Here’s the link -

http://www.progressivewealthacademy.com/wpmasteryrec/

One of the things I like about the political season is the race to November 2nd. It’s the equivalent of a “one day sale” that culminates all of your marketing to strategically peak on that day.

In other words, you want all your trends (likely voters that support your candidate) to peak on November 2nd.

There’s actually a lot of effort and a lot of thought that goes into an election. Putting aside the candidate and the issues, there are physical things that have got to get done before and right up to the election. Here are a few of those elements:

1. Fund raising – this is an area which most people shy away from. They just don’t like asking for money. But, let’s face it… if you don’t have money for your campaign… you are not going to get very far!
2. Signs – I have a lot of experience with signs used for real estate. I use “bandit signs” extensively. They are corrugated plastic 18″ x 24″ that are mounted on metal stakes. Unlike political signs that are designed to stand up to the weather for 30-60 days, the corrugated plastic signs will last for years. A lot of effort goes into the “message”, the fonts, the colors, the disclaimer, distribution, etc. It’s a great way to make a “presence” particularly if you place all your signs on high traffic areas.
3. Voter registration – this is a lot of work. In Ohio, you can obtain voter lists from the Secretary of State. In Indiana, we had to go to the Clerk of Courts to get the information. Ohio’s list was manageable as it was all in one single Excel spreadsheet. However, the Indiana information was designed for working each precinct. Subsequently, their Excel spreadsheet had a separate tab for each precinct… not very handy when you are doing robo calls!
4. Robo calls – this will be my first advocacy use of robo calls. I’ve used them in the past (PhoneTree by Binary) to call other real estate professionals regarding meetings. This use will be to invite people to a meeting where they have expressed no interest in attending. In about 30 seconds, we need to deliver a compelling message that will get people to want to attend. Let’s see!
5. Radio – I’ll be cutting some radio ads over the next few days. While I have produced radio intros in the past, this will be a little different.
6. Direct mail – According to a great book I’m reading Get Out the Vote by Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, direct mail in a campaign costs $14 / vote (ultimately, that’s how you determine which media will deliver the best bang for the buck). Subsequently, we won’t be doing any direct mail!!! Too expensive!

As we learn more about this year’s campaign. I’ll try to introduce interesting marketing ideas to the blog. If you’ve got any good ideas on marketing, I’d love to hear them!

The only people looking for housing may be Section 8 people – with a new voucher or one that can be moved from one jurisdiction to another (you must be in your Section 8 home for at least one year before you can move); recently separated or divorced people; tenants being evicted; or recent arrivals into the area.

The weather plays a big part in this, as well. When there is snow on the ground or it’s terribly cold or raining, few people want to venture out into the weather to move.

You might as well head down to Florida or some other warm climate from Thanksgiving until January 1st as the rental market comes to a complete stop.

So, what can you do about the situation – first, you need to find creative ways of promoting your homes. This can be done via signage and flyers and rewards -

• Signage at the residence
• Signage in the neighborhood using “Bandit Signs” i.e. – Rental Homes Call 937-968-5600
• Fliers at the local grocery market, laundromat, banks, HUD or Section 8 office, or any public place that has a bulletin board
• Rewards consisting of a discount rent can be offered to your tenants. If they find you a resident that will sign up for a year, then you can offer them a reward of $50 (check with your local Realtor Association to see if this is legal)

Second, you need to followup on every lead. That means that if you can’t contact someone the first time, keep trying until you are able to do so. When I don’t “feel” like calling someone, I imagine a gun to my head… will I be able to solve this problem by calling if a gun was held to my head? Of course!

So, how do you manage those contacts? Here are a few suggestions -

• Use a contact management program like ACT! I’ve used it for over 20 years and I find it to be the best productivity tool that I’ve found.
• Use a contact management program on line such as Zoho CRM.
• Contact local Realtors to see if their clients want to rent or Rent to Own. Typically, a Rent to Own client will be asked to provide some non-refundable option consideration (NROC) in the amount of $2,000 for an average house, plus one month’s rent. The NROC is NOT a deposit – it is an option fee. The tenant purchases the option to buy your house at a certain amount and within a certain time limit. I generally draw up the agreements with a two year window in which the tenant buyer has to fulfill the contract. This means that within two years, the tenant buyer has to improve his or her credit score so that they can secure a loan and cash you out.

What else can you do during these slow times -

• Fix up your properties… surely, they need some maintenance, fresh paint, roofing fixes or replacements, carpet cleaning or replacements, etc. This “down time” can be a great opportunity to get things caught up when rental activity begins, again, in January.
• To manage your various projects, you might want to try another FREE product from the folks at Zoho. It is called Zoho Project. It’s a great way of coordinating work teams for your houses and apartments.

Contractors can upload quotations, workers can communicate project status, completion, additional materials needed, etc.

Due to the costs associated with foreclosures… I’ve usually “sold” my properties using a lease with an option to buy. The transaction is memorialized within two documents – the first one is a lease. The second document is the Option to Buy.

In Ohio under a Land Contract or Contract for Deed, until a buyer has a 20% equity interest in the property or has been living in the house for 5 years or more, then the seller can simply evict the buyer if he or she fails to honor the agreement.

However, in Indiana, once a Land Contract has been signed… then, the seller must foreclose against the buyer. This is a very expensive undertaking and may (probably) require an attorney. In Ohio, it is common for a landlord to represent himself in eviction court.

So, it is understandable that a Land Contract in Ohio is less severe on the seller until the tenant buyer is there for 5 years or has paid 20% or more on the property.

A remedy you may wish to consider in Indiana is to construct a Quit Claim Deed that is only evoked if the buyer fails to do certain things (like obtain insurance, pay the taxes, pay the mortgage, etc.). The mess of foreclosure MAY be avoided by this simple technique.

If you have an experience in this area, I’d love to hear from you…

= John =

As you may know… the real estate is very seasonal. In this area (Ohio / Indiana), we see a lot of activity at the beginning of the year through August. By September, parents with children have already decided what school district they want their children and, unless they are moving somewhere within the school district, will stay in the home until the Spring.

So, I was fortunate, this week, to be able to rent up three units.

• Many families are moving in with parents or friends in order to keep costs as low as possible due to the economy. This is very similar to WWII when large houses were converted into duplexes in order to keep households close, but separate.
• Rental payments are slow or not coming at all. Sorry folks, you can’t live in my places for free… so, evictions are up.
• People (my tenants) claim that there are “no jobs”, yet there are many factories in the area that are, in fact, hiring. Tomasko – 135 new positions in Winchester, IN; Alphabet Wiring in Portland; a plastics manufacturer in Portland; Whirlpool in Greenville, etc. I place ads on my website for people seeking work at http://www.americanhousingproviders.com
• If the price of gas approaches $7.00 / gal as a recent Harvard study indicated with Cap and Trade, then my tenants are DOOMED.
• There is a tremendous amount of negative political energy brewing that I expect to unleash itself on Nov 2nd. Term limits for the House of Representatives and the Senate ought to be a high priority.
• Good news – the price of natural gas is down around 20% – that is really good news for my tenants (I use propane, so it doesn’t affect me directly unless the price of propane is proportionate to the price of natural gas.)
• Tea Party organizations are growing everywhere - Darke County, Ohio and Winchester, Indiana in particular.

From my perspective, it appears that there is a lot of frustration with government in general. My tenants think that there are no jobs (not true) and they are an early indicator of the weakness of the economy. Unfortunately, they, in the majority of the cases, turn to government for the answer when, in fact, it has been the government that has held back the growth of the private sector.

More on this, later…

According to some government and public experts – 30% of the price of oil is due to speculation.

This same article claims that when H.W. Bush announced that he was going to sell oil from the reserves, the price of oil dropped from $32 / barrel to $21 / barrel… a 34% reduction in price.

On January 16, 1991, on the eve of the first Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush announced that he would sell 34 million barrels from the Reserve to “minimize world oil market disruptions.” That day oil sold for $32 per barrel. The day after the announcement, the price dropped to $21 per barrel. Oil remained in the $20 per barrel range during and after the war. The Department of Energy concluded that the “partial drawdown…help[ed] restore stability to world oil markets during the Persian Gulf War.”

A 34% reduction in the price at the pump (today at $2.59) would allow gasoline to drop down to $1.71 per gallon.

Now, consider the real estate bust and the price of gasoline. As the price of gasoline went above $2.00 per gallon, more and more people found that they could not make their mortgage payments. Not only did gasoline increase in price, but so did heating oil, propane, natural gas and all products made with petroleum.

It has been said (I can’t remember by whom) that the difference between filing bankruptcy or not is a net shortfall of $300 / mo. I suggest that a large portion of that $300 is due to the high cost of energy. Now, let’s consider what would happen if energy suddenly became 34% less expensive.

The price to get to work would immediately go down – leaving more money in the consumer’s pockets. The cost of goods based on petroleum would go down, as well. Home heating costs would go down leaving even more money in the pockets of consumers.

This one sentence could help revive the American economy faster than any stimulus package ever could!

I suggested that what was happening in the industry was a general contraction of the housing market due to the economy. Sons and daughters are moving back with mom and dad or with other relatives. This is much like the period during WWII when many large homes became duplexes by necessity.

But, what can you actively do to change this situation?

I suggest that you begin marketing outside your area where it makes sense to IMPORT tenants or home owner’s to be into your area. Let’s say you live in the mid-west. Prices, generally, are much less for rentals than other major urban areas on the east or west coast.

In fact, people used to those prices can save as much as $1,000 / mo by relocating into my area. If the prospective tenant has family in the area (the support system) and/or have a transportable career – i.e. – they work for Walmart or another large box store and can transfer to another store or they are trucking professionals, etc – then, it makes sense in this economy to move where prices are lower and where they may enjoy a higher quality of life.

Subsequently, I have found a great number of people calling from Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New York about rental housing. How do they find me?

They search Craigslist or some of the other rental ad web sites. I include my url back to my website of http://www.americanhousingproviders.com within the advertisement where they can find my other properties.

I, also, offer many tips to the rental community by providing links to job sites, advice on how to obtain assistance for heating, food, and medical services.

Here’s another insight regarding the housing market. Many people are on fixed incomes – they are retired, are on SSI or some other government program. The typical NATIONAL income per month is somewhere between $650-$1,250 per month per recipient.

Where can you find housing AND provide food for the table, gas for the car, etc. on $650 / mo in a major metropolitan area – it’s impossible! The solution to this problem is to move near relatives in the mid-west and to find inexpensive housing.

By advertising on Craigslist in areas outside your local market (particularly in NY, NJ, FL, TX, CA), then you are mining the metropolitan areas that will help you IMPORT new residents to your rental homes.

Susan Harrow offers a number of free resources such as a sampling of her book, “Sell Yourself without Selling Your Soul“. She, also, offers free audio courses on how to create “soundbites” of 10-45 seconds, each. They are essential messages that you want to transmit to the audience.

Susan suggests that most top TV shows only give you about 2 minutes to let someone know what you are about. By having 6 topics that are condensed into soundbites, you can use them to great effect. She advises that soundbites need to be expandable and contractable. The essential thing to convey in 2 minutes -

• What is most important thing that you want the audience to know?
• What is closest to your heart?
• If you were to die, tomorrow, what is it about your product or service that you want them to remember?

Developing a “soundbite burst“  – passion has to be real. There has to be structure – you need a headline. You need something that is very strong. Then, it is very easy to create structure by helping the audience listen. Try numbering your points.

Example – “I have three points I would like to make about this topic.”

• Write your bio for speeches – if you give the media something very succintint and powerful, they are likely to use your material.
• Plan your points for a presentation – a structure and an agenda. Focus on what you want to say, before you speak.
• Tell people what you can do for them (your audience) as part of your elevator speech. “I help my clients become one… everything is in complete congruence. What happens is that people come to me after they have been burned by the media. Making sure you are portrayed the way that you want.”

Examples -

• Regarding romance in the bedroom, “A single white rose bud in a glass vase represents chastity so you don’t have to.” From the Funky Shui Sisters.
• Marty Friedman, management consultant, “The biggest mistake that men make in their relationships is that they view their marriage like a refrigerator – they expect it to run by itself – you plug it in and expect it to go.”

Regarding television or radio planning – You need to plan your entire segment, yourself. Don’t count on the producer planning the show.

You get the interest first, then you go into your story. The excitement comes from the way that you tell the story. It’s more about eliciting feelings, than it is about marketing.

Telling captivating stories – to not only attract media attention, but to sell your product.

“Eroticize your space… your audience wants to be seduced.”

There  are very few things that are really different. Rather than speaking to one another, we should be singing to one another. You have to create touchstones or moments of heart affection… tell a story with emotional resonance. This is the template for creating stellar stories -

• Situation – what was the problem, what’s the challenge?
• Action – what did you do, what was concrete?
• Results – what happened?
• Epiphany – what it is that you or your client got out of your experience.

It’s a way of shaping or framing the way people think. It’s about the points you really want them to gain.

Two things are the essence of PR and of business -

• What does my audience need to know?
• How can I help?

It’s also about speaking from the heart. It’s another key to creating a compelling story. People are moved by feelings, by emotions.

We don’t know how we touch other people…

People fail in two places -

• They don’t pass the producer’s audition
• And once the get on a show and they don’t make potent points and they don’t get quoted for another article or do another show or it doesn’t have much effect on their business. People think it will make them a millionaire and when that doesn’t happen, they get very disappointed.

You need to be captivating and speak to the producer’s need – be brief and concise.

Good video – simple, but good basic instructions on what to avoid in Internet Marketing.