Category: DC Real Estate Investing

Re: FRIENDS

In our last post, we talked a little about headlines when you are trying to sell a home.

In the entertainment industry, the “headline” for any production is the title of the show.

Could you imagine if the hit show Friends was called Insomnia Cafe? That was, in fact, the original name – which was quickly followed by Six of One, then Friends Like Us.

Ugh… horrible names!  But….

By Sept. 22nd, 1994, NBC rolled out the show “Friends” to nearly 22 million people.

It was an instant hit.

I will explain how this all rolls back into our world of real estate in a second.

But first – let’s look at the original description of the show when the creators were pitching it to networks.

“It’s about sex, love, relationships, careers, a time in your life when everything’s possible. And it’s about friendship because when you’re single and in the city, your friends are your family.”

Does that zero in on a target market?

Sure does. It spoke to millions of single people and those of us who remember being single in our 20’s and 30’s. It also spoke to a new generation of kids who were just coming out of college wondering what it was like to get that first job and struggle through first jobs, first dates and so on.

Now – how does all this relate to us and our day to day work?

#1 – Get started.

Choose a name. Choose a neighborhood. Choose a paint color. Do something to get started. This hit show went through a number of missteps and edits before it finally took off and was released to the public. The producers had so much feedback they knew it was going to be a hit.

#2 – When you are down, you’re not out.

If and when you do fail, you’re not out of the game.  You still have contacts, and more importantly accumulated knowledge. 

The creators of Friends had just had their previous show canceled. Here is an excerpt from an interview with the cast and creators –

Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane created “Friends” at a low-point in their careers. A sitcom of theirs, “Family Album,” had just been cancelled by CBS. The future seemed very uncertain.

Even in the face of massive failure, this group went on to produce one of the top TV shows of all time.

Don’t give up. Keep going.

#3 Pay close attention to your headline.

How you present your home to the public is terribly important. When you write your description of your property – appeal to what people WANT in their lives.

Most people want some solitude in the suburbs or some excitement in the city center. GIVE THEM THAT!

Don’t sell a condo. Sell a location near restaurants and theaters packed with amenities.

Don’t sell a single family home. Sell a quiet hide-a-way on a secluded secret street no one knows about hidden just off a major roadway.

Think about improving your properties so that when it comes time to write your headlines and sell your property – it’s nearly effortless.

When you know your target market – that’s exactly what this entire process is like – effortless.

And a bonus lesson here –  just like the show Friends – when you target a market, people from outside your target markets may show up and support you. Who knows – maybe that exciting downtown condo you thought would be purchased by a fresh college grad will be purchased by a newly single widower wanting to be near some “action” again. (Yes, that happened to me.)

Lastly – A few of our long time WREIA members replied about the ad man David Ogilvy mentioned in our last post. His books were instrumental in my early career as they have been for many small business people.

His passion about headlines is evidenced by his quote –

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

In fact, if you want some evidence of his genius, I just found this link a few days ago. It’s packed with a few of Ogilvy’s famous and favorite ads.

For instance:

There is an interesting story behind his Hathaway Shirt ad.  You will learn some of the back story to this ad Monday night. It’s especially exciting as a small business owner.

Moving on…. now that you understand the importance of headlines, and have seen a few professional and timeless examples – WHERE DO YOU POST YOUR ADS?

Facebook? Maybe.

Google ads? Maybe.

We mentioned great photos – must be Instagram right? Perhaps.

Pinterest?

Snapchat?

Fox News or CNN? Huge audiences, certainly an option.

Twitter?

A lot of the answers to these sites are VERY dependent on your budget and the time you can devote to engagement with your target audience.

Customer Engagement is a major topic for our WREIA meeting on Monday night. You have to start a conversation with a customer in order to ultimately get some business done. (That’s why we spent so much time on this headline topic.)

Let’s face it. We live in a digital age. If you can’t get the first click, you probably won’t get the final sale.

Join us on Monday, September 11th. We will be hyper focused talking about marketing tactics and specific advertising for small businesses that brings results.

Getting your message in front of the right audience has never been more important.

You can grab a seat for next Monday night or become a WREIA member here.

*********

Interested in a single night seat or a WREIA Membership?

Save a few dollars and reserve your seat early.

Tremendous Savings and Additional
“Members Only” Perks for WREIA Members

*********

FOCUS and make 2017 a great year for your business!

Let me know how I can help you,

John Peterson
301-881-5541
Washington REIA Network, President
Profitable Property, Founder

Re: Advertising – Part 1

In our last post we talked about an article that detailed the shared common traits that result in 10k views on a Zillow listing.

What it all boils down to today is that you must have nearly amazing photos and spectacular words to get any type of attention.

If you don’t choose the right photos and words – your listing could simply flop.

No traffic online.

This means no traffic to your house in the real world.

Which means no traffic in your wallet.

Even in an aggressive buyers market – the more people that you can get excited about your listing – the more likely you are to get top dollar.

Better yet – get enough people excited and you might find yourself in a bidding war.

There are many “ingredients” that go into a profitable property flip:

• Choosing a great neighborhood with good nearby schools
• Choosing the right home where the bulk of buyers will be interested in “living”
• Choosing the right materials when you improve the home
• Not over-improving the property while still being competitive in your upgrades
• Not over-paying for the property to begin with
• Doing it all in a timely manner so you can get to the closing table and collect your profit.
• and many, many more.

All along the way – if you make the right decisions – the process can be really very simple.

When it’s time to write up the listing for sale – it’s nearly effortless.

However, if you choose the wrong house that is just a little too small you can find yourself overpriced, and waiting for the right buyer.

On a recent “real life” home buying show one of the buyers said something that made me laugh out loud.

“I don’t want to see any house that they say is “charming”. Charming just means it’s small.” – Home Buyer on TV Show

The buyers are onto all our old tricks. If the house is small – let’s just play it up for the audience that is out there looking for something small.

For instance, your headline could be

Save on electric bills this winter!
Smaller house = smaller utility bills!

What that does is “targets” your audience. People looking for a monstrous McMansion will pass right on by. On the other hand, it will cause the right person looking for something smaller to stop and stare.

Speak directly to YOUR AUDIENCE. Ignore the rest.

Now on to David Ogilvy. He wrote a book that came out in 1983. The title was Ogilvy on Advertising.

It’s considered timeless by anyone in the advertising industry. If you’ve never heard of it and are seriously running a business you deserve to give it a good slow read – with a highlighter.

Ogilvy spent his career working on ads for major corporations. He would get laser focused on an audience, understand what they wanted and then speak to them in his ads.

Something I really appreciate about the guy – as an ad man –  He wasn’t afraid to ask for the order.

If fact, he seems to sum up his efforts with this quote from his book –

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

Keep that in mind when you are working on your next property. Whether you are rehabbing the bathroom or writing the listing – are you looking for a pat on the back for being “creative” or are you trying to sell the property?

With that thought, and before we eat up too much time, how about I leave a little more to this discussion for part two?

Now, I hope this does not surprise you. I’m about to ask you for an order.

Come on out on Monday, September 11th. We will be hyper focused talking about marketing tactics and specific advertising for small businesses in our DC area that brings results.

Getting your message in front of the right audience has never been more important.

Learn what it’s like to run monthly 4 and 5 figure marketing campaigns for companies in the DC area and beyond.

You may not have the budget or interest in spending 70-80k in a month on marketing.

That’s completely fine. You can relax.

You can still learn to easily use these tactics and scale them down – or up – depending on your individual needs.

Maybe 70-80$ in ads is all you need to improve results on your listing? Don’t let 70-80$ stand in the way of actually selling a home!

When done right – this type of targeted marketing will pay off with thousands in profit.

You can grab a seat for next Monday night or become a WREIA member here.

*********

Interested in a single night seat or a WREIA Membership?

Save a few dollars and reserve your seat early.

Tremendous Savings and Additional
“Members Only” Perks for WREIA Members

*********

FOCUS and make 2017 a great year for your business!

Let me know how I can help you,

John Peterson
301-881-5541
Washington REIA Network, President
Profitable Property, Founder

Re: 10k views on Zillow

On Monday, September 11th we are going to talk about marketing your real estate business.

Most people think about marketing in our business as “looking for homes”.

But let’s talk about the time when you try to sell the property.

Let’s start here and agree that it’s important it is to get your property in front of as many people as possible – who qualify for your home.

Here is a quick link to a Zillow article. In the article, you will read how important the photos and a good description are for your views. They follow it up with a great sample of a well-written property description.

Which is all well and good. Great article.

But…..

What they are leaving out in this story is the fact that in order to sell the property you have to market to a hungry audience and target the people who are qualified to purchase the home.

The good news is – it’s easier than ever to target your market. And you don’t have to worry about getting 10,000 views on Zillow in order to sell a property today.

You only need one view from one person to make a sale. As long as you trigger their emotions in certain ways – they won’t be able to forget your property. (In fact, they will have to see it.)

That’s just a hint of what you have in store for our next WREIA event on Sept. 11th. You are going to learn some great “stuff” about marketing at our September meeting.

Our guest in September is an outside speaker.

Well, sort of.

Many of you know him and have met with him after some of our previous WREIA meetings. We often talk about the various forms of marketing he helps me with throughout the year.

Come on out on Monday, September 11th. He will be hyper focused talking about marketing small businesses in our area that brings results.

Getting your message in front of the right audience has never been more important.

Learn what it’s like to run monthly 4 and 5 figure marketing campaigns for companies in the DC area and beyond.

You may have no interest in spending 70-80k in a month on marketing.

That’s completely fine. You can relax.

You will learn to easily use these tactics and scale them down – or up – depending on your individual needs.

You can grab a seat for next Monday night or become a WREIA member here.

*********

Interested in a single night seat or a WREIA Membership?

Save a few dollars and reserve your seat early.

Tremendous Savings and Additional
“Members Only” Perks for WREIA Members

*********

FOCUS and make 2017 a great year for your business!

Let me know how I can help you,

John Peterson
301-881-5541
Washington REIA Network, President
Profitable Property, Founder

Toll Brothers CEO: Capping mortgage interest deduction would discourage home ownership from CNBC.