Where Did Your Customers Go?

10 Mar Where Did Your Customers Go?

You finally closed that deal. Whew. Go deposit that check and on to the next one, right?

Where’s the next one?

The pipeline is dry.

You’re starting from scratch.

Crap.

Why Your Leads Run Out

It’s hard to build a real estate wholesale business (or fix and flip, buy and hold, etc.). In the beginning, you’re doing everything:  marketing, cold calling, contracts, closings, problem solving, and the list goes on.

So why is it such a roller coaster? Why does everything seem to come in waves?

Because you’re not being consistent. Specifically, you’re not being consistent with your marketing and acquisitions.

What tends to happen with new business owners is the Business Cycle:

1. You don’t have any properties under contract, so you spend time on marketing.
2. You get leads coming in, so you spend time cold calling.
3. You get seller appointments, so you spend time going to those.
4. You get a deal closing, so you spend time making sure it closes.
5. You close the deal, and realize you haven’t spent any time on marketing.
6. Go to Step 1 and start again.

Sound familiar?

Why Consistency Matters

You may feel like you don’t have time to consistently market or call leads. After all, you’re super busy taking appointments, or finding buyers, or solving seller problems, or whatever else.

The truth is you have to MAKE the time or you will never get beyond one or two deals at a time. You see, it’s the marketing and acquisitions (cold calling and following up on leads) that builds your business.

Without consistent marketing, you set yourself up for a huge outflow to potential sellers, these sellers respond, you contact them and follow up. If you don’t follow up in a timely manner, they probably move on to one of your competitors.

More Isn’t Necessarily Better

Let’s say you’re doing direct mail and you’re dropping 10,000 postcards this week. Your next drop won’t be for another two months.

You don’t have the money to drop 10,000 postcards every week, or even every month. After all, marketing costs money.

So don’t ADD more expense. Rather, try spreading out your mailings. Instead of having 10,000 postcards go out and then trying to follow up on all those leads for two months, why not drop 1,000 postcards this week, 1,000 next week, and so on?

Now you have done several things to your advantage:

• You spread out your marketing costs, spending 1/10 per week
• Customer responses come in regularly over two months instead of all at once
• You have more time to follow up on the leads sent out that week
• You have consistent marketing, so you generate consistent leads

Build From Here

The biggest advantage of this approach is that you have time to devote to each area of your business:  Marketing, acquisitions, dispositions, and so on. After a few week lead-in, you have regular outflow of marketing, inflow of leads, a manageable number of appointments, and consistent closings.

So from here, it’s easier to scale up. Increase your marketing from 1,000 per week to 1,500, for example. You also will have more regular cash flow, allowing you to plan your marketing and perhaps hiring some administrative help.

Get your processes under control and working consistently week-to-week, and you will soon be able to grow and expand. We can help you get all that organized, systematized, and running. www.disruptors.com