CHAPTER

04

Bandit Signs on Wheels

Bandit Sign on Wheels is a modern take on the traditional Bandit Signs that you see hammered into the ground on street corners all across your market. We took the idea of a basic bandit sign and applied it to the back window of a car.

A longtime REI BlackBook user Ruben Perez came up with this idea and has built his business around this lead generation strategy. He has over 400 cars on the road in Phoenix, AZ with a sticker that read "Full Asking Price For Your House. "We Buy Houses in Any Condition", driving around town. Each sticker had a phone number with an extension.

Every time he gets a lead from one of his cars, and buys the house, that driver is compensated.

The trick here is making sure that you have a phone system that allows extension tracking, so you know which car generated the phone call, and who needs to be paid for that lead.

This is an excellent long-term growth strategy for generating leads at scale.

Lead Generation Method 2 - Bandit Signs

What you'll need:

  • Landing Page:
    • Drive those leads to a landing page explaining how the program works, so you can capture driver leads 24 hours a day.
  • Classified Ad: 
    • Place a simple ad on Facebook or classified websites like Craigslist to recruit drivers.
  • Trackable phone number (w/ extensions):
    • Create an AMP phone number in REI BlackBook and assign an extension for every new driver that you sign up.
  • Car Sticker:
    • Order your car stickers, and schedule a time to meet with your new drivers to install the sticker, sign the waiver, and officially join your "driving-for-dollars" team.

Use this lead generation method if you...

  • ... are a technophobe - Don't like messing with this newfangled thing they call the Internetz?
  • ... have patience - This method will take some time to start producing a volume of leads.
  • ... are operating on a tight budget - You can get motivated seller leads fairly cheaply with this method.

The Bandit Sign on Wheels Process

Step 1: Build Your Landing Page

Since your primary means of marketing for affiliate drivers will be through online classified ads and social media posts, you will need a landing page to send interested prospects to so they can learn more about your program.

Building a landing page in REI BlackBook only takes a few minutes. You can learn how to do it by reading this support article.

If you'd like to learn how to customize your landing page, you can watch this video for a full demo of the REI Page Builder.

There are a few things that you will want to be sure you include on your landing page. 

  1. Be sure to write a captivating headline that will grab your prospects attention and describe the benefit they will get if they sign up for your program.
  2. Outline your process, and describe what will happen after someone submits their information.
  3. Explain how someone will get paid, and what is, and is not expected of them.

You can see that all of these elements are present in the landing page below.

You can find the full live site at www.stlcashdriver.com

Once you've built your landing page, purchase a domain name if you haven't already and assign it to your landing page. 

You will now be ready to post your classified ad, and start driving traffic to your new page!

With that said, let's move on to step #2.

Step 2: Post Your Ad To Recruit Drivers

Now that your landing page is ready for traffic, it's time to post your first ad!

There are a number of different sites and social media platforms that work wonders for recruiting drivers, but the one we recommend the most is Craigslist.

More specifically, the "gigs" section of Craigslist. This is where people go to look for side jobs and part-time work, and it's a great place to start looking for drivers.

The biggest questions we get at this point is...

"What do I say in my classified ad?"

That's a great question. Don't worry we have you covered!

Click here to download our proven classified ad to recruit drivers for your Bandit Signs on Wheels Program. (no opt-in required).

Once you've downloaded your ad template, be sure to edit it to your liking, and include your company information and the link to your landing page, and then follow the steps below to post your first ad.

To get started, head over to Craigslist (in your market city) and click create a posting.

Select "gig offered". Again, this is where people will go to look for part-time work, and side jobs.

Select "I want to hire someone"

From here you have a number of different options. We recommend selecting "domestic gigs". If you'd like to post in 2 different categories for additional exposure, the second choice would be "labor gigs'.

Depending on your market, you may be charged to post in these categories. At the time of this writing here in the St. Louis market, you can see there is a fee of $5 to post.

From here you will be brought to the screen shown below. Use the Bandit Signs on Wheels Classified Ad Template to create your ad.

Once you've finished populating your ad, it's time to add a few images. If you have a picture of one of your stickers on the back of your car, or one of your driver's cars, that would be a great image to include here.

The last step is to review your ad, and hit publish!

Congratulations! Your ad has now been posted!

Step 3: Set Up Your Trackable Profit Dial Phone Number 

Now that your ad is posted, you will start to receive leads people who are interested in joining your team of affiliate drivers. Before you can order your stickers to place on their back window, you need a phone number that can track your calls.

And any old phone number won't do. You need a phone number that allows you to use extensions.

Here's why...

When someone calls you from the back of one of your driver's cars, you need to be able to know which car that lead came from. Therefore, each car needs its own unique extension.

Profit Dial allows you to secure a phone number in your local market, and use an unlimited amount of extensions to track your drivers.

To get started, you will need to create an "Information Hotline" in Profit Dial. You can learn how to do that here.

Once your Information Hotline is activated, and you've recruited your first driver. You will need to create an extension for that driver (and every driver that you recruit for that matter). You can learn how to do that here.

Once your drivers are on the road, and you start receiving calls, you will be able to see exactly which car your leads are coming from.

As you can see below, a call came into extension 300. So if that is a deal that closes, you now know who you need to pay out.

Now that the Information Hotline for your campaign is set up, it's time to order your first batch of stickers!

Step 4: Order Your Stickers

This is the easy part 🙂

You have a couple of different options when ordering stickers. 

  1. You can order them from our supplier here
  2. You can find a local print shop in your market

If you choose to find your own printer, you may be able to negotiate a better rate and save a few bucks on each sticker.

Many REI BlackBook users also negotiate a price for the print shop to install the stickers at their shop.

That means you can direct your drivers to go directly to the print shop, where their team will install the stickers on your behalf.

Many times you will have to pay an additional fee for them to perform the install, but that may be worth the time it would take you to meet the driver and do it yourself.

The install will be your #1 bottleneck, so whatever you do, find a system that works for you, and stick to it.

If you can't find a print shop to install the stickers, you may be able to find a college student or young investor who would do it in exchange for a small fee, or real estate education.

Here is the #1 performing template that Ruben Perez (co-founder of Bandit Sign on Wheels) uses on all of his cars.

You will notice a few things here that will impact your call volume in a positive way.

The first being the verbiage "FULL Asking Price for Your House."

Ruben buys on terms, so he is able to say that. Any property that doesn't fit his buying criteria, he will send to his realtor partner as a referral.

You will also notice that the "FREE 24 Hr Recorded Info" is called out.

This has proven to increase call volume because sellers know that they can call to learn about the program, but they won't have to talk to anyone if they don't want to.

Even if they don't leave a message, or choose to dial "0" to speak to you live, Profit Dial will capture their phone number, and alert you of a new call so you can call them back immediately.

Once you have your system in place, and your stickers ordered, the sky is the limit!

You should be posting on Craigslist and Facebook every single week to recruit new drivers.

There are REI BlackBook members with hundreds of drivers on the road, and they are receiving phone calls from motivated sellers every week from their signs.

Be sure to check our member's only Facebook group to see how some of our top users are building their Bandit Signs on Wheels system.