Shark Bait Marketing | Sub2 Deals

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Only For Shark Marketers...

My "Five Point Solution" to marketing for profit...

I can't quote Frank Kern here, because this is a "G" rated blog. However, I'm heading into "R" territory for the purpose of clarity and emphasis of relating what one of the most respected marketers told me yesterday.

Meantime, what Frank taught forced me to rethink my marketing. Before I get to that, there are four marketing keys that are missing from 90% of the marketing I'm seeing. I am guilty of missing a couple of them myself, which makes this post important to share. Yes, my blog has content!

Very quickly the four keys are...

1. Headline must easily and immediately expose a "need" in the prospect.
2. The offer must easily and most likely appeal to a certain prospect.
3. The prospect must easily and effortlessly take advantage of the offer.
4. The prospect must benefit from what we have to offer, opposed to other offers. Easy, huh?

Well, if we can translate those four keys into our advertising of houses, apartments, or whatever, then we'll almost own our market. I say "almost," because Frank got me thinking about this one fundamental marketing question to ask regarding my message to market advertising.

That is, to ask, "What is my prospect's biggest, 'Bad Ass Problem'?" (B.A.P.) I told ya Frank has an "R" rated style. The answer to that question is foundational and fundamental to making money. All profits flow from the quality of that answer.

Meantime, my prospective buyer's B.A.P. is not being able to buy their dream home with conventional financing. So, my "bad ass solution" is offering financing on their dream home. Now, as you'll see in a moment, there has to be a distinction between what I offer and what someone else might. What is that?

Well, I don't do credit checks for one thing. And for another, I don't qualify them. If they've got the cash, and can fog a mirror, they qualify. Simple, yes.

I'm out of room here, so let me summarize the formula I'm now following (hopefully they're self-explanatory).

Five Point Formula...

1. Determine the prospect's biggest need.
2. Headline the need.
3. Appeal to a specific prospect with that need.
4. Offer an easy solution to that specific prospect.
5. Highlight the advantage of your solution over every other.

Much more can be said, but that'll get you thinking.

Uber Junk Mail Copy

Recently I read a long report on how to do direct mail correctly. The author explained that bulk mailers will "do anything" to get you to open their mail piece.

As a result, he informed us that we should do the same thing. I disagreed. If everyone else is doing the same thing, how do we stick out from the crowd. Well, we don't.

If everyone is mailing "yellow letters" to pre-foreclosures in our farm area, does it makes sense to mail yet "another yellow letter" to the same prospect? Well...? If so, what sticks out here? We're just another yellow letter.

Imagine, however, getting "yet another letter" from Publishers Clearinghouse... Do we open those? Do we? My grandma does. Why...?

Because hope springs eternal, and the envelopes are gaudy, messy, urgent sounding, and unique.

Just being gaudy, or messy, or just urgent wouldn't do much in my opinion. All my other junk mail fits that description. However, "uniquely" gaudy, messy and urgent sounding is what separates the sheep from the goats, as far as I'm concerned.

Meantime, again, Publishers Clearinghouse does a fantastic job of overcoming the din among fellow junk mailers by being uniquely gaudy, messy and urgent.

So the question remains... "Why does Publishers Clearinghouse" have to go to so much effort at standing above the crowd?"

The answer is that they really are sending "junk mail" and it looks like it. So, they've got a deforming handicap, as it were. Something must be done to overcome or disguise that problem. What might this be exactly ...and why again?

Let's take a woman who needs to take attention away from her gigantic nose.

What might she do to "hide" her nostril-laden features? She might wear big glasses. If that isn't enough to do the job, she might wear huge glasses with all sorts of distracting "jewels" glued on them. Think Dame Edna. Now, of course wearing huge, jewel encrusted glasses is not to flaunt wealth... No, it distracts attention from her anteater features.

It's the same with Publishers Clearinghouse bulk-mailish appearance. They need a way to keep your mind's eye off the fact that there's NOTHING inside that doesn't require a purchase, or worse ...there's nothing we actually want.

So, how's this fit into our direct mail efforts, you might ask.

I say, don't mail what everyone else is. Stick out. Be organic. Don't mail Click2Mail for example, or use any other "bulk mailer." Why? Because we'll have to work overtime, overcoming the "bulk mail" look that cause most recipients to file our mail in the trash.

So, what actually works, you ask. I say, "whatever that is not being used by the majority of competitors. That's what works." I'll add, "Be unique. If everyone is mailing handwritten "birthday cards" to prospects, then it's time to send "checks" in the mail."

If everyone is doing "checks," then we send DVD-size mail. If everyone is sending DVD-sized mail, then maybe it's time to send Zebra-printed postcards. If the zebra thing is getting over-sent, we try pictures of ugly, run down houses with a housewife standing on the front lawn in curlers with a caption, "If you're still doing open houses ...call me."

Of course this doesn't address having high quality mailing lists in the first place, regardless of the mail piece. However, that's the other secret of successful direct response marketing; having a good list.

If you would like to discover a way to make money without a job or credit, check out the free video presentation below...

No Job! No Credit! No Problem!

Making It In The Big Leagues!

I've got a champ in Sub-To training as we speak. I'm going to provide a real time commentary on the base running of this newbie so I can develop a testimonial about how easy it is to make money using my system.

This trainee emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking for help, and after getting a rib dinner out of him in return for some quality feedback, I realized this guy was going to make me richer if I played my cards right! He's chomping at the bit to make a go of a fresh investing career, and so I'm feeding him tools and training.

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These posts are going to be dangerous for me. Normally I would wait until a newbie actually accomplished something before I would post anything of this nature. However, this time, you're gonna know just as fast as I do if my system works for this guy or not. Of course it works, but not everyone is willing to work it, if you know what I mean.

Meantime, let me bring you up to speed. I provided my "millionaire in training' "MIT" for short, about 300 quality leads to mail postcards to this week. These are leads I provided to what turned out to be a not-yet-ready-for-prime-time trainee late last year. Meanwhile, these are virgin direct mail prospects that have never been contacted by my marketing machine. MIT sent out the 300 postcards this weekend.

Meanwhile, just to confuse things, I've mailed to a separate, experimental group of MLS "victims," who's homes are currently listed by an agent in the same farm as my trainee. It'll be interesting to see what kinds of responses I get to compare with. I'm sure about 80% of my experimental group are REO listings by a bank, but I'm hoping I can get at least a .001 response rate from the remaining list. My experimental group is different from our normal farm niche in that we have filtered for nothing except disgruntled, tired Sellers who who will be/are fed up with their real estate agents. he he

When we get our first calls, I'll give you the blow-by-blow accounts. So cross your fingers that we get responses from a least four or five MLS victims.

Here's one side of our postcard just to give you a glimpse of how low-budget these cards are. Click for a larger view.

Websites are "Bug Zappers" For The Unmotivated

To be "distressed" means different things to different investors. I only want "distressed" Sellers that have new homes they can't afford anymore; that don't need work; that are easy to sell; that aren't over-leveraged; and all beckon me to live in them!

Meanwhile, I don't think there is any secret other than being chronic, persistent and repetitive in letting a targeted niche of prospects know what you have to offer. Otherwise, "one-off", or short term advertising puts the "pain" in campaigns.

I'll go further and say that ugly mail always works better for me than pretty mail. The less I explain on the piece, the more compelling the mail is. I never mention anything negative, and only pique the Seller's curiosity in solving ONE problem they are most likely having.

That said, I believe in direct mail. I profile a zip code for all homes that have been owned for a certain period of time, had "x" amount of equity at the time of transfer, have fixed rate mortgages, no recorded 2nds, are 3/3/2's or 3's, over 1,100 sqft and under 3,500 sqft and built within the last four years.

These are going to be excellent Sub-To prospects. Now, the entire mailing list conforms to a similar profile.

So...now I know who's not going to call me. No acreage owners; no farm owners, no condo owners, no massive fixer owners, no McMansion owners, etc. These are not popular properties to resell. The buyer pool is smaller, and the resale time is LOOOOONGER.

Meanwhile, when Buying, unlike the amateurs who think they need fancy websites because guru "X" says they're the "bomb", or whatever, I only provide my cell phone number to Sellers. If the Seller is too unmotivated to call me on the phone, they'll be too cool to say, "yes" to me asking for their deed, taking over their payments, and leaving them on the hook for a loan.

I only want to bother with desperate, anxious Sellers that don't know they have any other options, and are willing to overcome their fear of the unknown by calling me directly on the phone.

Websites serve as "bug zappers" for the unmotivated, and/or the idly curious.

I encourage the competition to always rely on websites for Buying property! he he. They've got lots of time on their hands. Meanwhile, I've got too many fish to fry to screw around with either the curious or the "web sniffers".

Jay

The Right Tool...

Of course this post will make any guy cringe. However, the point of this post is to illustrate how important it is to use the right tool for the right job (or...really not try the job at all!).

In fear of devolving this post into a vulgar double entendre, the real story of using the "wrong tool" in question was used by a young man to perform what would expectantly result in an unsuccessful effort to give his "own tool" a circumcision.

Ouch!!! No really!

After the aborted surgery, the young man was rushed to a hospital at Stevenage, Hertfordshire (England). The wound was disinfected and cleansed before he was given a bed in an observation ward.

"This is something we would advise men never to attempt," a medic said, "The results can be quite horrific and long-lasting and have quite an affect on a man's sexual performance."

Oh, really...? "advise never to attempt!" Such words of wisdom.

So, how does this apply to real estate investing? Well, for one, I've seen enough newbie investors try to create/use "one-size-fits-all" negotiations and presentations that sent them out the door in a bloody mess of rejected offers.

That's why having/using the right tools to qualify/disqualify prospects as soon as possible in order to produce successful outcomes is vital. Otherwise, we get promises of the moon by passive-aggressive, codependent sellers that want to please us more than they want to sell, or.... we get a punch in the nose. Whichever, we lose the deal.

Meanwhile, we can burn out real fast knocking our heads against unmotivated seller's skulls! So why pitch those who don't initiate a sign of motivation in the first place?

The answer is we don't want to. However, in order to avoid this we need to use another "special" tool. This is a tool that eliminates most of the Sellers that ask retail prices, have options, can afford real estate agents, are maintaining their homes, and then look forward to rejecting our profitable offers (otherwise known as "low-ball" offers).

BTW, unmotivated Sellers just LOVE to turn down our profitable offers. These are a DIFFERENT species of sellers.

So what is this "special" tool? The tool is the thing that not only helps us uncover the motivated sellers, but gets them to call us first, before they think to call anybody else.

Okay the tool is...(drum roll, please)

The U.S. Postal Service!

Yes, using the mail system to market ourselves to the most likely prospects is the BEST tool we have available. It's private, confidential and "below the radar" of nearly all of our competitors. Mailing to the most likely prospects is likely to keep us from getting bloody noses, and/or empty promises.

The challenge then is creating the best mailing list. Not just a mailing list, but the BEST one. One that has the most likely prospects. Ones that don't need extra "warming up". One's that just need to believe that we're not showing up to scalp them. Remember we can sheer and sheer, but only skin...once. So, we only do a nice, comfortable, enjoyable, satisfying coat sheering. This way the sheered will recommend us to others.

The next question revolves around the definitions of what the most likely prospect are that we put on the mailing list. That is the subject of a chapter in my new investing course coming out soon.

Jay

Trust Me! I'm An Uber Negotiator!

A recurring theme on this blog is the ability to negotiate profitably, if not professionally. I say profitably, rather than successfully, because some folks forget they're negotiating for a profit. Instead they settle for successful negotiations.

So what's the difference?

Roger Dawson and Barney Zick were the first two gurus that introduced me to both negotiating philosophies and resultant gambits.

Barney Zick taught me about "Targeted Negotiations" and how superior this was to generic "win/win" negotiations. In fact, I would be embarrassed if anyone thought I was still negotiating for banal "win/win" transactions.

Anyone who knows, knows that "win/win" is the code word for "trust me" that the amateurs and residential real estate agents use to con the unsophisticated into thinking that they are being served in some altruistic fashion. Agents work for their own best interests. They work for closings and nothing else. Some agents are smoother about it than others, but without closings everybody starves.

Meanwhile, the Uber Negotiators I find are the ones that pull in the big bucks. These are the negotiators that focus 100% on the objective and don't get knocked off the tracks with win/win sob stories of one kind or another that would cause them to lose track of their primary objective which is to make money --- and lots of it.

Recently I heard of an investor who got tangled up in a sob story, and failed to ask for what he wanted in the deal in a professional manner, and ended up failing to close profitably. He confused his objective with that of some humanitarian effort of some stripe.

What's worse the story was relayed to testify to what an honest guy he was --- that his first priority was to "help people," and then passively allow the stars to line up as other party came around to ostensibly forge a profitable deal with him later. Ho hum. It's the old "Trust me. I'm really a nice guy." or the "Karma" approach to negotiations. Puh-leeze!

Been there. Done that.

Win/win is...more often, than not, a con. Or maybe at best its a way to deal with a neurotic guilt trip over actually making a profit off of somebody. Either way, run from anyone who says "Trust me. I'm a great guy! Look what I've given up to help others." The ones that impress me, are the ones that never say what they've done, but let others share the good fortune they've had dealing with that person. This would be called a "referral."

Of course I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't be honest in our dealings with those we do business with. It's a small world out there, and once a person wrecks his reputation by cheating people, or taking "undue" advantage...it just makes doing business that much harder and more expensive --- if he can stay in business.

I like cheap and easy business dealings. So I suggest that we remain honest about what we're about, and not confuse our identities with "frustrated priests." We're in the business to make money, not compete with charities.

To illustrate the otherwise confused mind that some folks allow to occur, let me share a situation that happened several years ago with a family friend.

Our family "bud" had a TV stolen from his motor home. After the police caught up with the thief, our friend was so sympathetic to the crook (with emphasis on pathetic) that he offered to drop charges and offer the burglar the TV to keep "if he really needed one".

The cops told him that was stupid. We told him that he was naive. Everyone told him that he was missing the point of the whole "prosecution" effort. However, our neurotic friend was so motivated to let this crook off the hook, as it were, that he lost all perspective of the situation and essentially undermined law enforcement efforts.

That's exactly what happens when the negotiator takes his focus off of making money, and internalizes a victim's situation to the point where the problem becomes the personal property of the negotiator. When this happens the negotiator begins operating from a position of weakness. He confuses his objectives with that of the prospect. And sabotages his own position.

Now let's consider the opposite...

There are a large number of negotiators that go overboard in their advantage taking. They'll equity strip Grandma Moses, if there's an opportunity. That's not what I'm saying we should do. What I am saying is that it's not a sin to make money. It's honorable if we are acting in good faith, doing what we say we'll do, not making false or empty promises, and keeping our intentions and actions clear and respectable.

Advantage taking, of course, is not a virtue by any account. However, keeping our heads on straight, and not confusing our efforts with some secondary objective is a virtue.

When a client calls me, they already know that I'm an investor. I don't call myself anything other than that. If the prospect doesn't like investors, he won't call me. That's fine. There's a bunch of other crap he won't like either if, for starters, he doesn't like those who negotiate for a profit.

So I say be honest about yourself. Don't lose perspective by internalizing the prospect's problems and fail to negotiate clearly in your own best interest. Remember there's a huge difference between having sympathy and being empathetic. Sympathy will draw you into donating blood. Empathy will motivate you to find blood donors.

Jay

Old MacDonald Had A Farm, Too!

If you stare at this picture long enough, you'll discover a smile on this couple's face. Look closer! See them smile?

Yes, this couple is out front of their house letting everyone know they're making a killing in real estate. He's got a pitchfork in hand ready to poke any trespassers that try to send any postcards to his farm prospects.

She's ready to back him up with that "ol' school marm warning" expression, which barely hides her exuberance over the $40,000 they pocketed as a down payment yesterday from the house they just seller-financed.

Yup! This couple flips houses bought from desperate, anxious sellers, and then turns around and seller-finances new credit-challenged buyers. More specifically, they take over loans and resell those loan terms to those that couldn't borrow a rake (or a pitch fork) at this point.

Two years ago, this couple found out what kinds of houses were selling the fastest and in what area over the previous 90 days. They discovered that the three and four bedroom houses in the 37237 zip code were the most common, and fastest selling properties. So they staked a claim in that zip code and mailed postcards to all the three and four bedroom home owners letting them know they buy houses. This stake, or claim is referred to as a "farm". Not to be confused with raising crops of course, but cultivating a profit nonetheless.

Farms are important to investors for several reasons. First, they focus the investor on an area that he can become intimately familiar with. This is important, because familiarity with values/comps trumps about anything else, even cash, when it comes to finding, funding, and flipping houses.

Others may have cash, too, but the professional investor that is cultivating a well-defined geographical farm area (defined here as something one can drive to and back from in 45 minutes) can and will beat any potential competitor to the punch because he can first instantly recognize the deal for what it is --- and land the deal like a seasoned airline pilot, before anyone else knows there's a deal.

Meanwhile, the amateurs are still compiling comps, addresses, computer print-outs, and pouring over last-minute CMA's (comparative market analysis), biting their nails, second-guessing themselves, if not simply flying blind. That's no good.

The best way to start and maintain an investing career is to first choose, and cultivate a farm area. It doesn't really make difference where the farm is, as long as the investor has enough prospects to pick over in a given geographical area, and become more intimately familiar with it than practically anyone else is/can/will.

The fastest way to fail in real estate investing then is to fail to have a farm defined. "Southern California" is a "region", and for our purposes of discussion would be considered a lousy farm. Any one zip code in "Southern California" would be superior to the entire region.

I'll just say, nobody can be an expert in a region, but few can be more of an expert than the investor who cultivates a familiarity around a one mile square. Of course the uniqueness of a property may dictate the size of the farm. For instance, say we're looking to buy a slightly used nuclear power plant, we might have to resort to a farm the size of a "region" just to get enough prospects on our mailing list!

Short of this, however, we need to focus on a specific territory, or farm area, so that we can be the fastest, most reliable buyer around.

After all, there's no such thing as "stealing in slow motion".

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Really "Low-Budget" Postcards

I am a strong advocate for ugly, non-threatening postcard ad copy. With years of experience, and a boat-load of wasted money sending "pretty" postcards ---- I recommend a bigger boat-load of profits made by only sending non-coated (not shiny), plain 60#, 4x6, "Insane Asylum Green" postcards with bullets of information...

Meanwhile, check this out. This guy's approach is even more low budget! And I actually thought that was impossible until now! Take a look.

In a future post I'll give you some proven ideas for simple ad copy that really works at sifting out the "don't wanters" and converting them.