Alrighty, the series on using video in your real estate investing business continues …

If you’re new to it, here are the links to the first two posts:

Part 1 – Are You Using This Killer REI Marketing Tool?

Part 2 - Flip Video Tips for Real Estate Investors

Today, you’re about to learn how to use screen capture videos to get leads flowing into your biz and how you can get them done without spending a dime.

Don’t have a video camera? Can’t afford one right now?

No problemo.

You can be up and running, recording your own screen capture videos in less than 15 minutes (videos exactly like the one below).

Check ‘er out …

(if reading in email subscription, click here to watch the video)

Action Summary

1) Download Firefox

Firefox is a web browser like Internet Explorer. The reason that you need to download Firefox is because the free screen capture video tool is an add-on to Firefox.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to download Firefox, a great program that tons of people use is Camtasia. It costs some moolah but is a great program. They have a free 30 day trial you can download. So, you can use it free for a month if nothing else.

2) Download the Capture Fox Add-On

This tool is super easy to use (one of the main reasons I love it!). But, there’s not much functionality.

I’m ok with that though.

3) Shoot Your First REI Screen Capture Video

Once you’re done, post it online. And use the tips from Part 2 to maximize the reach and effectiveness of your videos.

This concludes our series on video marketing in your REI biz.

May your REI videos bring you many leads.

Hope you enjoyed :-)

~ Patrick

… aka P-Rid

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I have a free professional “We Buy Houses” Craigslist ad that I give away here on my blog …

For any of you living in the dark ages still, Craigslist is a free online classified ad website. You can post an ad, just like the ads you post in a traditional newspaper classified section, except on Craigslist, it’s free.

I get a lot of technical questions about how to post the ad … sooooo instead of continuing to answer them one by one … I shot a video that walks you through the process step by step.

In less than 10 minutes, you can have a professional  “We Buy Houses” ad posted on Craigslist to start driving motivated seller leads your way …

Check out the video below …

(if reading in your email subscription, click here to watch the video)

Click below to download your FREE Craigslist ad …

… and leave your questions in the comment area.

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Bandit signs could be a great way to get your phone ringing off the hook with motivated sellers. It was for me when I got started investing in real estate.

My mentor taught me early on that one of the most important parts of being a real estate investor was to get sellers contacting you to sell you their property.

So, I knew the next step was to put together a marketing plan.

Here’s what it looked like:

1) Get business cards made

2) Join local real estate investment association

3) Place “We Buy Houses” ad in local newspaper

4) Buy “We Buy Houses” bandit signs

5) Knock on doors of people facing foreclosure

We thought bandit signs were a good choice because they were relatively inexpensive and there didn’t seem to be too many other investors using them.

With my students, I typically recommend at least testing bandit signs when getting started. The barrier to entry is pretty low, like I just mentioned, and with any form of marketing, it’s all about testing. Even if there are tons of investors using them in your area, you may still want to test them.

I thought I would share some examples of bandit signs and tell you my thoughts on them . . .

Bandit Signs for Real Estate Investing

This is a pretty standard “We Buy Houses” bandit sign. Notice that they used a local phone number. We tested both a local and toll free number and found that the local number pulled a better response rate.

Here’s an example of one that’s geared towards buying the property subject to and uses a toll free number. As you will see in a moment, we have used the same yellow background with black text on our signs.

This bandit sign is interesting because it uses a vanity phone number, (888) ISoldKwik, and it has the same name as the domain . . . which is good for branding.

This makes their contact information much easier to remember thus increasing the likelihood that someone will call it. Remember though, with every marketing method, you must test your results to find out pulls the best response rate.

Instead of going with the “We Buy Houses” slogan, this bandit sign is targeted directly to people facing foreclosure. Some people that are in foreclosure may be more likely to call a “Stop Foreclosure” sign than a “We Buy Houses” sign. This could be a good way to differentiate yourself in your market if there are a lot of other investors using “We Buy Houses” Signs.

And here’s a picture of one of our bandit signs. (sorry the picture is a little blurry)

Ours is the one on top. You can see we used the standard “We Buy Houses” slogan, yellow background with black text, and employed our own local vanity # (345-SELL) and domain (http://www.345SELL.com).

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Are you one of those non believers that think that you have to have a bunch of cash or credit to get into real estate investing?

Well, if that’s the case, here’s a real world real estate investing case study of one of Wil Christenson’s latest and greatest deals. He specializes in creative deal structuring . . . buying property subject to and creating seller financing to pay sellers for their equity. Wil structured this deal so that the seller took back 100% of the financing so all he had to pay was his closing costs (some attorney fees, title search, deed stamps, etc) which amounted to a whopping $1,800 bucks! That’s it!

And the property was in good shape! Can’t get much better than that . . . all it needs is a little cosmetic work. I decided to shoot a video to highlight exactly how the deal went down.

Here’s a few things you’ll learn in the video:

= > How in the heck he found the deal

= > 2 BIG hints when the lead came in that screamed “This Could Be A Great Deal!”

= > Key questions Wil asked to unlock the seller financing potential

= > How he used “The Truth About Taxes” to compel her to finance the deal (and how you can too)

= > The magic question that explodes your wealth when you know how to hold your mouth right

= > How every payment is in essence going in his back pocket

= > and MUCH MORE!

Watch the video now!

Want us to publish an article about one of your creative real estate deals? Shoot us the details through our Contact Us Page. Write “Deal Case Study” in the subject line and we’ll get back to you soon . . .

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When I went to my first real estate investing boot camp, which was 5 days long, I was very new to the business. Prior to this, I had read a few books, listened to a Charlton Sheets course, and attended a free one day seminar in Atlanta (basically a pitch-a-thon for various real estate gurus and their courses). Even though the one day seminar wasn’t packed with too much content, I’m very grateful for it because that is where I met my first real estate investing mentor, Louis Brown.

My education was limited to book knowledge at that point. I had yet to take much practical action towards my becoming a real estate investor. I vividly remember  walking out of the first lunch break and feeling like I had just been stuffed with a mountain of information, and we still had 4 and a half days left!! It was both a good and bad feeling. Good because I was learning a ton of great information. Bad because I realized how little that I knew. It was a great experience all together though. The following week, it sent me out into the field fired up and ready take over the world.

There were many things that have stuck with me since that first seminar, but there is one that I would like to share with you in particular. This one thing has made a significant impact to our bottom line year after year after year.

One of the areas that was covered in the seminar was marketing. Lou explained many different marketing strategies like bandit signs, farming neighborhoods, several different types of direct mail campaigns, etc. What surprised me the most though was not a particular marketing strategy but how the lead was handled after the initial contact.

Lou said that he got around 60% of his deals from follow up calls with sellers. In other words, a seller contacted him to sell their property, no deal was struck between the two parties, and Lou followed up with the seller over time until the seller was ready. He bought properties from sellers that he had been following up with for months and even bought properties where he had been following up for years!

That’s How You Maximize the Return on Your Marketing Dollars!

Position yourself to be THE person who a seller will sell their property to if and when they get to the point where your offer makes sense. Most sellers are just as disorganized as you and I. As soon as they get off the phone, they move on to the next thing and before they know it . . . they’ve either forgotten that you exist all together or they can’t find your information to call you.

That brings us to a very important question . . . How do you follow up on your seller leads?

3 Step Action Plan to Effectively Following Up with Seller Leads

Step 1 – Ask the Seller if They Would Like to be Added to Your Follow Up System

There is no reason to follow up with someone that doesn’t want to hear from you. If I know by the end of my communication with a seller that we are not right to work together then, I will simply say, “Doesn’t look like we are a fit to work together right now. Hopefully you’ll be able to sell the property but who knows in this market. I’ll tell you what I can do, would you like for me to add you to our follow up system and give you a call down the road sometime? . . . Great, when would you like for us to give you a call back?”

I usually let a homeowner define the time frame when we call back. Do whatever makes sense to you.

Step 2 – Determine How to Track Your Follow Up Call Schedule and Seller Information

There’s nothing worse than following up with a seller and not having any information on their property or their situation (and not remembering it either). You need to decide exactly how you are going to keep up with both of these pieces of information.

When you call back exactly when you say you would and remember all the specific details about the seller and their personal circumstances, watch out! It’s powerful!

Expect to be thanked many times over for caring so much and remember that Lou said 60 % of his deals come from following up with old seller leads.

Step 3 – Make the Call and Rebook the Next Follow up Call if Need Be

When making the call, simply reintroduce yourself and say something like, “Joe, hey this is Patrick Riddle. I spoke with you x-time ago about your property for sale and am just calling you back like I said I would. Did I catch you at a bad time? . . . Good. I guess you’ve probably already gotten the property all squared away and sold, right?”

Simple as that.

By following this simple advice, you maximize the return on marketing dollars you’ve already spent, save on marketing dollars you didn’t have to spend, and stand out from the crowd in the eyes of everyone you work with.

How about that?

And from all of us here at Must Know Investing, thanks Lou! You’re the man! We would have never been able to do what we have without your help.

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