Well, it’s the end of 30 days and I didn’t come through on the 30 day challenge.  I found a wholesaler with quite a few properties to offer, one being in an ideal area.  His deal was an approved short-sale that he was approved for.  I marketed the mess out of that house.  I blasted CraigsList and put out signs about it.  I lost count of how many buyers I sent over to view the house.  I think it was around 7.  But there were much more that I spoke with and emailed, hell I’m still getting calls about that place.  Oh well, I’ll keep them on file for the next house.

Last weeks goals:

• Create a local STL roster of 20 wholesaler/investors
• Find at least 3 good wholesale deals to advertise
• Hire sign distributor for both Champaign and STL
• Kick the ass of the person who flags my CriagsList ads
• Make at least 10 offers each day (REO, MLS, FSBO, etc)

Results: I was able to get the wholesaler roster done. The wholesale deals that I did find, were very marginal (other wholesaler only had 2K spread to split on each property), I changed my mind about STL sign distributor and placed the signs myself last weekend, still looking to kick some CraigsList flagger ass, and this 10 offer a day thing is really killing me, gotta find a way to reach this goal.  It seems like I either spend too much time analyzing each deal, or I don’t spend much time at all and make offers way too low (to be safe). Catch 22

On another front, I have an official (in addition to the unofficial) mentor now.  Lawrence Roberts of LocalREICoaching.com (site under-construction at time of this writing), is helping me out quite a bit.  Just after two (phone) sessions with him, I’ve now restored my belief that there is a science to this business.  I consider myself more right-brained than left, however if you give me some numbers, statistics, and formulae…I can figure things out much more so than an art.  So the majority of next weeks’ tasks are the assigned tasks that Lawrence gave me:

• Create a spreadsheet reflecting the past 6-month cash-solds of select zip codes
• Create a spreadsheet containing the information of buyers of probate properties
• Turn-up marketing efforts to obtain at least 25 leads/week, create marketing plan
• Increase prospecting on CraigsList (buyer and seller)
• Look into acquiring international buyers
• Research wholesaling lease-options
• Make at least 10 offers each day (REO, MLS, FSBO, etc)
• Find at least 3 good wholesale deals to advertise

So as you see, I have a lot of work to do.  I have to admit, I’m bummed that I’m not meeting my 30-day challenge goal.  I thought I had that in the bag.  Every time something unravels in this real estate game, I feel like an athlete that didn’t qualify for the Olympics…or like a U.S. w0rld cup soccer player feels right about now….like, “Damn, all of that work and I didn’t make it. There’s 4 long years ahead before another chance”.  That is seriously how I feel, minus the 4 year part.  This is why Lawrence is spot-on with suggesting I get my lead count up.  I have to keep in mind that this is a numbers’ game.

P.S.
I’m on a million email lists and one of the guys I receive emails from is Preston Ely.  In his email messages, he’s selling something, promoting a conference-call, or just plain dropping knowledge.  One tidbit that I’ve learned from his random/frequent emails, is to completely focus on the positive of a situation and to block the negative.  Sounds so simple…but works so effectively.  Despite me whining a bit about my 30-day challenge failure, I don’t dwell on it.  There is other stuff going on right now, that I won’t even blog about as it is negative.  All stuff, that I’m doing a pretty good job at blocking out right now.  Anyway, you should try this “mental blocking” technique in the future.  Like, if you know someone leaves you a voicemail while pissed-off, don’t even listen to the entire message (that is unless you’re going to share it on WTF Wednesday with everyone).

P.P.S.
FCUK is a great brand (French Connection United Kingdom)

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Almost one week left in the month and I still have my 30-day challenge in my sights.  I’m very close to meeting it, that’s all I’ll say for now.  It seems like I’m a damn magnet for failed closings right now, so I’d rather not type any further in vain.

Anyway, in follow-up to “Accountability Monday”, I’ve accomplished most all of my tasks.  I put in 4 REO offers, I put in approximately 30 offers, I’ve created my outline for my internet marketing endeavors, I created my STL squeeze page (just need to make it pretty and mesh it with Aweber), and I found someone to place my bandit signs for me in Champaign…but after one weekend they quit.  So I’m back to square one with that task.  I’m taking a completely different approach to recruitment this time, I’ll post later about the outcome.  So, in conclusion, I half-ass met my accountability goals to be completely honest.  Perhaps, if I met them all, then that means they aren’t high enough?  Is that just a psychological trick?  Oh well…I’m going to adopt and roll with it.

So for next week, my goals are:

Create a local STL roster of 20 wholesaler/investors

• Find at least 3 good wholesale deals to advertise
• Hire sign distributor for both Champaign and STL
• Kick the ass of the person who flags my CriagsList ads
• Make at least 10 offers each day (REO, MLS, FSBO, etc)

That should keep me more than busy for the next week.

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Almost one week down in STL and I’ve got a lot to show for it. I’ve got my CraigsList game on full attack with more ads recruiting property scouts, ads for cash buyers, etc. The post and repost process is almost impossible to keep up with, I can’t wait until I can get the funds for a CL Autoposter.

Let’s see what else is new…well I’ve picked up a new scout out of Cali who is on the ball. Hopefully, he’ll keep up the pace that he has going now so we can get something closed together. Also, my assistant in Champaign is back from her vacation, we just caught up via phone today on some things and she’s ready to get things rolling.

Since my Mom still has dial-up at the house, I had to get an Air-card for the laptop. It’s a helluva lot better than dial-up but the speeds aren’t quite broadband-like. One drawback is that I have issues uploading videos. I made a video covering how I was able to shoot out 49 offers in an automated fashion using MS Excel, MS Word, and Adobe Acrobat. I’ll have to get that thing uploaded next time I’m on a better connection. Maybe this card will be better once Sprint goes to 4G in Saint Louis, for now it’s still 3G. The salesman at the sprint store said the area should be 4G within the next 6 months. And that same salesman had extra disproportionate skinny hands. He was a chubby dude, but his hands were anorexic…the thought of shaking his hand made my skin crawl. Thus, I made sure to make sure my hands were full during the checkout process. Anyway…I digress. I can’t let you all too deep into my mind…then you’ll find out how it works.

So Next Weeks’ Tasks:
1. Going for a 10 offer a day average
2. Get at least 10 REO offers in
3. Get my STL wholesale wordpress site and squeeze page live
4. Find someone to put my bandit signs up and take them down this weekend
5. Create an outline for all of my near future Internet Marketing projects.

That is all.

- Peace

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Accountability, Marketing, offers accountability monday, mentor, offers

So this is my last weekend as a resident of Champaign and I’m en route to Saint Louis .  As I pack up the necessities, I am reminded that I keep way too much stuff around that isn’t necessary.  Thank God for CraigsList, as I was able to sell my couch, bed, and desk (never doing U-Haul ever again, plus when I move from STL I’m starting fresh with all new shit).  But during this sale process I practiced my negotiating skills on these buyers.  I emphasized in the CL post that I was a motivated buyer, I had in all caps MUST SELL NOW and etcetera.  But I didn’t list a price anywhere, I just told the people to reply with an offer.  My (queen) bed sold really quick for $60, funny thing is I only paid $100 for it back in college.  A forty dollar 7 year rental sounds pretty good right.  The item I was most surprised about was the couch, which I got $80 for.  The girl that bought it responded to my ad and said she’d pay $125 for it.  I was like WTF (had I listed a price I would’ve priced it at $40)!  So then I said, if she picked it up within a few hours that same day, I’d let it go for $100.  When she arrived we settled at $80.  This whole scenario just reminded me that a product is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.  I wish these real estate property sellers would realize this fact.  Too many people balk at my offers with the response, “You’re offering me less than what I paid for it”.  My mental response is “that is completely irrelevant, so let your house sit on the market for another 200 days, I couldn’t care less”.

So anyway, although I’m leaving town I’ve made some major strides in the last two weeks:

• I’ve found a way to revamp my (efficient) offer making process for MLS offers (video coming soon), although this new method is completely compliant, I’ll probably still piss-off some of the local Realtors but…I don’t really give a shit.
• I’ve also fully launched my Property Scout network, though I need to step-up the promotion of it.  CraigsList, I think may be the only way for recruitment.  However, I’m officially a registered employer via a local temp agency in town.  I think I’m going to see if I can work with them on this.  Perhaps, I should look into Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.  Why not?
• In return for some Mozenda Screen-Scraping, a guy out of the UK hooked me up with some web-hosting and a bomb-ass Real Estate WordPress theme.  The site is www.ChampaignDeals.com check it out and let me know what you think.  I still need to tweak it alot and complete it with some custom content.  But I’m thinking I can throw some wholesale deals on that site, get other local real estate professional to contribute to it…perhaps make it accessible only if one completes a squeeze page…etc.  I’m liking this barter thing…so if anyone else wants to trade services, get @ me.
• I also have a new partner in crime.  About a week ago, a young lady gave me a call out of the blue (why was that color selected for that saying anyway?…but I digress).  She is from Chicago and fairly new to the Champaign area and wants to get into Real Estate Investing.  She was asking me if there were any REI clubs, mentors in the area, etc.  I gave her some contacts of other investors that may want to mentor her, and also told her about my property scout program.  After a few days, we had a few more phone conversations and met in person.  This girl is on point!  I think she’s more of a hustler than me…which is saying a lot, if I don’t say so myself.  So since we’ve decided to team-up, she’s going to take over most of my marketing tasks.  And I’m going to tell her everything I know.  Which is actually a lot, contrary to popular belief, I just have ran into all kinds of bad-luck with closings…but anyway.  She told me that she has read tons of books on investing, as she speed reads (yes…speed reads. If that doesn’t say you’re sharp as a tack, I don’t know what does), but ‘doing’ is the best education of all.  So I think this is the start of something really good.

That about sums up the last 1.5-2 weeks.  Oh, I also have got some Internet Marketing stuff up my sleeve too.  As well as an eBook about the whole DIY yellow letter thing.  I get a lot of questions about this process, still.  In the ebook I’ll go into much further detail.  All of my wholesale flip situations haven’t changed status, still a bunch of BS holding those up.  So anyway, the kid has still been on his grind.  I hope yall didn’t think I gave up.  By the way, I’m bringing accountability-monday back.  I forgot why I stopped anyway…

- Peace Out

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The week’s almost over and I need to get this accountability post in.  It’ll be a quick one.

Let’s see.

I was supposed to get 12 MLS offers out, distribute 50 brochures, and post 5 flyers.  Well, I got 29 MLS (expired) offers out, I only got about 30 brochures out and I was able to post 2 flyers.  So does that balance out to meeting my goals?  Nah…it doesn’t.  I think the trick is to not try and do all of this in one mission.  I think that’s where I’m getting caught-up.  From now on, I’ll just do what I can each day and pace myself, instead of deferring these tasks for completion all in one day.  Again, I’ll keep these goals constant for next week.  I need to add to this list…so I’ll think about what else I should be doing weekly.

There’s a helluvalot more that I could post about right now, but I’m going to save some of it for later.  Besides it may take 3 hours (that I can’t spare now) to write.  I mean I got some real entertaining shit.  The type of stuff that newbie’s quit real estate after going through.  But worry not.  I’ve never quit anything in life because of difficulty…sure ain’t about to start now (I mean who does that by the way? Quitters suck at life and always will because they habitually quit…but I digress).

But enough about that nonsense.  I’ve got big things on tap.  Let’s just say that March 12th should be a great day.

- I’m Out

P.S.
Champaign is just not ready for what I’m about to do!  The “Takeover” is near!  To clarify my point, check out this clip from the prestigious, illustrious, and all-time classic film “The Mack“.  Let me break it down for you.  Here is the analogy.  I’m “Goldie” (the pimp in the red with the shades on), the competition is “Pretty Tony”(the pimp in all black), and the motivated sellers is the uhm…”employee” (only girl in the scene).  And…….ACTION

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I’ve got a few things in the works that are looking pretty good, they might just “make romance explosion” all at the same time.  Like I mentioned before, the new theme is minimal blogging about the details until after they close.  So, I’ll just say that I may have three deals closing shortly.  We shall see…

I had the day off today from the 9-5 because I had to go to Springfield, IL to pay a stinking speeding ticket that I got on my way to Saint Louis for Thanksgiving.  This kind of sucked but ended up working out in my favor.  It sucked that I had to drive the 100 miles to Springfield.  However, I initially wanted to just pay the fine via mail and be done with it.  But, I was forced to show in court because I had two tickets during that one stop (insurance card was expired).  I tried mailing in my payment with a copy of the current insurance card….no dice.  And a lawyer wanted $400 to take care of it for me…aw hell naw!  So I did it myself.  This worked out in my favor because in person I was able to opt for the court-supervision to prevent the points on my driving record and I also had my request granted to pay the fine in April!  Almost 6 months after the ticket, I get to pay for it sans interest!  The time value of money is on my side with this one. Booyaw!

It’s been over a decade since I’ve been to traffic court, so I forgot the typical scene.  It was funny, because I noticed that all the people with money had their lawyers show up for them.  They stood in line and had their cases dealt with first and within the first 10 minutes, about 10 lawyers walked out the court room with their clients all taken care of.  All the broke mofo’s had to show up and do the talking for themselves, this includes me…but not for long.  Moral of the story, get money to have lawyers waste their precious time in court for you and also NEVER drive drunk.  You should’ve heard some of these cases!  Besides endangering the lives of others, don’t do it because those fines are out of this world!  The lame part is that some of those people that I saw present themselves in court, were repeat offenders!  I don’t get it.  Snatch their license away permanently and be done with it.  But I digress…back to real estate.

Speaking of lawyers, I’m almost thinking that I should’ve went to law school.  Between the $400/10 minute charge that I saw in action at court and the astronomical invoice that I just paid my real estate lawyer….that’s where it’s at!  That’s if you like studying case-law and law in general….ZZZZzzzzzz.  But, I meet with my real estate lawyer tomorrow to go over some things.  Besides the expense, I love the meetings we have.  I learn a lot and get much accomplished in the way of bettering my business and protecting my neck.

Oh! Accountability Day.  To update on that for this week:

1. Make one MLS offer each day direct to listing agent – FAIL, no excuses. However, I deferred this goal each day because I didn’t know what the best approach was to submit the offers.  Via fax, email, mail or what?  I put the goal aside and now it’s next week already.  I’m not calling each listing agent to see what they prefer, that’s just not efficient.  I’ll leave this goal for next week and figure out how to approach this.

2. Deliver 50 brochures to Urbana houses - Success. This wasn’t bad at all, I knocked these out between two appointments that I had last Sunday.  I think 50 is a good number to stick with consistently on a weekly basis.  The 200 that I did the first go-round was exhausting and too time-consuming.  Hard to do that myself, consistently.  A 50 quantity it is.

3. Deliver 5 flyers – FAIL. Keeping this goal for next week.

Still haven’t forgot about the 40 offers a week.  After I met with my lawyer tomorrow, I should have the tweaked contract that I need to complete my creation.

*Tangent*
I was in the gym today and noticed in the locker room, there were various advertisement posters with a valentines day theme that said, “Get your sweetheart a gym membership for Valentine’s Day”.  This sounds like a setup!  I can’t imagine how bad that would go over.  I don’t think a woman ever wants a gym membership as a gift from a man, especially on V-day.  You might as well say, “Hey baby, I want you to feel beautiful inside and out on our special Valentine’s Day.  Soooooo…….here’s a gym membership so you can work on that tautness….that your sister has”.

LOL, I crack myself up.  On that note, I’m out.

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Accountability, Marketing, offers accountability monday, mentor, offers

Okay, this whole consistent blogging thing isn’t working out.  Clearly, I was supposed to keep with the “Accountability Tuesday” theme as of last week.  It’s of course now Wednesday.  So anyway, new rules.  Once a week, I’ll just have an “Accountability Day”.  How about that.

So, I’ve technically accomplished my 40-offer-a-week goal, but I haven’t.  90% of the issue was getting my system setup, and now that I do, I’m waiting on my lawyer to get my custom Option-Contract back to me.  It sucks to be stuck at idle…so I’m moving on.

New Weekly Goals:
1. Make at least one MLS offer each day, direct to listing agent
2. Deliver at least 50 brochures to houses in Urbana
3. Post 5 flyers

That’s it for now, I’m kinda stuck at the moment, to be honest.  My cash-flow is non-existent right now and I have no funds to do any extra advertising (direct mail, newspaper, etc).  So I’m sticking with multiple offers and the advertising materials that I already have for now.

- Peace Out

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