After 500,000+ Door Flyers, Here Are 5 Lessons I Have Learned

If you are currently putting out door flyers or considering doing so, let me save you some time and money based on my experience. This advice is based on a lot of blood, sweat and tears, apartment stair climbs, pissed off property managers, crappy poly bags, etc etc. This is what I learned in the "doing of it":

The Door Knob Is Much Closer To The Garbage Can Than The Peep Hole

If you tape your flyer at eye level versus putting something on the doorknob, your response will more than double. I learned that "Eye Level is Buy Level" and stuff on the doorknob equals junk mail. I started doing this when I had my cell phone business and then all the pizza places in the area starting copying me. I got some free pizzas out the deal and some co-op partners, but more on that later :)

Tape It...But Don't Use That Messy Ass Tape!

     I know I said 'tape' it at eye level, just don't use tape, even the removable kind and here is why. Tape is very thin and even with the removable kind, if they don't CARFULLY peel it off straight, it will tear and leave goopy little pieces that look like crap. And guess what?...people never pull it off straight...they yank it off! After several months, you will be get a partial rep as " I always got to clean my door because of that jerk who." You don't want that rep.     

     I use the removable return address labels you get a Office Depot type store. Get the smallest size possiblefor economy and for less chance of goop and tearing. For speed I bend each verticle row of the labels so just a bit of the label is peeling off. That way it is super fast one-finger move to stick and go. That is a must for apartments and condos when the door are right next to each other.

Save Big $$$ With The Right Kind Of Printing In The Right Quantities

Once you got a good producing flyer, you are going to want to ramp up production. Rotary presses make your per copy price some much less it ain't even funny. The usually require a much bigger quantity, but when you get your flyers delivered by the pallet, you get some serious deals. Cold set presses are what the newspapers use, and you can get higher grade newsprint if you want, but if you want vibrant picture quality, the heat set press is the shot! It is a little bit more, but well worth it in my opinion. Some of the digital press and copy places have come WAY down in price, and if you don't have a proven flyer yet, you may want to start that route.

Bags Are For The Birds...And So Are Rubber Bands

This kind of goes back to the doorknob bit, but if you have a multi page catalog or brochure type piece, DO NOT poly bag it and doorknob it. That is doom for your response rates. Poly Bags take more time to prep before you distribute, and all it is is a handy container to to throw in your trash can. Same goes for rubberbanding and door knobing....... DON"T DO IT.

I have found that the trolley marks made by the press do good enough to hold a multi-page product together just fine, without you having to pay extra for binding or stapling. Ask your pressman about this and your trimming options.

Why Pay For It All Yourself When A Co-Op Partner Can Split It With You?

Guess what?.....There are people out there that are not in a competing business with you that are looking for the same customers are you are. Team up and save money. I got some co-op stuff going that is almost FREE for me! Sure I spent some time and money getting things set up, but if you got a winner for everyone involved, if is all milk and honey after that.

Speaking of Co-Op Partners, if you are in Washington State and want to do something like this, give me a call. Like the Law of Synergy says :"1 + 1 = 3....That Is The Power of You And Me"

P.S.-- I got a few more tips...BUT it's 12:47 and it's sleepy time:) For now I leave you with a pic of my yummy double bacon double blue cheese burger I had at Luna Park Cafe.
Note the old school juke box wall selector in the back.
Talk to you soon, Nick

Did you see this?--> Vancouver Hockey Riots Picture of Couple Kissing

I guess I could talk about how mortgage rates on 5/1 arm are at 2.5% par...OR...

....about how most of my deals are appraising for way more than sale price....BUT,

I won't because I got something that is WAY BETTER than that (I know..hard to believe:) he he

As you all know after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup finals to Boston Bruins, all hell broke loose in the streets up north. Car were set on fire... porta-a-potties dumps over.... tons of fights... injuries... looting... vandalism... you name it. 

Yet, in the middle of all that mayhem, a special picture was taken. I don't know what the story is behind the picture, there is some speculation that it is fake or maybe staged, but someone is trying to build some anonymous buzz for sure! Check it out and tell me what you think.

If it indeed is real, the benefit to you (and me) is this: 

"Despite the turmoil and the pain that some of you may be facing in your real estate and

                         mortgage business, there is something good and wonderful for you right in the middle of it all"

Now go find you something WONDERFUL! Have a great weekend :)    ---Warmest Regards, Nick

Osama Bin Laden and American Home Buyer Confidence: Is This The Pivotal Event???

So, apparently a few things happened yesterday from when I started my yard work till I finished and came in the house!

That is the understatement of the year!

A lot of big changes in history can be tracked down to single event. I remember for the dot com bubble it was the 1st announcement that Microsoft had lost one of it's monopoly court cases. Sure, some of the stocks had already started coming back to reality, but just after that court case announcement, the stock market started it's major free fall.

So with this HUGE announcement about Bin Laden, is it going to change the mindset of the average American for the better? While I am not one to 'celebrate' death, I can see how this could be a big positive in peoples outlook.

Now that a bad chapter in American history has closure, will people stop focusing on the negative and try focusing on the positive? 

Will You personally?

How will this effect our industry?

What are your thoughts on this?

p.s.-I forgot to post pictures. Here is what happens when the drive thru runs out of tartar sauce :)

My title rep drove 106 miles to sign my client's Home Loan...Thank You Tia Lumsden of Ticor Title in Tacoma! :)

     I am so thankful.... I didn't even have to beg...too much:) She was happy to do it for me and

 didn't charge me a dime extra, so I figure I owe her a good public shout out for going above and beyond. If you know the Seattle-Puget Sound Area at all, just look at the map on the right and you know that is a HAUL! Aside from when I had docs sent to Iraq, I think this is the farthest I have known someone to drive to sign a client.

     it wasn't a big money loan, just a little $125,000 refinance, heck I think I grossed $600 on it, but it ended up to be so much more for me thanks to her hard work.

     You see the loan we were paying off was an owner-financed home loan from the previous owner of the property. He provided the financing to my client to make it easier for her to qualify for the house initially, but now he needed the money to finish construction on a $2.5 million dollar home he was building. Apparently he likes to do things such as buy land and build stuff, and preferred using home loans to do so. He also owned a Windermere office and was previously a founder and board member of a regional depository bank. Needless to say, he was very happy to get the loan proceeds from this loan to finish his construction project, which he was needing to have refinanced in the very near future....AND... wanted me to provide the loan:)

Thanks again to Tia Lumsden of Ticor Title in Tacoma (University Place). Without your hard work this would not have been possible. If you need title and escrow services in the Puget Sound area, how could I not recommend her? She can be reached at 253-278-0217 or ActiveRain.com/TiaLumsden.

P.S. FYI.... the area where my client's home was located does qualify for the $0 Down USDA Mortgage. And Gig Harbor just across the Narrows Bridge From Ticor Title Tacoma office right on HWY 16, qualifies for 100% Financing as well. But I'll tell you about that later :)

Ok, maybe the new Dodd-Frank Act had me a TAD bit distracted....BUT...honestly even with that as an excuse, my first post since becoming a Active Rain Rainmaker went to number #1 in Google almost immediately for the term "Zero Down Home Loans Everett" Here is the post :

It also went to #1 or close to it for all variations, like 'loan' instead of 'loans' or 'mortgage' or 'mortgages' It didn't seem to matter much what order the words were in. So that was really cool until something LAME happened....it disappeared from Google!

I didn't change anything! I don't know if it was the server outage at Active Rain or what, but this post disappeared for my intended search phrase! I was bummed! But for every cloud there is a silver lining. Maybe due to the cross linking with this AR post and my other free blogs with wordpress, blogger and such, they all rose to the top of Google! So as of TODAY, April 12, 2011, I have 5 of the top 8 results in Google and here is the proof:

Not too bad for a fat lazy old man with a pocket full of excuses :) I guess if I could say what I have learned so far as a Active Rain Rainmaker is

1.Take all the webinar classes at Activerain University--they are free and will help you make money!

2. Follow the 'order of creation' in the Tuesday SEO class--I got on this webinar about 15 minutes late and I missed that part and it would have saved me HOURS of stupid boo boos with this AR post editor as I am not an 'html dude'! I can't tell you how many times everything looked fine in the AR editor and then when I published it, it looked like crap! Thank you Scribe Fire and Thank You Active Rain's Steven Graham!

3. Take the ActiveRain Classes AGAIN--I better do so before I give any more 'advice' :)

So next up for me is burning this into my brain so I can go into production mode and I think I am going to throw some listings on here as well. Oh yeah, plus add my opt in forms for my autoreponder. Thanks for stopping by..stayed tuned. Warmest Regards, Nick Krehnke XOXO

PS--If you are not an Active Rain member, click the link below to join so I get credit :)

                                                      http://activerain.com/action/referrals/nickage

     Now that I got a couple loan processors that can tolerate my BS, I am able to delegate with a bit more confidence and free up some of my time. The folks here at Active Rain have been calling with this 60 day Rainmaker deal, and I was like 'yeah yeah', but knowing I was too busy to really give it the attention it deserves.I never gave them my plastic....until now.

     Abe is my dude at Active Rain I signed up with. While he's not as cute as the girl from Active Rain who called previously, his timing and follow up were spot on, so I signed up :) So this weekend is my mom's birthday and I'm setting up the raised beds for my veggie garden, but I will still have time to study a lot of the Active Rain training material. Next week I will take all the Active Rain classes so I can get up to speed ASAP.

     So what is My 60 Day Active Rain Challenge? It is the fact that I will do EVERYTHING Abe says for me to get the most out of Active Rain as possible, with getting transactions in process the goal. I have the time to do so, and I will be blogging keyword rich quality content that my over 1,500 closed transactions of real estate knowledge has afforded me. I will be reporting back to you once a week to let you know of my progress. See you in escrow! :)