To be successful as a real estate investor or basically any other market, you need to know how to market. Marketing is the pulse of your business, without a pulse, you lay flat and DIE, not really, you’re dead, or you could be because you’re not doing anything in the business. You can be a novice investor or a seasoned investor, but if you’re “acting” busy, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing the things that count for increasing your leads.
MARKETING IS LIFE. You are not a real estate investor, well not exactly; real estate is just your vessel, your means of becoming financially independent. In essence, you are a seller. Learn this trade well; Study it day after day. You must become the biggest trader in the world, but first in your farm area. Small steps, let’s go!! You all insist on getting real estate coaching, products, courses, and books. Those are all good and well, but what about marketing? When does that come into play? Invest in some marketing books, they are a great help, even if they are in a different market, they all have great ideas and useful techniques to put to good use.
I use many different types of marketing strategies on a day to day basis, but the one that has helped me the most and I highly recommend it is… Guerrilla Marketing! That’s right, the way I jumped on the scene was with several subtle yet extremely creative and powerful guerrilla tactics that can help any investor, especially the novice investor. Oh man, I felt like a little kid at Christmas once I started making my phone ring off the hook!
Shhhh, don’t say anything, but what I’m about to share with you are some of my secret but not-so-secret techniques that helped me keep my phone from ringing off the hook. With this approach, you can earn $10,000 within the next thirty days if you start right now! Unfortunately, some of the strategies I used involved going out on the street, that’s right… you have to hit the pavement and I mean hard, hard like “braking” like in American History X hard. Awkward hanging out, well you better stay comfortable in your lousy life. To be successful you just have to do what it takes, remember, pain is only temporary but victory is forever.
Like I said, yellow signs, the oh so lovely 18″ by 24″ yellow corrugated plastic, how I hate you. Two ways to use them, the first is to attract sellers and the second is to attract buyers. Like anything else in the world, this is a numbers game and you have to be persistent. Every month, if your budget allows, try to buy 300 yellow 18×24 corrugated signs, a post stapler, and a red or black “KING” marker. You’re going to type in 200 of them:
WE BUY HOUSES
FAST FOR CASH
XXX-XXX-XXXX
Each week they will put up 50 signs in high density areas, but use common sense guys. Do not put these signs on a road!!! You are definitely going to cause a car accident, but the most important thing is that you will not receive any calls. For every 50 signs you submit, you’ll get about 5 calls from the most motivated seller you’ll come into contact with, but in the end it’ll only result in one or two deals, which is pretty cool.
At the same time, grab the remaining 100 signs and write:
HANDY SPECIAL!!
HOUSE 4 SALE
MUST SELL FAST
XXX-XXX-XXXX
Prayed,
CHEAP HOUSE 4 SALE
4 BEDROOMS/ 2 BATHS
MUST SELL FAST
XXX-XXX-XXXX
Most of you at this point are going to complain, “But Lou, I don’t have a house to sell, do I?” After I’m done beating you up, I’ll remind you that you’re a Guerrilla Ninja and you need to have an ever-expanding Cash Buyers List. The beauty of this is that you will receive tons and tons of calls, I mean tons. About 40% are tire kickers, 40% retail buyers, 10% wholesalers, and 10% legitimate CASH BUYERS!
So once you have a deal under your belt, you can quickly call and email cash buyers to sell it quickly. And since you’ve placed all of these signs in the same area, you’ll have no trouble matching them to the property they want. Also, since you have contacted some of the local wholesalers, try to get one of the offers they have and a joint venture with them. It’s the fastest way to earn $1,500 or more for being the matchmaker between the two of you. And the more cash buyers you talk to, the more confidence you’ll have to close them a deal when you’re on friendly terms with all these wholesalers. Wholesalers can be a bit difficult to understand at first, but trust me, they only care about one thing and that is moving a property and moving it quickly.
But wait, there is more, I recommend that you save all those phone numbers that you receive so that you can market them in different ways. It doesn’t matter if the calls come from Seller or Buyer signals, but save them and you can trade them too. But those strategies are for another time. Anyway, this was a quick but simple overview of one of my favorite guerrilla marketing methods, the yellow sign.
Health!
PS if you want to get cheap signs I recommend you go to signwarehouse.com they are very cheap there compared to your local sign shop.
If you also want some great books, I recommend the following books:
– Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Levinson
– Word of mouth marketing by Andy Sernovitz
– Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
– Do It by David Newman