All Forum Posts by: Robert Laird

@Rochelle Hagnas Welcome to the site! I see you took my business partner Steve's advice. I hope you love the site and all it has to offer!

Trevon,

These are all good questions.

First I would have you ask yourself what you are trying to obtain by "automating your business" as you put it. At the end of the day if you do end up paying for a service like PatLive are you really going to have the time to read through all the messages? If your as busy as you say and you can not pick up the phone in time. In addition, if it has become too hard for you to make all your call backs, a VA is not going to change that. They are just going to type out your messages and email them to you. You still have to make the call backs. You understand what I mean? Unless you find a VA that will make outbound calls for you and write offers, they will only take off work load in terms of inbound calls.

The only way I can recommend you "automate your wholesaling business" is to have a message on your answering machine that asks people to leave a message with their name, address of property they want to sell, phone number and best time to contact. Then anyone motivated enough will leave you messages and every night you check your messages and call people back for 30min - 1 hour. If you want to further automate your business, find someone to do this for you and pay them hourly. However, as you do this, your costs are going to go up, which is hard to front if you have not done a deal yet. 

In regards to your mailing list, I would not scrap it just yet. There may be a field on there that indicates equity and if you can filter them out you will still have some addresses left. Just make sure to do that with your next list purchase. In the beginning it is important to check your lists and check them twice to make sure your marketing budget will go the longest yard. Even if it takes you 2 hours to manually filter out bad addresses/recipients, that is 2 hours of saved mailer money. 

I would work up some figures and a budget. Show your significant other the hard numbers for the best case scenario and the worst case scenario. As long as your worst case scenario looks better than your financial life right now, I think she will go for it, because what is there to lose? You just have to make sure you are on the same page so no one gets surprised later on. I hope some of this will help you and good luck. 

It was a success! Can't wait for the next one!@Dan Z.

It was quite the night! The next one should be just as good if not better!

Welcome! Hope to see you at the next Portland Bigger Pockets meet!

Here is the final update and details: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/23...

It should be a fun night of networking, pizza and drinks! Hope to see some familiar faces!

Everyone has made the same points I would make. Be fair, honest and up front. If people want market value, call them back and explain your running a business and unfortunately at this point in time you do not have anyone who can offer them market value, however if they ever want to sell quickly for a discount, they should keep your mailer for future reference. 

That is all you can do. It is more detrimental to try and make a deal out of something that is not a deal then to walk away. If you walk away you could be saving yourself from making a huge mistake and time. Focus on the good deals, and politely excuse yourself from the tire kickers. I hope everyone's advice has helped and now go call those motivated sellers back!

Thanks @Brad F.! Should be a fun night!

Hey Todd! Welcome to Bigger Pockets! If you are interested in meeting some other local bigger pockets members we are getting together next Monday October 12th at the Old Town Pizza and Brewery on NE Martin Luther King. You can find more details here:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/23...

I wish you the best and hope to see you around!

I was actually referring to this:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/23...

@Marla Dishongh Hope to see you there or at the next one!