not been tracking these numbers every single day. So it's super crucial to track as many, um, key pieces of information that you can. You don't want to go overboard and be tracking every single little metric. But I would say, you know, good three to five, um, of your most important metrics per, uh, per marketing strategy.

Speaker 3 Yeah. That's right. Absolutely.

Sana And I what I realize is, uh, you know, this, and I, I'm a huge advocate for that. Like this discipline with recording those conversations, um, you know, tracking the stages of conversions in there, like, you have an actual visibility of funnel in terms of the realtors or maybe the stakeholders or the, the, the people with whom you are having the conversation, like the discipline is absolutely needed here to have a clear picture. So it is it is very safe to say that this is measurable.

Jaben Makings It really is. And and if you are thinking about getting started, don't let this overwhelm you. Like, man, I gotta track all these metrics. I gotta do this thing. I gotta do that thing. I'd say, just get started, start making the calls and and start creating the connections. Just go for it. And as time goes on, then you can start adding on these on these different things and start tracking the metrics. Like I didn't track metrics for probably my first six months, six to twelve months in business. I was just getting after it. I was calling people and building as many relationships as I could. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I was making up for that by taking action. So just take action, and a lot of this other stuff will come as you start to scale and as you start to grow.

Sana Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. So, uh, before we conclude it, um, I think this is also very, very important topic since, you know, we are here on this planet, it's not just only about business. You have mentioned before that burnout is often a structure problem, not a workload problem. Uh, so let's connect that to this topic. Like if someone's running on ads, they're constantly feeding the machine. More budget, more creative, more optimization. If they stop, revenue drops. It kind of sounds exhausting. It can be. But then relationship systems, they also don't sound easier than there is a there is a continuous effort in their human efforts in there. Um, so I mean, you are managing partnerships, you're maintaining connections, you're showing up consistently. Uh, so how is one less likely to burn you out than the other?

Jaben Makings So I've progressed into many different roles as the company has scaled. Right. So I was in originally in sales, right where I'm doing strictly sales. And then, you know, I kind of progressed to doing everything, and then I kind of jumped to a management role. And then now I'm mostly focused on growing the company as a CEO, working on hiring and stuff like that. Um, but as I moved out of sales and into more of a management role where I had, um, other sales guys underneath me, I actually got really, really burnt out. And it confused me because I wasn't working that many more hours like I was. I was working a little bit more, but nothing crazy, right? But what I realized after a little while was that I had lost structure. So when I was doing strictly sales, my day was time blocked all day long. Right? So I would plan to make cold calls from this time to that time. I plan to do follow up at a certain time. I would run numbers on properties. At this time I would make offers at a certain time. Right? And when I switched to being a manager, I was just reacting all day so people would bring me questions. Um, I'd be putting out fires constantly. So once I brought it back to sixty to ninety minute time blocks, that burnout actually disappeared. So it made me realize that burnout isn't always from too much work. Sometimes it's from a lack of structure.

Speaker 4 Mm mm.

Sana I think that explains its its it explains quite well. Um, and it makes sense also. Um, it

definitely requires structure. Um, discipline. I mean, it can be. It can be chaotic. It can can be messy. But there is a there's a structure in managing that mess as well. So that's what I realize. And, um, uh, and before we wrap up, um, even if our listeners, I'm very sure that they may have their own thoughts, maybe experiences, opinions, probably about the relationship, uh, driven sales systems versus ads, or they may have their own experiences if they would like to share that with you, if they would like to also reach out to you to seek more wisdom, what would be the easiest way?

Jaben Makings Yeah. If you guys send me a message on Instagram, um, just say, uh, Sana s a n a message me that word on Instagram, which my Instagram is Jabin. Uh, dot makings and I will send you over, uh, some of the scripts that we use to actually call these agents.

Speaker 4 Wow. Okay.

Sana Okay. That's generous. And, uh, yes, listeners, I'm going I'm going to make that easier for you. So I'll have all the links mentioned. So reach out to Jabin and, and, uh, um, I mean, this has been such, such a kind of a refreshing conversation and I think exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping for listeners, because there's no fluff, it's clear cut, no easy answers, just real talk about what actually works when you are trying to build something that sustains, that lasts. So if you are listening and you have been grinding on ads wondering why it feels like you're running in place, I hope that this episode probably gave you some things to think about. Yes.

Jaben Makings one one quick thing for your listeners to write. One thing that I really struggled with when I first got started, um, and business was something called shiny object syndrome. Right. So I was I was constantly Switching, uh, business ideas every couple of months thinking that the grass is greener somewhere else. So I had tried like a multiple different businesses, um, and everything kept failing. And it was just because I wasn't focused long enough. So the grass is typically not greener on the other side. So if you, you know, if this relationship business is not working for you, um, don't switch too soon. Make sure you stick with it, because it's going to be just as difficult running ads or doing anything else within the business, or it's going to be just as difficult if you go and start a different business. So you need to stick to one thing and just become laser focused on that for a couple years without switching things, without adding, um, different things, because that was that was my biggest downfall, was just bouncing around.

Speaker 4 Hmm hmm.

Sana And, uh, I think that's that's a very, practical thing to think about. But then also, you know, uh, many founders would say that I cannot afford to, uh, you know, kind of walk down continuously on that same path if I, if I am seeing failure, that this is going to definitely fail, I need to switch. I need to pivot to something else. What would you say about that? Like is there any specific time period that you think that as a founder or a business person, we need to work on the existing business model, see whether it works or not, and then maybe pivot accordingly?

Jaben Makings Yeah, I would say that it's it's a lot more rare nowadays than it is for people to fail from not sticking to something long enough, because a lot of people will stick to it for a few months and then be like, oh, this isn't working right? So you don't want to do that. You want to stick with it long enough to to make sure that it works. And ideally I would what I would do is find something that, you know, works, find somebody that has done it before and has proof of concept. So that way when you go into it and you face these struggles, you can tell yourself like, hey, this guy did it. Um, so I know this stuff works, so it's obviously just me. I need to either work harder or refine my systems and processes. But yeah, I would say the majority of people nowadays, you know, just think that it's not working, but in reality, they just haven't given it enough time, right? For example, when I started Onyx, I made a commitment to myself that I wasn't going to switch anything for the first three years. Right? I'm not going to jump around or try another business for at least the first three years. I'm just going to lock in and stay laser focused, right? And during that first year, like the whole first year, there were so many times where I could have jumped and made the switch because I thought it wasn't working, when in reality I either wasn't putting in enough work or my systems and processes needed refined, right? And there's been other instances where it's come up where, you know, we've had struggles even in the second year. Um, I'm like, is this working? Are my systems and processes good? Um, but you have to push through those times and battle through those times in order to come out on the other side, a much better person.

Sana yeah, that also makes sense. I also make sense. Brilliant, brilliant. Um, I hope we could we could go on and on on specifically on this topic, but we'll definitely have another episode on that. and for listeners as well, I think that's a very important topic to focus on. But for today, listeners, as I already mentioned, just refer to the show notes. Reach out to Jabin for sure. And thank you to everyone for tuning in to this episode of this blend. If this episode resonated with you, or maybe challenged you in some other way, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you hated it, honestly, that's fine too. Hit me up and tell me why. And I would rather have a real conversation than a fake five star review listeners. But until then, thanks for tuning in and I'm your host, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Thank you.