Making Money While You Sleep
How would you like to have a real estate business that made money while you weren’t even thinking about real estate or your business? The way you can create this type of business is by leveraging other people’s time and utilizing various marketing and advertising strategies. Most new investors are going to spend a significant part of their own time working their business. This is not a bad thing, in fact, it is critical that new investors, and seasoned investors for that matter, spend a lot of time researching potential markets, sourcing deals, evaluating properties, etc. The problem is there is a limited amount of time in each day and, at times, you may feel like you’re running yourself ragged or spinning your wheels.
You need to create a business where other people and your marketing efforts are working for you. Once you’ve created this environment, your business is going to be moving forward and progressing when you are out to dinner, watching television, sleeping, spending time with family and friends and when real estate is the farthest thing from your mind.
So how do you do this?
Firstly, you want to have the mindset of not doing everything yourself and understand the importance of having other people help you in your finding and sourcing efforts. There simply are not enough hours in the day for you to do everything through your own efforts.
Secondly, put other people to work. You will want to have real estate agents that understand what your buying criteria is out in the market looking for deals for you. This is their job, so it should be relatively easy to get agents working for you. A great way to find agents that understand investors’ needs is through real estate investment clubs. It won’t hurt to call local real estate brokers and talk with the desk or floor agent but you may have to educate them a little more on how investors work and what you specifically need and want them to do for you. It is important to be prepared before you talk with an agent so they don’t view you as a waste of their time. Agents are compensated when deals close and will be weary of working with you if you have no idea what you want to do or accomplish or haven’t thought through an investing strategy. It will be to your advantage to have thought through some potential investment areas, price ranges, what kinds of properties you are interested, your financing alternatives, etc. This will let the agent know that you have put some thought into your business and are serious about pursuing opportunities and will increase the likelihood of them being excited about being on your team.
Bird dogs are also another great source for helping you find deals. Bird dogs are simply people that you can have out in the market place looking for deals for you. You will compensate these individuals on the deals they bring you.
Thirdly, establish and utilize different marketing strategies extensively. The idea behind marketing is to get your phone ringing and to get other people bringing you potential deals and creating deal flow for your business. As deals start coming in from other peoples efforts and not just your own, you will be able to focus your time more on evaluating and closing on deals and not out finding and sourcing deals. Start by establishing a marketing budget. Decide how much money you can reasonably set aside and commit to growing your business through marketing. Then establish a 12-month marketing plan. Decide what kinds of marketing you are going to do on a monthly basis and then commit to spend the dedicated funds and execute on your strategy. Your marketing plan can include distributing flyers, creating car magnets, sending out direct mailers, putting up signs in heavily trafficked areas, creating and distributing business cards, networking and marketing yourself to other investors or potential sellers, etc. It is important to have a long-term view of your marketing efforts. You may not get an immediate response from your efforts; be consistent and persistent with your marketing and overtime you will see positive results.
Once you start leveraging other people’s time and implement an aggressive marketing plan, your business will grow significantly faster than if you rely solely on your own efforts. There just isn’t enough time in the day to do it yourself.
In short and in conclusion, you do not have to do everything yourself and you shouldn’t be doing everything yourself. Put in place a system and strategy of leveraging other peoples’ time and efforts. As you do this, your business will grow more quickly, you will do more deals and will free up a significant amount of your time to focus on other aspects of your business or life.
Posted by Carter Brown
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