Deals are Equal to Marketing and Leads

As an investor that makes a living off of closing real estate deals-Leads are Monumental! If we have no leads… consequently, .we have no deals. As an investor that makes a living off of closing real estate deals-Leads are Monumental! If we have no leads… consequently, .we have no deals.

Getting real leads



In real estate, you want to get a pipeline of leads coming to you on a regular basis. It requires a great marketing plan and taking action on the plan will get you there. Drive the leads into local numbers even if you’re not familiar with the farm area, local Sellers are going to feel more secure. A prospect list that you’re mailing to, will be more secure if they’re calling a local number, they’re likely to believe that it must be a guy/gal along the street who buys houses versus an 800 number – which might lead them to believe that it’s bigger company, not in the area…. which doesn’t inspire as much familiarity.

Understand prospects vs. leads



Using answering services is also recommended. If there are sellers calling your voicemail, you’ll lose 50% of callers. You have to understand that motivated sellers are hoping that somebody will answer the phone; you have to hire or have someone to answer the call, live. If you do have to forward to voicemail, 50% of callers won’t leave a message. Another thing about answering services is that you’re going to have seller phone calls at all times of the day and night. It is not always most convenient for you. You can be in a nice restaurant, when suddenly you get a seller call that’s not appropriate. Or like me, I might be working on something when suddenly there’s a seller call and it’s difficult to switch my mental process to be ready to qualify a seller. It’s easier when someone else answers it, a trained someone else. There are many answering services out there, I’ve heard of Patlive, GotVmail, and Onebox to name a few.



When you’re ready to train an individual to answer your calls, invest some time into writing your scripts with some variations in them and they will become the template that your outsourced hire will use to carry out the call.



Live attendants will answer seller phone calls as if they’re your company. Let us say you are “Mike buys Houses”. They might answer like this “Mike buys houses, good day, how may we help you?”. They can take the vital information for you, ask questions from your script and e-mail you the details.



You can then call them back when you’re available. Even if you’re going to call them back much later, the advantage is that you have already obtained the seller’s information.



Because this process has provided you more information, you may already have an address as a result of your live servicing of the call, which can be an advantageous time-saver. Since there’s an address, you could pull comps before calling them back about their property. Of course you won’t have an accurate assessment of the repairs needed yet as it’s been my experience that seller’s will minimize the evident repairs that really need to be done on the home that they’re selling.



Remember your purpose when you begin talking to them. Your purpose is not to sell them a service. Your first purpose is to qualify the caller, prospects www.vs.leads.



You would want to separate prospects from leads. All of them are considered to be leads, but you’ll want to separate tire kickers from the true motivated sellers. An investor spends approximately 20 minutes building rapport and pre qualifying a seller. Your ability to gather pertinent information and assess everyone’s needs, will determine the types of creative solutions that you’re able to offer the seller.

The 2 key reasons to take this call



Ask yourself these pointed questions…



First, are they motivated?

Second, are the numbers going to work?

Your first focus should be to build rapport with them in order to discover via your questions, if the motivation is really there.



* Why are they selling their house now?

* What will they do if you don’t buy it?

* How soon will they move out?



The greatest indicator as to whether they’re motivated is if they start speaking about their personal concern, telling you that they don’t know what to do, asking you to come and get the house, statements like,” I just want to walk away” – and other statements of duress.



Next question for you is whether the numbers will work? Explore if you and the seller are even on the same planet.



It’s time to be as creative as you can be and if you cannot come up with a solution or fear that your numbers might be off…. This is the greatest time to reach out to your mentor or support network, give them a call and ask for help. You might even consider asking your mentor to be on the phone with you and the seller or to listen in to discuss options after the call.

It’s a great opportunity to really learn while you’re in the thick of it.



Do not be married to this house, spend time on the ones that are likely to be a deal. And I mean a win-win-win deal. The Seller has to win, the investor and the end buyer of that house- all have to win. When everyone’s winning, your local community wins along with the global economy.