Author: Kathy

If you have a moment please go over to my Youtube page at Kathy Kennebrook and subscribe to follow my videos. There are a ton of great training videos on youtube AND I am getting ready to post several more so don’t miss this opportunity to follow my youtube videos and learn more tips and secrets for your real estate investing business, thanks!!

So one of the questions I have been getting a lot recently is how to put your dream team together. Interestingly I am currently writing a new system on this exact subject. All of the functions of our business are outsourced locally (or in the US) from the marketing to find the deals to the closings when we buy and sell and everything in between including our bookeeping and taxes and IT services. The only function that I absolutely keep in house is writing checks.

This is so important to your success in any business you choose to be in. The more mundane chores you are doing every day in your business the less money you are making. If a function you are doing in your business isn’t directly related to your income then someone else should be doing it. For example I do speak to motivated sellers and put deals together. However when they respond to my marketing pieces the deal is already prescreened for me because that’s how I built my marketing system. So by the time I speak to the seller I already have all of the facts that I need to create the offer. For all the information you need on building your dream team and finding all the deals you need, check out my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com.

Let me ask you a question; are you properly managing your prospects? Are you taking the time to follow up with the sellers who didn’t initially accept your offers, or the sellers you still need to make offers to? Did you know that you are leaving thousands of dollars in potential income behind if you aren’t following up with sellers? One of the easiest ways to make a fortune in the real estate business and gain the advantage over your competition is to take the time to follow up with motivated and semi-motivated sellers. You’ve already got the seller in your pipeline, you’ve already done the marketing and spent the money to find this person, and now all you need to do is to follow up with them until they either sell you their property or tell you to go away. How much simpler could it be?

There are two types of sellers we are going to follow up with, those we’ve already made offers to who haven’t accepted our offer and those who have not made any decision after our initial contact with them. Quite often, you will need to make multiple contacts with sellers before their situation changes and dictates that they sell their property to you. When you stay in touch with these sellers, you build credibility with them. When it comes time to sell their home they will contact you first, even if they have been contacted by someone else in the meantime.

There are a lot of investors in the market these days, and most of them have a very limited knowledge of how the whole follow-up process works, not to mention the inability to create successful deals. What they don’t realize is that many of the sellers you will be dealing with have a variety of problems they aren’t sure how to solve until they are contacted by you. Some of those may include divorce situations, estates or health issues where there may be emotions tied to the property. With these sellers it may take a little longer before they make that final decision to sell.

Most of your competitors will simply throw these potential deals in the trash when they don’t get the property under contract after the initial contact or offer is made. I have made deals many months after the initial contact with the seller was made simply because I took the time to follow up. Not only did I build credibility with the seller, but now they like me better and trust me more than the next investor who may come along.

These are the types of sellers I will place in my follow-up system and follow up with at least every thirty to sixty days if not more often. I have made thousands of dollars on deals other investors would simply have thrown in the trash because I took the time to follow up with a semi-motivated seller.

In addition, with the help of a fellow investor who is also a software developer, I now have an incredible software system that does all the work for me. It reminds me when I need to redo my direct mailings, it reminds me when to follow up with sellers, it has a section to track potential buyers and build a buyer’s list, and it keeps all the information on the properties stored including a photo. In fact, once I have followed up and purchased the property, my system will match the property with one of the buyers on my buyer’s list, so now; even that part of my business is automated. And once again, isn’t that the whole point to this business, to automate as many things as you can so you can work with the sellers and make the deals happen. You don’t necessarily need software to get started with this type of a system. You can simply use an auto-responder and a folder system to begin following up with motivated sellers.

For all the information you need to follow up with semi motivated sellers, use awesome software in your real estate investing business and find all the deals you need for your business check out my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com While you are there be sure and sign up for my FREE monthly newsletter!!

So at a family function I was asked how come we have not retired yet. A good question considering I am really close to what a traditional retirement age would be. We consider ourselves semi-retired and we have been for a long time now. But when we get to take an ugly house, turn it into something beautiful and then a first time home buyer falls in love with what we have done, there is just something so heady about that. And I won’t complain about the profits on those deals either.

And when I step into a room full of investors hungry for ways to propel their business to another level or new investors just getting started and I get to share with them and help them grow……well there is something really heady about that too.

And when I help a coaching student do their very first deal or their 100th deal and they are doing it for financial future of their families there is something really wonderful about that too. The best part about real estate investing for me has been the opportunity to do something I really love and have the time and the money frankly to do all the other things I really love like traveling and watching my grand kids grow up. So the answer I guess is that I am just not ready to fully retire. Will I ever be? I kind of doubt it. There are just so many new adventures in this business every single day.

So What Marketing Technique Works Best?
Direct mail is the primary method that I prefer to use to attract highly motivated sellers for my Real Estate Investing Business. This is a method most of my competitors do not use in their business but brings the highest number of quality leads for the fewest dollars. You’ll also want to repeat your mailings on a residual basis so you are in constant contact with these sellers. When their circumstances dictate that they do so, they will contact you first, even if they have been contacted by someone else in the meantime, since you have taken the time to build long term credibility and integrity with these sellers.

Just think about the messages you receive from various vendors in the mail. One that comes to mind for me is a large bedding and bath store near our home. I get a post card from them almost weekly with coupons and specials to draw me to their store. By constantly bombarding me with their message, they are more likely to get my business. This is how you want to create your marketing plan for long term success, in a way that your prospective sellers or customers continue to see your message and be reminded of whatever it is you offer in a positive way.

The secret to Creating Effective Direct Mail Campaigns

Effective marketing is the process of delivering your specific message to a targeted audience through the use of various types of direct mail. Direct mail campaigns could include letters, packages, post cards or flyers. For the Real Estate Investor, implementing direct mail campaigns enables you to find the sellers who really need to sell, as opposed to those who just want to sell. When you find the sellers who really need to sell, you’ll end up buying a lot more houses at much better prices and terms.

The secret to the really great deals is to find them before anyone else even knows about them. A lot of the deals you will find won’t be actively marketed. These sellers have a variety of problems they simply don’t know how to solve. Their motivation comes in a variety of forms: age, health problems, financial difficulties, change in marital status, liens and judgments, job transfers, landlords who are tired of having their properties abused, change in family size — just to name a few.

Other reasons are more directly related to the property itself, such as estates, properties needing extensive repairs, code enforcement violations or properties that have been vacant for a significant period of time. So, how are you going to find these sellers and how should you market to them? As a Real Estate Investor, you have an array of choices. My personal favorite marketing technique is through the use of direct mail in order to find the highest number of leads using the fewest dollars.

As I mentioned earlier, you should always implement at least three to five ways to market your business simultaneously in order to promote your business and draw as many different sellers to you within your market. You must understand a seller’s motivation for selling a property in the first place. This is important because if you try and reach sellers in only one way, and you don’t find a property in a relatively short period of time, you may become discouraged and quit. You really don’t want to do this.

There is more business out there than you can imagine! Accept the fact that you’ll need to do more than distribute some flyers and put up a website and hope some motivated sellers call you. This is actually true of any business you might have. You have to use more than one type of marketing in order to keep your message in front of the consumer. For all the information you need on growing your real estate investing business check out my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com While you are there read the articles, check out the videos and my awesome products and be sure to sign up for my FREE monthly newsletter!!