I feel the NEED for LEADS!

I'm BAAAAAACK!

Whew! I feel like I've been living out of a suitcase for close to a month. Travelling up north multiple times and then vacation to the beach (not that I'm complaining about THAT), I barely had time to unpack for one thing before I was packing for the next! But now I'm back at my home sweet home with my lovely fluffy bed (soooooo nice to sleep in my bed) and am ready to make things happen for the month of August.

July found me getting mentally ready for some big things to happen and laying ground work for what I'd need to really hit the ground running when I finally had the time to devote to my real estate business. I created my new website, created fliers and ordered mailers and took care of some "administrative" type duties last month in between travelling times. And now the time is here for the race to begin! Run, Melody, RUN!

I absolutely know that the few and far between leads that I've had trickling in from random places are not going to cut it if I want to do some serious money making business. And now I'm getting the itch to fill my pipeline. I feel the NEED for LEADS. I want my pipeline funnel to overfloweth. And of course, I want it that way on a shoestring budget because I am, after all, unemployed and broke!

But that's one of the beautiful things about real estate investing businesses I think, marketing doesn't have to cost us big bucks. A home printer and a ream of bright yellow paper is dirt cheap, and home made "bandit" signs (so I'm told, we'll see) are just as effective as pretty printed ones. And branding? Who needs that in our business? Maybe its helpful if you can afford it, but I don't really need to have fancy pens with my company name or a logo emblazoning everything I own like Realtors often do. My website I did myself and pay $5 a month for hosting, talk about affordable! When I was with my former business partner we wasted a lot of money on "marketing" that didn't produce very good leads, and I feel confident that what I'm doing now will be much more effective at a much lower cost. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding (more like DOUGH I hope!).

Today I devoted the entire day to business, even though I had to tote the kids along and subject them to several hours of riding around neighborhoods looking for interesting properties. OK, entire day minus time for a trip to McDonald's for lunch (their reward for not driving Mommy crazy in the car) and a quick stop at the grocery store (does anyone else go through 5 gallons of milk a week???). It really felt great to be focused on one main goal for the day, definitely something I'll do again and try to work in once or twice a week. Of course, tomorrow I promised we'd go to the pool and then there's the back to school shopping that needs to get done and errands that need to be run etc etc etc. Hey, one or two days of focused real estate work will be a big accomplishment for an inexperienced stay-at-home mom!

So bring on those leads, I'm open for business and ready to get my buying groove on!