"If You're Not Finding Good Tenants
to Fill Your Rental Vacancy FAST…
Then You Simply MUST Read These
12 Insider Secrets to Find Good Tenants
Immediately"

May 22, 2008
From:  Eric Paulson

Not long ago, I was talking with some fellow landlords about how well our business runs. 

They stared at me like I had two heads.

They almost shouted at me:

“I just can't find good tenants!”

When I said I had solved that problem, they almost threw their business cards at me.

Later, I surveyed a few dozen landlords about what they needed the most help with.

Hands-down, the top three problem areas are about finding good tenants: 

I want you to have it so you can solve those three problems in your business…

Stop your rental properties from running your life and start enjoying some time off!

Before I go into the dozen killer secrets to Find Good Tenants, let me tell you a little about me.

My name is Eric Paulson, and you must know that

I've Been There Too…

No matter what your landlord skills, I have been there too. I've been way too easy on tenants who didn't pay or caused problems…

Because I was afraid of the vacancy time and costs!

I've placed ads in the newspaper, in color flyers in front of the buildings, in business cards and word-of-mouth programs – and got absolutely no response for weeks on end!

I've had to clean up the mess tenants left behind, and pay the mortgage out of my own pocket because we couldn't get it re-rented fast.

But I remember the incredible feeling of power when I created a new ad for one of our properties… and started getting serious RESULTS!

4 phone calls and 3 emails within 24 hours from good tenants was miraculous!

We got signed paperwork and a check for both the deposit and the rent  inside a week – from a tenant who had a 721 credit score!

He moved in the very same day the previous tenant moved out!  Zero vacancy time!

It was like I finally had the keys to the kingdom!

I had just learned a skill that enabled me to create the tenants I wanted when I wanted….

If I Can Do It…

I make some pretty good money from landlording… both in single family homes and multi-family units.

And I have personally managed up to 10 units for almost 6 years.

But it hasn't always been this way for me. And that's why I know this is a skill that YOU CAN MASTER.

I know this… because until we did it, I had never heard of anyone enjoying being a landlord. I first thought about how to dramatically improve our tenant search when I read a few books and listened to some tapes by Dan Kennedy. It was like a huge light bulb went off in my head… I was instantly hooked. And I set myself to the task of learning everything I could about building a great business.

Now I never considered myself a great advertiser before. I mean, we have tried all kinds of things, but I sure wasn't any master advertiser or copywriter.

But I have always been a bit obsessive when I go about learning things… and this was right up my alley – I poured myself into studying advertising, and I got good at it – good enough to fill our properties with the kinds of tenants we want when we want.

I don't tell you that to brag… I tell you that because writing a good advertisement is a skill.  And if I can learn it, YOU CAN LEARN IT TOO!

You can learn this skill just as easily as I did. And you can feel that same incredible power when you know how to find the right tenants for your property - fast.

By now, you're probably holding your head and groaning, “I don't have the time or money to learn all this stuff.

The good news is…

You Don't Have to Spend Hundreds of Hours
And Thousands of Dollars…

Most landlords I know are busy… REALLY busy.

And taking 6 months or a year to learn how to improve their business just isn't possible.

I know that, and I can totally relate.

What you want is the short course that you can implement RIGHT NOW – to fill the vacancy you have RIGHT NOW!

So I'm going to give you that jump start by sharing a dozen killer advertising SECRETS so you can put your awesome new tenant-pulling ad into the newspaper, online classifieds, or flyer TODAY!

Here We Go… The 12 Tenant Search Secrets
Never Revealed Before…

Secret #1: Who Is A Good Tenant?

The most important thing in creating your terrific new ad is to figure out who you are looking for.  Because you want to use the right bait for the right fish

Even really rich companies don't really get this one right – and to be honest, it can be a big task.  This topic alone has entire books devoted to it.

But to get you jumpstarted, let's start easy. 

Most landlords I've surveyed think a good tenant is someone who pays on time and takes care of the property.  But that's not enough detail to create a good tenant-pulling ad.

The first level of detail is decide about your ideal tenant “demographics” – or the pure facts about them.  For example, what kind of job they have, how much income, how many cars they drive, where they shop and so on.  

Look at the tenants you've had that were really good and compare them to the ones that weren't so good.  The good ones are the kinds of people you want to target in your tenant search ad.

Tenant Screening Tip:  Anyone who doesn't match your ideal tenant profile? Avoid them.

Now, let's think a bit more about a good tenant, and specifically,

Secret #2: What Do Good Tenants Want?

To most landlords, this is the easy part.  They list the property features like 3br/2ba/2car garage and so on.  Take a look at the ads in a newspaper or an online listing service.  They almost all look like this.

And that is a HUGE mistake, because that's not what their tenants really want!

Think about it, the features are the minimum entry criteria – those are needs, not wants.  They need 3 bedrooms because of the size of their family.  They need 2 bedrooms for everyone to get ready in the morning.  It's what they have to have to even consider your property.  Without those things, they won't even call you.

But what do your ideal tenants want?  Think about your own home.  What do you like about it?  It's not the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and so on.

People really want much bigger, more important things:  a safe place for their family, peace and quiet, a nice place to have dinner with the family, the convenience of a short commute, and so on.

So think hard about what's really good about your rental.  If you get stuck thinking in terms of the physical rental unit, ask your current tenants what they like the best about their home.  They'll tell you what you should put into your “for rent” ad.

The best part of asking your tenants is THEIR IMPRESSION is what's true!  Your ideas aren't as good for your ad as theirs.  Use what they tell you.

If the idea of asking them scares you, you've found another BIG area to improve in:  Landlord/tenant relations. 

And if they don't give you anything good, you have some work to do on your properties. 

Now that we know who we're looking for and what THEY'RE looking for, let's start building a story to tell our ideal tenant…

Secret #3: The BIG Idea

People LOVE stories.  The core of every successful TV show, book, and personality is a great story.  This is what will send your responses sky high.

This is the key to a great ad that get good tenants to make your phone ring off the hook!

Using what you know from Secret #1 and #2, come up with the BIG IDEA that sets your product and promotion apart from every other property being advertised in the same forum.

Give ‘em what they want, told in the form of a good story!

Once you get the BIG IDEA, then the rest of your ad will almost magically fall in place. This is truly the most exciting thing in writing an ad.

In fact, for me… when that BIG IDEA hits I often see the entire ad and the website, the entire story all at once. I still have to work out the mechanics and get the words down on my computer screen, but it is like a puzzle has been solved.

I don't have the time or space here to tell you how I go about creating this Big Idea (and for that, you have my apologies)… but it's part of my advertising formula.

I sit down, look at the property, I look at who we're trying to attract… and then I start working on the BIG IDEA. Often the Big Idea will influence or even change the wording of our ad. I will realize that there is a piece missing, and I will add that into my ad.

The BIG IDEA is the most important part of writing the ad, because it is the story that all of the rest of the secrets fit into.  So where do you put the first sentence of the story?

Secret #4: The Key to Good Response

This is the secret that shouldn't be a secret – your headline is the single most important piece of your advertisement. If you blow it here, then the rest of your ad can be pure gold and IT WON'T MATTER.

Because if your headline doesn't work, then no one will ever read the rest of your ad.

And if no one reads your ad, then no one will ever see your property.

So you need to spend a big part of your time on your headline. Get this one piece right, and the rest of the ad can be average and you'll still do ok.

One of the things I always do is write a good headline. Seriously, spend your time here – that time is well spent… because you will end up with a great tenant. And here is an advanced tip - the headline is 80% of the effectiveness of the ad.

So what is a good headline?  Again, there are big books written about this topic, but a good headline is specific, informative, interesting, and really different from anything else it is competing against.

Notice that you'll probably get a zillion responses from the first two headlines.  But you'll get responses from lots of unqualified tenants that you'll have to spend time and money sorting out.

You Want to Attract GOOD TENANTS, not just anyone who has a phone and is moving.

Tenant Screening Tip:  The headline is the first place in your ad that you'll start screening out the people you don't want.  Who does the Good Headline screen out?  People who don't care where they live!

Be clear on this: I spend at least as much time on the headline as I do on the entire rest of the ad. You need a good headline.

Secret #5: Show ‘em How Your Property is Different

Take your knowledge of your property, your area and your specific tenants, and put that knowledge into your ad.  How?

One of the keys of good storytelling is “Show, don't tell”.  How do you do that?

Now, I'm not saying you should pack your ad with pictures and nothing else.  (Remember you have to have the “NEEDS” covered).  But a picture really is worth a thousand words!

In fact, some research I did uncovered the fact that most tenants searching for a home online wouldn't even LOOK at an ad that didn't have pictures!

PICTURES YOU MUST HAVE:  Exterior, Kitchen, and Bathroom.  Any other pictures you have space for should REALLY show off the property!

Tenant Screening Tip:  Better pictures will attract better tenants!

What else should you show in the ad?  You!

Secret #6: Show'em How You're Different

One of the most important things you want to include in your ad is some information about you and your company.

One good way is to include a little bit about your property management philosophy:

One way is to just come out and say those things.  But remember that the rule of good writing is “Show, Don't Tell.”

How do you show your differences?  TESTIMONIALS!

That's right, call up your best current and past tenants and ask them for a testimonial.

Put at least one testimonial in your ad and more if you have space and good testimonials!

You might be asking yourself a question just about now… “How long is this ad going to be?”

Secret #7: Long or Short?

In general, longer ads tend to get better results - but the real answer is that your ad can't be too long, it can only be too boring.

If you have a story to tell, and you tell that story well… tenants will read your ad. If they aren't reading your ad, then they either aren't good prospects or you're boring them.

Amazingly enough – getting them hooked into reading your longer ad all goes back to following Secrets 1-4.  If you're giving them what they want and tell them that story well, they can't help but read your ad.

Tenant Screening Tip:  Most people who are in a hurry to move or don't care where they're moving won't spend the time to read the whole ad.  That's good!

Secret #8: Two Kinds of Readers

This is one that even some of the “experts” miss… your readers will take different paths through your longer advertisements.

In fact, they will have an almost infinite number of paths through your long ad. But there are TWO PATHS that your long ad ABSOLUTELY must be written for…

The Reader's Path and the Skimmer's Path.
                                                 
Readers will read the entire ad straight through from top to bottom. This is the easy one that most people write for.

Skimmers will glance over your ad, quickly moving through various sections. Sometimes they will immediately go to the end and read the price, and then go back and breeze through the ad.

You NEED to write ads for both the Readers and the Skimmers. If you don't, you will kill your response.

How?

Put important information in Bold, Underlined,

Indented paragraphs. 

Use colors (but not too much!)

Those visual clues will guide the Skimmer by highlighting important information…
And give Readers milestones to go by.

Make your ad look interesting and more, and more interesting, people will call.

One key point we have to address is about price – which is what truly distinguishes good tenants from everyone else…

Secret #9: Presenting Price

This is something that so many people mess up… well, it just has to be on my list of secrets.

The big problem for most people is that they get to the end of the ad, and they don't know what to do with the price of their offer… so they don't do anything, they just throw the price out there and HOPE for the best.

This is a big-time mistake.

First, there is a reason the price is at the bottom of the ad… because you can't present the price until you have properly built the value of your offer.

There is a reason that McDonald's has big signs in their window that tells about their 99 cent special, but there are no signs in the window at the Mercedes dealer giving the price of their cars.

At 99 cents for a double-cheeseburger, McDonald's doesn't have to do much to build the value of the sale. And they exist at the very bottom of the food niche when it comes to pricing power.

Would you rather your business have the pricing power of McDonald's or the pricing power of Mercedes?

You have to build value in your ad, and after you do that… then you reveal the price.

Of course, there is a lot more to this than I can go into in this report, but take it from me… you need to have a plan for how you are going to present price, and you need to have a structure for how you do this.

Again, this is NOT rocket science… but you can't ignore it either.

You build value in your ad, and then you reveal your price.

Tenant Screening Tip:  The more value you put into your ad, the more you stress everything but the rental unit itself, the more lookie-loos and price shoppers will avoid calling you

Secret #10: Where to Find Good Tenants

Once you learn to create good ads (using these secrets to make it easy), then you'll discover something: good advertising is good advertising, no matter what format.

And once that sinks in, you will start to use that basic advertising formula in just about everything you do.

When you create a classified ad, when you write an email to your current tenants, when you apply for a loan at the bank, when you put an ad in the newspaper… it is all advertising. Even when you are talking to tenants, or you are talking with an eviction court judge, or you are reviewing the Property Condition Checklist.

And all of a sudden your ability to INFLUENCE people will skyrocket.

This is what's going on… advertising is all about influencing action. And once you understand the basic underlying principles (the underlying formula), then you have the keys to the kingdom.

Once you understand this key fact, the question is no longer one of price, but of where can you find GOOD TENANTS?

Where should you advertise?  What do your ideal tenants see, read, and do?  Where do they hang out?  How can you get your ad into their hands or in front of their eyeballs?

Secret #11: Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

This is the one secret that I learned from all of the great copywriters I studied that made everything a whole lot easier:

Don't re-invent the wheel.

You don't need to start from scratch every time you write an ad.

If you were going to build a telescope, you would study the telescopes of the past. You would probably look to some experts that could teach you the lessons they have learned over the years about building telescopes.

Advertising is no different. It's been around for a long time, and lots of brilliant people have spent a lot of time testing, tweaking and perfecting their ads.

This is an immense resource for anyone who wants to write effective ads.

If you want ads that work, don't try to create something from scratch… copy the ads that have worked in the past.

Use that as a starting point and a model for your ads… and you will be on your way to creating ads that get responses, ads that sell.

Secret #12: Get a Mentor.

OK, this last secret might be the toughest one to actually follow through on… which is why I left it for last.

Nevertheless, if you can pull this off, then you are on the shortest path to finding good tenants fast.

If you can find a mentor, someone that can show you the ropes in tenant advertising, well… that's the ticket.

As I mentioned above, you DON'T want to re-invent the wheel. You want to be able to leverage all the great advertising talent and skills that have come before you. The easiest way is to learn from someone else who has been there and already made the mistakes and figured the important lessons out.

That being said, it can be difficult to find someone who will show the ropes, give you the short cuts, and help you avoid the mistakes. You want someone who has been down that road and already MADE THOSE MISTAKES FOR YOU.

Find Good Tenants Who Pay More, With Less Effort

My goal in this report was to open your eyes to a radical new landlords concept: 

With the right advertisement, directed at the right tenant, placed in the right location…

 You Can Find Good Tenants Fast!

Of course, this is a just jumpstart, and not a complete course in writing a great “for rent” ad.

The key point of this report is this:

The process of creating advertising is called “copywriting”.  It means that you can create great ads by “copying” other successful ads and modifying them to suit your needs.

If you're still too busy to start writing a killer tenant search ad from scratch using these killer secrets, here's an even faster shortcut:

For the first time ever, we are making our very own time-tested results-proven ads – with no copyright whatsoever – available to the public.

If you want to have a great ad, ready to go in less than 15 minutes,

Check out this incredible offer!

That's about it for now. It's time for you to get on with writing a killer ad that will Find Good Tenants fast!

To your happiness,

Eric Paulson

P.S. Remember… it's called copywriting because you're supposed to copy good ads! And once you get the basics of writing a killer “for rent” ad down pat, you can literally find good tenants any time you want.  If you're ready to stop pulling your hair out with stress, and start copying some time-tested, results-proven ads that Find Good Tenants fast, click here.