(Audio) Brilliant at the Basics Part 15: Direct Mail Is Alive and Very Well » Peter Vekselman

Summary: In this episode, we’re on part 15 of our series that’s all about keeping things simple in investing. In today’s episode, I’m back with my business partner and friend, Peter Vekselman. Peter is a kick-butt investor, in part, because he has mastered one of the basics – marketing. And in today’s episode, we’re talking all about direct mail: postcards; how much direct mail Peter does; why direct mail is not dead; the advantages to direct mail; who Peter targets with his direct mail and more… This one is short and sweet, but packed with good info. Get going… Listen and Enjoy: What’s inside 0:57 – How much direct mail marketing Peter does 3:08 – The advantages of direct mail 7:45 – Why it’s so important to answer the phone when a seller calls, instead of an answering service 12:14 – Peter talks more specifically about his direct mail postcards Mentioned in this episode Peter and Joe’s book: <a href="http://www.FreeBasicBook.com" target="_blank">Free Basic Book</a> How to work with Peter and Joe: <a href="http://www.PeterandJoe.com" target="_blank">Peter and Joe</a> <a href="http://www.ContinentalMessage.com" target="_blank">Continental Message</a> Tweetables [Tweet "The overwhelming majority of our deals, 80-90%, come in because of direct mail. It will always work"] [Tweet "A huge advantage to direct mail is the lower cost, compared to other marketing options like billboards"] [Tweet "Do what your competition isn’t: They’re not answering phones; following up w/sellers; making offers"] Transcription: <a href="http://www.realestateinvestingmastery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/REIM-15-Brilliant-at-the-Basics-Part-15-Direct-Mail-Is-Alive-and-Very-Well.pdf" target="_blank">Download episode transcript in PDF format here...</a> Joe:      Hey guys. Joe McCall back here with Peter Vekselman in the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast. And, this is the "Brilliant at the Basics" series where Peter Vekselman and I try to just break things down into the simplest, most basic form and talk about this business. Those of you who were listening to the previous episode that we just did, I talked about how Peter is doing 30, 40 deals a month in multiple different markets all over the country doing really, really well, and we talked about marketing. And, we are going to dive into a little bit more detail about marketing. Peter, I know you send a lot of postcards. You do a lot of direct mail. How much...? Of all the marketing that you do and those leads that come from your marketing, what percent of that marketing comes from direct mail? Peter: Well, I’ve been involved in the industry for a long time and throughout my business, I’ve utilized different systems and different ways of getting deals. As we sit here today, an overwhelming majority of our deals come as a result of direct mail. I mean, I’d say probably 80, 90% of our deals come in that because we are in a very competitive market right now. I mean, across the country, definitely in the market that I’m in, Atlanta. And so, in today’s world you really, really have to know how to market which direct mail allows you to do to the seller. And so, yeah, an overwhelming majority of our deals right now. In fact, my whole company right now is set up. You’ve been here to my office. It's really set up around negotiators and in an overwhelming majority of their time, the negotiators are working directly with sellers which come as a result of our direct mail postcards. Joe:      Direct mail has always worked and it always will work. If we can get all fancy, and advanced, and technical, and I was just talking to Peter about an app called Slack. Those of you that... Peter, I always give him a hard time. He gives me a hard time actually about technology. It’s the way it is. I have an iPhone right here and an iPad right there. I have two iPads right here actually and my MacBook Pro and Peter is on this old Windows PC that can barely work but guess who ...