subject: Organizing a Private Lending Credibility Kit: Frequently Asked Questions [print this page] Organizing a Private Lending Credibility Kit: Frequently Asked Questions
I have many students contacting me with questions about organizing a Private Lending Credibility Kit but, there are a few questions that stick out in my mind and are frequently asked.Can I use my resume as my bio?I guess a resume he was referring to would be a job resume. I would not recommend that. Clearly, a bio in the way I'm thinking about it is more of a story. It's more of an explanation as to why you're an expert in the real estate investing field. It is not a dry set of facts about where you've been, what schools you went to, what jobs you've had, and what dates that you've had those jobs.I'm not saying you can't use a resume in there, but I think a bio is more of a story, an explanation. It's very powerful when it's well written. It really lays out why you're an expert and what makes sense for you to do.Who should I send the credibility kit to?That's more of a marketing question than the kit itself, but I'll be happy to address it. Who you should send it to is all in the marketing piece that we spoke about. Anybody you've identified or any groups you've identified as a potential prospect.What I would typically recommend is you would send out a postcard, or a flyer or a letter, or get invited to a presentation, or any one of these number of various marketing pieces.Once an individual has raised their hand and said, "I want to learn more," and they may call you back or they may email you back from a card, they may come to talk to you at the back of the room during a presentation. There are all kinds of different ways that this may take place, but in some respect they have essentially raised their hand and said, "I would like to learn more about private lending. Could you tell me some more?"At that point, it would make some sense to send them your credibility kit with your cover letter and possibly a free report or some other mechanism to kind of introduce yourself and your program. That's who I would be sending my credibility kit to.The next question really has nothing to do with the credibility kit per se.How do I find private lenders?How do you find them? That's a whole course, I believe, but ultimately you're either going to have to do a traditional marketing meeting, post cards, or something of that nature.One of the things that we certainly will be talking about down the road here, when we talk about marketing for private lenders it's extremely important to talk about what not to do. Again, what not to do is almost more important than what to do.I actually just wrote an article about this recently. We do not recommend any sort of big, public types of advertising. Certainly no internet advertising of any sort, no radio, no newspaper, or certainly be very careful with newspaper. We do not advertise outside of our state. You want to make sure that you stay within your state. That's why I like postcards because you can direct exactly where they go.You have to be careful of all these other sources, radio, newspaper, Internet. You do not know where the reader might be. If they're in a different state that would be a cross-state solicitation potentially, and you could get a call from a potential SEC person in your state. That's something we obviously would like to avoid.
