All Forum Posts by: Ken Breeze

@Ihuoma Johnston comparison and review forums are coming up with very mixed results on the Arsenal MKG software. Do a search on any of the SaaS solutions or apps out there to deepen an educated decision.

I have tried quite a few lead gen apps and other workarounds in the past, most are not helpful. Some are good enough to spend time on, but at the end of the day, they don't really solve your problem of generating true, current, repeat, targeted and motivated leads tailored to your needs. 

Anyone of these "solutions" need, contrary to what they or some users will try to make you believe, not days or weeks but months of learning (been there, done that); not just keywords, but SEO and several other marketing strategies to make it all work. It takes up your time and it takes time to work the internet to return yields.

In other words: Above paths will demand most of all the precious time input from YOU.

There is a better solution.

I didn't see the need to try another app like Arsenal MKg, and I'm not saying some might be happy with it, however, it depends on where you are currently in your business skill, knowledge and mindset level.

I'm a commercial real estate syndicator and life long marketer, so yes, my response might sound bias to some, however, the real question you need to answer for yourself is: 

Do you want to be and stay stuck with the immense repeat time investment and painful learning curve, which no software will solve for you, or do you want to focus on growing your team (with the appropriate skills) and business by doing what you do best (outsource the rest): 

Buy & Sell real estate.

Food for thought ;-)

Feel free to check out a few of my other comments to other fellow BP-users on this same subject.

A great book on this subject by Timothy Ferriss,  The 4 Hour Work Week. This book alone added a few years to my family's life for sure. Give it a try. 

Enjoy ;-)

Hey, @Zack Rosenbaum welcome to the tribe ;-)

I'm not from the Ohio area but a simple  Facebook and  Meetup search will yield results. I found that the groups with the most engagement activity, not always with the most members, are the best to start scouting out. You can also look up the event section here on Bigger Pockets.

Depending on your knowledge and skill level it's always a great idea to continue your learning journey on everything BP has to offer at no cost and then move forward with their awesome guides and books in the links above.

You will have a thousand questions on the way and here on BP, you can get more than a thousand answers. There's probably not a question that didn't receive an answer here on business, real estate or marketing.

Make sure to set up your keywords so that the things and people you are looking for start chasing you.

Welcome to the club and we wish you a ton of success.

Hit me up if you need any help ;-)

Hey, @Bo Cochran welcome to the tribe ;-)

Depending on your knowledge and skill level it's alway s a great idea to continue your learning journey on everything BP has to offer at no cost and then move forward with their awesome guides and books in the links above.

You will have a thousand questions on the way and here on BP, you can get more than a thousand answers. There's probably not a question that didn't receive an answer here on business, real estate or marketing.

Hit me up if you need any help ;-)

"Many roads lead to Rome." as the old saying goes. And there's another wisdom that comes to mind: "Fast, good, cheap. You can only have two."

There's truth in what @John Warren says, referrals are ultimately awesome, the organic, natural way of getting new customers, however, nothing in life, except the love of our mama, is really free. Before you reach the level of receiving a constant flow of "free" referrals, you’ll need to input a lot of time, months if not years of hard work and persistent and continued networking to reach that level. 

Sure, you could keep using the seemingly low-cost old school methods of print media, direct mailings, forums, and lists, cold calling FSBOs and what not but it's neither efficient nor was it ever any fun.

But wait. They invented the internet and targeted marketing that attract laser sharp, qualified and motivated leads - instead of chasing them. So go where the eyeballs are to quote Gary Vaynerchuck who wrote: "Crush It".

So, until you get to the point of constant referrals, let's remember that any business is about persistent and focussed marketing - no matter what your selling or looking for. So @James Wise is right when he says: "It's a marketing business more than anything. Focus your efforts & budget on marketing to sellers & the buyers will come free of charge." 

I don't agree with the "free" part, as I said, nothing is for free if you do everything yourself it cost you time and a few resources and that is not for free either. However, I'd go a step further, after learning from Tim Ferriss (The 4 Hour Work Week) and many, many others, to grow your team, leverage their time and expertise and outsource what is not your core strength and passion.

We all only have 24 hours a day and need to make decisions on how to grow and not put more stuff on our plate.

All the marketing strategies, tactics, and skills that one needs to learn and apply on a regular basis is a huge time investment, so the real question is: Do you want to squeeze another few hours per week into your already overloaded schedule and do all the tedious work you don’t know how to do or like doing, instead of growing your team and leveraging their time to do it much better and faster for you so you can focus on what really matters:

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS, NOT RUNNING IT

Hit me up on a PM if you have any more questions.

Hey @Bart Charkow

Right off the bat, I'll say I'm not a fan of old school marketing strategies anymore. As much as I love design and paper and print and the touchy-feely stuff, digital is king. Why? Because it's faster, yields results is extremely targeted and cheaper.

@Jerryll Noorden has a lot of good points and I agree that SEO plays a major role in getting you leads, but SEO is not the best or only strategy - there are a few ways to go about getting leads, and every one of them is applicable and has its strengths.

As you can see Jerryll is using a platform that helps you generate leads. The problem is that there is a cost and a learning curve with any platform and it takes a lot of time and continued effort to do what needs to be done. So the question becomes quickly: do you want to keep doing everything marketing yourself or do you want to do what every business that wants to grow beyond their glass ceiling does: focus on making decisions that grow your business, not working in your business on all ends.

Back to marketing. There are two ways of getting closer to your goals: fast and slow. Both strategies have their reasoning. SEO and blogging take time. You can build these up alongside your weekly and daily activities, but it needs to be done consistently and won't help you in the beginning - it takes a few months to start to stick with the web crawlers and people you're trying to reach. I recommend outsourcing the SEO part since you need to focus on your passion for working on, not in your business.

That is why I am a huge fan of Facebook advertising: Facebook is immediate & cheaper than most other marketing strategies. People are on Facebook and other social media channels 24/7/365 and thus they WILL see your ad if they have, in your case, expressed interest in selling or buying a home. People share everything about their lives all day long, so they are guaranteed to say something about it. And when someone expresses interest in selling or buying, Facebook knows it all: the chatter, the keywords, the demographics, everything.

It's not as a shotgun approach like yellow letters, which I stay away from because conversion rates are terrible. And since you're looking for leverage, you're not wasting your time knocking on doors and cold calling people that aren't even interested.

Feel free to contact with me with any more questions.

Cheers, Ken ;-)

 @Emma Bennett now here might be a great partner in the making ;-)

@Emma Bennett just as a general add-on, not necessarily wholesale specific, however, I always recommend people read some of the valuable essentials that are available to us for free.  Check out these Bigger Pockets guides to pick up some awesome tips in the weeks to come ;-)

A good idea is to consult a local real estate CPA in the area you want to acquire property who can advise and set it up for you as well. There are different rules for different states. Generally, I suggest having a new LLC for every property you acquire to build layers of protection. This way being challenged with one business doesn't have to threaten your entire foundation or portfolio.

I like to consult Investopedia some times. Check out  "The Basics of Forming A Limited Liability Company" and  "LLC Operating Agreement" or "The LLC Operating Agreement Template, And Why You Need It". 

Enjoy ;-)

I'm generally with @Tanya F. on this one.

There are always two sides to a coin. 

As much as it hurts from an investor's point of view, some type of rent control or other means of keeping rents from exploding out of reach of the people we need to pay our rents and who can barely afford them anymore needs to be done. And since many of us multifamily investors are not limiting ourselves and some are outright greedy and thus destructive to healthy capitalism, someone else in charge whose job it is to have their eye on the common and greater good of our tribe will need to step in. And that's usually our government, who the majority of the populous voted for.

And rest assured, this problem is just beginning to heat up - not just in America. As futurists have pointed out, 70% of the world population will be living in cities by 2050. The pressure is just beginning to rise as real estate will be more controlled than ever in any metropolitan area on planet earth. It's just logic math when looking at our population growth. 

The day will come when you won't be allowed to cancel the lease after a tenant has been living in your apartment for a certain amount of time. As is the case already in many cities and countries around the world. So enjoy the party while it lasts. And if I may add, my American friends, we are still very spoiled in what is available to us. Try any of our wealth creating strategies in most other countries, and you will be frustrated beyond rent control.

As @Jerry W. points out the problem can't be solved by lowering or controlling rents alone. It will demotivate us, investors, to provide decent living conditions. Speculation, on the other hand, a cyclical real estate problem we have in the United States more than anywhere, is highly regulated in various ways, not perfect yet, here in my other tribe's countries of Europe. Also evident mainly in metropolitan cities. The challenge is bigger and more complex. Jobs have been dying ever since I finished school in the 80's - by the hundreds of thousands - and still, do to this day. Our beloved technology has rendered us more and more useless or simply too expensive to keep competing. No wonder the discussion and experiments by many nations are focussing now on the universal basic income to compensate for our failure to solve these issues we noticed decades ago much earlier. So as you can easily realize: What goes around comes around and everything is connected like Ying & Yang.

It helps to look around or across the pond to cherish what we have had all along - for decades. Low income or capital gains taxes and deferrals using a 1031 tax rule and many other less advantageous game rules are things non-US citizens can only dream of. It's best to recognize that nothing stays the same, ever. The only constant is change. So let's focus on that and adapt.

I personally support the idea of being partly responsible for creating a sustainable balance so that wealth creation remains possible (where's the fun without it, right?) and even allows for "the other side" to learn and participate. Perhaps we should all give every new tenant a copy of Robert Kiyosaki's "Cashflow Quadrant" to help enlighten minds. There is no use in empowering the wealth divide to the point where even fences will not suffice.  Beware of the pitchforks coming (there's a great or concerning TED talk by a billionaire on this topic. Check it out). And while you're at it, you might enjoy a few other talks on any of our topics of interest such as the growing challenge of poverty in America and Europe and all topics real estate. Let me know if you found a good one. I'm always hungry to learn more.

You're struggling to get more motivated house seller leads or any other type of customer lead for your particular business! You've tried all the old school techniques such as yellow letters, direct mail, flyers, yard signs and a few online tools perhaps Craigslist, a data service or two and are frustrated about the no, low or inefficient results. Well, no wonder, its a shotgun approach with a high time and money waste ratio. 

Guess what - We have a super-effective way of getting you any type of lead you want. What are we talking about? Targeted, online, real time lead marketing. Yep, we do this before breakfast and all day long.

The potential is enormous and we wonder why most real estate entrepreneurs are not making use of it. I mean c’mon, the internet wasn’t invented yesterday so let's use it. But we get it, you don’t have time nor the nerve to learn all the insane ins & outs of diving into the universe of Facebook advertising. And you shouldn’t. You need to leverage your team, scale and grow your business.

No wasting time and money on people that are not interested in buying or selling. Every lead you receive from us WANTS to be contacted by you and is ready to go. This saves you from those cold and angry client calls that waste your time and drag you down.

Why Facebook? Why not Google, LinkedIn or other labor and cost intensive channels? Because Facebook is currently the most underrated, cheapest, most effective and efficient way to advertise today.

Who is this for? Realtors, brokers, property managers, general contractors, CPAs, attorneys, lenders, mortgage brokers, wholesalers, flippers, investors - everybody who wants real time motivated customer leads coming in every week.

We can even offer you lead exclusivity. But wait, there’s more!

( I couldn't resist ;-) )

Drum roll… on top of that we give you a one week FREE trial to check us out and see if this works for you and yields any usable results.

So - if you want to scale up your income and have time to receive 5-10 more real time and motivated quality leads per week, than don't hesitate to schedule a call with us so we can answer all your questions and get you on your free trial as soon as you're ready!

My team has put together a short two minute read for you to get a quick overview.

Cheers, The Breeze Marketing Team