If you’re thinking about hiring property scouts (a.k.a. bird dogs) to find you leads, you might be wondering what the most effective marketing is that your scouts can do for you…
Well, as my lesson title says, there are seriously a crap-ton of marketing options you can teach your scouts. And, I’m sharing them all with you in a mini-series of lessons. Woohoo!
Hey Moguls, Dolmar Cross here, letting you know that a HUGE part of your property scouts’ success (and, ultimately, your own) is understanding the importance of marketing, what marketing tools are at their disposal and how to use them effectively.
But you also need to understand that each scout will be able to commit a different level of time and money to marketing, so that’s why you’ll show them all these many options. Then, they’ll be better equipped to choose the best marketing method(s) for themselves.
Look, there are a lot of highly motivated sellers out there, but they just don’t know who to call. So we have 2 options:
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Try to track these people down.
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Let them (help them) find us.
Both strategies work, but I’ve personally found that it’s easier to let motivated sellers find you than for you to track them down…
And how to they find you?
Marketing, marketing, MARKETING.
IMPT. NOTE: I only work directly with homeowners. For me, personally, if a property is listed with a real estate agent, in most cases I pass on it. Why? My experience has taught me that listed properties aren’t where most of my deals come from, and I don’t want to step on any agent toes.
So, the low-hanging fruit is your scouts’ friends and family—suggest they start there to see if anyone in their inner circle knows of available properties.
Let’s dive in to the many other marketing options for your scouts…
Flyers
These are a fantastic and inexpensive way to get the word out...
Create a marketing flyer with the content you want and simply hand it over to your scouts. Tell them they can make as many copies of it as they want and start handing it out.
Suggest that they use neon paper (orange, yellow, or green) that draws attention. They can:
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hand it out to neighbors
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post it on public bulletin boards
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drop it off at laundromats
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post it on bus stops
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tack it to community boards in coffee shops
Tell them to get creative and find unexpected places to post it.
Here’s the flyer I give out in my property scout training packet:
And here’s something you may not have thought about…
Because you’ll be including a phone number on the flyers, you’ll need to decide whether you want people calling you or calling your property scouts. (This goes for bandit signs, business cards and print ads as well.)
If you’d like to take the calls, you have to make sure the right property scout gets credit for the lead. So you have 2 options:
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Like in the flyer above, include your phone number and have callers reference a unique ID# that belongs to the property scout who distributed the flyer.
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Set up an 800-number (try FreedomVoice or PatLive) and give each scout a different extension. Have your property scouts include the phone number and extension when printing their flyers.
If you’d like property scouts fielding their own incoming calls, they’d just place their own number on the flyer. (While it may be more convenient to have your property scouts prescreening leads, it requires a little more training on how to handle calls and what questions to ask of the callers.)
One final note about flyers...
Some areas have local laws against publicly posting flyers. If you’re aware of any laws in your area like this, then simply include it in your training—of exactly where to and where NOT to place flyers. They should definitely NOT place anything inside mailboxes, since mailboxes are federal property and off-limits to everyone except mail carriers.
Business Cards
Your scouts should have professional-looking business cards, which also adds to their credibility. Advise them to hand out their cards to everyone they meet… leave them at restaurants… put them in bills that they mail off when they pay them…
They should have a goal of handing out 5 business cards—per day!
Tell them they can design and print their own business cards or use a service like VistaPrint or Moo. The message on the card should be similar to the message on the flyer you gave them. It’s basically the flyer in pocket form.
And remind of this fun fact: All it takes is one card to make them $1,000!
Print Ads
Scouts can look into advertising in local newspaper classified section.
The ads should be short and sweet:
WE BUY HOUSES CASH or CASH FOR HOUSES
XXX.XXX.XXXX XXX.XXX.XXX
Prices will vary for these types of ads depending on the city and paper.
SOOO Much More To Come…
Okay, we’ve barely scratched the surface of the crap-ton of marketing options I’ve promised to share with you.
Coming up in my next lesson, I’ll touch on bandit signs, direct mail, door hangers, driving for dollars and even more marketing techniques that you might not have thought of… stay tuned!
Talk to Me
Tell me about your experience with scouts and flyers or print ads. What works and what doesn’t? Share below.
Train your property scouts to fully understand that marketing is the key to success in this business.
Teach your scouts to properly use your flyer, their business cards and print ads to find leads.
Review local laws with your scouts to make sure they’re not doing anything illegal, like placing flyers inside mailboxes or in off-limits locations.
Dolmar Cross
Dolmar is a guy who struggled, at first, to get his investing business off the ground. But, thanks to some fierce determination, raw persistence, and a savvy mentor’s friendly guidance and help, he eventually starting making it happen.
But the money went right to his head; he started splurging… snazzy luxury cars, taking friends on lavish trips. He thought he was on top of the world and could do no wrong. Unfortunately that’s when it usually all hits the fan—which is exactly what happened to Dolmar.
When the market crashed in ’08 Dolmar lost everything (literally – everything; he had to file for bankruptcy). Discouraged, he met with an investor who gave him some powerful insight, basically kicked his butt back into dusting himself off and getting right back to it – for the sake of his kids – to teach them that when things get hard, we don’t just quit. We fight on.
So with this powerful, new mindset and very little money left, Dolmar found himself with a sincere need to get good property leads without spending any money. Thus sparked the inspiration for the Property Scout Pipeline.