Editor’s Note: Dennis Fassett is a former corporate finance executive turned real estate investing “Cash Flow Mercenary.” Dennis specializes in single-family and multi-family cash flow properties and thoroughly enjoys assisting his fellow investors with their own strategies, including how to buy your first apartment building.
As an ongoing contributor to Mogul’s “Market News Updates,” Mr. Fassett provides us with his own unique, lively, and thought-provoking commentary on the timely industry news and events of today that are impacting our industry. And be sure to check out his other super-helpful Market News Updates. For now, enjoy...
From Dennis Fassett, Cash Flow Mercenary...
One of the hardest things for me to grasp when I was getting started was that I wasn’t really in the real estate business.
Back in 2006 I was doing well buying rentals, but I wanted to expand my business. So I looked for resources or training or something to help me expand my business…
What I found was a local Mastermind group run by a successful entrepreneur. I had attended his weekend real estate investing fix & flip training seminar and really liked what I saw. So at the end, I immediately signed up for the Mastermind.
I was excited to attend the first meeting. It was held in a hotel conference room and there were about 100 people in attendance. All active real estate investors.
After the initial meet and greet, he got down to business with his presentation.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that his talk for this month’s meeting wasn’t on real estate. At all.
It was on marketing. And I was like whaaaaat???
I mentioned that that was difficult for me to grasp because I was certainly not a marketing guy.
My educational background and work experience to that point had been pretty much all corporate finance. I had an MBA, had been an investment banker and I had worked in corporate finance in Silicon Valley (among other things).
Even today my day job is in IT. I’ve never been close to having a job anywhere near marketing.
So at the Mastermind I paid attention and took a lot of notes.
We’re Marketers
I kept attending, and it turned out that while the entrepreneur did have a few meetings focused on real estate, he was primarily focused on marketing.
I spoke to him several times about this one on one, and the point he was trying to drive home was that no matter what business someone was in, they needed to be a marketer first and foremost – if they wanted to be successful and have any long-term staying power.
Being that my brain was hard-wired for finance, it literally took me a few years for this to sink in.
Partly because finance people hate marketing people like Klingons hate Romulans. And partly because I didn’t really believe that I needed to be a good marketer to be successful.
But one day I gave up and let it sink in.
Even after all of those Mastermind meetings, though, I found that marketing was hard.
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You have to define your target prospect...
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You have to get into their heads and understand them...
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Then you have to create a marketing piece that speaks to them…
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Then you need to create an entire marketing campaign that includes a whole series of pieces that do the same…
Going through that transformation of becoming a marketer really opened my eyes.
It also made it clear why most real estate investors are only moderately successful: because for the most part they’re terrible marketers – because they haven’t gone through the same transformation.
As a self check, I’d like you to answer these questions:
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Do you know who your target prospect is?
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Do you know what makes your target prospects act when they see a marketing piece?
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Are you using a letter or postcard that you copied from the internet?
You may not have thought about any of this before. But there are correct answers to each of these questions.
I think you know what they are.
If you can’t answer each of them correctly, it’s probably time to start your own transformation to becoming a marketer.
Tell Me Something Good
When was your marketing transformation? Tell me about it in the comments section below.
Dennis Fassett
earned a BS in Economics and followed that up with an MBA in finance. After working and corporate finance and banking for several years, he started buying single family houses, and quickly built a very nice portfolio of cash flowing rentals. When the credit markets started to dry up and he couldn’t get any additional single family mortgages he shifted his focus to apartment buildings. He now has over $3 million in rental real estate. He manages most of it his self and still has a day job. Dennis has even created his own Private Equity fund to buy apartment buildings.