Justin B. McClelland

So I’ve only got 20 days left in Champaign and I’m changing my focus a bit (actually it would’ve been 10 days left, but my apt complex doesn’t pro-rate. So I’m here until the end of month).  I’m going to focus more on getting my property scouts in place and setting up training videos for them to review.  I need to focus more and more on WORKING SMART.  It’s become more and more clear to me since I left my 9-5 that i hate working!  At first I thought I just hated working for someone else….WRONG.  I hate working even for myself!  I didn’t get into real estate to create a job for myself.  I’m in this to make money work for me.  And real estate is just the beginning.  There is so much other stuff regarding internet marketing that I haven’t even exploited yet, it’s ridiculous.  But I have to tackle one thing at a time right.  So right now it’s real estate and I’m in the process of putting together training videos for my property scouts so that I don’t have to indefinitely be a broken record when recruiting new scouts.  I’ll just say, “Watch the videos. If this is up your alley, cool.  If not, peace out.”

So I’m on the way to the courthouse to create a training video for my scouts to pull probate records.  Funny thing is, I’m going to try and get my Flip Mino inside.  All of the notices outside the courthouse only say that you can’t bring in a cell-phone.  They say nothing about cameras, video cameras, etc.  Plus I already asked about taking my laptop inside and they said that was ok.  So…I’m thinking what’s the difference between my laptop cam and my flip cam…there shouldn’t be.

Yesterday, I took a spontaneous road-trip to Chicago to use the road time to chill-out and brain-storm and listen to my “4-hour work week” audiobook.  This was a great decision.  This book comes highly recommended by many entrepreneurs and I now know why.  In this short month, that I’ve been full-time, I’ve been doing a few things wrong.  One of the main things is letting little things leech my time.  For instance, up until this morning, I had Yahoo.com set as my browser homepage.  Almost 4 times a day, I would get distracted by reading some unnecessary article as a result of just opening a new browser window, this probably eats at least 10 minutes per hour. I now set Google as my homepage.  Next, I’ll have to work on not checking my email so often.  I already don’t watch the news, so I’m good there.  The part I like most so far, is avoiding phone calls and meetings.  Because half of the time, they’re absolutely unnecessary, as an email will suffice and be more to the point.  Those of you who’ve read the book know what I’m talking about.  I’m only half-through and it’s already opened my eyes to some of the pointless tasks that I consume myself with daily.  Such as numerous phone calls with people that aren’t adding to the bottom line (I literally just had a phone call with an end-buyer insurance agent, while typing this, concerning his access to a property.  I have no idea why he called me about this as he should correspond with the seller directly. I gave him her contact information weeks ago. He just murdered 5 minutes of my life.)   Same with email.  I’m going to start trimming the fat.  You don’t get my time if I don’t like you and/or you’re not talking about putting money in my pocket.

So a quick synopsis of my current situation:

2 closings tied-up with a bankruptcy
1 closing scheduled for end of this week (I have a feeling this isn’t going to happen)
3 new properties under-contract, no end-buyer yet

Welp….off to the courthouse.

Blog, Entrepreneurship, Real Estate, Tutorials Flip Mino, Flip Video, Real Estate

I was putting together a mailing today and felt like throwing together a quick tutorial of my mail-merge.  It’s not very comprehensive, but just a quick overview.  And if you’re curious about the 404 page tactic that I mentioned, you can read more about that here on the BiggerPockets.com blog.

Blog, Marketing, Tutorials

This M6 is mine. I’ve already got my features and colors picked out.  I even looked into which dealership I’m going to buy it from.  Well actually, I’m going to buy it direct from the factory.  BMW has a program where you can go over to Germany and pick-up your car yourself and save 7% off the price of the car.  I couldn’t care less about that minimal discount, rather what I do care about is that I can get on the autobahn after I make the purchase and drive the s*** out of it!  This is fairly common for those who go to Germany to tour the BMW and pick-up their cars’ I read.  Afterward, I’d make arrangements to have my ride shipped back to the states (that may cost the 7% discount alone).

While I’m over in Europe to pick up my beamer and tour the factory, I’ll also backpack over there too.  I’ve always wanted to see what that experience was all about.  Backpack through France, Italy, UK, Amsterdam, etc.   All of this is going down in 2011.  I still have my 11/23/2010 7-figure goal in place, but the sabbatical is going to happen in early 2011, most likely in the Spring.

Welp, I’ve had a pretty productive Sunday.  I listed quite a few things on eBay that I needed to convert to cash and I also have my Cali cash-buyer campaign wrapped up.  I ran out of envelopes with about 30 more people to go (out of 200).  I’ll also need to pick-up some more stamps.  I’m confident about the conversion rate on this campaign.  These yellow-letters will not disappoint, I’m sure.

Not looking forward to the 9-5, which I have to be at in 3.5 hours.  My furlough has officially ended and I must say that time off was nice.  I’m damn near tempted to use a week of vacation within the next few weeks so I can keep this momentum going.  We’ll see, I’m bout to try to get in a few hours of sleep.

- Peace Out

Blog, Random BMW, eBay Marketplace

Not too much to talk about tonight. I’m actually still recovering from the all-nighter from two nights ago. I can’t pull all nighter’s like I used to. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old. Or maybe it’s because when I have them I usually have to spend 8 hours at the 9-to-5, the next day versus a few hours at school. Yeah, I’m going with the latter.  I ain’t old yet, although my left knee creeks at the gym.

Peep my latest contribution to Biggerpockets.com, I’ve linked it below.  In the post I write about my experience with Floorplanner.com and how you can incorporate using it into your real estate business.

It’s amazing how powerful the web and social media is. I speak of one of the many ways; I was on Facebook yesterday and one of the posts in my Newsfeed had a YouTube clip about from the movie Boiler Room. As a matter of fact, I’ll find the clip…one sec…

Here it is:

After watching this four-minute clip on Tuesday, I went out and bought the DVD on Wednesday. I bet Time-Warner appreciates that.

Welp, it’s actually time to pop it in, grab me another Keystone and chill. Peace Out.

- Justin

Blog, Business, Tutorials biggerpockets.com, Blog, Boiler Room, DVD, Facebook, Floorplanner.com, Real Estate, Social media, YouTube