If you have been to Lab, listened to the Home Study Program, or if you are simply an insightful person, you understand how important having a strong team is to your success.
Hopefully, if you have been at this for a while you have done a deal and used your team to secure and complete your project.
When I teach at Lab I provide dozens of key people and contacts you need to develop and balance to ensure a strong self-sustaining business over time. Some of these are obvious: realtor, contractor, mortgage broker, escrow professional…and some that are more esoteric: Fed-Ex driver, probate lawyer, bail bondsman, etc. It is my hope that every student I touch takes the team building discussion to heart because I know how integral it was in my success as a foreclosure investor.
(Take advantage of ForeclosureS.com’s expertise and sign up today for our home-study program! It’s our exclusive step-by-step system for closing great deals in today’s market.)
I work hard with my coaching students on making these key acquaintances and nurturing them over time. This not only keeps the workload sane, it creates many more opportunities for my students to do deals, save money, and avoid mistakes. I think all sane investors would agree that leveraging your efforts through an inspired network of team mates is a great idea, but I bet a lot of those investors would admit that, over time, they may take those relationships for granted and fail to capitalize on some of the opportunities that come from nurturing them and keeping them vital and fresh.
Knowing that one good lead could translate into over $50,000 to you, I implore you to figure out a way to not let that happen…better yet, let me pass along a system that I developed that has served me well in a number of professional capacities over the years.
TEAM MAINTENANCE
This activity requires a recipe.
Ingredients:
• Contact system: you should have a mail merge system with a word processor and/or e-mail. I use Outlook, with Business Contact Manager.
• Four categories of team members. Communicate with them daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly to annually.
• At least one hundred thank you or blank note cards with postage ready at all times.
• A list of key milestones that you would find worthy of publicizing, i.e. acquiring a house, completing a rehab, completing an assignment, closing a sale, etc.
Once you have these ingredients together, use your contact system to alert you to call or drop an e-mail to each of your team members at the pre-defined frequencies.
Every time you make an appointment to visit with one of your team members, address and stamp a thank you note and hand write a quick thank you (you can actually do most or all of this before the meeting). Then send it out the day you meet. This not only is courteous, but it sends a strong message to your team members that you are thoughtful, grateful, and that you will likely handle any lead that they send you in a fashion that will rub off positively on them.
Every time you achieve one of your milestones, blast an e-mail out to each of your team members. Have standard blurbs already written that only require the deal specifics to complete. You don’t want to get bogged down in creative overkill here, just get the word out. Make sure to thank as many publicly as possible and make sure to follow up with individual thank you notes to the team members who really went above and beyond.
By keeping in constant positive contact with your team you accomplish many things. First and foremost you continue to show all of those around you that you are in business and getting deals done. Secondly, you position yourself as a nice and memorable person to do business with. Remember, just one qualified lead for you can amount to over $50k.
If you are disciplined and stick to this kind of treatment for all of the key contacts in your life, you will find that deals seemingly come out of nowhere. You will spend far less time beating the bushes for deals and far more time having deals come to you from qualified sources.
I am always amazed at how most of what really works in the business world is both common sense and common courtesy. Sadly a lot of that has been lost in the world of business and in life in general. The good news though is that because of the sad state of courtesy and common sense in our world, it has never been easier to stand out as an investor that everyone would like to do business with.
Remember, The Extra Mile Is A Road That Is Very Seldom Crowded. Try this month’s tips for the next six months and watch how your world changes.
My warmest wishes for a pleasant and profitable summer.
Don’t miss this invaluable opportunity! Listen in on Wednesday, August 11, 2010, 6 pm PST to our Free Webinar for Foreclosure Investors: New Market, New Plan. Make Big Profits, With None of Your Own Cash!
Attend our exclusive, interactive Live Mastering Clients Private Study Session Webinar on Tuesday, August 17, 2010, 6 pm PST. Alexis, a 25-year veteran investor, will lead you through everything you need to know about Step 5: Contracting and Flipping Your Deal.
