Justin B. McClelland

I finally got this video uploaded that I made a couple of weeks ago.  I don’t know why, but YouTube acts a little flaky sometimes with uploads.  Am I the only one experiencing this?  Anyway, this video goes over how I was able to streamline my offers to listed properties.  All that I had to do was setup a mail-merge and utilize the “Convert to Adobe PDF and email” function.  This process will save you quite a bit of time.  If you have any questions about it, feel free to leave it in the “comments” section.

How To, offers Adobe Acrobat, PDF, YouTube

This is a post that was inspired by Lawrence Roberts and a long string of blog comments on the BiggerPockets article I wrote back in September 2009.  A lot of people ran into snags when trying this out.  So, in the video below I just give a quick overview of how to create the ‘illusion’ of an embedded YouTube video in Craigslist.  I say illusion, because Craigslist restricts certain HTML tags, one of which is required for YouTube embedding.  So check it:

Entrepreneurship, How To, Internet Marketing BiggerPockets, CraigsList, embed, Facebook, YouTube

I’ve been slipping up on my blogging lately.  A once a week frequency, isn’t really blogging.  But I’m still out here in these streets making things happen.  I’ve got two closings that are of utmost priority at this point.  I’ll have tons of stuff to write about once those happen.  I mean I have some things to write about that you could learn from…even from a rookie like me.  So with that said, doing all of this blogging with no deals to talk about is getting old.  I know this is supposed to document my journey and all, but it feels like I’ve been writing for the last year about a cake that hasn’t finished baking.  I mean…I already told you the recipe I used, I don’t know what else to tell you besides it’s still in the oven.

Accountability Week:
I didn’t accomplish any of my weekly advertising tasks.  I have put a lower priority on those for now.  Priority #1, get to closing.  However, I did organize my home office last weekend.  That may not sound like alot, but trust me…it was.  I had receipts all over my desk, contracts all over the floor, envelopes, etc.  One thing about me though is that I’m very organized, even when I have an “organized mess”.  I just enjoy the organization without the mess much better.  Now I have my papers filed in the correct folders, my receipts in the correct boxes, I even performed a backup of my laptop to my external hard-drive (much overdue and takes forever).  By the way, I need to get with the program and start backing-up online.  What services do you guys use out there?  I just realized that if something happened to my laptop ‘and’ my external hard-drive….I’d be S-O-L.

I haven’t hit yall with a video update in a minute.  I take my flip camera almost everywhere I go and have beaucoup footage.  I’m usually just too lazy to go through the motions with Windows Movie Maker and YouTube.  But, I was feeling extra today.  So here’s a lil snippet of what I’ve been up to.

Marketing, Wholesale Accountability, courthouse, Hard disk drive, Windows Movie Maker, YouTube

It’s 1:46am and I’m kind of up lollygagging around.  Well I take that back, I guess I’ve been productive as I was just over at www.mytechopininion.com which is a tech website for those in Real Estate. Pretty cool stuff over there, check it out when you’re able.  And I also watched a few YouTube videos that focus on some new advertising methods.  I love YouTube to death, I swear…anything you ever wanted to learn, you can find it there.  It’s now the number two search engine, by the way.  Just a little fun-fact.  It’s second to Google.

I mentioned that I’ve placed some “we buy houses” ads in four different papers and my phone is buzzing with calls from those ads now.  That and I still have a trickle of yellow-letter responses coming in (more on that in a bit).  After a month, I’ll report with what I find is the most effective news-paper in the area and how many calls each ad brought in.  Also, I made a blog post last week at BiggerPockets.com that goes in detail about how I’m using Google Voice with Vonage to track all of my calls.  The people who I’ve talked to who have responded to my ads have been as nice as can be!  They all haven’t been extremely motivated but much better than the tire-kicker type.

I figured out why I pissed some people off with my yellow letters and it all makes sense.  You ready for the reason?  Okay, here it is…it’s because they were tricked with the authentic appearance of the mail.  If you get a type-written envelope in the mail that says something like “To the Residence of, 123 Main Street” that thing may go straight to the shredder (you need one of those if you don’t already have one by the way).  But if you receive an invitation envelope with your name and address handwritten on it tomorrow, I’d be willing to bet that you open it before all of your bills and other mail.  Some people were just mad that they didn’t receive a love-letter, a wedding invite, or a note from their penpal (do those even exist anymore).  But anyway, that’s all old news.  Plus out of 800 mailings I only received like 15 heated voicemails, so that’s not even 2%.

I am really procrastinating on writing up some other stuff  I have to get done for tomorrow, it’s now 2:07am.  I swear, this is just like college.  I’m horrible at prioritizing.  I procrastinate with the things I don’t feel like doing.  But a new trick I picked up is to still take care of something that needs to get done in the mean-time.  This way I don’t procrastinate all together.  Baby steps.  I really don’t feel like staying up all night tonight.

But back to the yellow letter calls.  So I received a call today from a lady who is looking to sell a house that has been in her family for years.  She seems to be fairly motivated as the property has been vacant for some time.  While it was vacant she said she even had squatters in there for like 5 weeks.  She just went through the trouble to kick them out.  But they left a trashed property behind.  I’ll cut all of the details short. But I have a good feeling about this because she told me that she has received countless pieces of mail about the purchase of her property.  But she called me first and I’m the only person she has spoken with thus far!  Could it have been the personalized letter that made me stand-out or just a coincidence? I don’t know but we shall see.  I meet with her on Friday to have a look at the house.

I interview a potential virtual assistant/phone receptionist tomorrow.  Hopefully she will be legit and I can start forwarding my calls and what I’m more excited about is having someone complete some cold-calls for me.  Like some cold-calls on classified ads and such.  She seems like the real-deal, but I’ve had such thoughts before.  I’m going to grill her and see where she’s at.  Grill her like the job pays 50K a year.

Peace Out.

- Justin

Real Estate biggerpockets.com, Real Estate, virtual assistant, YouTube

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

I’ve been up since 9am and it is now almost 5pm.  I haven’t left the bed for anything but to eat breakfast and lunch.  Sounds pretty lazy, right?  I know it does, however I have my laptop here with me.  I love this thing, it goes everywhere I do.  Since I behind a desk behind a computer for 40 hours a week at my 9 to 5, I refuse to do so otherwise.  If someone where to see me when I claim to be working, they would dispute the fact.  I mean, I’ll be laying on the couch with this thing, in the bed, on the floor, it’s the best!  I have desktop computer, but rarely use it for everyday computing.  I actually only use it to run some automated web 2.0 stuff, that I’ll post about some other time.

Anyway, I spent 7 hours yesterday sitting outside at the Coffee shop.  And I don’t even drink Coffee.  I don’t get the big craze over coffee by the way.  It’s bitter, hot and just plain nasty.  But, on the other hand I love beer, and I’m

sure some people have similar thoughts about it.  They’re both acquired tastes’ I guess.  But back to the point.  I spent alot of time at the coffee shop and did some research on two properties that I think I’m going to go ahead and put offers in on.  I know a requirement to successful investing is the abundance of submitted offers.  So I need to step my game up, in this aspect.  All the research performed yesterday on my farm area has given me a better understanding of what property values are in certain areas.  And I have got to go on another tangent before I leave this topic!  But coffee shops…people.  Why didn’t anyone tell me about the eclectic customers these places attract.  And I’m not talking about your local Starbucks, I think the franchises are neutral.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, next time you want to get some work done outside of the house, go to your locally owned coffee shop.  You know the one where the girl behind the register has those plug earrings and her coworker has a tattoo sleeve.  Then just people watch and eavesdrop every few moments you break from reading or typing.  You’ll see.  Diversity is good but DAYUM!  And to think I thought I was liberal.  Maybe I’m not by just by comparison.  Nevermind me if all of this makes no sense.

Back to Real Estate.  I feel pressured to perform weekly on my BiggerPockets.com guest-contributor post.  Therefore, I brainstorm everyday about what to contribute.  I have a great idea for next week, it perhaps will need to be a two-part post.  But it will concern the usage of Yahoo Pipes for real estate leads.  Yahoo Pipes can be used with Twitter, it can also be used with CraigsList.  I’ll save the details for the post.  So be sure to check it out.  Also, aside from little ole’ me, there are some fantastic contributors on that blog.  I suggest that you add it to your RSS feed reader, I learn at least two new tidbits from that blog every week.

I just had a text exchange with the Mahomet property owner, who I provided with the internet marketing service (CraigsList, Twitter, Cars.com, YouTube, etc.).  He said that he is getting far more calls about his BMW that he has for sale over his house.  So, although Mahomet, Illinois isn’t necesarily a city that people across the nation know about, please help me broadcast to more people about his property for sale.  This place is awesome!  If you Tweet (which you should be anyway), please retweet one of my tweets about it (I am user “@schwaps“) or just tweet this link: http://bit.ly/qx0VZ

I thank you in advance.

If you checked out the link, you’ll see the illusion of the embedded YouTube video on CraigsList!  If one more person asks me for a marketing video, I’m definitely going to find some UofI students to subcontract the work to, perhaps film students.  They shouldn’t cost much and the end product should be better and it will take alot less of my time and effort.

Welp, that’s it for now.  I’m going to watch some TV online and then pump out a few offers.  I’ll keep yall posted.

- Justin

P.S.
If you have a self-hosted WordPress Blog, you need to get the Zemanta Plug-In.  I discovered this while guest-blogging on Josh’s site.  This plugin does all of the work for you when it comes to tagging and finding appropriate imagery to spruce up your post.  Highly recommend it.

Random, Real Estate On the Web, Real Estate, RSS, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo Pipes, YouTube, Zemanta

I finished the 1007 Beaver Creek video at around 3:00am.  Since I have to be in at work at 7, I figured what is the point in sleeping.  So here I am.  I’ve been trying to perfect some settings on my Wordpress blog this evening, huge time drain.  As you may have noticed, I switched the theme.  I only did that because the old one had a column of info that I could not manipulate.

I received a comment asking for a reference for materials that explain how to use Windows Movie Maker.

I didn’t have a suggestion, but I thought to myself, “I could do that”.  I use it enough to have a good working-knowledge of the software.  I’m still amazed by what you can do with this free software.  It does have it’s limitations and one-day I’ll upgrade to something more snazzy.  But for now, it works just fine.

Here is the video of the 1007 Beaver Creek property.  This place is NICE!  It’s one of those houses that someone would walk-in and want to buy it with the furniture included.  This guy has the place layed out real nice, which reminds me, I need to ask who he used for an interior designer.  I’m going to have to use whomever he used in the future for my place:

- Justin

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• Windows Movie Maker Download (techblissonline.com)

Entrepreneurship, Real Estate Illinois, Mahomet, Video, Video editing, Windows Movie Maker, WordPress, YouTube

I’ve got so much to do it’s ridiculous! There is never enough time in the day to get everything done that I need to. I barely got a chance to work out this evening, but I’m glad I got that in. I ran about 4 miles on the treadmill, by the way, I absolutely hate treadmills. 4 miles on a treadmill feels like 6 miles on the street.

But I have got a to-do list that is overwhelming and it goes a little something like this.

- Prepare for the meeting tomorrow with the Pastor who wants to sell his old church building and house owned across the street.

- Finish configuring my 2nd Twitter account, which I am using solely for internet-marketing (Mozenda). I have implemented some crafty tools that I’ll have to tell you all about in detail later (Yahoo Pipes, TweetAdder, etc.)

- Upload some YouTube Tutorial videos for Mozenda that will drive viewers to my affiliate link

- Complete the bid for the web development project for the new City of Champaign website. I got the numbers from the company I’m Joint Venturing with, I just need to complete the bid and hopefully I’ll make it to the interview and get the gig (which will be beautifully sub-contracted as I do the consulting).

- Put the finishing touches on a web site project that I took on about a month ago.

- Finish troubleshooting a local brokers’ website. He had contracted a local guy to create his website for 8K and the relationship ended on bad terms. The programmer completed the website with a Joomla CMS and gave the broker the files but it isn’t functional. I said I’d take a look…still can’t find the issue. For 8K, if I was that broker I’d be ready to whoop some ass!

- I volunteered to create a YouTube promotional video for the youth Illini hockey program in town. They need to spark some more interest in the sport or it may go down the tubes. I’ve already spent 6 hours on this, hopefully I can wrap the editing and such expeditiously.

I’ve also got some other stuff in the works that is a little to early to blog about. But, I’ll just tell you that I’m “going big” because is no “go home” for me. I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Let’s just say, my investment portfolio is going to diversify even more.

That’s it for now, gotta get back to work

- Justin

Real Estate church, Illini Hockey, Joomla, portfolio, Tweet Adder, Twitter, Wholesaling, Yahoo Pipes, YouTube