Marketing Versus Prospecting in Real Estate Investing

I would rather have ten ways to get one lead than one way to get ten leads. That is very important. If you are only relying on one source, you are not going to get very many calls. We probably get around ten or fifteen calls per day from our different marketing efforts. In this chapter you will find many different methods and ways to locate deals and generate leads. Some you have heard before but I am sure there are some in here that you have not. When putting this course together I went through every course I own and compiled a list of all of the different methods of generating leads, as well as, including my own that I have created and used over the years. You will find 71 different ways to find motivated sellers and discounted properties. You will not use all of the ways I have provided to generate leads but you do need to pick between 5-10 different ways and keep them going all the time.

Also I believe in going for the low hanging fruit meaning that you need to check out your local market or where you want to buy property and see what works best in your area and where you have the least amount of competition. In some areas you may work with realtors to get a lot of properties and in other areas you may focus on vacant houses. It will just depend on your specific area and the market. This is something only you will be able to determine after doing some research by asking every investor you meet how they get their properties and also asking every realtor you talk to about the market and if they work with many investors, etc. Remember with my system you can now invest in the market where you live or any other market as well, all from your current location.


There are going to be basically two ways to find properties…

Marketing and Prospecting

1: Marketing: Here is my South Carolina PhD definition of marketing. You do know what a South Carolina PhD is, don’t you? It is a Public High School Diploma, which is what I have. I can say that because I live in South Carolina. Anyway, here you go… Marketing is basically anything that makes the phone ring. These are your best kinds of leads. That way you are not cold calling somebody else. In other words, when the phone rings and you answer the phone, “Hi, how can I help you?”… YOU are helping THEM. They are trying to sell you; you are not trying to sell them. However, if you are calling on their house for sale or on their sign, or calling them because they had a foreclosure notice that you found out about, then you are trying to sell them on selling you their house. So I would much rather market and make the phone ring than prospect.

2: Prospecting: The second method is prospecting. Prospecting is anything that you do that requires you to dig and search in order to contact the owner or the seller of a property. Now before we get too much further, I want to share something with you. We have talked about finding deals but I have to tell you, it is very, very, very rare that you actually find a deal. Deals are made, not found. The sooner you will get this into your head, the sooner you will become successful. You have to make your own deals. (If you are already an experienced investor, then you already know this.) You do this by building rapport, getting people to like you and trust you, getting to know them and getting to know as much as you can about them, their situation and how you can help. And every time they say something, you write it down. You learn from it, you bring it back up, and if for example they talk about how they like to ski or they like to golf, you bring that up. If they have children that are on a baseball team, you bring that up and you get them to like you and trust you. We will cover this more in the section on negotiating.

Also, unless you are working a pre foreclosure to do a short sale, when prospecting, don’t go looking for deals that don’t have a little bit of margin already. If there is a house on the market and it is worth $105,000 and they are asking $105,900, then I would not even look at that house unless they were behind on their mortgage. On the other hand, if it is worth $105,000 and they are asking $89,000; I might call about it. So you want something that already has a little bit of margin in it. This way you are already at a starting point where you are not totally upside down or starting at full retail.


I hope you have enjoyed this article taken from my course called the Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine! which teaches how we buy and sell 5-10 properties a month, have them sold in less than 2 hours and never leave the office or look at them. For many more articles and a 10 part ecourse on how to create your own Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine! as well as over 50 training audio recordings you can listen to online, download and collect, simply go to www.LarryGoinsFreeOffer.com where you will gain instant access to all of this and 51 Exclusive Editable real estate investing Forms and Documents all FREE! You will also get two FREE real estate investing eBooks, A free Personal Coaching Profile to help you jump start your real estate Investing, FREE Nationwide Wholesale Property Listing Notification, FREE Weekly Training Teleconferences with Different Topic Each Week, FREE subscription to Larry Goins “Almost” Weekly Investing Newsletter, FREE Admission for Two to Investor Palooza 3 Day Training Event, FREE Admission for Two to Larry Goins 3 Day Boot Camp, Plus over 31 Exclusive Articles on real estate Investing and Much More! Just go to www.LarryGoinsFreeOffer.com. Thanks and I look forward to working with you, Larry Goins