The Williams' Road from Rags to Riches

So today I spent a couple hours on DG reading posts, articles, and advice. I have started a website for our company. I plan to finish it tomorrow. I want to direct my online traffic to it. Is that a good idea? I hope so. I am hesitant to direct them to our cell phones at this point. I would rather have a landline in place or some other form of voicemail for them to go to. Any ideas anyone?

There are several good options. I'll start with Google voice because it's free and very powerful if you implement some of it's many features. Here's how it works, you go to the Google website and sign up for a g mail e-mail address. During the sign up process it will ask you if you would like to include other Google features. You can choose a Google voice phone number (in almost any area code you like) and have it auto forward to your cell, home or other phone number or just take voice messages which you can check anytime from anywhere. There are options on that phone line for a employee directory, dept directory etc. as well as email or text alerts when you receive voice messages. So you can appear as large or small as you desire.

Another option is a 800 number. There are several websites that offer 800 numbers at very reasonable prices (much lower than years ago). https://www.callture.com/Products/tollfree/Default.aspx?gclid=CK-JwdOl4q... has a plan for 500 minutes a month for $20 or https://www.evoice.com/pricing has a 1000 minute plan for 29.95 a month with free set up and activation. There are a few others as well.
But either one is good place to begin.

Hope this helps and congratulations on taking the leap...

Hi Williams family,
Love your journal.Guess what ,I found this free voice message service @ https://www.freeconferencecall.com
I needed one as well,I hope this helps ,if you don't already have a service.
I am new to REI so I am all over everywhere.
Here's to you Williams family, On your Success !

In peace,
Jannahbean1

Well, our day 4 journal was deleted because we violated some rules about personal websites. Sorry about that guys. In a nutshell, that post said that we had completed our company website and had some ads ready to post. At the time we were still debating about the phone number predicament. Thanks to the posts from Jannahbean1 and InTheMix, we found a local phone number to use with amazing capabilities. (Thanks guys!) Soooo.... the website is now up, the phone number and carefully scripted voicemail are set up. And we have published several ads on free sites, including craigslist. We will continue to tweek our website until we get it to look the way it should. It does not look unprofessional now, its just not very elaborate. We will post 5 ads every day. Our goal is to have a cash buyers list of at least 15 qualified buyers to start with. Bandit signs are our next venture! Wish us luck!

I'm glad to see you have started this journal. Anytime you put yourself "out there" for the world to see it adds a measure of determination to get things done. You have some good suggestions that some of the other members have given you above. I look forward to seeing your progress as you move forward on your journey.

Thank you cstrickland. We appreciate the vote of confidence. Today was a somewhat productive day. We finally got our business cards finished. We printed 3 sets because we couldn't decide which ones to use. We have failed at the post of 5 ads a day. As of right now, we have posted 0ne today and none yesterday. There is a lot going on in hte hosue right now and I am suffering at some of my other goals. smh. Thats ok. i know it won't always be like this.

The last week has been totally non-productive in the real estate zone. I had to pick up extra shifts at work and made 3 cakes this week. But the hubby and I discovered our weakness in this whole thing--fear! We have made a website, made business cards, wrote out ads, studied in our success university, looked for REI clubs (to no avail) and truly that is all busy work. We have yet to speak to anyone regarding being our real estate agent. We have yet to truly build our buyers list. And why is that? We are afraid of sounding stupid or uneducated. Talking to people is not my husbands strong suit so we decided I would be the one to handle most of that, at least in the beginning. And yet, we have not done it. I know there is nothing to it but to do it, so what is stopping me? I don't know...

I'm glad to see a fellow Williams family having confidence.But you have to do what's uncomfortable,that's what all millionaire's do.Have faith and take massive action.To build your buyer list put unresistable ghost ads on CL for Investors.Every time I do this I get 1-3 buyers.Also call all the for rent ads in the newspaper,some will be Investors.Hope this Helps!

Many Blessings

So my husband and I listened to the Building Your Buyers List call last night. 3rd time. This time some things clicked that did not click with us before. We had a very serious talk about action steps and what to do next. We made a checklist. Today, we emailed a real estate agent from remax. She called back almost immediately. We had a frank discussion with her about everything and she told her we needed backing. So I told her we were working on that and when we had what we needed would she be willing to work with us. She said yes I will give you a shot! Then she proceeded to tell us about a property, a duplex. We looked at it, called her and she opened it up for us to inspect further. City appraises it at 46.5k. It opened in february for 37.5k, has sinced dropped to 32.5k. Owner is willing to finance. On the way home from inspecting the property, I stopped at a favorite gas station. I guess the owner could see the excitement on my face. I told him we had just found an excellent property. He said if we don't buy it to let him know! We just found our first investor! Soooo, I called the real estate success team, discussed it with Diane and we put in a cash offer of $24k. Wish us luck! If somebody would have told me when I got up this morning that we would be making an offer on ANYTHING today I would have laughed my tail off. All in all, I posted 2 ads today, talked to the success team about some things i didn't understand. Got on a mailing list for upcoming local real estate auctions (for networking purposes), searched craigslist for some "I buy houses" type of folks, and found another possible investor - a local landlord that owns over 70 properties. What a great day!

Late this afternoon, the RE agent called me back and let me know the owner would settle for $27k. I am ecstatic! We go to her office tomorrow morning to sign a contract. I called the advisory team and spoke to Chris. He walked me through assigning a contract and sent me some further resources. I am so very excited about all of this! Funny how easy it is to let inner voices hinder you. I am not really sure what we were waiting on and I could kick us for not acting sooner. But the important thing is we finally did act. Even if this deal falls through somehow, the lights have come on and we are chomping at the bit. Ready! Our internet got cut off monday morning so we have been coming to Hastings to use their free wifi. Today I used it to look up other potential investors in the county records. Found some that own quite a few properties. I plan to contact them either tomorrow or friday to see if we can add them to our buyers list. My husband is at home calling four possible investors right now. Bound and determined to get this buyers list ready so we can move on our next possible deal. Very excited.

Thanks! And my husband just called me to tell me we have another buyer to add to our list. He is interested in the property we are putting under contract tomorrow. I can hardly sit still, i am so excited. im sure these people in hastings think i am a complete idiot for the cheshire cat grin on my face. lol.

Signed contract with the broker this morning on the duplex. Have 10 days option. Put down $100 EM (they wanted $500) and $50 option fee. Seller has not signed yet so 10 days won't start until he does. probably tomorrow. One of the investors is going to get back to me tomorrow. Got busy with work and kids but tomorrow I am going to contact the other investors. My husband got leads today on 2 more investors and 4 more properties. This whole thing is like a whirlwind! I am so excited.

I just read all your journals. That is exciting! I am waiting on my first deal. I have one I am waiting on my coach to run numbers to make sure I will make an appropriate offer. I hope I have as good of luck as you! Congrats!

So today was not as productive as I would have like but at least it's not a step back. Our initial investor we had hopes for did not like the neighborhood so he declined. We have another one currently looking at the numbers. I posted on craigslist an exciting ad yesterday but no calls yet. Today i went and bought stuff for bandit signs to be put out in the morning. The area has a large hispanic population so i gave my ad to a friend to be translated into spanish. i am about to place an ad on here about the house. i made a possible business contact on here. I must admit I am nervous about this. My initial excitement is trying to turn into "what if..." I know that if i fail to make this sale happen, it is not the end of the world and I am only out $50 but... In the meantime, i must keep learning, keep progressing... We are making calls to potential investors every day. We are researching possible properties every day. This one deal is my primary focus but definitely not my only focus. I have actually foregone the gym to do this! lol. But I know once I get this first deal done, I can breathe.

GO GO GO !!! This is inspiring me!

I started a facebook business page for us. And placed the current property focus on both MY fb and the business one.

Busy bee this weekend. Made and placed bandit signs yesterday morning. Made flyers with tear offs and flyers to pass out. Got one call today but they wanted us to owner finance. Typed letter for local investor. We'll see. Still optimistic, still searching and researching. It'll come.

Good job guys! Great to see you guys moving along. Can't wait to read the post when you say your first deal is complete!

I have really enjoyed reading your journal.. You were saying that you were afraid of doing anything because you didnt wasnt to sound like you didnt know.. Thats what Im going through. Today I fianlly called an agent and hes sending me an email tomorrow. Now for the buyers list... Thank s again for sharing..
Looking forward to reading how its all going.

Today has been unproductive. My agent called and told me the seller has not returned the contact to her yet. So I wonder when our 10 day option started??? Found out through the success team that some of our tactics have been illegal so I had to edit our craigslist ad, our website, and the bandit signs. Glad we only put out 10! Got a call from a new DGer from our area. Hope to continue networking. Worked late today so I didnt get to make the phone calls I neefed to. Maybe tomorrow. Not good, not bad. Just a day. Until tomorrow fellow DGers...

Today my RE agent called and said the title company now has the contract. She also said he isn't impressed with our small amount of earnest money and that he has another buyer lined up if we don't pull this off. Not sure how I feel about any of that. We took a potential buyer over to see the property and I am pretty sure he is not going to give us what we are asking when he finds out what we are getting it for. He understands we are trying to assign the contract. At this point I could care less if we just made 1k on it at long as we get this first deal out of the way and we don't have to back out of the contract. We have already learned some valuable lessons in this deal. And I really thought I was going to have to get a new real estate agent. Sometimes she seems so clueless... Tomorrow morning I am going to see this potential buyer with a contract and see if he is truly interested. On a different note, we got 2 calls today about the property. One i was unable to answer and they did not leave a message. The other guy seemed interested, but he too seemed to be searching for owner financing. I sure wish we knew a way to just buy this property ourselves. Our credit will not allow the loan. And we have no down payment anyway. I KNOW we could get it rented quickly and make it cash flow... ugghhhhh. Makes you hate the society we were raised in - this "right now" society.

Started a Linked in and a Twitter for our business. I know, i know, its just busy work. But its one more (actually 2 more) social media type way of advertising. I am trying to get our name out there as much as possible. Keeping our name in people's minds and mouths HAS to be a good thing.... Familiarity and all that. idk. Keep your fingers crossed about this meeting in the morning. Good night DGers.

I bought some paper that was on sale, made especially for flyers and such. Need ideas on where to pass out the flyers... windshields? people at the mall? idk... any ideas?

Oh my goodness. I just left from my meeting, if you can call it that, with the prospective buyer. He said he only wants to deal with the agent. I explained to him that we had the property under contract and he told me it didnt matter, that he would just wait for it to fall through and deal directly with the agent. The "meeting" lasted less than 1 minute. UUGGGHHHHHH! I hope I find a buyer for this property. His attitude about the whole thing really irritates me. People don't like to deal with things they don't understand and he clearly didn't understand assignment of contract. And then he basically told me he is going to get the property anyway???? that makes me so mad!

So after I journaled yesterday, I got a call from a real estate agent out of DFW area. He and I met shortly after we got back from the 3 day workshop. He does not have a branch office here but he said he was willing to help in any way he could. I had not heard from him since the end of March but I added him on my new Linked In account and he called me. Then I spoke to my current REA and she said she believed in us. Due to the date the seller signed the contract, we have until next Wednesday to sell this property. That makes me really happy. All is not lost. I just needed a little positivity I guess so that I could see more clearly.

Well, we had to use our option and back out of the contract today. That was a little sad for me. We got our earnest money back (which we needed desperately)so i guess that is a good thing. I talked with the real estate agent and she encouraged me not to give up. I liked that. On a positive note, we learned a lot from this deal. It kinda got dropped in our laps and we jumped in headfirst. We absolutely will not get wrapped up like that again. We are back on the hunt for buyers and will not even look at a property again unless it fits several of our buyers' criteria. Did some trial and error about marketing, learned some things there too. So having said that, know that 5k is not giving up. We are in this for the long haul! I believe in this training and the concepts this is born on. I know we can do this. Just gotta make sure we don't skip any steps this time. Good night DGers.

Last night, my husband and I were listening to a webinar from another real estate guru. He said something that made a lot of sense to me... He started profiting and making moves when he started treating this as a business rather than a hobby. Wow. I guess I never thought about it. We have been doing so much but not on a regular every day basis. We fit it in after dinner and baths, between jobs and cake orders and family obligations. We didn't have a schedule but instead did what we could, when we could. hmmmm...... So we are going to sit down on sunday (i am working a double tomorrow and he has to babysit the niece and nephew)and make a schedule, goal sheets, task outlines. Things that will take us where we need to be. Specific, measureable. We will keep you posted.

Yesterday my husband and I spent a couple of hours tweaking our website and I must say it looks alot better. Much more professional. I have decided that we need to get our name out there. That is one way to build our buyers list. So I have committed to posting in our social media communities every day, as well as posting on craigslist daily. i know i need to add another site to our ad posting but one thing at a time. we decided that i will go to the county clerks office this friday to find the cash sales in the last 30 days and send out letters. our first bandit sign attempt taught us a lot and we are going this weekend to put out flyers. we will do the bandit sign thing again when we have the money. in the meantime, the flyers in local businesses that allow such will have to do. our perusing of the local paper only gives us the same people but we start a renewed calling campaign tomorrow. i found some awesome quotes that we added to our signature that i believe in whole-heartedly. Inspiration!!! Not a lot to report but at least it is action. Goodnight DGers

I was looking on the local tax office site for people that owned multiple properties. Then i compare that name with the county records for deeds to see if they have bought any of those properties in 2012... This is for our direct mail campaign we intend to launch. We thought if we contacted 25 of these buyers a week, that will only cost about $11 and we should get at least a call or two... What do you think?

We are newbies to DG family, taking the success academy now..but still overwhelmed by it all..so it was good to read your journal an know that other people feel the same way when they start out...fear!!! but we have to do this we have way to much invested in this to fail!! so thanks for your honesty when you write! newbies in Sarasota, FL