Epic Real Estate Investing - Could I Need this Latest Strategy? | 3rd Degree Thursday

Episode Date: October 30, 2014

So you’ve given it a try, but the deals just aren’t coming in.  Should you change your target market, adjust your minimum deal standards, re-write your marketing pieces, upgrade your landing page, implement a new investing strategy, change the color of your bandit signs, or just give up altogether?    Today Matt explains why the process is rarely the problem, and what to do if you feel like you’re not finding the deals.  Enjoy! ------- If you have a question, comment or concern that you’d like Matt to address live on the show, send it to him at [e-mail] and type "3rd Degree" in the subject line… or leave him a voicemail on the Epic Hotline at 1-888-891-7203.      See you tomorrow for a new episode of Financial Freedom Friday!     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to third degree Thursdays, the episode, the show, where I subject myself to you. So you can give me the third degree. All right, he got a question today from Monica. And Monica writes, hi, Matt. I recently met with my seller who owns his property free and clear. He purchased the property for $29,000. The current value of the home is about $40,000. Potential ARV 60,000.

They're about $19,000 of repairs per the seller. the location of the property is in a dilapidated area of town. The city is trying to revitalize that area. The seller has kept his home in relatively good condition. According to the multiple listing service, nothing has sold in the last year. The things that have sold have gone for about 20,000. I offered the seller approximately 40,000.

He said that that was his best offer. However, he wanted more. He stated that he was motivated and wanted to move within the next few months. Any suggestions on structuring an offer for the seller? I came in contact with another seller in a similar area and similar story. I think I need to change my target area. Any suggestions on targeting a market area with motivated sellers?

The yellow letters are effective. Best regards, Monica. All right. So there's all kinds of things. I could comment on every single sentence written there. But let me just, I want to touch on a few things here that really jump out at me. First. And this is actually a very common feeling amongst,

investors that are just getting started. Monica, you received two similar calls and you're already thinking that you need to rethink changing your target area. Really? I mean, two similar situations are going to cause you to rethink where you market for property? I mean, that right, this is a numbers game. You know, I've said it over and over again, which means you've got to work the numbers

to win the game. That's the game you're in. It's the numbers game, and if you want to win at that game, you've got to work the numbers. That's what it means when you hear it's a numbers game. And the number two, because you've come across two sellers, that's hardly working the numbers. I mean, at two, you haven't even begun to play. Okay, so get into 100 contract discussions in your market before you even think to rethink. Listen, most of your calls from your marketing efforts will not be deals.

Most of them. Most of them will not be deals. So if most of your calls aren't deals, that means you're doing it right. Expect at least, I mean, at least 30 non-deal calls to one deal call. At least 30. You've got two. You got to get 30. And if you're just starting out, it'll likely be...

closer to 50 non-deal calls to one deal call. The better you get, your ratios will get better. But even the best investors out there, the most experienced, the most that know all the angles and the tricks and they've got all the experience under their belt, even there that they're 30 to 1. So, but as you're getting out, maybe it's 50. It's just, and of the two deals that you've got out of the 100 calls, keep this in mind as well. If you're getting 50 to 1, 50 bad calls to a good call, or 50.

non-deal calls to one deal call, it could very easily be call number 99 and 100 out of your, out of the next 100 calls. Those two, it doesn't mean that you're guaranteed one out of 50. That's how it's going to average out. But you've got to at least go for 50 before you can get an average. You got to go at least for double that before you can get a real average. So that's why I use the number of 100. So that's just how it works sometimes.

Sometimes it's going to be the 99 and 100th call. And it's going to feel like on call 98, like, What did I get myself into? I'm out of money. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. My spouse is upset with me. You might be feeling all of that.

But it's 99 and 100. That's going to make all the difference for you. That's how it works sometimes. Not always, but that's how it works sometimes. And if you're not prepared to go through that process, real estate investing or any venture out there that could be considered a numbers game is probably not the right thing for you. So on that note, the... The good news is Monica, your phone is ringing.

I'm sure those aren't the only two calls you've gotten. So, but that's the good news. Your phone is ringing. You're doing it. You're doing something right. Focus on that. Focus on what you're doing right. Your phone is ringing.

You're in the game. You just got to play it a little longer. You're in the game. But it is a numbers game. Okay? So you've got to play that game that you're in. Work the numbers for a while before you make any drastic changes to your approach. Okay?

So that's the first thing that really pops out at me. The second thing that jumps out at me here is you're trying to force a deal here where there might or likely isn't one. Okay. I mean, on the surface, based on what you've shared with me, there simply isn't enough motivation for the seller to entertain your $40,000 offer. But I'm going to ask you, did you submit the offer anyway? Did you put the offer in writing?

And did you hand it to the seller? and if they wouldn't accept it, did you at least mail it to the seller? You know, you didn't share that detail here with me. But I'm going to guess, just based off of my experience, I could be wrong, but based off my experience, I'm going to guess, you know, and just kind of by reading between the lines here that you did not. So why do you want to do that, even if the seller says no? I mean, even if the seller verbally declined your offer, why do you want to put it in writing and give it to them anyway? Well, the reason is a written offer changes the entire dynamic of the negotiation.

A written offer holds more weight than a verbal one. A written offer gets additional consideration. It's real. Everyone can talk out there. Talk is cheap, right? When it's in writing, it's real. So it changes the whole dynamic of the negotiation. And then also, because he said no.

today doesn't mean he's going to say no tomorrow or she, he or she. So keep that into consideration. And the other thing is it actually takes effort to write an offer. It takes effort, of which, because it does, your competition probably isn't putting their offers in writing either. So why is that important if nobody's doing it? Well, who is that seller going to call once their level of motivation has reached a point where they're willing to accept $40,000 for their property.

I mean, right now, sounds like they might be a little bit unreasonable or irrational. They're not really clear to what their property is worth. They just kind of picked the number, and you looked at the comps, and you feel that your $40,000 is even a generous offer, but they're not willing to accept that. But they will. They'll get a number of offers, and once they find out that no one is willing to pay their price, they're going to come down,

and their level of motivation is going to reach a level where $40,000 does feel appealing. So who are they going to call once their motivation hits that level? They're going to call the person that left the written offer behind because they can't remember the rest. They're going to call the phone number that was left behind. So that's the rule. That's why you want to do that. So why you always want to write an offer. That's the rule. Everybody gets an offer. Everybody. No lead left behind. Okay? Everybody gets an offer. Now, Monica, if you did put your offer in writing, fantastic. Great job.

Now, what there is to do is just resume your marketing and move on, okay? Move on to find a seller whose motivation matches yours. And matches your motivation right now matches your motivation right now. You got to keep moving. I mean, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you're having either a conversation, you know, with yourself or someone else about this one particular seller, a deal that almost is, then you're doing it wrong. You never just never be talking, never be stressing, never be worrying, hoping about or for a specific deal.

Listen, you need motivated sellers to build your business, okay? That's what this business is built on, that's what you need to make this thing work. You need motivated sellers to build your business, but you don't need any one motivated seller. So when you get to the point where you need that motivated seller more than they need you, you've lost. So you don't want to hold on to that one guy, that one girl, that one deal.

You don't want to hold on to that one person. You want to place your focus on one person. Because when you get there, that means you need them more than they need you and you've lost. So don't go there. Now, how do you prevent yourself from going there? Because sometimes it's not so easy. Sometimes, oh, Matt, I got rent to pay. I really need a deal.

You know, I got bills to pay. I got a balloon payment coming up or whatever it may be. Or I got a trip to Hawaii coming up. And I promise my wife, I got to make a deal. Well, how do you prevent yourself from going there and needing that deal? It's very easy. You keep marketing. You keep prospecting.

You keep generating leads. And you keep sorting those leads. That's how you win in this business. You need lots of leads. The quality of your leads is in the quantity. That's how you don't get into that position where you need that seller more than they need you. Is you got to generate lots of leads. keep marketing, you got to keep prospecting, okay?

So, Monica, two specific questions that you ask here. Right here you ask, any suggestions on structuring an offer for the seller? Yes, I got a lot of them. The house is paid off. You got many, many options. So go back to episode 80, episode 80 of this podcast, and I'll give you a multitude of suggestions, as well as the tools that you need to formulate those offers, okay? You'll have more options than you can possibly think of.

Go back to episode 80. I show you how to do that. Number two, your second question, any suggestions on targeting a market area with motivated sellers? Yes, I've got a lot of kinds of suggestions. But there's so many, there's too many to answer on today's episode. So the good news is, though, I will be covering that all next week. Okay, so stay tuned. All righty, Monica.

Thank you for your question. Hopefully that helps. Oh, you know, actually another thing here. And I don't know if you can hear it or not, okay, because I don't know where you are in your experience level, but, you know, the longer you're in the business, the easier this is to detect. You see, Monica, she doesn't need a new trick. She doesn't need a new strategy or a new mailing piece or a new market. She's doing it right. Her phone is ringing. She just needs to do more of it. And that answer right there, that covers the vast majority of the questions that I receive.

It's not the latest technique. It's not the latest strategy or the, you know, the, the, the, the perfect headline in your ad or the stealthy postcard or the, you know, the tricky converting landing page. It's not a thing that you need. It is your mindset. And I know that's the boring part for a lot of people. A lot of people with eyes just rolled in the back of that. Oh, brother, here we go.

The mindset. Here comes a rah-rah speech. You know, this is what I'm talking about specifically. And I look, I search for so many different ways to share this and express this and impart this to you. Here's an example. I can show you how to put a yellow letter together in about 60 seconds. They work.

Monica herself says, wow, these things are effective. They work. They get the phone ringing. Okay? I can show you how to do that in 60 seconds. And I do that inside the free real estate investing course. I show you how to do that in 60 seconds. But why you won't send them out every day?

That's all in between your ears. That's your mindset. That's where the Rara comes into play. You know how to write the yellow letter. There was a gentleman at the Grub and Grow Rich event in Atlanta. I won't mention his name because he's trying and I don't want to and I want to acknowledge him for that and he's doing it. But he's written a bunch of yellow letters and he just physically can't pick him up to put him in the mailbox. Does he need a new strategy?

Does he need a new trick? Does he need a new market to mail to? Does he need a new list? No. There's something there in between his ears that he just can't pick up those letters and drop them in the mailbox. Another example is I can show you how to put together a no-risk offer in about five minutes, an offer that you could submit to anyone and you would never ever be at any risk. I can show you how to do that in five minutes.

But why you won't write one up and give it to the seller to every seller that you meet with, that's all in between your ears. That's your mindset. Somewhere you're doubting that it's not going to work. You're doubting that me giving an offer is not going to work or you're doubting that I'm not going to work and I'm going to do it wrong and it's not going to work. That's all in your mind.

You just got to follow the instructions. I can show you how to do that in five minutes. I can show you how to do the yellow letter in 60 seconds. That's what I say is this business is simple. because it is that simple. You're going to write a letter? I'll show you how to write the letter in 60 seconds. You don't need any more time than that.

You don't need any more intelligence than that. You don't need any more brain power to absorb the information than 60 seconds, each and every one of you. That's what I mean when I say this business is simple, but it's not easy. And it being not easy is almost always created by your mind, by your thoughts. If this business has been really tough for you and up to this point, like it's tough. it's tough to get started or you've gotten started and then you found out that it's really tough I can almost bet I'm willing to bet just about anything it's you that's making it tough it's not the business making it tough it's you that's making it tough and that doesn't make you

a bad person by the way it doesn't make you wrong I mean there is no bad or good here there's no right or wrong what it does make you is human you're human now you've got to over the challenges that accompany being human. And that's why this Monday, we start from the beginning to start or restart your business. That's why I recommend doing this once a year because even I can complicate my business. Even I can get into my own head. So if you've yet to do a deal, if you have never done a deal, you do not want to miss next week, okay? as every single day an episode will be released dedicated to getting started.

Monday through Friday, make sure you update your iPhones, your listening device of choice. Make sure you get that updated every single day. Because if you update on Monday and Wednesday, you're going to miss out on Tuesday's episode. That's kind of how the automatic download thing works. Okay, so Monday through Friday is going to be a brand new episode. And if you've yet to do a deal, you do not want to miss next week. Now, if you have done a deal or if you've done a bunch of deals, you do not. want to miss next week either as it is recommended that each and every year it's highly

encouraged it's in your best interest to at least once a year to get back to the basics like I just said this is a simple business but it can very easily get complicated especially after you've done a number of deals so in the interest of injecting efficiency and profitability into your business for 2015 I would recommend that you've veterans be here as well. Got it? Next week is one of the greatest gifts that I can give you. But it's up to you to receive it.

And everybody can, but not everybody will. Lastly, you know, as I mentioned on last Monday's episode, every episode during the month of November, I will be giving away a $100.000 Amazon.com gift card. And this is how I'm going to do it. Or this is how I'm doing it because I already gave the first one away on Monday. I'm giving another one away right now. What I'm going to do is I'm going to head over to iTunes. like I'm doing right now, and I will search for the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast.

And then I'm going to click on the podcast, and I'm going to click on the review section. And then I'm going to spin the scroller. I'm spinning the scroller, spinning the scroller, whenever she stops, you never know. And boom, you win. Just randomly. Okay? Now, if you've already left this show a review, there's nothing for you to do. You're already entered.

If you'd like to be eligible to win, that's how you do it. go to iTunes and leave a review of the show. Got it? So I'll be doing that through the entire month of November, and I'm starting actually a week early because we're still here in October, right? So today's winner, and for today, I'm actually going to just, what I'm going to do,

I'm just going to pick the most recent review that was left, just to show you that moving at the speed of instruction pays. All right, and the winner is, says, get started. That's the headline. Five-star review. Thank you. And it's written by the best, 209. The best, and that's best with two S's, 209. And they write, love this podcast, always giving

nuggets of info. Thanks, Matt, keep up the good work, exclamation point. All righty, so thank you. And congrats to you, the best 209. Send me an email to podcast at epic real estate.com, and I'll reply with your Amazon.com gift card for $100. All righty. So that's it for today. Should you have any questions, comments, or concerns or rants that you liked me to address here live on the show, go ahead and send them to me at, yeah, send those to podcast at epic real estate.com also. That's a new inbox I set up just for you, the podcast listeners. It's going to demat at epic real estate.com. Things just get lost in there. It's getting so backed up.

So send your questions, comments, concerns, rant, send those to podcast at epic real estate.com and type third degree in the subject line. or you can leave me a voicemail on the epic hotline at 1-888-891-7203. All righty? So I will see you tomorrow for Financial Freedom Friday. And I'll give away another $100. Got to be in it to win it. Peace, blessings, and abundance to you. Take care.

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