What Am I Doing Wrong?
I ahve got the phone ringing via a lot of Direct Mail and most of these calls are from motivated sellers. Auction dates range from next day to 2-3 weeks out. I just can seem to get these sellers truly over the hump with my pitch. Are they just not motivated enough or am I doing something wrong? I have had some minor successes via Auction and have done 1 sub2 deal. Based on amount phone calls not closing deals.
Any thoughts? How do some you go about closing the "DEAL"
Thanks
If you have purchased JOhn's course he includes mentoring. I am sure that with his vast experience he could pinpoint the problem right away. That said, go to the library and read the book "how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. There are some principles there that are timeless. Another good read on the subject is "Integrity Selling" by Ron Willingham.
I have used these techniques to close many deals over the years.
Additionally I might add, believe in what you are selling to these people, yourself, your ideas, the deal. Practice in front of a mirror if you use a scripted speech until your delivery is flawless.
Once you figure out what's in it for them you can use that as a selling point to address their fears and concerns. I find that listening goes a long ways, often with a liitle nudging people will convince themselves of the benefits to your offer.
If your getting a lot of phone calls then your most of the way there, hopefully your not trying to pitch them over the phone, you should be in their house selling yourself, your deal, and the benefits that "they" will incur by working with you.
While I am on the subject, forget about you, your wants and desires. THese are the most "boring" topics to others. Focus on whats truly fascinating and important "them".....
[addsig]
what are you offering them? I'm in the same boat... tons of calls, no deals. I'm in the process of refocusing my efforts. Still not exaclty sure what I'm doing wrong though...
Mike
tsjhope,
Glad to meet you.
Sounds like you are trying to sell them when you use the term "pitch".
The secret is to have them sell you on why you should purchase their property when you make your presentation, this makes the difference when closing deals.
John $Cash$ Locke
Okay, so what exactly are you doing as far as direct mail. I live in Fairfax county VA and I can't get a single call for anything!! This is getting very frustrating. I even subscribe to a website that gives me all the addresses of foreclosure recipients! This has been said to be one of the hardest markets, but I getting killed here spending soooo much money on marketing and getting NOTHING!!! Please give me a call and lend a fellow investor a hand.
Thanx
Matt Martin
**** No Personal Contact Info within your Posts Please*****[ Edited by rajwarrior on Date 06/04/2004 ]
tsjhope,
It's hard to say what you are "doing wrong" as we don't know exactly what you are doing.
But, from what you've said so far, I think I see two possible problems.
One is as John said, you are stilling to "sell" the idea of you buying their property. That shouldn't be the case. They should be trying to convince you to buy it.
The other, it sounds like that you are "pitching' your method to them over the phone. All the phone is there for is to get an appointment to see the property (and more importantly, the owners/sellers).
Roger
As said above, You have to believe in what you are doing. I love my job and the people I speak with notice. Meet with them face to face. Get the basics on the phone and close in the house. There is a learning curve the only problem is you need to eat in the mean time. You may need to refine your pitch to fit you. Please don't get me wrong JOHN's WORKS GREAT, you just may not seem as comfortable with the approach.
Best to you
Sire
Just a suggestion. A motivated seller wants most of all for his problem to go away. Not maybe go away. Not someday go away. Not go away if . . . .
You need to work on your confidence. You need to be able to walk into that room knowing what you can do and what you cannot do. When you do this the attitude of the meeting will chang. It will stop being about whether you can sell them on your deal. The meeting will become an interview where you are tying to figure out whether they have anything worth buying and if so on what terms and via what mechanism. Once you get to this point your closing ratio will go way up.
You've made a major accomplishment in getting them to call you. Now its time to work on the next step. Its OK, it really does get easier as you do it more.
Dealing with property owners in a preforclosure state does not indicate you have a motivated seller.
In a conversational manner I qualify my potential customer in this manner:
I do not do this over the phone; I prefer a face to face!
If you sell your home what do you plan to do?
If you do not sell your home what do you plan to do?
The above two answers will determine how motivated my seller really is and what manner I use to purchase the subject property.
I have never purchased a property with an individual based upon the real estate itself.
I build my offer around my customer's pain!
Let me give you an example:
After I determine my customer's real pain (true needs) my offer goes like this.
What I would like to do for you first is keep this foreclosure off your credit records! Would that work for you?
Next I would like to bring your loan current and help you keep your promise to the lender! Would that be ok?
I would also like to pay the cost to help you move! Would that be ok with you?
The above helps me build a positive stance with my customer, showing them I want to help, if I can get through the 3 areas of help my customer simply will agree to the rest of my offer no matter how creative it may be.
If they show any reluctance at this point, I simply remind them of the alternative and the consequences!
I first acknowledge their reluctance - I truly understand how you fill, but if we can not work this out and I do want to help you folks this is what will happen.
If your home is foreclosed, you will evicted and be without a home!
You will have a foreclosure on your credit records and will make it almost impossible to buy a home again and on top of that if you rent most landlords look at your credit records, what do you think the landlord will do when they see foreclosure on your credit records?
You will most likely get nothing if your home is foreclosed on!
And my options are to try to help you folks out or just go to the foreclosure sale buy your house, evict you and you get nothing in return.
Will you let me help you out?
Hope this helps!
I don't do direct mail, but I get in front of the owner by asking what the best case scenario is for them. They're usually open at that point. Then I schedule the appointment & REPEAT what they said they wanted, GET THE FACTS & proceed to discuss win-win scenarios.
. Hope that helps.
I beat out another investor on a GA deal yesterday by simply saying to the owners "what would you like to happen?" The problem w/the other investor's "pitch" was they were talking over the owner's head (using technical terms, throwing $ figures around, not painting a clear picture, etc).
Not sure what you're saying, but it's important to put yourself in the owner's shoes while conversing (versus "pitching"