Real Estate Investing Blog

I wanted to share a topic that came up today as a result of a short, but to the point email I received today. SO. I am going to post that email AND my response. - - Let me know your comments.

Writer:

Dear Michelle, Your last advice to offer 100% financing to prospective buyers cost me $450 in advertising with 0 results at a time when that amount might as well have been $450,000 as I’m in foreclosure. I’m sick of this.

My response to her:

I want to thank you for taking your time to email me.

Your email lets me know ‘there are’ investors out there willing to go in to the trenches.

You did say that my ‘last advice’ was to offer 100% financing.
Are you speaking of an issue of our newsletter?

Anyway, Tell me about the property or properties you were using this ’selling’ technique on And, tell me where you (or the property) is.

I know how frustrating it can be to budget advertising/marketing and have it return 0 results.

What is amazing is that some marketing techniques - - - like using the newspaper - - - work terrifically in some areas and completely bomb in others.

When Richard and I started RE Investing we did exactly what we were told - at each interval of our learning. FIRST, we were told to use the newspaper to find sellers - we used the ads we were given. Now let me tell you, we ‘KEPT’ doing the newspaper ads because the people that were teaching us told us that was the way to do it.

RESULTS: A Big Fat Zero. WHY, Because

here in Atlanta, the newspaper does not work but we had to spend QUITE A BIT OF MONEY before WE finally said, “We are not going to do this type of marketing for sellers any more - no matter what ________ __________ or ______ ________ says.
AND when we talked to ________ _______ about it (as new investors) they said, “I don’t know what to tell ya - it works for me!”

It was then and there that we realized that there was not ‘a collection’ of different types of marketing methods so we began to ‘try’ our ‘luck’ at other types.

NOW - Just so you know - our ‘using the newspaper for marketing’ lesson did not end there. When we finally had properties that we’d gotten subject-to - we tried the newspaper again to find the buyers. Another big waste of money here in Atlanta.

Now - let me say that the newspaper works FABULOUSLY in other areas. Many other areas - just not Atlanta.

The same goes for other types of marketing - where it will work great in one city but not in another like Bandit Signs, door hangers, etc. I will say this - direct mail, both broad-spectrum non-specific target and Targeted will produce results - but it too has to be ‘tested’ in areas.

Speaking of that - that’s another thing that I really couldn’t stand the sound of for at least the first 3 - 4 years we were in the real estate investing business - ‘TESTING’.
(1) I was [ am ] impatient and wanted results from what we did “right now”, so
(2) I did not have the patience to try and understand the ‘value’ of actually testing my marketing materials.

Needless to say - eventually, I ’saw the light’.

You know, I could probably bend your ear for ever and ever and ever about the trials, the tribulations, AND the Lessons that we learned in the beginning - and how they are still coming.

I want you to know that making any ‘business’ that is YOUR business, WORK is a learning curve and a process of business growth. THE SECRET IS - DON’T GIVE UP!
If you have to ‘regroup’ - put it on hold until you get more knowlege OR find the RIGHT deal to do when you have little or no money OR BOTH - then do that. That approach will let you see the light at the end of the tunnel ALL THE TIME!

Last week I did a teleconference with Anthony Minnuto and he was talking about how a good percentage of investors ‘give up’. I quoted something Winston Churchill said about success,

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without any loss of enthusiasm”.

Even successful people have these challenges.
Best Best,

Michelle Odessey

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm and is filed under How To Buy Properties, Success, Marketing, How To Sell Properties, Single-Family Properties, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.