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5 Signs You’re Likely To Fail As A Real Estate Investor And Entrepreneur

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Let me start with a hard question: “Are you a real real estate investor or a fake?” Wait. Don’t answer that. The truth is… time will tell. Unfortunately, time — as it relates to real estate investing — is pretty harsh. Most real estate investors get chewed up and spit out before they even know what hit ‘em. Upwards of 87% according to some estimates. But it’s not just real estate wholesalers and flippers. It’s been published that 96% of businesses go out of business within the first 10 years, and over half fold up their tent by the end of the first year. But that number is even high for real estate wholesalers and flippers… … because of the low barrier of entry to get into business. It requires hardly any capital to get rolling… and you can read a book today, register a business tomorrow, and be a “flipper” or “wholesaler” by the end of the week… which is AWESOME. Still, it also makes it easy for many people who haven’t fully adopted the mindset and skill-set needed to be successful in running a business. So, wouldn’t it be nice if you could diagnose your real estate investor’s “realness” — your likelihood of success — before getting clobbered? Wouldn’t it be nice if someone told you the brutal truth about exactly why many real estate investors fail? Well, “nice” might not be the best word. After all, the brutal truth is rarely “nice.” But, profitable, career-saving, and life-changing? Absolutely! In my 10 years working with real estate investors, I’ve seen thousands of real estate investors come and go. And the deepest irony — the cold, hard, brutal truth — is that it all comes down to five things those who fail tend to ignore (and those who succeed master).  The good news is you can overcome these common killers by having your eyes wide open to them and digging into the concrete solutions and resources I’ve included throughout. 1. You’re Following Emotion vs. Knowing Your Numbers Before we dive in, you NEED this tool… Carrot ROI Calculator. Investors who fail tend to open up their wallets based on emotional decisions vs. actually nailing their numbers and trusting the numbers. When emotion takes over you tend to stop investing in marketing before it has a chance to succeed… you tend to make offers based on your “gut” vs. a tried and true formula… and you tend to bounce around from one thing to another in search of that magic bullet like a pinball machine. One way people constantly get caught up in the emotions vs. the numbers is in how much money you invest in your business. How much money do you invest in a marketing strategy? How much money do you invest in a property? How much money do you invest in your education? As soon as emotion creeps into the equation and a mathematical formula stops being used… you’re on the fast track to losing your butt (and not knowing why). As a real-world example, let’s say two people are doing PPC marketing.  Investor #1: Likely To Fail… Investor #1 started with their budget rather than knowing the numbers. They have set aside $2,000 for PPC marketing for motivated house sellers. Plenty to turn a profit, right? They start their PPC campaign and quickly find out that the first few weeks of a PPC campaign are all about honing the campaign and tweaking it… so they end up spending $800 in the first 3 weeks. They have 7 leads to show for it, which they’re working on… but no deals yet. By … Continued

Real Estate Agent Websites

One central hub for all your marketing efforts Marketing shouldn’t be left to trial and error, or require you to constantly spin your wheels. Carrot brings all your marketing together in one place so you can see what’s working and what’s not, while giving you the tools and resources you need to build an evergreen marketing strategy that helps leads find you — not the other way around. Learn how Carrot helps you maximize your marketing → Carrot + IDX Stop losing your potential buyers to sites like Zillow by adding MLS listings directly to your Carrot site. Give your prospects the viewing experience they want, so they spend more time browsing and less time bouncing. Native MLS search directly on your site View MLS properties on your domain Custom IDX feeds to serve all your niches It’s time to break free of your broker-provided site. How hard is your brokerage-provided site working for you? It may be free, but is it helping you stand out in your market and build online authority to generate consistent — and qualified — leads? Your broker-provided site: Looks the same as every other agent in the brokerage Only shows your listings Provides one site with one page to show all your listings Outranks your competition organic search results Tested and optimized to convert traffic into leads Supports content marketing to build online authority Provides training and support to help you dial in your online marketing strategy Backed by a team dedicated to your site’s performance VS. Your Carrot site: Built to rank in organic Google search results Optimized for all devices — desktop, mobile, and tablet Uses industry-leading best practices to convert more leads Loads fast so visitors can navigate the site quickly Builds online authority with easy, automated blogs Supports unlimited location and landing pages so you can stand out from the competition in any niche Provides training and support from our team of product and real estate experts Want to talk to someone from our Sales team? Click here! Hear what other agents have to say. Check out our handy resources for Agents. Guide 20+ Lead Generation Tools for Real Estate Agents [Your Guide for 2020] Guide 7 Things Your Real Estate Agent Website Builder Must Have to Generate Leads Success Story This Agent Doubled Her Closings + Increased Website Traffic By 227%

Real Estate Copywriting: Generate More Leads By Starting With Your Audience

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Tips from the world’s top copywriters that’ll make your real estate copywriting stand out from the masses. × × Real Estate SEO Bible: The Ultimate SEO Keywords Guide Download Now Hordes of people left and right are now bumping shoulders among you and trying to get to the same sellers — all screaming at the top of their lungs: “I can buy your house fast for cash!!!” With more options for sellers and more investors on the scene, our efforts are becoming harder. So, what do we do in this populated market where our prospects are well aware of our message? The answer is right in your market. There’s a plethora of advice on how to stand out from the masses. But in this article, I look to the copywriting giants for help. So, the following advice is taken straight from the methods and teachings of great and famous copywriters like Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Gary Bencivenga, John Caples, David Ogilvy, and Robert Collier… names that have had a huge impact on today’s marketing methods and even Carrot’s own content. But first… The problem with REI marketing If you Google “direct mail real estate investors,” you’ll get a host of articles and forum advice on how to get started with direct mail (DM). But who in their right mind would read through every one of those Bigger Pocket’s articles and forum topics? I did! When I first wandered into direct mail (before I was aware of copywriting and direct response), I implemented all the advice I gathered from the forums. I even used a famous coach’s DM method exactly as he recommended. The results? After tens of thousands of dollars spent and hundreds of calls, I got ZERO deals out of it, maybe two motivated sellers. And yes, I did follow up relentlessly and yes, I did send mail for seven months. But I wasn’t alone in this. I asked many investors in my area, and I quickly learned that the volume of deals required to obtain consistent results in my area is massive, and very few are successful. What was the problem? Fast forward to today, now being a young-schooled copywriter, following the masters of the past, and putting my knowledge to the test with Carrot as a professional copywriter, I realized an important thing… the advice given by coaches/gurus and forums in Biggerpockets is completely contrary to the advice of copywriting and direct mail masters; guys like Dan Kennedy, Eugene Schwartz, Bob Bly, and Robert Collier who all devoted their lives to “sales on paper” and squeezing as much money out of every marketing dollar. Here’s the difference I found: The World’s Top Copywriters say: Real Estate investors say: Here’s the good thing about direct mail in real estate investing: you can generate $20,000 with one deal. So, a .02% response doesn’t really matter if you have the budget for massive volume while still generating a decent ROI. Here’s the bad thing about DM in real estate investing: A .02% response can get you broke fast in a crowded market where the customer is well aware of your service. If you’re advertising in a crowded market and you’re doing what everyone else is doing… then your prospects are getting the same message from multiple people. At this point… your success is determined SOLELY by luck. Let’s do better. Let’s rise above the masses by learning from the pros who devote their entire lives to what we’re talking about. Here are 5 things you can do to improve your marketing message by just looking at your audience. Table of Content Compelling Real Estate … Continued

Google Ads Housing Policy Update – Here’s What You Need to Know

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For more information about the policy and how to acknowledge the changes in your account, you can refer to the upcoming policy for housing on the Personalized ads page or on the Google FAQ page. What This Means for Real Estate Agents and Investors Advertisers will need to update their campaigns before this policy goes into effect to ensure they aren’t negatively impacted. It will be determined how this policy affects accounts, but early indications are: Some of the restrictions advertisers can use for excluding certain audiences based on age or income might also be affected. If you’re currently excluding specific income levels or ages, be aware that you might need to remove those restrictions in October. Some of those accounts are already seeing warnings. What Should I Do Now? For now, there isn’t anything to change unless you want to get ahead of the game. You can accept the policy and make the necessary changes to your targeting and/or demographics. You’ll see a message in your account like this: Changes to Consider Making Now Zip Code Targeting/Excluding If you’re currently using a zip code based targeting strategy, now might be the time to get a headstart. Removing your zip codes and moving into a town, city, or county strategy. Here’s What We Recommend: As you make this move, think about taking advantage of the county or city-specific landing pages, as well as adjusting ad copy to match the new locations. Age Exclusions Accounts using age exclusions will also be affected. From what we know, this won’t be an option if you’re currently excluding such age groups as 18 to 24 or 25 to 34. Here’s What We Recommend: We might find something different come October, but for now, there might be an opportunity to add more negative keywords, update ad copy, and utilize ad extensions to make it clear who your audience is. Income Exclusions There’s also a potential that Google won’t allow for income exclusions. Some accounts have excluded such income levels as “Top 10%” due to the level of houses. Here’s What We Recommend: Again, you can focus more on the ad copy and utilizing your ad extensions to communicate the type of homes better you’re either willing to buy or sell. If you’re an investor with motivated seller campaigns, you can also take advantage of better images and niched copy on your real estate landing pages. Moving Forward We’ll continue to monitor these new policies and send updates as they become available. For now, it’s essential to be aware of these changes. This at least gives you an idea of what changes will be coming and how your mindset might have to shift come October. We won’t see the full impact until the new policy is implemented, but we can start adjusting both the ads and the website to further speak to the audience.

[Updated Data – August 2020] How Has Lead Generation Changed During COVID-19 for Real Estate? – Exclusive Data and Action Plan

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The COVID-19 crisis is impacting all of us in some way, shape, or form. So what I wanted to dive into is what data we have in our system with over 10,000 real estate investor and agent websites. What data are we seeing right now and how the lead flow has been impacted by COVID-19 for real estate buyers and sellers? [Updated August 6] New Data Pointing to Conversion Rate Increases New Research There has been a clear shift towards new lead generation, and how our members are acquiring those in the past two months during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to our Google Analytics data, when comparing April and May to June and July, there has been a conversion rate increase of 10.92%. Paid Search has seen the largest shift, jumping 39.48% over the past two months. Compared to what we reported in April, it seems paid traffic has begun to normalize. Sessions are coming down as more people are feeling confident in the house selling process. Here are the numbers for the eight common channels: Organic search: 3.21% increase Direct: 7.84% increase Social: 10% increase Paid Search: 39.48% increase Referral: 21.23% increase Email: 36.72% decrease Other: 0.26% increase Display: 21.43% decrease In May, our data was showing sessions steadily increasing: We also saw conversion rates have begin to increase since a dip in mid-April: Here’s what one Carrot member said recently… Overall traffic from all sources has continued to increase week over week… meaning there is more demand right now for buyers and sellers needing solutions to their problems than before. Conversion rates stayed low for a few weeks but are now on the uptick as the overall sentiment in the US is improving and people are starting to get out more. Predictions: I predict once the stay at home orders lift we’ll see conversions go up above where they were for a short period then settle into normal zones. Double down on why it’s important to NOT stop your marketing even if lead costs are higher from lower conversion rates… because the people are still searching… so you need to be getting content in front of them NOW while they’re researching and followup w/ them through retargeting so you’re in front of them when they’re ready. This should create a surge in demand once stay at home orders lift… but only those who stayed in front of the market will capture that demand. Additional COVID-19 Articles: What The Coronavirus Pandemic Means for Agents & Investors & Why We’re Doubling Down The Coronavirus Podcast Series: For Real Estate Investors & Agents How to Win with Content Marketing During COVID-19 | Playbook Emerges I pulled up our own Google Analytics account, which is a master account for all of our member websites that are generating the top rankings in Google for motivated house sellers. So we have crazy, crazy cool data from every major market in the country. The first thing to notice is a report from March 1st through the time that I’m diving into this data, which is April 7th. Number one, we’ve reported this data in the past, Monday’s tend to be the hottest time when your sellers and buyers are hitting the internet to search. Now this includes Google searches. It does include some direct search, where people are typing your URL directly, but mostly Google search and Google pay per click. When people have that pain point the most, is your Monday or Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday have the highest demand for searches. Now here’s one thing that we saw as soon as the stay-at-home … Continued

19 Lead Generation Tools for Real Estate Agents [Your Guide for 2023]

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Here are 19 of the best lead generation tools for real estate agents to help! 1. Carrot Website Many real estate agents start out by joining a larger real estate group or franchise. Their face gets added to the company website, and they receive a particular share of the leads. But it doesn’t take long to realize that if you want to grow your own business, you’re going to need your own website. Unfortunately, most agents think their website only exists to represent their business — as a sort of digital business card. The most successful agents, though, know that isn’t true. Your website is probably your company’s biggest lead-gen asset. There are two ways that you can use your website to predictably generate high-quality leads for your business. The first is paid traffic. Running ads on Facebook or Google is a great way to drive traffic to your website. But here’s the thing: that paid traffic isn’t worth a lick if your website doesn’t consistently convert that traffic into leads for your business. (In fact, driving traffic to a low-converting website is expensive and usually a waste of money) And our Carrot websites are built to convert and drive leads right out of the box therefore, can be one of the most productive lead generation tools for real estate agents. We start with a compelling homepage header, which transitions into two separate CTAs for buyers and sellers. And we always include the agent’s phone number in the upper right corner for people who want to take action right away. Take a look: the entire format is crafted to make taking action as easy as possible for visitors. The trick to building a high-converting website is to give visitors exactly what they want, as quickly as possible… and to build trust along the way. That’s exactly what Carrot sites do. But that’s not all they do. While paid ads are a great way to drive traffic to your website, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is just as powerful. SEO is working to rank in search engines (like Google and Bing) for keyword phrases that your target market types into Google. That way, those people click on your website and become leads. And SEO leads are usually even higher quality and more consistent than paid leads. SEO is a bit complicated but can be one of the best long-term lead generation tools for real estate agents. This is why our Carrot sites make search engine ranking as simple as possible. Check out some of our best lead-generation features in the second point. 2. Carrot Features Our Carrot sites convert better than any other websites in the industry. We’ve generated more than 2 million leads for our members with conversion rates between 10% and 20% (most real estate websites convert at 2%)! That means more leads and more closings for your business. And you can sign up for Carrot risk-free for 30 days over here. But what else do you get by signing up? Here are some of our coolest real estate lead generation tools Check Out Our FREE AgentCarrot Demo Now! 3. Silver Street Marketing Running Google and Facebook ads is much more complex than it probably sounds… especially if you’ve never done it before. If you have tried your hand at paid ads, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. You choose the targeting and craft the copy as carefully as possible, then hit launch with your fingers crossed. But those ads end up far less effective than had hoped. The truth is, it can take years to learn how … Continued

EP 212: The Biggest ‘Driving For Dollars’ Mistakes You Can Make + Creative Deals During COVID w/ David Lecko of DealMachine

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Try what you haven’t tried before. Move. Get feedback. Then adjust and keep doing what works. You won’t get that feedback if you just wait and see. – David Lecko The Biggest Driving For Dollars Mistakes You Can Make + Creative Deals During COVID-19 w/ David Lecko of DealMachine We’re all dealing with some crazy times right now, but that doesn’t mean business has stopped. Many of us are “locked-down” but that doesn’t mean people are hiding out in their homes all day every day. The world is still moving, just at a slower pace.  We’ve done some great episodes recently with top investors like Mike Hambright, discussing the ways investors and agents can change their strategy during COVID. Today, we sat down with David Lecko to talk about some amazing strategies you can use when driving for dollars and how you can use DealMachine and Carrot to amplify your success rate.  Read the Full Show Notes Below… I first met David about a year and a half ago and I am blown away by his app, DealMachine. It’s one of those things that was created from necessity – David is an investor himself, who was looking for a way to simplify the driving for dollars process. His app does just that by quickly loading all of the data you need to learn about the property, find seller information, and even reach out to them right there on the spot. Some investors and agents are pulling back, but it’s times like these when entrepreneurs, investors, and agents need to pivot. They need to take advantage of what is out there right now and find ways they can add value for the people who need it most.  What is Driving for Dollars? Before diving in, what exactly is driving for dollars? It is a term used to describe a real estate strategy for finding deals on houses. The investor drives around neighborhoods until they find houses that fit the vacant or distressed category. They then attempt to buy that home from the owners. The simple part is driving around looking for houses. The hard part is the process of buying the home. It can be difficult to find the owners of a vacant house. And, if the home is bank-owned, it is almost impossible to buy it and many homeowners do not want to be bugged. Creative Strategies for Investors Right now, some of David’s best clients are using DealMachine to find the worst looking homes out there. Whether or not it is an absentee owner or a vacant house, they are adding them to their list and getting in touch. The use of direct mail through the DealMachine app is way up – savvy investors out there know that the competition has slowed down, people are feeling pressure to sell, and let’s face it, after sitting home all day, opening mail can be pretty exciting. A few ways to up your game would be to:  Hire someone to “bird-dog” properties on your behalf. You can pay them by the hour, adding incentive for each qualified property added to your contact queue.  Change up your mailpiece, letting people know how you can help them during this scary time.  Use Zoom whenever possible and offer incentives such as staying in the house until the virus has passed.  Double down on your marketing efforts. Your competition is slowing down, advertising is cheap, and people are looking for solutions now more than ever.  Don’t quit right away. According to David’s numbers, if you are mailing to 200 homeowners, you will need to mail to … Continued