To be successful as a real estate investor or basically any other market, you have to know how to market. Marketing is the pulse of your business, without a pulse, you go flatline and DIE, not really, you’re dead, or you might as well be because you’re not doing anything in business. You may be a novice investor or a seasoned investor, but if you “act” busy, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing the things that count to increase your leads.
MARKETING IS LIFE. You are not a real estate investor, well, not exactly; real estate is just your boat, your means to become financially independent. In essence, you are a seller. Learn this trade well; study it day after day. You have to become the biggest trader in the world, but first in your farm area. Baby steps, let’s go!! You all insist on getting real estate coaching, products, courses, and books. Those are all good and good, but what about marketing? When does that come into play? Invest in some marketing books, they are a great help, even if you 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 helped me the most and I highly recommend it is… Guerrilla Marketing! That’s right, the way I jumped onto the scene was with various subtle but extremely creative and powerful guerrilla tactics that can help any investor, especially the novice investor. Oh man, I felt like a little kid on Christmas once I started making my phone ring non-stop!
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 hitting the streets, that’s right…you have to hit the pavement and I mean hard, hard like “slowing down” like in American History X hard. Awkward running around, well you better stay comfortable in your lousy life. To succeed you only have to do what it takes, remember, pain is only temporary but victory is forever.
Like I was saying, 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 18×24 yellow corrugated signs, a post stapler, and a red or black “KING” marker. You are going to write in 200 of them:
WE BUY HOUSES
QUICK FOR CASH
XXX-XXX-XXXX
Every week they will put up 50 signs in high-density areas, but use common sense, guys. Do not put these signs on a highway!!! 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 send out, you’ll get about 5 calls from the most motivated salesperson you 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, take the remaining 100 signs and write:
SPECIAL HANDS!!
HOUSE 4 SALE
MUST SELL FAST
XXX-XXX-XXXX
Prayed,
CHEAP HOUSE 4 SALE
4 BEDROOMS/ 2 BATHROOMS
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 Ninja Guerrilla and you need to have an ever-expanding Cash Buyers List. The beauty of this is that you will get 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 fast. 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’ve contacted some of the local wholesalers, try to get one of the deals 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 confident you’ll be closing a deal for them when you’re on friendly terms with all of these wholesalers. Wholesalers can be a bit hard to understand the first time, but trust me, they only care about one thing and that is to move a property and move it fast.
But wait, there’s more, I recommend you save all those phone numbers you receive so 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 on 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 store.
If you also want some great books, I recommend the following books:
– Guerilla Marketing by Jay Levinson
– Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz
– Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
– Do It by David Newman
