$500 a month wholesaling budget

[Bobby Valcin]

I have roughly $500 to work with per month (including software) and I am looking to see what some knowledgable BP members might think would be the best of use of those funds. I'm also quite limited when it comes to time. My thoughts are as follows:

1) Hire a VA at about $10 an hour to work about 20-30 hours a month to do cold calling, send offers, follow-up, etc

2) Use Pat-Live or something similar to answer calls live when they come from direct mail marketing campaigns, callbacks from cold calling, etc.

3) purchase small focused lists like probates, evictions, delinquent taxes, etc. I also have a realtor that can get me just about whatever info I need from the MLS as well.

4) Prospective tools: Mojo Dialer, Freedomsoft, REIBlackbook or Propstream (recommendations on an all in one type of software would be very helpful), reiskip.com for skip tracing, Vumber.

The answering service will be about $20-$40 per month, plus the cost of each call. Total for the tools will be about $150 per month, the cost of the VA will be about $200 a month (20 hours). The remaining $100 or so would be spent on the lists. My business partner (the closer) will most likely be the one going on the appointments and I will be stepping in once the lead has been screened by the VA or the live answering service. I will also probably be doing a little bit of the VA's work since 5 hours a week may not cut it and doing some appointments.

This is all rough math and my numbers may be off. If you have any recommendations on some tweaks, better and/or cheaper tools, marketing ideas, etc, feel free to give feedback. Your time is much appreciated. I'm looking to get started sometime next month. 

[Bobby Valcin]

Originally posted by @Kase Knochenhauer:

@Bobby Valcin - congrats on embarking on this journey!

$500/month is totally doable to grow your business. However, it's not likely to go as far as you think.

I love that you are trying to use the $500/month to leverage your time. However, I'd wait to start leveraging until you get yourself and your business organized.

Here's my recommended steps:

1. Get a CRM --- find something that allows you to schedule followups, tag clients and send texts at a minimum. (Check out Podio, Liondesk, Follow Up Boss, and Chime) These platforms will be free to over $100/month.

2. Buy really good lists --- spend your money on the data before you start leveraging other peoples time. Lists are expensive and you will burn through them quickly. Enroll in Title Tool Kit or REBO Gateway so you can pull your lists anytime you need them. Cost of $1k+/year. 

3. Pay for A+ skip tracing --- you need the best data or your time is wasted. Skip tracing is not cheap and will quickly burn through your dough. Various providers will perform better for each list depending on where you pull it from and how it's formatted.

3. Leverage using technology (not people) first --- Find ways to leverage your time using programs and systems instead of people. Can you send bulk texts? Voicemails? post cards? etc. People cost a lot more.

4. Wait to hire answering service until you have proven lead flow --- With $500/month I would expect only a few inbound calls per month.

5. Keep $100/month for lunch money --- go to coffee or lunch with one investor per week for eternity. You'll gain much and get to eat food. It's a win-win.

Great feedback Kase. I appreciate you taking the time to provide that info. I think you are right. I need to see some results before I start offloading too many things.

I've decided to go with Podio Premium as my CRM which should address multiple technological needs. I do have to learn it or find a VA to set it up for me. It's tough to find a skip tracer that people are consistently happy with so I'll just have to try them out on my own.

On weekdays, I have about 30 minutes in the morning from about 7:15-7:45a (which may be too early) that I can do calls and about 45 minutes to an hour in the late afternoon (4:15p-5:15ish). Saturday would be the only day that I could focus on it for a few hours. I was thinking that amount of time would not be sufficient. Since people could call back at any given time, I thought it would be worth paying for the answering service (I think I saw one for about $20 a month). My understanding is that answering the phone calls live produces a higher percentage of deals closed. Even if it is just a few I think it is important that someone answers the phone. I am new to wholesaling so I am open to correction if you feel otherwise.

The lists are the thing that I'm a bit stuck on at the moment. One person says a site like List Source is great and the next person says it sucks. It has been hard for me to decipher, however, like with the skip tracing, I may have to just test some of them out. Based on previous threads concerning REBO Gateway, it looks like the results that people received were largely based on what part of the country the data was being pulled from. I'm planning to focus on Central Florida primarily.