North Texas Opportunity for Beginner ?

[Voltaire Herrera]

One thing you learn when you listen to BP is that there are is opportunity all around you. However one thing that isn't as obvious to me is how to develop the eye for spotting these opportunities and expanding your skills to get the fullest out of the situation. I'm now two months into running a small business near Dallas, I continually see this and can't help but feel like I'm leaving money on the table...

I was struggling to find a job mid-covid and decided to try a side hustle of painting house numbers on curbs. After my first week and making more than any job paid me before I decided to double down. Now that I'm trying to grow this I've run into a few problems increasing revenue. The frequency of repeat business is almost non existent (curb numbers last 4-7 years). The next step I took was too increase the average sale, I started offering variety and designs for a higher price. That's working well, but not enough to achieve the levels I want. So the next step I took was to increase the number of houses I paint. I started flyering 250-400 houses a day as well as continually split testing flyer designs and copy for the highest conversion. 

By now you're probably wondering what the opportunity is... Well when I increased the amount of houses I flyer, I started noticing houses that had tons of flyers stacked up. Houses that looked abandoned. And houses with for sale/rent signs that looked not well maintained and/or vacant. Walking past 1000-2000 houses a week really makes these particular houses stick out like a sore thumb.

All I can really think to myself is that there is money to be made... whether it's by taking these run down properties and bringing them up to the value of their neighbors, filling the vacancies, or taking a hassle property off someone's hands... All I see is money left on the table.

I know that wholesalers will drive for dollars to find properties similar to what I'm seeing, fix 'n flippers are always looking for their next deals, and if a rental property isn't making money it's spending it.

I'm curious to hear from the BP community if this is something that you came across often, what actions would you take? Who would you reach out to? How would you take the fullest advantage of these opportunities? 

- Voltaire