This is actually the post that was supposed to be for last week. Apprarently, it didn't get posted, but luckily the draft was still saved when I got to this screen.
Direct Mail - Weekly batch of 250 letters sent. I thought we were only going to do 147 to make it easier to keep track of our weekly mailings, but my wife found a way to do the 250 and still keep us on schedule.
Online Marketing - Two blog posts written and two posted. I actually have two more that I started but weren't able to finish, so I will be completing those this week.
Networking - Attended another Ventura County REIA meeting. Wasn't going to go to this one, as it's usually the same people that attend the main REIA for our county. After reading a comment by Aaron Mazzrillo in a recent forum post about how he attended every REIA in Southern California for years on-end, I decided that I probably should go. My wife also mentioned that you never know who will show up to any given meeting, so it is probably a good idea to attend all of them even if it is the same people 90% of the time.
Writing Offers - Submitted two offers last week to sellers that recently called us (actually left a voicemail for one of them asking to call us back). Although two measly offers is really nothing to be proud of, at least it ends our drought of several months not writing any offers and should be a step in the right direction. More on writing offers in the "Lessons Learned" section below.
Goals for this week:
Direct Mail - Send out weekly batch of 250 letters.
Online marketing - Write and post 3 blog posts.
Networking - Nothing to report
We started a rough draft of our Scope of Work (SOW) months ago after we first walked through the property. Now that we are set to close next week, we have been going through it to "finalize" materials we want to use and adding anything we missed. Once we close, we realize that every day that goes by is money out of our pocket, so we want to have as much ready to go as possible. My wife sent our draft to the investor we are partnering with for any feedback he might have.
Lessons Learned:
I have written in the past about how we need to get better at answering/returning phone calls and writing more offers. We developed a system for keeping track of who answered what phone call and determining calls that we missed so that we can retrieve the number from our call log and then call the lead back. However, we were not always returning the phone calls in a "timely" manner. I read recently in a blog post where the author wrote that if you are not able to answer the phone or get back to the caller quickly, they will probably be moving on to the next investor. Since my wife and I both work other jobs, it is not always possible for us to answer the phone. We are now putting a strong emphasis on returning missed phone calls within 24 hours, with sooner being better.
As far as writing offers are concerned, we have a tentative plan for viewing MLS properties and writing offers. My wife has only been with her broker for a couple of months and we wanted to get a feel for how much time would need to be dedicated for doing "broker work" and how much time could be used looking at properties for our investment side. Our next step is to get our automatic searches set up correctly so that the right properties are coming to our inbox on regular basis so that we can jump on the ones with potential as soon as they hit the market.
