What Do You Do When You Are Out of Marketing Money?

In my last post (Is wholesaling the Answer?) I talked about how I thought things needed to change because my current strategy of just wholesaling wasn’t advancing me towards my goals.  This past week i come to find out that my partner would not be able to put any money into marketing for a while.  This pretty much shuts down the direct mail operations completely.  If you all remember, back in July, my wife lost her job so I needed to pull my direct mail funds as well.

Today brings up a very important question that many people who are struggling with real estate investing might run into.  What do you do when you are out of Marketing Money?

In the past I never thought about this because I always believed that my partner and I would be doing enough wholesale deals to easily fund our marketing.  Well that has not happened!  It is a real buzz kill when I look in SI Lead Manager and see a bunch of letters that need to go out but we don’t have the money to make that happen right now.  I know once that momentum stops it’s a bitch to get it going again.

Now on the bright side, this funding issue might be the best thing that could have happened.  In my heart I think that our current wholesaling model has run it’s course.  Even though my partner nor I would admit it, our excitement and motivation have been bottoming out recently.   If the marketing money was still there, we  probably would have just chugged along doing what we’ve been doing and not make any changes.  So this just gives me the final push that I needed to make a change.

Which of These Goals Will I Pick?

Over the next two to three weeks I’m going to be formulating my goals for 2014.  Next year is going to be a critical year for me, and I’m going to put a lot of pressure on myself to get things done.  The first thing I’m going to do is right down a list of about 10 items that I’d like to get done in 2014…

1. Continue building up my lead generating websites with the goal of getting 30 leads per month.
2. Finish up and release the current version SI Lead Manager and begin to sell it.
3. Learn the development tools needed to develop a web version of SI Lead Manager
4. Earn $5,000 from affiliate marketing (or $420 a month)
5. Separate my business income/expenses completely from my family income/expenses
6. Get StrugglingInvestor.com up to 5,000 visitors a month
7. Buy a Rental property
8. Rehab a Property
9. Start or Join a Mastermind group
10. Generate an additional stream of income that gives me $100/mo

I will have to choose just a few of these to focus on for next year as my time won’t allow for me to get them all done.  But if I do get one done early another will fill the spot.

Breaking Down a Goal Into Tasks

Also once I select my goals for 2014 from the list above, each of them will have to be broken down further into action items.   For example, Getting 5,000 visitors a month to StrugglingInvestor.com…

• Post once per week on Tuesday
• Visit and participate in forums (bigger pockets, reiclub)
• Use LinkedIn by answer questions and networking
• Create some blog posts on Bigger Pockets
• Post comments on other blogs
• Guest Blog posts
• Be a guest on a podcast
• Create a free How To Ebook about creating a website to attract leads

I work best when I can concentrate on one thing at a time.  Taking one item and working it from start to finish before jumping over to the next item.  I believe if I schedule the tasks out and continue to kill each of them one by one I’ll get to my goals faster.

In the past years I’d always be jumping from one goal to the next as my motivation, ideas or convenience allowed.  I thought I made progress this way, but looking back nothing would ever get accomplished.  I would have 3 projects half done and nothing really to show for my efforts.  That can’t happen anymore.

Next year is going to be a productive year for sure and by the time it’s done I will be one happy camper!

Resources to help create your goals

Videos

• Zig Ziglar: Setting Goals Part 1 (Classic)
• Zig Ziglar – True Performance – Goals
• Tony Robbins- The difference Between a Winner and a Loser

Blogposts

• Pat Flynn’s 2012 post about Setting his Goals

Podcasts

• How to Create Habits that Stick 
• Francis Pedraza on Achieving Your Personal Goals; today!
• The science of making—and breaking—habits