I have done a ton of reading on this forum and purchased several courses over the years but never really done anything with them. I am ready to get started and was hoping to get some advice as to where to begin.
I’ll give yo uas much info as possible about me without getting to long winded.
I have about $2000 set aside just for getting started and can comfortably afford about $300 a month towards marketing. I have good credit but not good enough to go purchase other homes using jsut my credit.
I work a full time job but have some freedom to take or return phone calls if needed.
Because of the limited amount of funds I have available, I have decided to concentrate on “subject to” deals. Would anyone agree or disagree with that being a good place to start.
I have purchased Marco Rubel’s course and read through it a couple times. I think the very first thing I need to do is get a plan in place for marketing.
Before I can start marketing, i need to have something set up to answer the calls if I cannot. Marco’s course suggest a answering service. Is this a good place to start?
Once the answering service is set up, i need to decide how to market. With my budget, I think I am limited to postcards and bandit signs.
Thats where I am at so far, any suggestions or steps I am missing would be appreciated.
I will only address the phone issue at this moment. I suggest a cell phone dedicated to your real estate business, that will forward to a live answering service that can answer the way you want.
A live person on the phone will outdo answering machines, etc. even if your not the live person. But someone answering Brian’s office, how may I help you sounds like a business not fly by night investing Inc.
I used a great service for years and now days with texting you can get messages at work without the whole office knowing and respond when you can. You will work out the details as you go, if you wait for everything to be perfect you can wait a lifetime.
For your phone I highly recommend using google voice. It is a free service and has a ton of capabilities.
For marketing I believe there are a number of inexpensive strategies that you can start with. Bandit signs work great, take a look in the blog section and see an article on how to use them.
Regarding subject to, you need to determine what your end goals are. Always market and plan starting with your end goals.
If you are going to spend time or money marketing, you need to do two things.
Budget for the cost of doing so over multiple months. I would suggest 6 months or more. Do not spend all the money in months 1-2 and do not stop after 1-2 months even if the results are not what you were expecting. Some will say you need to get your message out there to the same people 3, 4, or even 6 times before you will know if it is working. Lots of folks will just not respond the first time they see something.
You need to carefully track the results so you can tell what is working and what is not. You also have to get good at tracking the quality of the responses. Just because the phone rings does not mean it was a high quality response. Some types of marketing will produce better results and it could take some time to really know which is producing the best results. Best is also a relative term and will depend on what you are trying to accomplish.