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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 action on these plan will get you there. Drive the leads into local numbers even if you’re not familiar with them. 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 along the street who buys houses versus an 800 number might lead them to believe that it’s bigger company, not in the area…. doesn’t inspire as much familiarity.

Understand prospect 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 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 for the seller’s call. 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 in some time to write your scripts with some variations in them and these 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 details. You could 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 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 advantage and time-saver Since there’s an address, you could pull comps before calling then back. Of course you won’t have an accurate assessment of the repairs needed because it’s been my experience that seller’s will minimize the works that really needs 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 vs. leads.

You’d want to separate prospects from leads. They’re all leads coming, but you’ll want to separate tire kickers from the real motivated seller. The prequalification process would take not more than 20 minutes but the more information that you have, the better solution you can come up with.

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?

Biggest indication 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 - things of that nature.

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

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…. you have a network or a mentor, so give them a call and ask for help. This is what a “mastermind” is all about.

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 does and so does the end buyer of that house- all have to Win.

Karen Roberts

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Karen is a real-estate entrepreneur, investor, mentor and REIA Club president. She is dedicated to building financial independence and inspiring, empowering others to achieve their financial freedom through FinancialEnlightenmentClub.com. Her office is located at Santa Rosa, CA and is reachable at 888-851-3367. Karen can be contacted at karen@financialenlightenmentclub.com. Karen shares her experiences through Financial Enlightenment Club Blog