Justin B. McClelland

I met with the broker today to discuss the possibilities about his new website.  The meeting went fairly well overall.  However, it seemed to lack focus, we were all over the place with our meeting topics.  I like structure and agenda, I’m organized like that.  So when we were discussing things at random, I felt like we were wasting effort that would be better spent focused.  But despite that fact, I think we were able to gain an understanding of each other.  He basically wants a website that has all of the bells and whistles a site that the largest Champaign Property Management company should have.  And I think I was able to successfully convey that I could provide that for him.  I didn’t sleep last-night as the hours were spent drafting a plan for his new website complete with new ideas, comparisons of the competition, etc. Now, I just need to submit a formal bid to get the gig.  I need that gig for mo’ marketing money!

I’m starting to doubt my original plan concerning diversification.  Because I don’t think any of my non-related real estate ventures have even close to the ROI that real estate wholesaling does.  I may be focusing too much of my time in other areas.  However, I need marketing money so that I can focus on real estate.  Kind of a catch-22 I guess.

After the meeting I slept from 10am to 3pm (some of the best sleep I ever had), I had a meeting with my assistant at 3:30pm at the library to pick-up my yellow letters.  On a side-note, what’s with assistants and tardiness!?  We clearly discussed in an email last night that we were to meet at 3:30pm today, apparently somehow she interpreted that as 4:00pm.  But even if she did, she was late for that too as she showed at about 4:15pm!  Stee-rike ONE!

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Hopefully, it was just a mixup on her part.  But if it happens again…”on to the next one”.

I got the letters now, there all stuffed and hand-addressed and ready to go.  All I need to do is buy the stamps for them and send them off.  And wait for the flood of calls.  In a box of 900 letters, surely there is at least 10k floating around in there somewhere.

- Justin

Marketing, Real Estate, Web Development Business, Marketing, Real Estate, Services, website

I just realized that I seem to always fail to keep my word when I mention posting again the next day or whenever.  Yesterday flew-by.  I did blog, but yesterday it was to BiggerPockets.com.  Contributing posts to that site is so taxing, I’ve only been doing it for three weeks.  It feels like it takes me all week to thing of a good post to create.  I try to be as unique and original as possible while focusing on a small niche of Real Estate/Technology applications. Uhm…not sure if that just made sense. 

Yesterday evening, I met with a young guy who is just getting started in real estate (I say that like I’m some kind of vet).  Anyway, he responded to one of my CraigsList ads and I liked the tone of his email.  He seems like a very aggressive, ambitious, and out-of-the-box thinking individual.  We chopped it up (slang for conversed, lol) for a couple of hours at the library about how we may work together in the future on some things.  He has alot of trades that may come in handy for sure.  He also gave me an idea about future usage of bandit signs….and I’ll just leave it at that because the feds are watching.  I’m telling you this guy thinks outside-the-box.

As of a few hours ago, I submitted two offers.  One was for a commerical property, I think I blogged about maybe a month ago and the other was for a residential property I think I also mentioned around the same time.  We’ll see how that goes.  Also, my offer-machine just got out the shop, it needed a coil,  so next week offers will made at a 10 fold increase at the least.

I’ve have got to start ‘making’ more time for my daily workouts.  Fitness is a huge priority to me in my life and I’ve have been neglecting it for the past month or so.  I’ve been working so hard, the gym has been out of sight, out of mind.  And the messed-up part is that my appetite has increased!  That’s recipe for disaster, “eat more, burn less”…I’m not trying to qualify to be on “BiggestLoser”, I need to check myself.  Just don’t leave me alone with any type of donuts, cake, cookies, ice cream, or gummy bears…and I’ll be fine.

I meet tomorrow with a local Broker who wants to discuss the possibilities of having my team develop his new website.  Hopefully, he will like the ideas I have for him and I’ll get the project.  It will be the first project for the new IT team I put together.  I’ve invested alot already in this client in hopes of getting the job (and I mean monetary investment, you don’t even want to know how much, I’ll let you know after I get the project).  He’s also an investor so if I can be a one-stop-shop solution that would be all-to-the-good.

By the way, just thinking about the issue I last blogged about still pisses me the **** off.  Some people! 

That situation reminds me of a guy on twitter who tweets all of the hilarious things his Dad says, check him out at @shitmydadsays.  If my Dad were still here, there would be some serious competition with this tweeter, if I did the same.  My Dad was a trip! One of his quotes that he embedded in me at an early age was, “Boy, don’t trust NOBODY but your Mother…and went shit comes up short…you better look at her too”.

Peace out, I’m going to the gym. 

- Justin

Entrepreneurship, Real Estate bandit signs, BiggerPockets, biggerpockets.com, broker, commercial property, gym, website, workout

I’m falling into bad habits again. It seems like every time I go to make a blog post another week has past.  That’s bad for both you and me.  More so for me as a lot of things take place during any given week that I’d love to read and reflect on in my blog (business diary).  I think I just need to stop obligating myself to 400+ word posts every time.  Then, I may not be reluctant to blog when time is sparse. Anyway, here is the cliff notes of what has been going on since last Sunday:

- Lawyer finally got back in touch with me, says it will take $5K for him to compose a legal model for me to follow regarding buyer/seller side birddogs.  I’m going to consider this after I get some more capital established.

- I got the local broker squared away with his website. Hopefully, he’ll think of me when he wants to upgrade it.

- I submitted a bid to develop the new City of Champaign website.  That damn bid application took alot of time, I didn’t expect it to. If I get that bid, I will be a very happy camper.

- Fired my local assistant that I had working on my envelopes and picked up what she had completed. I had to get rid of her not due to performance but due to her undependable nature.

- Found two new assistants.  One that’s local and one non-local.

- Contributed my first guest-blog post to the BiggerPockets.com blog.  I was inspired by Steph’s activity as a guest blogger on that site.  And then I happened to receive a subscriber email stating that they were looking for more guest-bloggers and that they needed someone to blog about the usage of Technology and Real Estate.  I thought to myself, “I can do that”.  I emailed Joshua Dorkin about it, sent him a sample (Yellow Letter tutorial), he liked it, had a few phone convo’s with him, and now I am to post there every Thursday.  I think nothing but good can come from this opportunity.  I just hope I don’t fall victim to the 4 hour writer’s block that I did during the first post.

- Starting to make money as an affiliate of Mozenda, so that’s encouraging.  I spent a lot of time last weekend getting some how-to videos posted to YouTube and I also have starting to target the Data Mining niche of Twitter Users via my additional Twitter Account.  Still have some ground to cover here with the marketing of this product.

- Took on a project to create a video for the Youth Illini Hockey program

- Took another project to create a marketing video for a homeowner in Mahomet, Illinois (10 mi from Champaign).  He’s getting a video and other internet exposure to sell his house, car, and some furniture.  By the way, this guy who is selling his house is my new role model.  He started a construction company about 5 years ago and now is doing extremely well.  He has properties in Illinois and Florida, a sports-car collection, etc…talk about inspiration.  Very soon, I’ll have some toys too.

- Justin

Entrepreneurship, Real Estate biggerpockets.com, hockey, illini, Illinois, joshua dorkin, justin mcclelland, Lawyer, marketing video, Mozenda, website