How to Eliminate your Competition
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This document provides instructions on how to eliminate competition and sell houses fast, even in a poor real estate market. It recommends using bandit signs with a live phone number to drive traffic directly to the listed property. The author advises placing signs in the yard, windows, and throughout the neighborhood with directional signs to easily guide people to the home. A concise voicemail message is also suggested to further motivate interested parties to visit the property in person with incentives like below market pricing and delayed payments. The goal is to get as many self-motivated buyers as possible through the home in a short period of time to expedite the sale.
How to Eliminate your Competition
- 2. How To Eliminate Your Competition Buy Houses “Worry‐Free” And Sell ‘em Fast… Even Though The Real Estate Market SUCKS! Copyright 2010 David Alexander DavidAlexander.com So, who the hell am I, and why should you listen to me? Well… I’m David Alexander and I’ve been buying and selling houses since around 1997…. I’m also the owner of BanditSigns.com. I was fortunate enough to do enough deals in my first year…. to become fundamentally retired in 1998. (Meaning, I no longer had to wake up to an alarm clock, or go to a job… FREEDOM BABY!!) I’ve been through two down-turned markets. We had a correction here in Texas in 2001 – 2002.. and of course the recent debacle that has effected everyone in 2008… Until you’ve built a business, lost a business, built it lost it again… my guess is.. you don’t have much real world experience… It’s funny to me to see all these new and up and coming guru’s who are teaching real estate these days… They always refer to “back in the day” and that was like 2006.. lol.. Most of these guys and gals simply teach theory about what they know that sounds SEXY and sell that as the answer and have never really had any turmoil in the real estate business, because they simply haven’t bought enough houses and been through enough deals.. or built a solid real estate business.. One that provides the freedom from having a Job.. That is your goal isn’t it?!! As I write this you’ll realize this is a thinly veiled sales pitch for banditsigns.com… Bandit Signs are the least expensive form of marketing I have ever seen.. and turn you into a competition free buying selling machine…. I’ll explain more on that later as we go through this… In the meantime I’m gonna do everything I can to short cut your learning curve as I teach you what I know in the time we have together… (my students frequently tell me.. that I typically say more in 20 minutes than most gurus do in a half day of teaching… ) And although this is a sales pitch… It’s also Real Life in the trenches what works in this business… for buying and selling houses…. (However I will tell you that this business like any other takes hard work, and it only works if you do) Ok, so were gonna take this backwards first… LETS GET STARTED!! 2
- 3. If you know HOW TO SELL HOUSES FAST… then it’ll be a helluva lot easier to buy ‘em with confidence… don’t you agree… and that is the KEY… By the way I spent about the first four years of my house buying and selling career “NOT” knowing how to sell houses FAST... Nowadays, I’ve got it down to a science.. When I got started… all you had to do was put an ad in the paper and your house would sell in a matter of days to a couple weeks….. sometimes it felt like just hours… I thought.. all I had to do was figure out how to buy houses and the selling part would take care of itself… I thought I was a GENIUS! Well… in 2001 and 2002 I figured out that actually “I wasn’t so smart”…. In fact… not very smart at all… and was now staring at a huge negative cash flow… (http://davidalexander.com/realstory/) I had to learn how to Sell Houses Fast… and luckily I did… because we had over 2 million in equity and we were losing money….. Equity Rich and Cash poor… NOT GOOD.. I learned you can’t eat equity… So, what do you need to know to sell houses fast…. (a lot of what I’m telling you is in my Sell Your House Lightning Fast Audio Course) I’m simplifying it here… but, trust me.. it’ll be enough to get you going.. and If I sound like I’m over simplifying.. or stating the obvious.. apologies in advance.. I just want to make this easy… stupid easy for you sell houses fast.. (at least that’s how I would’ve wanted it) 3
- 4. STEP 1 Put one sign in the front yard and one in the window that is most visible.. If you are Owner Financing Houses.. then use an owner financing bandit sign.. If you are Renting to Own.. then use an Rent to Own bandit sign.. If you are Retailing Houses.. then use a House For Sale bandit sign.. Again, you’ll be using TWO selling bandit signs for each house… one in the front yard and one in the window… The bandit sign in the front yard will be sideways so that it can be seen by someone driving through the neighborhood in both directions… the one in the window is incase someone knocks the front yard sign down.. The phone number on the bandit sign in the front yard will be a phone number that is answered live. You don’t want to waste all your time driving traffic to a property just to let them get a voicemail…. I think it is absolutely ludicrous that a lot of realtors do that… stupid.. stupid.. (go test it really) Your prospect is out looking at houses… and he’ll now just move on to the next one… I can’t stress enough to answer the call from the sign in the front yard… LIVE!! Also, you don’t want multiple phone numbers or websites.. on the bandit sign In the yard… answer that call Live.. that is a prospect that is interested in what you have to sell… Your number one job is to.. Get them in the House NOW!! No one will buy a house they haven’t seen… Now… this isn’t the time to prequalify them etc… all that stuff is seminar BS and it may work in an economy moving forward but, not one where it is a buyers market… The buyer has to want your house and they aren’t going to want it if they haven’t seen it on the inside and heard why your house Is a better deal.. Yes, you need to make your house a better deal than the others in the same area.. (we’ll discuss that again later) So, priority is to get them “in the house” when they call the live number that you know is in the front yard… and to tell them why this house is a deal… 4
- 5. So, why not multiple numbers… why not a website…. Because they are in front of the house… and with multiple numbers if they get a voicemail they will get confused and move on… with a website they will write it down and move on…. Or worse try to remember it and get home and forget it.. That means 100% of all your marketing dollars will be wasted… Think of it this way… what if you wanted to buy a birthday present at certain store for your daughter… you have the money to buy… and you go out and about shopping.. You see an ad for this wonderful gift you know she’ll love.. So, you head to the store.. you get there and walk in… but, there’s no clerk to sell you the item… you see multiple phone numbers and call them… you get a voicemail.. You see a website… You decide.. okay, hey I’ll remember that…. But, as you leave you decide you may as continual to shop for the gift right now… So, you move to other stores.. looking for a different gift or similar gift… but, bottom line… You are looking “somewhere else”… I’ve just described your “house buyer”… So, why did that store owner spend all the money to figure out how to get a good prospect to the store and then… when he got them there BLOW IT!! Now, lets about the other part that kills sales… That same gift buyer goes into the store…. And immediately… before finding the gift… the store owner says… well do you have enough cash to buy this.. do you have enough credit to buy this… before he allows you to make the buying decision… Again, stupid.. stupid… and it pisses people off… Let them “get motivated” to buy your house!! It’s better to have 30 people that want your house weeded down to 5 or so, who can actually buy it… than… To prescreen all of them out of the way… and only end up with one prospect that likes your house… don’t get in the way of the natural sales process.. Make it easy to buy… 5
- 6. Ok… Onward… STEP 2 Directionals… you need to put directionals to your house on every corner there is to get to your house that you are selling. It should be like bread crumbs to lead the lost people to your house. The directionals should only have the address of the house.. nothing more… If you put a number on them… you will get dumb calls before they see the house.. You number one goal is to get them to the house to see the inside… The directionals I recommend are 6” x 24” like in the picture… You use them with the 30” stakes… Notice in the picture how these directionals have plenty of space to write an address in… the ones you buy from hardware stores don’t have that… Not Home Depot, Not Ace… not anyone else… That is a banditsigns.com trademark. Here are examples of directionals… they are 6” x 24” Banditsigns.com have these and others, including garage sale ones etc, in stock.. Ok, so why not use bigger 18” x 24” directionals… well because the bigger ones don’t stay up as long… these 6” x 24” directionals tend to stay up for weeks at a time.. Plus they are perfect for the 30” stakes….. 6
- 7. Ok, so far everything we’ve talked about selling houses has been pretty much common sense… but, the next two steps tie it all together and really drive traffic… The key to this whole business or any business is traffic… for instance, if you know you are selling a house a with owner financing and the typical average is you send 75 people to the house before you are able to find the right buyer… then your choice is simple… you GET 75 people to that house ASAP… like in the next few days to a week… or don’t and waste money and time… But, most don’t do that… they run an ad… they take calls and they do it all out of order….. prescreening all the calls and not driving traffic.. Drive Traffic To The House.. #1 Priority And so what happens is they get 5 or maybe 10 people to the house per week…. And it takes like… two months to sell the house… and if instead they are selling it retail… That number of people to sell the house is likely 200 or more… and if they aren’t driving traffic… then they are losing money…. And so if only 10 people a week go to the house.. then… it takes 20 weeks to sell it… that’s 5 months of expenses… crazy… !!! 7
- 8. Step 3 is about Driving Traffic…. Boatloads of Traffic to the House How do you do that? The first part of the equation is what we call “perimeter” bandit signs. You place bandit signs everywhere out and about in the most trafficked areas beyond where your directionals are… These perimeter bandit signs are about catching the attention of tons of traffic so, these function more like regular bandit signs.. and you put them on very high traffic corners near the neighborhood of your house, or in the entrances and exits to Wally World, Home Depot and shopping centers, convenience stores.. wherever there is lots of high traffic…. The job of these perimeter bandit signs is sell people on going to the house.. The phone number on these bandit signs should be leading to a dead end voicemail meaning you “don’t” answer it, you set it up as voicemail only. I typically use a ring central voicemail, there is an link to ring central on the banditsigns.com website. I use them and typically have multiple voicemails going at any given time, they are very inexpensive.. around $15/month, additional numbers are only like $5/month and the bells and whistles for a ring central number far outweigh not using them and using a free service like Google Voice instead, at least in my opinion. With that number you get access to the back end website set up control panel, that is out of this world with features. Oh.. and use a local number.. not an 800 number… you’ll get more calls… It needs to be like the folks are calling a homeowner… not a company… at least that is what has worked for me over the last 8 years that I have perfected this. You’ll use a different voicemail for each house.. I’ll explain why in the next step. 8
- 9. STEP 4 This last step is the most crucial… IT IS.. the game plan… it is what makes it all come together…. tell you the “what to do” then I’ll explain the how…. First I’ll You need to figure out your game plan to sell the house… and every house is different.. at least by a little bit… Examples.. You might pick up a house worth 100k for 52k… and decide… You are going to retail it.. and go for the cash.. You might pick up a house worth 95k for 40k… maybe it needs a bit of work.. we’ll say 10 – 12k… and so you are going to wholesale it… for 59k You might pick up deal worth 130k that has 103k owed and is behind on 2 payments… So.. you decide to do a sub3 owner financed wrap…. So, you gotta create a plan to get the most potential buyers to the house as possible.. it’s 100% ALWAYS about driving traffic to the house… So, let’s take the first example… in fact it was real deal we recently did… On this deal we decided we were going to market for buyer that would get a new retail loan…. So we know that in this market… everything has to be a deal… so although the house was worth $110K… a rule I learned years ago.. was leave a little bit on the table… in this case we decided that a good price would be.. $99K. So, that’s where we started… again we need to make sure that the voicemail was going to ring with folks calling to buy to find out about this house… pricing right for value is a must… We also decided… we’d add another incentive… 90 Days No Payments… So, now we have a story… We are selling a $110K house for $99K and if you buy it.. You won’t have to make any payments for 90 days… Now that we know our game plan for this house…. Let’s talk about “the what” The Game plan has to be translated into a message… a short message that can be used on your bandit signs to make the phone ring…. Here’s what we came up with.. Must Sell 3/2 House Over 10k below Market No Payments for 90 Days 555-5555 9
- 10. So, I’ve learned that the words “Must Sell” really seems to bring out the vulture in people… and I’ve actually been using those two words in just about every ad since 2002… It creates a sense of motivation for a buyer to lock in on… “as in.. it must be a deal… he’s gotta sell… Then of course we say what it is… how many bedrooms and how many bathrooms.. calling…. to get the right folks And of course the folks looking to buy houses don’t really know it’s below market unless we tell them… So, you gotta tell them and then they will compare your house to others selling in the neighborhood… Which means you should figure out what your current competition is selling houses for… and make sure your deal is the better offer.. that it’s a No Brainer…. Ok, and the 90 days No Payments.. well, what is it that folks want.. they want a breather from life… and what does that cost us… three payments, who cares… it’s a marketing cost to create an emotional trigger of relief…. We can spend it now or spend it later and then some… It’s part of the marketing… it will help us sell the house really… REALLY FAST… then Next you have to create the voicemail message… and that message has to very concise and simple… or you will lose them as they are listening… and it’s main goal is to drive traffic to the house…. In fact… the message we created went one step beyond the ad.. we decided we wanted to make sure and drive traffic to this house… 10
- 11. Begin Voicemail Message: Hi, thanks for calling about our house. It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in great condition with a huge kitchen. We must get it sold, and it’s been reduced to over $10K below market… plus, we’re offering No Payments for 90 Days, and if you close in the next 30 days… We’ll throw in our 55” big screen TV and surround sound system. This house is located at 1313 West Mockingbird, and is near the intersection of Beltline and Johnson Road. It won’t last long at this price, so call us when you get there and we’ll make sure you get in to see it. Again, that address is 1313 West Mockingbird. Thanks for calling. End Voicemail Message (By the way… we had tons of traffic on this house… and had a contract on it.. within 8 days… and 2 days after that… we had two more backup contracts.. ) 11
- 12. Ok, more about the perimeter bandit signs… BanditSigns.com can do the handwritten look or the professionally printed look.. both pull equally well… it’s the message that matters… You can also, order blank plastic and handwrite them yourself… but, what a pain in the ass.. when for just a bit more Banditsigns.com will print them. Side Note: As a real estate investor have to become the part and going around and handwriting your bandit signs.. surely you can find a better use of your time.. Quick Side Story: One Saturday when I first started as a real estate investor.. we had a closing on one of our houses on the following Monday.. part of the stipulation of the closing, was that the house would be cleaned as we handed them the keys. We went to hire a professional cleaning service but with short notice it was going cost us $300… So, we spent that Saturday cleaning that house.. What a waste of time… we spent over a $100 dollars in chemical and supplies and then cleaned for like 7 hours… We could have spent the Free Time with Family or went looking for a deal… either way we devalued our time… if you devalue your time… it will take you longer to make it in this business… Hire out those things that can be hired out.. Ok, here are some examples of bandit signs for the perimeter area: Also, for wholesaling we have also used phrases like… “thieves in the night steal my house”.. “vultures pick my bones” Notice that in the owner finance ones above left there is a blank space…. To the left of the bandit sign.. That’s left blank to handwrite in down payment amount… like $4900 Down or Reasonble Down 12
- 13. And when you have found a bandit sign that works… typically you’ll get them printed in quantities to bring the price down… and leave space to hand write specifics.. We’ve also found that even if you have say a 4 bedroom house advertising a 3 bedroom is ok…. As long as it’s not a huge jump in price… and simply tell them on the voicemail it’s a 4 bedroom…. Oh and another tidbit… when selling wholesale… line up a hard money lender.. that will loan on your wholesale deals… and then add the Line “Will Finance Anyone” to your bandit sign… talk about driving traffic… Okay, let’s Move to Buying Houses – oh yeah, and I said “worry-free” Okay, I have a lot of rules I’ve developed over the years from mistakes I’ve made in the house business… They came from making mistakes in the street… they were rather costly seminars that over years.. I decided not to repeat those mistakes and they then.. became rules.. My number one rule… Never Ever… buy a house unless you sell it! It’s hard to go broke when making a profit.. So, now that I’ve gotten my rule off my chest… what do you need to know to buy houses… to keep the lead funnel working… First you need to except that Marketing is an investment NOT and expense… if you treat it as an expense you’ll soon cut it out and then you won’t have any deals.. because you stop spending money to get sellers coming to you… and there is no better positioning, than sellers.. coming to you… That said.. Why do Bandit Signs work better than any other method for buying houses.. eyeballs… that’s why… you get more eyeballs than any other form of marketing… Think about it… if you use flyers… then you get one eyeball per household, same with doorhangers and postcards… and people are inundated with junk mail… so, a lot of it gets trashed.. And internet leads contrary to what the “new gurus” tell you are mostly junk… because anyone can fill out a form for a quick… look and see… the ratio of internet leads to good deals is around 300 to 1, how do I know.. because we tested it.. We were the Dallas affiliate of WeBuyHouses.com and did a direct test against our bandit sign campaigns… not even close… tons of calls very few deals.. 13
- 14. For the beginning investor the ratio of leads/deals for folks calling on bandit signs… is about 50 to 1… in other words out of every 50 leads you should be able to get one solid deal… as you are starting out… as you get seasoned that number will go down to around 25, then 10, and then to around 5.. believe it or not… So, hurry get through the learning curve… and start buying houses.. after that you will likely get picky and start to cherry pick more and it will go up to about… 8 – 12.. which is only about 50 – 100 bandit signs So, why are they so effective… First… Never put your bandit signs out on the same corners as others… who are buying houses… if there are others in your area.. switch areas for that week or wait a week and then put yours out… If you stick to that rule… then You’ll seem to be the only one buying houses that week… They will only see your number… meaning you will not be competing for deals… they are calling you and you only.. In fact bandit sign leads seldom seek other sources… to sell there house… it’s plain weird but, true… And besides believe it or not.. folks selling houses think we are all part of one big company…. And if you get your bandit signs out most of the time other house buyers will do the same and go to another area… The cool thing about using about using bandit signs is that.. people make a choice “to call” the bandit sign to sell their house… and for whatever reason that typically means they are more motivated… For whatever reason it’s different when a bandit sign on the side the road catches your attention… So, here are some great examples of bandit signs that I know for buying houses.. You can choose your color choices… I prefer blue on white, myself… it’s the easiest to be seen, but, others swear by black on yellow… regardless the difference is very miniscule.. 14
- 15. We even have free downloadable recordings http://www.banditsigns.com/freeaudio/ That teach you all the secrets to using bandit signs. We used to sell them… for $29 but, now they are FREE. So, what do you need to know about buying houses… First in the beginning I’d recommend looking at yourself as a dealmaker.. not as I’m going to focus on one thing like “just short sales” When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail… and well… at first to get going all you need is a motivated seller… and to know if the numbers work… If you look at yourself as a dealmaker… then.. then you’ll look at different ways to take down a deal… Wholesale, Buy the note, Sell a note to fund the deal, cash offer and retail it, owner financing the deal for you, some now - some later, sub3 assignment, sub3 wrap, and of course the current rave.. short sales… Become a dealmaker.. to your success… Thank You, David Alexander BanditSigns.com DavidAlexander.com WeFinanceHouses.com P.S. Check out the last page for over $300 in Savings from Banditsigns.com and DavidAlexander.com 15
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