Copyright © 2015, Rob Swanson Training Systems, All Rights ...€¦ · I know the 100 roll is...

Handwritten Postcard System Module 4, Video 1, Setting Up Your Cards To Print

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All right I am back in Video Two under Module Four in Mailing and Follow Up to your

motivated sellers. We have a total of four modules. Module One: We went over the

Overview of the Direct Mail System; Module Two: How to Get Your Lists; Module Three:

Preparing Your Postcards on your computer; and in Module Four: We are going over

printing which we just did. Now I’m actually going to go through how we do the mailing

and the follow up of your handwritten postcards.

Remember in the previous video I showed you to set up your cards to actually print off

your computer and do the settings. In this video I’m going to walk you through the

mailing and the follow up of your handwritten postcards. Let me go over what we’re

going to cover in this training. We’re going to talk about stamps and how to use and

purchase them. We’re going to talk about how to control direct mail campaign workflows

and delivery dates. Then we’re going to show you how to follow up and track your leads.

Specifically I’m going to walk you through Vumber ,which is the system I use to help

manage my motivated sellers.

Let’s talk about stamps. We are actually going to be using fast plus postage stamps.

These are what normal people use when they mail a letter to an individual. I like to

purchase them in rolls of 100. Yes, you can get them on the sheets of paper. They’re

bigger. They look prettier, but I find the rolls are easier to manage. They’re all on one

tight little roll, it’s 100 stamps. You specifically want the postcard stamps they’re $0.34.

A regular envelope stamp is $0.49. Just by switching to this system you knock $0.15 per

letter off your overhead. That’s pretty cool.

I like the roll, so if you buy a roll of 100 this is simple math it’s costing you $34. You get

100 postcards out. The roll cost is $0.34 which is basically 98.5% of our cost to do a

handwritten postcard. How do we apply them? We can do it one or two ways before I

show you that slide. Guys, putting the stamps on the postcard is really the only


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manually assembly piece you have to do. If I had to pick one assembly piece it would be

this one.

I have two teenage kids in my house. I put them in a box with the stamps. I pay them

allowance anyways. Every 500 they do I basically go out and get them a treat. We go

out to dinner. We go for ice cream. We do fun stuff, but I’m going to tell you. They take a

box like 500 and they have it done in less than 30 minutes. They both attack it and it’s

done. I’ve personally sat in one hour and I was watching a webinar and I banged up

500, but I was under the gun to get it done.

If you really need to bang out to get postcard stamps done and in you’re in a jam, it’s

really easy to take them and apply them in a very quick manner. If you get them in the

roll it’s much easier. Yes, you can do the flat ones but they’re harder to track. Also when

I know the 100 roll is done, I’ve processed 100 postcards so it’s really simple. We do

100. You know 100 are done, clip them together, get them out in the mail.

If you’re a doit yourselfer somewhat like I am, and you don’t have a couple of kids

sitting around that want to help you out, you can get these anywhere just search on the

internet. It’s a stamp dispenser. You actually load the roll of 100 stamps in there. You

could just swipe it in the corner of each postcard. I got to tell you this thing flies the

stamps. Don’t fret putting stamps on this is the easiest part of the process. It’s no big

deal.

Yes you can outsource it. You can literally outsource it to anybody. Just have someone

who wants to stick stamps on there. You can pay a penny or two and I’m sure you’ll

have no problem having anybody do them. But don’t be surprised if they get seven or

800 done in an hour, because if you really focused it wouldn’t be that hard. It’s kind of a

monotonous task. Going through the math and I walked you through the rim before.


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Between the cost of the rim, the 250 sheets we have somebody cut them in quarters we

get 1000.

It cost you about a 1.5 cents for each postcard so let’s just round it. The stamp’s $0.34,

let’s call printing $0.02 so it cost you a total cost of $0.36 for each postcard. This is the

simplicity of the Handwritten Postcard System. The math is all in plain day for you.

There is no magic with setup cost. I’ve got shipping and all these hidden costs. You

know now that your handwritten postcards cost $0.36 each to do.

Let’s calculate your postcard workflow. What do I mean by that? Here is what we’re

going to do. We’re going to do the math backwards. Say you have a budget and in this

instance you come to me and say, “Hey Rick, I got $500 to spend to do these

postcards. What can we do with $500? I think I can do some real damage with $500. I

will tell you this. You call up a mailing company and tell them you got $500 to spend and

they’re probably going to laugh you off the phone.

With the Handwritten Postcard System you’re in control of everything. I started out using

this system on less than $150 budget per month. I know it works. If you want to spend

$1000 or $1500 you can really ramp this thing up. If you’re just starting out with $100

you’re just going to put in a little sweat equity and make this thing work but the power is

in with you. Let’s walk through the math.

I got a $500 budget. Let’s do some math here, $500. $0.36 is our production cost for

everything gives you the ability to print 1,388 postcards, real simple. I don’t know where

else you can print 1,388 postcards. Nonetheless, postcards that look like they were

handwritten. If you had to pay somebody to handwrite them – and I used to do that –

you’re looking at $0.25 to $0.35 before you even stick a stamp on it, for the $500, 1,388

postcards.


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If we allocate our workflow here, to get a consistent mailing program here is how I would

set you up. The average four weeks in a month, you need to produce 347 postcards per

week. The nice thing about the Handwritten Postcard System is you control everything.

You’re in control of your workflow. I think it’s reasonable to think you can print 347

postcards by yourself in one week to get out 347.

I don’t know where else you can stretch $500 in a direct mail system other than the

handwritten postcard. Everybody get that, $500 divided by $0.36 equals 1,388. We say

that’s what we’re going to spend $500 for the month. Instead of taking all 1,388 and

dropping them in one shot – and you can do that – but what I recommend if you’re just

getting started in this system is spread it out. We want to keep those phones ringing all

month long.

If you’re new to this you can work your way into it. You will learn from each call you get

from a motivated seller. If you drop 347 a week that will let you spread it out to spend

the $500 per month. But what you can do is you have a systematic plan. Your goal is to

produce 347 postcards per week. I know what you’re thinking, “Rick, what I about my

list costs?” You’re right.

I didn’t include these costs in this, because you know why, when I first started out

buying a list wasn’t even really an option for me. I would go round and collect

addresses. I would pull listings off the Internet. I would go through Craigslist. I would go

through whatever means possible. I love driving vacant properties. I would work with

realtors. I would go down to the county. You can pull lists that way. A little more

advanced technique, but if you’re creative enough and you’re really tight budget – list

costs that might not even be an option for you.


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List costs is great, it’s convenient but if I’m on a shoestring budget I’m going to find a

way to get my lists for absolutely free. We’ll talk a little bit later about that. I actually

have techniques on where you can locate lists for free. But when you’re starting out, if

you got a tight budget you need to get your list costs as low as possible. If you only got

$100 to spend in a month, I don’t think you got $100 to spend on a list because then

you can’t mail it to them.

If you’re on a shoestring budget at list costs you’re going to create your own list. That’s

why I didn’t calculate it in this example. Let’s assume you want to purchase a list to do

your mailing. Let’s take the same situation. On a $500 budget the average list cost is

around $0.15 a lead give or take. I’m just using this as an example, but that should be

about it. If we add $0.15 to the $0.36 our postcard production cost is $0.51.

We take that same $500 and we divide it by $0.51. That gives you the ability to produce

980 postcards with a mailing list. Let’s take 980 postcards, still a very respectable

number. If you’re willing to stretch that out over the month and do consistent workflow

mailings, you’re going to drop 250 postcards per week. I mean every week for 52 weeks

drop 250. This is how you consistently get deals in this business.

Don’t be the guy who does 1000 piece mailer and then you get two or three deals. Then

your pipeline dries up and you can’t figure things out. You have got to master your

workflow. The Handwritten Postcard System allows you to take full control of the entire

process from start to finish so you know exactly how to manage it. If you want to bring in

people to help you outsource certain processes, absolutely.

Say, “Rick I want to spend $2,000 a month.” More power to you. You could easily take

your print file, take it to a Kinko’s, an office supplies store or any type of printing house.

I’m sure they’re just going to charge maybe a nickel a print for the paper, everything.

You can supply the paper, show them how to cut it and come up with an agreement to


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them. You can easily take this and outsource it because printing 2000 postcards by

yourself might seem a little daunting.

If you want to outsource it, you have the absolutely control and ability. You control

everything. You just figure out when you want them to deliver your product to you and

how long it’s going to take them to get it done. I promise you it won’t take them four to

six weeks. The most it’s ever taken me on an outsourced production is 24 hours. There

are no more excuses. I drop it off. I’ll be back tomorrow or call me when it’s ready. Then

once you get a relationship set up with them, you could just send them the print file and

then go by and pick it up or have your assistant pick it up or however you want to do it.

Let’s talk about the guys who only got $100. You can do the math and figure this out. It

doesn’t matter what your budget is. This is my actual Vumber account. Vumber is

nothing more than an online service. To quickly acquire a phone number there’s a

couple of things for you, and make sure you’re not handing out your personal cell phone

to everybody. You can separate your business to personal.

Number two, if you want to acquire another phone number for additional marketing you

can use that. Say if you’re going to market in another area with a different area code

you would want to get another Vumber number. I highly recommend you keep the area

code in line with the area you’re marketing to. If you’re marketing in a 321 area code

make sure your phone number is 321. That will insinuate that you are local and, you’ll

probably be easier to deal with. You’ll be quicker and you’ll have more knowledge of the

local market.

I like Vumber. I think it’s around $10 or $11 a month. It’s about $4 for each additional

phone number. If you want to drop a phone number, add a phone number you can just

click a mouse and it easily happens. Also make sure that you get a phone number that

has SMS. That means it can receive texts. We’re finding more and more customers


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want to be able to text their information. That’s typically the younger crowd, 40 and

under and not the older.

That being said let me walk you through – these are actual phone numbers that come

in. the caller just gives their I.D. and their phone number. This is the phone my phone

number is registered from. If they leave a message like in this particular one – let me

mute that for you – you can click there and play the message. The neat thing about this

is you set up – you can have it forwarded to you – your email account.

You can set up a separate voicemail email account. It sends the actual voicemail in a

WAVE file to the email. It keeps a database of all your voicemails or you can just log

into Vumber. You can do it like this as well too. It will give you – I scroll way back on this

list. I don’t use this phone number anymore by the way – is 9222014722. It will even

tell you how long the minutes were.

A couple of words of advice for you; if the voicemail you set up on this, you have two

different ways you can answer the calls. If you’re busy and you have a full time job, I

highly recommend just letting it go to voicemail and your voicemail is simply going to

say, “Hey, you’ve reached Rick Ginn. I’m sorry I’m out at the moment. Please leave

your name, number and I will get back with you shortly.” Really simple, it’s personable

and leave it like that.

Do not run them through: give me the property address, your motivation level. They’re

probably just going to hang up on you. The other way is if you are in this business and

you’re digging hard for a deal. My advice is just answer every phone call. What do you

have to lose? You’re going to learn on every one of them. If you’re only doing 100

postcards you need to put the odds in your favor.


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You always have a better shot if you answer the phone. You just have to connect with

people and solve their problem. If you do that you will get a deal. If you have thousands

of postcards you have to figure out the best system for your business. If you’re busy, set

up a simple voicemail. If you only take every call live, you could take every call live. If

you happen to miss one it goes to voicemail you call them right back.

If they don’t leave a voicemail and they hang up you still capture their phone number. In

my experience that’s a lead. We follow up on it. This tracks the phone number. It tracks

the message. It all forwards to an email account for you or you can log in your Vumber

account or do both. What you can do is click that export button. It will take this

information and put it in an Excel Spreadsheet.

Since I’ve actually taught you how to do simple sorting on Excel Spreadsheets, this is

that same information. I’m just going to get rid of the stuff I don’t need like accounting

stuff. I want to keep the important information like the call time and date, duration might

be important and obviously the originating phone number. This is the phone number the

campaign it came from. Obviously they’re all inbound calls so I don’t need that.

Look here, I just show you how to automate your tracking system. This is for if you don’t

work with the CRM and you’re just looking to get the basics. This is as simple as it gets.

This is how I first started out doing it. Your system gets more advanced. If you want to

work with the CRM you can actually have the voicemails uploaded into Podio. I think

they’re some great tools with FreedomSoft you can use.

If you want to step up your game you can work with the CRM, but I’m giving you the

basic tools for the guy who just wants to work his or her entire system. Here is the call

time and date, duration, the phone number it came from, and your marketing phone

number. You could put here if you follow up on if you follow up on them. Say you call

them on 724, maybe you left a message. You can track however you want to do it.


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It’s been a long time since I did it this way, but this is your own personal database, but

you really can’t screw this up because all you did was click the export button in and bam

it loaded an Excel Spreadsheet. Then you say, “Left message call tonight 7:00 pm.”

Then you could just keep following over to the right. You should at least follow up five to

six times a minimum. I’d keep punching up. You could set your Spreadsheet up

accordingly.

This is just a really simple tool you can use to follow up and track your motivated sellers.

If the person hang up on you and didn’t leave a message, you need to call them. If they

called they’re a lead. “Rick, they hang up. I’m a little bit scared.” Maybe they’re a little bit

nervous too. They don’t know you. Maybe they think you’re going to judge them with

their situation. Just call them back and be a real person. Try to help them solve a

problem.

I get this all the time, “Hey Rick, what do I do if they call and they say something nasty

to me?” just be nice and move on. You’re going to have to have tough skin in this

business. My personal experience is the more people you touch base with the more

deals you will do. You should repeat that aloud. The more people you contact the more

opportunity for doing deals, bar none.

Everybody got this. I’m going to back to my Vumber here. Real simple, look it up

Vumber. There is a bunch of different other systems. One other idea for you, there are

programs that you can actually take. Once you store these phone numbers after 30

days what I do and what a lot of investors do is you can copy and paste the phone

numbers. You can actually get a texting service or a voice broadcasting service. I know

Call Fire is a popular one. There’s Slide Dial.

You can automatically call them and text them and just do some follow up, because

you’ll see that your Vumber after a while it really blows up. It just depends on any given

– anyone of my Vumber accounts will have two or 300 phone calls in a month. But you


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can see that month after month after about 90 days I might have a database of seven or

800 phone numbers. What an opportunity to market these people?

The key is to systematically capture the information. This is why I like Vumber. There

are other options out there for you but I try to keep it simple with the Handwritten

Postcard System. This wraps it up in regards to how to do your mailing. We talked

about the stamps. We know our costs. We talked about the workflow how to break it

up to fit your budget – not anybody else’s budget, your budget and the last but not least,

the simple way how to work in Vumber to manage and track your motivated seller.

This is Rick Ginn signing off with the Handwritten Postcard System. I want to thank you

for sharing this time with me. I know you’re going to do phenomenal Handwritten

Postcard System. Best of luck, and I will speak with you soon.


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Copyright © 2015, Rob Swanson Training Systems, All Rights ...€¦ · I know the 100 roll is...

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