Real Estate Agent Profits from Bulk Mail Biz

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Thank you for tuning in to Side Hustle School today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I'm excited because I've been working on a project for quite some time. It is a special idea to income course. It can come directly to your phone by text message.

It's almost ready. It's gonna be ready in 24 hours in fact. So if you're listening in the future, it might already be out. But if you're listening in real time, it will be ready tomorrow. And I look forward to sharing it with you.

Now, just because we like to keep things interesting, because that course is all about text messaging, today's story is about a form of advertising that predates text messaging by at least several decades. It is direct mail. That's what we're talking about in this story. Direct mail, also known as bulk mail, you might sometimes call it junk mail because a lot of it is junk, but the right direct mailing can be effective. Today's SADA store is a real estate agent who earns an extra one to $2,000 a month from managing these direct mail campaigns.

Takes her very little time. And as you'll hear, she was actually able to earn a lot more for a while. It was her main business, but she's deliberately scaled it back to make it a stress-free operation that provides reliable extra cash. That's our story. Real estate agent profits from bulk mail biz.

That story is coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]

Almost two decades ago, Margie Yahn worked in the marketing department of a large law firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It wasn't a great working environment, so she wanted a way out. And that's why she started a small marketing company of her own, and she called it Beyond Services. Margie had originally planned to offer creative and graphic design, but found that most clients wanted to do that themselves.

However, she'd also learned how to put together bulk mailings. Using that knowledge, she started offering direct mail services for standard, nonprofit, and first-class bulk mail. Starting out, she ran the whole operation from her computer using software that cost about $600 a year. She also placed every address label by hand. After doing that for a while, Margie invested in a high-speed inkjet printer so she could ramp up her business and take on larger mailings.

Almost all of her business came from word of mouth and activity in referral networks such as the Chamber of Commerce. Now, that part was surprisingly easy. Her greater challenge was dealing with the post office. You see, they had no incentive to provide help, and in fact, they looked down on bulk mail. So Margie had to work to establish a relationship that proved she knew what she was doing.

Once she was consistently dropping mail that was sorted, addressed, improperly formatted, they left her alone. Now Margie ran this business for a couple of years, but the larger mailings, like 25,000 pieces at a time, took up a lot of room in her house, and they also weren't very profitable. One day in 2013, Margie hurt her shoulder handling a large, heavy mailing. The injury led her to take a hard look at the business. It was making about 20 to $30,000 a year in net income, but the physical toll just wasn't worth it.

She realized she could profit the same amount of money per piece working on a postcard project as she could stuffing a newsletter into a large envelope. So what could she do? Well, Margie got rid of her least profitable clients, stopped looking for new ones, and shut down the website. Scaling back gave her the ability to make a career change and begin a new career in real estate. Now her side business makes about $1,000 to $2,000 a month, which pays off credit card bills and some household expenses.

Margie doesn't do any marketing, and nearly all of her current clients have been with her for nearly 20 years. She works about 10 to 15 hours a month, and all communication happens over the phone or by email. Now I mentioned earlier that direct mail can be effective. The best campaign Margie ever worked on was with a chef at a newly opened restaurant. They put together a Valentine's Day special with an appetizer, dinner, two sides dessert, and wine for two for $50.

They mailed it to only 465 contacts, but saw a 65% conversion rate, which is huge, enormous. That restaurant had planned on doing two seatings on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but the campaign was so successful they sold out all three seatings, all three nights, and added Sunday as well. Now that was the best campaign. What about the worst? The worst project was for a political candidate who wanted to do all the creative herself and consistently put the address area in the wrong place, which as mentioned, there are some clear standards for direct mail.

It needs to be on the left side of the postcard, preferably bottom left with white space. The client made the area as small as possible and sent them to print without letting Margie see it first. Then the client got upset when there wasn't enough room to add a barcode, so they had to pay more postage. For better or worse, that client is still in office. For anyone interested in getting into bulk mailing as a business, Margie recommends checking out the direct mail resources on the USPS website, and just note that USPS calls it marketing mail.

Several times in her journey, Margie considered closing shop as her full-time job got busier. Fortunately, she has such an efficient system in place that one $600 job takes her two hours. She'd be walking away from easy money if she gave it up, and maintaining this side hustle has freed her from financial stress. [Music]

The key to direct mail success is in the targeting. Most money spent on direct mail is wasted, which is not that different from most money that's spent on online advertising.

So even though this is a very old method in Medium, if you get the targeting right, it can really work. If you don't, it's going to be wasted. So the more things change, perhaps the more they stay the same. And I also like how Margie was able to let go of her business in some ways, pursue that new career in real estate, but also find a way to still make a couple thousand dollars a month on the side in a way that's not stressful. So big respect for that.

Listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1653. And if you've got a comment or question for the show, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much for joining me today. Hope you'll subscribe or follow and come back tomorrow.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.