How To Become A Real Estate Mogul (Stage 2)

In my last blog post we talked about what it takes to become a real estate mogul.  A real estate mogul is the ultimate level most new real estate investors strive to achieve.  They live life on their own terms.  They are debt free, stress free, and their assets create enough income to allow them to buy whatever they want.  Probably the most important aspect of being a real estate mogul is the fact that you have all the free time you want to spend with family, friends, or pursuing your passions.

• Stage #1 - Closing Your First “No Money Down” Real Estate Deal
• Stage #2 - Ramping Up, Building Out Systems, And Firing Yourself
• Stage #3 - Doing Fewer, Bigger, Better Deals
• Stage #4 - Becoming A Tax-Adverse, Passive Real Estate Investor

My goal over the next couple of blog posts is to give you a roadmap that you could use to turn your real estate investing hobby into a fully automated 7 figure income.

Stage #2 – Ramping Up, Building Out Systems, And Firing Yourself

Now that you know how to wholesale real estate, now it is time to ramp up your real estate investing business.  The reason we don’t want you starting out focusing on systems and technology is because when your new and just getting started, you need to keep it simple and focus on just doing a deal or two. But once you get a little experience “under your belt”, then you can begin ramping up your real estate investing business by re-evaluating your systems, software, and relationships.

The top 4 reasons many new real estate investors start with wholesaling real estate is because:

1. Wholesaling real estate requires little to no money or credit to accomplish.
2. Learning how to wholesale real estate is easy and the technique can be mastered quickly.
3. Wholesaling real estate produces “quick cash” which will help you cover expenses, ramp up marketing, and have “play money”.
4. By learning how to hunt down deeply discounted properties you can “cherry pick” out the best deals to rehab or hold as rentals.

In order to ramp up the business, you need to begin implementing systems that allow you to either automate mundane tasks or outsource tasks you’re naturally not very good at doing.  What I suggest is having 1 day out of every week that you work “on your business” and not “in your business”.  Let’s call this day “SYSTEMS SATURDAY”.  Each Saturday turn off your cell phone, don’t check email or Facebook, and get focused.  Start by picking one business task that you want to systematize /  outsource, and begin mapping out all the steps you take in order to accomplish this task.  Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you want to systematize and outsource the posting of “We Buy Houses Ads” on Craigslist.com.  First sit down and simply write down all the steps involved in this process as if you were going to have an assistant or new employee take over this task.  For example:

1. Create An Email Address Dedicated To Craigslist.com Ads (Postings@YourEmailAddress.com)
2. Create 2-3 Different Craigslist.com Accounts (Attach Accounts To Dedicated Email Address)
3. Create 5 Text Only Ads (Different Variations Of The Same Ad)
4. Create 10 Unique, Eye-Catching Headlines With Symbols (♣►☼ █ ★)
5. Choose Which Section(s) Of Craigslist.com To Post On (Real Estate Services, Housing>Real Estate – By Owner)
6. Create A Jing.com Video Where You Post A Couple Of Example Ads (Jing Is A Free Screen Capturing Software )

By taking the time to map out this process, you can now visit Virtual Assistant Staffing and hire a Virtual Assistant to post your ads for you.  Essentially you just fired yourself from this mundane and repetitive task, which frees up your time to focus on more important tasks.  Continue to do this every Saturday until you have automated the majority of your business.  Here are some examples of tasks that can be outsourced:

1. Google Business Apps
2. M5 Marketing System

Google Apps For Business

When first starting out, having a free Gmail.com email address is just fine.  But if you want to grow your business, and have other investors take you seriously, you should upgrade to a corporate email address.  Google Business Apps is a cloud based productivity suite that provides Email, Calendar, A Cloud Drive, Documents, and Spreadsheets.  Basically it is email on steroids!!!  Simply CLICK HERE and start your free trial.  You will need to have a URL to attach your Google Business Apps to, so I recommend attaching  a “non-biased” corporate domain.  This will become your business email address, so I would not use a domain name that leans towards buying or selling, but rather something in the middle.  Some examples of good Corporate Domains (URL’s) would be TrinityHoldings.com, LuxorEnterprises.com, or ApplewoodInvestments.com. Once you attach your domain to Google Business Apps, you can quickly and easily manage all your email addresses (yourname@yourdomain.com, info@yourdomain.com, properties@yourdomain.com, customerservice@yourdomain.com) as well as create Documents /  Spreadsheets that you can use to track your marketing, map out your systems, or list your web properties with username and passwords.  Plus, Google makes it easy to share your documents, files, spreadsheets etc. with other members of your team (including your real estate Virtual Assistant).

Little Side Note: It is pretty easy to set up a Google Form that funnels any information entered into that form into a Google Doc.  I do this in my wholesaling business to track the results from all the different marketing we do each month.  We teach all of our Clever Investor mentor and coaching students how to set up all their business systems during our first two weeks of working together.  The best part about doing this is once it is set up correctly, you never have to do this again!  Click on the link if you want to learn more about our Real Estate Investing Mentorship Program.

M5 Marketing System

The M5 Marketing System is my top secret weapon.  We developed the software in house and it cost me a fortune (I’m in over $200,000 at this point and still adding new features each month).  But I love the software and I am going to be releasing it to the public sometime in the first quarter of 2013.  Basically the M5 Marketing System does 3 things extremely well:

1. Builds All Your Web Properties Within Seconds - This includes your corporate websites, blogs, buying and selling sites (including property listing sites), squeeze pages, and Facebook Fan Pages.  We have over $10,000 worth of custom real estate graphics pre-loaded into the site, and we have pre-built sites for buying, selling, and raising private money ready for you once you turn the software on.  Never again do you have to worry about hosting, web development, copywriting, creating free reports, creating welcome videos, or connecting your websites to your social media profiles…with the M5 everything is set up and done-for-you so when you log in…you are already up and running full speed.
2. Creates Web Forms For Your Existing Web Properties - Already have a website or blog?  If so, then no problemo…the M5 Marketing System can easily create a great looking web form you can place onto an existing web property.
3. Manages All The Communication With Your Leads - All your online leads funnel into an email marketer and a text message marketer.  Communication with your leads happens auto-magically because we had our professional copywriter create all your auto-responders for you in both text and email.  You just sit back and the system builds the relationship for you.  Plus if you want to send out a mass email or text message you can do it with a couple of clicks of the mouse!

If you are interested in being one of the first investors to get your hands on the M5 when I release it, then leave a comment to this post and say “I’m Interested In The M5”.

Once You Have Systems, You Can Efficiently Ramp Up Your Marketing

When you see a successful real estate investor living the “lifestyle” you always dreamed of, chances are they took the time to systematize their real estate investing business.  You too will achieve the same results if you follow my advice and dedicate at least one day out of every week to work “on your business systems”.  Because of your systems, you will be able to confidently ramp up your real estate marketing to generate more leads.  More leads = more money…it’s as simple as that.  In my business I focus on one thing and one thing only…TRANSACTIONAL ENGINEERING.  Basically I only talk to motivated sellers that have been pre-screened, and focus on negotiating and structuring deals.  Once I get a property under contract I have systems, assistants, or interns handling the rest.  Because of my systems, I have a lot of free time to pursue my passions (working out, scuba diving, hanging with my kids, snowboarding, charity work) but still make the amount of money I want to.  Every other task that I don’t want to do becomes someone else’s responsibility!  I designed my business to support my lifestyle goals…and now…YOU CAN TOO.

That’s all I have until next post where I show you how to start doing fewer, better, bigger deals so you can really make the BIG BUCKS and become a real estate mogul like me!

Your Friend In The Biz,

Related posts:

1. How To Become A Real Estate Mogul (Stage 1)
2. So You Want To Become A Successful Real Estate Investor?
3. The Two Roads of Real Estate Investing, Part 2
4. How Real Estate Investors Are Following Up With Leads Using SlyDial
5. The Two Roads of Real Estate Investing, Part 1