You’re a Real Estate Entrepreneur or Investor, and you’re
out there in the market place looking for deals. I have a
question for you.
 Are you doing a bit of
advertising and just hoping that a deal will fall in your
lap, or are you operating in a way that makes certain it
will happen. If you don’t have a process for making sure
deals happen, you don’t yet understand the importance of
having a marketing plan.
The sad fact is that even after all their training, less
than one percent of all real estate entrepreneurs and
investors actually have a marketing plan. Even though it’s
very simple, don’t underestimate its power.
The Most Important Thing About Marketing is to Have a Marketing
Plan!
1) It’s a concrete result you put out for your mind
to seize on and strive to achieve.
2) It allows you to clarify exactly what you want to
achieve in the coming 30 days.
3) It allows you map out the activities needed to
achieve that plan.
4) It allows you to plan in advance to delegate off
the lower paying activities, so you don’t end up doing them.
5) It allows you set time deadlines, to hold others
accountable so everything gets DONE!
6) It results in you being free to concentrate on
your highest payoff activity: Making Offers on Great Deals!
7) You have a business that operates consciously, not
by accident.
More people fail in real estate because they simply do not
have a plan or goals. You should have a detailed marketing
plan of what you want to accomplish and how you are going to
accomplish it.
And, don’t be vague, either. Things like, I want to make
more money than I can ever spend, and I want to be rich, and
I want to make $10,000 a month, are not plans. They are too
vague, and they won’t help you get there. Be as specific as
you can possibly be.
In planning for monthly revenue, try to put your money goals
in cash income, not gross revenue. I know gross revenue is
what you’re used to thinking in, but cash is obviously more
important. It’s what you take to the bank, and it’s what
pays bills.
First, examine your current numbers. More than 80 percent of
all real estate entrepreneurs know how many houses they are
buying each month, but they don’t know where those houses
came from and how many leads they had to process to develop
them into the single deal. And, this is a deadly sin.
You Simply Must Know How You Are Currently Doing
You should know:
1) The total leads that call each month (each week is
more manageable),
2) Where those leads come from,
3) How many “qualified” seller prospects (i.e. those
that you are willing to invest follow-up in if they don’t
sell now; they have motivation, you are interested in the
house.) you get each
month,
4) The ratio of total to qualified,
5) The number of deals you close,
6) The ratio of closed deals to qualified leads – for
each lead source
7) How much you make from each seller,
8) How much it cost you to acquire a new seller.
With this information you can look at your current
resources, look ahead, and then plan out what you want to
have happen. The number of deals you want to do, the amount
of money you want to make.
For example, let’s say you are bringing in around $10,000 a
month and your average deal gives you $5,000. Yes, I know
that’s low, but for the sake of example. That’s two deals a
month. These are cash proceeds and after expenses you net 50
percent of your gross or $5,000 a month. And let’s say that
you want to double your net income next month.
You will have to get twice as many deals to double your
business. Goal? Four deals a month, or one a week.
Let’s say you currently get one deal a month from a
classified ad, and one deal a month for mailing expired
listings. But, you get ten qualified calls a month from his
classified ad and 10 qualified prospects calling a month as
a result of mailing expired listings. So, you currently
close ten percent of your prospects.
First, you can improve on this situation by improving that
twenty percent closing ratio. By improving your closing
ratio by things like more precise targeting, the present
lead-flow would stay the same, you’ll get your same twenty
real prospects and achieve your goal of doing four deals
next month.
But assuming that’s not something you have control over
right now, the other way to double your income in the next
month is to double the number of qualified prospects you
talk to and make offers to. So instead of getting 20
qualified leads to call, you would need 40.
Your plan to get forty qualified prospects would need 10 to
come from expired listing mailings, 16 to come from flyers
in target neighborhoods, 4 from business cards handed out
everywhere, 6 to come from signs placed in the ground at
high traffic count intersections, 10 to com from classified
ads that drive people to the website. Total: 46 prospects.
Cool! That’s six to spare.
With this number of leads coming in you have what is needed
closed four deals and reach your goal of doubling your net
income. Actually, it’s more than doubling because your fixed
expenses don’t increase with the income.
You should have a monthly plan. Schedule thirty or forty
minutes out of one day to make up your monthly plan and see
how you did last month. Schedule this time and keep to it.
Don’t do any work or take any calls during this time. Keep
it strictly for planning. If you do this and you allow
yourself to get into the whole spirit of planning, and
making things happen on purpose, you will easily double your
income in twelve months.
Your Monthly Plan Should Include The Following
1) A goal for total net income.
2) A goal for number of deals signed up
3) A goal for number of appointments made.
4) A goal for number of qualified, interested
sellers.
5) A goal for total number of leads.
6) Average net income from each deal.
7) The number of prospects you have to generate to
reach your goal.
A detailed plan to generate the number of prospects you
need. Your plan doesn’t have to be typed out or put into a
computer. It can be handwritten on paper. It doesn’t have to
be pretty.
Scratch pad plans are good enough. The important part is
that you do a plan every single week and keep on top of
things.
This is a simple thing to do, but it is just as easy to not
do. Blowing it off is the equivalent of you absolving
yourself of responsibility for your business. On the other
hand, taking the time to think through your goals each
month, both for income, and marketing activity, then
committing them to paper will make things start happening by
plan and put you in control of your business.About the
Author
Ben Innes-Ker has been a full time real estate investor
for 7 years and is author of the Motivated Seller Magnet -
Automatic Lead Generating System. He is constantly
fine-tuning his marketing and business systems to make his
investing more profitable with less effort, so he can spend
more time enjoying life with his wife and 2 young children.
He shares these unique profit making systems with his Power
Marketing Members.
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