Things I learned this week

May 21, 2011

Hi,

So I've spent the week going through different websites, catching up on my e-mail, and I started a real estate investment course.  Here are the top things I learned this week:

1.  Time blocking is a great tool, but don't fill in every block in your day.  I love having a plan so I know what I'm supposed to be working on but something always comes up so leave some flexibility in your schedule.  I'm one of those people who likes to succeed and filling every minute of every day sets me up for failure. I should leave some holes in my schedule because success breeds success.

2.  The MLS is a retail market place.  I'm a Realtor, this one should be obvious to me but the lesson only sunk in after listening to a module in my investing course.  I will very rarely make money buying property listed on the MLS because it's not enough of a bargain.  This probably explains why my deals up to know have been less than successful.  This lesson also reminded me that I should identify the tunnels I'm looking through because I'm probably missing a lot of what's happening in the world.

3.  Never stop marketing.  I learned that I should schedule 85% of my block time (see above) on marketing, and 15% on managing my business.  This should never change.  When I'm actively working a deal or a project I should add that time to my work week, not take the time from my block time schedule.

4.  Direct mail is more expensive than I thought it was.  You have to contact a lot of people to get a deal, about 3,000 pieces of mail need to go out to generate 1 deal.  Now compound that by the fact that people will need to see your name 7 to 8 times to connect with you it will take about 24,000 pieces of mail to get 8 deals, and this is if the people on your mailing list circumstances don't change during the period it takes to get in touch with them 8 times.  Not including the cost of the postcard, a postcard mailing will cost $6,720 and 4 - 8 months to generate 8 deals.  Not the worst cost per deal if you consider that the average cost per deal is $4,000, however, this is definitely a long term income producing strategy, probably not the best one to start out with.  It has definite possibilities for my remodeling business though so I need to ramp that part up.

That's it for now.  Stay tuned for future updates.

Tamara