Real Estate Investing: How to Use Voice Mail Systems to Improve Your Marketing Response Rate

Choose a Voice Mail System


Before setting up voice mail systems you have to choose one that will suit the needs of your business.  I use a company called Freedom Voice Systems. I think there are probably 8 or 10 different programs out there that are somewhat similar. A typical voice mail system will have a couple different price points depending on your needs.

A basic system may only have 10-20 different voice mail boxes. A more advanced system, the one that we use, has I think has 1,000 boxes or maybe 900. I think it starts at 100 and goes to 999, so I guess that’s 900 total boxes that we have available within the voice mail system.

A typical price for a voice mail system of any real quality is going to be somewhere around $20-40/month, a very minimal investment in terms of the amount of money that you put into that.

Using Voice Mail to Improve Response Rate


What a voice mail system allows you to do, once you’ve got it in place – let’s say you want to start marketing to sellers. You want to go out and you want to create some marketing pieces. You’re going to have let’s say a newspaper ad, you’re going to have a postcard, maybe you’re going to have your business card, and you’re going to have one or two other pieces of marketing, whatever they might be.

With each one of those various pieces of marketing, you’re going to put a different box number. You’re going to put Box 100, Box 101, Box 102, Box 103. The reason for that is that every time somebody calls you off of one of your pieces of marketing, the system will record where that came from.

Let’s say at the end of your first month you’ve got 10 calls on Box 103. Let’s say Box 103 was postcards, so you know that if you sent out let’s say 1,000 postcards and you got 10 calls back, that’s a 1% response. That’s not a bad response. Now maybe there’s some things you can do to make it better, but you know at least on your first mailing you got a 1% response. That’s not bad. It allows you to know precisely what your results were. You can know it mathematically.

So now what you can do the next month is maybe you send out another 1,000 postcards. Maybe you change the headline, maybe you make the offer a little bit nicer, maybe you change some of the information. You change the postcard, you do it again, and this time you get 15 calls the next month. Obviously what you did that second month is better than what you did the first month. Now you’ve improved your system and it’s gotten even better.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog.

Why Private Lending is HOT!

We are all aware that real estate prices are down anywhere from 15% to 40% across the country.  In the past, you might have invested $15k to $30k to buy rental property that rented for $1,000 per month and netted the investor 10% to 15% on their investment. 

Now you can buy that same property for dramatically less but the rent has remained the same, or even gone up slightly, over the last couple years.  So the return to the investor has gone up substantially and 30% to 50% returns on your investment are ordinary today

The hard part right now is being able to get a bank loan. Banks want to see 20% to 40% down from real estate investors AND excellent credit, traditional employment, and personal guarantees.  If you do not meet these criteria you are essentially lock out of the traditional mortgage market and will be unable to borrow money from banks.  Many of the other non-traditional loans such as “no-doc”, ALT-A and no money down loans have all disappeared due the financial crisis.

So what is the solution for real estate investors that have been locked out of the traditional mortgage market?   
Private Lending is the answer!

Private lending is a consistent source of funds with which to purchase real estate deals and to which you can often go back to again and again and again.  In fact, the more you use, the more will become available as you develop relationships with more private lenders.

The reason why private lending is HOT today is so many people are lock out of the traditional mortgage market and private money is their only option to get money for real estate investments.

What is private lending and who are private lenders?

The definition of a ‘private lender’ is an individual that you can negotiate directly with on a personal one-on-one basis from whom you wish to borrow money for real estate investments.  The money can be used to purchase rental real estate investments or to supplement funds borrowed from a bank to cover down payments.

Private lenders come from all walks of life and may not know the first thing about the real estate business.  But what they do have is extra cash or assets that they can invest in your real estate deals.   These individuals are generally middle class people, who have some extra funds to lend.  They can be retired business people, corporate executives, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, or business owners or even blue collar workers. 

Private lenders are looking for returns substantially above the 3% to 5% they get at the bank with CD’s or money markets.  Most private lenders are looking for investment returns in the 9% to 15% range and secured by local rental real estate. 


For more information please go to http://www.private-lending-secrets.com/.

Property Management Secrets for Real Estate Investors

One of the best ways to build up long-term wealth and passive income is by buying and holding rental properties.

While being a "landlord " isn’t a glamorous job… if you run your rental property business correctly, it can be a very rewarding, easy, and profitable way to invest in real estate.

In just 72 hours we are starting a power packed 3 4 Night Live Tele-seminar where you'll learn simple step-by-step process to develop your own Property Management Program for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches.

Imagine the money you will save by simply avoiding one bad tenant (can you say $1,000's). Now imagine having good tenants that pay on time and do not call you with minor problems and allow you the time and energy to focus on buying more real estate and growing your business.

Well this program will give the knowledge to achieve these goals.

To learn more about Property Management Secrets for Real Estate Investors and listen to a 30 minute audio please click here ===> http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Who is Property Managements Secrets For?

• Prospective property owners and landlords
• First time property investors
• Portfolio builders who need their properties to work for them
• Experienced multi-property landlords looking to get the most from their property

This course starts Thursday September 10, 2009 so sign up tonight at http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Thanks

Mike

http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/

The Top 10 Real Estate Investment Blogs

I have compiled a list of the Top 10 Real Estate Investing blogs – several of them I use on a regular basis and recommend you do the same. I try to take the good and interesting blog post and routine post them on my blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

Please bookmark this site and I will update from time to time, so stay tuned.

Enjoy the list, and if you like or know other blogs too, e-mail me or include them in the comment field, and I’ll take a look.

The Top 10 Real Estate Investment Blogs

http://www.realestateweblog.org/

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/

http://www.investorwealth.com/blog/

http://www.equityscout.com/blog

http://www.investing-secrets.com/

http://topsites.blogflux.com/real-estate/

http://www.investorloft.com/blog/

http://www.inman.com/blog

http://www.reiblog.org/

http://www.realestatewebprofits.com/rewp/blog/real-estate-blog.php

Thanks

Mike

http://www.LearnRealEstateInvestingBlog.com/

Property Management Secrets for Maximum Profit -Teleconference Starts Next Thrusday

Many of you are aware that I started a property management company
about 3 years ago. We currently serve over 100 real estate
investors and manage about 200 rental properties.

As part of starting this company, I have had the “privilege” of
making just about every mistake known to man. We have done stupid
things like

• Advertised with a typo in the phone number and wrong house number;
• Misplaced a lease and was not able to find it later;
• Putting tenants into a property and the tenant never made another rent payment after that; and
• Used a contractor and actual paid him before they did the work – Mistake……

Why do I tell you about my mistakes…to show you that I have made
all these mistakes and now I can teach you how to avoid them and
possible save you from making the same mistakes and save you
thousands of dollars?

As part of the Property Management Secrets for Real Estate
Investors tele-course starting September 10, 2009 we will spend a
lot time talking about things like

• Professional management versus “Mom and Pop” management and why a professional management style is the key to long term success
• The Advantages of Professional management

i) Improved profits
ii) Maintain your property for long term value
iii) More fun dealing with better tenants and more cash flow

• Part-time versus Full-time property management and how to balance

If you would like more info on the Property Management Secrets
starting September 10, 2009 and get FREE 60 minute audio please go
to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Thanks
Mike Lautensack
http://www.LearnRealEstateInvestingBlog.com/