Any information or advice is always welcome, as I am in a stage of immense learning and growth, and if there are any other Chicago folks present hit me up anytime!

I have followed the latter immensely as I work for a nonprofit focused on clean water preservation worldwide and it would not surprise me if Michigan was shipping billions of dollars of water to Arizona in the next few years. 

These are things that seem intimidating and halt the whole process but little by little hitting these topics on your way to finding and bidding and closing on the home helps immensely. 

They paid for my mortgage and I made money living there for 3 years.A 10 unit is immensely harder to purchase your first go around.

when someone tells me "ohh my friend took that course and it helped them immensely..."

So with a carrot site, you'll get leads by people finding your page either by organically searching for it, or by ads you are paying for that direct them to your site, where they will fill out a contact form, and you or a team member get in touch with them ASAP to get their info and qualify them (is it really a deal, or someone just kicking tires...e.g. what's my house really worth, but I don't want to sell at the moment).The short answer to your question, which I have immense difficulty doing...obviously :^)  is you *can* get very good leads with carrot, after your site starts to get traction, because the people filling out your contact form on your carrot site are seeking YOU out to solve their problem, and are therefore very qualified leads, where as leads from a list source like I've listed below, you're getting the same leads everyone else is getting and it's either timing, reputation or just shear dumb luck that one of them converts into a deal before someone else snaps it up.

Find out what topics regularly come up, and write your posts focused on that.What people usually call strategies is more "how can I manipulate the system  to get what I want".When people shift their way of thinking to "what can I do for people that will provide immense value to their lives" things flow better... but yes that IS a challenge in itself.

Thank you for letting me know, I appreciate it immensely! 

I worked with a couple of turnkey companies to get started and it has helped me immensely.

The difference was immense!