Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Three of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Three
1. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
  • Business cards
  • Bandit signs
  • Web sites
  • Internet listings (i.e. craigslist)
  • Fliers
2. Phone system
  • Cell Number
  • Ringcentral.com

This is the day you start laying the groundwork for all those motivated sellers who will be calling you and the systems that will handle them. The big name in this game is MARKETING. You want sellers calling you. Sure you could call people in the paper who are advertising their house for sale, but so can everyone else. That road leads to lots of competition. You want sellers who get a mailer from you and call. Even that does not guarantee they are motivated to sell their home, but it does show more interest in selling than someone in the paper with less competition. And how you reach them is through marketing. Marketing is every piece that has your name or your company’s name on it. It is your business cards you hand out to everyone. These cards should say you buy houses. It is bandit signs that say “I Buy Houses” and a phone number. It is a Web site you drive traffic to. It is Internet listings (craigslist.org), fliers and best of all, direct mailings asking if they want to sell their home. So you need to decide how you are going to run your business – under your own name or through a company? You need to discuss this with your lawyer and accountant and we do not presume to know all the ramifications of your company entity choice, but it most likely will be through a company like a corporation or a LLC (Limited Liability Company). These two entities will provide personal protection of your assets (like your home), consult a lawyer and account before deciding.

So you have set up a market program so what do you do when you have calls coming in from motivated sellers? How are you going to handle them? What number are you going to use? Is it a cell number (OK); your home number (never); an indirect number (i.e. RingCentral.com) or don’t put any number on your marketing pieces (not advisable). Research an Internet phone number that can be answered 24 hours a day with a recorded message or be routed to your cell. You can decide to answer the call or not. But why spend all the money on having motivated sellers call you and not pick-up the phone. We use Ringcentral.com for our phone system. It answers and routes all calls to different extensions in our office. We can redirect that call at anytime. It is extremely flexible. For more information go to: http://www.ringcentral.com. It is however expensive, well at least more expense than just a cell phone since you have to have the cell or office phone anyway. So by far the simplest and most direct is a cell phone that you answer all the time. You can carry it around with you at all times. As you grow you can add systems to your business.

1 comment:

Marissa said...

Gotta love marketing! It can make or break you. This is def. a helpful post!