Issue# 2692
- WEALTHY: 3 steps to supercharging your real estate investments (Julie Broad)
- HEALTHY: Who cares about burning fat? (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Jay Abraham on marketing
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Are you prepared if your business partner says yes? (Paul Lawrence)
- Who’s Googling you? (Tim Ferriss)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the komodo dragon
- Add “hauteur” to your vocabulary
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“If you’re attacking your market from multiple positions and your competition isn’t, you have all the advantage and it will show up in your increased success and income.”
- Jay Abraham
Why You Must Master Direct Marketing for Real Estate Investing Success
By Julie Broad
When you think about real estate investing, my guess is that you don’t immediately think “direct marketing” as well. But direct-marketing skills are essential to almost every aspect of real estate investing… from finding motivated sellers… to buying a property… to finding your ideal buyer… and more. In fact, mastering direct marketing can help make practically every step of the real estate investing process more profitable and a lot less risky.
I discovered this on the plane back from a recent trip to Austin, Texas, while reading Dan Kennedy’s The Ultimate Marketing Plan. I was flipping through it looking for the useful big idea of the book. I’d expected to find an idea I could apply to my Internet business, but instead found applications to my real estate investing endeavors.
When my husband and I were new to real estate investing, we had loosely defined goals. (I wrote about that in my article “The Problem with Fire.”) Our lack of clarity led us to buy properties because they generated a lot of positive cash flow or because we could get the deal done with no money down. That didn’t always work out well for us.
In fact, one of our no-money-down, positive-cash-flow properties turned into a complete nightmare – landing us in court to defend fire code violations, dealing with a property manager charged with manslaughter, and having 3 of 6 units vacant for more than six months. What started out as an investment that put $1,000 per month in our pockets turned into a $30,000 lesson in what NOT to do.
Had we focused on some fundamental marketing principles before buying that property, we’d have never considered it.
Here are three of the rules that you can apply to your real estate investing ventures:
Direct-Marketing Principle #1. Find the Starving Crowd
As a real estate investor, one of the biggest risks you’ll ever have to deal with is carrying the costs of a vacant property. Empty units can suck the profit from a property in a single month, and consecutive months of vacancies can sink you.
How do you minimize this risk? You figure out who your most likely prospects (tenants) are and what they are hungry for. It’s a brilliant way to approach finding low-risk properties to buy.
You can do this fairly easily by visiting open houses and chatting with the realtors or calling a few property managers in the city. Ask them about the houses that people are buying – and why they’re buying those houses. Ask them about must-have features. Ask them about the people who are renting. Ask where people in the neighborhood usually work, and what attracts people to that area. You can even ask about rental rates and popular apartment buildings in the neighborhood.
Then walk around and chat with people in coffee shops and parks. Find out where they work, what they like about the area, and other general information. And pay close attention to apartment buildings with no-vacancy signs. What size units do they have? Where are they located – near a subway or bus stop, across from a park or something else that might be drawing tenants? Do they have any special amenities?
Finally, you can go online and read the ads people are posting. You can even call some of them and ask questions. Find out what features everyone highlights. Be curious.
Pretty soon it will become apparent what it is that tenants in the area are hungry for – maybe 2-bedroom units with dishwashers, or 3-bedroom homes near George Washington High School, or 1-bedroom condos off Granville Street. That’s the kind of property you want to buy.
Had we done more research before we purchased our six-unit disaster, we’d have realized that a crowd of drug users, drug dealers, and other shady characters were happily occupying that entire block. And we’d have considered how, even if our property was fixed up nicely, the neighboring properties would deter good tenants from renting from us. Instead, we made the mistake of focusing on the fact that we could strike a deal that enabled us to buy the property for no money down.
Direct-Marketing Principle #2. Develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
As Michael Masterson says, “The feature or benefit you decide to promote with your USP does not necessarily have to be unique to your product, but it does have to seem like it is.” When you apply this principle to investment real estate, it means that you don’t have to find a property that has some feature no other properties in the area have. But you’d be wise to ensure that any property you are considering has appeal. The more appealing it is to your starving crowd, the higher the rent you can command, and the easier it will be to sell at a great price in the future.
So find the USP for a property before you buy it. Imagine yourself placing ads to attract tenants, and even imagine yourself selling it in the future. What will you say about it? Is it positioned for perfect sunset viewing? Is it a short walk to fabulous shopping? Does it sit on a peaceful and beautiful street? Does it have a gorgeous yard that brings a country feeling into the city?
If you’re looking at a property and you can’t find or create a USP for it, you could find yourself struggling to rent it if the competition for tenants gets tough. Worse, you could lose money when you go to sell it (like I did when I bought a condo unit in North Toronto several years ago).
Direct-Marketing Principle #3. Focus on Benefits Not Features
When you write an ad to attract tenants to your property, base it on the juicy USP you created – and include plenty of additional benefits that tenants will enjoy by living there.
The typical ad – “2 bedroom apartment on Granville Street, dishwasher, washer/dryer, hardwood floors, and full en-suite bathroom in master suite available July 1″ – is all features. Instead, you want to focus on things like the spectacular view from the terrace and the apartment’s easy access to award-winning schools and the best nightlife in the city.
In “What Clayton Makepeace Knows About Selling Your House in This Market,” I said that it’s important to appeal to the positive emotions that might make someone want to buy your house. That same emphasis on your prospect’s emotions is true of rentals.
So why not try to attract the best tenants at the highest price by describing how convenient and comfortable your apartment will be for them?
Apply the above direct-marketing techniques to your real estate investing efforts, and you could see a big difference in your profits.
[Ed. Note: Times may be tough, but real estate investing is still a great way to bring in extra income. For expert advice on making money as a real estate investor, sign up for Internet Money Club member Julie Broad's free monthly newsletter. Get your free report for making money with real estate here.
Direct marketing, as Julie points out, can help you supercharge your success in more ways than one. For direct-marketing techniques that will work with many of your online efforts, check out ETR's Internet Money Club Independent Learner Edition. We'll give you a 10-pound "playbook" that includes everything you need to go from idea to fully functioning Internet business. Learn more right now.]
The Secret “Three-Step Strategy” to Internet Riches
You’ll want to read and reread the “three-step strategy” to Internet Riches very, very carefully… for it holds the secret to Internet riches beyond your wildest dreams.
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A warning before you check it out – it sounds almost too simple. But don’t let its simplicity fool you.
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Know What You’re Doing
When “Winston” asked me to help him promote one of his products, I agreed to mention it in my e-mail newsletter. I told him that all he needed to do was give me a coded link for his landing page.
If you’re at all involved in marketing on the Internet, you know that this is very basic stuff. By providing me with a link that includes a tracking code, Winston would know when a purchase was the result of the promotion in my newsletter. That’s how my profit share would be calculated.
Among Internet marketers, this is like telling an ice cream truck driver that he needs a freezer to keep the ice cream frozen.
Unfortunately, Winston didn’t know what I meant. He brought in his “IT” guy, who didn’t know what I was talking about either.
Eventually, after I gave them several examples of coded links and explained the process in half a dozen e-mails, they got it.
At that point, I was sorry I’d gotten involved. I kept my word and gave Winston’s product a mention – however, I politely passed on any future collaboration.
When you’re dealing with a larger and more experienced company/businessperson, you must make it easy for them to work with you. And a huge part of that is knowing what you’re doing. You don’t have to be an expert by any means, but educating yourself on the basics is key.
If Winston had been prepared, he would’ve given some thought to my needs as a marketer and e-zine publisher. Naturally, I would want to know how he was going to track sales to calculate my percentage of the profits. Other ways he could have impressed me and made me more inclined to do future business with him would have been to show me statistics on how his product has sold to other competing lists and/or sales copy that he has tested and proved to be successful.
If you’re asking for help to advance your career or business, make sure you’re ready if the answer is “yes.” Because you may not get a second chance.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a successful entrepreneur and publisher who has started over a dozen profitable enterprises. To get more practical small-business tips, check out his "Street Smart" program.
Ready to jump-start your marketing knowledge? Check out Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business, Michael Masterson and ETR Publisher and CEO MaryEllen Tribby's bestselling book.]
Worth Quoting: Tim Ferriss on Personal Branding
“Branding is no longer for Fortune 500 companies and Madison Avenue agencies with excessive budgets and inadequate tracking.
“Personal branding is about managing your name – even if you don’t own a business – in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records.
“Going on a date? Chances are that your ‘blind’ date has Googled your name.
“Going to a job interview? Ditto.”
(Source: Tim Ferriss’s blog)
Burn Carbs Not Fat!
What’s the best way to get rid of ugly belly fat? If you say “Long, slow cardio to burn as much fat as you can during your workout,” you’ve got it wrong.
I’ve written before in ETR about the futility of cardio. But there’s another argument to consider.
It’s well known in the workout world that women burn a greater percentage of fat during endurance exercise than men. It’s also clear that women have higher body fat percentages. In other words, women, despite burning more fat, have more fat. And men, who burn more carbohydrate, have LESS fat.
So, you see, it’s not all about how much fat you burn during your workout. That’s why I don’t recommend long, slow, boring “fat-burning-zone” cardio workouts. In fact, I have the opposite mindset when designing workouts for my clients. I want them to focus on burning carbohydrate instead. And you do that through intense exercise.
When you exercise intensely, you burn carbohydrate and put “turbulence” on the muscles. And you can do that with heavy resistance training or interval training.
So remember…
Burn CARBS not fat!
Short, intense exercise works better for fat loss and fitness.
[Ed. Note: It's time to break out of the "long, slow cardio" exercise routine for good! Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne can help you burn carbs AND fat and build muscle with three 45-minute workouts a week. Learn how right here.
For more easy-to-implement ideas about how to live longer and feel better, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.]
It’s Fun to Know: The Komodo Dragon
For years, scientists had the wrong idea about the komodo dragon, the world’s largest reptile (averaging 10 feet long), native to Indonesia. They were convinced that it was fast-acting bacteria in the lizard’s mouth that helped kill its victims (along with its crushing jaws). But recent work by an Australian researcher has shown that a toxic venom is to blame.
The poison causes stomach cramps and hypothermia. Even worse, it can prevent blood from clotting and cause a drop in blood pressure. Combined with blood loss (from the bites), that’s deadly.
(Source: Agence France-Presse)
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Word to the Wise: Hauteur
“Hauteur” (haw-TUR) – from the French – is arrogance.
Example (as used by Hugo Young in The Guardian): “Sheikhs and presidents have often heard little about the [British] royal family’s follies, and don’t object to the hauteur and self-importance that remain its inextinguishable traits.”
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker... build your self-confidence and intellect... increase your attractiveness to others... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's Words to the Wise CD Library.]
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Craig,
You are so right! My question is, I am 70 years old, have high blood pressure and a.fib. (an irregular heartbeat). Can I do the interval and heavy resistance training, or is there a differnt way to do it?
My doc says to do the slow thing, meaning just the treadmill at a steady pace, But I have not lost any weight and I need to. I am 10 to 15 lbs overweight.
Thanks,
Geraldina Howell