Following, we will give you a step by step breakdown, on how you can make $7,000 in 7 days.

Step 1: Find a deal online and put under contract or option. You can find deals in many locations, including Ebay. You can also do a search for “investment properties” or “rehab properties”. Those are great search terms. Some other specific websites that you can visit are hud, southernreo, ocwen, lendersreo, countrywide and propertydisposal. Ideally, you should be able to find pictures, price, contact and other pertinent information on the website. Remember, you are doing this virtually, so you should not have to leave your home.

The seller should have their contact information listed with the property. Give them a quick call, send them an e-mail or both, to do what you can to lock the property down. One of the virtues of wholesaling properties virtually, is that the deals DO NOT have to be in your hometown. If they are, that is fine, but you are not confined to any geographic location. You can literally search across the states, until you find the deal for you.

Step 2: Assess the deal. Basically, you want to make sure that the numbers make sense and that this is really a good deal. To do this, you want to compare recent sales in the area, with the deal that you are looking at. Be sure to take into account any repairs (if any) that need to be completed. You also want to compare deals that are the same construction and configuration. For example, if your deal is a three bedroom brick house with 2 baths, it would be a good idea to compare those types of sales. There are two online resources that you can use to make these comparisions and assess your deal. They are virtualinvestorcomps and zillow.

Step 3: Create your flyer or other marketing materials. There are key bits of information that you want to include. They are: a picture of the house, your sales price, the cost of repairs, and the ARV (After Repair Value). You can probably use the same picture that you found when you located the deal on-line. It is also a good idea to put information about any other extras that the house may have. For instance, you can list hardwood floors, ceiling fans, appliances or anything else that makes the deal stand out.

Be creative and include the type of information that you would want to see if you were looking to buy the property. Be sure to include your contact information, so that prospective buyers know how to get in touch with you.

Step 4: Post the property. This will allow other investors to know about the deal that you have. Two good websites for this are craigslist and backpage. If you already have an e-mail list of buyers, you should send the deal out to your list right away. You can also do another on-line search to see where you can post your deal.

Step 5: Now is the time for you to communicate with your buyers. Respond to any e-mails questions or phone calls that you received. When you find a buyer who is willing to pay your price, put the property under contract. Ideally, you should e-mail them the contract and have them fax you the signed copy. You can always have them mail the original.

Step 6: Cash is king. This is something that you must never, ever, forget. Whenever possible, you want a buyer who can pay cash. You want to tell your seller that you can close with cash. This will help you get more offers accepted quickly, and at a lower price. Of course, if you say that, you have to be able to close with cash. So you always want to have cash buyers. This is not as hard as it may initially sound, and it makes everything flow much more smoothly. So, step 6 is to coordinate a cash closing.

Step 7: Close! Most likely, your closing can be done virtually as well. Check on-line for closing attorneys and/or title agents that will do this for you. If you cannot locate one, choose one who will e-mail documents to you, your seller and your buyer. Once you all send in the originals, you will get paid!

And that’s it. This is your step by step guideline on how you can make $7K in 7 days using the power of virtual wholesaling.

Time to Commit

For any plan to work there must be a real commitment from the players. In this case the key player is you. One way to help build this commitment is for you to sign the plan. A signature often has a strong psychological impact that compels people to act. In a word, you are the action in the action plan. To lock in this commitment, share it with someone you can be accountable to, who can hold you to the promise you made to yourself.

In many companies, the goals of the salespeople complement the goals of their sales manager, whose goals complement those of his or her manger, all the way up the organization to the very top. Make sure that your goals are in tune with those of the company, and that your mentors and managers know what you’re aiming for, so they can help you get there.

What you expect is what you get

Your positive expectations have a definite impact on your behavior, causing you to behave and react in ways that are more likely to produce the desired results. This type of behavior also influences the behavior of the people you meet and interact with professionally. If you are positive, confident and optimistic about the way your product and services will meet your prospect’s needs, your client is more likely to react in a similar way. At the same time, if you enter the same situation with the same goals, but with less than positive expectations, your behavior is going to show it and your customer is going to see it. Most importantly, your income is going to show it as well.

Program Yourself to Win

It is one thing to say to yourself that you are going to have positive expectations, and quite another to make it happen. There are three quick and easy steps you can take to increase your positive outlook:

1. Visualize yourself dealing comfortably and persuasively with your prospect and see yourself closing the sale. The best time to do the visualizing is when you are at the edge of awareness, just before you are about to fall asleep. It is one thing to see your goal outcome. It is another to rehearse the good feelings you will have right NOW. You always know how you want to feel right? Let that be your anchor to a positive outcome.

2. Leave some upbeat notes for yourself that reaffirm your strengths, effectiveness, competence and aspirations. These notes are similar to the advertising messages you constantly see and which gradually work their way into your subconscious. Reinforce your own personal brand identity.

3. Set realistic, quantifiable goals, such as a certain number of sales or a volume of business. Be sure to set a deadline for yourself! Put up a note or graphic that shows how much progress you have made toward reaching your goal and how much is needed before you reach it. Track your progress on intermediate landmarks on the way to your goal.

When people have a clear idea of where they are going, they are more likely to demonstrate behaviors that will get them there. The motivational impact of goals is even more compelling for those individuals who have either participated in the goal-setting process or have established the goals for themselves.

Bottom line, as an insurance agent we have control over two things in our professional life: our attitude and our activity. Strive to be the best agent you can be and good selling!

There is a big difference between the way we hear and the way we listen. Hearing is the physical response of your ears and the brain mechanism that picks up sound waves and translates them into signals you can understand.

Listening is the active process of deciphering signals and translating them into meaning. It’s the exact opposite of talking. Most people are better talkers
than listeners; they’re much more adept at expressing their feelings and concerns than at listening to feelings and concerns of others. Which are you?

Tips for Being A Great, Active Listener

1. Open your mind and ears-switch off all negative thoughts and feelings about the prospect and be receptive to the messages he or she is sending.

2. Listen from the first sentence-don’t be thinking about what you’re going to be saying next. Don’t be planning the rest of your presentation. Put aside what your agenda may be and give your undivided attention to your prospective client. They will see this and appreciate you ‘being there’.

3. Analyze what is being said and what is not being said-even the slowest listeners can think faster than the fastest talkers. Avoid trying to figure out what your prospect is going to say; you may miss what he or she is actually saying. Instead, use your faster thinking speed to analyze what has already been said.

4. Listen, don’t talk-active listening is not only a great selling skill, it’s also an important interpersonal skill to have. Always help your prospective client convey his or her meaning accurately to you. You could paraphrase what your prospect has said to be sure you understand when it’s your turn to talk.

5. Never interrupt, but always allow them to interrupt you-nothing cuts of the flow of a meaningful dialogue quite as effectively as continuous interruptions. What’s more, it’s offensive and rude.

6. Ask clarifying questions to stimulate your prospect to talk so you can better understand what he or she means-show that you’re taking him or her seriously by drawing out elaborations and explanations.

7. Remember what is said-log important points into your mental computer.

8. Block out interruptions and distractions-concentrate so fully on what’s being said that you don’t even notice visual or audible distractions such as a television or children.

9. Be responsive-get your whole body into listening and showing that you are paying attention. Look the person in the eye and use facial expressions and gestures to show you hear and understand them.

10. Stay calm-don’t overreact to highly charged words and tones. Hear the person out; then respond.

11. Don’t merely go to the meeting to ‘get your two cent’s worth’ in. Be an effective, professional salesperson. Always remember, your prospective client has your ‘two cents’ right in his or her pocket already!

“Welcome to the ABCD website. ABCD have proudly been in business since 1987. We are a family owned company that prides itself of the great service we provide.”

It is all about ABCD and nothing about the customer!

Other companies seem aloof and do not connect with the customer.

“People select ABCD to provide XYZ services because of their superior customer service and attention to detail”.

Neither of these examples generates many sales nor builds strong connections with their customers.

So what is wrong with these examples? They are coming from the wrong position. What do I mean?

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) created a useful model to help people think about where their communication was coming from and termed the model Perceptual Positions.

The position you adopt reflects the perspective you are coming from when you communicate – from your own perspective, the perspective of someone else or the perspective of an independent observer.

First position is all about me and what I am thinking and feeling. It is very self-absorbed and only focuses on what is important to me and my personal goals and objectives. First position does not make sales! This was the case in the first example website we talked about.

Second position is all about you. This is where you put yourself in the place of the other person and get in touch with their feelings and emotions. You gain an understanding of what is important to them and focus on their needs.

Third position is the independent, impartial observer. In this position you observe the interactions as if you were a fly on the wall and have no emotional attachment to any particular outcome. It is very similar to a commentator on a horse race – commenting on the process of the horses racing but with no stake in which horse actually wins. It is a very useful position but can be seen as cold and aloof. This was the situation in the second example website we discussed.

These positions describe most human interactions, as most healthy functioning people swap regularly between all three positions. However, the most powerful marketing position is second position – where you walk a mile in your customer’s shoes.

This is where you connect at a very deep level with your customer. One of the most attractive things for any person is to be truly listened to and understood.

If your marketing is in second position your words and focus will solidly be on your customer. You will be identifying problems they may be experiencing, you may describe feelings they may be having and your services only exist as potential solutions to their particular problems.

You will have spent a significant amount of time getting inside the head of your customer – finding out what they think, what is important to them and their lives and what values they hold dear.

The word “you” will be liberally sprinkled through your copy, with at least a 3:1 ratio of focus of sentences on the customer compared to you and your business.
Later studies on NLP have identified a fourth position – which is where you communicate as part of a system for the good of the group. This position can be described as the “we” position as the language used is often “we are”, “us” etc. Fourth position includes all three other positions.

One of the things that define fourth position is that it comes from finding the deep links that unite all members of the group or system. Traditionally it has been hard to apply fourth position to sales and marketing, but the trend to being an active part of a social community either on-line or off-line and speaking as part of the group is an example of the marketing shift to fourth position.

So, now you have some homework. Go back and look at your marketing materials. Look at each sentence in your materials and tick off whether your words reflect 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th position.

If you don’t have more 2nd and 4th position statements – you are not connecting as deeply with your customer as you need to do for maximum sales.

But … when you look at how successful was your marketing expense in the past financial year – you need to look your results against a number of definitions of success (and not just the dollars).

Financial review

Let’s get the dollars out of the way first. Marketing is one area you should be able to get pretty solid data on your return on investment – the cost of marketing compared to how much business was brought in from the strategy.

Take a close look at all of your marketing and categorise them into things such as:
* Online costs (such as online ads, affiliate programs, SEO strategies, online web copy)
* Print costs (for costs such as direct mail, brochures, flyers, posters, copywriting for the words etc)
* Advertising (print, radio, TV, yellow pages, copywriting for the scripts or ads)
* PR & Networking (networking events, tradeshows)
* Seminars (if you run seminars)

Next consider the hidden costs – your time in setting up or running that marketing category, time in answering calls or emails, fees and charges associated with that expense (e.g. online transaction fees), travel time and wages. Many businesses don’t allocate these expenses which severely limits their capacity for solid reporting.

You also need to look at the business brought in from the strategy – both in terms of immediate business/sales as well as lifetime value of the customer to your business. Less easy to quantify costs include goodwill, business networks and business brand value.

If it cost you more to attract a customer than the value they bring to you – there is something severely wrong with your marketing (and your business model!)

Customer review

The quality of your marketing affects the customers you are attracting to your business. Review your customer list or think back over the customers who have been coming to your business. Are you attracting great customers, who value you and your business or are you attracting a lot of customers trying to bargain you down and who are generally difficult?

If your customers are not all that flash or are not in sufficient quantities – you need to review your marketing strategies including the words you are using, your images and general approach.

Supplier review

If you have a successful marketing strategy, your suppliers should generate great quality product or services for you and you should have a solid and productive working relationship with them. (This of course assumes you pay your bills on time every time and have essential communication strategies in place!)

If your supplier relationships are bumpy, then your supplier nurturing strategies are not working well for you.

Connection review

One of the outcomes of great marketing is a wider range of connections, alliances and networks you can tap into. Have your connections expanded with quality contacts this year? If you network with lovely people, but never share referrals or business with them – only social chit chat, you need to consider the effectiveness of your networking strategy.

Employee review

When you market for customers, you are also marketing for potential employees. Have a look over the employees who started to work with you this year. Take a look over the number and quality of applicants you received for your vacancies. If your marketing expense was effective you would be inundated with high quality candidates rather than zero applications or less than optimal candidates.

Learning review

Learning is an important indicator for future growth. Through your marketing strategy this year did you learn more about your customers, what makes them tick, what they value and what is important to them? What did you learn about the technical aspects of marketing through applying your strategies? Sometimes something you try may be a financial failure but the most significant learning event in your life.

If the overall assessment of the success of your marketing expense is bleak – don’t panic! You now are armed with some information to help you identify where you will focus your efforts this coming financial year.