Posted by kesh on May 10, 2003 at 10:10:13:
thanks your comments were helpful, and has allowed me to revise my plan on how I get the word out on my investing.
The Importance of Marketing - Posted by Brad (CA)
Posted by Brad (CA) on May 09, 2003 at 18:10:36:
Hello everyone,
I was motivated to write something to try and help someone else out the other day and came up with these few paragraphs. Please look them over(especially those of you who have some experience) and let me know whether you think I’ve done a service or dis-service by posting.
In a recent conversation with a friend of mine in Vegas we discussed the importance of marketing for the beginning investor. Now if you use the MLS to locate your deals then you?re already set. The Realtors and the Brokers they work under have done all the marketing to get the phone ringing and get houses listed. If you chose not to use the MLS for whatever reason, I would recommend you engage in marketing of some kind to generate calls from people who may need to sell their house. Of course, you can cold call from a variety of sources and knock on people?s doors, which in itself could be considered marketing, but the goal is to have people knocking on your door and cold calling you to get your help.
In the beginning, many new investors become bogged down by theoretical learning and technicalities of deals. This is often times extremely valuable learning, but is gained at the expense of delayed action towards financial gains. In stead of mastering techniques on paper, attempt to generate calls which produce conversations. Then you will start to learn the real world implications and limitations of those very same techniques.
I personally spent far too many resources in the pursuit of learning the trivia of investing. Had I known that all the technical knowledge in the world was useless without the ability to put it to use for gain then I might have had another edge. An edge that I hope you?ll get from this writing.
Marketing successfully is what will make your life easier when starting to invest. If you have a steady stream of people calling everyday inquiring whether you can help them, you?ll place less pressure on yourself because you KNOW you?ll have more people who need to sell their house. You will soon find that you are composed and confident on the phone, not the nervous unsure wreck that answered that first call, and will undoubtedly make a deal in time. It is not rocket science.
Now, what marketing is in itself is something you?ll have to figure out on you own! I will mention a few mediums that have been mentioned by others hundreds even thousands of times before. Again, what it is you say, how you say it, when you say it, and to whom you say it is your responsibility to figure out. When you first start out and spend that initial $100 or $1000 bucks on a mailing campaign or something it may not seem so, but marketing is one of the areas where one can get really creative and have some fun. (Just don?t think about the other stuff you could have bought!)
-ad in main paper
-ad in penny saver
-bandit signs
-flyers
-newspaper inserts
-yellow pages
-door hangers
-business cards
-bus stop benches
-billboards
-postcards
-letters
-pamphlets
-radio shows
-TV ads
-pens, pencils, key chains, nick-nacks, etc. etc.
-sky writers
-painted trucks
-magnetic car signs
-t-shirts, polo shirts, hats, etc. etc. etc.
- and anything else you could possibly think of!
Of course, if you are working by yourself and don?t make 30k per month, then an expensive TV ad might not fit your business right now, but surely there?s something you could find to work.
The reason I wrote this small piece was to reiterate the necessity of marketing to avoid the feeling of stagnation which so often haunts me. Without doubt, some marketing techniques will bring better results than others but you will not find that out if you don?t try. Keep educated and always learn more ways and better ways to do deals, but keep in mind that marketing will bring deals to you.
Hope this helps someone out,
Brad Pennington
SanDiegoRE@hotmail.com
ps- I feel a need to disclose the fact that I remain in the infatile stages of my investing and have yet to close on one profitable deal…or any others for that matter!
In addendum, I’d like to refer everyone to a superb article written the other day by Hal Roark about setting yourself up for success. http://www.creonline.com/wwwboard/messages/67228.html