All Forum Posts by: Brian L.

YL= Yellow letters. There are two different direct mail types that RE investors here use- Yellow Letters and postcards. Yellow letters are more expensive (twice the cost), though have a much better (2x postcards?) response rate. They tend to be less informational and have less qualified/motivated leads than Postcards though. There are numerous discussions on yellow letters vs. postcards. I've decided to go with YL's for now.

SFR=Single Family Residence.

CRM=Client relationship management. Basically, it is a system to track your leads. A lot of people use excel and that is probably fine to start out. I'm assuming that I will get a large number of leads based on my YL campaign budget for the year and need a way to track leads and correspondence efficiently. CRM's can also track DM campaigns and stages for your leads. I am using Zoho because it is free and has a lot of features in the free version. I use salesforce.com at my 9-5 and it is instrumental in efficiently tracking leads.

While a CRM is a nice to have, at the end of the day, marketing and generating leads are most important. Without proper sustained marketing, there will be no leads to work. All my business infrastructure (website, business cards, squeeze page, llc, etc) is secondary to getting potential deals in the door. When I started learning about wholesaling, I found myself trying to learn a lot about other areas. I could have foreseen myself getting stuck in a cycle of continually trying to learn more and never doing anything with it.

The most important part of my business isn't a website or business cards or a crm-- it is getting out there and doing. Worst case scenario, I mess up a potential lead and don't close it. At least I'll have more coming in the door and will have more opportunities to close.

I went there and it's listed as "xxx". This is stumping me.

So, I spent some time today working on a few items ahead of my mailing late next week:

1. Company name: I want to stay away from the typical "We buy houses" or "We buy as is for cash quick" sort of company names. I am sure they work well, but my limited # of contacts at local REI clubs all have some sort of variation of these names. So, I'm looking to stand out.

Instead of focusing on what I do, I want to focus on what I can do for my customers.

So, I recently registered my LLC as "Allay Properties LLC". "Allay" means: 1. Diminish or put at rest (fear, suspicion, or worry).
2. Relieve or alleviate (pain or hunger).
Synonyms: soothe - appease - mitigate - assuage - ease - mollify

So, my idea is to focus more so on what I can do for customers, ie make them feel more at ease and alleviate their issues with properties. I come from a sales/marketing/finance background and once I focused on partnering up with customers and finding a solution for their issues rather than blatant in your face selling, my sales increased dramatically. I'm hoping the same will work for wholesaling. Who knows, but time will tell.

2. Script: Ahead of my initial direct mail drop next week, I ran through my script several times. I also tailored my CRM with new fields to capture all the pertinent questions from the script.

3. Phone system: I signed up for google voice a week or so ago, as recommended by a few here. I anticipate handling as many live calls as possible in order to get up the learning curve quickly. Since I work a fulltime job, that may not always be possible. So, I am currently working on a voicemail message and have taken cues from a few here. I wasn't happy with how I sounded after I wrote my own VM script. Sounded kinda fake. Will tinker with it and redo.

4. Squeeze page: As mentioned prior, I bought Chris Cho's squeeze page. After some initial user error, I finally got it loaded. The template looks great and I realize I know nothing about designing webpages. I put up some quick copy and I definitely need to refine it, as well as fix the layout.

You can take a quick look here:
[REMOVED]

By the way, does anyone know how I can make the address just "mysite" instead of "mysite/home"? I can't figure out how to get rid of the "/home".

I also spent some time with my CRM (Zoho), as the form on my squeeze page can directly populate my leads. Still trying to get it to work though.

5. Spoke to one of my contacts from my REI Club: I was complaining about the sporadic REI Club meetings and she directed me to www.meetup.com. Apparently there are a ton of specific RE groups on their that meet regularly in my area. Much more frequently than the typical once a month REI Clubs. Between REI Clubs and "Meetups", there is at least 1-2 get togethers a week. I still don't think I need to spend a ton of time building a huge buyers list as I can probably find a lot at these meetings.

Unfortunately, the largest "Rehabber & Wholesaler" meetup was last night and I missed it. Next time....

That's about it. Getting excited for the mailing and trying to get much more done in the next week or so. Want to make sure my squeeze page looks great in the interim.

@dev, I am banking my business largely on these two things. Once I get my phone skills to a decent point and can effectively work deals, I will widen my criteria and farm area. Until then, I need to cut my teeth on some leads.

Wow. Good group. Spent the past hour reading. Thanks Sean!!

Hi all,

I am in the process of starting wholesaling. After a previous stint financing a couple real estate projects in '08, I petered out. Recently, I've since decided to focus again, but this time in wholesaling. My intent with this thread is to keep me focused. I've been inspired by many of the success stories on various threads and hope being engaged on this thread will help push me through the trials and tribulations.

I've read a TON of posts and here's where I am:

Knowledge: Reading the BP blog, BP posts & BP Podcasts have been very valuable. I have also read every blog post by Sharon Vornholt ( [REMOVED]) & Seth Williams ( [REMOVED]). I have also read a couple books and recently very stupidly bought a $700 guru course in my local REI club on subject to. It was stupid because the course overpromised and really under delivered. There was no substance whatsoever.

Interestingly though, it was a good thing I bought this course because it was a good reality check: I can spend a ton of money on books/courses that may or may not be worthwhile, OR I can spend that money on marketing and gain real knowledge when I need it. I learn much quicker when a potential check is on the line. I recently heard that "Knowledge without action is entertainment". So, I'll figure it out as I go.

Marketing: I will be sending a monthly DM YL campaign to absentee out of state SFR owners. I plan to hit this group every month as a sustained effort over time. Initially, I will be sending ~1200 per month broken up weekly. My first drop will be end of next week. My goal is to effectively work as many leads as possible and will be testing my CRM, phone dialogue and negotiation. Once I get up the learning curve, I want to scale my marketing up much more. I plan to focus on other criteria as well.

Because there is a huge learning curve in too many aspects, I am outsourcing my YL campaign (thanks Jerry Puckett). Yes, I could do it cheaper myself, but I want to leave this aspect to someone who is an expert. I do not want to wait months and money to find out I had the wrong starting point (wrong list, wrong message, wrong font, wrong stamp, etc). I really admire the people handwriting many YL's weekly-- there's no way I could do that and learn the other aspects of the business well. My goal is to become successful at wholesaling and I am fully aware of the many difficulties. I want to accelerate my learning curve and suspect too many newbie's give up because there's too much to chew on.

Lead collection: I am using Zoho as my CRM. It is free, has a lot of features and gets some pretty good reviews. I use salesforce.com in my normal dayjob and Zoho seemed comparable in terms of features. Salesforce isn't worth the monthly cost for a one man shop, IMO. Zoho handles direct mail campaigns and lead tracking. What I like is that I can automatically attach correspondence via email and can really focus on my leads.

Website/Squeeze page: In the process of building both. I bought Chris Cho's squeeze page and for $67, it seemed like a no brainer-- no need to reinvent the wheel. I will be building a more detailed and elaborate website for buyers/sellers and investors.

Networking/Mentors: I've met a number of people at my local REI clubs. Some more helpful than others. I have one full time wholesaler that is willing to help me through deals. She and I farm different areas, so it seemed like a good fit. I also have a rehabber that wants to "help" me wholesale deals, in return for 1/2 fee. I may use him as I know that he is a local player and the education on tougher deals may be worth it. I also want to rehab, so I am thinking that I can get him to teach me to rehab for a first look at my deals.

Where does that leave me?
1. Need to learn the process a little better
2. Need to get comfortable on the phone talking to seller
3. Need to learn comps and rehab costs better
4. I don't have a buyers list, but am i wrong in thinking that in this market, a good deal will sell itself? I do have a few contacts from my REI club.

That's about it for now. Sorry for the long post, but hoping that there's many more to come.

Well done!!!,!

How many dm pieces have you sent so far?

When you are looking for deals, are you just looking for rehab deals? Or are you wholesaling the remaining potential deals that don't fit your rehab criteria?

I would imagine that you transition from the initial "hey, I wanna buy your house, so call me" to progressively more informational letters?

I'm new here but I don't know why this criteria would result in motivated sellers.