I paid $1995. I’d gone to their freebie sales pitch with a veteran investor I work with, and as I was later debating with myself about attending the main event, one of their guys from FL kept calling back and lowering the price.
Okay. Thanks.
That was Lesson Number One right there: always give yourself room in your initial price. (I shudder to think how much room they actually have.) Lesson Number Two: maintain walk-away power, and see what happens.
I hadn’t even meant to do that in their case, but I was conscious of it once it started happening, and I played into it. Oh well. I’m often surprised by the number of people saying “I want to buy real estate for a penny on the dollar”, and “oh yes, I know that negotiating is very important”, and then without a second thought they pay the initial asking price for a seminar.
Come on, guys. Sheez. (And you might ask yourselves how many guru products you’ve bought versus how many total deals you’ve done. Then ask yourselves what’s to be learned from the answer.)
Anyway, I think the seminar was good if you read between the lines. (Isn’t it a common seminar/guru theme that “I bring you the information, but it’s up to you what you do with it”?) I liked the instructors (Sherri Harrison and some bald guy from out east). But one of them fell out of their comfort zone trying to answer whether one of my simple-obvious variations on the theme might be worth pursuing. They’ll tell you to think outside the box, but if you actually do it, you might confuse them. That’s to be expected: they’re TEACHERS.
I think the PRs can pay the estate’s bills, or at least juggle them fairly well, precisely because they are overwhelmingly the more dedicated and responsible people among the heirs. That’s why (and how) they became PR in the first place.
Anyway. Enough about Banks.
When did I say I paid 1k per successful lead? I’ll have to check my posts. $500 has been my in-mind figure as long as I’ve been in the biz. (Ok, that’s only a year and a half if you don’t count the 6 months I spent reading library books and pestering investors who I had nothing to send to. But still. That’s always been my figure.)
Maybe someday I’ll devise a percentage. I don’t know. I’m new to recruiting birddogs (experience: about 6 days now), and don’t exactly have all my poop together yet.
I don’t know how you’d plan on birddogging from Kingman, and it’s a smaller town than I really want to get involved with. If you were here in Phoenix, we’d be talking already.
No “requirements” per se. Anybody is encouraged to call me any time with a lead, and I’m drafting some basic training materials. But if I provide more specific training or any specific lead sources, there’s probably going to have to be a signed (and mutual) non-circumvent.
I don’t want to be all OCD about it, but I think that’s only fair. I train you for a while, you bring your leads to me for that same while.
Hmm. If those guys who didn’t want to pay you are in Phoenix, I wouldn’t mind knowing who they are and what happened.