So, in my last email, I talked about NOT doing this business by yourself.
While many of us—including me—kick off our investing career wearing all the hats, I’ve found that outsourcing to do automated (i.e. “virtual”) wholesale deals is the way to go.
Like I’ve said before, there’s no way I could do this without help. And you shouldn’t either.
So I’m sharing what I think are 2 of the best things you should seriously think about outsourcing…
1) Outsourcing Your Marketing
I suggest you do what I do:
Get the marketing done for you, in spite of you.
Here’s the thing…
I LOVE direct mail—if it’s done consistently, you can track the results, which makes it predictable so you know what to expect from your campaigns, and you can easily scale your business.
Pro Tip: Each of my DM campaigns has a different phone number for the leads to call in, so I can track better.
Personally, I really like to send marketing to absentee owners and high-equity owner/occupants lists in very targeted zip codes.
And the biggest thing I want to tell you about marketing is: BE CONSISTENT.
But if you’re doing too much in your business—the day-to-day kind of tasks—you simply can’t be consistent.
It will be your downfall… (dum, dum dummm…)
I see it all the time, when investors try doing it all and handle all the marketing themselves, so often it ends up turning into a vicious downward spiral:
Misstep #1: You (busy investor) send a DM campaign.
Misstep #2: Calls and leads start pouring in… and you get overwhelmed trying to handle those.
Misstep #3: While working with those incoming leads, you get so busy that you don’t have time to send out another campaign (whoops, there goes your consistency)
Misstep #4: By the time you’re done with the leads you got from your 1st campaign – you have no more coming in because you didn’t send out a subsequent campaign.
It’s a classic “stop-and-go marketing’ mistake. You stopped the marketing because you were overwhelmed. No leads.
NO GOOD.
What to do? Outsource your marketing
So, the next logical question is: How should you handle the leads?
Well, you shouldn’t… Someone else should, so
2) Outsource Pre-screening Calls and Evaluating Deals
When leads start calling in thanks to my marketing campaigns (which a member of my team sends out) I have a VA (Virtual Assistant) who takes it from there.
I’m a firm believer in always, always, ALWAYS answering your phone. I don’t have the time to do that, so…
My VA who speaks excellent English prescreens the lead calls that come in.
She asks basic questions:
- What’s your name?
- What’s your phone number?
- What’s the house you want to sell? (Address, bed/bath)
- Why are you selling
- My favorite question: Are you looking to sell this house or just testing the market to see what you can get for it? (great for pre-screening the tire kickers)
Then, my VA enters all that information she’s gotten from the seller into my CRM (Podio)…
The info is then sent directly to my local wholesaler partner who evaluates the deals. (Remember my last email about how I outsource by leveraging local wholesalers?)
He prioritizes calling the hottest leads back first, but ends up calling them all for a conversation.
If it looks like a deal, my wholesaler-partner will schedule a time to go see the property.
Let me be clear on this point:
If it’s a hot lead, the wholesaler should drop everything to see the house.
And…
They must have the mentality that they’re NOT going to walk out of the house without a contract.
When you give your wholesaler partner a hot lead – they should act fast.
Sure, you could evaluate deals over the phone, make an offer over the phone, and then send a contract. That’s totally doable. I’ve done it. And you could too.
But know this—you likely won’t be getting as big of a discount because you didn’t meet with the seller face to face.
The chance to build rapport in person can be a huge benefit in my experience.
And, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have the time to talk with sellers on the phone, much less meet with them in person, especially when I have outsourced that to others who can do it well without me.
So…
To be consistent with your marketing, seriously consider OUTSOURCING IT.
To save yourself from pre screening lead calls, seriously consider OUTSOURCING IT.
To evaluate deals and get bigger discounts by meeting with sellers in person—but without being the one doing that yourself—yeah you guessed it, OUTSOURCE IT.
