I’d rather have ten ways to get one lead than one way to get ten leads. That’s very important. If you’re only relying on one source, you’re not going to get many calls. We get 10-15 calls per day from different marketing efforts. In this snippet from the Ultimate Buying & Selling Machine, you’ll find different methods to locate deals and generate leads.
When putting this course together I went through every course I own and compiled a list of different methods of generating leads and included my own from over the years. You’ll find 71 different ways to find motivated sellers and discounted properties. You won’t use all of them to generate leads but you’ll need 5-10 different ways and keep them going all the time.
Go for the low hanging fruit which means that you need to check out the market where you want to buy property and see what works best in that area and where you have the least amount of competition. In some areas you may work with realtors to get properties and in other areas you may focus on vacant houses. It’ll depend on your specific area and market.
This is something only you’ll be able to determine after doing research, asking every investor you meet how they get their properties and asking every realtor you meet about the market and if they work with many investors, etc. Remember, with my system, you can invest in your local market or any other market, all from your current location.
The two ways to find properties…
Marketing: Marketing is basically anything that makes the phone ring. These are your best leads. You aren’t cold calling anyone. When the phone rings and you answer the phone YOU are helping THEM. However, if you are calling on their house for sale, their sign, or because they had a foreclosure notice that you discovered, then you’re trying to sell them on selling you their house. I would much rather market and make the phone ring than prospect.
Prospecting: Prospecting is anything that you do that requires you to dig in order to contact the owner or seller of a property. We’ve talked about finding deals but it is very rare that you actually find a deal. Deals are made, not found. The sooner you will get this into your head, the sooner you will become successful. You have to make your own deals.
You do this by building rapport, getting people to like and trust you, getting to know them and getting to know as much as you can about their situation and how you can help. Every time they say something, write it down. Learn from it, bring it back up, and if they talk about how they like to ski or play golf, you bring that up. If they have children that are on a baseball team, you bring that up and you get them to like and trust you. We cover this more in the section on negotiating in the Ultimate Buying & Selling Machine.
Also, unless you are working a pre-foreclosure for a short sale, don’t look for deals that don’t have a little bit of margin already. If there is a house on the market and it is worth $105k and they’re asking $105,900, then I wouldn’t even look at that house unless they were behind on their mortgage. On the other hand, if it is worth $105k and they are asking $89k; I might call about it. You want something that already has a margin in it. This way you’re already at a starting point where you’re not upside down or starting at full retail.