109 Audio » Virtual Attraction Marketing » Claude Diamond

Intro:   Welcome, this is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast.

Joe:      Hey everybody, welcome. Again, this is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast and I’m with Claude Diamond. One of my…

Claude:            Hey, Joe.

Joe:      One of my mentors and coaches and good friends. You are in San Diego right now, I believe, enjoying the horrible ugly terrible weather.

Claude:            Oh no, it rained. It actually rained here last night. We, I think we got a quarter inch of rain but it’s good for my lawn.

Joe:      That’s horrible.

Claude:            It’s very good. We are having a bad drought out here in California. We need the rain.

Joe:      So, I’m looking outside right now to some snow. It’s probably 30 degrees, which isn’t that bad actually. It’s kind of warm. Are you missing Colorado at all? Do you miss the snow there?

Claude:            I love Colorado. But yeah, I do miss the skiing. But, there is something about being able to go outside, go to the pool, go to the beach, have a fish, taco and a Corona bear in a 75-degree weather. I’m sorry. Am I making people miserable right now, Joe?

Joe:      No, no. Because who knows? They may be listening to this in the middle of August and wishing for those days when it was snowing and cold again. But, okay. So, Claude and I, we talked a few days ago and this is kind of like a continuation of a previous podcast, but I wanted to talk with Claude about you’ve been in the business since the 80s. And, I wanted to ask Claude some questions about how marketing has changed over time and a lot has happened since then. A lot has changed, but a lot of things have stayed the same. And, I think we’ll get some good perspective from Claude on what used to work and what still is working today, right?

Claude:            Exactly! Joe, I have a test for you. Let’s see. What am I holding up here? Yeah, I found these old VHS. It’s not 8-track. That is even older. 8-tracks go back to, I think, the 60s.

Joe:      Oh, yeah.

Claude:            And, they were replaced by cassettes, and then the video revolution happened. Everybody remembers Blockbuster. We know they are gone, right?

Joe:      Oh, yeah.

Claude:            And, I think there is a lesson to be learned by Blockbuster, by the way. Did you know blockbuster had an opportunity to buy Netflix for $25 million at one time?

Joe:      Did they really?

Claude:            Yes, and who’s here and who is gone now?

Joe:      That’s amazing. I did not know that.

Claude:            So, I think there is one theme or one lesson we can learn from this podcast. Things change all the time. Change is constant. We have to change with the industry, with the technology. On marketing today… My marketing is so different from the 80s and 90’s to here we are, 2015. So different! And, it’s actually better! Do you know my cost, Joe? Do you know? I don’t know about you. I was spending $10,000 a month in marketing at one time. You know what I spend today?

Joe:      No.

Claude:            Almost next to nothing. Literary next to nothing with my…

Joe:      I’m sorry to interrupt but I was just…

Claude:            It’s all right. I was just going to say I used a technique called “virtual attraction marketing…”

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            …Where the leads come in to me automatically. I know that’s a favorite word of yours.

Joe:      Yeah, we are going to talk about that here. I wanted to just point everybody real quick. Go to RealEstateInvestingMastery.com. Check out the show notes to this show because we got some cool stuff that we are giving way for free. If you go to the show notes, you can get more information about that. Claude… By the way, our website is RealEstateInvestingMastery.com, RealEstateInvestingMastery.com. Go to the show notes. We are talking to Claude. And, I’m trying to think of a name for the show. Let’s call it “Virtual attraction.”

Claude:            Virtual attraction marketing.

Joe:      Yes, okay. So, go look for the show that has virtual attraction marketing on there.

Claude:            We are going to give away a great free book?

Joe:      Yeah, yeah, I got it right here. I’m actually… If you can see…

Claude:            Oh, yeah. How many was it? 320 something pages there.

Joe:      Does it have pages in there? I don’t see pages.

Claude:            It’s an index in the front.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            That is a collection of articles on lease purchasing, wholesale real estate, gut sales training. I found that in the dungeon too. I put it all in Dropbox in a PDF and let’s just give it away for free, Joe, because you and I are all about educating people and…

Joe:      That’s really generous.

Claude:            No, that’s my pleasure.

Joe:      I’m looking at it. These are newsletters that you wrote from 1993, I think, is the first one.

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      Can you believe that was over 20 years ago?

Claude:            Yeah, I was only 16 or something.

Joe:      Yeah, you were only 16. But, that doesn’t seem that long ago but I guess it really was. It blows my mind still today.

Claude:            What do you see? You have little kids. Well, you see how fast they grow up.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            It’s like overnight they are small, then they become… They go to college, then they text you once in a while.

Joe:      They text and they don’t call.

Claude:            But, marketing in the 80s was a lot of… A lot of the thing that we did then, 80s and 90s, people are still doing today. There is still some merit to hanging up signs in certain parts of the country. In parts here in Southern California, you can actually get arrested for hanging signs. It really depends… I love signs. They always brought in phone calls. They are simple. They are inexpensive. One of my tricks or tips was to put my sign in places where I was prohibited for hanging signs. I’d park my car in a legal place and put the signs inside the windows.

Joe:      Oh, really?

Claude:            Yeah, nobody could do anything about that legally. There is no law against putting signs in your own property in a legally parked space. So, if you can’t post them on a street light or something like that or a sign, another kind of sign, you put it inside your car where it is legally parked in a very busy area and people will see your sign that way too.

Joe:      That’s not a bad idea.

Claude:            So, we used to do that. We used to do classified ads. Remember those in the local newspapers, the Nickel Savers and all these great little local papers, weekly papers, major papers?

I used to use the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Investor Business Daily, all these old newspapers with classified ads when the circulation was in the millions. People read newspapers. Unfortunately, we are seeing the demise of newspapers today or a big change in them. Actually, they are all going digital.

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            I get the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal every morning, but I read them on my little iPad that I’m holding up right now.

Joe:     Yeah, I do too, I actually read the Wall Street Journal on my iPad and I enjoy it.

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:     I prefer… But, I still like the feel of the newspaper.

Claude:            There is something about ink on the fingers, right?

Joe:      Yeah, but there are still things that work today that have always and I think always will work. I think postcards are a great form of marketing. I get a lot of deals from postcards. But, there are like I have some friends… I don’t do this, but still put ads in the Penny Saver or the Nickel Thrifty Times, whatever you call it. Occasionally, once every couple of months, a deal comes from that and definitely getting a positive ROI, but a lot of things have changed over time. Claude, let’s talk about when you were getting started in real estate, what was this? When you were like five years old in the 80s, right?

Claude:            Yeah, exactly, five years old. I was out of college actually.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            And, got the real estate fever like we all have. I read some great books by William Nickerson, “How to Change $1,000 to Five Million Rehabbing.” I read… Oh, my God, Robert Allen…

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            “Nothing Down” It has great and very creative strategies to utilize when lending was a lot easier and assumption of mortgages and things like that. I used to pick up mortgages. I would… You could just assume mortgages at one time. VAs for $250. You could assume them very little qualification or none. I mean, it was a wonderful time in real estate to pick up stuff. People, we didn’t have a lot of Dodd Frank and a lot of the scrutiny and things we have today.

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            So, if you were good in sales and you know how to find these properties, it was great. I used to use magazines also, by the way. I used to use Money and Entrepreneur and magazines like that which people still read. The thing about is you said a word before, ROI, return on investment.

If I put an ad on a newspaper that costs for a little bit half-inch ad, $80, $90, $100, it’s very expensive. Am I getting enough phone calls for the return on that investment? That’s the analysis I do in all my marketing.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            And the thing is, can I spend my money on something else today and get a better or get more leads for the same money or less money?

Joe:      And, you don’t know that unless you track your numbers, right?

Claude:            Yeah, you got to watch your numbers. You got to do an analysis. That’s where using Google and a lot of the analytics is very handy nowadays.

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            Absolutely. What else did we do?

Joe:      We used to do newsletters.

Claude:            Newsletters! I mailed a newsletter the least purchase times and success stories. And today, we do it electronically. I send them out. I have 16,000 subscribers that I send my newsletter out to electronically. I don’t have to pay the postage. Postage was a consideration in the 80s, 90s, and 2000. Today, what’s a first class stamp today? I always did first class by the way. Do you know why?

Joe:      No.

Claude:            Because when the address changed, the post office automatically returns first class postage…

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            …And gives you the new change of address to update your database so that’s the way. We always kept an evolving and up-to-date database. That was before email and things like that.

So, I was mailing out to thousands of people. They get the newsletter. Then, the envelope had a colorful icon on it with a picture of the newsletter or a picture of me on it with my name and phone number. So, the envelope acted as a marketing piece to them. They opened it. Then eventually, we folded over the newsletter. We didn’t have to, but we wanted to cut costs because the postage was going up. So, we folded the newsletter and used the newsletter itself as the address label…

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            …And things like that. But still, when you were talking about labor, manufacturing and to send out these newsletters to thousands of people, it wasn’t unknown to spend $5,000 a mailing in those days at least.

Joe:      Wow! Now, you were doing newsletters like that for consulting business, lease purchase deals and lease purchase consulting and training.

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      So, how were you doing it for…? Because a lot of people think it’s either one or the other. So, how was it? How were you able to do this kind of marketing and find sellers that wanted to sell deals and students that wanted to learn the business? Did you separate it or…?

Claude:            No, I didn’t. It’s a great question. It’s an excellent question. You can separate your marketing, create different companies, different marketing but once again, ROI, and return on investment.

Many people who are listening to this are just getting started or have limited resources for marketing, okay? And, the thing is, what is the best use of your money? So, what I always try to do is a have a hybrid or a blend of marketing, real estate stories, real estate education.

I promoted my consulting and mentoring business all the time but also, people called me with deals. And, what was interesting is we were using landlines then, okay? We are talking before this little device I’m holding up, the cell phone, okay?

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            It was all landlines. Remember, you went out to a property and you didn’t have a phone. You couldn’t take pictures or videos. You had to go to something strange, a phone booth…

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            …Or a coffee shop to make your phone calls. Maybe, you don’t remember these days but I do. And eventually, we did get car phones. They’re very, very expensive.

Joe:      I remember I had those.

Claude:            Yeah, very expensive. And, the back and the trunk of your car had this heavy equipment in the back depending on what you were doing or what kind of equipment you were using back then. The telephone, if you had to say anything, the cell phone was one of the great technological changes that really made a difference in this business now.

We were always worried about when to call people. Could we call them in the dinnertime? Could we call them in the weekends? Could we reach them during the day? Now, the difference and the interesting thing is people always ask me, “When is the best time to call?” and I will say, “Now!” because everybody has this device with them, the cell phone.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            And, that was one of the big changes in the marketing. So, we were doing media. We were doing newsletters. We were doing signs. One of the things that we don’t talk about in marketing which is still very prevalent today is public speaking. A very scary thing for a lot of people. It was for me in all honesty. I studied Dale Carnegie and Toastmasters and things like that and I learned how to speak publicly. And, I’ve found that every time I spoke, people brought me deals…

Joe:      Really?

Claude:            …Or I was able to market deals.

Joe:      Now, where would you go speak?

Claude:            A good question.

Joe:      Let’s keep this back in the 80s and the 90s.

Claude:            Real estate clubs. Real estate clubs have always been the foundation of this business. There has always been real estate clubs. Today, in comparison, we still have real estate clubs but we also have meet up groups, Meetup.com, where we have these little groups there. Sometimes, they are as few as 20 people and they meet at a sports club once every two weeks.

Folks go to Meetup.com. I go to these little meetings if convenient. I’ll give a 15-minute presentation on lease purchasing, gut sales training, wholesale real estate, marketing and these people will bring me deals or be interested in me mentoring them.

Joe:      Interesting.

Claude:            So, public… And today, I’m just coming off three weeks. I was in Seattle. I was in Fresno. I was in Orange County, all real estate clubs and one meetup group. And, I’ll tell you right now, every time… And, I use a little PowerPoint display and take my little… You can now get on a plane with just your little iPad and plug it into the digital projector. And, every time I speak, Joe, I make money because speaking is, I think, one of the ultimate marketing methods, but it’s very difficult for many people and I understand that.

Joe:      Well, you have a course. I’m looking at it right now. Consulting, you have a consulting course…

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      …That you created.

Claude:            Yeah, I have a whole package here. It’s funny. Yeah, I did this a long time ago.

Joe:      “Consulting, Coaching & Mentoring in Creative Real Estate.”

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      And, what is interesting about that is that it’s just not, I guess, selling coaching to students who want to learn the lease purchase business. You are also teaching there how to offer consulting to sellers on how to do lease purchasing on their deals, right?

Claude:            Yeah, I find a lot of deals. That’s something that also changed a lot in this business. As the communication changed, we went from landline telephones to cell phones, to texting, to emails and the whole world got a lot smaller. Did you notice that?

Joe:      Oh, yeah.

Claude:            I have international clients. I have clients in 14 different countries.

Joe:      Hmmm.

Claude:            I use Skype, I use… Oh, my gosh! FaceTime and all this different technologies. You and I are using Skype right now.

Joe:      And, we are using… And, you also do a lot of videos with… What is it called? Eyejot?

Claude:            Eyejot for follow-up and offers.

Joe:      Wait, wait, you send video emails with Eyejot?

Claude:            I send video e-mails. I use Eyejot. There are several others systems out there. I make offers by sending videos.

Joe:      Right, right.

Claude:            What’s really interesting is though I’m in California and someone in New York or Florida will contact me. We will negotiate a deal and boom! I will or they will need help with the deal and I will consult on that deal.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            I do a lot of consulting on deals. Some deals you don’t want to touch because they are too far way. They are not your kind of deal. The money, the numbers aren’t right or there is no room. Not everybody always wants a Joe McCall or a Claude Diamond in the deal, but they want your knowledge. Why not specialize in a niche, in an area of creative real estate and consult in that area? I’m a big endorser of that.

Joe:      Yeah, I like that a lot. And, that could be a whole another subject on its own.

Claude:            Oh, that’s another podcast we have to do on consulting and creative real estate. Let me know. I’ll be glad to do it with you.

Joe:      Well, let’s do it. Let’s go and do it.

Claude:            Yeah, absolutely! But, back to marketing.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            So then, things started to change. The communication was better. E-mail came into effect I believe in 1995. AOL, Prodigy, remember that? Remember the news groups and all of that?

Joe:      Okay, yeah.

Claude:            Remember that little device? What was with sound it makes? Ssshhh. Ssshhh. Remember, it was that horrible connective sound?

Joe:      Yeah, yeah. I remember I used to… I remember AOL used to give away those free floppy disks?

Claude:            Oh, millions of them. They were like… I used them for coasters in my house. They were so many.

Joe:      I would take them in because those little floppy disks were… You have to pay like $3, $4 or $5 bucks for them. I would take them and erase them, and then use them for my own personal stuff.

Claude:            Sure.

Joe:      I don’t know if that was stealing or not but they gave them away for free.

Claude:            No, no. They gave it to you. You are allowed to re-burn it and stuff like that.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            And so, that was the next revolution. I think today, we’re using email and getting news. Now, we didn’t have to go to the library for research and things. We used to use things like microfiche and look up property records on old newspapers and things like that. Today, we found out we could do… With the revolution around 2000 or so, 1995, 2000, we started to see that we could do everything at home on our desktop computer.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            And, that evolved to laptops. That evolved to iPads, iPhones. All the information is at our fingertips at home. Today, we use Google maps. We used to use regular maps. Now, we use Google. When I talk to somebody, I go to street view right away and look at the property on Google maps.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            It’s phenomenal! Then, I go to Zillow or Craigslist if I’m looking for deals and I can see pictures of these deals and everything is at your fingertips. Whereas, in the older days, we used to get in our car and just drive everywhere.

Joe:      Yeah. And, you couldn’t email pictures of properties back and forth very easily.

Claude:            No, we had fax machines. Remember faxing contracts in deals? In fact, remember when the fax came into effect? We were burning up the fax machine like crazy in those days. That was a really phenomenal change in the business with contracts. There is instant transmission of paperwork. That was really cool.

Joe:      Right! So, you were doing a lot of newsletters at the time, written newsletters. And again, you guys can go to the website to download this huge book. It is 300 pages on a PDF of all of these old… They are not even…

Claude:           Somehow I wouldn’t say that.

Joe:      I hesitated to say old. They are not that old.

Claude:           No.

Joe:     But, I mean, some of these in here are as recent as just a few years ago.

Claude:           Yeah.

Joe:     But, there are articles. In fact, here’s one I’m looking at towards the end. You don’t have a date in here but I recognize this. You came out with the 10 commandments of lease purchasing.

Claude:           Yeah.

Joe:     I remember you have a picture of you and Moses and the Ten Commandments. That’s not from too long ago. But, anyway…

Claude:            No, it’s not. That’s a very popular book and package by the way.

Joe:      Right! So, you can get all this for free by going to the show notes. Just go to RealEstateInvestingMastery.com and look up the show called “Virtual Attraction Marketing” and we’ll get this to you. Okay, so, why would you do these newsletters? What was that all about?

Claude:            Just to get the phone to ring, I always had an item for sale. I had deals in there. It introduced you to people. In marketing and it’s still true today, when we start out looking for a prospect or is there to buy, to sell, to coach, consult, whatever, we are a total stranger. How do we bring them into our universe where they say, “Hey, this guy has got something interesting. I want to know more about him. I want to read more about him and watch some videos on him.”?

So, we’d send out newsletters. People would read them. They’re good bathroom reading with short articles, and then they would pick up the phone and call us. And to me, the definition of marketing is one word, reaction. How do we get a reaction out of the prospect, the person that we want do business with in real estate, okay? Buyers, sellers, investors and other professionals. The newsletters worked then. Then, we started to do webpages, articles. We’d send e-mail blasts out. We still do that. How do I bring people into my universe?

Today, I have over 200… And, you do this a lot too with your podcast and things like that. I do a lot of YouTube videos today. I have 200. Right now, I think I have 248 videos on YouTube, two to four minutes in length. I give away more information today than some people charge for. Again, it’s all free.

Joe:      Yeah, and that is…

Claude:            And, why do I do it?

Joe:      To get the phone to ring.

Claude:            To get the phone to ring. Somebody sees that video and on the end of every one of my videos, I always say, “Call me. I answer my own phone.” I try and I truly try to be accountable to people because out there somewhere is someone with a deal, a great deal and maybe make a year salary on one deal or a lot of little deals, or someone who needs help with a deal and consulting and they are calling me or e-mailing me. That’s the nature of marketing in 2015. We have to make ourselves attractive to people in a very non-commercial way. 20, 30 years ago, we could be much more commercial.

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            We could say, “Hey, buy my package. Buy this, buy that” because we didn’t have as good communication. Today, there is access to so much information.

If people can pick and choose information, why do they want to go to a very commercial website when they can go to my YouTube, YouTube.com/cdmentor and see 240-something videos on how to find properties…

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            …How to do a lease purchase contract and they can get this information for free. And, that’s the big difference today. People are much more selective. They are resentful of too much commercialization. Have you noticed that, Joe?

Joe:      Oh, yeah. I sometimes am.

Claude:            Does everybody…? Why is Netflix so popular today? Netflix?

Joe:      Well, it’s…

Claude:            Because it’s about time.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            Everything today is about the value of time. With Netflix, I can watch a movie when I want to watch it. Okay, why is Uber so popular today? Because you can find a car that acts like a taxi and it can pick you up in three minutes rather than you standing outside in the pouring rain for 20 minutes.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            It’s all about time today. It is always about value. It is all about perception. Is Joe or Claude the guy I can trust? Are they accountable? Do they have good information out there? I don’t want just to pick up the phone and talk to a salesman.

Joe:      Yeah. All right. So, why do you call it virtual attraction marketing? What is the virtual part of that?

Claude:            Well, the virtual is everything’s on the internet.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            Everything is blogs today. It is YouTube videos and Vimeo videos. It is newsletters on Postwire. My newsletter today is so different. My newsletter still has some text in audio content but it’s mostly video.

And like I said, we have 16,000 subscribers now. On my newsletter, it’s usually video. It has different topics on marketing, on gut sales, on consulting, on lease purchasing and different short topics.

Today, people want content. They don’t want pop-up banners. They don’t want music inserts coming in. They want the blogs. They want Instagram. They want pictures of properties to find out more. They want mind maps. There are a lot of mind maps I use now. So, email, blogs or video. You use audio brilliantly with your podcast.

That’s a great marketing technique that’s virtual. Attraction means, “Are they finding something that is interesting, that has great content and is contemporary?” And, “Is it entertaining?” Thanks to you. You and I, we have nothing ever to talk about. I think that your podcasts are entertaining too. They are fun.

Joe:      Yeah, yeah.

Claude:            They are informative.

Joe:      I was just reading this morning or last night about this large real estate brokerage office in California. For the first time ever, their traffic to their internet sites was larger from mobile devices than from a computer.

Claude:            It is, yeah.

Joe:      And so, people were actually searching for homes more from their iPhone, Android, iPad than they were at a computer on a browser or typical internet browser.

So, it probably was… Then, the other thing the article was saying was that we are starting to come to a point now where more of the people who were born during the 80s and 90s are buying houses than the people who were from the… What do they call it? The boomer generation.

Claude:            Yeah, the boomers, the baby boomers.

Joe:      Yeah, the baby boomers. So…

Claude:            People who were born in 50s and 60s.

Joe:      Right! So now, it’s more people from the 80s and 90s are buying homes than people older than them, which means that you’ve got to be able to find ways that those people are looking for information and get your face in front of them, right?

Claude:            And, that’s kind of where you and I… You’re still a very… You like to do a lot of mailers. I like to do a lot of things on the internet and so forth because the cost factor now, instead of spending $5,000 for mailing, I can go on the internet and do a blast to my opt-in database with my newsletter. You do the same with your podcast. I do the same with YouTube videos and with blogs and my webpage. And, the return on investment for the cost analysis is phenomenal on this.

Joe:      Sure.

Claude:            And, we have to market the way you just brought it up. How are people researching today? Where do they get their information? They go to their mobile devices. I’m holding up my mini iPad and my iPhone. These are two things that I’m using more than my laptop now. I don’t even have a desktop anymore. I only have laptops.

Joe:      Yeah. By the way, you have the iPad mini. I was thinking about getting one. Do you…?

Claude:            It’s fantastic. I love it.

Joe:      I have the full-size, the normal sized iPad but I wish I had…

Claude:            We have one and my wife has that.

Joe:      What do you like holding better?

Claude:            In terms of practicality, for reading and for traveling and everything, I love the mini. Now, my wife prefers the standard iPad, the larger one. I like the mini just because it has a great battery life. It’s great for travel. It does every… The camera in it is superb, by the way, for doing recording and things. I read books on it. I read newspapers. I send emails and for entertainment, for Netflix and stuff. We watch the news every night, Bryan Williams when he was employed. We’d watch a podcast with Bryan Williams every night on the dinner table instead of watching all the commercials on regular TV.

Joe:      So, you find it’s easier to hold? You can actually hold it with one hand a lot easier.

Claude:            I can hold this with one hand. This is marketing. This is virtual attraction marketing 2015.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            These are the devices. When someone wants to look for a home, they go on Zillow. They go on to Craigslist. Everybody, this is the revolution that is occurring right now in creative real estate. It’s completely different than it was… Gosh, 10 years ago even.

Joe:      I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is figuring out, “Okay, who are my customers? Who are the guys that want to sell their houses or buy these houses?” Or, depending on what market you are in, if it’s a luxury home, “Where are those people that want to buy luxury homes going to look for houses? Are they going to Google? Are they going to Zillow? What search terms are they typing in?”

Claude:            Yeah, right! What are the metatags? What are the words they use and can you use those words in articles, in videos, in podcasts? So, when someone goes on their mobile device and types in those words, “St. Louis” or “San Diego,” are they going to find geographically the properties for the income level or the area they want to live? Are they going to find those properties through their mobile device exactly? Are they going to find the realtor, the investor, the buyer or the seller through these devices? Absolutely!

Joe:      And, if you’re doing…

Claude:            We have to mark. I’m sorry.

Joe:      Well, I was going to say if you’re doing consulting to them as well, either coaching clients or sellers that want to sell their house, you need to think about how you can package that information so you are giving a lot of tremendous value and helpful information as well, right? It’s not just pitch, pitch, pitch.

Claude:            It can’t be pitch. I call it… It’s give, give, give and then ask. You cannot just ask, ask, ask anymore. People won’t stand for it because there is too much free quality information out there. So, if you just ask, they are going to say, “I don’t want a commercial. I don’t want my privacy invaded and things like that. I want just good information.” You have to earn the trust of the consumer, the person you are doing business with in 2015.

I think that’s the big takeaway. That’s the difference today than it was years ago. Earn the trust of the person. Make them… There is a lot of competition out there Joe. People have to feel you’re accountable, you’re trustworthy and likeability is important too. That ties into my gut sales method…

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            …Because the psychology of persuasion is “Get that person to listen to you, pay attention and respect your time.”

Joe:      So, what would you say…?

Claude:            Good stuff, man. I love this topic, man.

Joe:      It’s really important because I’m thinking of the guy out there who has a turnkey rental business, who wants to start selling more turnkey properties to investors from out of state. In other words, this is a guy who buys these properties, fixes them up, puts a tenant in them and then sells them. But, a lot of complaints that I’m hearing from guys now is like, “How do I find the buyers? How do I find the clients out there that I can bring in and advertise my properties to them?”

So, what would you say talking to somebody like that? They’ve always done traditional marketing where they send a bunch of postcards or letters to cash buyers. What would you tell them to get started in and to start this kind of virtual attraction marketing? Where would you tell them to go and start?

Claude:            Well, based on what you said here, the mailers are still pertinent if the list is relational, okay? If you are just doing e-mails or excuse me, postcards and newsletters and envelopes to people out there from an obscure list that’s dead or has been beaten to death, your results or your return on investment is going to be very small. So, you got to have a good list, okay?

And, part of all the marketing I’ve spoken about today is having a good opt-in, a dedicated e-mail list of people who are interested in what you’re selling, in what you’re doing. If you are not going to do that, you have to do an analysis of starting with the end. Your marketing should be based on, “What is the end result I want? What is my consumer?”

We have to have some kind of… What is the perception of the buyer or of the consumer? What do they do when they want to…? A guy wants to move to Florida. He is in St. Louis. He wants a second home in Florida. What is he going to do? Buy newspapers from Florida, go to the library and look up an old micro film or something? No, he is going to go of course online. What are the words he is going to type into Google? He is going to type in “Florida real estate.” He is going to type in “Boca Raton.” He is going to type in “Rent to own Boca Raton” or “Wholesale real estate Boca Raton.”

What is going to come up on the screen there? And, you’ll notice on the top of Google, in the regular Google, there’s news. There’s images. There is video. He is going to pick one of these things. People like video today. Maybe he wants to look at real estate in Boca Raton, Florida, video. If you are marketing and doing investment real estate, buying or selling, do you have videos, contemporary entertaining videos on Boca Raton, Florida for that segment so that you pop up when he does his search? Will you pop up?

Forget about Google ad words and all these other things. It also got to be contemporary and entertaining and consistent. You have to consistently put content in. You do a podcast what? Every week, every two weeks?

Joe:      At least once a week.

Claude:            Oh, once a week. That’s contemporary. You are interviewing different people in the market and you are putting constant content out there. People listen to you all the time. The big mistake a lot of people do is they do one article in a blog. They do one podcast once a year, once every six months or they do one video. A. – you’ve got to constantly be putting content out there. B. – that content has got to be pertinent and contemporary. It’s got to be related to 2015 if that’s the year we are in right now, okay? And, I think it’s got to be a little entertaining.

I think you don’t want to have a borefest or pitch fest or commercial fest. It’s got to be information so that we gain credibility so that the consumer goes to their phone or goes to their laptop and emails us back or gives us contact information so we can begin the process of the relationship.

Joe:      Very good.

Claude:            I’m sorry. I’m talking… I love this topic because it’s changed so much from just a few years ago. Today, we have to earn the trust. We have to market with the end in means. We have to give very good content. And, we have to think, “Where is our consumer going and how do we connect with them in a way?”

Joe:      Very good.

Claude:            Does that make sense?

Joe:      Oh, yeah. And, I love YouTube as well. And, to see exactly what Claude’s talking about, if you go to YouTube.com/cdmentor, CD for Claude Diamond mentor, you’ll see all of Claude’s videos. And, you are not done in the professional studio with the professional lighting and all that?

Claude:            Oh, no.

Joe:      But, they are just real. They are down to earth. They have some sense of humor in them. They are little goofy but you really, really…

Claude:            Thank you.

Joe:      I meant that in a good way.

Claude:            I know you did. They are supposed to be goofy because listen, I started out this business with basically two nickels to rub together. I built it up into a million dollar business. I created a great life for my family, financial security. I love what I do and you can impose your own style, what you’re comfortable with into this business. In the marketing today, we have to market to the consumer the way they want information.

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            We didn’t even talk about Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and things like that.

Joe:      Well, that’s true and it kind of all has to be tied together. You don’t have to create a different piece of content for each of those different channels, right? I mean, you can create a video and then put it on YouTube and share it with your Facebook group or maybe even do some small Facebook ads to targeted people.

Claude:            I extend it to 25 to 50 different entities. Every time I do a YouTube video, it’s embedded or it’s linked into Facebook, into Twitter, into… Oh, gosh, I forgot the name of the one with the other videos… Vimeo, all these places that people go so that when they type in, “I want a house in St. Louis” or “I want to sell a house in St. Louis” or “invest in one,” are we going to pop up because our videos, our podcasts, our blogs or texts are related to their search?

Joe:      Yeah. And then, once they find you…

Claude:            Aren’t you charging for this podcast today? My God, this podcast… This is the kind of stuff that people charge thousands of dollars for, this information you are giving people today, Joe. Thank you!

Joe:      I’ve been accused of that quite a lot.

Claude:            It’s okay.

Joe:      Okay. So, finally just to wrap this up, how important is it to be…? To give them a way to get a hold of you and the information that you give out?

Claude:            I answer my own phone, (970) 281-5151. When you go to my webpage, ClaudeDiamond.com or you can just go to YouTube and watch a few of my videos. I also have with some of my students, we do some live streaming. The one video you and I did, I think 69,000 people have watched that video on YouTube.com/cdmentor. It’s amazing. They love that live sales call or that cold call you and I demonstrated.

Joe:      Right! Yeah, that was really good.

Claude:            A lot of fun.

Joe:      Well, Claude, I know we are kind of up to the time that we said we wanted to stay under and I appreciate you.

Claude:            Don’t just ask, doesn’t it?

Joe:      I appreciate you taking the time. And, to get an idea of some of what we are talking about with this book, if you are watching the video, I am holding up this book of…

Claude:            It’s a biggie, man.

Joe:      …Claude Diamond’s lease purchase times and the success stories. He calls it “The Ultimate Collection” and you’ve got a lot of really good fun stuff in here. And, I like the fact that you are… It’s not boring. It’s not the same. You got little images in here and you inject your sense of humor, right?

Claude:            Thank you.

Joe:      And, it’s very fun to read. No two of these newsletters look the same.

Claude:            It’s all different. You said the magic word, boring. We are our own media companies today. We have to entertain people and give them good, contemporary, non-commercial information if we are going to win them over to do real estate.

Joe:      Right! You are absolutely right.

Claude:            And, if that isn’t different from 20 years, 30 years ago, my gosh, it’s a different world today! It’s a better world.

Joe:      Yup, yup!

Claude:            We were at the cusp of a revolution in marketing right now. I think we are at the very, very beginning of a way to market from home creating our own media companies like you and I are doing and completely lowering our costs from when I used to spend tens of thousands of dollars to almost next to nothing now to market these things.

Joe:      Yeah, it’s amazing.

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      I’m grateful to be living today too.

Claude:            I am grateful to know you and thank you for doing these wonderful podcasts, Joe. Thank you.

Joe:      Well, thank you, Claude. Guys, go to RealEstateInvestingMastery.com. Pull up the show notes. Just look up “virtual attraction marketing” or do a search for Claude on the podcast on the website. And, Claude, to get more information about you, what’s a good site to send people to? ClaudeDiamond.com.

Claude:            ClaudeDiamond.com, yeah. Really easy! You’ll see my webpage. There will be videos there and links. You can sign up for my newsletter. You can call me. My phone number is there. I say at the end of every one of my videos, “Call me. I answer my own phone.” We have a really very different take on the marketing approach and we’ll talk about this some other time.

Joe:      Yeah. What is it? Do you want to give your phone number out on this podcast, Claude?

Claude:            Sure. I don’t care, (970) 281-5151. You either get me, my secretary, my wife and occasionally, my kids. Somebody always answers the phone. You won’t get a recording or you won’t get a boiler room.

Joe:      970…

Claude:            281.

Joe:      281.

Claude:            5151.

Joe:      5151. Don’t just call Claude to blow up this phone? All right, Claude. Hey, thanks a lot. This has been fun.

Claude:            Thank you, Joe. It was great. Bye-bye everyone.

Joe:      See you!