Note Camp Provides education for people about the note closing industry. It also helps a lot with planning how we can help investors for the next six months. We want to see attendees doing more marketing, not just during the event, but going forward for their own businesses. Note Camp teaches note closers to step out of their comfort zone and share their strengths and weaknesses, how they find their deals and how many can they closed in the past 12 months.
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Note Camp Recap
We’re very busy getting everything prepared for Note CAMP 5.0. We absolutely had an amazing time Thursday through Sunday with our 560 plus attendees and our amazing cast of 30 plus speakers. It was absolutely a great time. Lots of great stuff for sure. We had some amazing new speakers. I have to give a big shout-out to Rhonda Britten and Sharon Lechter who were our two keynotes on Thursday and Friday. Those two ladies did an amazing job, brought the house down. It’s obvious based on the views, especially when we share them the Facebook Live, just absolutely amazing. We’re literally over 12,000 views on Facebook, which is absolutely mind-boggling. We’ll probably be over 20,000 by the time Friday rolls around, which is pretty crazy. We worked really hard. A big shout-out to Stephanie Goodman. Stephanie was MC of room two. She had all the speakers on time, was able to get them all off in time, and ran it without any glitches. Kudos to her. Could not have done it without her. Everybody loves her, which is great. Who doesn’t love Steph? It’s absolutely great time at Note CAMP 5.0.
We learned some great stuff from Note CAMP. We learned especially with the survey results that I sent out to everybody. We had about 33% of the attendees fill up the investor survey or the attendee surveys. We see do they have a self-directed IRA? Are they looking to partner? How many deals they’ve done in the last twelve months? When did they first do their first deal? What’s their biggest strength, weakness? What’s the biggest goal? Those are all valuable things for us to focus on it and are in Note Night America Webinars every Monday night, along with bringing up those topics here on the Note Closers Show. I was amazed that 10% of the people that went through Note CAMP don’t even listen to this show, which cracks me up a little bit, but they’re mostly new people that were there for the first time. Overwhelmingly, lots of great results. Half were brand new and the other half attended at least one other Note CAMP. Those are always great information we can use to help tailor, to help plan our next six months, which is the whole design of Note CAMP. We provide a lot of great speakers that help our students out, giving them a lot of great content. It also helps us tailor what we need to do, what we need to focus on the best, affect those individuals in a positive matter. Providing the education that they need in the content and helping them out with things.
Note Camp: We provide a lot of great speakers that help our students out, giving them a lot of great content.
People love it. We had over 1,000Facebook posts from our students. Some are not just Facebook, but across the social media, which is crazy. We had more posts this time across all the social media platforms than we’ve ever had before. I have to give a big shout-out to Eric Hyde, who was our social media winner. He won a spot in that Note Mastermind group. I also want to give a shout-out to Mike Cameron, John Bardeen, Shannon Flynn, Ellen Bill Griesemer. They all were the individual winners, a couple days of co-winner that it was such great stuff. We hopefully will continue to see our attendees start marketing more. Not only marketing for our event, but also market for their own business, share the deals that they’re working on, give the recaps and focus of what their business deserves. We love that they market here for our event. The whole idea is to get them outside of their comfort zone, away from their fears to do things for their own business. That’s what we want to see. That’s what we entice them to do, “Start sharing for yourself. You’ll start seeing results.”
I have to give a big shout-out to Scott Yaffe who was attending. He shared a few times and he had a couple of appointments made Sunday from some people in his database. He saw what they posted and want to meet with them to talk about investing with him. We have give a big shout-out to Gail Greenberg with the same thing happened to her from her speaking spot for the first time. About half are brand new speakers this time around. The Note kids were pretty jazzed about that. A lot of people run events to making a profit generating thing for them. We do put Note CAMP not only to help educate, but also put a little coin in our pocket. We can do it at such an affordable rate and then we can have so many speakers on that deliver content because our overhead is so much less. We have so many less expenses. Our overhead is less than $1,000 for Note CAMP 5.0. That’s crazy. We don’t have $84 gallon of coffee. We don’t have to spend $10,000 on the meeting rooms. We don’t have a $10,000 or $20,000 food and beverage. I could eat a lot, but that’s a little bit extreme. We don’t have a room block to fill.
Last words to make it a much more affordable event. We’ve seen other people that have charged $1,500 for a virtual seat. That doesn’t make sense once you’re going for a profit aspect of things. Did we make some money at Note CAMP? Yeah, we made some money at Note CAMP. Are the speakers making money? Yeah, they’re selling their stuff but the fact that they don’t have to jump on a plane, don’t have to pay a $5,000 booth fee, don’t have to take time away from their families. It gives them a lot more laid back and willing to give a lot more information than if they were required to try to make up their expenses. That’s the beautiful thing about Note CAMP. If you’re watching on Facebook Live and you enjoyed it, I’d love to know what your favorite nugget was from Note CAMP 5.0. I see a few people out there that looked like they’ve run Note CAMP. The idea is it’s there to help. Content, Actions, Marketing, and Profits. That’s the four pillars of what Note CAMP is all about and helping share that and provide that information to our extended Note family and make things happen.
There is no rest for the weary. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but we have our Note Mastermind coming up in Cape Coral, Florida. We’ve got about 30, 35 people that are going to be there. It will be a little bit smaller. I had a lot of cancellations because of family and sickness and things like that popping up. We’re excited because I’ve got some great things in store for those that are attending in Cape Coral, Florida. We’re going to spend a good chunk of time on asset managers, deal flow, reaching out on a regular basis, is one of the big things that we’re going to focus on this time around. Specifics of what to say, what not to say, and putting together their marketing calendar for 2018. We’re pretty stoked about that.
The whole point is our Note Mastermind. These people have been through our coaching events, have been to the Fast Track training. These are serious people. Most people have bought notes who are buying 10 to 30 notes their first year who are part of the Note Mastermind. Those that aren’t are either brand new and want to get that aspect. Our big focus going forward is to help them rock it out, really help them take the business to the next level. Most of the sessions will be round table discussions. Most of the sessions will have some case studies that Jen has been working hard in the office, so big shout-out to Jen for working hard in the office. She’s got a great PowerPoint she put together for me on our updated deal scenarios that allow the people at the Mastermind to talk amongst the tables themselves, talk about bidding and talk about things that they need help with that really rock it all out. Pretty stoked about that.
Eric Hyde, congratulations. You won the social media award. Hopefully, you’d be at a Mastermind before too long. We’re here to deliver. We’re here to answer content. What you’ll be seeing here on the Note Closers Show over the next three months, six months, is we’re going to be addressing a lot of the biggest needs that people discuss at Note CAMP. What are the biggest weaknesses? What are the biggest strengths? What do they need the most? One of the biggest questions that we asked that we’re very sincere about is how can we help you expand your business, whether it’s through deals or asset managers, resources? Don’t be surprised if we don’t bring a couple of asset managers here on the Note Closers Show just to talk about the business and to share with you what they’ve got going on and the things that they’re focused on. Eric was in it to win it. That was obvious from before the kick-off of Note CAMP. He had posted beforehand and pretty much every day, he was in it to win it, which is phenomenal.
Our focus is going to be assets. It’s going to be raising capital, marketing. You’ll see a lot of that going in place, probably a bit less of me talking in these solo episodes, but more so with our guests. I know that’s what you really like anyway. You like having guests. That’s the beautiful thing about it. We’re here to help. It’s a great platform. Overwhelmingly we were really excited to see the amount of comments that people that really listened to the Note Closers Show and watched it, which is great. We’re jacked up about that. One other thing to keep in mind, too if you are listening to the Note Closers Show, we have the Note Night in America episodes on iTunes and Stitcher. Go on over and search for Note Night in America with Scott Carson. Then we’ve got our first eight or nine Note Night Monday Nights webinars recorded and are up there for you to download and listen to as well. Then by the first of May, you should see a third type of a podcast pop up, the Note CAMP Podcast where we’ll be uploading all the episodes in sessions from Note CAMP into its own specific podcast and we’ll announce that to everybody once it’s up and running. I don’t know if you’ll listen to it. I think we’ve got a good plan to get it on the new and noteworthy side of iTunes and Stitcher as well.
Note Camp: Our big focus going forward is to help them rock it out, really help them take the business to the next level.
What are your biggest needs? What are your biggest takeaways from the event that we had? What are your biggest focus for the rest of 2018? What the hell happened to January, February, and March? What the hell happened to that? Craziness. We were in about 90,000 mark in downloads, so thank you for everybody that’s listening and watching. It’s a great milestone. We’re trying to get 100,000 by the first of May. That’s our big goal. We could do it. We will do it, especially with some of the stuff that we’ve got going on in the promotions and some great episodes we’ve got coming up.
One of the other things I wanted to talk about is I know a lot of people get bogged down this time of year with school ending or kids’ graduations or college graduations, especially that being less than a month away. It’s hard to believe that’s around the corner, that the end of the school year is about two months away. One of the biggest things I can tell you is if you’re reaching out to bank asset managers, make it a priority to start reaching out before the end of May. Start getting on the word because come June, July and August, it’s a little bit slower month. There are a lot of banks that have stuff that’s been saving to move stuff off during the middle of the year, especially the end of the second quarter, to help them cleanup their portfolio a little bit. That’s important to keep in mind. There are those opportunities out there.
Big shout-out to Adam Adams at AJA Realty Investments, who joined us at Note CAMP. He shared a lot of how he automates coming from a database and CRM background. He’s able to use Pipedrive and a lot of other applications to help automate a lot of his note business, so he runs a lot of it himself. He’s at south of 70 notes, which is phenomenal. He’s done a great job. Over half of those came in one big bulk trade and that’s been Adam’s focus going forward. All he’s got to do is one or two bulk trades a year to hit his number. He’s still going to be focusing on one–off deals and stuff like that, but a lot of his stuff is reaching out directly to bank asset managers. You don’t have to do too many deals or too many trades on mini pools like that where 20 to 30 assets at a time will definitely make your business for the year. That’s a good one. That was one of the great things is the fact of using Dropbox and the Clouds. You can take your business anywhere in the road. We’re going to be doing quite a bit of traveling here for our own self over the next month and a half. We’ve got systems plugged in just about from anywhere.
One of the great things that we do at Note CAMP is we give those that attended the event the full registration list. My goal is to help those that are attending entice them to network. What does that mean? First thing they should be probably doing is uploading the database to their email and then sending out a hello email, “Here’s what I focus on. Here’s what our goals are for the year.” That’s the big thing that they need to focus on first and foremost, and looking at who’s buying where, who’s got strengths, who’s closed a lot of deals, who’s looking to potentially joint venture, who’s got an IRA? You can dissect the list and pull those features into your database that’s going to Note CAMP once or twice a year.
It can be your sole networking event to add 500 to 1,000 people every six to twelve months to your database. You’ve got all the information you need with people. That’s not saying that you don’t need to go out and network at the local REIA clubs or go out to the local expos or you’ve got the opportunity to these locals. We plan on doing that a little bit. My schedule is being pulled apart. I will tell you that right now with so many things going on. Steph and I were talking about this. We’re going to have probably carve down some events and re-adjust some things to make sure that we stay on track where we want to focus on. Otherwise, we’ll be like a mad person all over the place and we don’t want to do that. We want to make sure and stick to our schedules and try to maximize that aspect as well.
We did add two things. We are getting very close to hitting the 100th person mark on our WCN Crew Membership at $97 a month. After we hit the 100th mark, it goes up to $147.That’s our monthly club where we’re sending out swag bags, books, t-shirts and then also doing special member-only trainings. Plus, they’ve also gotten a lot of discounts from our vendors, either discounted servicing or free accounts or discounted tickets to Paper Source or Note Expo, Eddie Speed and Bob Reed at Silver Links to discount the Note Expo tickets in November. We’ve got some great bonuses for those that are part of the WCN membership. You can sign up by going to bit.ly/WCNMembership.
Do you find that there is a specific time during the year where there is the worst inventory? Seems like a lot of inventory I’ve seen is picked over. It depends on where you’re getting that inventory from. If that inventory is coming from the hedge funds, your people out there that are getting listing, they’re trying to sell them off in pieces. You will see a lot of picked over inventory. The summer months are when you see a lot of that with the hedge funds that have stuff. If you’re contacting banks directly, it’s usually pretty new stuff most of the time. It might slow down a little bit in the middle of the summer because a lot of the asset managers take time off for vacation. It’s just what it is. You have to expect it to be a little bit longer delay in your asset manager reach outs. You have to expect it to take a little bit longer time if you don’t get responses back immediately from an email blast.
That’s where you can solidify your contacts by honing your marketing skills and getting out. You may see a dip in your open rates in your emails because these people are out. It’s a great time to start because it’s not the busiest time of the year. You start now, you may botch your April email but you may get better at it and send out to many emails. Two numbers that really baffled me at Note CAMP on the survey was over half have never sent an email out to their database. Another chunk was that when I asked if anybody has ever reached out to asset managers by making at least 50 phone calls or sending an email out, 50% of the people have never done that before. How can you be an investor if you’re not marketing to your database, if you’re not marketing to asset managers?
Note Camp: If you’re never taking action yourself, the business is not going to come to you. You’ve got to be aggressive.
I see a lot of people that keep waiting for things to happen versus going out and making things happen. You can be passive or you can be aggressive. You can be offensive or defensive. People waiting for things to happen, you’re a defensive mindset. If you’re never taking action yourself, the business is not going to come to you. You’ve got to be aggressive. You’ve got to reach out on a constant basis to try to help make things happen regularly, even monthly so that you stay on top, so you stick in the game. You stay with the game to make things happen for you.
The idea here more than anything else I can tell you is start now. Send your emails out. Get your emails out to your asset manager lists. Get your list uploaded to MailChimp so you can start reaching out on a regular basis. Utilize the tools that are available out there to be smart and market in the 21st century so you can hit your target. You don’t want to run away from success. You want to run towards it and find it. That’s the biggest thing I can tell you. It’s important to take action because if you don’t take action, you’re not going to find any type of success.
Quit wasting time with the hedge funds that are chop shops. It’s not going to work for you. It’s not going to make the most of my assets now. Sometimes those chop shops are moving assets on a regular basis and they’re not advertising because they’re moving in bulk. This year is the year of the bulk purchase. We’ve been more focused on bulk purchases. I’m talking ten or greater assets for our portfolio for some time now and it’s paid off big time because it helps us leverage some of the deals that we get coming on.
I want to thank you all for joining us here. I know some people are like, “I’m starting to miss my Note Closers Show episode that pops up daily.” We’re back to our regular daily scheduled broadcast for you. As always, if you could do me a huge favor and leave a review on iTunes, that would be great. That always helps us out there, especially if you’re brand new in listening and you love what you’re listening to. We keep working hard to deliver great content to you on a daily basis. Go out and make something happen. We’ll see you all the top.
Important Links
- Rhonda Britten
- Sharon Lechter
- Stephanie Goodman
- Note CAMP 5.0
- Scott Yaffe
- Gail Greenberg
- Note Mastermind
- Fast Track
- AJA Realty Investments
- Pipedrive
- bit.ly/WCNMembership
- MailChimp