I can’t believe Ben is 6 weeks old already! We are adjusting fairly well to him and how he works. From him eating every 4 hours, to not wondering what ever little grunt or noise he makes means. In the end I knew he would be taking up pretty much all of my non 9to5 time, but I’m having a very hard time finding time to do any real estate investing tasks.
What has saved my ass, and kept the momentum going was the planning and getting ahead, with the direct mail, before Ben arrived. If I didn’t have 2 months of mailers done and ready to go, i would have been sunk and I would have let down my partner big time. I’ve only got about 2 weeks left of mailers in my stockpile to go as of today. This means I’m going to have to take every 10 minutes of free time I have to do something.
What I’ve found is that when you do things in smaller and smaller chunks, like print out the letters one night, the envelopes another night and stuff them on another night, organization becomes more and more important. The problems, for me at least, occur because of the time between actions. I tend to forget where I left off. That causes me to have to waste time figuring out what I have to do next. I can’t spare that kind of time right now!
Not a Good Goal
My original goal to finish off all of my mailings for this year by end of May isn’t going to work out. Not because I don’t have the time, but because my friend Sharon brought up a great flaw in my plan. I am unable to see into the future and eliminate all the responded, returned mail and pissed off people who have already gotten one of my letters. That means I’ll be wasting a lot of money sending letters to people who I shouldn’t be. Thanks Sharon!
Finding Where My Free Time Is
One way I’ll be freeing up time at night, is to do more during my lunch hours at work. For starters I’m going to be doing my accountability call with my coach on Mondays during lunch instead of at 6pm. I’m also going to be having my weekly call with my partner as well during my lunch hour. This is just a start, I was thinking about bringing my mailers with me and doing the stuffing at lunch as well. You gotta do what you gotta do right?
These last six weeks have been a big challenge for sure. There are no excuses though to stop investing or have it slow me down and I will not let it!
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Comments 4
Hey Scott –
I know how short you are on time these days, and I have a.nother tip for you. I recently found a gal that jumped on the chance to help me with my direct mail for a great price.She is a college student that currently works part time as a lifeguard at an indoor pool for $8.00 an hour (less taxes). I asked her if she would be interested in helping me with my direct mail every month, and she said “absolutely”! She can really use the money
I pay her $10.00 per hundred letters (she would have done it easily for $8.00 – the same as she makes at her other job). I pay her as an independent contractor so there are no taxes. For this she folds, stuffs and hand addresses the envelopes for me. She can do this with her feet propped up watching a movie.
So for about the price of a dinner out, she can do a couple hundred mailers for me. I stamp them to be sure they are all done then drop them in the mail. The way I came up with the price was to look at how many I could do in an hour. I write fast and I can do 120 in an hour. So I thought paying her what amounted to an hourly wage of $10.00 for only 100 was fair. I also showed her how to quicky fold a group of these letters so she would be more efficient.
If you can get at least one deal every couple of months from these mailings, you have more than paid for her to do this for you for a whole year. I can’t belive I didn’t do this before now! This frees you up to do other higher level tasks and spend more time with your family.
Author
What would you say your monthly costs are and how many mailers does your person get out per month? Also who does the printing? Sorry for all the questions, but I am very interested in this.
I will send you an email Scott.
Author
Thanks Sharon, sorry for the delayed response. I got your email and it will be very helpful, thanks a million!