Justin B. McClelland

Random, Real Estate, Video Champaign, saint louis, Video

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

Accountability, Business, Internet Marketing Assembly Hall, CareerBuilder, Champaign, CraigsList, property scout, Real Estate, saint louis

It’s another Sunday and I’m a bit frustrated.  I have an assistant that is avoiding my calls and a lawyer who is under-delivering.

My new local assistant who was given the task of hand-addressing and stuffing my envelopes let me know on Saturday that she needed more time.  This isn’t the issue.  The issue is that she now is avoiding my text messages and phone calls.  I’m a bit worried about this situation because she has over $200 worth of my stationary.  However, the beauty of her being local is that I have her home address.  So she can’t completely just dissapear on me.  Now that I think of it, I should’ve held some type of performance-guarantee deposit.  Which would’ve basically been a $200 deposit collected and refunded in addition to payment once the project was completed.  However, even if I was an assistant I wouldn’t go for that policy.  Hmm, I’d love to hear some ideas in the comments about this.  *Update* As I type, I just received a return text from her.  This is a plus, but she’s not completely off the shit list yet.

My lawyer that I was once so ecstatic about, is starting to let me down.  It was clearly stated during our initial consultation, that I was choosing a ‘new’ lawyer due to the lack of responsiveness of the one prior.  He explained that he realized that was an issue amongst many attorneys and that he was different.  I’m beginning to believe that in Champaign, maybe I’ll just have to lower my expectations a bit, possibly I’m dealing with the best-of-the-worst?  I’m not asking for my attorney to respond to my emails within 5 minutes and always be available via phone, or anything like that.  I just need someone who will deliver upon their promises.  A huge pet-peeve of mine is when a ‘professional’ states that they’re going to do something and they don’t follow-through.  Don’t tell me you’re going to do something just because you think it sounds good or that it’s something that I want to hear.  Here is what I’m talking about:

8-20-09
Justin, I’m out of the office until next week.  I’ll get back to you then.
- Lawyer

8-19-09
Update please.  Also, I have yet to receive an invoice from you.  I believe it’s been over a month since our initial consultation.
- Justin

This was an email that was sent to my lawyer and the reply.  And I haven’t heard shit since.  I guess on the bright side, I still haven’t been billed for that consultation and following email correspondences.  So at this point it’s like interest-free financing; that’s my optimism working.

Oh well, on a brighter note, my internet marketing operation is coming along.  I’ve setup a 2nd account on twitter, just to target the demographic that could make use of the Mozenda software.  I also have some automation in place with that account.  In a nutshell, I have implemented Yahoo Pipes, RSS feeds, and HootSuite to automatically @Tweet people who match my demographic criteria.  Maybe I’ll do a tutorial on this later, hmm.  Also, I spent damn-near all of today making videos about the Mozenda software and posting them to YouTube.  This should drive more people to my affiliate link.

Well, that’s it for now, I’m about to head to the gym.

- Justin

Internet Marketing, Real Estate Affiliate, Assistant, Attorney, Champaign, ChampaignHomes, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, HootSuite, Internet Marketing, Lawyer, Mozenda, Real Estate, Yahoo Pipes

I indeed decided to place an advertisement in the 2009/2010 Yellow Pages.  Although I believe print advertising is a dying medium, I’m following my gut on this one.  Deep-down, I really believe that the homeowner who is at risk of being foreclosed on may turn to the Yellow Pages to find who to call.  This would be especially true, if that homeowner is older and is more used to using a print directory vs. the internet.  The older homeowner will most likely have more equity in their house; see how this makes sense in my head?  You should.  And the main incentive is that my ad will be the only one in the Real Estate section about foreclosure prevention…boo-yhaw!

And I just thought about this, but it’s too late now.  I should’ve used an exclusive phone number and had it forwarded to my main phone number, just for advertisement tracking purposes.  It’s too late now, so I’ll just have to ask every caller how they heard about me. The 2″ Yellow Page ad cost me $60 monthly, so $720 for the year.  You should see a blog from me within the next year about how a Yellow Page lead generated “X” ROI.  Everyone told me not to place an ad in the Yellow Pages, all I heard were naysayers.  But when folks turn right, I go left.  You’ll see how this turns out…oh yeah…you’ll see…

- Justin

Real Estate Advertising, Champaign, ChampaignHomes, Entrepreneurship, Foreclosure, Investing, Marketing, Print Directory, Real Estate, Schwaps, Short Sale, Urbana, Wholesaling, Yellow Pages

I couldn’t just leave you all hanging with the videos and not explain how I did things and the costs involved, so here goes:

Materials Required:

- Stamps
- 8-1/2″ x 11″ yellow ruled-paper
- 8-1/2″ x 11″ white paper
- 4-3/8″ x 5-3/4″ Ivory Invitation Envelopes
- Red Ink Pens (Gel)
- Extra Printer Ink Cartridges
- Computer Scanner
- Image Editing Software
- Word Processing Software
- Local Personal Assistant
- Handwriting Font

Objective:

Yellow-Letter marketing has been proven over the years as one of the most effective marketing methods available. When sending a personalized, handwritten, hand-addressed yellow letter; it is not uncommon for marketers to experience response rates as high as 15%.

As a Real Estate Investor, marketing is what drives your business. A 15% response rate can inundate you with calls so be sure to be prepared. Read on, and I will give you the complete Do-It-Yourself instructions for creating a Real Estate Investor Yellow-Letter Direct-Mail campaign.

Step 1: Write the Letter

Place a white sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ paper directly over a sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ yellow ruled-paper. By doing this you should be able to faintly view the ruled lines from the underlying paper (if you have access to a light box, I suggest using it for assistance), this will keep your writing straight and the lines spaced according to the paper your letters will end-up printed on. Write your marketing copy on the white sheet of paper and be sure to leave spaces for fields that will be specific to the recipient (mail-merge will be used to fill those spaces with specific text). An example of the copy I wrote is below:

You may of course, use any copy you wish. This is just an example of my letter that was used to target homeowners in my farm area. Where you see circles, is where my Mail-Merge fields were to be placed.

Step 2: Scan the Letter to Image

Place the white paper with the handwritten marketing copy on a scanner and scan the image into an Image Editing Software. I personally use Adobe Fireworks, but any basic Graphics application will work for this project. You want to use the software to clean-up any smudges or inconsistencies that were scanned in (if necessary). Then save the image as a JPEG file.

Step 3: Edit the Image

Open a word-processing application. I personally use Microsoft Word 2003; however any word-processing software with the Mail-Merge feature will suffice. If you’re strapped for cash, you may obtain OpenOffice which contains a free word-processing application that has the Mail-Merge feature. OpenOffice is fairly similar to Microsoft Word.

Open a new document and import the handwritten JPEG into the document. You will do this twice as you need to crop the main JPEG twice to divide the image, so to make room for the mail-merge text fields.

Step 4: Create Handwriting Font

Create a font using your own handwriting. I used the website www.yourfonts.com to create mine. It is very easy to create a font with your own handwriting using their service. I won’t detail the instructions for their service here, but after following their simple directions you’ll have your handwriting font as an option available in your word-processing application. This takes 20 minutes or less.

Step 5: Setup Mail-Merge

I won’t detail how to use Mail-Merge here as the process differs per word-processing application. However, since I am aware of the fact that Microsoft Word is the most widely used application you may view Mail-Merge instructions here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA010349201033.aspx

For any of you that use a different application and want to know how to use Mail-Merge for it, Google it.

Step 6: Apply the Handwriting font

Once you have your Mail-Merge setup, you will have place-holders that show where the Mail-Merge fields are. If you’re using MS-Word, those fields will have containers of “<<” and “>>”. So for instance, your first field may be “<<Greeting>>”. You will need apply your handwriting font to the fields and adjust the font-size to match the size of your actual handwriting which was scanned in.

Step 7: Print your letters

After scanning in the static handwritten text of your marketing letter and applying your handwritten font to the dynamic Mail-Merge fields, you’re ready to go. Load your printer with your loose-leaf, yellow ruled paper and print your campaign.

It is very hard to distinguish the handwritten-font from the scanned-in handwriting, thus the reason I suggest using a mix of both. When you use a handwritten-font for the entire document and don’t scan-in your actual handwriting, it looks very computer-generated like this:

Although this is my custom handwritten-font that I generated on www.yourfonts.com, the font does not look natural. But when you mix in the handwriting font with your actual scanned-in handwriting, you get a great result as seen below:

Looks pretty good right? If, I didn’t tell you I doubt you’d be able to identify the mail-merged fields.

Step 8: Local Assistant

After you have a stack of papers printed, each unique to the homeowner recipient, you will need to find a local assistant to hand-address and stuff your invitation envelopes. Here is an example envelope:

Front:

Back:

Try to keep the envelopes as simple as possible. Only write the destination address on the front and place the return address on the back. Do not include your company name in the return address.

Step 10: Affix Stamps and Send

Go with actual adhesive stamps and not any printed-type, the common theme here is personalization. You may have your assistant affix the stamps or you can do that yourself. Then take the envelopes to your nearest mailbox or Post Office and send them out, wait a couple of days for the flood of calls!

Price Break-Down:

You may be saying to yourself, “Why would I go through such trouble, when there are services out there that can do this for me”. Well, if you’re just starting out, doing this yourself can get you in the game with quite a bit of cost savings. However, if you’re a veteran I wouldn’t suggest going the DIY route as it is very time consuming, at least for the initial run. Here is the itemized price break-down/comparison for a campaign of 900 letters (actual prices from a campaign of mine):

Real Estate Champaign, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Investor, Marketing Campaign, Real Estate, Schwaps, Urbana, Wholesale, Yellow Letter

5 hours, 900 pages, 2 magenta, 1 cyan, and 1 yellow ink cartridge later, I’m finally done with my end of the yellow-letter campaign. The printing of all those pages took alot longer than expected and I also went through more ink that I originally thought. But, the end result was well worth it (can you ID what is the handwritten font and what isn’t?), in my opinion.  This morning I met with my new local assistant and dropped-off all of the letters, envelopes, etc. so that she can hand-address my envelopes and stuff them.  She says she can have them done in a week.  So about a week from today I should be ready to launch my first mass direct-mailing.

On another front, I happened to come across an email that stated that the biggerpockets.com site is looking for additional guest bloggers.  I think I’m going to try out for a spot as a guest blogger that contributes in the area of Computer Technology uses for REI.  My try-out article will most likely be a step-by-step how-to guide to produce a yellow letter campaign, just like the one I’ve completed.  I’ll mention the exact computer software used and everything.  I’m guessing there are other investors out there that may want to know exactly how I did this.  I’ll let ya’ll know how the try-out process goes.

- Justin

Real Estate Champaign, Entrepreneurship, House, IL, Mail-Merge, Marketing Campaign, Real Estate, Schwaps, Urbana, Virtual Assitant, Wholesale, Yellow Letter

Man, I have been slacking completely on my blogging. I’m back on it though. I haven’t posted any ‘Accountability Tuesday’ updates lately because as I mentioned, I wasn’t going to do so until I completed the launch of my direct mail campaign. It’s still not launched yet. I’m very close however, as I have the mail-merge setup, all of the stationary, and I’ve selected a college student with nice handwriting to handwrite my envelopes and stuff them (all 900 for $120 or $0.13 each). This same college student is going to act as my phone receptionist and field my calls during the day. I found this girl on CraigsList and haven’t met her yet, however she stands far above the other candidates and just from the looks of her on paper. She sent me her resume and this girl is solid, college senior, great relevant work experience, good GPA, etc. I’m to meet her this weekend so that I can get her the materials to get started on this first project of hers’. I can already tell, this girl is a real go-getter…my kind of people. I’m already loving the idea of having a local assistant.

My attorney is on vacation, so I’m still waiting on some things from him that I have him working on. And it all concerns the usage of Birddogs in Illinois but on a completely different level than you may be familiar with. I’m looking to implement both buy-side and sell-side Birddogs. If it’s possible and safe from being misconstrued as a non-licensed practitioner of Real Estate, he is going to construct a proprietary model for my business to use Birddogs. My bill from him is going to be through the roof, but it will definitely be worth it if I can make this happen in my biz.

On a non real estate note, but business related, I am now a Mozenda affiliate marketer. That may not sound all that special, but I haven’t mentioned that I am the ‘only’ Mozenda affiliate marketer! This came about all because I happened to like their software, I posted a YouTube video about it, they noticed it, they interviewed me for an article, I asked about their affiliate program, they said they didn’t have one, they offered me a deal to become one, and here I am. This is an awesome opportunity, because not only is their product superior to their competition, but they are going to pay me $5 per trial sign-up and additional if those trials convert to memberships. As soon as this arrangement was made my mind started racing on how I could market and expose their product. There are so many voids in the marketplace it is ridiculous, GAME-ON! I did some research on Google and found that for the key term “Data Mining” (which is what this software does) ;245,000 people searched by that term on Google in July of 2009 alone! Let’s just say if I can advertise on Google and other places and send 10% of 245,000 to http://www.GetMozenda.com, which would make 24,500 monthly visitors. Their conversion rate is currently approx. 3%, which means 24,5000*3% = 735 people sign-up, which for me means 735*$5 = $3,675 gross monthly! This is going to take a little of my time away from Real Estate, for good reason as you can see.

I have a phone meeting with a web development firm out of New Hampshire this evening, about working with them and structuring an arrangement that will allow me to outsource my web projects to them, while I serve as the project liaison. Hopefully this will workout. Another source of income doesn’t hurt.

So, I’ve got a lot going on. I’ve been slacking on my other areas because of it. I think I gained about 7 pounds since I’ve been so busy. I need to quit eating the garbage and get my ass back in the gym regularly, no excuses. I’ve only taken like two weeks off and I feel like a bum, you HAVE to workout to keep yourself up. But anyway, that’s it for now. Stay on your grizzy.

- Justin

Real Estate 61802, 61820, 61821, bandit signs, banditsign, Blog, Buyer, Carleton, Central, Champaign, ChampaignHome, ChampaignHomes, Cheap, Colin Egbert, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, FHA, Guru, home, Homes, House, Houses, HUD Appraiser, IL, Illinois, Investment, Investor, Justin Bernard McClelland, justinmcclelland, Landlord, Nathan Jurewicz, Preston Ely, Properties, Property, Real Estate, Realtor, Rehabs, Rental, Schwaps, Section, Sheets, ShortSaleKid, sign, Urbana, Wholesale, Wholesaler, Wholesaling

Real Estate 61802, 61820, 61821, bandit signs, banditsign, Blog, Buyer, Carleton, Central, Champaign, ChampaignHome, ChampaignHomes, Cheap, Colin Egbert, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, FHA, Guru, home, Homes, House, Houses, HUD Appraiser, IL, Illinois, Investment, Investor, Justin Bernard McClelland, justinmcclelland, Landlord, Nathan Jurewicz, Preston Ely, Properties, Property, Real Estate, Realtor, Rehabs, Rental, Schwaps, Section, Sheets, ShortSaleKid, sign, Urbana, Wholesale, Wholesaler, Wholesaling

Another Friday night posted at my favorite spot; On the couch, with my laptop on a TV-dinner table. I fell asleep, after going for a long-run (7 miles and could’ve ran more, I still got it!) after work at around 10pm and now I’m up at 3:43am. Don’t know what that’s all about. I’m trying to decide if I should go back to sleep or start Saturday now. Either way, I’m blogging in the meantime.

I just checked out my Thursday post and found that I forgot to post again providing details of the past 8 days. Well you see that I received a follow-up mailing from the city of Champaign about the bandit signs. I thought that was amusing, especially the detective work required to find my home address and such to mail to. The Champaign zoning administrator probably RSS’s this blog for all I know. Sometimes, I feel like I disclose way too much. But I really don’t care. That’s what makes this blog different. I’m keeping it real 100% and sometimes “keeping it real goes wrong”. But it’s all in fun to me, life is not that serious.

The video I made about using Mozenda to screen-scrape got noticed by Mozenda, so I thought that was pretty cool. After finding my YouTube video, the company interviewed me and I am featured in an article about their software. Which reminds me, maybe I’ll make a video tonight about the data obtained using Mozenda for my direct mailings. Actually, first I need to find out why my damn audio gets out of sync with my video when I do recordings.

I’ve got the key to a commercial property in town. The owner, who is in Chicago, wants to get rid of it and gave me a call. I told him that I don’t normally invest commercial, however that I’d check it out. I have a buyer who buys both residential and commercial. The owner has the property listed, but also has the option to sell it FSBO (executive-agency listing). Communication between me and the buyer was lovely prior to receiving the key in the mail, but now that I have it, I can’t get in touch with the guy. He said that he wanted to view the property, perhaps I’ll drop the key off at his office. Yeah, I just thought of that right now. Why do I need to tag along anyway? He can check out the property and then tell me what he would want to buy at. I can then go from there and compose an offer. I wonder if I need to look into different contract forms, since it’s not a residential property offer?

I’ve been active on CraigsList. I posted an ad looking for an investor-friendly Realtor , I also posted an ad looking for a phone receptionist to take my incoming calls. I’ve received one call from a Realtor who seems pretty legit, perhaps we’ll be able to establish a lasting business relationship. I hope he doesn’t fall off into the abyss like so many other Realtors, I’ve come across. You communicate with them for a few days and then they just stop responding to you. Just unprofessional as shit! As far as the phone receptionist, I’ve received quite a few replies about this job and have yet to start screening candidates. But this should be a great alternative to PATlive and easier on the budget.

I’ve decided to start a Web Development Company. I used to freelance web design on the side of my nine to five, I’m now finding that my time is much better spent dedicated towards real estate. However, I still receive prospective client leads and requests for bids on projects. While I don’t have the will or the time to spend time designing and programming, I’m going to leverage my connections and sub-contract the development work. I realized that I should be doing this after spending entirely too much time on web projects and also having to turn a few projects down. I’m in talks with a few prospective sub-contractors currently regarding this joint-venture. This will be very hands-off for me and all I would have to do is act as a liason between the client and development team. Easy money, don’t know why I’m just now thinking of this. Not too early to start diversifying my investment portfolio right?

That’s all for now. Have much more to write about, so perhaps I’ll post again later today.

- Justin

Real Estate 61802, 61820, 61821, bandit signs, banditsign, Blog, Buyer, Carleton, Central, Champaign, ChampaignHome, ChampaignHomes, Cheap, Colin Egbert, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, FHA, Guru, home, Homes, House, Houses, HUD Appraiser, IL, Illinois, Investment, Investor, Justin Bernard McClelland, justinmcclelland, Landlord, Nathan Jurewicz, Preston Ely, Properties, Property, Real Estate, Realtor, Rehabs, Rental, Schwaps, Section, Sheets, ShortSaleKid, sign, Urbana, Wholesale, Wholesaler, Wholesaling

Real Estate 61802, 61820, 61821, bandit signs, banditsign, Blog, Buyer, Carleton, Central, Champaign, ChampaignHome, ChampaignHomes, Cheap, Colin Egbert, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, FHA, Guru, home, Homes, House, Houses, HUD Appraiser, IL, Illinois, Investment, Investor, Justin Bernard McClelland, justinmcclelland, Landlord, Nathan Jurewicz, Preston Ely, Properties, Property, Real Estate, Realtor, Rehabs, Rental, Schwaps, Section, Sheets, ShortSaleKid, sign, Urbana, Wholesale, Wholesaler, Wholesaling