You Tube Part 2 - How to Be Found!

Answering question #1 from yesterday - I Need Help Figuring Out What and How to Do That!
Here are the tasks:

1. Upload
2. Label
3. Invite people to view your videos!
4. Embed your video onto your blogs and websites
5. Create links on classified sites and in your emails to go see your video

Step #1. Depending on the type of video camera you have, this can be easy or you will have to read your manual. If you have a "Flip" you only have to plug in the camera to a USB port on your computer, the software automatically starts up and you select the scene you want to upload. You can create a movie before you put it onto YouTube and add music, a title and closing credits. Once you have a movie, you click on Upload movie to Internet. You will be prompted to log in to your account and then the video will upload.
If you have another type of camera, you will need to save the files or scenes onto your computer and then go to YouTube to upload the files. Log in to your account - or create one if you don't have one. Then on the top right of the screen is a yellow button that says "Upload." Then click on the button that says "Upload Video." It will give you the option of choosing a file on your computer.
Step #2. Putting the right label on your video is key. The next step is to give your video a title, description, and label or tag it. Choose a TITLE that describes your video. What ever you are trying to brand - your name or company or phrase - use in the title of your video. Next DESCRIBE your video. In the description of your video, be specific. If it is a video of a specific neighborhood, or street, or event, put that in the description. When someone does a search for what is in your video, you need to make it easy for the search programs to find it. The more local and targeted you are, the more likely you will find the target market. Search engines search for words, so your title, description and tags are important. TAG your video - put in words that people might type into a search engine to find your video. Be location specific on these as well. Only use tags that are relevant and not too many. If you can only think of 3 tags, that is ok.
Step #3. INVITING people to view your video is easy. Click on your account name at the top right of the screen and you have the option of seeing "My Videos." You will then see a list of your videos. Click on the one you want to invite people to see. Right below the video is a link to "Share" the video. You can send an email directly through YouTube, or you can copy and paste the link YouTube provides you. You can even send a message and send the invitation to multiple people. Ask them to "Favorite" the video, it helps the ranking of your videos.
Step #4. EMBEDDING videos means putting your video on other websites. Have you seen those websites that have a video on them? Maybe they are simple sites with a simple video message. They capture your attention.
You can do the same thing - just embed it into your site. If you use Microsoft Expressions to make your website, you can put a video on your site. If you know just a little bit about how to make a website, you can put a video on it. If you have a blog, like Blogger or Word Press, you can embed a video on your blog.
IMPORTANT: When embedding, be sure you click on the little sprocket on the right side of the EMBED code - it will then give you the option of including or NOT INCLUDING related videos. If you DO NOT want competitors' videos on your website, you need to "UNCHECK" that.
Step #5. Putting LINKS in your emails and into a classified ad is easy. Go to step #3 and get the link that YouTube provides you. Copy the link and paste it into an email and there you go - your email has a link. Go to Craigslist and paste the link into the ad you write up. As long and the link you paste has the http:// before the www., it will make it a clickable link in Craigslist.
For more how-to help on on-line marketing you can visit my site http://www.bestretools.com/. You will find a few videos on how to use some of the other products I use for my business and reviews and comments.

What is A Notice of Default?

111 days before a house goes to auction in California, a Notice of Default is recorded at the recorders office.

The public is notified of a pending foreclosure sale in a public location like the court house and published in the local newspaper. This is public information that anyone can and will see. People who buy foreclosures know that a homeowner is behind on their payments. People who read the newspaper can see all the houses that are in foreclosure.

Some homeowners know this is public information; however, some do not and are very shocked and surprised to get letters and phone calls from people wanting to “help” them. They begin to get bombarded with offers to buy their house, or offers for financing, or any variety of other products.

As investors and purchasers of foreclosures, or pre-foreclosures, it is vital that you differentiate yourself from all the “junk mail” they get. How do you get someone to read what you send them and open their minds to what you have to say? How do you earn their trust? Rule #1 – Don’t Bullshi* them! You are not the only game in town, you don’t have to be cutesy, or clever or be a salesperson. Be up front and honest. Don't waste their time - as time ticks away their options are dwindling.

You need to:
1. Be honest
2. Be Knowledgeable
3. Do everything you say you will: build trust and do not break it

It is all over the news how people are being taken advantage of while going through foreclosure or a short sale or a loan modification. In every type of economic climate there are people who will take advantage of the hysteria and do illegal things. In good time and bad, you will find this. And throughout all those times, there are also people doing things the right way; helping people, following the law and solving problems that others are unable to do. Help build the reputation of the investors – do things the right way and do it a lot! Now Get to Work!

100% Commit Yourself

How do you become successful? How do you find the deals? How do you learn how to get homeowners to trust you? How do you find people to buy your houses? You have to work this business. Not just one day a month, not just one day a week. Every time you talk to someone is a time to talk about your business. If you have ever been to a multi-level marketing opportunity meeting, or joined an MLM, they probably taught you a lot about committing. They want you to commit your time, your money and tell everyone you know what you are doing. Word of mouth marketing is the cheapest and usually best way of getting business. Word of mouth comes from trusted friends, family and colleagues.

You need to learn how to talk the talk. You get that from talking with people in the industry, going to seminars, attending webinars, reading books, listening to tapes, watching videos of experts, talking with a mentor.

You have to walk the walk. Get in there and do a deal! Don’t think you have to know everything about everything to buy a house or rehab a house. Find someone to help you along the way. Find a mentor! Partner with someone who’s done it before and learn from them. Find a good contractor (you may need help doing this). Find a good lender, find a good insurance team. Find a great realtor! Get a team together to help you along the way. You shouldn’t do this alone!

When you jump out of an airplane, the hardest part is letting go. The rational side of you starts telling the spontaneous side of you that you are CRAZY! What if!?!? Once you do jump, you are committed, 100% to pull that cord. You know what will happen if you don’t. So, you continue with the steps you need to complete your missions. After you land successfully, you know you have accomplished something that not everyone would try or even consider. When you are scared to do something, the hardest part is taking that first leap of faith that everything is going to work out fine. Once you get going, keep moving forward, and commit to keep the momentum everyday.

Private Money vs. Conventional Financing for Flips

As a borrower, you want conventional financing - for the low interest rates. Or FHA, for the low down payments. For houses you plan on keeping for rentals or living in, yes, that is true. However, for flipping houses, you are in a different game. Understanding how financing works will help you understand why conventional financing is not the preferred way to finance houses for flipping.

When you get a loan from a lender for a house, that bank sells the loan to the secondary market who then sells it again. If you pay off that loan in less than 2 years the originator of the loan may be on the hook to pay back any refunds or discounts they had received for selling that loan - thereby reducing their profit to nothing. Banks are in business to make money and if you consistently pay off your loans, the originators will stop lending to you.

If you have a line of credit, that is a different story. You can use and pay off that debt as much and as often as you like. It is designed to allow you to do that.

If you have a private money source, it is in the best interest of the lender for you to pay off and buy another property. Every time you borrow money and pay them back, you are proving you are effective in your business. They get paid and you get paid. Then, they are ready to lend once more to earn again. As long as you keep paying them back, they will be willing to lend you money.

Don't let a Single lead Get Away

As a Realtor, we are charged with getting leads for our business. Even if we are in a big company like Keller Williams or C21 or any other large company, getting your own leads is key to beating out the competition. I wanted to share this FREE report that should change the way you do marketing. The SIMS program helps you effectively generate leads. The report will open your eyes regarding how to capture leads that you generate.

Again, it's a free report, so if you do nothing more, at least read the report.

I spent the last 2 months learning about internet marketing and how to effectively generate leads. I have done a lot of direct marketing and get average results. 10 years ago when the internet started gain popularity, I knew that the internet would be the way to generate more leads. Well, today, if you've not already started to effectively use the internet, it is worth your time to figure out how.

One thing I learned is that my company website is not great. I spent a lot of money to have someone build it and it has generated maybe 10 leads in a year. Just one of my squeeze pages that I got from the SIMS program generates about 5 good leads a day for me! That's a huge difference! With just one tip from the SIMS program, I earned $900 in a couple weeks - and I didn't even have to work the lead to make a sale, I handed it off to another agent and split the commission! No driving around, no paperwork. Just a check in the mail. And the great thing is that the leads keep coming in and it takes minutes to do. Now, if I did everything that Greg taught me, it would take longer. But if I need more leads, I know I just have to implement more of his techniques.

The great thing about internet marketing is that you see results quickly. I can market in one place (for FREE) and get leads within minutes, or at least by the end of the day. Yellow pages, radio, tv, newspapers can't offer you that - the production time alone takes days or months.

So, you can see I'm passionate about this program. It's been a great tool for me and my business. I'm hoping it will help some of you increase your business as well. I believe the better we all do our business, it helps everyone in our industry.

Please, click here for the free report "Website Suck Squeeze Pages Rule" and see how you can help your business grow. Even if you don't sign up for SIMS, this report is a great FREE-BE! Click Here

Sold in One Day!

Well, the Property Launch was a total success. Sold the house that weekend! Didn't have a huge flood of people, but the buyers - people that mattered - did show up.

I had staged the house minimally - a few floor plants so the rooms weren't completely empty, bought the plug-ins for nice smells, baked cookies and had jelly beans for the kids. I also put out a flyer about the $8,000 tax credit and everyone took one of those. Don't forget to tell people that you just have to NOT have owned a home for the LAST 3 YEARS to qualify.

We got a full price offer on this beautiful little remodel. As the owner, I offered $2,000 BTSA, 50" plasma TV, home warranty and $2,000 towards closing costs. For a little $120K house, they were good incentives. The price compensated for the incentives. For a change, we weren't the best price, but we certainly were the best product.

Try to get your sellers to offer incentives, while keeping within $5,000 of the "right" price for the house. With the right marketing you'll get it sold fast - even if it's not a foreclosure!

Open House Marketing

We are preparing for our first open house in Deer Park, Texas. This house was completely remodeled by Rent Ready, a contractor we found in Lifestyles Unlimited, Inc.
We have a couple fronts we are working on to get ready for this. 1. The kitchen is not complete yet and the beautiful vent hood we ordered that we were expecting Wednesday will not be arriving until Thursday. 2. We are spreading the word about the open house using techniques from the SIMS training I took with Greg Clement.

The first issue we have is that in the kitchen, the space for the vent hood is smaller than usual, so we had to get a special vent hood. Not the same old under the cabinet will work...no cabinet. To add some sizzle to the house, we splurged and ordered from Euro-Kitchen a lovely high end vent hood. According to the website, it should take 4 business days to get here, so we were expecting in on Wednesday. Now that it is in route, it will arrive Thursday - in the northwest of Houston - far from the house. Now I need to work out with Rent Ready to get it installed 8 AM on Friday or Thursday evening. Why? Because we have an agent open house on Friday at noon! I have no idea today how long it will take to install a vent hood, I'm hoping 1 hour or less.

The second front we are working on is marketing. I love marketing!
- Email
- Postcards
- Press Releases
- Talking House
- Videos
We have sent out an email to the top producers in the Houston area to give them a heads up on the open house. I also have prepared a press release that I am sending out to TV, Radio and Newspapers. Why do they care? Because we are giving up to $500 to a local school right down the street from the house. For every family that shows up, we will donate $1! I'm not sure which media venues will announce this, but even just a couple will help. I also spoke to the principal of the school and she is spreading the word to her staff, who will hopefully spread the word to everyone they know.

I am creating videos to show the house, putting the house on the MLS today, putting together a before and after portfolio for the agent open house, creating a flyer about the $8,000 tax credit to have at the open house, finding a few items to dress up the counters and bathrooms, and making a flyer for the house which shows comps for the area.

I am not using a Realeflow website for this promotion, which may be a mistake since Greg is having a fun contest for high traffic. But I need to see the traffic that my marketing is generating and at this point, I can't do that with Realeflow websites. I believe they will have that available in the future, but I'm living this today.

Realeflow and SIMS

Working on implementing all the SIMS system is a time consuming challenge. In between doing everything else that a real estate investment company needs, now I need to implement more tasks.

After 6 modules and nearly 40 hours of trainings, (which I still need to catch up on) I am working on the task of how to most easily and quickly implement all the great tools Greg Clements of SIMS has provided.

Upside is that once these internet tools are implemented, it will increase our lead generation, improve our internet presence every day, and require less and less time and the power of compounding marketing takes place.

For example, 2 months ago our website was in the bottom 20% as far as website rankings. It is now in the top 40%! While we may not be exactly where we want to be today, we are steering in the right direction to get to the top.
One of the great tools that we are being able to use now with Realeflow is auto responding to emails and drip campaigns. Auto responders are when someone signs up at your website and your website sends them an email as soon as they hit "submit." Drip emails are the emails that automatically follow up after the first email. You can determine the frequency of the emails that get sent, the content of the emails and the quantity. With Realeflow, they have already created a number of auto responders for you to use. You just need to personalize it for your business information.

If you are a serious investor, you need to check out RealeFlow.

ACROBAT.COM

Please be sure to subscribe to this BLOG so you will be notified of all new postings and information for the competition.

For this weeks meeting you need to be signed up with Acrobat.com. We will have our first on-line meeting on Wednesday.
This video shows you in 5 minutes how to sign up and a few of the features of acrobat.com.
If you have not yet uploaded your video, that is ok, you have time, some of the tips I have can work in days and don't take months to work. But, the sooner your video is up on YouTube, the more time people will have to find you.

Competition Begins Today!

30 minutes - you can get your video done and uploaded in 30 minutes!

Check out mktcompetition on YouTube for videos that show you how to make a video for free and without a video camera, and how to sign up with YouTube and Google. In fact, there are 2 videos that show you 2 different places you can create a video for free!

Once you have your video ready, you need to upload it to YouTube and send me a link to your video.
As we get more videos for our members, I will share them with everyone.

Later today I will have a video set up to show you how to get set up with acrobat.com. You need to do this so we can have our first on-line meeting this Wednesday. Click on the word "acrobat" to get to the site to get started with acrobat.

How To Animoto

The first of the free places to create videos -without a video camera that I want to share with you is Animoto. Below is a 5 minute tutorial on how to use Animoto and get it onto YouTube. I used their stock photos and the music they provide. You can upload your own images, use images from the web and use your own music as well.
Something that is important when you put your videos onto YouTube is the title, description and tags or key words you use. Make sure the title is named something that your video is about. For people to find your video, the title needs to be something that they would type into a search browser. The internet is all about giving people what they want - and if you have what people want, make it easy for them to find you...you do that with the right words.

To find me on YouTube, use mktcompetition to search - I should be the first video that pops up.

RICH WIRE Competition Begins tomorrow

The RICH WIRE marketing competition begins tomorrow for all RICH members who are women.

To get started for this competition, you need to have an account with YouTube and a BLOG. To make this easy, just sign up for a Gmail account and you will have easy access to both a free BLOG and YouTube.
Here is a link to a video on how to easily set up a Gmail account and YouTube Account.

Quick Claim Deeds

Tip of the Week
Beware of Scams on Craigslist. Just because there is a listing on Craigslist doesn’t mean it’s legitimate. NEVER wire money to someone who claims they will send you a QuickClaim Deed for a property. No Matter How Good the Deal Is! Legitimate sellers will do Warranty Deeds and allow you to use an escrow company.

A QuickClaim Deed creates a cloud on title that can remain up to 25 years. So if you ever plan on selling that property, you will have a long road ahead of you holding the property or tracking down the seller to get a Warranty Deed. ALWAYS go through an escrow company unless you plan on doing all the due diligence yourself, which includes verifying the seller is really the owner and has legal capacity to sell the property and the title is clear of encumbrances.

Animoto for the Contest

Greg Clement has a contest now for his clients, asking them to put together a video using Animoto. I did not sign up for the extended version of Animoto, so I was limited to 30 seconds. I do believe that a commercial should be limited to 30-45 seconds. We need to capture people's attention quickly otherwise we lose them to the next video or website. Here is the video I put together in minutes. The hardest part for me was finding my old pictures of past rehabs and then figuring out how to post a comment in Greg's blog to submit my video!
Uploading the pictures was easy and it tells you when you have too many pictures for the length of time you have. The text you place within the video clip takes up some image time, but necessary to get your message across. There are many songs to choose from or you can upload your own. It is that easy! Then you can embed it into your blogs, send an email with a link to it, upload it to Youtube or other sites. Great product!

Animoto Listing

I am listing a friend's house for lease or sale next week. Here is a little video I made with Animoto.com. For free, it gives you 30 seconds and 10 photos/text shots. For a small fee annually, you get more time and links within the video, very good branding and linking capabilities.

Jivox.com

It's been over a week since I last updated, however I have been hard at work. Not only have I been educating myself with Fortune Builders Wholesale Training, I've also been working on my SIMS by Greg Clements of Realeflow.
I've been finding some very cool tools for our business as well. And most of the new ones I've found are free. Yes, I said free!
The 2 funnest ones are jingproject.com and jivox.com. Below you can see a jing of jivox!

I've got our first website up with Realeflow at www.sellsellsellyourhouse.com. Doug's BLOG "Will Doug Make It" is up also with SIMS or Realeflow at www.willdougmakeit.com. We still need to format it and start using it, but at least we have it pointed to Realeflow now. We may use wordpress.com later, but we're giving Realeflow a try for the blog. Tonight I have another Q&A session with Greg Clement. Once a week he is providing us time to send him questions and he is there to answer them. Thanks Greg!

Ending the week strong!

Tonight I went through SIMS module 1, Domains, Websites, Squeeze Pages, Blogs, Conversion Boosters and Traffic Boosters. I ended up with a couple pages of notes, so that means I learned something. He really stressed the importance of Blogs because it builds a website. Each entry is a new page. Search engines love big sites and Blogging is a fairly easy way to build the size of your Blog. Keyword rich content is important, and I have yet to throw in "real estate investing" into every page I write. It takes discipline and a standard format to get it right I guess. He suggested outsourcing for article writing and using parts in our Blogs. I won't be doing that for this Blog, but it could be very helpful for building my buyer and seller Blogs.
Next week these will be implemented.

I believe I have 11 sites I can host with him which is included in my monthly fee. I don't own that many domain names that I want to transfer over to Realeflow yet, so I was searching for domain names.

I got side tracked at the end of last week with our business cards because we started working more with PBNext. I realized I had not put our extensions on the cards, opps. We're paying for PBNext, we need to utilize it completely. It's a powerful tool to help us track our marketing and make sure a live person answers the phone when possible. This weekend I will be submitting my order to PSPrint to get these cards done and off my plate.

Subject To Existing Financing

We are purchasing a property tomorrow subject to it's existing financing. That means we will own the property and the existing financing that is on the property will remain in place. We will make the payments, thereby improving the seller's credit and we don't have to qualify for a loan. It is a win-win situation. The seller also prevents a foreclosure.
This house is mostly rehabbed already. It just needs to be finished up on the inside and put new siding and paint on the outside. It is in a great little neighborhood that has superb rentals. I've secretly been wanting a rental in this town for over a year! Is that the "power of the secret" working?
I just got my access to market the Fortune Builder education programs today. So, those of you who know who Than Merrill and the Esajian brothers from Flip This House are, they have a mentoring program, education, trainings and boot camps for investors. I can get you special pricing! So if you are interested, let me know and I'll get you to the right person over there.
Also, any REO agents out there who need an affordable on-line program to manage all your REO listings, the accounting, billing, repairs, etc., check out Builidium.com.

A Day without Progress

Here it is, my first day with no business progress. Other than speaking with one client, that was the extent of my work day. With 3 kids home and no nanny due to the flooding, it was my first day "off the wagon."
Tomorrow will be filled with action.

Being an Agent and an Investor - Can you do it?

Does anyone out there have hard facts to prove that people don't want to sell their house to an agent? As an agent, we are held to a higher standard, that is true. We should be, we are considered "experts." Funny how after a few classes, a test, paying some fees, finger printing, background check, and you are right up there with legal binding contracts and representation.

Does that make you an expert? By no means! But people believe you are. Don't lie to them. If you don't know the answer, tell them you will get the answer for them. Then find the answer and get back to them.

Does your liability go up? Yes! You are liable for more things. So disclose everything and have someone help you if you need it.

Higher Expectations? Yes, people expect you to be morally sound, do the right thing and represent them when you have agreed to do so.

Trust? You are to be trusted - DON"T GIVE THEM A REASON NOT TO TRUST YOU! If you are in this short term and to screw people - just get out now, you will get caught!

My recommendation is that if you are going to disclose in your letter that you are an agent, don't do it in a small, fine print way, put it out there and own it. It is nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. I don't know who spread the lie that people are afraid of agents. This is a people business and if they like you, they will do business with you. The regulations that state that you have to have full disclosure is so that Mr. Seller knows that you are "an expert." You need to prove to them why you are buying the house at the price you are buying it at. Disclose it! Don't hide it! It's no secret! We are in the business of buying equity, the sellers know they are walking away from equity.

Today I worked a bit on PB Next. Used our SnowBall microphone to record some greetings. Wow, that is a nice microphone. The sound is beautiful, nothing like the cell phone recordings you get for your messages, or even the greeting you make for your home phone. The room I was in was echoing and the recording sounded great! I'm wondering how I can get a recording from my computer as my cell phone and home phone greetings. Makes me want to do podcasting! If only I were a talker! I need to get Jennifer Hernandez over here to record some podcasts about the mortgage industry and finance, she is great at that!

PBNext offers a nice way to track which marketing campaigns your calls are coming from. It allows you to transfer calls to numerous locations - recordings, live people, different people at different times, different days, choose your on-hold music. If you are working this business with a partner, you owe it to yourself to get PBNext! You can share the leads more easily. The pre-recorded messages make it easy to have lots of information available to your clients without you having to do any of the work. The tracking capabiltiies are incredible - Doug can call me up after his Blackberry wipes out his memory (for the third time) and ask me for the phone number to anyone who has called our PBNext phones. Or, if he is in the office, he can do it himself, even better!

Under Promise and Over Deliver

It's time to get into the details about Realeflow.
Why did we start using Realeflow? We had been using Profit Grabber by Marko Rubel and while using it came across some deficiencies in it. Only one of us could use it. It can only be loaded onto one computer (unless we wanted to pay more). We are one organization and every team member needs to be able to access the information we use for our files. It has a duplication quirk that we found bothersome. The word processing part of the program is a little quirky, but once you get the hang of it, you are good to go. I have my assistant using it now, so undoubtedly if I were the one using it, I would find some features that I find useful. But the truth is, I wanted something different that would combine more of my business into one program, to help streamline it.
What does Realeflow do that the others don't? To start with, it is web based. We can have 5 users. There are 2 versions, so if you don't need al the bells and whistles you don't have to buy them. But the bells and whistles are what make this stand apart and help you streamline your business! I can upload comps, contracts, and any other documents I need for a file so they are all in one place. I can call up my assitant, one of my bird dogs or my partner and they can all access that info when I am not at a computer. I can assign properties to managers. I can de-activate a property - it doesn't go away, it just puts it into another file so I can focus on the active projects. Then, when an agent calls me a month later to ask me if I want to resubmit my offer because they didn't close, I have everything at my fingertips.
Then, there is the Hammerpoint. Need a quick estimate on repairs? This is where you can get it. Put in the square footage, a few other numbers and you have a rough estimate to let you know if you should even make an offer. Then when you have a property, if you want to wholesale it to an investor, or sell it to someone else in your database, or another realeflow database, you hit a button and it tells you who is interested in those areas and numbers.
You can create tasks for your various managers, or make notes to yourself for your To Do List.
1st Cool Feature of Realeflow. Now, one of the really cool features of Realeflow. They have a form generator for you to use. You copy the html code into your webpage and you have a form for your potential clients to fill out. Their information goes directly into Realeflow - you don't have to input. You can ask for a lot or as little information as you want (if you know how to erase a little coding). Realeflow also has premade web pages that you can use. I believe you get about 10 with the Pro version. They are working on adding email campaigns as well.
There are numerous features they list that I haven't even explored yet, so this product meets one criteria that I love in products I buy. Under promise and over deliver.

Education and Networking

Well, Thursdays are the nanny's day off, so it was the usual day of running around and taking care of business outside of the office. Cleaning out the PO Box, it wasn't stuffed full of returned letters this time. Buying stamps for our direct marketing campaign was fun today as I waited in line for an hour with my 3 and 4 year old. God bless them, they are really great kids and they behaved exceptionally well. I believe I will be planning ahead for next month's purchase and buying them through usps.com and have them delivered for $1. My sanity is certainly worth the dollar.

Bought a new fax machine today. We'll see if it does what we need it to. We don't even plug it into the phone jack, we just need it to scan - need a document feeder. We use MyFax for all of our faxing. We have electronic copies of everything that way. We bought the HP 6500. If it is any good, this is where I'll have a link to where you can buy it.

Last night I read 13 pages of our Wholesaling U manual. No revolutionary information yet. The important things that I take from it are:
1. Make time to educate yourself everyday. Harder than you think to do it everyday. But this is my challenge, to stay focused for 120 days and part of that is education everyday.
2. Network every week. Doug and I have talked about that for months. Some weeks we are on track and others we are not. There are numerous ways to do this, via the internet and in person. Internet networking is great, you don't have to leave home. In-person is more effective though - a face to the name, a voice, and personal time counts for a lot.

I have been working on improving our websites. Not our brochure page, as that is a mess. Looking at how it was built really proves to me that knowledge is so important. You don't have to know how to do everything, but you need to know how to explain what you want. It helps when you sound like you know what you are talking about to the people who will do the work. (This also is important when doing rehabs!) Had I known what I do now, I would have given better instructions to the builder. Using a internet marketing specialist would have saved me time and money in the long run. I'm going to be talking to one tomorrow that Doug is impressed with.

1 and 1, my internet hosting company is having great deals right now. 50% off and free stuff. The thing that impressed me with 1 and 1 when I first signed up a couple years ago is that you get more than you expect. Most places you don't get everything that you need without paying more. With 1 and 1 I found tools in their service that I didn't even know I wanted until I saw them as part of my package.

Databases for Marketing

Today was great. I got access to SIMS. SIMS is the "Smart Internet Marketing System" by Greg Clements. Some of you already know who this guy is. If you already have Realeflow, you have seen him on various videos and webinars. If you are in Wholesaling U with Than Merrill, chances are you also know who Greg is. I don't personally know Greg, but I am giving his system a try.

I've been using Realeflow for about 2 months now. It is a hybrid version of the Pro and Standard versions - a special for Wholesaling U students. I have used numerous databases in the past and as I mentioned in my previous posting, thought about creating my own so I would get all the features I need to conduct my business.
SharkBait was one of the first databases I used, and it served it's purpose. For some people, SharkBait works great. For the kind of deal flow we have done in the past and expect to continue to have, we need something that integrates more of our business processes into one program.
Over the years the staff at SharkBait have been helpful and their program is fairly easy to use. It is clean, easy to figure out where you need to go to get what you want. For California investors, it works great for the default and trustee notices. It allows you to pull in comps from the MLS, which is superb for determining whether you want to market to them. I used SharkBait with foreclosures.com, back when I could actually talk to Alexis McGee. She is an icon for foreclosures and expert.

Tools for the Business

1st, this is sales. 2nd, this is marketing. 3rd, it's a people business. There is yet to be a system that addresses all aspects of real estate investing as a business completely. But we may have found one! We shall find out over the next month or two as I try it out and report to you its benefits and limitations.

These are the tools that we are currently using for our business:
1. Realeflow
2. Profit Grabber
3. Buildium
4. PBNext
5. 1 and 1
6. Foreclosehouston.com
7. AT&T wireless and DSL service
8. Ricoh Printer
9. Sony Handycam
10. VistaPrint
11. PS Print - See the right side of the page to link to FREE Shipping!
12. Acrobat.com
13. Blackberry
14. Constant Contact - see my link to the right side...they have a free trial now!
15. AWeber
16. Twitter
17. Facebook
18. Blogger
19. Active Rain
20. Quicken
21. Turbo Tax

You will notice we are using 2 database programs and 2 email marketing programs. The database programs each fulfill different requirements of our business. It is our hope to stop using Profit Grabber, which is a great direct mail marketing tool, and just use one - Realeflow. As in every business, time is money. Streamlining or automating our business is the goal. If we have to manually transfer information or re-input information, it is a waste of our time. Being able to share our information with our numerous partners in an easy manner is important so we can all be productive and work toward the same results. When I buy a program, I want it to do everything I need it to. If I have to pay more upfront, then fine, but I don't want be nickle and dimed to buy features that I feel should be part of the tool. I'm a serious investor doing every part of this business. I need all the bells and whistles.

The 2 email marketing companies are both very good. We have expanded our business and outgrown Constant Contact. To get the service we need, we had to find a company that allows for multiple web forms. Each list we have requires different information and needs to have different forms. If you only need one web form, then Constant Contact is VERY user friendly and has beautiful templates. It is so easy to use I hate to give it up. It also makes it easier to add contacts to your lists. Sometimes I need to get an email out quickly to a new group of people and if they've not opted-in, then I can't use AWeber. AWeber has a cumbersome method for importing contacts and I am hoping the double opt-in will not turn people off.

Here is an update to my progress yesterday.
1. Worked on my Buildium Site...added my properties
2. We have an accepted offer for a client who is very excited
3. Updated my BLOGGER links, still have more work to complete on that, but it's a start
4. Signed 2 short sale offers
5. Sent out an invite using Constant Contact for an RE Investing networking lunch for Friday
6. Designed the new JEM business cards and my ETP cards
7. Compared prices on business cards between PS Print, Vista Print and Bluegrass Printing, a new follower of mine on Twitter.

The Beginning of 120 Days of Focus

This site will document in writing the progress of my 120 days of on-task and focus. The video-taries on YouTube will be a short 1-2 minutes and this will have some more in depth thoughts and topics.

I am starting this journey...a continuation of our re investing journey with the SIMS tool by Greg Clements. I will have access to it tomorrow and be following his plan as quickly as possible.

I came very close to joint venturing with a friend of mine to build the ultimate real estate investment system- EVER. Then I heard about ProfitGrabber, so we bought it. $1,000 later, we can't use it to do everything we want - even if we pay more it still won't have everything we need. So my thoughts again wandered to joint venturing with my friend. We discussed it and were ready to take it to the next step. Then I heard about Realeflow. Could this be the answer? Than Merrill praised it so we figured it was worth a try. By joining Wholesaling U we were given an outstanding offer- nothing to lose to try it. The version we got is a hybrid of the standard and pro versions. The best thing about Realeflow is that it is web bases- that is also one of the downfalls. I'll talk about why later. We have enjoyed some of it's features and been frustrated with some of it's limitations. With the SIMS we are getting the pro version of Realeflow. For a one person business, the standard version seems fine, but there is the Hammerpoint tool that is nice for quickly gathering a repair estimate that you don't get with the standard version.

Everyone who puts one of these database systems together claims to be in the business of reinvesting. I don't doubt them. but I do doubt their level of investing experience and involvement in every aspect of the business. There are many time consuming steps to investing. Why do we get big pay offs? Because we do a lot of work to get the sale, or purchase and sale. So many people have made claims that they can put your investing business on auto-pilot. Well, I'm taking the challenge. Let's see if any of them are right! I expect tremendous work to get it all set up, but when I'm done, you'll know if it's working or not.