What Good Is a Real Estate Investing Course If It Doesn't
Contain A Marketing Plan?
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.