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What Good Is a Real Estate Investing Course If It Doesn't Contain A Marketing Plan?
By Ben Innes-Ker
You're a Real Estate Entrepreneur or Investor, and you're
out there in the market place looking for deals. I have a
question. for you.
Are you doing a bit of advertising and just hoping that a
deal will fall in your lap, or are you operating in a way that
makes certain it will happen. If you don't have a process for
making sure deals happen, you don't yet understand the
importance of having a marketing plan.
The sad fact is that even after all their training, less than
one percent of all real estate entrepreneurs and investors
actually have a marketing plan. Even though it's very
simple, don't underestimate its power.
The most important thing about marketing is to have a
marketing plan!
Why?
A) It's a concrete result you put out for your mind to seize
on and strive to achieve.
B) It allows you to clarify exactly what you want to achieve
in the coming 30 days.
C) It allows you map out the activities needed to achieve
that plan.
D) It allows you to plan in advance to delegate off the
lower paying activities, so you don't
end up doing them.
E) It allows you set time deadlines, to hold others
accountable so everything gets DONE!
F) It results in you being free to concentrate on your
highest payoff activity: Making Offers
On Great Deals!
G) You have a business that operates consciously, not by
accident.
More people fail in real estate because they simply do not
have a plan or goals. You should have a detailed marketing
plan of what you want to accomplish and how you are
going to accomplish it.
And, don't be vague, either. Things like, I want to make
more money than I can ever spend, and I want to be rich,
and I want to make $10,000 a month, are not plans. They
are too vague, and they won't help you get there. Be as
specific as you can possibly be.
In planning for monthly revenue, try to put your money
goals in cash income, not gross revenue. I know gross
revenue is what you're used to thinking in, but cash is
obviously more important. It's what you take to the bank,
and it's what pays bills.
First, examine your current numbers. More than 80 percent
of all real estate entrepreneurs know how many houses
they are buying each month, but they don't know where
those houses came from and how many leads they had to
process to develop them into the single deal. And, this is a
deadly sin.
You simply must know how you are currently doing.
You should know:
1) the total leads that call each month (each week is more
manageable),
2) where those leads come from,
3) how many "qualified" seller prospects (i.e. those that
you are willing to invest follow-up in if
they don't sell now; they have motivation, you are
interested in the house.) you get each
month,
4) the ratio of total to qualified,
5) the number of deals you close,
6) the ratio of closed deals to qualified leads for each lead
source
7) how much you make from each seller,
8) and how much it cost you to acquire a new seller.
With this information you can look at your current
resources, look ahead, and then plan out what you want to
have happen. The number of deals you want to do, the
amount of money you want to make.
For example, let's say you are bringing in around $10,000 a
month and your average deal gives you $5,000. Yes, I
know that's low, but for the sake of example. That's two
deals a month. These are cash proceeds and after
expenses you net 50 percent of your gross or $5,000 a
month. And let's say that you want to double your net
income next month.
You will have to get twice as many deals to double your
business. Goal? Four deals a month, or one a week.
Let's say you currently gets one deal a month from a
classified ad, and one deal a month for mailing expired
listings. But, you get ten qualified calls a month from his
classified ad and 10 qualified prospects calling a month as a
result of mailing expired listings. So, you currently close ten
percent of your prospects.
Firstly, you can improve on this situation by improving that
twenty percent close ratio. By improving your closing ratio
by things like more precise targeting, the present lead-flow
would stay the same, you'll get your same twenty real
prospects and achieve your goal of doing four deals next
month.
But assuming that's not something you have control over
right now, the other way to double your income in the next
month is to double the number of qualified prospects you
talk to and make offers to. So instead of getting 20
qualified leads to call, you would need 40.
Your plan to get forty qualified prospects would need 10 to
come from expired listing mailings, 16 to come from flyers in
target neighborhoods, 4 from business cards handed out
everywhere, 6 to come from signs placed in the ground at
high traffic count intersections, 10 to com from classified
ads that drive people to the website. Total: 46 prospects.
Cool! That's six to spare.
With this number of leads coming in you have what is
needed closed four deals and reach your goal of doubling
your net income. Actually, it's more than doubling because
your fixed expenses don't increase with the income.
You should have a monthly plan. Schedule thirty or forty
minutes out of one day to make up your monthly plan and
see how you did last month. Schedule this time and keep to
it. Don't do any work or take any calls during this time.
Keep it strictly for planning. If you do this and you allow
yourself to get into the whole spirit of planning, and making
things happen on purpose, you will easily double your
income in twelve months.
Your monthly plan should include the following:
1) A goal for total net income.
2) A goal for number of deals signed up
3) A goal for number of appointments made.
4) A goal for number of qualified, interested sellers.
5) A goal for total number of leads.
6) Average net income from each deal.
7) The number of prospects you have to generate to reach
your goal.
A detailed plan to generate the number of prospects you
need. Your plan doesn't have to be typed out or put into a
computer. It can be handwritten on paper. It doesn't have
to be pretty.
Scratch pad plans are good enough. The important part is
that you do a plan every single week and keep on top of
things.
This is a simple thing to do, but it is just as easy to not do.
Blowing it off is the equivalent of you absolving yourself of
responsibility for your business. On the other hand, taking
the time to think through your goals each month, both for
income, and marketing activity, then committing them to
paper will make things start happening by plan and put you
in control of your business.
About the Author
Ben Innes-Ker is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, best-selling author, and real estate investing warrior. He has developed the "Motivated Seller MYou can call this a marketing article, althought link building forms a very important part from marketing. Groshan Fabiola is writing diffrent articles with many various themes from marketing, link building, even agriculture or finance. If you want to fin out more about text link ads, please click this link.
agnet - automatic lead generating system" to help real estate entrepreneurs and investors attract more motivated sellers with less effort and increase profits. To learn more about this powerful step-by-step program and receive your free special report, go to http://www.motivatedsellermagnet.net
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