Landlording on AutoPilot

A Simple, No-Brainer System for Higher Profits, Less Work and More Fun (Do It All from Your Smartphone or Tablet!)

Mike Butler

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781119467915
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119467908
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Accounting
• Index: Business

Simplify Your Landlord Experience with Smart Strategies and Smarter Tools

"Without Landlording on Autopilot, I doubt I would have ever succeeded with rental properties. Mike's book guided my business every step of the way, and I owe a huge debt to Mike for his insights. This book is a MUST-READ for any current or future landlord."

-Brandon Turner, BiggerPockets.com

Landlording on Autopilot is the property investor's guide to doing it all with less stress and higher profits. As a full-time undercover police detective, author Mike Butler developed his proven, simple system for managing hundreds of rentals on the side; in this book, he shares his methods to help you transition your rentals from a headache into a fun, problem-free source of consistent higher profits and income. Whether you're looking for your first rental property, or just looking for a better way to manage the ones you have, this book shows you his strategies, mind-set, tools and technologies to make your rental business a boatload easier while giving you a lot more time to do what you want! Mike's simple methods can be implemented in downtown Manhattan or Anytown, USA, whether you manage high-end penthouses or Section 8 rentals, and you can do it all from your smartphone or tablet—and best of all, most of the technology doesn't cost a penny.

There comes a time in every landlord's "landlording" experience when the income doesn't feel worth the hassle. Don't give up! Investment property can be a wonderful source of income—with the right approach. Mike Butler's approach is "autopilot", and it tips the scales toward more profit, more income, and much less stress.

• Discover the latest—and mostly free—landlording technologies
• HUGE Updates on Section 8, rental application processing changes, and more
• How To deal with the latest rash of federal, state, and local laws attacking landlords
• Explore market trends and conditions through the eyes of a seasoned real estate investor

If your properties are taking up too much of your life, Landlording on Autopilot is your ultimate guide to reclaiming your time—and your profit.

PLUS… FREE GIFTS from Mike Butler!

• "159 point Rent Ready Checklist"
• "Your 18 page 'Ultimate How To Guide' to Taking Multi-Purpose Photos and Videos of Your Rentals"
• 12 Brand New Updated FORMS for Your Rental Business

SECTION IV
MASTER THESE TO MAXIMIZE YOUR INCOME AND PROFITS

CHAPTER 17
MARKETING Makes It Happen, Not Advertising

Operating a successful rental property business requires effective Marketing. You can do this very cheap, even close to a zero-dollar budget for advertising.

Here's my TOP four marketing must-haves for your rental business:

1. REFERRALS—These are by far, your number 1 source of effective marketing. Let your tenants, your sellers, your buyers, your real estate agents, your attorneys know you rent homes (and buy houses). Offer to pay them a referral fee, if legal in your state, if a referral becomes a tenant or a deal.
2. BUSINESS CARDS—get 1,000 thick, double-sided color, glossy finished for $25 with free shipping at ZooPrinting.com.
3. WEBSITE—get one like mine + all kinds of free investor training—$49 month
4. YARD SIGNS—corrugated plastic 24″ × 18″, $10 each (buy 100 approximately $3 each, one-zee two-zee are about $10 each)

Marketing is your BIG, powerful word here. Simply put, it is everything you do to promote your business and generate leads. This does not mean you have to spend money.

Advertising on the other hand usually involves paying for a product or service.

Referrals

Use your cell phone and capture videos and photos of super-excited and satisfied customers, residents, sellers, buyers, and so forth. You can put them on your FREE YouTube.com channel within your Google Gmail Account.

Referrals are old school and new school and work in any town and in any market.

Before we jump into the marketing with today's market and technology, let me give some proven, simple, and almost free things you can do to promote your business.

OLD SCHOOL Proven and simple, homemade yard signs, even the generic ones from Home Depot and Lowe's. Second is your tried and true homemade, created by you scribbling with a big Sharpie or flyers or brochures you make on your home computer. Use the flyers to promote your vacancies and just flood your neighborhood grocery, laundry, car washes, and more.

SOCIAL MEDIA I am NOT an expert on this stuff. I still frequently call Facebook Book-Face and YouTube Tube-You, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat. But this much I do know. SOCIAL MEDIA is HUGE and it is FREE!

When you see on every TV channel, radio station, newspaper ads, restaurants, retail stores, EVERYWHERE You Turn, we are bombarded with all of the social media icons to “follow us” on this social media or that social media. My daughters are experts on this stuff, but I truly have a long way to go before I really get it and that's fine with me. (I will probably end up hiring a person to do only social media stuff for me sometime down the road.)

Many investors have a Facebook thing for their real estate business and treat it like a website. Yes, it is free, but I have not figured out how it will replace a truly effective, interactive website for your business. As far as I know, you cannot put fill-in-the-blank forms on your Facebook page.

In the arena of Social Media, ask your kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids to do it for you or teach you. I am not your go-to guy on this one. The one thing I can tell you is that works to get as much of your good company stuff on the Internet as you can, and keep doing it on a regular basis.

Business Cards

Almost always, your first marketing piece you will buy. You can get 1,000 of these high-quality, thick, glossy, two-sided color, with free shipping for only $25 at ZooPrinting.com. Many folks also use VistaPrint.com.

What is the purpose of your business card? No, it's not about letting them know how to contact you. The Purpose of business cards is to be a “Lead Generator” for your business.

You have about 2.5 seconds to grab the attention of anyone who sees your business card.

Here's what they say when they see your business card: “What's In It For Me?” If your business card does not loudly SCREAM a benefit to the person looking at your card, you lose.

You MUST be unique, creative, and craft a simple, short slogan explaining the benefits for your target audience—motivated sellers if you are buying, prospective tenants, and more.

You must have a “call to action.” Tell them what to do—simple and straightforward. This could be a free report, free video, audio, and so forth.

Shown next are some examples of my business cards that I tried to make them SCREAM the benefits for the person reading them. The older ones are far from perfect. I really like my business card for my education and mentoring business.

In today's world, here's what to include on your business cards.

1. First and Foremost is Your Company Slogan
   1. Put some serious thought into this. Don't just do a quick, knee-jerk slogan. Run it by your family members, friends, and folks you trust. Does it Loudly SCREAM Exactly What Your Business Does?
      1. Mike's Real Estate Business Slogan “We Buy Houses, We Rent Homes!”
      2. “Buy, Sell, Rent, Trade!”
      3. “Best Realtor in Mayberry!”
2. Use simple, easy-to-read fonts, like
   1. 
   2. 
   3. 
   4. Do Not Use artsy fartsy fonts; these are very hard to read.
      • 
      • 
      • 
   5. Do Not try to have a funeral home wallpaper background with very light-colored fonts as shown below.

      

      (Created by Mike Butler as an example)

3. Check these out and ask yourself, “What's In It For Me?”

   

   

   

Notice the QR code, open the QR Code Reader app on your Smartphone and scan the QR code with your phone (it's the small, postage-stamp size image of weird lines). Now imagine a prospective tenant holding your business card. They will know exactly how to scan this QR code. Do a little test right now and check it out for yourself.

The preceding cards are effective and they work. Jiru is my in-house leasing agent.

Then there is the business card I use today for my education and consulting business.

After this book is published, you'll see the second-edition book photo on the back side of my business card.

PEEL 'N STICK Business Card Magnets You can buy these in packs of 10 or 25 at Office Depot, Staples, and Amazon. It's 10 times cheaper and a more effective than buying custom made magnets.

You can put one in your “New Tenant Welcome Package” and slap one on every fridge you come across in your day-to-day activities, especially of those folks who want you to buy their house.

Website

You MUST have an effective, INTERACTIVE website in today's market. NO EXCEPTIONS, NO EXCUSES. There's no need to have 25 separate websites, as many experts try to persuade you to have—one for buyers, one for sellers, one for tenants, one for private lenders and so on. You can do it all on one good, properly structured website (You can get America's Best Website for real estate investors—Trevor Mauch's Investor Carrot website—for free when you join our Gold Membership at www.MikeButler.com/join)

Interactive means folks who visit your website can do stuff versus just looking at your business card or billboard in the cloud somewhere. Things to have on your website to make your life easier:

• Make them pay your application fee BEFORE they get to your online, fill-in-the-blank rental application—(when they hit the SUBMIT button, it is auto-emailed to You)
• A clean, simple, home page that is easy for your website visitors to navigate. Take a look at the home page of Google.com and you will exactly what I am talking about.
• On my home page is a summarized list of available homes for rent. You can check it out at VistaKY.com. Here's a snapshot of my home page.
• Check out the navigation bar showing a page for Residents and Buy My House.

Do You Print Flyers for Your Available Homes List? Simply print this home page and it is already set up as a flyer for you. It lists all of your available homes and if they want more details and photos, they simply scan the QR code already contained in your home page.

Take Good Quality Photos This is one the hardest challenges for many real estate investors, property managers, and Realtors. Most have a very hard time taking good photos. The biggest blunder happens on taking photos of the front of the house. They stand in front of the house and take a photo of the “front wall” of the house. This is wrong. Here's a page from my “How to Ta...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE PAGE
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• INTRODUCTION
• SECTION I: YOU MUST HAVE THE RIGHT MINDSET FIRST
• SECTION II: BEFORE YOU GIVE KEYS TO YOUR NEW RESIDENT
• SECTION III: GO 100% DIGITAL AFTER THEY MOVE IN
• SECTION IV: MASTER THESE TO MAXIMIZE YOUR INCOME AND PROFITS
• APPENDIX A: Recommended Resources for Your Business
• APPENDIX B: FORMS and More FORMS
• INDEX
• END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT