A lot of real estate investors measure their success by the number of phone calls they get in the day. The more the phone rings, the happier they are.
RING – it's a new deal closing
RING – it's a hard money lender
RING – it's a seller
RING, RING, RING...
Sounds good, right? Like the phone is some kind of cash register.
The DM doesn't agree. Keep reading to find out why...
Wouldn't you rather have a golf club or fishing rod in your hand instead of the phone?
How the "conventional" way of real estate investing is wrong
Many real estate investors want their phone ringing off the hook. It sounds like success because it sounds like the real estate investor is busy.
But being tied to the phone doesn't seem like a measure of success to me. Rather, it seems to be a signal that there's something WRONG in the real estate investor's business. Those real estate investors quit their 9-5 job at the big corporation… and now they're sitting at their desk answering the phone. Sure, the money might be better but they haven't achieved something even more valuable than money – time and the freedom to enjoy their time. And, their income is limited by the amount of phone calls they can take at any one time.
When I became a real estate investor, I pursued the same measure of success in the beginning. It wasn't until I had worked myself nearly to death that I realized the whole real estate investing world was doing it wrong.
Successful real estate investors shouldn't be measuring their success by the number of phone calls they get but rather by the number of free hours they get in the day to do whatever they want!
Here's what you want your sellers and investor-buyers to do instead...
Instead of getting people to call you, have them to click to a website. This one simple act can blog the roof off of your business. When you were dependent on the phone, your business could only grow based on the amount of phone calls you could take at once (just one at a time). But dozens… or even hundreds or thousands of prospective sellers and investor-buyers can be piling onto your website at the same time!
Instead of being tied to the phone, you're free to enjoy your time or travel the world or hang out with your kids or do your favorite hobby. People will arrive on your site day and night regardless of whether you're reading a book or sipping coffee at a café in Barcelona.
A website frees up your time and transforms your role in your real estate investing business (that's huge!). Instead of working IN your business by answering that ringing phone all day long, you're working ON your business by building systems to accept incoming contacts (sellers, investor-buyers, etc.) and managing them.
It's easier than you think
When I introduce the idea of websites to some real estate investors, they think: "Okay, DM, that might be easy for you because you're experienced on the web and have been doing this for a while. But I don't have an advanced degree in web development... so I'll stick to the telephone."
There was a time when creating a website took months and cost thousands of dollars but today, that's simply not the case. You don't need advanced ANYTHING to get a website up and running, plus new technology makes website creation simply a matter of point and click. Heck, I've seen digital cameras that are harder to use than some of the website-creating systems out there.
You don't need any experience or special skills to create a website for your real estate investing business. And if you take just a couple of seconds to get it up and running, you'll literally save yourself HUNDREDS OF HOURS this year as your real estate investing business picks up.
Who DOESN'T want to free up HUNDREDS OF HOURS to spend on whatever YOU want to do???
It only takes a couple of minutes to put together a website. And then make one simple tweak in your marketing: Instead of putting your telephone number on your marketing (i.e., craigslist ads or bandit signs, etc.), put your website address on your marketing. When people see your marketing and choose to respond to is, they'll click to your site where they can take an appropriate action (depending on who they are – more on that in a moment).
Here's an awesome website secret that the PROS use
When people hear about the opportunity that a website offers, and after they get over the misconception that a website is a complicated thing to create, their first thought is to create one website and drive all traffic to it – sellers, investor-buyers, and maybe anyone else you might be working with (i.e. hard money lenders if your real estate investing requires that group).
But here's something the pros know: Setting up one site to serve everyone will reduce the effectiveness of your site because you're trying to communicate important messages to EACH group... but EACH group is looking for different information.
Instead, set up multiple sites, one for each potential audience member (after all, it only takes a moment or two to create just one).
For example, let's say you work with two groups of sellers – those who are landlords and those who are distressed homeowners. It only takes a moment to create one website for landlords and another website for distressed homeowners. And the advantage is: You can communicate the right message on each website.
And let's say you work with two groups of investor-buyers – the fix-and-flip crowd and those who are looking to buy and rent. Again, each of those groups will respond to information that the other group doesn't care about.
Each website doesn't have to be vastly different, but the information you'll put on each site will be more effective when it resonates with the specific audience.
When the right audience gets the right information, they are more likely to act. So your seller might fill out a web form on your seller-specific website (and that form gets automatically emailed to your virtual assistant to follow up) while your investor-buyers might leave their email address to join your autoresponder to hear about deals.
And here's the best part: You built a business system using websites and, because those websites are geared specifically to one audience, they are MORE effective. At no time were you tied to your telephone – you are out golfing or fishing or walking your dog even though hundreds or even thousands of people are passing through your site.
Not sure where to start? There are many website builders out there. Some are free, some aren't. Some are complicated, some aren't. The one I use to do everything I've just described above is Virtual Real Estate Websites. Use it to get up and running with multiple websites in no time at all!
Your not so web-savvy friend and mentor,
Mark Evans DM,DN
PS, I'm not saying that you should throw your phone off of the tallest building in town. There are still times when it's appropriate to use. Your virtual assistant can answer some calls and can make calls out to potential sellers or investor-buyers. And if you use a site like CallToProfits.com (a really cool telephone-based technology that I'll talk about in an upcoming blog post) a phone is helpful. But the key is: YOU shouldn't be the one who answers it.