You cant be quiet and wait for business all day, you need to be loud, You need to be proactive, you need to talk to as many people as you can.
Brent Daniels
“Talk to People!” The Secret to Crushing Your TTP Cold Calling w/ Brent Daniels
People are conducting business a little bit differently these days, but that doesn’t mean things have to stop or slow down.
With over a quarter BILLION in deals, Brent Daniels knows all about the importance of the hustle and avoiding the doom and gloom attitude. While some investors are pulling back, people like Brent are full steam ahead, even doubling down on their marketing efforts while so many fly by night investors have taken a hiatus.
Today, Brent and I will talk about his journey, how he has been able to build a business that is generating 90 leads a week, and why his phone battery dies at least twice per day from talking to buyers, sellers, and agents all day!
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
No matter what industry you are in, the coronavirus is changing how business gets done. While many people are pulling back, others are adapting and getting leads like never before. Brent Daniels, TTP cold calling coach, entrepreneur, and a go-getter who is sharing with us his insanely valuable expertise to help our listeners capture more leads and close more deals even during this crazy time.
The simple secret to his success? Talk to everyone! If you are having consistent conversations with distressed sellers, cash buyers, agents, local title companies, and anyone else who can help you, you are guaranteed not to fail.
Building A Cash Buyer Database
So many of our clients have spent time focusing on the seller side of things, which is obviously super important, but you need to have a database of buyers too.
Once you have your database, reach out to them and ask them questions about what they are looking for and how they operate. Do they buy sight unseen? What do you need to do to make them confident in buying without seeing the property first? Let them know that you want to be their buyer. You will bring them deals.
To find these buyers you can…
Join and participate in fix and flip groups on Facebook
Go to meet-ups to connect with the buyers in your area
Set a meeting with all of the title companies in your area – let them know who you are and how many deals you can bring to the table. Ask them who is buying
Do the same thing with private lenders in your area
Once you have a list going, reach out to other investors in your area and swap leads – grow together, there is enough for everyone
You will need to be very intentional to find out who is buying in your area.
Reaching The Sellers
Brent has a good marketing mix to reach motivated sellers in his area. In his business, he does a lot of cold calling to increase his lead volume and utilizes PPC to find those people who are actively looking for a solution right now.
An important thing with any lead is to either answer them live when they call or reach out to them immediately after they fill out a form. Many of our members have the text feature activated to let them know exactly when a lead comes in. If you aren’t able to always answer the phone, hire someone to answer for you.
Agent Referrals
As a wholesaler, agent relationships are huge. You need to be the guy who gets things done in your town. The guy who people want to bring their deals to. Be loud. Tell them you’ll buy the ugly properties, the damaged properties, and can get a cash offer to their seller almost immediately. Agents don’t want a lot of offers. They want to turn to someone they know can get the job done. The revenue you can collect from agent referrals is insane.
To reach agents in your area you can check the MLS or Zillow and get in front of as many of them as you can. Look for the agents representing damaged homes, owned by motivated sellers. Your offer may be exactly what they are looking for.
While times are a little crazy right now and you can’t just walk up to people, deals are still getting done. By being proactive, getting in front of people (even virtually) you will go a long way in whether you succeed or fail. Don’t pull back and use this time as a vacation. The money you will be making in three months is based on what you do today.
How do you build a thriving real estate investing business? That’s the question we consistently try to answer here at Carrot.
Ben Lovro, Founder of EN-VISION HOME SOLUTIONS, and Carrot member from South Carolina hopped on and walked us through how he consistently does 4-6 deals per month.
Ben has been a Carrot customer for a few years now, and he is someone we’ve have wanted to have on our podcast for a long time.
His story and transformation are nothing short of incredible. It’s not just a story of becoming a real estate investor or building a business. Ben’s story is about perseverance and overcoming the obstacles that life throw can throw our way.
We’re excited to share with you his story (from five years in prison to five deals per month), his processes, and his tricks for maintaining a positive mindset.
Here are the main ways he’s been able to build his success.
Watch the full success story…
11 Simple High-Impact Lessons to Become a Successful Real Estate Investor
1. “You Can’t Microwave Success”
During the interview, Trevor asks Ben…
“Do you ever just want to quit?”
Ben sort of laughs to himself and says…
“More times than I can even tell you about.”
And he goes on to say something really powerful…
“You can’t microwave success.”
That is, there’s no shortcut for building a successful real estate wholesaling business.
You’ve got to show up, do the work, and show up again tomorrow.
This stuff often takes longer than you want. But if you’re faithful to proven strategies and processes, then you will succeed… it’s only a matter of time.
But remember, there’s no way to cut corners.
If you’re in the midst of a grind, just know that you are making progress and that that progress will pay off sometime in the future. It might just feel like cold, hard work right now… but this season won’t last forever.
Stay the course… and you’ll reap rewards down the road.
2. Begin With The End In Mind
Why do you want to build a real estate business?
Many new real estate investors or agents are in it for the money… or the sense of freedom that they can acquire.
And that’s great but it’s probably not clear enough.
If you’re going to succeed in the long-term, then you’ve got to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Because here’s the thing: it’s going to be tough sometimes. And if you don’t have a really compelling reason for building your business, then you’re probably going to quit.
So why are you doing it?
Do you want to make a positive impact on the people around you?
Do you want to lead others?
Do you want to provide for your family?
Do you want to have more freedom for the things that really matter in life?
This is a lesson that Ben originally learned from reading The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People and it’s stuck with him.
Whatever your ultimate goal is, write it down and remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing every single day.
3. Read Like Crazy
It’s no secret that consistently reading non-fiction books can make a big impact on your mindset and by association, on your business.
(Because YOU are leading your business…)
So here’s a question for you: are you reading consistently?
Ideally, you should read at least a little bit every day.
You should read books that challenge your mindset, books that make you think about business differently, and books that teach you practical strategies for being successful.
The more you read, the more successful you will probably be — in fact, it’s kind of hard to not become successful if you read like crazy.
So in some ways, this is a shortcut to becoming the person that you want to be and building the business of your entrepreneurial dreams.
It might seem a little silly… but the website you’re using can have a big impact on whether or not your business is successful.
Or at least, how successful your business is.
Ben started with a basic website provider but received sub-par results.
It wasn’t until he switched to Carrot, that he started seeing massive results.
He started generating more leads.
He started closing more deals.
And after 6 months of consistently working on his SEO, he ranked position number 1 for his target keyword phrase in Google.
Now, he attributes a ton of his success to his Carrot website and to his SEO efforts.
If your website is built to win… your business will win as well.
You can sign up to get a winning website risk-free for 30 days over here.
Who knows? Maybe that’ll be a game-changer for your business as well!
5. Delegate As Early As You Can
Many entrepreneurs are nervous to start delegating, to start hiring, and to start trusting other people to manage parts of their business.
That’s understandable, of course.
Your business is your livelihood… and the last thing you want is for someone else to mess up what you’ve got going.
But here’s the thing: not delegating is always one of the best ways to hamper or slow your own success.
By trying to continue as a one-man show, you limit how large your business can grow and you put yourself at a much higher risk for burnout.
You know all of those things that have to be done but that you hate doing?
They’re different for everyone — maybe you hate cold calling, maybe you hate acquisitions, or maybe you hate sending direct mail. Whatever the case, those things that you hate doing are going to burn you out if you don’t delegate them soon.
You should focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses.
And the good news is that you can actually start delegating pretty early in the life of your business.
Ben started by hiring someone to help him with cold calling so he could focus on growing his business. He went to UpWork and hired someone who’s now been with him for several years.
When it comes to hiring people on UpWork (which is an awesome platform), Ben offers some advice…
Try to weed out 90% of people — Most of the people who apply for your job aren’t going to be very committed. Try to weed out people by asking them to do very specific tasks during the interview process and then watch to see who does what you asked. Eventually, you’ll have just a few promising applicants to choose from.
Ask people why they’d be a good fit for your business — Ben encourages you to ask applicants why they think they’d be a good fit for your business. Do they have past experience? Are they consistent? Are they loyal? These are the kinds of things you’re trying to find out.
As time goes on, you’ll be able to hire more and more people by reinvesting your profits into your business.
Ben has two cold-calling people and an Acquisitions Manager, now.
The sooner you start delegating, the faster your business is going to grow.
Starting to build a real estate investing business can be tough… especially when you’re trying to land your first deal.
It’s not uncommon for a person’s first deal to go a bit askew.
Maybe they don’t make as much money as they thought they would, maybe they can’t find a buyer, or maybe the deal falls through.
It’s important to mentally prepare for those possibilities because if they happen (and they very well might), you need to keep going.
Remember: one failure does not equal future failures.
In fact, those failures are usually an important part of the learning process.
So embrace them, prepare for them, and do not sink everything you have into your first deal.
7. Use Our 3-Lead-Per-Day Training
What if you were getting 3 leads through your website every single day… without running paid traffic?
That would be pretty awesome, yeah?
Well we created our 3 Lead Per Day Training to help you do just that — and it uses a little thing we call SEO.
Basically, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is tactics and strategies for getting your website to rank in Google so that when someone types in “Sell my house fast in [YOUR CITY]” or something similar, they go to your website and give you a call.
From what we’ve seen, this is the most game-changing marketing strategy for real estate investors and agents.
This training is so simple that you can just hand it to a Virtual Assistant that you hired on UpWork, ask them to go through it and follow it step-by-step… and they’ll know how to optimize your website to rank.
In fact, that’s exactly what Ben did with his VA.
He went through this training himself. Then he handed it to his VA and he never had to worry about SEO again… but he’s getting inbound leads like crazy.
Which brings me to the next lesson.
Here’s why you should try to lean toward inbound marketing.
And while some of those leads might be tire-kickers, they are still leads. Ben’s close rate, for example, on leads from paid advertisements hovered around 1 in 60, which isn’t unheard of depending on the strategy.
Most real estate investors, though, explain that inbound marketing leads are much higher quality. Some report getting a 1-in-10 or 1-in-15 close rate.
But what is inbound marketing?
Well, let’s first talk about outbound marketing.
Outbound marketing is paid ads. You go pay to interrupt people’s online experiences… and some of those people are, by happenstance, interested in what you’re offering and they click on your ad.
But because those people aren’t looking for you when they find you, the quality of those leads is relatively low.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, what we specialize in here at Carrot.
Inbound marketing for real estate is a strategy that focuses on attracting leads from your content. Basically it’s when a lead comes looking for you rather than vying for their attention.
The most common way this happens is that someone types into Google something like “Sell my house fast in [MARKET CITY]” and they stumble across your website… then they give you a call.
Because those people came looking for you, they are more motivated and they are far more likely to turn into a closed deal.
However, SEO takes a long time to get going.
It took Ben 6 months until he got to position number one in Google for many search terms and two for many other — but once he did, it was well worth the wait.
That’s why we recommend investing in paid ads to keep your business moving, but investing in SEO over the long-term so your lead-flow will be more predictable and sustainable.
Outbound marketing can support your business now but inbound marketing can support your business for years to come.
9. Understand The Difference Between Different Temperature Leads
Not all leads are created equal.
Some leads… you don’t even have to negotiate. They tell you how much you want, you pay them that amount, and you’ve got a closed deal.
Some leads want to negotiate with you for a while. They want a price that you can’t afford, but you follow-up with them hoping that they’ll change their mind.
And some leads just aren’t super motivated. Sure they are sort of interested in your service… but they aren’t even close to ready to make a commitment.
It’s very important to understand the difference (and value) of each of these kind of leads.
Hot leads, warm leads, and cold leads.
Because once you understand that your business is generating different kinds of leads, you can serve each lead appropriately and make the most of each.
Hot leads… answer their call, close quick, and make the process as painless as possible.
Warm leads… negotiate with them, listen to their concerns, help them however you can, and DEFINITELY follow-up consistently.
Cold leads… stay in touch with them but don’t invest too much time chatting with them. You should keep them on your emailing or calling list and follow up every other month or so.
The point is… treat every lead how they want to be treated and your business will grow faster.
10. Create a Morning Routine to Control Your Day
Ben also understands the importance of having a morning routine.
As entrepreneurs, it’s easy to get lost in the busy-ness of the day the moment you wake up. Maybe you try to rush out the door to get to important tasks as soon as possible.
That makes sense… you’re busy.
But you can’t neglect your morning routine.
According to Ben, you’ve got to take immediate control of your day by meditating, reading, and even watching an inspiring YouTube video every morning.
This will set you up to conquer the day and do your best work.
And what’s the point of putting a ton of work into your business if it’s not going to be your best work?
So start your day off right and take even just 15 minutes to take care of yourself and get inspired.
You probably want to create more freedom for you and your family.
You probably want to make lots of money.
But do you also want to impact others?
Trevor and Ben talk about how money becomes boring after a while and will only drive you so far in your business, but making an impact will always drive you. That is, wanting to help others and leave your legacy on the world.
It might seem silly, but one of the best ways to grow your business is by caring for others and doing your best to leave a positive impact on your clients.
“Sometimes our biggest nightmare turns out to be our biggest gift. And it all comes down to our attitude. Life will throw us curve balls and disappointments, even heartbreak. But ultimately we can choose if we’re going to be bitter or better for the experience.”
Ben not only has chosen a better experience, but he has also crushed it! Now it’s time for you to lace up your boots and get to work. Get organized. Get a strategy. Get healthy.
We’ll leave you with some questions…
Why are you proud of the business that you’re building or have built?
What have you learned along the way?
Let us know in the comments and let us know how this interview benefited you! :)
One of the most important skill-sets you can have is how to talk to people who are in pain.
Cody Sperber
Artificial Intelligence Leads, Creative Investing Strategies, & Thriving Through COVID-19. Behind the Scenes w/ Cody Sperber, The Clever Investor
Cody started wholesaling with nothing and became a multimillionaire by age 30. Today he runs Clever Investor where he educates investors to follow in his footsteps.
Get a literal behind the scenes look at his team and office, hear how they’re using artificial intelligence to find their deals, and how they have effectively adapted to doing business during the Coronavirus.
We’ll discuss the outlook on the economy and what you can do to position yourself for success.
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
Cody Sperber never set out to be an educator, in fact, he wasn’t even planning on doing real estate fulltime. It started as a side hustle, a couple of wholesaling deals that quickly put Cody on the path to a new life.
By age 28 he had made a million dollars and by the age of 30, he was a multi-millionaire. It’s no surprise that people wanted to know his secrets, From this, Clever Investor was born.
Cody and his team are passionate about providing people with the tools they need to gain financial freedom through real estate.
Tools Cody Is Using Within His Business
When Cody started, he was a one-man show. He used spreadsheets and smiled and dialed leads he’d find on Craiglist. As his business grew, he knew he needed to bring more people in, but like many of us, was leery about who to hire and who to trust.
The first thing he did was to document all of his processes. He made videos and step by step documents so anyone could jump into that chair and get the process started. Bringing others in would help him leverage other people’s time, money, and skills to help elevate to the next level.
Today, he is a big fan of tech and uses all sorts of systems. But as he shows in the video, one of his favorite tools is his deal board that hangs in the office for everyone to sell. Having a visual motivator, something you can physically walk up to, and change is a big deal. It gets the team excited and pumped on the shared vision.
Cody is using a number of tools to help communicate with potential sellers.
His team uses:
Text messaging,
Cold calling,
Ringless voice mail,
Direct mail,
PPC,
and most recently, he has added AI to his toolbox.
Using Artificial Intelligence To Find Leads
The use of AI to find real estate leads is a fairly new concept. While people have been data stacking for years, AI will factor in millions of data points to help predict the propensity of a seller to want to sell within a specific timeframe.
He is now able to calculate the odds of someone selling before even picking up the phone. This is a super cool innovation, and as I see it, the future of lead generation.
How Cody is Handling the Coronavirus and What You Can Do To Prosper
We are making history as we speak. The sudden impact of the Coronavirus has impacted lives, businesses, and markets worldwide. Some feel as if we will be out of all of this in 3-5 months, while others feel that is the black swan event that is going to kick off a recession. Either way, you need to be prepared.
Many of us in the industry have felt a recession was on the horizon for quite some time, and have planned accordingly. If you are just getting started in the business, taking this time to prepare and to educate yourself is one of the best things you can do. Many people are going to be taking their money out of stocks and putting it into real estate. There will be a transfer of wealth, and it is up to you to determine which side of the shift you want to be on. Cody recommends taking some time to learn:
More about deal structuring, seller carry-backs, agreement for deeds, and other options you can provide to sellers aside from a standard cash offer.
Review your state foreclosure process. While the government has seemingly halted foreclosures, for the time being, this is only for government-backed loans. Foreclosures are going to happen and you should have a thorough understanding of the process.
Sharpen your skills on how to talk to motivated sellers, identify their pain, and determine how you can add value.
While nobody is rooting for a down market if it should happen, position yourself as a resource for people. Find ways to help them through this difficult time. Remember, your reputation is worth more than just a few bucks.
Take this time we have been given and really lean-in on your education. Watch youtube videos, listen to podcasts, and take an online course. Instead of getting lost in Netflix, you could come out of all of this in a better place and more prepared for what’s to come!
Have you felt like this recently? Are you unsure if you should stop your Google Paid traffic right now?
You’re not alone, but stay positive. We’re in this together!
We’ve been answering these questions since March by providing data and challenging our members to shift their mindsets.
This has led us to create this blog post. We want to show you what we’re seeing, why you need to change, and how to make those adjustments to WIN in Google Ads during COVID-19 and other events that can cause accounts to go haywire.
What Our Google Ads Data is Showing During COVID-19
Numbers were compared from January 15-February 29 and March 1-April 15.
Sessions from Google Ads have increased by 4.01%.
Sessions are defined as…
“A session is a group of user interactions with your website that takes place within a given time frame. For example, a single session can contain multiple page views, events, social interactions, and eCommerce transactions.”
Leads havedecreased by 13.55%.
Across all members accounts, cost-per-click has increased by 39.3%, and to be expected, the cost per lead has increased by 19.4%.
What does this mean? In “normal times” a conversion issue could mean you’re lacking credibility on your website. Or, not enough website personalization and customization.
During COVID, it’s most likely due to searchers whose comfort level with the current situation is low. This presents a major opportunity to communicate with your audience in a different, more impactful way.
So…
Why Are Leads Down By 13.55%?
Our best-educated hypothesis… there is a lack of communication between your visitors and your website messaging.
Visitors need to know, during this time, that they still have options to sell their house right now. If they’re landing on a page that still has the typical message without educating them about what they can do, they’ll likely bounce for now.
Communication is as important as ever. You need to tell them what they can do during this time where people are uncertain. For example, communicate that they can:
Send photos of their house
Join a video call
Join a Facebook Live for a walk-through
Hop on a phone call
Get the selling process started without ever meeting in person
More on this below…
What Can You Do Right Now to Increase Leads by 33, 100, or Even 225%?!
The members (not all, but MOST) who have made the necessary steps to communicate to their audiences are seeing an increase in lead volume during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We wanted to give you some general tips to help make your Google Ads accounts more effective until this time in history is over.
3 Simple Things You Can Do Today to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Google Ads Accounts
Tip #1: Communicate and Build Relationships With Your Audience
During “normal” times, Google Ads best practices dictate that you dig deep into as much data as you can find so you can be all but certain your next campaign will succeed.
But, we’re in unknown territory holding a lot of uncertainty. No one knows for sure what to totally expect from their accounts right now.
The ones who will have the most success will be those who take their best, common-sensed, educated move and immediately put their campaigns into action.
Think of it this way.
If you don’t try and decide to wait it out, you’ll fall further behind your competitors.
If you make educated moves but fall short, you’ll at the very least have an idea of how to adjust your approach going forward.
You don’t have a lot of time to collect a bunch of performance data… we can help with that.
Your goal should be to find a way to communicate with your audience.
Or, adding more content to your website from blog posts. Carrot Content Pro members have access to blog posts such as…
Or, switch it up a bit and shoot a quick video, such as this Carrot member did…
Now, take your video a step further and create a VideoPost to add to your blog. Simply upload a video and receive a transcription for your content for a blog post in minutes.
This goes for your Google ads and any other paid advertising you create throughout the current pandemic.
Google Ad’s character limitations don’t allow much room to convey a deeply sensitive and empathetic message, but you can utilize space to communicate that you’re still buying as well as other key points.
We’ve seen ads use copy such as:
We’re Still Buying
We Can Rest Your Mind
No Strangers to Your Home
No-Direct Contact Required
You Can Still Sell Your House
A Phone Call Is All It Takes
We Can Buy Via Video, Phone, and Email
You want to create ads that showcase the options they have and the value your service can give them during these circumstances your audience is currently in.
If you can get to the heart of how your services can bring peace and closure to your customers’ lives, during this crisis and other times, you’ll stand a much better chance of surviving and thriving in the future.
Tip #3: Trim Wasted Ad Spend
During “normal” times, it can be easy to keep average-performing ad groups or keywords live as long as they’re bringing in some leads.
But right now a shift to pause those ad groups or keywords and add to negative keyword lists might be a smart approach.
Of course, you can then revive these ad groups and keywords once we’re out of this pandemic.
If you need to cut your budget, a simple strategy would be to pause ad groups and/or keywords that haven’t produced a lead in the past month or two. Or, those ad groups and/or keywords that have converted one or two times in the past month or two.
These might be low-hanging fruit keywords. Choose to pause those for now and hang onto the ad groups and keywords that make the most impact.
Negative keywords will prevent your ads from showing up for future searches that seem to be related to your service but have nothing to do with it.
We’ve seen terms that seem really good but aren’t converting into leads. Such as…
“sell my house in 55+”
So, that term is becoming an exact match negative term for now.
We’ve also seen an influx of game-related terms, possibly due to more kids being without things to do. Terms such as…
“how to sell your house in Rocitizens Boblox”
These are search terms that can’t be predicted.
Even during times like these, the old saying “you gotta spend money to make money” holds true for paid traffic. Merely pausing your campaigns altogether just isn’t the way to go.
But, there are just smarter ways of figuring out the most efficient way to keep your campaigns live.
You should always be looking for the most cost-effective approach to Google ads, but right now, it’s okay to tighten the spending up without feeling like you’re missing out on leads.
Wrapping up
The Google Ads industry changed entirely in the last month. Much of what we considered certainties only a few short weeks ago still remain today, but there are things you need to view a little differently for now.
Adapting during these uncertain times will help you to continue to grow.
It’s likely that you have already come under pressure to reduce spend or, at the very extreme, you’ve paused your account. These are sensible reactions given the circumstances, but are they the only options?
The answers to these questions depend a lot on each individual’s situation, but in this post, we hope to educate you on how to make these positive decisions and how to best adapt Google Ads during these challenging times.
During this article, I’m going to be talking about how you cope with these major changes in the economy, real estate, and the way that we’re working and living and thriving.
Get Quick Context About This Blog Post Before Diving In…
Listen to the Full Podcast Episode Below
Now everybody’s going to be impacted in some way, shape, or form. But, you don’t have to be impacted negatively.
There are people that I know, businesses that I know, that are actually doing better than ever right now because they’re geared and they’re set up and they planned for things like this. Or, maybe they just got lucky and they have certain products, of course, that are just in high demand for these times.
I’m going to be talking about how to better prepare for what’s to come.
How Do You Come Out on the Other Side of This Stronger?
How do you as a real estate investor or agent plan and prepare for what is going to happen?
I’ll be the first one to admit that I didn’t treat this seriously enough early on. I thought, it’s just this, like a lot of people were saying right, it’s this cold, it’s this flu. The flu numbers kill more people than this is killing. And that was honestly just a full misunderstanding of how pandemics work, a full misunderstanding of how math actually works in these types of situations.
Preparing for the Financial Impact
The financial side is what I want you guys to prepare for. What happens with all the shutdowns? The shutdowns are where the devastating part is on the financial side because there’s the health side of it, which is a huge deal, but it’s going to likely be shorter-lived, months rather than years. The financial side though is where it gets really, really interesting and possibly scary for many people.
So if you have stay-in-place orders in California and Washington (now in Oregon) and all over the place, and kids are out of school here in Oregon until the end of April now rather than just spring break…
That leaves over a month and a half to where parents have to figure out a way that they can work at home while trying to take care of their kids still. We’ve got team members who have multiple kids at home, who are working and they’re trying to do their best work. So we’ve put policies in place to give our team members more flexibility and more leeway during these times. And we said, “We’ll take it two weeks at a time during the next two weeks.”
But, we’re not pumping the brakes.
This is when we actually need to hit the gas more than ever to help our customers more than ever, to help you guys wade through and win in this market.
And that’s where I’m going to come to next because there are so many people doing amazing right now still because so many people are pulling back and I’m going to show you guys exactly how to do that, but we need to be doubling down and helping you guys win even more right now, not pulling back ourselves and going, “Hey, let’s wait and see.”
Don’t Pump the Brakes… Give It More Gas
I think if you have a wait and see attitude, then you’re likely going to get impacted way more negatively than you wish.
We put in the policy, where for the next two weeks, put in the hours that you can. We don’t want you to have to make a decision between being a good father or mother and being a good worker. I would rather have you make the decision to be a good father or mother versus trying to fit in all 40 hours. So if you’re only able to get 35 hours of good work in, good focus work in, awesome. Report the full 40 during these next two weeks, and then we’ll take it two weeks at a time after that.
So if you’re an employer, find out ways that you can really help your team members wade through this. Help your team members have confidence in the way that you’re doing things…wade through it with them.
Next thing, if you’re an employer, you need to be doing weekly updates with your team members at the least. I did one last week, pulled up a bunch of slides and just walked through…
“Hey, here’s what we know about the pandemic so far.”
“Here’s how we can serve you, even more, to make working from home even better than we already have.”
Then the next thing was…
“Let’s go through the financial picture. Let’s go through how much cash reserves we have. How long could we run this business if some big things happen that cut our income by 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, or 50%.”
Now, the 10% is realistic, 20% possibly. 50%, I don’t believe that that would happen, but there are cash reserves that we have and could survive and thrive with that.
I also covered hiring…
“But also here are the plans that we have. Are we going to be adjusting our Q2 plans of growth in our hires? Well, we’re taking some of our hires and moving them to contractor roles until this shakes out.”
We’re not stopping those hires because we need them. We need them to grow, we need them to help serve you guys better. But we’re moving them to contractors instead to kind of add that extra buffer in place.
So that’s another move that you can make. If you have any hires coming up, make them contractors instead of employees the next few months to see how things shake out.
Survive and Thrive
The next thing, I’m going to give you guys some really, really actionable steps. How do you wade through this, thrive, and survive?
The first thing is you have to have reserves.
Let’s look at the foundation level. The people that are going to be getting in trouble are the people that have been kind of running fast and loose the last three, four, five, six years.
Thinking that whatever their situation is, it’s going to go on forever in a good way and not stocking away reserves. So the one thing I’ve always had pretty good discipline in, and then we carried it through the previous years as well, is carving out reserves.
Every quarter we look at our profits and I always set how many months of cash reserves we want for operational expenses for the business. And some people suggest three months, six months a year. I suggest six months is what every business should have in operational cash.
What I mean by operational cash is, what does it actually cost you to run your business? If all of your revenue disappeared, what does it cost you to run your business?
That includes all of your employees, any of your fixed expenses, things like that. Add that up for six months. And then I think that’s what you should have in your bank account for reserves.
As I said, the likelihood that you’re not going to bring in any cash for six months is very low, but at least it gives you breathing room.
Now it gives you time to pivot and adjust and change course if you need to. If you only have a month or two or three months, you’re in crisis mode at that point. You can’t really get very crazy creative and have time to really pull back, think, and pivot. You won’t have the luxury of planning a little bit.
Building Reserves Now
What can you put in place right now to ensure that you’re building up your reserves?
Do that now. Start to stock away cash and start to build up that six months reserve. Do the same thing on the personal side. Start to stock away more cash than you normally would right now. Build it up in reserves, six months, personal expenses, your mortgage…
What does it cost you to live on a personal basis? Do that. The next thing is even if you don’t predict a downturn in your business, start to cut expenses.
Start to look at things like that because we want to plan for the worst, but hope for the best. Okay, plan for the worst, hope for the best. And those of you that are not taking this seriously enough are going to be bitten in the butt in several months possibly.
Now we hope not. But as I started to dig into this, the financial ramifications when parents are staying at home and when businesses are closing, all of a sudden unemployment’s going to go from 3% to 5%, to 20% for the next month or two and unemployment benefits rush in there.
Then all of a sudden you have some people that aren’t able to pay their rent. So what happens to landlords during this time? Well, some landlords might struggle to pay their mortgages because some of their employees might be restaurant workers. They might be workers that are having their position shutdown and they might not be able to pay their rent.
What if you’re landlord, that’s over-leveraged, that doesn’t have cash reserves for a while? That now can’t pay your mortgage. So now you’re going to go behind in your mortgage and then all of a sudden, let’s say a bunch of landlords start to default on their mortgages three months from now or two months from now, then you have some sort of banking issues as well.
The Economy
Now is it going to be the same as what happened back in 2008? Let’s dive into some economic stuff right now.
The likelihood that that is going to happen is extremely low. They’re just totally fundamentally different factors that are happening in the economy right now.
Back in 2001, 9/11, what happened was that it was an event, a terrorist attack, that completely wrecked the economy for a period of months. And it wasn’t because there was something fundamentally wrong with the economy. This event wasn’t a bubble…
But, there was the .com bust that happened several years before that. That was something fundamentally wrong with the economy. There was way too much over-investment in the tech world. No one knew what it was. Too many IPOs that were too overhyped. And there was a bubble that popped.
9/11 an event that was a black swan event. Kind of like this pandemic where it’s outside of most people’s control. It’s not something that you could really easily plan for very well. But it does impact things vastly.
After 9/11 people basically stopped traveling. And when people stop traveling, that sort of decimated the travel industry. Hotels, airlines, the same thing that’s happening right now, which then trickled down into everything else, unemployment rises.
But all that didn’t last for too crazy, crazy long. Go back and look at the history books. Some of it lasted for the course of the year. The travel industry took a little while to recover, that’s for sure. Some stuff bounced back within months. But the overall economy, the stock market did take a hit, but real estate prices continued to appreciate actually.
So real estate prices did not depreciate, they continued to appreciate. That is a little bit different though because that was coming out of the stock market crash, the tech bubble of ’98, ’99, 2000.
Things had already started to kind of improve there a little bit. The difference here is we’re at the end, almost overdue of a bull cycle the past 12 years in the stock market and real estate market.
All these things have been amazing for the past 12 years. And for the past couple of years, I’ve been preparing Carrot and my team for a recession. We don’t know when it’s going to happen, but arguably the current policies are helping to prop up the economy longer than I think it should have been.
Bubble?
So is that creating a bubble? Possibly.
There could be some things there, but this black swan event of the pandemic now started to kick it forward, started to kick it down the curb. I do believe that this will kick off some sort of a step into recession.
Now, will this recession be like it was in 2008? I don’t believe so.
Once again, it doesn’t have the same fundamental economic issues there that the mortgage crisis created. And also, the issue of this time has not related to real estate per se.
The issue last time was directly related to the real estate market being overheated. Too many people buying properties that shouldn’t because it was way too easy to get loans.
We’re not seeing that right now. I don’t predict that real estate prices will take a crash because they haven’t been overinflated as much as previously.
Now, will we take a little bit of a dip in prices? I think so. I think toward the end of the year you might see some markets start to slow down a little bit, but I think it’d be more of a softening.
How Real Estate Agents Have Shifted
In the short term, I’ve been talking with lots of agents about what they’re seeing, what are they experiencing in their world.
The experienced ones aren’t missing the beat.
Some have turned to doing virtual showings now over Zoom or Facebook Live instead of having big open houses. They invite everyone to tune into their Zoom room during a certain time and they walk around the house and they talk about it. And then they give people a tour. They’re still showing houses.
One agent said that there have been buyers who still want to buy but they’re going to kind of tap the brakes and wait this out a little bit. There’s also been a seller or two who didn’t want to have a bunch of people going through their house during this time, which is understandable, but they said, in general, they’re still closing the houses. They closed six houses last week alone.
What a lot of other people are kind of using, they’re letting fear stop them from doing this. They’re assuming because all this stuff is happening, then real estate is not working. That none of this is going to continue to work.
That’s just not the case. That’s just not the case at all.
For more information about the coronavirus and realtors, check out this guide.
How Real Estate Investors Have Shifted
Talking to investors, yes, some are worried about their portfolios because they have so many renters that are lower income. That should be an issue. You should be tight. You should be getting as much cash liquidity right now as you possibly can, just to plan for the worst, hope for the best.
But for people out there flipping houses, wholesaling houses, buying houses, things like that, we’re not really seeing much of a slowdown. Now there are some municipalities that are closed down or they’re not processing transactions.
I talked to Cody Sperber down in Phoenix, Arizona last week. He’s coming out for a podcast issue for CarrotCast here shortly. Cody did say that he had a transaction or two canceled at escrow, but what we’re seeing is more around the financers. It’s more on funding. It’s more on the private lenders that are pulling… They’re tapping the brakes a bit.
Let us wait and see this out. Let us dampen our risk in this process. And let’s wait for a month or two before we start to deploy cash, so that’s what you are going to see some private lenders doing that.
Now, how do you contend with that?
Well, number one, you need to be going to your private lenders if you’re a house buyer, and talking with them and educating them on what opportunities there are in the market and how you’re safeguarding their investments.
Go to them right now and talk. Do a Zoom call with your investors and talk to them about the market, about what you’re seeing on the ground, about what other investors are seeing locally, about how you’re going to safeguard in their investment during this time, but also about the opportunity that there is going to be, in this time, to add more value and have them get even greater returns.
That needs to be done. You need to be reaching out to your investors right now to continue to build that relationship, to continue to build that trust and credibility with them so they’re comfortable in these crazy times.
The next thing, if you’re a flipper or a wholesaler is, there’s so many of you who are tapping the brakes on your marketing and you’re going, “I’m going to wait this out.”
That is insane right now. That is the worst thing you can possibly do.
Here’s Cody Sperber’s Game Plan During the Current Situation…
You Have an Audience Right Now
Right now you have some of the biggest captive audience possible out there for people to see your marketing message. Mail is still being delivered. There’s no plan, it doesn’t seem, for mail to stop being delivered. Phone calls are still being answered. Even more now so, because people are at home and possibly home from work.
People are going online and still doing the searches.
In some categories, they’re doing more searches than they were before. For house sellers, we saw a dip a couple of weeks ago. We’re going to look at the data and see. It’s barely, it’s like 10% or so.
According to a recent WordStream study, search traffic in the real estate industry remains relatively stable, as well as little change to search volume, CPC, or conversion rates.
But as we move into the next two or three weeks, some important shifts could have some important industry consequences.
What Can You Expect?
What I predict is people looking for investment properties might be kind of pulling back some of their demand right now.
I predict while in that first phase of the pandemic fear to happen, I think a lot of people will pause just because they don’t know what else to do. They’ll pause out of fear, they’ll pause meaning, “I want to wait a little bit to see what happens before I sell my house.”
But here’s the deal. If they start to have income issues, if they already had an issue with the property they’re needing to sell, and now he gets exacerbated with the economy, what’s only going to happen now is as the weeks go on…
That pain is going to actually increase.
So, if you’re an agent or if you’re an investor, you need to be out there solving people’s pain. This isn’t about taking advantage of people. There’s not one lick of that here.
What we need to be doing, as a society, is finding out how can we solve people’s pain.
How can we truly solve problems? How can we truly add value to people’s worlds right now when they need it the most and some people need it right now more than ever?
Right now is not the time to hit the brakes, right now is not the time to pull back and say, “I’m going to wait and see it out.”
Right now is not the time to pull your marketing back, right now is actually the time to double up on your marketing and increase your spend on marketing.
I was talking to Christina Krause, one of the biggest direct mail marketing consultants for investors and she said her three biggest clients have made their largest purchases ever with her these past two to three weeks. That says a lot!
So why is that? Because what they’re doing is there’s a lot of print houses, mail shops and things like that, that might be shutting down for business for a while, if there is a stay-at-home, a stay-at-place order. And a lot of those shops might be in California or some other states where they’re doing stay-at-home orders.
Get your orders in right now… To get your mailing pieces printed off before any stay-at-home orders are done.
Make those big orders and then pull back. The post office doesn’t seem like they’re shutting things down. Could that change? It could.
Make those orders, get your direct mail pieces in because what happens if you try to place your order and then they’re slowing down business for two weeks, all of a sudden you’re two to three weeks behind, maybe even four weeks behind because now they have a stockpile of orders they need to process.
You’re two to four weeks behind on getting mail out to people when they need it the most. Then those who are getting mail out consistently and often during these times are going to come out the other side winning.
Those who are going and looking at their Google PPC costs and saying, “Hey, there’s people.” What you’re going to see right now is people diminishing or stopping their PPC, their spend.
You’re going to see people stopping their PPC spend because, out of fear, because they’re seeing, “oh my gosh, my click cost is $45 a click or $25 a click and my leads are $300, oh my gosh.” But that’s if you’re trusting emotion, not math.
You need to go back to the fundamentals we’ve been teaching for years…
TRUST MATH NOT EMOTION
If your average profit per deal is $20,000, your for-average-commission per deal as an agent is $10,000 and as an investor, let’s say, after that $20,000 profit, it takes you 10 inbound online leads through PPC or through SEO to close the deal, which is about average, right around there, 10 to 15.
I would just about average, the highest lead to close ratio you can get with any lead. Any lead, as an agent and an investor, so if you’re closing one in 10 and your average property is $20,000 and you’d be willing to trade $5,000 to get that $20,000 deal done in marketing, that means you can pay up to $500 per lead and win the market.
And there are so many people cutting and killing their pay-per-click at $150 a lead, at $95 a lead at $225 a lead, because their neighbor over here is getting leads for $22 or $5 on Facebook or because they’re fearful.
Right now is when you need to actually look at your numbers again and say…
“I’m going to double down on this. I’m going to spend even more. I’m going to make sure I’m answering these phone calls quicker.”
Stay in front of those sellers and help serve them even better. Make sure to give them multiple different offers.
Can you imagine if, in this market right now, where there’s a lot of things happening and there are people who are wanting to sell, a guy like Eric comes in and says,
“Hey, here are three options…
#1…List it for the most money in your pocket.
#2… I can pay cash, but it’s going to be a discount, but it’s immediate and you don’t have to worry about repairs or anything.
#3… Or, I see there’s an opportunity to renovate your kitchen and your bathroom and add $60,000 in value with a $20,000 investment. I will put in the $20,000. I’ll bring in my construction crew. Then afterward, you and I will split the difference between the equity that was gained…
…On that extra equity where it’s going to add $50,000 in extra equity, I’m going to get my $20,000 back for the renovations, which leaves $30,000 left, and we’re going to split that. You’re going to get $15,000 extra over and above what you would’ve got if you’d have just listed it as is. I’m going to get $15,000. Then I’m also going to get the listing over here for the rest of the principle. Okay?”
Be Creative Right Now
Here are three things I want you guys to do right now.
First, create reserves for personal and for business.
Make sure you have six months reserves in the bank. Now, if you don’t have six months reserves in the bank, then should you freak out? No, but you should prepare for it. You should pull back and go, “What expenses can I trim right now where I can start to build up more reserves?”
Stop spending on the ice cream. Stop spending on things that don’t matter. Cut the Netflix subscription for awhile. Whatever you have to do, start building up cash reserves, not just for the pandemic, but if a recession does kick in, there’s always amazing opportunity, but only for those who are prepared, only for those who actually are ready for capitalizing on this opportunity with cash or with partners who have cash.
Second, go out there and start building relationships with private investors.
Start to build relationships with those private lenders because those people are the people that have been piling cash for years, and they want opportunities in the market when those opportunities arise.
Start to build relationships with people that are well-off in your area. Ask them about what their plans are, tell them about what you’re doing in real estate, and start to get them interested in it.
Don’t ask them for money, but if you talk about what you’re doing enough, they will be interested, they will ask you, and they will say, “Hey, yeah, that sounds amazing. Let’s chat about it.” Okay? How do you make sure that you are being proactive in building those relationships right now?
Third, grow during these times.
I don’t want you to pull back. I talked about before how there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to be doing the, “Let’s sit and wait.”
There’s going to be a lot of people who are doing the pullback and like, “I’ll pull back out of fear because I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Now is NOT the time to pull back, NOT the time to pull back business strategy-wise, NOT the time to pull back investment-wise and marketing.
Right now is the time to double down. If you’re an agent, get a darn Zoom account and start talking with your customers over Zoom. If you’re a personal trainer, start to do personal training from home with Zoom. Get creative right now, guys. Don’t hit the brakes on that stuff.
What I want you guys to do is grow personally right now.
Understandably, there are many people who are unsure and worried right now. But, don’t treat this as a vacation. This is not the time to treat this as a vacation.
Now is not the time to say, “Hey, this is where I can lighten up my load.” Now is the time when you need to get really diligent and grow personally. Read personal growth books.
This is the time when you need to actually double down on your learning. This is the time when you actually needed to take courses or focus on family.
We need to be more diligent, which means acting more decisively, which means less wasting our time, which means tackling an opportunity that’s in front of us and not doing the sit and wait.
It means being innovative and being creative and adding more value than you’ve ever, ever added in your business ever before.
Don’t pull back. Step in. Lean into this. Be healthy. Stay away from people if you have to, but get creative. We’re going to weather this with you. We’re insanely positive about this. Agents and investors are not stopping their transactions right now.
They’re still meeting with sellers physically or over Zoom. They’re still meeting with a buyer physically or having open houses over Zoom. Investors are doing the same.
Investors are doubling down on their marketing right now because they need to get that marketing out for the next three, four, five, six, seven weeks while people are really needing your services now more than ever.
They’re not pumping the brakes.
This is where you need credibility in your business more than ever right now. You need credibility. You need online credibility. You need performance from your Carrot system.
I’ll give you guys another update in the next week or two on pandemic stuff and how you can really strategically go out there and market better and differently and how you can change your business to work more remotely during these times.
We talk a lot about content marketing for real estate agents and investors.
Writing blog content for your website doesn’t just help you generate more passive traffic through SEO (Search Engine Optimization); it also allows you to engage with your ideal market and provide them with free value.
But for all the buzz around writing blog content, recording videos, and posting on social media, it can still be a challenge to create that high-quality content that ranks in Google (generating passive traffic to your website), engages your ideal market, and gets “shares” on social media.
So, we put together this resource for you with five easy-to-follow real estate blog post templates for real estate agents and investors.
How Powerful is Content Marketing For Real Estate?
Content marketing is, quite simply, publishing content (blog articles, social media posts, YouTube videos, etc.) to brand and grow your business.
And it’s effective for pretty much every industry, real estate included.
In some ways, content marketing is more effective in the real estate industry than in other industries.
If I want to create content consistently and I’m in the travel niche, for example, I’m going to have a ton of competition—there are just a lot of content creators in the travel niche.
Not so much for real estate. Especially if you consider that you’re only competing with content-creating real estate professionals in your area of operation, there’s even less competition.
That’s good! It means you’ll have less trouble standing out.
But if you’re still not convinced that consistent content marketing can be crazy powerful for your business’ growth, consider these stats…
90% of buyers look online to find their next home.
70% of people prefer to get a sense of your business through online content.
61% of inbound leads cost less than outbound leads.
Websites with blogs have 434% more indexed pages than websites without blogs.
Companies that blog receive 97% more links than those that don’t.
Yeah…
Content marketing can certainly give your real estate business the boost it needs. We also have a few other resources on this topic that you might find helpful.
Either way, here are five blog post templates for your real estate website content.
Keep in Mind Before You Write
Here are some things to remember before you start writing your blog posts.
Get to know your audience
Do keyword research before writing
Write a good headline for every blog post
Hook your readers from the start
Answer their questions with your blog posts
Tell a captivating story
Make your content easily scannable
Be authentic in your writing
Prioritize quality content over the number of words
Use data
Need help finding keywords for your blog posts? We did it for you!
5 Real Estate Blog Post Templates You Can Steal
Blog Post Template 1: The Listicle
The listicle blog post template is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a “list” of reasons, tips, tricks, or hacks that provide easy-to-scan value for your audience.
This blog post is a listicle.
Listicles are easy to write and easy for readers to digest, and they tend to do well in Google and social media.
A few examples of listicle posts are…
5 Reasons Why People Sell Their Home With Real Estate Agents
5 Myths About Selling Your House To An Investor
10 Ways To Sell Your House For More Money
The template for a listicle is pretty basic. Here it is.
TitleOptions
[X] Reasons That…
[X] Ways To…
[X] Tips For…
[X] Hacks That Will…
Introduction
Write a short introduction, between 50 and 150 words, that empathizes with your ideal market’s current situation and briefly explains the problem your article willd solve.
Middle – Points
List your article’s points as H2 headings and write between 50 and 150 words for each point, expanding upon the core concept.
Conclusion
Write 50 to 150-word conclusion which overviews the article’s content and calls the reader to take action. Your CTA should often encourage the reader to work with you.
The average person doesn’t understand much about the real estate world—how to increase the value of their home, how to sell quickly, or even how to find a trustworthy agent, for instance.
And who better to teach those practical skills than you, a local real estate professional?
Because most people have many real estate-related questions, the “How To” article format is particularly pertinent.
It’s a great format for establishing yourself as the go-to expert in your market, the person people think of first when making a real estate-related decision (which, of course, is a good thing!).
Here’s the template.
TitleOptions
How To… [do something that your target audience wants to learn how to do]
…Sell Your House For More Money
…Find a Trustworthy Real Estate Agent
…Sell a Distressed Property For Cash
Introduction
Write a short introduction, between 50 and 150 words, that empathizes with your ideal market’s current situation and briefly explains the problem your article will solve.
Middle – Steps
List your article’s “Steps” as H2 headings and write between 50 and 150 words for each step, providing more detail on accomplishing the task.
For example…
Step 1: Determine the value of your house.
Step 2: Check the reviews for the investor’s website.
Step 3: Call and talk to the investor.
Conclusion
Write 50 to 150-word conclusion which overviews the article’s content and calls the reader to take action. In many cases, your CTA should encourage the reader to work with you.
Did you provide clear, actionable steps to accomplishing the task your reader needed help with?
Did you provide relevant and accurate facts and stats to prove your understanding of the concept?
Did you emphasize the importance of understanding this concept if it is not already well-known?
Did you properly cite and backlink your sources?
Did you spell-check and proofread?
Are there at least 1-2 images?
Is the post 800-1,000 words at a minimum?
Blog Post Template 3: The Case Study
Case studies are perhaps the most powerful kind of blog content for building trust with your audience and rapport for your business.
A case study is an article that explains the benefits of working with you by telling the story of a past client who was extremely pleased with their experience.
You can use case study articles to illustrate that you pay more than other investors, work faster than other agents, or are simply more trustworthy and honest than the competition.
For this type of blog article, you’ll need to interview your past clients and ensure they’re okay with you publishing the story of them working with you.
Here’s the template.
TitleOptions
Case Study: How…[something awesome]
…I Helped Sell This Person’s House In Under 7 Days
…I Paid $100,000 In Cash For This Person’s Property
…I Saved This Person From Bankruptcy
Introduction
Write a short introduction, between 50 and 150 words that builds suspense for the story your article is going to tell.
Middle – Before, During, After
Your article should have Before, During, and After sections as H2 headings. Under the Before section, describe what the person was going through before working with you.
Under the “during” section, describe their experience working with you (use direct quotes and testimonials if possible), and in the After section, discuss how much better off they are now because they worked with you.
Conclusion
Write 50 to 150-word conclusion which overviews the article’s content and calls the reader to take action. In many cases, your CTA should encourage the reader to work with you.
Blog Post Template 4: The VideoPost
Don’t want to write your blog post?
Well, at Carrot, we’ve created the solution: VideoPost.
We offer our members this tool, which allows them to quickly and easily transcribe a video into a fully written article with the click of a button.
And your blog content is no exception. Sharing your controversial opinions with your audience might seem like a bad idea, but it’s actually a great way to attract people who agree with you and generate attention for your business (no publicity is bad publicity, eh?).
Here’s the template for writing a controversial post.
TitleOptions
This Is Why… [controversial opinion]
…Selling Your House To An Investor Is More Profitable
…Real Estate Agents Are The Best Option
…You Shouldn’t Use a Real Estate Agent
Introduction
Write a short introduction, between 50 and 150 words, that describes what the article is going to be discussing.
Middle
The middle structure here is a little more complicated than some of the other blog post templates. The first section should focus on describing the popular wisdom that people receive and why that seems to make sense.
The second section should dismantle that concept with logic and evidence. The final section should introduce your new idea and provide evidence for that opinion. All section headers should be H2 headings.
Conclusion
Write 50 to 150-word conclusion which overviews the article’s content and calls the reader to take action. In many cases, your CTA should encourage the reader to work with you.
Put These Real Estate Blog Templates to Work!
Although this doesn’t give you templates for every kind of blog post, it gives you a solid foundation for writing killer content. Now, all you have to do is use these real estate blog post templates!
Now, when you sit down to write a blog post, you don’t have to think about how to put the content together. You’ve got the exact recipe you need to make it happen. For more resources and real estate marketing materials, click on the link!
Direct mail is all amount momentum and consistency. Once you have that momentum, don’t break it, keep it going and you will see the magic begin to happen.
Christina Krause
Direct Mail Masterclass #4 | The One Missing Piece To Your Direct Mail Marketing w/ Christina Krause
We’re coming at you with part 4 of our 4-part series on direct mail marketing for real estate. In the last two episodes of this series, we sat down with Todd Swaggerty of Yellow Letter HQ to get his take on direct mail marketing for real estate, what you should be mailing, and when. We talked about lists and how to hone in on your ideal clients.
She’s been with us at CarrotCamp and at our Market Leader Summit. I am super excited for this episode as we sit down and dive deeper into tracking, training, metrics, and all of the insanely strategic things Christina does for her clients.
So get out a pen, get comfortable, and get ready to learn about what your direct mail campaign may be missing: DATA.
Here at Carrot, we will always advocate for a well-rounded marketing mix. Your PPC, your direct mail, and your social campaigns are all just pieces of a larger puzzle.
When done correctly, each part of your marketing mix will amp each other up. Your offline marketing supporting your offline marketing and vice versa. This is why we are so excited about this series covering direct mail for real estate.
To close out the series, having Christina on was a perfect choice. Her data-driven lead-gen has been helping real estate investors all over the country get more leads and close more deals.
While her company isn’t a mail house, they do oversee the campaign from start to finish. They will generate leads, oversee the mailings, and most importantly, track the data throughout the entire sales pipeline.
Mailing To The Right People
For her clients, Christina will often run a direct mail campaign that is 90% postcards and 10% letters. According to the data, letters have a higher response rate but will cost more to send. As such, the letters are reserved for the highest value leads. To find the highest value leads, you’ll have to get the right lists, study the data, and track everything!
Using Direct Mail For Real Estate? What You Should Be Tracking…
You see the threads on all the real estate websites. People will say to do this or don’t do that. Put this on your mailpiece. Don’t put this on your mail piece. Taking the advice of people online can help you learn a thing or two, but to know what is going to work for your business you’ll have to do some testing. You want to put your money into things that are working, not hearsay from things you read online.
Tracking your results is the only way to know what works. Christina recommends these three KPI’s or Key Performance Indicators.
Your Response Rate – This is anyone who called you because of your postcard. Even if they asked to be taken off of your list, your mailer got their attention and initiated a response. Be sure to remove any dupes, only counting unique callers.
Your Net Lead Rate – Now how many of those people who called actually had a house they are ready to sell? This is your net lead rate. Even if they aren’t ready to sell today, they may be ready in the future. These people need to be put into a follow-up sequence as they are a potential lead. (More on following up later…) When looking at the numbers, you should aim to have 50% of your calls be net leads.
Your Appointment Booking Rate – Of those net leads, how many are you able to schedule an appointment with? As Christina says, you should be aggressively booking appointments. Getting in front of your potential client’s faces is huge. Try to set appointments with 30% of your net leads.
Closed Deals – As a good rule of thumb, 10% of those appointments you go on should turn into deals.
To get even more granular with the tracking, you can use different phone numbers for your different segments. There are many companies that can get this set up for you, even using Google Voice to set up multiple numbers that ring to one place can work.
Tracking all this data may seem overwhelming, but if you have a CRM (And you should have a CRM), it should be able to do all of the work for you. If you are just getting started out and don’t have a CRM in place, you can just as easily take out a pen and a piece of paper to track these things yourself.
Creating A Mailpiece That Gets Attention
Letters have a higher response rate than postcards. Part of this being that people simply like receiving mail. Having a first-class stamp as opposed to a bulk-rate marking is another way to add value to your mail piece.
Another interesting thing Christina recommends is to use envelopes with a point that seal with a sticker as opposed to the straight-edged one that you moisten to secure. Pointed envelopes are easier to open, this increasing your response rate.
If sending a postcard, less is more. You will want to get your message across in as few words as possible. One one side, state what you can offer. The other side can offer a few more details as well as a way to contact you.
People taking the time to read your postcard will have piqued interest and will want to dig a little deeper into who you are. Including the link to your Carrot site on your postcard will improve your credibility.
A great tip Christina offered is to send the mailer to yourself. When rifling through your mail, does the piece grab your attention? You may see something on your computer and think it looks great.
But that same mail piece may give off a completely different feel when you see it in person, amongst your other pieces of mail. Before sending out a mailer, Christina will send it to herself and to her staff for feedback.
The Biggest Mistakes People Are Making With Their Direct Mail Marketing for Real Estate
Christina and her team are responsible for millions of mail pieces each month. She’s worked with clients all over the country and she sees the things that help people succeed, vs. the mistakes that cause them to fail. You could have a great list and a great mail piece, but the path to conversion doesn’t stop there.
Untrained Sales People
Leads are not created equally. So many salespeople have grown accustomed to dealing with leads that come in from the internet, people who have been searching for a way to sell a home.
With direct mail marketing, the leads are a bit different. Your mailer got their attention, but they hadn’t been out there searching you out. With these leads, you are introducing a concept, which requires a bit more nurturing. You will be having a different conversation with them and cannot give up easily.
Lack of Momentum and Consistency
With direct mail, it is all about momentum and consistency. It will take a little bit to get things dialed in, but as Christina says, there is magic to that fourth month of direct mail marketing. Some people will stop around this time because they aren’t able to handle all of the leads. But unless you are able to find a way to handle it and keep things going, you will have to start all over again when you decide to start another campaign.
Lack Of Follow-Up
Another problem Christina sees is a lack of follow up. 60-70-% of your deals will come from follow-up. You need to get these leads into a follow-up sequence, hitting them with your message from all angles. You can call, email, and retarget via Facebook.
Wrapping up this series, I want to leave you with this: your offline marketing will drive your online demand. Your website is just a piece of the pie.
You need to use direct mail to activate people who may not have been thinking about selling. Using direct mail marketing for real estate will help you to scale, grow your business, and ultimately close more deals.
Being an entrepreneur can be lonely. If you aren’t plugged into the right information, connected to the right people, or in a space where you can ask questions, your business is going to suffer.
Mike Hambright has been investing in real estate since 2008. Since then he has been busy with investments, coaching, and finding ways to give back and add value to others.
Today we talk about the impact of community, plus what Mike has learned this year from some of the top investors in the country. Listen in!
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
The Most Important Lessons In 2019 From America’s Top Real Estate Investors w/ Mike Hambright of Investor Fuel
As an investor, who do you turn to with your questions? Who do you bounce ideas off of before diving in headfirst? For Mike Hambright, his business has thrived simply by providing a community for others with shared interests.
Today, in addition to investing in real estate, Mike hosts two incredible podcasts, The Investor Fuel Podcast and FlipNerd. He works with many of the top real estate investors in the US! Mike also leads a mastermind which I am incredibly proud to be apart of, called Investor Fuel.
Mike first got into investing when he realized he wanted to be in charge of his own destiny. His whole life he had done the things he thought he was supposed to do. He got the degrees and the corporate jobs, but at the end of the day, his fate lied in the hands of someone else.
In 2008 he had had enough of the corporate life and dove into real estate investing with a no-fear attitude. That attitude allowed him to close on 65 properties that first year alone.
Mike continued to close these deals year after year but things began to get a bit more complicated. Instead of just flipping houses, now Mike was handling rentals, tapping into other types of real estate investment, and coaching up and coming investors, helping them to find their footing in this business.
Be A Go-Giver
At Carrot, a big part of our business relies on how we can give back. The Go-Giver was a book I read early on in my career which has completely altered the way I see business. Mike has adopted the same principals within his business, providing a forum for like-minded investors to connect. He has created a safe space where people can be open, vulnerable, and comfortable sharing details about their businesses.
Back when Mike first got into real estate, the internet wasn’t what it is today. People weren’t meeting and discussing ideas in the ways they are not. People kept information to themselves out of fear that someone was going to steal their next big deal.
It was then that Mike realized there needed to be a greater sense of community surrounding real estate. So many people were experiencing the sale triumphs and setbacks, yet had nobody to talk about it with. They were unable to find people who could relate and offer the insight they needed. One small idea shared from someone you may not normally connect with can completely alter your business for the better. It is through these connections that incredible success stories take place.
Sharing Your Best
I’ve noticed at CarrotCamp and other networking events in the past, that people can come into these situations with a bit of apprehension. They may not be open to being vulnerable about their defeats or they may be hesitant about sharing too much of their propriety information.
They are guarded and are not sharing their best information or the best version of themselves. I say to people, “if you aren’t sharing your best, you can’t expect others to.” Once the walls start to come down is when the best information is shared, ideas are sparked, and valuable partnerships formed. If you are able to eliminate your scarcity mindset, you will see just how much opportunity is out there for everyone.
Changing With The Times
Mike works with hundreds of top real estate investors from around the country. Some of the big themes he sees with his fellow investors is an inability to change with the times and investors becoming distracted from their goals by any new and shiny object that comes along.
Many investors can become close-minded and stuck in their ways. I hear a lot of people say things like “direct mail doesn’t work” or “PPC isn’t working like it used to.”
These things both still work, it’s the approach that needs to be changed. By sourcing the data themselves, stacking lists, and changing up their marketing message, investors all over the country are continuing to find success using these methods.
Remember, your goal isn’t to spend the least on marketing. It is to spend the most, monetizing your leads in multiple ways.
Building Your Community
Having the right people around you is beneficial in so many ways. As an entrepreneur, it is so important to not isolate yourself. You will want to stay plugged in and connected, especially as markets are beginning to shift. You can join masterminds, local community groups, and online communities.
Find a place where you can share your goals as well as your struggles. And don’t just limit your community to work, get involved with people of similar interests and faiths. Personality, building community has become a way of life, and the rewards continue to surprise me.
Do you find, finding sellers hard? You’re not alone. With most real estate investing business models, finding motivated sellers can be difficult.
You have to send direct mail that stands out, run attractive PPC campaigns, and rank in Google for terms like “sell my house fast for cash in [market].”
In fact, here’s an article we wrote which is dedicated to helping you find motivated sellers.
But with land investing, the entire thing gets flipped on its head. Finding land sellers is usually pretty easy. For about every 250 mailers, you can expect to find a motivated seller. Finding land buyer leads can be the hardest part.
And of the land buyer leads you do get, a lot of them are tire-kickers who think owning a piece of property would be cool, but just end up wasting your time.
In the end, you might find about one motivated buyer per 25 or 30 leads (give or take some depending on your market).
If you could increase the number of leads you get, you would also increase the number of motivated buyers you find and deals you close.
And in the land business, that’s one of the biggest factors which determines your business growth. Are you finding motivated buyers consistently?
We’re starting off with the most important tip in this article.
Because look — if you generate more traffic to your land buyer website, but none of that traffic opts-in and gives you their info, then they might not have visited your website at all.
(If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it make a noise?)
And make no mistake, optimizing your website’s conversion rate can make a massive difference. Consider this math.
Imagine it takes you 25 leads to close one deal.
Further, imagine that you’re currently getting 500 website visits per month with a conversion rate of 5% (which means that you’re generating 25 leads and thus closing one deal per month).
If you increase that conversion rate from just 5% to 10%, you’d generate 50 leads and close 2 deals per month with the same amount of website traffic.
We’ve run tons of conversion rate tests on our member’s websites to determine what converts the best and we’re absolutely relentless about ensuring that our member’s sites continue to convert like their businesses need them to.
2. Create Consistent Content to Find Land Buyer Leads
Consistent content marketing is probably one of the most powerful things you can do for your land investing business. With it, you can:
Create more social media visibility
Drive more traffic to your website
Build rapport with that traffic
It’s also probably one of the most under-valued lead-generation strategies.
Which is good!
It means if you do create consistent content on your website, you’ll quickly and easily stand head-and-shoulders above your competitors that aren’t creating any content.
But… what kind of content should you create? What should you talk about? When should you create it?
Great questions!
Carrot members can create awesome long-form blog content in under 10-minutes using our VideoPost feature. This allows you to record a video from your smartphone, upload it to your Carrot site, and we’ll create a transcript of the video and make it into a blog post for you!
Yep — super easy and crazy effective.
In fact, one of the VideoPosts we created for our own website (yes — we drink our own poison ;-)) is ranking #1 in Google!
As for when you should create it… I’d recommend publishing at least one new piece of content on your website every week (but the more, the merrier!).
Also, Carrot members who are subscribe to the Content Tools add-on receive blog posts every month that they can upload to their website with just a few clicks. And we come up with all the relevant topics so you don’t have to.
Carrot’s land buyer blog post examples
If you don’t want to worry about creating your own content (it can be a bit time-consumer, to be sure), then try Carrot risk-free for one month!
3. Rank in Google For Relevant Land Buying Search Terms
Perhaps the best, cheapest, most effective way to generate more leads for your land investing website is to get your website ranking for relevant search terms in Google.
That way, when someone searches for “Buy land now in [market city]” or “Buy cheap land in [market city]”, they’ll click to your website and become a lead!
Now I know what you’re thinking: how are you going to beat big websites like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com in the search rankings?
Well, it’s not an easy task. But you do have a unique advantage — namely, that you’re running a local business and those websites aren’t. This means that you can use Google My Business to get different rankings!
Use title with the keyword prominently featured, within the 70-character count. You can use a tool such as Moz’s title tag preview tool if you have questions.
Use keyword-rich H2 tags and include your keyword in the body copy.
Add the keyword to the meta description. Meta descriptions are capped at 155 characters so try to add the keyword to the beginning.
Include keyword sentences (3-5 words) in the alt image text.
Offer a mix of internal and external links throughout the blog post.
4. Advertise On Land Listing Sites
Remember when we were looking at SEO (Search Engine Optimization) earlier, how the top websites were big names like LandWatch, Zillow, Redfin, and LandAndFarm?
Landandfarm.com listings
Well, you can also advertise your properties and/or company on these websites — although many of them charge a pretty penny and they lock you into a contract for a year.
I’d recommend checking with someone else who uses these sites to advertise their land and asking about what kind of results they’re getting.
Again, before you pay for these types of ads, you’ll want to ensure that you have a high-converting website and compelling sales copy for each of your properties — our Concierge service at Carrot can help you write effective, custom sales copy for your website. Learn more about it here.
5. Optimize Your Land Property Pages
Once you have a high-converting homepage, a lot of the hard work is done. More people will give you their contact information and then it’s simply a matter of reaching out to them, following consistently, and using your salesmanship skills to turn them into a deal.
But in addition to optimizing your homepage for conversion, you should also take a close look at your property pages — that is, the pages on your website that advertise specific land you have for sale.
Location pages to widen your reach and increase SEO rankings
From our research at Carrot, we put together an article that discusses the 6 critical elements of any effective real estate landing page. Check it out over here.
Then make sure that each of your property pages has those elements.
6. Run PPC Campaigns
Running PPC campaigns to your website can be a great way to generate more leads to your website with just a little extra cash.
However, make sure that your website is converting like you want it to convert before you spend too much money on paid advertising — otherwise, you’ll end up throwing money down the drain.
We have an in-depth article over here that discusses how to create effective PPC campaigns (and it’s written by our own in-house PPC expert!)
Check it out and let us know if you have any questions — we’re here to help!
7. Create a Free Lead Magnet for Land Buyer Leads
On most land investing websites, having gated property pages (that is, people have to enter their contact information in order to look at your properties) is enough to generate leads consistently.
But to differentiate yourself from the competition, some of you might consider using a lead magnet instead. A lead magnet is a free digital resource you give to people in exchange for their email address and phone number. In addition, implementing an SPF record checker in your email marketing strategy can help maintain the deliverability and security of the messages you send, ensuring they reach the intended recipients’ inboxes.
You could create a checklist about how to find the perfect piece of land or how to do due diligence on properties, for example, or you could write a small ebook about how to find the perfect land for building on.
For example, WGLands created a “Land Investing Coaching” lead magnet
Sometimes, giving away a free resource to new website traffic can pull in leads you wouldn’t have captured otherwise.
If you’re at a loss for what to do, then this idea might at least be worth a try!
Test it and see what happens (consider putting the free lead magnet on your sidebar and leaving your main opt-in form at the top so you can generate both types of leads).
Conclusion – Get More Land Buyer Leads Now
You want to generate more leads to your land investing website.
For good reason!
The more traffic you drive to your land buyer website, the more lead you generate, the more deals you’ll do every single month.
And with more monthly deals comes more entrepreneurial freedom and more time for the things that matter most in life. You can use the above 7 ideas to generate more leads for your land investing business. Hit us with questions in the comments if you have any! :-)
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