Episode 4: Marketing to Sellers
Sep 21, 2022Show Notes
Welcome Back to the Discount Property Investor Podcast episode number 4! Thank you for sharing some time with us today. In this episode we dive into the heart of any business, MARKETING. Dave and Mike discuss the quickest ways to start marketing for wholesale deals. Get started in your wholesaling career today by letting the world know that you buy houses.
Be sure to visit The Discount Property Investor online at https://www.DiscountPropertyInvestor.com to see our current inventory as well as find more info about The Discount Property Investor Podcast. Like and follow us on Facebook and Linked In or reach out to Mike and David at [email protected].
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Episode Transcripts
Welcome to the discount property investor podcast, where we show you how to buy real estate at a discount, so you can create wealth over time and income today. Our mission is to share what we have learned from the experience of others and help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate the discount investor way. Thanks for tuning in.
Mike: Welcome back to the discount property investor, your host Mike Slane, and David Dodge here. Thanks for joining us. We are excited here to dive into marketing. I just want to ask you to check out the discountpropertyinvestor.com. There you can see all of our — properties that we are wholesaling here in the St Lois market, as well as explore the — there is a link to freewholesalecourse.com. So there you can see the whole course laid out for you on how to wholesale.
David: Tons of great information on there, its free and — we break down all the core components of wholesaling, show you what you need to do to get started, check it out, freewholesalingcourse.com. Mike: But today though I’m excited because I feel this is really the heart of wholesaling. It really is the first time we really get into the meat of — your kind of day to day grind and what we are going to be doing and that’s marketing. So —
David: The meat and potatoes.
Mike: That’s right man, meat and potatoes, that’s the good stuff man. Veggies on the side. Alright so let’s talking about marketing a little bit. Today we are going to cover five different ways that you can market or kind of get started in marking, pretty simple stuff, nothing super advanced. Each one of these we can go into more detail on, and we will in future episodes, probably going to spend an entire episode on each one of these.
David: We will absolutely. But I do want to interrupt for one second Mike. I want to remind everybody that as a wholesaler, you are in the marketing business. Real estate just happens to be the product in which you are buying and selling. But you are in the marketing business, so this is one of the most important, the most important aspect of real estate investing as well as wholesaling because — you make your money when you buy, and you get paid when you sell. So if you are not buying right, you are not going to be successful. If you are not marketing, you are not going to be able get the leads coming in, to make enough offers to be able to buy right. This is a numbers game folks, so if you send out ten letters and you don’t get a call and you are wondering why, it’s because you haven’t done enough marketing so.
Mike: Because you sent out ten letter.
David: Because you send out ten letters, we are sending out, you know — thousands a week at this point. But you can build yourself up; you don’t have to jump in at those volumes. But you know, the main thing is get started today and start marketing.
Mike: That’s a great point. I think I take it for granted because one of my favourite quotes from [00:03:01.15 – inaudible] class — the teacher said, “No matter what business you are in, you are in the business of marketing.” And again, I don’t know who that came from, credit to whoever it is.
David: It’s true though.
Mike: It is, and we are in the —
David: Sales and marketing.
Mike: We are in the real estate business but marketing is really what we do.
David: Marketing is 100% of what we do, absolutely.
Mike: So let’s get started then, the meat and potatoes. So, the first way that you can get started is — those ugly signs you see on the side of the road that say, “We buy houses.”
David: Man they’re ugly. But they work.
Mike: Bandit signs, so yeah — we like ours extra ugly too, so we use yellow and green and —
David: Ugly it up, but those work. They work great and — if you are new to wholesaling and you have a tight budget, I recommend starting with bandit signs. You can buy them online for a few dollars apiece, you can buy them printed already with — “we buy houses” or “sell your house fast” with your phone number. Or you can go even cheaper and just buy them blank, go up to the store and get a big thick market and write on there yourself. Or even cheaper you can just find cardboard boxes and cut them out.
Mike: No matter what your budget is — there is no limiting factors.
David: No matter what your budget is — there is no reason you can’t start doing bandit signs and you know, on this topic just for one brief second I do want to say I know a guy that has a really tight budget, and he uses cardboard boxes — he gets wood stakes, like — he uses the paint stirrers, the ones you get at Home depo. He staples the cardboard to those and — or he will take the keyboard and hold — tack or staple them into telephone poles. He is getting deals off this, so now that he is doing deals, he has more money to reinvest into his marketing. But regardless, bandit signs are a great way to start; there is a couple of different types of bandit signs. You can do your typical ba
ndit sign which is just stuck on the side of the road typically at exit ramps. Or intersections within the city, you can also staple or tack those to telephone poles. If you are going to do that I recommend you get them up a little bit higher off the ground to where they are going to be harder to take down. As well as bandit signs on wheels which is — primarily advertising on the back windshield of your vehicle or — other people’s vehicles. Bandit sign on wheels is actually a program that you can buy. Mike: I was going to say — we don’t want to — I mean we have to mention its — Rueben Perez.
David: Rueben Perez, I met him just about two weeks ago, super nice guy.
Mike: So he kind of partnered up with Damen [00:05:37.06 – inaudible] the owner of [00:05:39.24 – inaudible]
David: Absolute
Mike: They got a great program, so if you are interested in doing that — check it out.
David: You don’t have to use his program, but I would recommend it, I personally use it, I think you are using it, it’s a great program.
Mike: But the moral of the story is, you get a telephone number, and you put it on the back of someone’s windshield. You don’t have to use — the sign on wheels program. Basically you get a whole bunch of different GOOGLE voice numbers or whatever numbers you want to track where the leads come from. Then you compensate those drivers for having that advertised on the back of their –
David: So number one, bandit signs guys. They are a great way to start, they are cost effective, you don’t need a ton of money, and they work, they generate leads ok? Number two, direct mail. Direct mail, I think we mentioned this in previous episodes. It is really the majority, or I should say the main way that — wholesalers are marketing in today’s market. Anywhere between 70-90% of all leads I would say are coming from direct mail. There are lots of different ways to go about doing direct mail. Obviously postcards and letters are going to be your main ways. And as far as — as far as getting lists to mailto. Because obviously you are going to need a list to mail to. We recommend either going to listsource.com, or listabilit. Both of those sites are really great for generating lists. Again, don’t over think the marketing — whenever it comes to finding motivated sellers. It is very simple, I always say if you are going to start, start with vacant. Start with — non owner occupies. And — you got a couple of others you want to add to that Mike?
Mike: Yeah list ability, of course they have a whole bunch of them T’ed up for ya, — All the things they show ya, high equity, this and that. So it’s really one of those things where — I honestly don’t think it matters as much — what list you’re choosing or what — I meant what your selection criteria is. As long as you just start doing it. That’s the key. The second thing i would say on this list is building your own list is always going to be better than the list that you buy, but I might be getting into a little bit more advanced. But an easy way to do that when you are out driving around you see a vacant house, write it down and figure it out and make sure you get something in the mail to those people direct.
David: Driving for dollars.
Mike: Driving for Dollars, that’s right man. There is a term for all this stuff.
David: That’s right, driving for dollars is another great way to market. It’s a little bit more intensive because it requires a little bit more work. There is an app actually that helps you with it. I think, have you ever used it before? Or did it not work? I have never used it but I’ve heard about it. I think it’s just called driving for dollars. But either way, driving for dollars is very, very simple guys. Drive around; look at properties that you think would make a good investment. Doesn’t have to be vacant but vacants typically make that list pretty easily. Write down the address of the property and then you can go to your local tax records which are all public information. Then you can figure out who owns that property. Maybe even find out if they have a different mailing address and send them a letter. When it comes to writing letters or even sending postcards don’t over think it. That was one of the things that when I first started, I kind of stumbled across. What do I said? How do I go about doing this? Just say who you are and that you buy properties for cash. Give me a call, put your phone number, your e-mail, your website, you don’t even need all that really, just your phone number.
Mike: There is no perfect mail piece. Get it out there; get your message out there.
David: Exactly. So — when it comes to driving for dollars — create your own list. You can buy your own list from direct mail —
Mike: Then when you are getting your own mailing, I would say start with whatever budget you have. If it’s small, start doing it yourself. If you have a bigger budget, I would recommend you use yellow lettering HQ we have a link on freewholesalecourse.com. Follow that link and you get a discount on I think it’s 55 cents now per letter.
David: They’re great.
Mike: Yeah.
David: Yellow letter HQ is who we’re using. We have used a couple of other services in the past. Personally I have used click to mail and go big printing. Nothing against those companies, they are great companies. We just really like Yellow Lettering HQ.
Mike: And there is plenty of them out there so again, don’t be tied to one. Anyways so let’s keep on — the next topic I would say is ads. So — where can you place ads? Well you can do it online, so there is free, the free way which would be Craigslist; I don’t remember what it’s called anymore. Backpage — then there is like the EBay one which is changed —
David: EBay classified.
Mike: Yeah, there is a bunch — free online stuff, also like thrifty nickel, your local papers — a lot of them have some of the online stuff where you can do it for free. And there is also paid stuff so offline going directly to newspapers. We — I have done — I have had a couple of deals, pretty good success in — an area I used to live in Oakland’s, a North county area. I had a couple of pretty decent leads come in through — I think it was a $10 add in the monthly add. So online offline —
David: I know people who print up — they print up postcards, they don’t even mail them they just print them up. They will go to their local grocery stores and they will put them on the bulletin boards, or if they are anywhere like — say a restaurant or a gym or something like that and they have — the little boards they will put the add up there. When it comes to those marketing pieces, again they are just so simple. We buy houses for cash; I buy houses for cash, close fast, buy as is, and phone this number. That’s it, don’t over think it, and let people know what you do. You buy homes. And how can they reach you? Do you have a phone number? Give them an e-mail address, give them a website. You can — people leave business cards behind when they go to lunch, some people drop them on the ground. Other people will tack up their little postcards to those bulletin boards so –. When it comes to adds there are lots of ways to do it online and offline. Mike kind of mentioned some of the free ways online. Once you have more of a marketing budget — then there is obviously paid ways to do online advertising, add words and Facebook marketing are probably two of the main ways you can do online ads. But, there are tons of different ways if you have local newsletter or — there is just tons of ways so you can look into your own market and figure out what the best solution would be for you, with the online space. Number four with marketing I would say would be networking. These aren’t even really necessarily in order. Number four would be networking — local AREIA’s, BNI’s, Mike you do a lot more of this than me, I am going to let you take the lead on this one.
Mike: Sure, so — A.R.E.I.A’s I think we have touched on in the past as well. So go online and check out meetup.com — it is a great way to find your local AREIA’s, visit as many as you like, find one that works for you. Go to all of them if you, we got, we are lucky here in St Louis we got multiple good ones.
David: We have tons of them, there is like 20, it’s crazy how many of them there are here.
Mike: And they are good ones too, several really good — just lots of attendance, lots of participation — go out there and do that, and that’s a great way in my opinion to sell your deals or to network with other people who might buy your deals. As far as finding your deals, — there is two other ways or two other major networking things that I consider. One is BNI, I am a big proponent of it, I am in a group here in St Lois, that’s called Business networking international. I meet weekly with these people and — the whole purpose of that is to exchange referrals so to give referrals to the other business owners in that group.
David: I love that you are in BNI. Man, you get a lead probably every two weeks?
Mike: Yeah.
David: From BNI.
Mike: It’s a lead, they are not always great, but again — hey man there is people out there looking for deal on houses for me. So —
David: It’s just a great way to Network you know?
Mike: The other one is the Chambers? Like the Chambers of commerce. Local chamber of commerce. I haven’t has as good a luck with that, but again, it’s another way to get out there and meet a bunch of business owners.
David: I should join a chamber.
Mike: Yeah.
David: That is a great idea. I never even thought of that.
Mike: So again, there are tons of ways to get out there and just get your message out there to other people, other business owners. Letting them know that you are in real estate, you buy houses. It’s important to keep it going.
David: Depending on your market you may have a lot of R.E.I.A’s, you may not. I had just mentioned a couple of minutes ago, here — we have a ton of R.E.I.A’s in St Louis, but not all of them are massive groups like — we have one of the largest R.E.I.A’s in the Midwest here, with over 3000 — but a lot of the R.E.I.A’s I go to, they may just be like lunch with five to ten people. You know, those to me are just as valuable as going to the ones that have a couple of hundred because — I can actually spend time with those investors, I can figure out what they are looking to invest in, and build a little bit more of a relationship. So I don’t — I wouldn’t say stray away from the small A.R.E.I.A’s — because you are still going to meet great investors, buyers, other wholesalers you can partner with. There is one I have been to a few times that is literally lunch with five or six great guys. I think I have sold two of the six guys a deal in the last six months, just because — I have 30 to 45 minutes of kind of one on one time with these guys. And then of course you have your larger R.E.I.A’s where you have 3- 400 people sometimes, maybe on the large side but those exist. It’s great but at the same time, you are not going to get to spend more than a couple of minutes with each individual that you meet because there are so many people.
Mike: It’s a different dynamic.
David: At these events, and those events are more tailored towards training and maybe having some sort of sales pitch but that’s ok.
Mike: Guest speaker —
David: You can meet people as well at those events. Networking, R.E.I.A’s, BNI’s, Chambers, definitely recommend those. A lot of our leads are word of mouth, we do a ton of direct mail — we do online and offline marketing, we do bandit signs; all these things are valuable to us. We do all of them. But at the same time — we always recommend networking, a lot of your deals are coming to come from networking — if you don’t let people know what you do, then you are going to have a really hard time — generating free leads.
Mike: So I guess than the fifth one that we wanted to talk about today and that’s kind of a free lead source — would be the MLS or listed properties. So – it’s — I guess in the back of my head I didn’t think wholesaling properties was really a possibility. Now it is just a stumbling block that I had to overcome because we do it all the time now. The key is — calling agents, networking with agents —
David: Absolutely.
Mike: The probably could be listed, sure but you also want to build a relationship with an agent when you have bought a property or two from them, they know you are going to close. These agents get pocket listings, I am not sure what the MLS exempt — there is a specific term agent’s use for it that’s legal. But they have properties that they wouldn’t necessarily list on the MLS and they will give you a call — say hey I got this property, needs some work are you interested? So — it’s another kind of way to network, but again just picking up the phone and calling agents with properties in areas that you are looking at — or your buyers are looking at.
David: I heard a quote one time from a guy and he said that, “This is not what the MLS stands for, but it is just another funny acronym.” The MLS is a massive list of sellers. And it stands for the multiple listing services, but it really is a massive list of sellers, it’s a bunch of sellers who have hired agents to put their property out there for sale. We get a ton of deals of the MLS. You have to just make a ton of offers. So you know — the MLS is a different beast completely, but you have a massive list of people who are looking to sell their home — so you know just like anything it’s a numbers game. If you make enough offers, you are going to find some deals out there. So — we definitely recommend — if you’re not agent, having an agent connect you — to the MLS via e-mails through a portal. You can give them keywords, zip codes, and school districts. You know — whatever your criteria is. They can send you those, and then you can make offers through that agent, or go out and get your real estate licence. You can do it in a couple of days; usually there is a three or four day weekend course, something like that. For a few hundred dollars and — maybe about a week’s time you can get your own agency, your own licence and access the MLS yourself, then that will kind of expedite that process.
Mike: If you do that then —
David: Making tons of offers.
Mike: And if you go out and get a real estate licence — your brokerage is going to have — a brokerage full of other real estate agents. So I mean there is an instant network.
David: Networking there.
Mike: Instant network right there.
David: Absolutely. Let those people know you buy houses for cash. If they come across a good deal — you know — you will get first bid. Absolutely so — but that’s pretty much the five main components of marketing guys. There is really hundreds of ways to market. We don’t recommend — just focusing on one thing. We would say definitely diversify your marketing efforts. Direct mail would probably be — the main thing to focus on. It’s the staple of the business. But — if you have a lower budget, by all means — don’t let that prevent you from starting your marketing. If you don’t even have enough money to get out there and do bandit signs — that’s ok you can still go to these local R.E.I.A’s — go to meetup.com, go to BNI’s and just start telling people that you buy real estate, that you are an investor and — that you are a cash buyer and –. That’s it, just getting the word of mouth out there if you have social media, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Create a post or two; I have a calendar, personally a calendar that reminds me like every month just to make a Facebook post. How corny is that? But hey it works. People — I just had a guy contact me yesterday off LinkedIn, it said hey my boss has this house that he wants to sell, and — it needs about 20k worth of work, will you buy it? He was literally asking me if I was interested. I was like Hell yeah!. I will go look at it today. I bought it, we bought it just a couple of days ago. So — if I wasn’t getting out there and telling individuals, people, friends, family, even my network of people that I barely know via social media — which is pretty much everybody — that I buy houses for cash, they wouldn’t know that. So get out there, tell people that you are an investor and that you are looking for real estate, you are a cash buyer, that’s the first place to start. But there is lots of ways, bandit signs, direct mail, adds both online and offline, and of course using your multiple listings service, your massive list of sellers as I like to call it.
Mike: Well [00:20:53.05 – inaudible] said — we are probably going to go into all these in more depth in coming episodes.
David: We will, absolutely.
Mike: I think the action item for everyone today though would be just start.
David: Get started! Don’t delay, don’t wait.
Mike: Get your message out there, doesn’t matter what your budget is, just get the message out there that you are a real estate investor —
David: Go buy some business cards if anything, ten bucks you know?
Mike: You can Vista print or shoot — I have met a guy who printed them all on his own printer.
David: Print them out! When to go to R.E.I.A’s pass them out. Give them to people.
Mike: You got to get your name and number out there and let people know you buy houses. So —
David: That is the most important — marketing is the business folks, I just want to reiterate — you are in the marketing business as a wholesaler and — if you are not marketing you are not going to have leads coming in, your phone is not going to be ringing, your — email, your website is not going to be generating leads. If you are not getting leads then you can’t make offers, if you can’t make offers you can’t do deals. It is very, very basic. So marketing is the business folks, get out there, start marketing, and don’t delay. Next week we are going to touch on offers in our next episode. We are going to be talking about offers, how to make offers, how many offers you should be making, what you should be doing with your offers — but today folks get started marketing. Don’t delay; you are never going to be successful in this business if you don’t start marketing.
Mike: Absolutely. To get started, to learn a little bit more, visit us as thediscountpropertyinvestor.com, you can see all the deals we currently have available.
David: Subscribe.
Mike: You can subscribe as well as — there is a link to freewholesalecourse.com. That will show you how to get started in wholesaling today. It’s got basically everything that we have available out there for you.
David: It’s a free course, we are giving it away for free, we love to share, we love to educate. And you know you can learn the Knuts and bolts, the meat and potatoes like you say. About wholesaling and — we are going to cover a lot of the things that we are covering in this episode in that free course. If you are interested in you know in really diving in deep, we are going to have a course that you can actually purchase. But — go to the free course, check that out, there is tons of free content in there; it’s a great way to get started. The freewholesalecourse or freewholesalecourse.com, also a link on thediscountpropertyinvestor.com. Mike do you want to close this episode with a quote?
Mike: Sure, make sure you guys join us next week on making offers. We are going to dive into that. So our closing quote kind of thought is, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”
David: Very true, good quote. Thanks, Mike.
Mike: Welcome back to the discount property investor, your host Mike Slane, and David Dodge here. Thanks for joining us. We are excited here to dive into marketing. I just want to ask you to check out the discountpropertyinvestor.com. There you can see all of our — properties that we are wholesaling here in the St Lois market, as well as explore the — there is a link to freewholesalecourse.com. So there you can see the whole course laid out for you on how to wholesale.
David: Tons of great information on there, its free and — we break down all the core components of wholesaling, show you what you need to do to get started, check it out, freewholesalingcourse.com. Mike: But today though I’m excited because I feel this is really the heart of wholesaling. It really is the first time we really get into the meat of — your kind of day to day grind and what we are going to be doing and that’s marketing. So —
David: The meat and potatoes.
Mike: That’s right man, meat and potatoes, that’s the good stuff man. Veggies on the side. Alright so let’s talking about marketing a little bit. Today we are going to cover five different ways that you can market or kind of get started in marking, pretty simple stuff, nothing super advanced. Each one of these we can go into more detail on, and we will in future episodes, probably going to spend an entire episode on each one of these.
David: We will absolutely. But I do want to interrupt for one second Mike. I want to remind everybody that as a wholesaler, you are in the marketing business. Real estate just happens to be the product in which you are buying and selling. But you are in the marketing business, so this is one of the most important, the most important aspect of real estate investing as well as wholesaling because — you make your money when you buy, and you get paid when you sell. So if you are not buying right, you are not going to be successful. If you are not marketing, you are not going to be able get the leads coming in, to make enough offers to be able to buy right. This is a numbers game folks, so if you send out ten letters and you don’t get a call and you are wondering why, it’s because you haven’t done enough marketing so.
Mike: Because you sent out ten letter.
David: Because you send out ten letters, we are sending out, you know — thousands a week at this point. But you can build yourself up; you don’t have to jump in at those volumes. But you know, the main thing is get started today and start marketing.
Mike: That’s a great point. I think I take it for granted because one of my favourite quotes from [00:03:01.15 – inaudible] class — the teacher said, “No matter what business you are in, you are in the business of marketing.” And again, I don’t know who that came from, credit to whoever it is.
David: It’s true though.
Mike: It is, and we are in the —
David: Sales and marketing.
Mike: We are in the real estate business but marketing is really what we do.
David: Marketing is 100% of what we do, absolutely.
Mike: So let’s get started then, the meat and potatoes. So, the first way that you can get started is — those ugly signs you see on the side of the road that say, “We buy houses.”
David: Man they’re ugly. But they work.
Mike: Bandit signs, so yeah — we like ours extra ugly too, so we use yellow and green and —
David: Ugly it up, but those work. They work great and — if you are new to wholesaling and you have a tight budget, I recommend starting with bandit signs. You can buy them online for a few dollars apiece, you can buy them printed already with — “we buy houses” or “sell your house fast” with your phone number. Or you can go even cheaper and just buy them blank, go up to the store and get a big thick market and write on there yourself. Or even cheaper you can just find cardboard boxes and cut them out.
Mike: No matter what your budget is — there is no limiting factors.
David: No matter what your budget is — there is no reason you can’t start doing bandit signs and you know, on this topic just for one brief second I do want to say I know a guy that has a really tight budget, and he uses cardboard boxes — he gets wood stakes, like — he uses the paint stirrers, the ones you get at Home depo. He staples the cardboard to those and — or he will take the keyboard and hold — tack or staple them into telephone poles. He is getting deals off this, so now that he is doing deals, he has more money to reinvest into his marketing. But regardless, bandit signs are a great way to start; there is a couple of different types of bandit signs. You can do your typical ba
ndit sign which is just stuck on the side of the road typically at exit ramps. Or intersections within the city, you can also staple or tack those to telephone poles. If you are going to do that I recommend you get them up a little bit higher off the ground to where they are going to be harder to take down. As well as bandit signs on wheels which is — primarily advertising on the back windshield of your vehicle or — other people’s vehicles. Bandit sign on wheels is actually a program that you can buy. Mike: I was going to say — we don’t want to — I mean we have to mention its — Rueben Perez.
David: Rueben Perez, I met him just about two weeks ago, super nice guy.
Mike: So he kind of partnered up with Damen [00:05:37.06 – inaudible] the owner of [00:05:39.24 – inaudible]
David: Absolute
Mike: They got a great program, so if you are interested in doing that — check it out.
David: You don’t have to use his program, but I would recommend it, I personally use it, I think you are using it, it’s a great program.
Mike: But the moral of the story is, you get a telephone number, and you put it on the back of someone’s windshield. You don’t have to use — the sign on wheels program. Basically you get a whole bunch of different GOOGLE voice numbers or whatever numbers you want to track where the leads come from. Then you compensate those drivers for having that advertised on the back of their –
David: So number one, bandit signs guys. They are a great way to start, they are cost effective, you don’t need a ton of money, and they work, they generate leads ok? Number two, direct mail. Direct mail, I think we mentioned this in previous episodes. It is really the majority, or I should say the main way that — wholesalers are marketing in today’s market. Anywhere between 70-90% of all leads I would say are coming from direct mail. There are lots of different ways to go about doing direct mail. Obviously postcards and letters are going to be your main ways. And as far as — as far as getting lists to mailto. Because obviously you are going to need a list to mail to. We recommend either going to listsource.com, or listabilit. Both of those sites are really great for generating lists. Again, don’t over think the marketing — whenever it comes to finding motivated sellers. It is very simple, I always say if you are going to start, start with vacant. Start with — non owner occupies. And — you got a couple of others you want to add to that Mike?
Mike: Yeah list ability, of course they have a whole bunch of them T’ed up for ya, — All the things they show ya, high equity, this and that. So it’s really one of those things where — I honestly don’t think it matters as much — what list you’re choosing or what — I meant what your selection criteria is. As long as you just start doing it. That’s the key. The second thing i would say on this list is building your own list is always going to be better than the list that you buy, but I might be getting into a little bit more advanced. But an easy way to do that when you are out driving around you see a vacant house, write it down and figure it out and make sure you get something in the mail to those people direct.
David: Driving for dollars.
Mike: Driving for Dollars, that’s right man. There is a term for all this stuff.
David: That’s right, driving for dollars is another great way to market. It’s a little bit more intensive because it requires a little bit more work. There is an app actually that helps you with it. I think, have you ever used it before? Or did it not work? I have never used it but I’ve heard about it. I think it’s just called driving for dollars. But either way, driving for dollars is very, very simple guys. Drive around; look at properties that you think would make a good investment. Doesn’t have to be vacant but vacants typically make that list pretty easily. Write down the address of the property and then you can go to your local tax records which are all public information. Then you can figure out who owns that property. Maybe even find out if they have a different mailing address and send them a letter. When it comes to writing letters or even sending postcards don’t over think it. That was one of the things that when I first started, I kind of stumbled across. What do I said? How do I go about doing this? Just say who you are and that you buy properties for cash. Give me a call, put your phone number, your e-mail, your website, you don’t even need all that really, just your phone number.
Mike: There is no perfect mail piece. Get it out there; get your message out there.
David: Exactly. So — when it comes to driving for dollars — create your own list. You can buy your own list from direct mail —
Mike: Then when you are getting your own mailing, I would say start with whatever budget you have. If it’s small, start doing it yourself. If you have a bigger budget, I would recommend you use yellow lettering HQ we have a link on freewholesalecourse.com. Follow that link and you get a discount on I think it’s 55 cents now per letter.
David: They’re great.
Mike: Yeah.
David: Yellow letter HQ is who we’re using. We have used a couple of other services in the past. Personally I have used click to mail and go big printing. Nothing against those companies, they are great companies. We just really like Yellow Lettering HQ.
Mike: And there is plenty of them out there so again, don’t be tied to one. Anyways so let’s keep on — the next topic I would say is ads. So — where can you place ads? Well you can do it online, so there is free, the free way which would be Craigslist; I don’t remember what it’s called anymore. Backpage — then there is like the EBay one which is changed —
David: EBay classified.
Mike: Yeah, there is a bunch — free online stuff, also like thrifty nickel, your local papers — a lot of them have some of the online stuff where you can do it for free. And there is also paid stuff so offline going directly to newspapers. We — I have done — I have had a couple of deals, pretty good success in — an area I used to live in Oakland’s, a North county area. I had a couple of pretty decent leads come in through — I think it was a $10 add in the monthly add. So online offline —
David: I know people who print up — they print up postcards, they don’t even mail them they just print them up. They will go to their local grocery stores and they will put them on the bulletin boards, or if they are anywhere like — say a restaurant or a gym or something like that and they have — the little boards they will put the add up there. When it comes to those marketing pieces, again they are just so simple. We buy houses for cash; I buy houses for cash, close fast, buy as is, and phone this number. That’s it, don’t over think it, and let people know what you do. You buy homes. And how can they reach you? Do you have a phone number? Give them an e-mail address, give them a website. You can — people leave business cards behind when they go to lunch, some people drop them on the ground. Other people will tack up their little postcards to those bulletin boards so –. When it comes to adds there are lots of ways to do it online and offline. Mike kind of mentioned some of the free ways online. Once you have more of a marketing budget — then there is obviously paid ways to do online advertising, add words and Facebook marketing are probably two of the main ways you can do online ads. But, there are tons of different ways if you have local newsletter or — there is just tons of ways so you can look into your own market and figure out what the best solution would be for you, with the online space. Number four with marketing I would say would be networking. These aren’t even really necessarily in order. Number four would be networking — local AREIA’s, BNI’s, Mike you do a lot more of this than me, I am going to let you take the lead on this one.
Mike: Sure, so — A.R.E.I.A’s I think we have touched on in the past as well. So go online and check out meetup.com — it is a great way to find your local AREIA’s, visit as many as you like, find one that works for you. Go to all of them if you, we got, we are lucky here in St Louis we got multiple good ones.
David: We have tons of them, there is like 20, it’s crazy how many of them there are here.
Mike: And they are good ones too, several really good — just lots of attendance, lots of participation — go out there and do that, and that’s a great way in my opinion to sell your deals or to network with other people who might buy your deals. As far as finding your deals, — there is two other ways or two other major networking things that I consider. One is BNI, I am a big proponent of it, I am in a group here in St Lois, that’s called Business networking international. I meet weekly with these people and — the whole purpose of that is to exchange referrals so to give referrals to the other business owners in that group.
David: I love that you are in BNI. Man, you get a lead probably every two weeks?
Mike: Yeah.
David: From BNI.
Mike: It’s a lead, they are not always great, but again — hey man there is people out there looking for deal on houses for me. So —
David: It’s just a great way to Network you know?
Mike: The other one is the Chambers? Like the Chambers of commerce. Local chamber of commerce. I haven’t has as good a luck with that, but again, it’s another way to get out there and meet a bunch of business owners.
David: I should join a chamber.
Mike: Yeah.
David: That is a great idea. I never even thought of that.
Mike: So again, there are tons of ways to get out there and just get your message out there to other people, other business owners. Letting them know that you are in real estate, you buy houses. It’s important to keep it going.
David: Depending on your market you may have a lot of R.E.I.A’s, you may not. I had just mentioned a couple of minutes ago, here — we have a ton of R.E.I.A’s in St Louis, but not all of them are massive groups like — we have one of the largest R.E.I.A’s in the Midwest here, with over 3000 — but a lot of the R.E.I.A’s I go to, they may just be like lunch with five to ten people. You know, those to me are just as valuable as going to the ones that have a couple of hundred because — I can actually spend time with those investors, I can figure out what they are looking to invest in, and build a little bit more of a relationship. So I don’t — I wouldn’t say stray away from the small A.R.E.I.A’s — because you are still going to meet great investors, buyers, other wholesalers you can partner with. There is one I have been to a few times that is literally lunch with five or six great guys. I think I have sold two of the six guys a deal in the last six months, just because — I have 30 to 45 minutes of kind of one on one time with these guys. And then of course you have your larger R.E.I.A’s where you have 3- 400 people sometimes, maybe on the large side but those exist. It’s great but at the same time, you are not going to get to spend more than a couple of minutes with each individual that you meet because there are so many people.
Mike: It’s a different dynamic.
David: At these events, and those events are more tailored towards training and maybe having some sort of sales pitch but that’s ok.
Mike: Guest speaker —
David: You can meet people as well at those events. Networking, R.E.I.A’s, BNI’s, Chambers, definitely recommend those. A lot of our leads are word of mouth, we do a ton of direct mail — we do online and offline marketing, we do bandit signs; all these things are valuable to us. We do all of them. But at the same time — we always recommend networking, a lot of your deals are coming to come from networking — if you don’t let people know what you do, then you are going to have a really hard time — generating free leads.
Mike: So I guess than the fifth one that we wanted to talk about today and that’s kind of a free lead source — would be the MLS or listed properties. So – it’s — I guess in the back of my head I didn’t think wholesaling properties was really a possibility. Now it is just a stumbling block that I had to overcome because we do it all the time now. The key is — calling agents, networking with agents —
David: Absolutely.
Mike: The probably could be listed, sure but you also want to build a relationship with an agent when you have bought a property or two from them, they know you are going to close. These agents get pocket listings, I am not sure what the MLS exempt — there is a specific term agent’s use for it that’s legal. But they have properties that they wouldn’t necessarily list on the MLS and they will give you a call — say hey I got this property, needs some work are you interested? So — it’s another kind of way to network, but again just picking up the phone and calling agents with properties in areas that you are looking at — or your buyers are looking at.
David: I heard a quote one time from a guy and he said that, “This is not what the MLS stands for, but it is just another funny acronym.” The MLS is a massive list of sellers. And it stands for the multiple listing services, but it really is a massive list of sellers, it’s a bunch of sellers who have hired agents to put their property out there for sale. We get a ton of deals of the MLS. You have to just make a ton of offers. So you know — the MLS is a different beast completely, but you have a massive list of people who are looking to sell their home — so you know just like anything it’s a numbers game. If you make enough offers, you are going to find some deals out there. So — we definitely recommend — if you’re not agent, having an agent connect you — to the MLS via e-mails through a portal. You can give them keywords, zip codes, and school districts. You know — whatever your criteria is. They can send you those, and then you can make offers through that agent, or go out and get your real estate licence. You can do it in a couple of days; usually there is a three or four day weekend course, something like that. For a few hundred dollars and — maybe about a week’s time you can get your own agency, your own licence and access the MLS yourself, then that will kind of expedite that process.
Mike: If you do that then —
David: Making tons of offers.
Mike: And if you go out and get a real estate licence — your brokerage is going to have — a brokerage full of other real estate agents. So I mean there is an instant network.
David: Networking there.
Mike: Instant network right there.
David: Absolutely. Let those people know you buy houses for cash. If they come across a good deal — you know — you will get first bid. Absolutely so — but that’s pretty much the five main components of marketing guys. There is really hundreds of ways to market. We don’t recommend — just focusing on one thing. We would say definitely diversify your marketing efforts. Direct mail would probably be — the main thing to focus on. It’s the staple of the business. But — if you have a lower budget, by all means — don’t let that prevent you from starting your marketing. If you don’t even have enough money to get out there and do bandit signs — that’s ok you can still go to these local R.E.I.A’s — go to meetup.com, go to BNI’s and just start telling people that you buy real estate, that you are an investor and — that you are a cash buyer and –. That’s it, just getting the word of mouth out there if you have social media, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Create a post or two; I have a calendar, personally a calendar that reminds me like every month just to make a Facebook post. How corny is that? But hey it works. People — I just had a guy contact me yesterday off LinkedIn, it said hey my boss has this house that he wants to sell, and — it needs about 20k worth of work, will you buy it? He was literally asking me if I was interested. I was like Hell yeah!. I will go look at it today. I bought it, we bought it just a couple of days ago. So — if I wasn’t getting out there and telling individuals, people, friends, family, even my network of people that I barely know via social media — which is pretty much everybody — that I buy houses for cash, they wouldn’t know that. So get out there, tell people that you are an investor and that you are looking for real estate, you are a cash buyer, that’s the first place to start. But there is lots of ways, bandit signs, direct mail, adds both online and offline, and of course using your multiple listings service, your massive list of sellers as I like to call it.
Mike: Well [00:20:53.05 – inaudible] said — we are probably going to go into all these in more depth in coming episodes.
David: We will, absolutely.
Mike: I think the action item for everyone today though would be just start.
David: Get started! Don’t delay, don’t wait.
Mike: Get your message out there, doesn’t matter what your budget is, just get the message out there that you are a real estate investor —
David: Go buy some business cards if anything, ten bucks you know?
Mike: You can Vista print or shoot — I have met a guy who printed them all on his own printer.
David: Print them out! When to go to R.E.I.A’s pass them out. Give them to people.
Mike: You got to get your name and number out there and let people know you buy houses. So —
David: That is the most important — marketing is the business folks, I just want to reiterate — you are in the marketing business as a wholesaler and — if you are not marketing you are not going to have leads coming in, your phone is not going to be ringing, your — email, your website is not going to be generating leads. If you are not getting leads then you can’t make offers, if you can’t make offers you can’t do deals. It is very, very basic. So marketing is the business folks, get out there, start marketing, and don’t delay. Next week we are going to touch on offers in our next episode. We are going to be talking about offers, how to make offers, how many offers you should be making, what you should be doing with your offers — but today folks get started marketing. Don’t delay; you are never going to be successful in this business if you don’t start marketing.
Mike: Absolutely. To get started, to learn a little bit more, visit us as thediscountpropertyinvestor.com, you can see all the deals we currently have available.
David: Subscribe.
Mike: You can subscribe as well as — there is a link to freewholesalecourse.com. That will show you how to get started in wholesaling today. It’s got basically everything that we have available out there for you.
David: It’s a free course, we are giving it away for free, we love to share, we love to educate. And you know you can learn the Knuts and bolts, the meat and potatoes like you say. About wholesaling and — we are going to cover a lot of the things that we are covering in this episode in that free course. If you are interested in you know in really diving in deep, we are going to have a course that you can actually purchase. But — go to the free course, check that out, there is tons of free content in there; it’s a great way to get started. The freewholesalecourse or freewholesalecourse.com, also a link on thediscountpropertyinvestor.com. Mike do you want to close this episode with a quote?
Mike: Sure, make sure you guys join us next week on making offers. We are going to dive into that. So our closing quote kind of thought is, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”
David: Very true, good quote. Thanks, Mike.
