Book Review: All Marketers Tell Stories by Seth Godin

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Books 6 Comments

A huge part of being a Real Estate Investor is being able to market to potential sellers and buyers.  In fact, many may argue that real estate investing is all about marketing whether it be trying to sell yourself to a seller or trying to sell a property to a buyer.  If you can’t market you will not be very successful. That is the reason I picked up Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars Tell Stories.  I became a big …

Everyone Raves About Bandit Signs, Should They?

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 30 Comments

One of my action plan items for this week is to purchase 200 bandits signs.  I’ve always been a bit afraid to put out bandit signs around my area because to be honest I’m afraid to get fined.  Some say that is the cost of business, but that is tough to swallow when you are just getting started out and money is tight.   Non the less, I’m going to do as my coach suggested and try and some bandit signs …

Coaching Update: Finding The Sellers

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 6 Comments

Last Friday afternoon I met with Jon for our first two hour meeting.  We went over my first assignment (Finding your Why) and really got into what I expect out of the coaching and how we are going to achieve all my goals. I’m sure most of us would agree, that it is never easy to have someone critique you to your face.  We all get some what defensive, trying to make excuses for why you are doing things a …

My New Blog Name Is….

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 6 Comments

With much debate and many sleepless nights I have finally come up with a domain name that suits my blog 100%. FlippingMyJob.com or FlipMyJob.com (I registered both names) The idea behind the name is flipping houses to replace my Job.   In honor of my new name I am also going to be doing a slight redesign of my site.  I’ll probably get a basic design setup before releasing it and then continue to work on it as I go.  Much …

A Couple Affiliate Sales and Extra Income Update

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Today is going to be a quick update on my extra earnings from my blog and other sites.  Last week I posted about trying to build up extra cash in order to fund my real estate investing marketing.  The goal is to accumulate roughly $200 of income per month through affiliate sales and PPC (pay per click) advertising.   I’ve chosen to use Google Adsense for my PPC advertiser and am currently only displaying ads on blog posts and articles that …

Coaching Review: Assignment #1

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 5 Comments

For those that haven’t been following, last week I was enrolled in Jon Zorrer’s real estate investing coaching program and mastermind group.  What this means is that Jon and his team will be giving me everything I could need to become a successful investor.  Since Jon works very closely with Vena Jones-Cox, and even teaches short-sales and internet marketing to her students I can be assured a top quality coach.  In fact the very first assignment is right out of …

Probate Monday: Lead Manager Update and Mailers

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Welcome back from the holiday weekend everyone!  Hopefully you all had a chance to relax and hang out with your family and friends at a bbq or something similar.  The weather in NJ was awesome the entire weekend, mid 70’s and no humidity at all to speak of.  That is my kind of weather! Because it was a holiday weekend I held off on sending out my probate letters until today, in fact I dropped them off in the mailbox …

Why am I getting Homework?

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 12 Comments

What a busy week this has been!  I had barely any time to rest and relax between working my full time job, having to put my mailers together (106 this time), going to real estate meetings on Wednesday and Thursday and with school starting up and traffic season commencing, it took me forever to get home from work and to the REI meetings.  I dislike this time of year on so many levels…. End of Summer School Starts (I know …

Does Networking Really Pay Off?

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 7 Comments

By reading the title  you probably thought that I had a deal come my way through my networking channels.  Unfortunately that is not the direction this post is going to take.  What I’m getting at is that I can officially say I have a coach. Over the summer I’ve continually offered up my website development “skills” at my real estate meetings in order to help myself build relationships with other successful investors.  Almost immediate Jon Zorrer (the organizer of the …

Probate Monday: A little negotiating going on

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Probate Investing 3 Comments

This is going to be another busy week for sure.  Even though the last letters I sent out where in the first week of August, my phone rang with a call from a lady who had been holding onto my letter since I mailed it back in January.  Took me a bit to find her name because when she said it on the message it sounded like “Cook”, but in fact it was “Cope.”   I managed to to do a …

Create Extra Marketing Money With Your Real Estate Blog

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Internet Marketing 10 Comments

For those people who have been reading my blog for a while know that I’m pretty limited with my marketing budget of $200 per month.  This gets eaten up quickly when half of that goes to my probate list provider.  That leaves me with only $100 for Stamps, paper, ink and envelopes.   Sending out 80 to 100 mailers each month is all i am about able to do. This causes a problem because I want to send out a multiple …

Probate Monday: Gearing Up for Another Mailing

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Probate Investing 10 Comments

With the end of August looming large, I’m going to be preparing my next batch of probate letters to be sent out.   Unlike most prior months I’ve been waiting for the beginning of the month to put all the letters together, stuff and stamp them.  This usually takes me a few nights and the letters don’t go out until the end of the first week.  Not this time!  They will be sent out on the 1st. I also have post …

Probate Monday: Mid Month Slow Down

Scott CostelloAll, Probate Investing 3 Comments

Before I get started, I want to wish my beautiful bride a very happy 30th birthday today.  She is the love of my life and with out a doubt my best friend as well.  Can’t beat that combo!  In our family we like to celebrate birthdays over a week period, not just on the date itself. We get together with family, have a party with friends and do things throughout the week to make it a really special time. With …

Renaming My Blog Contest Winner!

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 10 Comments

When I first switched my blog over to StrugglingInvestor.com from my old blog at sjcostello.blogspot.com it took me ages to come up with a domain name that represented my current struggles to break into real estate investing.  What I liked about the name, StrugglingInvestor, was it also represented and large group of people who where just like me, people working a full time job and wishing they could break free and venture out on their own into Real Estate Investing. …

Free eBook: 7 Day Action Plan

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Books 4 Comments

I’m sure most of you who read my blog already have downloaded the 7 Day Action Plan e-book that Shae Bynes, over at GoodFaithInvesting.com has put together.  If you have not, then head on over to her site and fill out the form. I just finished reading through all 17 pages.  I must say,  Shae really managed to break down the proper way to take action and succeed.  I’ve done a lot of research, read many books and experimented with …