When you start the pre foreclosure business, you quickly realize that there is more work to do than one person can handle for too long without going crazy. Up front, it’s important to do all the work yourself, but very quickly, it’s important to start outsourcing the work piece by piece. One of the first pieces I outsourced was the direct mail. There are many ways to outsource direct mail, and I’ve tried them all. I’ve found the best way to do it is this. Find somebody who has extra time on their hands and who would love to make a little extra money. Ideally, this person has an internet connection. Go out and buy everything necessary to do the direct mail, including the envelopes, return address labels, stamps, letters… everything. Take that person all of these supplies. Show them how to stuff the envelopes, address the envelopes, etc… now let them go crazy with it. Simple enough? At first, I had the person complete the letters and I would pick them up to inspect them. After I’m comfortable that they’re being done correctly, then I allow the direct mail person to drop them in the mail box. Then the final step is to have them pull the list (my list is web based from a local company that goes to the courthouse every day). So what happens for me is this…. I do nothing and my list gets mailed for me. Every homeowner in my area gets 2 letters from me, and I don’t do a thing to get it done. It just happens and I write a check every 2 weeks. Well, I take that back, I do have to buy supplies for my direct mail person because she’s only 13 years old and doesn’t have her license. So once every couple months I go to the wholesale store and buy a couple months worth of supplies. It’s nice to know that the list is being mailed and I don’t have to worry about it. It frees my time up to talk to homeowners and get properties to short sale.
So what do I pay for this service? $.20 per letter. When you total everything from the letters, envelopes, stamps, etc, my direct mail campaign costs me about $.75 per lettter.
This is just one of many ways to automate your business. Every piece of this business can be automated, it takes a little time to get it all into place, but when it’s done, you’ll find yourself raking in paycheck after paycheck after paycheck, and you’ll realize that you hardly did any work to make that check happen… well, all your work was done when you built the business. When the work is done, it’s time to sit back and watch it all happen!
This is an awesome business!
