All Forum Posts by: Mark Sewell

Just get a carrot.com webpage.  No custom site will outperform, unless you just want expensive.

You know Laura Patterson?  She is in your area and she gets really good results online.  I learn from her quite a bit.

I have been doing quite a bit of experimenting and testing in this space.  I've created a series of short videos to use, really just to drive traffic and engagement and others for retargeting.  Still testing, through, still looking for the secret sauce. 

I think that the old school way of uploading lists and just running ads at them is no longer effective -- but I do think you can get results if you use those lists to create lookalike audiences.  Then narrow that audience down to the zipcodes you want. 

This is more effective than trying to determine what your target segment 'likes' or what jobs they hold, what their ages are, etc.  The reason is that FB is smart.  If you give FB a list of 500-1000 names (or more) it will figure out what the common threads are.  It just won't tell you what they are, for privacy reasons.

This is not a new concept, but I believe in it: 

The trick is get a fairly broad audience, and then start narrowing then through a series of retargeting ads.  Video enables you to do this cost-effectively.  More people watch it, FB loves it, and so you can drive a lot of traffic and engagement that way.  Then you can create a new audience based on engagement and views of specific videos. 

I wonder is there anybody else having any success doing this?  I want to compare notes....

I used to live/work in Russia.  Spent almost 11 years there, doing various stuff in different parts of the finance world.

There was an old joke about how when foreign investors/businesspeople came to Moscow, this one longtime established American businessman in Moscow would agree to consult with them.  They would pay him $100,000 or whatever the number was, and he would explain the inner workings of doing business in Russia successfully.

So the clients pays, he cashes the check, sits down with them at a table in his office, and gives them the golden nugget.  He says this -- ' OK  now my driver here, Boris, is going to take you to Sheremetyevo.  Get a plane ticket home, and let this be the last $100k you ever lose in Russia. You will be way ahead of everybody else that tries to invest here .'

Humorous, but it in one respect I see the correlation with the guru circuit, selling dreams.

You pay somebody $20K-30K for this course, where you are going to learn this really in-depth earth-shaking super insightful stuff, something that is really going to give you an edge... and you get this:  "guys, you need to go out there and work really, really hard.  And 99% of you are going to fail anyway.  So good luck."

Then you have a big group photo and they pack up and leave for the next town.

6 months later, you realize you could have had a six-pack of good microbrews and taken it all in on YouTube... had you only known what to look for.

Look, like you, I did the gurus program, spent a bunch of money.  And I was feeling good about it, right up until they started hammering about getting a personal mentor.  Then I knew I'd probably been had.  So I finished up my classes, tried hard to glean all I could from it, and just dove in.

Far better to just partner up with somebody that has done it before.  These guys are just going to fly in, impress you with what they have done in their careers, offer some canned wisdom about 'taking action' and fly out.  They got no skin in your game.  You paid them, they show up - but that is so different than having some real material interest in your project.

Instead, consider this:

Find a good HM lender, one that actually does deals locally in your area/market.  Those guys will partner with you, for a fee.  Only they bring money to the equation, and they are familiar with your market.  They will prevent you from veering too far off course, after all it is their cash that is being invested in your project.

You will need a RE attorney.  But they might not be as expensive (for this) as you think.

Networking.  That's it.  Just get out there, talk to others, get ideas.  See if you can envision yourself where that other person is at.  Then you can start reverse engineering the steps it will take to get there, one stage at a time.

As an aside, I am starting to reach the conclusion that the single more cost-effective way to get a deal is to just network.  Even if you are just starting, just keep showing up, keep putting yourself out there.

If you are lucky, you will meet some people that you will be able to help, and learn from them in the process.

I am thankful for a growing number of people here on BP that I have connected with in real life, and I am building relationships with several of them.

Yes definitely go get pre-approved with a couple of them before you start really negotiating with wholesalers.  Find one that actually invests in the local market.  I can refer to the lender I used and I was happy with them.

The thing with using HM is probably super obvious, but you just absolutely need to go super FAST and get the project done.  If you know some other investors that can get you plugged in with some good contractors - folks that they use themselves - then that is going to be really big. 

I used to go to one meetup on Saturday AM but they ultimately decided to shift to a weeknight.  Turnout a little better, they say, although I think we had bigger groups on Saturday mornings.  So right now I am not aware of one that meets on Saturdays but there generally is one almost every day somewhere around Houston.

Yeah if you are over on the west side, you might come on out to Houston Buyer Club (that was last night) or there is a smaller meetup that @Isaac Nuti has going in Cypress.  That one is tonight, and I am going to try like heck to finally make it out to that one.

I just saw this old article from the Chron, and I just had to laugh at the absurd headline... but for sure, it shows that city planners get it, and they are and have been planning for this growth out here.  

https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/katy/business/article/Katy-will-be-larger-than-the-city-of-5774822.php