Begennier with Large Budget Need Advice on How Much To Market in The Begenning

[Kim Joppie]

Hello All,

So I have a somewhat gold plated problem in that I have saved well and worked hard and I tend to believe in advertising and am willing to spend a good amount of money on it. So I am not afraid to spend serious money in the beginning to get the phone ringing in my new wholesaling business. But my question is, how much is too much? Its only me right now and I live in an area where you must pull probate leads from the courthouse (divorce leads too)...so lists are my biggest and fastest way to go however I tend to beleive the harder stuff (like probates) will yield better responses b/c its grueling work to retrieve and cultivate a list...but honestly I need more, faster and I would love some advice on what to do next. Here is what I have out in the last two weeks:

1st Mailing to Probate list of 250

1st Absentee owner list w/ 50% or better equity: Jumbo Postcards to 1000

Driving for Dollars letters sent to 50

(Bandit signs are being shipped as we speak)

I know this doesn't seem like a lot but its A LOT of work for just one person to get the probates and driving for dollars lists. Help!

[Darrell Shepherd]

First off, you can piss away some serious money on marketing if you dont follow up on the leads and/or cut the dead weight right away. Are you ready for the calls? Know what to say? What is a big budget? Mine used to be $4k/mo, I'm spending less than $1k/mo now, but mainly because equity is hard to come by in my town so I'm more into buying from banks than individuals right now, and I rehab them so only want about one a month. Your strategy will depend greatly on your market and appetite for working all the time.

You're on the right track, but you need to expand your motivating factors to get more volume if you're having trouble with that. Probate is one source, so are foreclosures, delinquent taxes, out of state owners, etc. You are looking for a problem you can fix more than a house. You hear "motivated sellers" a lot, but most newbies dont quite get what that means. There has to be a reason for someone to sell you their house for a substantial discount, that's what you are marketing towards. Not preaching, sounds like you get it from what you're doing so far.

Depending on your message, your phone should start ringing pretty quick on a 1000 piece mailer. Do you have a website? OnCarrot does mine and they've got their act together for $30/mo no contract. IMO you should give sellers the option to go there and check you out before calling, I got almost as many leads from my website as I did from calls on my last mailout, and they were definitely driven by the post cards. You can also set up an Adwords campaign and get some leads that way. I was paying about $30/per lead ($2+/- per click) when I had mine going. Pretty nice since you can target that one close to home. Probably need to set that back up now that I think about it.

You've got plenty of time right now because your phone isn't ringing. Not sure what you'll get in San Antonio with 1000 post cards, that's a pretty hot market, but if you mail out some volume you are going to get busy pretty fast.

You should also be working with a realtor you can send some business to for money or favors. You'll get plenty of people calling you that you cant wholesale that would make good candidates for them.

You're only doing about 10% of the business right now, I wouldn't worry about outsourcing until you're a little more in. Real hard to train someone how to do something you've never done before. When you've got leads coming in, houses to see, offers going out, houses to sell, closings to attend, etc, etc. etc. you'll run out of time and will want to add some people for the easy stuff. Cant outsource buying, though, that's where all the money is made.

Keep your expectations in line, too. Back when I was working foreclosures full time I would talk to 100 people to see 10 houses to buy 1. I imagine those numbers haven't changed much, depending of course, on how good of a deal you are looking for and if you are good at getting people to like you...

Best of luck, you are definitely doing the right things so far!