Someone once said (incorrectly) that “becoming an entrepreneur means trading your 8-hour daily workload for a 16-hour daily workload”.
The person who said that obviously never met Cris Chico.
If you’ve been following our recent Virtual Wholesaling series with Cris, then you will see he has done very well as a virtual wholesaler – and still has plenty of time to play.
Of course, if you haven’t been following our recent series with Cris, then I highly recommend that you take a few minutes to get up to speed by checking-out these three previous lessons:
Not only has Cris done extremely well – 116 properties flipped and $1,452,108 profits during the last two years – but he has done it without working crazy hours and killing himself. To find and flip that many properties on your own, in that short a time, would require not 16 hour, but 45-50 hour workdays!
So how does Cris do it? Easy. He outsources.
Wear Your Pajamas, Drink Your Coffee, and Let Others Do the Work…
Instead of initially trying to do all the work himself, Cris spent his time creating systems and processes that would run his wholesaling business practically by itself. Now Cris can focus on building his business (and take a lot of time off for fun). In today’s lesson, Cris explains exactly how he set up his business to deliver deals to him on a silver platter.
Now don’t get me wrong – Cris is still involved in the process. But he simply doesn’t have to sift through tons of false leads in order to find the nuggets of gold. He has found websites, virtual assistants, and other experts who assist him by:
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Creating direct mail campaigns that generate loads of leads
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Tracking responses from potential sellers
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Screening out the good deals from the bad – before Cris ever sees them
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Adjusting the screening process for different markets
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Automating the offer-making process and completing the paperwork to put a house under contract
You could say Cris is the ultimate “I’ve got a guy” guy. He has some person or some website for all aspects of his business.
And he has found a way to use the team to wholesale houses in any geographic market. His only criterion is that the market be a profitable one.
So put on some comfortable pajamas, grab a cup of your favorite coffee, and keep reading to learn how you too can set up the same kind of systems in your business.
Virtual Wholesaling – How to Systematize Seller Leads
Cris: So there are two things we need in order to execute the system:
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We’re using Click2Mail.com. We use Click2Mail to create my postcard online. We upload our list and mail through Click2Mail. We have some very specific postcards that we use. The tip that I would give everybody is that we make the postcards as personalized as possible. We merge in information about the seller or the address or any details we can to show we care about that property. When a person gets that card it has all the pertinent information about the property. You’re always going to bump up the response when you do that.
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The other component in the system is a 24-hour recorded message. All our postcards have only one way for people to communicate with us. They have to call the 24-hour recorded message. To paraphrase what the postcard says, “Hey I’m interested in buying your house, JP. To hear more details about my offer please call this number. You can call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” They will call that phone number. Then they will listen to a two to five minute message that will tell them who we are and what we do. And then we’ll ask them to leave a message. Once they leave a message, it becomes a lead for us.
And there are a couple of reasons why we use a 24-hour recorded message:
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It allows you to handle a large volume of leads simultaneously. Because if we do a large direct mail campaign in one day we can have 200-300 people call into our hotline. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t take those phone calls personally.
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We also use a 24-hour message to really screen. After they listen to the message some of them will hang up. Some of them will leave a message. But the ones who are the most interested are the ones who will leave a message.
Mogul: And I assume it’s not just “Hey we buy houses, any area, any condition. Leave your name and number”. It probably, literally, pre-screens them. You tell me if I’m wrong, but I imagine it sets the stage with letting them know first of all, you don’t pay retail for a property. I’m guessing that it’s an actual pre-screen. You’re not just trying to get whatever leads come in. Am I right?
Cris: Yes and No. That really is market dependent. Let’s take your market for example. I’m not there right now but I have done some previous direct mail campaigns in your neck of the woods. We had a huge amount of people calling. So we had to do some heavier screening on that message than perhaps down in South Florida where we want more people to call.
Mogul: OK
Cris: We use Click2Mail. We use a phone system and then we send out the direct mail. People just start leaving messages. Once somebody leaves a message, then my VA gets an email saying somebody left a message. We use a particular phone system called AdTracker, which is just a 24-hour recorded message hotline. The VA will log in to AdTracker. She will listen to the message. She will transcribe it. And then, we use software called Smartsheet – Smartsheet.com. It really is more like a spreadsheet, but a spreadsheet on steroids. It has the capabilities to put reminders and do a lot of other stuff. We have a customized template that we use. The VA will input all the information for the lead into the system. Then she’ll go into RealQuest and pull up the property detail report and the comps report. Next she’ll go into Google Maps and pull up a street view of the property. That way we can look at least at the front façade of the property, which, if I can loop back, is one of the other criteria we use when selecting a market. We want to be able to have a good Google Street View in that market.
Mogul: Oh that’s good.
Cris: Otherwise it makes it more difficult.
Mogul: Interesting little fun fact that people don’t know is that when you first started doing this, there was no Google Street View. What a difference it’s made, right?
Cris: Yeah I used to have to put ads on Craigslist for photo people, and I would have to pay them 25 bucks to do essentially what Google Street View does now, for free.
Mogul: Yeah
Cris: Next – like I said the VA will pull all that information. And then she’ll change the status of that lead from ‘new lead’ to ‘review’ in our system. When she switches that lead over, my acquisitions person takes over. He’ll review the lead. He’ll make a determination if it’s a viable lead or not. Many times he’ll need my opinion on the property so he’ll switch the status to one that triggers me to look at it. I may review and put my notes in it. Then he calls the seller, negotiates the deal, sends them the contract, and pretty much gets us the property. Then we’re ready to go to the next step.
Mogul: Do you look at every potential deal before your acquisitions guy moves into negotiations?
Cris: No – not every deal. Not at this point. At the beginning – yes. As I’ve trained him, it’s not necessary in every deal. Especially when you know stuff is just way too much. But as we get closer to properties that look like there might be something there, he gets me involved to get a second set of eyes and to give an opinion about price.
Mogul: Ok.
Cris: Then we send the contracts to the sellers. Typically we send the contracts to the Sellers Express Mail. We put a package together that is a contract, a letter to the seller, and a benefits page. The benefits page reiterates all the benefits of them working with us. Buy the property as-is, Seller doesn’t need to make repairs and that sort of thing. We send it to them Express Mail with the US Postal Service. We include a pre-paid, priority mail envelope already addressed back to us. There’s two copies in there, signed by us, with instructions for them to sign one copy to keep for their records. They sign the other copy, put it back into the Priority Mail envelope, and then just drop that back in the mailbox to be sent back to us.
Mogul: Just to be clear. You don’t do any of that. That’s all on your acquisitions guy.
Cris: Right, right. I don’t do any of that. When the paperwork comes in my acquisitions guy will receive the contract. He will scan it into the system so we have a pdf copy of the contract which is really all we need. Then we’re ready to go to the next step which is to sell it to our buyer’s list.
Work On Your Business, Not In it! – Sit back and take a high-level look at your real estate investing. Where can you automate, eliminate or delegate tasks? Make a list for yourself. Are you doing tasks in your business that you could pay a VA or a handyman to do? Could you focus on more lucrative tasks?
Research Resources – There are a ton of resources you can find on the internet, on Craigslist or from other investors to help you in your business. Heck – check out Real Estate Mogul! We try to alert you to great new ways to make your business much easier and more profitable.
Match the Resources to Your Business – Take your list that you made in the first action step and match it with the resources you found in this article, Real Estate Mogul in general, and your own research to really help your business grow.
Take a Little Time to Relax – Some of our best ideas come when we are away from our business and relaxed. And besides, what are you in business for? Take some time to enjoy yourself, hang out with your family, and enjoy life. Working like crazy leads to burnout, poor health and other problems long-term.