My blog has opened the door for me in a lot of ways when it comes to my real estate investing career. I would have never gotten to this point if some of the great people I have met through my blog hadn’t pushed me and supported me. Having a blog is good in so many ways, but there can be a major draw back depending on how you want to operate your business.
Your Name Can Now Be Found
One of my goals when I started this blog was to help me network with other investors. I wanted investors to find my blog by doing a Google search for “New Jersey Investors”, “Real Estate Investors” and what ever other phrases related to REI. The downside is that anyone can now find out about me simply by searching for my name, even home owners I am marketing to.
The more mailers I send out the more I see my name coming up as a search term in Google Analytics. This is not surprising, as I would do the same thing if I got a random letter in the mail asking if I would sell my unlisted house. Depending on the person, you could lose some deals because of this. I lady recently told my partner that she looked up my name online, found my blog, and said she wouldn’t sell to people like us.
My intent is to always be honest with everyone I’m dealing with, so I have no problem with people finding my blog and deciding I am not the right person for them. To each their own and I applaud them for doing some research.
Solution
If you love having a blog, like I do, and want it to not hinder your marketing efforts there are a few ways to get around the above issue.
- Use a fake name on your blog. If you’ve started a blog already this won’t work for you, but is a viable option for investors who are just starting out. Many authors, columnists and alike write under “aliases”
- Use your partners name on your mailers. In my case, my partner handles all the calls so it makes sense to do this. I just have to make sure never to mention his full name on my blog. I may go back and remove his name entirely because I know I’ve used his first name before.
- Has this been an issue with your Investing?
- How do you handle this?
- Do you care that your leads can look your blog up online by searching for your name?
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Comments 8
Great post, Scott. I hadn’t really thought about this until you mentioned it. This could be a problem, but I don’t really think I am losing that many possible deals because of it. My thought is that if they are motivated enough to sell at the types of discounts, we house flippers need, they will not really care about what we put on our blogs. They might even want to sell to us over someone else because our blogs may give us more credibility.
I’m sure I’ll still be thinking about this and will chime in if I think it will be helpful.
Author
Congrats on being my 3000th comment Danny! You win my many thanks 🙂
I honestly like the idea of putting everything out there and not hiding a thing. My partner and coach are a little uneasy about it so I’m gonna start using my partners name on the direct mail. It doesn’t really matter either way to me, but if it makes them more comfortable I’m all for it.
Scott –
I’ve never had anyone mention this to me. I agree with Danny that it gives you credibility to use your name. I will say this; when I email sellers back I use a different email (SharonBuysHouses…) that does not include my blog address in the signature. I really don’t want sellers looking up info on my blog about how I buy houses. If they really want to research any of us they can do that, but I think most sellers won’t take the time or the energy to use that.
Author
This one particular person just googled my name and my blog shows up pretty close to the top if not the top. Every day it seems that people are Googling my name to find my blog, which I kinda like!
Hey Scott! I think using your name will help you assuming you as an investor are out there helping people and not taking advantage of them. I consider myself a problem solver of people’s real estate problems. If you do good and serve with good intentions, it will only help build your name, company and your brand. Keep up the good work!
Btw … email me and let’s connect as I am invest in New York and New Jersey.
Author
All I do on my blog is tell the truth about my experiences so I’m not really afraid of what someone may find. If they research me before calling and see that I’m an investor who is going to make a low offer and that turns them off, then I am not the right solution for them.
I sent you an email
Scott,
Like You, I see a lot of searches for my name. It never occurred to me that it could be sellers checking me out.
I have thought about sellers seeing their properties being sold for much more than I paid for them. We now use separate companies to buy and sell.
My blog has brought me a lot of visibility, partners, and investors. All in all I think an online presence far outweighs any negatives.
Author
I definitely agree with you Ned, the positive far out reaches the negatives. I never see anything wrong with a potential buyer knowing what you are trying to do.