Time for Some Changes

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Torrey

I realize that it’s been weeks since I’ve posted in my blog, but what can I say, besides I’ve been extremely busy. My marketing consist of bandit signs, direct mail, and networking. The bulk of my deals come from networking with other investors, attorneys, and general people I come in contact with. I wanted to let you see some of the minor but necessary adjustments I’ve made and how they are affecting business. As a business owner, you want to always find ways to cut cost, increase results, and increase revenue.

I have my first virtual assistant that will start working for me next month. So until then, I’m fine tuning my business while still getting deals closed. The real estate market is surely changing and as CEO, I must position my company so that we can capitalize off of the market for years to come.

Changes I’ve made in my business:

Including a repair estimate with all of my hard offers: Prior to now, I would only send repair estimates in on my short sale offers. But sending the estimates with my hard offers to homeowners is making a huge difference in my negotiating power and acceptances. With the new application I’m using, proptrackr, I can create a repair estimate based on my inspection of the property within minutes. I don’t have any knowledge of repair cost, but the system gives you approximate figures and creates a professional pdf format repair estimate for me to present to the seller with my offer.
On my craigslist ads for wholesale buyers, I don’t include my email address, only my phone number: I decided to do this because I was getting inquiries from a number of tire-kickers and decided that if I have them call me, I can pre-screen them. I performed split test marketing, where some of my ads had a link to my website, and others would just have a number. After testing each strategy, getting calls deemed to be more effective. I don’t include my personal phone number in the ad, but I put one of my Google Voice numbers instead. Google voice is awesome! It’s free, you can forward it to any of your pre-programed numbers in seconds, and you can have it go directly to voicemail when you don’t want to be disturbed. I’ve gotten great results with this and picked up several new buyers that I probably wouldn’t have if they had emailed me…… The fact of the matter is, you must talk to people in this business. Internet is great for gathering leads, but you still must have a conversation with people in order to really get a grasp on how you can better serve them.
Making it a habit to ask everyone I come in contact with the same question, “So, do you rent or do you own?” You would be surprised at how many leads you can get just by running your mouth. I’m making it a habit to ask at least 5 people a day this question. There’s always somebody, that knows somebody, that needs my services. I gave my card to a lady, that gave it to a family member that was in pre-foreclosure. The seller called me and we are in the process of performing a short sale on the property right now.
Ask for owner financing initially in every deal. I should be doing this anyway. I’m making it a habit to ask for this first. Owner financing provides solutions to buyers and sellers alike. As a seller, you are able to open up the pool of available buyers to your home and not limiting yourself to only buyers with cash. For buyers, owner financing is simply borrowing funds to purchase a property just like you would with hard money or private funding. You are simply having the seller hold a note for the purchase price. There are a number of ways to structure and owner financing deal, but that is beyond the scope of this post. I’m currently going back through all of my leads from the past several months and contacting sellers to see who wants to sell via owner financing. I’ve closed a handful of owner financed transactions and the results were very lucrative.
Stop being so controlling. This is a huge step for me. I’ve always been the type of person that said, “if it needs to be done right, then only I can do it”. Putting trust in others to get the job done has been hard for me to accept, but my business and life depends on me being able to make this transformation. I must leverage my time. My VA that will start working with me next month has experience with real estate. She works for another investor and he has already trained her. All I have to do is fine tune her on handling my business. I’m sure working with the VA will be great and allow me more time with my family.

These are just a few minor adjustments I’ve made in my business. I will continue to practice these tactics and make changes as I see fit. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make improvements. Be sure to make adjustments in your business and practice your new implemented actions. Analyze your biz to see if your tactics are improving overall revenue.

Happy Investing!