Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your note pitch get perfect in a day. Scott Carson explains why most real estate educators fail to teach their students properly about marketing their deal. In this episode, he lays out his best practices on how exactly you can find investors, hone your note pitch, and get them to say “YES”. The basic idea is for you to take consistent daily action in slowly building your network and improving your pitch. Plus, you’ll also discover how to use your pitch deck to raise capital on Meetup.com, BiggerPockets.com, ConnectedInvestor.com, and a variety of other real estate websites. Excited to learn more? Tune in!

While you are here, you can get 20% off of your lifetime access by signing up at http://NoteProz.com and using the code WCN20%.

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How To Get Investors To Listen To Your Note Pitch

I’m honored as always to have you guys join us here. This is an opposite happy day. I promise you, I won’t give you the opposite of nothing and I will give you some great stuff for you to be able to implement directly into your note aim real estate investment business. I want to thank those of you guys that commented on our quick question in Note Nation about what you need help with or need to focus on trends like, “I need help with raising capital and finding investors to fund my deal.” That’s what this episode is all about. It’s getting investors to listen to your note pitch.

I want to clarify this. I may piss some people off and that’s okay. We have to get outside our comfort zone and you would not be here if you didn’t get the stuff directly from me. I’m not a smoke blower. I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass to make you feel good. I’m going to tell you what it exactly is. One of the things that I was thinking about is what am I going to talk about on Note Night in America here with you guys. As I was thinking about the topic, I was like, “I can’t talk about finding investors.” Everybody showed up and was like, “Show me how to find investors,” but the idea here of finding them, you can find investors everywhere.

It’s all about taking that next step. It’s not just finding them. Making a list doesn’t do you diddly-squat. I’ve even seen a lot of my students and even high-end coaches make a list and never do anything with it, which drives me bonkers. It drives me crazy when people don’t take action. I don’t care where you’re at. What I want you to do is if you have questions, feel free to ask them but let’s keep them on track. Let’s keep them on-point where everything is at.

I hate to say this, but educators out there and most in real estate have been failing you and I found this obvious. You guys probably know about the Clubhouse app and listen to some groups. I’ve been hearing some horrible, asinine, fucking comments. I get fired up about this. You’re getting advice from somebody who is supposed to be a guru or an educator. Giving advice to people is the worst advice I’ve ever heard. I’m like, “What are you smoking?”

It screams, “This person’s not doing any deals.” Somebody was talking about, “I work for a company and they contribute dollar for dollar up to 3% of my 401(k). Should I keep contributing to it or should I not and put it in my IRA?” I’m like, “That’s free money. That’s 100% return on investment if you keep putting in your IRA or your 401(k), and then when you leave, you can take that money with you. You should stop putting that in your 401(k).” I’m like, “What idiot is telling this person that’s the best return you can get?” “It’s all vetted,” she said. I’m like, “That’s stupid because $100 or $200 a month is not going to buy you a property but it will start to compound.”

There are all sorts of bad information and bad advice in real estate in particular and I was like, “Ah.” It comes across the board that if you’re looking to get more investors to listen to your pitch or to take notice and listen to what you’re doing and what you’re talking about to raise capital. Most educators out there or that four-letter word I hate, guru, have been failing you. Most are teaching finding deals strategy. The nuts and bolts, they’re good at that. They know how to rehab a property, know how to use direct mail, they’re good that probate list. I get to how to find it.

What they suck at though, is the actual marketing of that and getting money out there. They can’t teach you how to market because most aren’t marketers. Most of them don’t understand it’s a different mindset when it comes to marketing for money or getting investors to say yes because it’s a whole different philosophy. If the deal flow, you have to be the marketing mindset of things, and most of them struggle with this because they’ve been taught the same old strategies that have been around for years.

After going the traditional route, they’ve been taught, “You got to go get bank financing. Do you already have one network?” What if you don’t have one network? You can use hard money. That’s great, but that’s not building any skills. What happens when the market drops? We’re talking primarily traditional real estate here but a lot of people here are investing in both notes and traditional real estate, so I’m sorry if I’m stepping on anybody’s toes, but I’m being honest. This is the thing that drives me bonkers. People are like, “I want to wholesale.” I’m like, “Why do you want to wholesale?” They’re like, “I don’t have any money. I have zero skin in the game.”

I was on the phone with somebody talking about, “Can I wholesale?” I’m like, “Why do you want to wholesale?” “Because I don’t have any money.” I’m like, “Why don’t you market for money? You can market property at a wholesale deal.” “Yeah.” “Tweak your marketing. Instead of a wholesale buyer or somebody, go fund it.” “I don’t want to do it. I’m scared.” “Why are you scared?” “I don’t have any money.” “You don’t have any money because you’re not marketing properly.”

If you’re a wholesaler, you’re not investing in anything. You’re just flipping. It’s like, “Give him a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Most people are consuming wholesale deals and making a quick profit, then it’s gone. They go on to the next one and the next one. It becomes a way to burn out your list because constantly, you’re having to try to go and find new deals and hustling. That’s why a lot of people leave wholesaling because they weren’t effective. I’m seeing real estate groups filled with wholesalers that can’t find success.

This comes from everybody. Wherever you’re at, you’re never going to grow as an investor or as a person if you don’t get outside of your comfort zone and grow your skills. If you’re not good at email, you’re going to have to expand a little bit or find somebody to help you out with it. If you’re not good at talking to people, then talk to more people. The only reason I’m good at podcasting, interviewing, doing note deals, and breaking down stuff is because I’ve done it over and over. I’ve looked at deals. There are some things you can automate, but there are some things you got to look at.

Sometimes, you got to take the time and draw a deal out versus looking at a spreadsheet. You got to look at does the deal makes sense versus just what the spreadsheet tells you. Another thing is people don’t take things seriously. They treat investing or going to a meetup group or being on Note Night in America or going to a webinar as that’s how they’re itching their itch. They’re not taking it seriously. This is the sad thing. Many of the people out there want to accomplish big things. “I want to make more money. I want to leave my job. I want to retire my family and retire my spouse,” or whatever, but you’re not taking things seriously enough because you’re playing small and you’re playing scared.

Big Things Have Small Starts

You don’t want to be scared. You have to realize big things have small starts. You have to get outside your comfort zone, start doing things, and developing skills that are going to last your lifetime. Hopefully, all of you are going to be in real estate or real estate investment lifetime. Some marketing or pitching or something like that is something you’re going to do no matter what you do, but a lot of people avoid that. “I don’t have to raise capital because I’m just going to flip this.” It’s fine, but you’re relying on Old Stone Age marketing techniques. It’s the 21st century.

I see this in workshops, webinars, and conferences when I see people relying on the old marketing methods or they’re marketing to one market or their strategy works in just one market and doesn’t work across the country. I was listening to a guy saying, “I bought all these low-value notes and stuff like that.” I’m like, “What kind of asset class?” I said, “That asset class doesn’t work in LA. That asset class doesn’t work in South Florida.” You’re not seeing those types of deals. The markets are completely different.

Another one up in Dallas, “We’re only going to do this.” That only works in Dallas or Phoenix maybe. It doesn’t work in other areas because it’s a different market. You have to understand not just what’s going on with what you’re doing in the market but also where you’re located and who you’re marketing to. The biggest thing is when people come in and you’re dealing with educators and they’ve built a database or they’ve built a meetup group or they’ve already got a bigger one market, where do you begin as a brand-new investor? Where do you start?

That’s the number one thing. Do all these great things that people talk about are great, but like, “What about me if I’m starting off brand-new?” That’s what this episode is all about. “If I had to start all over again, what would I do?” I’m excited that I’m interviewing Dean Graziosi. You guys may recognize that name. Mindset hacks and from late-night infomercials and being partners with Tony Robbins. I’m interviewing him on the show and that’s one of the questions. If you were starting over today, what would you do? What true advice and counsel would you give to people out there? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode.

The old model is broke, unfortunately, but you keep seeing this over and over. I’m listening in some of these Clubhouse groups and I’m hearing these people that are supposed to be investors for years and they’re sharing these old ways that haven’t changed. They’re like, “You might think about doing this instead of this.” I said, “No because this is the old way of raising capital.” The old way of raising capital is finding a deal. Go out and find your deal. Good money finds good deals. I agree that a good deal will find your money. The old way of raising capital is to go find a deal, get it under contract, and negotiate back and forth.

Once you’ve got it under contract, then go to your local REIA club, meet them once a month, get up in front of everybody at your local REIA, your meetup, or whatever that might be, and stand up and pitch your deal. You got to put the details on a flyer. Put it on a piece of paper. Most of the time, the flyer is handwritten or it’s crappy or it’s black and white. It’s a business card and it doesn’t work for crap. Most people have a crappy or no flyer at all. They don’t know the deal. They don’t know the numbers. “Here’s my phone number and email. I got to deal with zip code.”

They rely on 50 to 100 people in the audience and 10 or 12 to email them or text and trying to find it. That’s such an old way of doing business. It’s not effective at all because people get busy. They’re not going to call. If you don’t have a flyer, there’s no way for them to reach out back to you. They’ll forget about it. If you’re at home or if you’re in the back of the room after pitching, “Please, somebody call me. Somebody like me. Somebody pick my deal. I need it.”

 

You’re waiting for somebody to call you but nobody calls. It’s crickets. Maybe you get your deal fine and maybe somebody reaches out. If not, then you got to run over to get a hard money loan, traditional, then you got to kill the deal. That’s the old model. Do you know what will happen? Somebody will take your deal and they’ll send it out on joker brokers and wholesale list. You get 2 or 3 removed from you and then all hell breaks loose. It not a fun thing. Joker brokers are like, “I’ll flip that and I’ll wholesale your deal.” No, it’s not a whole way of raising capital. It’s broke.

They still teach this over and over all across the country. Why? It’s because they get stuck in their comfort zone and everybody does this. I’ve done this in the past. I got stuck in my comfort zone. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to do new things. You’ve got to grow. If you start feeling in a rut, you got to do things to shake it down. Especially when you look at what’s happened in the last couple of years, you’ve got to shake things up for you. If you’re looking at educating somebody, look at how old the gurus are.

Honestly, if they’re over 40 or 45, they’re probably doing things the old way. I see this in different mastermind groups, “I got to squeeze. I’m getting less return.” You’re getting less return because the old way of doing business is drying up. People are tired of getting twelve postcards. You need to look at what methods are they doing in the market. Is it in the twentieth century? “I’m going to drop out yellow letters.” “My name is Scott and my wife, Steph, and I would like to talk about buying your house at 123 Main Street.” That is a 20th century or 21st century model of marketing. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it mentality.

The biggest eye-opening event or a-ha came a couple of years at the Quest Expo when I was sitting there and one of my competitors came up to me and said, “Scott, would you help me market my owner buyers list?” I’m like, “No, I’m not going to do that.” “We should work together. You should work for me and help me market my stuff.” I’m like, “If you can’t market your stuff, I’m not going to work for you.” No, Derek. You are coming. I am pulling you into the 21st century way of doing business.

That’s a lot of things and it all depends. If we’re talking about notes in real estate, some people are like, “This business model still works.” Fine, but you have to think if it is not broken, don’t fix it. That’s fine. If it is not broke, okay. It’s still working right now but you need to tweak it. We always have to update your marketing and constantly change things. Look at all these people that were using AdWords. Remember when they first did a website that would type it on keywords at the bottom, that changed. They had gotten more interested in Googlebots. All of that change.

You’ve got to be evolving what you’re doing. A lot of that stuff is way advanced. You don’t need a lot of stuff. You’re not a full-time marketer, but there are things that you guys can do to come out of the Dark Ages to make some things happen. Look at the gurus, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Let’s kill the Amazon forest with direct mail. That’s right. You got to send every lead five postcards. Every owner finance buyer or note holder, you got to send them a yellow letter and you got to send the letter ten times. I’m like, “Uh.”

When I talked to my buddy, Jason Bible, in Houston, he talks about his direct mail funds was somewhere between $10,000 and $35,000. I’m like, “That’s a lot of postcards and a lot of letters that don’t do well.” We have to look at if they’re older, they might have a website and social media accounts they post to occasionally, so that’s good. Welcome. It is the twentieth century. If you came out of the Dark Ages, they don’t have something. Most people forget about this. I screen this from the rooftops. According to American Market Association in their stats, 80% of sales are made after the fifth contact.

We are all guilty. Everybody out there is guilty of talking about, “I sent one email and I raised $1 million.” “I did one deal and I made $12 billion.” “I did one video that went viral.” That’s a bunch of bullshit. You have to get in mind that 80% of sales are made after the fifth context. They don’t teach this. “I got to get five postcards in front of them. I got to get ten yellow letters.” Just kill them. Kill a dead horse with a paper. You want to have many papers and when they open that door, they have to use a shovel. You have to realize that yes, you have to hit people multiple times, but doing the same old, same old doesn’t freaking work.

If it’s not working the first time, why would I replicate it five times? If it does work and they do our opening and they are seeing things, yes, it’s top of mind. That’s going to work. A lot of people are like, “I’m going to do one email. It didn’t work.” This doesn’t work. “Calling banks, I did that one time. I called two and they said no. It doesn’t work,” and that drives me bonkers. The question I always like to ask is, especially starting out, I know a lot of you on here, how many of you have $5,000 per month for direct mail? The answer to that is no.

That’s the thing. That’s another $60,000 a year for just direct mail. That’s the starting point. Here in Texas, it’s different. We have faster foreclosures. That’s what I love about the note business. Direct mail isn’t going to work because you’re not mailing the borrowers. You’re mailing the banks and the banks aren’t going to look at your direct mail and yellow letter. They’re going to look at it and laugh and throw it in the trash. It’s not even meant for the right person. Many people are being bombarded with postcards and direct mail. How many of you guys look at your mail on a daily basis? If anything is junk, you throw it in. You can tell if it’s junk a lot of times.

There are still people out there in the note space and the traditional saying, “You got to send out letters and postcards and stuff like that.” I’m like, “Why? For a 1% to 4% response rate? Screw that.” You have to market as the 21st century and there are some great amazing things. Marketing has gotten so much easier to get to in front of your investors to say hi, to get your pitch done, and get investors to pay attention these days than it was twelve years ago when I first started. That’s the beautiful thing. It is the 21st century, not the 20th century and you have to build a network.

What I mean by network is you’ve heard me talk about a tribe. Start building a network of people in your database. You’re already a part of different networks. Your network at work, church, with your kids, your school, neighbors, REIA clubs, and Facebook groups. We all have networks. You are a part of many networks. If you start adding up the number of networks that you’re part of, easily you’ll be over a million people that you’re connected to. Their Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups. There are 500,000 groups. There are people in some big groups.

What you want to do is have a network of places investors hang out. We’re investors hanging out. Are they hanging out on Facebook watching me do cat videos? Probably not. Are they hanging out on LinkedIn? Yes. Are they hanging out on Twitter? Yes, they’re probably hanging out on Twitter. Are they hanging on TikTok? No. Are they on Facebook? No. Are they on YouTube? Yeah. They go to YouTube to find stuff. What you have to realize is everybody out there is like that movie, 1984. Everybody marched along and cows in the slaughter. You have to be the person that stands out in some sort of fashion.

I’m not talking about you have to do a lot. You have to stand out from the crowd, be different, be unique, and do a little bit extra to make your star shine. You’ve got to be seen multiple times for people to say, “I want to talk with you.” That doesn’t mean if you do it, you won’t get phone calls. You will get phone calls and emails when you start doing stuff, but the point is most of the stuff that you’re going to see, most of the connections, most of the investors that say, “I want to talk to you about what you’re doing.” It’s going to come from a system of putting things in place.

You have to spend some time polishing your craft and your tools to get investors to pay attention to you. You either got to spend time learning new tools or writing a check and outsourcing that to somebody, whether a VA, a friend, or hiring an assistant. You got to either do it or outsource it. The one-on-one way like, “I’m going to go and talk with 100 people one-on-one to get clauses,” is not the way. That way of marketing, that door-to-door knocking on door salesman, “Would you like to fund my note deal?” No. It doesn’t work.

What works is having one conversation that you can share with thousands. Those that truly reached out to thousands are the ones that are going to raise their hand and wave to you and say, “Let’s have a one-on-one conversation.” That’s today’s plan. That’s the way of marketing. Recording what you’re going to be saying, sharing what you’re going to be saying, and sharing it with your network and audience. Getting those people sharing on a repeat basis, not just once, a marketing plan. Sharing it on a regular basis and sharing it in the right places. Today’s plan is to get those people to say hello to you, but your pitch or your message, or whatever it might be has to be polished. That’s what I want to bring up with you.

Not a lot of people talk about what we do or not talking about how we market. That’s why we’re the best at what we do because we spend a lot of time marketing on those things that don’t work. I could tell you all day, “Go to this one website and buy notes.” They’re like, “How do I raise capital? I don’t have more than $10,000 in my bank account. I don’t know how to raise capital. What do I do to market?” Here you go. This is the biggest thing that separates those note investors that are kicking ass and taking names versus those that are sitting around and not doing anything. It’s the knowledge that you have to market more than looking at note deals. I know. That’s scary.

Somebody ran from the room. “We’re going to market more than to look at deals? The deals are the sexy side.” This is why I always crack up when I’m teaching somebody, especially one on one coaches. I don’t bring in tapes immediately because if I gave somebody a tape, that’s all they would focus on. They would start counting the dollar signs in their head like, “I can make this.” Hang on. That’s bad. We got to market this thing first before you start counting your checks. You got to be polished with some things. Here’s the number one thing. If you are asking yourself and if I hear this from people, “What’s the least I have to do mentally or what’s the least I have to do to be successful?” Nothing. Do something else and be successful there.

 

If you’re thinking, “What’s the least I have to do on a mentality basis?” You’re going to have the least amount of results. As a marketer and we’re all in marketing, if you’re going to be marketing investors, you won’t be looking at, “What can I do a little bit more than my competition? What can I do a little bit extra to make my stuff stand out?” That’s what we’re getting into. Is it worth finding investors? Why am I asking this question? Yes, it’s worth finding investors. A lot of you are like, “I’m going to use the $50,000 I have and that’s all I’m going to use.” That’s fine. We’ll see you later on.

Here’s the thing. If you’re worried about talking to investors and worried about having financial conversations like, “I don’t know where they’re at,” here you go. Let me give you a little bit of an insight. We did the whole Note Nation Top 40. We focused on the 40 top markets in the country. Roughly about 90% of you are near one of those top 40 markets or you’re investing in multiple of those markets. Across the board, we got rid of the two highest like New York and LA. In number 3 to 40, the average is right about 40,000 people with an IRA account in the city. Some are a lot more and some are less. When you look at the mass majority, over half of the top 40 was over 40. There you go.

There’s plenty of IRA investors out there. Taking the next step, how much do they have? We have we don’t know, but we are able to sort through our searches and who we use to identify that roughly about 60% to 65% of them have more than $150,000 in their IRA. How many people that have $150,000 do you need to connect with, to talk to, and have on your hotlist for you to find that million-dollar deal? You need 6 or 7, maybe less, 5 or 6 of people doing it. A lot of people are like, “That’s a huge number. I can’t connect. Do I have to market all 40,000 people to find six people?” No, silly. Let’s say you target 1% of the 40,000 people or even target regular real estate investors in there that may have money outside of their IRA in their checking or savings account.

We don’t know what that number is, but we do know that each of these markets averages roughly around 30,000 real estate investors. That’s on their title. We know where real estate investors hang out, real estate clubs, meetup groups, networking events, and stuff like that. That’s easy. Same places, plus they also hang out in clubs and they go to events. They are also hanging out online by tracking them. That’s easy. If you figure not the whole market, but let’s say you connect with 1% and you are capable of doing it. That’s only 400 IRA investors out there. That’s not bad. You’ll raise some capital there.

Let’s say you’ve taken up a notch. Let’s say you buy a list and find out, “There’s this many people around there.” You send out to say 1% of a 24,000 in your market. That’s 240 investors with over $150,000. If you got a normal, let’s say 2% response rate on a direct mail or even 20% open rate in email and a 1% click-through rate, that’s 24 people on a 1% click-through rate with $150,000. How many is that? That’s $9 million. You don’t need a lot of people. You got to get out, help identify the people, communicate, and share, “This is what I’m doing.” Take your head out of your ass, take it out of the book, take it out of the fake book, and turn your phone off.

Instead of watching cat videos on YouTube, watch out my pitch deck, watch my short little video. I can show you exactly what I’m doing in my case studies. If you want to connect with other investors, all you need is, “There’s a lot of real estate investors in my city, but I only need to connect with 300 of them.” You’re all capable of doing this. I’ll share some of the ways to get the pitch deck out there for them. How do I get their attention? How do I get that 1% to pay attention to me? That’s great. Consistent activity. We’re talking about the weekly activity. You got to be doing something.

Share Consistent Activity

We’ll show you how to connect with them, but the idea here is once they get into your network, email database, and social media, share consistent activity. You’ve been to our workshops before and you’ve seen me talk about the 30×30 matrix where there are 30 items you can do for 30 days. There are some things you can do daily and weekly, either part-time or full-time. Even part-time, you can still do a consistent activity to your network and your database. I’m going to talk about things that you can use over and over again. We’re talking about taking the time to record something once, do it well, and then reuse it like your favorite t-shirt. “I’m going to wear that over and over again.” It’s like that.

Unless you got the COVID, none of us are going to go viral. You don’t need to go viral. What you need to do if you’re going to do any type of marketing or posting, these are the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, “If you get one person to watch your video, one person to open your email, or one person to connect with you, it was worth it.” What you used to do is, “After work, I’m going to run home and change. I’m going to run from the office, get some fast food, drive to my networking event for one night a week, and hang out there for three hours. Half of the people there, if not 3/4 of people are going to do something. I’m going to sit there and listen. I’m going to grab 5 or 10 business cards.”

“I’m going to run home for 30-minute or an hour and maybe pay the babysitter. Say hi to the wife. Hopefully, the wife or the husband came with me. Maybe not or maybe did, and then I’m going to go to bed. I got six cards or I got ten cards and listen to somebody talk about something irrelevant about what I’m doing.” In that timeframe, you could do a lot of the things that you’d rinse and reuse and be smart about your time. Maximize 5 or 10 hours a week you have to put aside and do some good.

We all start somewhere and it’s what we’re getting at. I know some of you guys have been doing things off for a year. Some of you guys, I’ve known for 5, 6, 7 years have been putting things off. I’m like, “Why?” The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll find success. The sooner you plant a tree, the sooner you’ll have fruit from it. The sooner you plant tomatoes, the sooner you’ll have tomatoes for dinner, that kind of thing. It will yield results if you start putting it. The sooner you start working out, the sooner you’re going to lose weight. How does that work?

Here are the basics and I like to call it the Build-A-Brand. Remember those Build-A-Bear shops at the mall? I don’t know if they’re still around or not. Probably not because you can’t keep kids six feet apart. The Build-A-Brand needs. If you’re brand-new as a real estate investor or note investor, you need to put these things in place. The first thing is you need to have an entity dedicated to your real estate business. Get an LLC and quit trying to nibble on that, “I’m going to use a trust. I’m going to use my self-directed IRA.” You’re in business. You don’t see Domino’s being self-directed IRA for Papa John’s or whatever. You see it being an LLC.

Act like a business. Treat it like a business. “Can I use my LLC for my other business?” “What’s the business? Is it notes?” “No.” “The answer then is no.” Save. Keep it separate. Keep it simple, silly but get an entity. I don’t care about the name. Yes, you can maximize. Let’s get something that you can start using. Do you know what you need to do? This doesn’t take long. Get a logo and a business profile. What’s business profile means? It means getting a URL, a logo for your business, and business cards. You’ll be doing it. You don’t spend it a full day.

Do not call me to work through your business cards and your business name. What you have to do after you’ve got those basics is to put an executive summary. This comes into knowing about what you want to focus on. Hopefully, if you’re a note investor, you’re getting into it for a couple of things. You’re getting into it for cashflow or bigger checks or a bit of both or you like the idea of like, “I’m going to buy in some states and work to modify the loans to keep people in their houses.” That’s all an executive summary is about. It’s a little about your business, you, and your focus. It’s those three things.

It’s a one-page thing with your smiling face, your logo at the top, and your contact information like virtual business cards. Why are you going to need that? The banks or investors are probably going to want a little bit more information about you and that’s the easiest thing to send over. You’re going to use it over and over again. I have probably printed my executive summary over 10,000 pages of it. I’m either giving it away as a flyer or a business card. On the back, I have case studies or deals or other things. I use the executive summary all the freaking time. I wrote it once. I’ll tweak it once a year, little changes here.

If somebody wants more information about your company, they get an executive summary in color, not black and white. I don’t want to go cheapskates on something. We do it in color on a nice glossy paper from FedEx Kinkos. You got to have a website with a pulse. What’s with a pulse? That means you got something on there. Your smiling face, you’ve got some content, or you’re sharing some stuff on there. It could be other people’s articles or people’s case studies. You got to have a website. You can’t use, “I’m going to use a Wix account.” You could but take the Wix level off it.

Create something. Get a custom domain from GoDaddy or HostGator or something 21st century. Not the minimum but the maximum. What can you do more than the people that look cheap down the street? All these little things are separating you from the wannabes and you don’t want to be. You will be. You also need to create social media profiles, both for your personal and your business. If your boss is upset about, “I don’t want to find out that you’re a note investor,” then create you a separate business profile that doesn’t have your face anywhere on it.

Go to the social media profile that your bosses are on and block them. That’s the easiest thing. Especially working in another business, block it or start a second profile. On LinkedIn, do not go start a separate LinkedIn profile. Block the people that you don’t want to see on there. Don’t start a new profile on LinkedIn. I preach this from the top of my lungs. We did build your Perfect Pitch deck. Go check it out in Note Night in America. You need to create a 10 to 20-minute pitch deck. What’s a pitch deck? It’s your executive summary on a PowerPoint talking about you, what your focus is, and your company with 3 to 4 case studies of either deal you closed or the types of deals that you use. You also have a how-to contact me.

Why? It’s because you’re going to say this over and over again. Instead of you speaking it and repeating it, it’s easier to have this on a link or on a website where you can send people to watch it, where they can answer it and see these questions and say, “I’m familiar with you. Derek, let me write you a check.” “Catherine, Laura, Steve, or whoever might be on here, let me write you a check. I saw what you’re about and I’m interested in what you’re doing. Tell me more.” Instead of one conversation and sharing the same thing a million times, record it once, go through it, and practice it. You’re going to screw it up. Go into it and roll it all up. Trust me, it will help you tenfold on this.

You also need to have some email service provider, not a free account. This means like a MailChimp or Keap or AWeber or something that you’re going to be using on a weekly basis. I saw there was one student of ours who had a MailChimp account and he didn’t want to over $2,000. Anytime he got to $2,000, he would export a list and upload a list. I’m like, “Why? That’s cheap. That’s stepping over $100 to pick up a nickel. This is your marketing cost, $35 to $75. As long as you use it, it will pay off in 4,400-fold.”

Email still has a number one return on investment 44 times what you’re paying if you will use it and this is one of the biggest things getting the word out on what you’re doing. They always tell you if you’re going to set a goal, write it down, and then share it. That’s one of the big things. What kind of bait do I need to be using to get my investors to say, “I like that. Let me talk with you more?” This is content that you can share with networks on a weekly basis. We’re not talking about, go ahead and write your selling page eBook every week. We’re not talking about, write a journal or 1,000-word blog.

The blog still exists. It’s funny. Blogs are 700 words. It’s not that hard. You can write a similar word blog in roughly about 30 minutes. What I’m trying to get at is I can do that in a video in five minutes. Twice as fast as I talk, according to some of my friends. Something that’s going to be of interest to your network. What’s that going to be? Think about this. I would avoid politics and religion. We have some new tax changes, properties, foreclosure moratoriums, evictions, and all this good stuff. You can do a blog or a short video about what’s going on, how it affects you, and what you think about the story.

An email blast out to your database with a bit of that article or image about or something you found interesting. Sharing images to your social media profiles but commenting on them. This is the hottest thing. If you want investors to fund deals, you should share pictures of case studies or deals that you’re working on. Know your deals and know your numbers. Monthly? Yes. If you’re going to a meetup group or you’re jumping on a virtual event, yes, go monthly. It’s a monthly thing. The thing is if that’s your only thing of doing it, “I work too much. I don’t have titles and stuff. I’m just going to go to a meetup group.” Based on the American Marketing Association with 80% of sales happening after the fifth contact, that means you roughly need to go six months before you see any type of activity. Does that make any sense? The big overwhelming answer to that is no. It makes zero sense.

You still need to go. You still need to network. You still need to do something, but you’ve got to fill in that gap. If that’s once a month or once a quarter you’re going to, that’s a long time doing of not doing that. Unfortunately, in all the events that I’ve been to, that’s about what it is. They go once a month. That’s their edge. They think they market it because they got up in front of a room and spoke to 20 or 30 people, which are mostly on their phones and not paying attention because most of them are not doing anything. That’s not effective. That can’t be all that you’re doing. Unfortunately, that’s what most people are doing.

Why You Should Do Livestreams

We started doing live streams several years ago on a regular basis and we’ve been doing Note Night in America for over ten years. We’re doing a Facebook Live or YouTube Live or using a free Zoom account to share something like that. Livestream is one of the best places I can ask questions of you. I can see people that are on here, Marian is on here. Also, Mike Braze, Paul White, and Linda Martin. You get to know people and they get to know you. They get to know your idiosyncrasies. They can see if you’re on fire or you’re enjoying or having a good day or bad day. They get to do that. We’re not talking about, do one every hour and every other hour. I’m talking about once a week. Cody Cox usually does a Friday Stroll. I was like, “It’s a great thing.” He’s talking about his opinion. He’s talking about his thing. He’s doing it from his smartphone while he’s taking a little break.

 

People loved it then he stopped. People are doing a weekly Sunday night video. It was great and he stopped. You have to continue this marketing because you’re building momentum. You all get started off sharing things and it will go so far in your networks because your initial networks are going to be warm. Your friends, your families, people that love you, and people that aren’t in your networking groups. Start sharing some things. It’s an easy thing to do.

If you’ve got a smartphone, you can do this. If you want to start a podcast, it’s easy to do a podcast and it’s cheap. A Facebook Live and YouTube Live is almost like a podcast or taking the next step, start looking at other podcasts that are talking about case studies or podcasts in your area that are talking about investing in your city. Reach out to them. See if they’re looking for guests because most of them are. We talked about this Clubhouse app if you’re on an iPhone.

You have to be careful about Clubhouse. What I have found to be beneficial is jumping in and understanding who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, when you see some big names on there like Dan Fleischmann, Roland Frasier, Rachel Hollis, and even Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone gave some horrible advice. I was like, “What?” It’s become a way to help you grow some of your social networks so it’s not recorded unless you get tricky with some things.

Most of you can get on there and listen to people and connect with people on their Twitter or their Instagram account. That’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been identifying people on my Instagram account. I’ve seen people responding. We’ve had about 4 or 5 who already reach out to me to either talk to their audience. I had Cody asked me to speak on a live event they’re doing because I commented. I came on and I shared a little bit.

It’s a sharing app. I’m not looking to monetize. It’s like a party line, a networking event virtually that I can talk to you. I jump in and jump out. Some people spend all day on it, I would not do that. Especially if you’re listening, don’t. Get in there and find rooms going to interact and stuff like that. I would not spend my time on there unless you’ve got all this other stuff done that you can put together. You’re building your name and brand.

If you start sharing stuff on a regular basis, you’re pitching without pitching. That’s the most magical way to raise capital. Sharing the case studies and the deals you’re working on. He posted a video in his database going on about how he’s working and he’s got a tape into 144 assets. He did a nice map and he sent that map out of the assets he did. He put his pitch deck video on there and a couple of case study videos that they recorded. First, email, and then he got a phone call.

He was working full-time but it started marketing while everyone was working. People were looking at it and watching the videos. You can always buy a list too. If you don’t have a database, yes, you can buy a list. It takes a little bit longer but if you do buy a list, there are other things that you can do. If I didn’t have a list in my database, I would jump on Facebook and go to some Facebook groups, some live streams that were going on there or I will jump over to BiggerPockets. I’m not the biggest fan of BiggerPockets but they have a cool way for you to find people that have money who are looking to invest.

It’s ridiculously stupid and you all should be doing this. It’s a way of doing this. If you have new people that are on Facebook Live or on a live stream that’s self-directed IRA companies and you see people comment and come in, connect with them. Send them a message on Facebook. See if they’re on LinkedIn. Connect with them personally. Send a message to them, “It was nice seeing you talk about that. I enjoyed that. I’m looking to connect with other investors.” They’re going to say, “Great. I’m looking to connect with other investors too.”

What you can do then is once you’ve connected with them on LinkedIn, or you’ve gotten an email, you can go and import them into your database. Put them on your list. You see them on LinkedIn and they haven’t reciprocated or spoken to you. What I like to do when I like somebody to be on my thing, I’ll go and look at them on LinkedIn. I’ll comment on there. I’ll send them a message or send them a comment. I try to add value to them and post on a regular basis. I follow them and they’ll start following my stuff and they’re always going to come to my stuff. That’s a great way to do it.

I know many of you are at work and don’t have time to spend time on Facebook, so maybe you need to jump on Octopus and do some bulk connecting. You can import over. Go into a search for real estate investors, note investors, real estate investor Georgia, real estate investor Indiana, and Octopus will help you pull this list that you can send out, “Hello. Looking to connect with investors in Georgia. We’ve been doing this now. We’re looking to connect with other investors.” “Houston, being one of our top markets, I’m looking to connect with other investors in Houston because they come across all sorts of deals in Houston and stuff like that. I’d love to connect with you.”

In one day, I had 20 people respond out of 50 that went out that gave me their email and told me to add them to their list. If you’ve put together an email list like in MailChimp, you can say, “If you’d like to get on my list, click here to get my list,” but I like to make it a little bit personal. Yes, Gary. If you take your email list of people, you can upload 1,000 people into LinkedIn and if they have an email address that’s on their LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn will send them a connect invite. You can do that, Gary. That’s what I love about LinkedIn.

As you connect people, if you don’t have a person’s email on LinkedIn and now you may reach out for connection and they say, yes, ask them for their email. It’s twenty emails a day. You can invite 2 or 3 people on here from that. Have you your email list. Create a buyer’s list on there. You create an investor’s list. I need the top five states that you’re buying and I need to make a list of Ohio, Georgia, and Florida investors.

Octopus is a great thing. It’s sending out, “I want to connect with other people in Florida. Are you still investing? Great. I’d love to talk with you.” I can automate and set up a system that’s automated that I get up, start, go to work, come back at night, or come home at night, hit start, have dinner with the kids in the family and it’s working in the background for me. You could use this to crowdfund. What’s the number one term in crowdfunding?

Crowd. You have to have a freaking crowd. Setting up your fund doesn’t make sense if you have no crowd to market to. You can set up your own crowdfund but that’s going to take $10,000, $20,000 to $50,000. That doesn’t make any sense to do right now, Tony. You need to understand how marketing works because crowdfunding doesn’t work if you don’t have a crowd. Why spend money to put together documents and private placement memorandum when you have no people to send them to?

You’ve got to build a network for you and you’re still going to need the same assets when you start a hedge fund. You’re going to need a pitch deck and you need an executive summary. You would love those, so you might as well start that thing off first to begin with. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Let’s not try to go from 0 to 100 when you haven’t even started walking yet. Start walking, Tony. You can create a custom opt-in list. You put that link in the message and get people to opt into it. It’s a matter of getting the word out in front of people. If you want to go from cold to warm quickly, here’s what I like to do.

It’s like my 5, 6 step approach to getting people to go from a cold contact that I don’t know to a warm contact quickly. If I meet them someplace, that’s great. I’ll go up to people and be like, “How’s it going? My name is Scott. What’s going on?” We’ll talk more if I see him sitting there. If you have ever been to a networking event with me, you’ll see that I go up and talk to people all the time. For some of you that are introverts, this can be scary.

Go up and start a conversation. Have a business card or get their contact information, “It was great talking with you.” That’s one of the things I do. If I’m talking to them, if I met them in a meet-up group or networking group and we’re listening to somebody, they’ll jump online and find them on LinkedIn. It’s like, “It was nice to connect with you.” “It’s nice to talk with you earlier.” I do this all the time. I do this at conferences, events, and virtual events all the time too.

It’s like, “Great talking with you.” “It’s great being on Clubhouse with you.” “Great movement.” I love doing that. People love that. This is working. It’s connecting. If they’re an investor and I’m doing an investor, I’d say, “Can I see your investor? I’ve got a buyer’s list where when I get deals in and I want to take down. If you let me know what your top three states are or if you go here and register, I can send it out to you. I’m not going to spam you. I’m not going to waste your time if I don’t have something. I’m not going to sit here and sell your information. It’s not what I do.”

A lot of times, they join your buyer’s list. They click on your link that you have for MailChimp and now you have their information. Their first name, last name, email, city, state. Top three states. It’s easy. That’s great and now you’ve got their information and share it. What I liked to do is here on my database. I’ll send a weekly email out to my database, most of you guys get Note Night in America once a week. Sometimes twice is a reminder. Email database on Sunday night.

What’s the best time to send an email to your database? It’s not Monday. Tuesday during the day would be the follow-up but it’s Sunday night, roughly 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM. Send an email and you can see by using an email service provider like MailChimp, who opened your email on your first round of emails. You’re sitting there and you’re building a big enough list. It probably would be around 15% to 20%. That’s a good list.

We’re sharing what I’m working on. Here’s a new deal we’re working on. Here’s a new tape that I’m working on. You’re building that momentum. It’s like, “Tony is working on something. Didn’t Tony send an email out last week but I saw where he was working on some other assets or property?” “He is doing something big. I’ve seen him working on 144 assets. This week, he’s working on that list.” “Look, this video he’s got on here. Let’s see what he’s doing. It’s ten minutes.” I’ve got ten minutes to watch. I don’t have an hour, but I’ve got ten.

Post content to your social media, connect with them on social media. We’ve talked about this during our virtual workshops before in the event coaching. Two weeks before the event started, start going to pick out your market. Start sharing and picking out the cities that you’re in. If you see a big list of people in Florida and you see an article on Florida assets, that would be a valuable asset. They’re like, “Did you know that they’re going to do this foreclosure back up in Florida?”

Also, “I’ve got a deal in Jacksonville.” You got a deal in my backyard. I like San Antonio. I’d love some margaritas and fajitas. Chicago is good. I hate Chicago. No, but that’s the thing. You start sharing these case studies and have your pitch deck at the bottom of his attachment where people are clicking on it and sharing it. It builds that warm following quickly. One of the most advantageous things that I have is my YouTube and my podcast. Whether there not been five videos on there but hundreds or thousands of videos on YouTube and 600 plus episodes of the podcast because I get phone calls all the time from people that say, “I’ve watched your videos. I’ve binged your content. Let’s talk.”

You guys can do the same thing. You don’t have to do hour-long videos or hour-long podcast episodes. The biggest bang for the buck is short 2 to 5-minute videos talking about a case study, sharing that you know what you’re talking about. You know the numbers on a deal and why it makes sense or why it didn’t make sense, “I can trust him or her.” “I can trust Jessica because she markets on a regular basis. I see the deal she’s working on. She killed that deal last week.”

Why? There was a family of rodents living in it. That’s why she called it the squirrel house. We had a house in Lauderdale, Florida called the Bat House. Why? It had the worst bat infestation in the county. It had guano everywhere. I felt like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective but those little stories add life. It gets people to see that you’re more than just a logo or a name. You’re a person. Do you know who people work with, who write checks to, and do business with? They do with people and companies that they like.

Share your stuff. Don’t be afraid to share it. You’re going to screw up. You’re going to stumble. You’re going to misspell. They’re going to get numbers off. That’s okay. You’re doing more than anybody else. If you remember, we were all growing up your teachers were always leaning on you if you were the first one to go. If you were the first that got out, you could screw up on stuff but the fact that you were first, you always had that curve. You always got a better grade because of that. It’s the same thing.

 

People will give you leeway on goofing up stuff and things not being perfect because if you keep doing it consistently, they’re going to see you start to polish. They can see your emails and your video start looking sharper. They’re like, “I like this. They’ve got some good stuff.” Rome wasn’t built in a day and a perfect pitch deck wasn’t built in a day. It was built over time by putting things in place and connecting with people.

The beautiful thing is when these people are looking and sharing this stuff. You do have a deal that you need to get funding, you have something on that and then you send that email out, which is the 4th or 5th contact not the first, “Fund my stuff. Buy my stuff. I know we connected ten seconds ago on LinkedIn but I need your $100,000 to fund a project in Ghana.” I don’t even know you. What’s the big thing is these guys that are personal trainers, “How’s your workout fitness? I can put a fitness plan together for you.” I don’t know you. You’re in Chicago or Timbuktu.

Ladies, I know you’ve been dealing that with guys and pervert stuff for years. The idea is these dusters leading people to pick up the phone. They end up calling you and leaving those viable phone calls. Where it’s like, “I already know what you do. Let’s talk about a deal. Let’s talk about the deal that you send out. I already know what you’re doing. I followed you for 3 months, 6 months, or 3 weeks. I love what you’re doing.”

One time, I posted on MeetUp.com in a San Antonio Meetup group that I was a member of but I’ve never attended in person. I just joined it. I posted a picture and video of a property that I was working on. The numbers made sense. They liked the short video of me talking about the case study. I had twelve people call me in less than twelve hours wanting to fund this $70,000 deal. Twelve people at $70,000 each. How much is that when you combine that all up? That’s $840,000. Do you know what they all said? They wanted to fund it. I’m like, “I’ve already got somebody who’s already beat you to the punch but can I put you in a backup position in case they flake off, or can I get you on the next one?” They all said, “Yes. Call me on the next one.”

Ladies and gentlemen, everybody it’s on here. The fact that you can log into Zoom, you can do things. I want to run this little poll here real fast. I want you to answer this question. I’m going to answer these questions real fast. If you have a LinkedIn profile, answer yes. Do you have a YouTube account? If you have a Gmail address of any sort you have a YouTube account. Do you have a BiggerPockets profile? Yes or no. Answer the questions there for you. The fourth question, have you ever created a Word document? Yes.

Do you know how to use PowerPoint? Yes. Most of you should be answering this stuff. If you don’t have a BiggerPockets account, get one. If you don’t have a YouTube account, get one. It’s free. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, go get the free one. It’s important for you guys to do that because those things all add to this customer journey, to be able to connect with people and take things to the next level.

Go From Cold To Warm

I can’t say to you again. Doug cannot handle SurveyMonkey. Fail. I know yours are yeses. What I’m trying to get at is you want to go from cold to warm. Those are the things to do now. If you want to get some great low-hanging investor stuff, people doing some stuff to find some stuff for you, where you can fund money stuff, you’ve got your pitch deck, and some other things are done, we’ll cover that there. I already know the answers to this stuff.

Most of you have this stuff. Eighty eight percent of you have all the stuff. You need to do it. There’s no excuse for you not to do the little things we’ve talked about. If you’re not doing it, it’s you choosing to be stubborn and be lazy and not have success. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Most of you aren’t taking the action because you’re lazy and you’re content in your comfort zone. No offense but comfort zones don’t get us anywhere. I always say that because I’m guilty of that too. I have comfort zones I need to get out of.

If you want some low-hanging fruit, here’s some great way to do stuff. You’ve heard me talk about going into county records, the county clerk’s office, county appraisal district, and pulling a list of investors. It gives you their name and what and what they fun in. They’ve got your name. Jump on LinkedIn and send a short message or short email with a picture of the property, “I saw that you bought this. I’d love to talk if you’re looking for more deals.” That’ll get people to respond quickly.

Find them on Facebook. It’s the same thing. Self-directed IRA strings talked about this. Connect with those who comment on Facebook or YouTube on those videos. If you see meet-ups or virtual events, connect people to follow those people and connect with those people because they’re IRA investors as well. Here’s the number one thing for you guys if you have a BiggerPockets account, and half of you answered said you do and the other half said you don’t, get one, it’s free.

One of the things they ask you to set up in your profile is keywords. In your settings, you ask for keywords. What we do is we set up keywords, let’s say, “I have $50,000, $75,000, $100,000 to invest,” because there are all sorts of people on BiggerPockets good, ugly, and bad but people will post on their brand. A lot of branding people, “What should I do? I have $50,000, $75,000, $100,000 invest.” You send a connection to those people you connect and with them, “I saw your post,” and you put the link to your pitch deck. It’s your ten-minute video. “I wanted to share what I do. It might be a great alternative for you to put your $50,000, $100,000, or $75,000 to work.”

It’s like, “I saw your posts and thought you might find this interesting.” It’s a great easy shooting fish in a barrel. You want to do it with people that have the most recent comments that are less than a year and you can only do twelve connects on BiggerPockets this way in a day. Otherwise, they’ll shut you down. You may even need to tweak up your wording, so don’t completely copy and paste things. Share a link to your pitch deck. Our buddy Wayne Snell uses this effectively. He raised over $2 million in this one tactic alone because he had a good pitch deck. He had good basic information. He went on there and shared it twelve times a day with different people and it worked out well.

Those are the low-hanging fruit. The way you perfect is by practice, practice, practice, and making things happen. We’ve covered a lot. I do want to remind you that our next Virtual Note Buying workshop is in over a month, February 26th,27th, and 28th, 2021, the last week in February 2021. Come fall in love with notes we’ll talk about the find, the fun the flip. Friday on finding assets and asset managers. Saturday on funding deals raising capital and more marketing. Sunday is about flip, exit strategies, and systems. It’s $599. It’s good for you plus a spouse or business partner. Replays are included but I want to open it up here guys.

For questions and if you’re interested, sign-up at NoteBuyingForDummies.com and you get the replays of the December 2020 class and start learning now. I love that you guys are here. We’ve covered a lot of stuff. If you’re in Note Nation, go to Note Nation. Check out that video. Check out Derek Elder’s pitch deck. Both guys did a tremendous job on their pitch deck talking about what they’re doing. They’re going to end up editing at some point but what a great way to start off things. Subscribe to brand new YouTube channels.

They’re doing some great case study videos. It’s a long way. The age-old question, I’m afraid to ask. Find money or deals first. I know it’s both. Great question, Doug. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? They both come. Yes, good deals will find your money but if you’re in the note business speed up things. You need to be doing both. If you’re marketing for deals, you should be marketing for investors at the same time, because there are enough case studies out there, so you have stuff both going on. Do both. Thanks for answering.

“Why $50,000, $75,000 and $100,000?” It’s because they’re saying that, Wayne, “I’ve $50,000, $75,000, and $100,000 to invest.” They’re saying that in their quotes, when we put those as keywords BiggerPockets will send you an alert or you’ll be able to see people that have put it up. It filters through the thousands of wasted comments or anybody else asking everything and every other thing. It allows you to filter through all the mess.

Use an LLC, Tamiko. You can use a self-directed IRA but if you mean profits, you can’t put profits from your deal that you find with your self-directed IRA. It’s going to go back to your self-directed IRA, so you’re going to be using both. I use an IRA and I use an LLC. They’re two different entities. Doug, thank you for saying that. People will test you. They give you $50,000 to try out and later offer up $100,000 the next time around and on and on. Yes, they do. That’s a great point, Doug. I’m glad you said that. $50,000 and $75,000 start making that network. It means low-hanging fruit. Why wouldn’t you do it? Maybe they won’t send a damn postcard or letter out to IRA investors, so you might have to jump on BiggerPockets and start that warm content. If you don’t have a pitch deck and case studies it doesn’t do any good. Take the time to put a PowerPoint together. We’re talking about case study PowerPoints. It’s 5 or 6 slides.

A pitch deck might be twenty slides but it’s 11 to 15 minutes long. Something short and sweet. That’s what you have to do. That’s how you pitch without pitching. You get good at talking about your craft, you build rapport with your audience, and get things rocking and rolling. It takes time. Every person you come in contact with they’re part of your tribe. You can call yourself an investor, Alice. We’ll be posting this video replay on YouTube.com or if you go WeCloseNotes.tv. Any other questions, comments, or concerns? Great.

 

Important Links

• Dean Graziosi
• Jason Bible
• Perfect Pitch – Previous episode
• Cody Cox – LinkedIn
• YouTube – We Close Notes
• NoteBuyingForDummies.com
• MeetUp.com
• YouTube.com

 

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