Beginner, Experimentation, and Future Reviews! + Adwords Nerds

[Matthew R.]

Hey, Everyone! 

      I'm excited to join the forums. I've been reading posts for a couple months now as well as listening to different podcasts, and I wanted to join in now that I have started my market methods and committed to the endeavor! I'm going to give a short bio on me and why I got into wholesaling, how I'm going about it, and my goals for the next year. I will also be doing a continual review on my success (in detail) with my two main marketing methods - direct mail and online marketing. 

      I met a gentleman at my church who has been doing wholesaling, rehabbing, short-sales, etc for 15+ years and is also a licensed broker. I didn't have any interest in the business at first but I have come into a great deal of interest after regularly talking with him about it for the last year or so. I actually became the most interested due to him and his wife's hospitality - they rented the second floor of their home out to my wife and me just a couple months after they got to know us. We were approaching our finals weeks at our University and our lease was coming to an end - so to save us the stress of trying to find an apartment in the middle of that (we had a very limited budget,) they offered for us to stay with them for a month or two for free. Two months later, they came to us and said, "We love having you guys around! You are welcome to stay if you would like." (Note: the top floor is a completely separate apartment, so we only have to interact as much as we want. They also love dogs, so we were able to get a puppy like we had been hoping to get for about a year.) We ended up starting to pay rate three or four months later, which even that was severely discounted from typical prices in the area. 

      After spending a night with them every couple of weeks having dinner and playing board games, I became more and more interested in the business. Important note: I would NEVER have trusted anyone as a coach because of all the BS out there if I didn't have a personal relationship with them. But they offered me to join their class about six weeks ago to get a feel for free. At the same time as this was happening, I was actually in the process of changing majors in college (I'm a junior at JMU in Virginia,) and had dropped a few courses, so I felt I had some time to commit to the endeavor until my next semester starts. I signed on with them for two years and will be splitting profits 50:50. Though this is a steep commitment, they don't charge anything up front, and they have 15+ years in the business, have a license, and are part of an East Coast Mastermind Group that does continual market analysis research. I also have 2 years of construction experience from high school and absolutely no knowledge of this business before recently, so I could use a mentor for awhile getting up and running - especially with details like taxes and different types of contracts other than traditional assignable and buy then sell. All of those factors, PLUS AND MAINLY BECAUSE OF the personal relationship, I felt was enough for me to commit to a partnership for a little while. I know their character and truly trust them - which is not something I could replace with any other factor. 

      I currently have about $1,500 dollars of expenses in my personal budget and make about $2,000 a month between both my wife and me working (I work in an emergency room, she as a lay helper at a counseling center,) so I am budgeting about $500 a month to marketing methods aside from Adwords Nerds, which I will talk more about late in this post. We have paid cash for our education up until now, so we have zero debt and will graduate with our degrees next year debt free. We have both of our cars paid off as well and keep monthly payments uber low on everything from groceries to insurance. 

      Here is where I am now: I am mailing out my first direct mail marketing campaign this week. I have signed up for Buyers on Fire (back-office management program with sweet spot locator, lead capture numbers, pipeline management, and comps calculator.) I am sending out 130 hand-written yellow letters to absentee owners and tax-delinquent (multiple levels of motivation,) as well as approximately 500 handwritten notecards to individuals from inheritance, divorce, and a couple other lists (that I got from Listability.) I have about $350 into this marketing strategy so far including the program (monthly,) lists, marketing supplies (envelopes, stamps, yellow paper, pens, etc.) I intend to automate this marketing strategy ASAP with income derived from it's deals using something like yellowletters.com. Mainly because my hand hurts from all that writing! 

      My second marketing strategy is online. I know this is where I may get some newbie criticisms for spending quite a bit of money already, and I hear that. I felt okay about it, and I am hoping that if signing up for a program doesn't turn out well, I can at least benefit others by helping them to avoid doing the same. I signed up for the AdWords Nerds boot camp today. It is a 3-day seminar for people to start pulling in leads and managing them efficiently. I heard of them on Investor Grit's podcast and spent a week or so trying to find reviews and additional info on them as well as communicating via email. I wasn't feeling great about it, until today. I had set up one of their "strategy meetings," and actually spoke to a representative of the company today. I felt weird that there were virtually no comprehensive reviews by individuals anywhere out there, so I wanted to put a freshly updated one out as I go through the process. 

       I spoke with a gentleman named Louis DeMedici, who is one of the 14 core employees at the company (minus virtual assistants and admin personnel) according to Lou. He was personable, transparent, and super helpful - everything a good marketer should be but also someone you can trust with your business. I asked them several questions I thought might be helpful for Bigger Pockets. Louis stated they bring on about 30 individuals at a time for the boot camp, and they regularly are coaching between 8 and 16 individuals outside of that. This is their normal COACHING client load. I asked this because I was really nervous about investing in some giant corporate company that was all cloak and dagger, so I tried to get a peg on the character of the company. The initial cost is $1,500 dollars up front and $2,000 after your first deal. I asked them, "what do you do if the first deal is only $2,000 in total? (Not because I expect that, but because I wanted to get an idea of the character of their business.) Louis stated, "we would find a way to work with you so that you can make some money and pay us the rest later, we would figure it out on a deal to deal basis." I asked him several more somewhat probing questions, and he was super helpful with all of it. By the end of the conversation, and knowing a lot more about the company, I felt better about trusting them. Maybe I'm just a gullible newbie to the field, but I do truly believe there are some good companies out there that will be helpful and want the best for people. I just hope I found the right one.

       My goals for the next month or two are to pull in three deals by Christmas. I have access to around 950 buyers in the area through my partner, so I'm not too concerned about that side of it - he will also be going on the first couple deals with me to help me get my bearings with the sales part. I'm in this to help people, and very much agree with the philosophy I have heard on the Investor Grit Wholesaling podcast which is only trying to help people find the right option - if that is me, great. If not, help them to list the home if that's the best option, etc.       

      Year-goals are to double both my wife's income and mine (34k gross together) within 6 months, and average 4 deals a month by the end of next year. The average deal in my area is doing between 5k and 10k, so bringing our income to 60k by the end of next year with 20% of the take home (50% to my partner, 25% to reinvest in marketing and automation, and 5% in donating) would require about 4 deals a month. That's the start I'm hoping for. 

      This is all new to me, and I welcome your feedback! Check back in for periodic updates on my experiences, success and working with Adwords Nerds. Please try to be constructive with criticism if you must, but definitely help me any way you think I might need some insight :) I value your experience and wisdom as a newbie!

Sincerely, 
Matthew