Posted by Tim Jensen on February 11, 2002 at 21:24:18:
JohnB,
This is what I do. In the city I buy in you are not supposed to place signs on telephone poles. The city told me so. Thats fine, I put them on boarded up houses. Once again, the city called and told me to take them down. I did. Now, I saw a vacant commercial property, contacted the owner and he said no problem. Best of all that is not against the law.
John, as for breaking the sign law. I guess I did. What can I say? I am a bad bad man. Straight to my room with no supper tonite.
Now I’ve gotten some of these calls before, but never from an investor. This one was also the worst. I had to reach for the masking tape to wrap around my head so as to keep my skull from exploding.
Words like “sc*my” and “greedy” were thrown in my general direction. I was also compared to a bank robber. BANK ROBBERY!!! It’s more like breaking the speed limit by 5 to 10 miles an hour, which evrybody does!
I consider myself to be a friendly as well as a thick skinned individual, but this lady’s tone just rubbed me the wrong way. After a couple minutes I shot back with words like “an*l retentive” and “out of your mind”. Looking back , I know it’s wrong to speak to a lady in such a way.
But what I want to know is, (and I really want to hear from those that may not agree with me) AM I REALLY MAKING THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY LOOK BAD? … Are people that don’t like these signs so much going to be selling me (or my new friend as well as the rest of my local investment communtiy) houses anyway?
I haven’t even been putting up that many. About 60 on the street corners of which I take down much of them on Sunday night. I haven’t put up any in parking lots for weeks.
I wouldn’t be suprised if she called up code enforcement after our conversation ended.
I know I shouldn’t be wasting time with something so unimportant, but I just had to vent.
A lesson to be learned from CHIROPRACTORS! - Posted by NCPaul
Posted by NCPaul on February 11, 2002 at 21:27:14:
My wife is a Chiropractor who used to practice in St Pauls, near Fayetteville NC. When Nelson and Nelson first started their advertising campaign with borrowed money and one clinic, the rest of the Chiropractors attacked them as “unprofessional” saying they made the industry look “unprofessional”. They advertised EVERYWHERE! Shirts, buses, billboards, radio, tv, papers, EVERYWHERE. You name it, they put their ugly mugs on it. (And they aren’t pretty, Anybody who lives in Fayetteville knows this from the billboards!) Well, I’m no guru but I’d venture to say that with 4 offices and an ADVERTISING budget in the 70-80k per MONTH range. (The monthly net we have estimated they are good for is well over 300k-based on # patients/clinics, and such info we have managed to figure talking to friends who work there.) Now, as a competitor looking at these Yankees who moved in and did things differently, I would definately not be happy. I might even be tempted to explain away their success as “crooked” or “disgraceful”. Actually, this is just a jealous response when you see someone else successfully doing something you either can’t or won’t do. Looking at their bank account and other things I would measure business success by I’d have to call them dang near genius-heaven forbid my wife see’s this! (I’d be in the dog house calling those two genius!) But credit given where credit is due!
There will always those folks that want to focus on the negative… Let em’ that’s “Their Reality” it doesn’t have to be yours…
By the way, here are a few questions to ask her
How many houses do you buy?
Will you pay the difference on another method for me to buy houses that is as effective as signs…
I bet that if she was calling you greedy… she’s never bought a house below value… How could you… that would be greedy… let her pay retial from non motivated sellers…
Bandit signs - fellow investor busting my chops - Posted by Tim Jensen
Posted by Tim Jensen on February 11, 2002 at 17:08:52:
Hank,
I would love to have this woman’s number. I am serious. E-mail it to me and I will glady speak to her.
Onto your signs, You have to remember one thing, if they are motivated they won’t care if they found your name on the wall of a bathroom. My wife and I had this little discussion. She told me that it makes me look unprofessional and they wouldn’t work. That was over 3 years ago. They work, though not as well as they used to. As for the signs being unprofessional, even if you believe that, its the signs that may look unprofessional not you. Bottom line, don’t worry about it. If the signs work, use them. If they don’t work, don’t use them. Let the results decide whether or not to use the signs.
As a side note, I would put the signs up in the business district. People are a little more offended if they are in their neighborhood.
My only thought is most of the townships in my area have ordinances against bandit signs. They also enforce these laws with some stiff fines. I stop using them a few years ago for two reasons.
I don’t want to break the law
I dont want to add to the unsightly amount of signs being placed each week by other people advertising “Work From Home”. It just gets to much. I did purchase a two sided billboard that pulls leads. My truck is lettered, as well.
Tim, do you have such ordinances in your marketing areas? and if you do, do you just ignore the laws? Have you gotten calls from the code enforcers and if you do, what do you do about the calls?
She doesn’t have any street signs up. She says they make the investors in town look bad.
When I was selling stock they used to tell us to put your head down , work hard , and don’t worry about what the guy next to you was doing (unless you could learn something positive from him of course). “Be your own island” I was told.
Posted by Mark R Nj on February 12, 2002 at 10:00:17:
Tim The signs are against local ordinances here in my area.However, the way I get around it is…I put them up on the weekends and (luckily) I have a local investor who likes to pull them down.So all I have to do is put em up, get maybe a call or two and then my “help” takes em down. Thanks!The less I do…the more I make!