Phone Game & Real Estate Investing

When you’re trying to make good money as an investor part of your success hinges on how well you communicate with the home seller. Communicating effectively with the home seller includes a lot of basics that most of you are already familiar with, such as building rapport. You need to get the home seller to want to sell their house to you instead of anyone else who is trying to buy it. This is why having good phone game is so important for real estate investors. Through a simple phone call that is laced with some good game, you can make yourself stand out from the competition while you educate the owners of  distressed properties what their options are and what will happen if they don’t take any action. Use phone game to overcomes objections   In our business, good game over the phone includes the ability to overcome objections. Through a phone call you can overcome objections that other marketing mediums such as direct mail can’t even begin to address. For example, a lot of owners of distressed properties believe that they aren’t able to sell the property because the bank owns it. They think that the property went into foreclosure so that they no longer own the property. When you have good phone game you are already prepared for such an objection and how to overcome it during your phone conversation.   Another common objection that you can overcome through a phone call is when the heirs of the property don’t know (or they don’t believe) that they have any interest in the property you are trying to buy. You need to be prepared to overcome these types of  objections. Knowing what the common objections are over the phone and how to overcome them while you’re on the phone is imperative to having good phone game. Use the phone to put skeptics at ease   It’s really important to know how to add credibility to yourself as a reliable home buyer who can get the job done. Phone callers with good phone game are prepared to demonstrate their credibility to any skeptics they may be talking to.. For example, while you’re on the phone with a skeptic you can direct them to your website or you can tell them you’re approved by the Better Business Bureau. The key is that you are prepared to nullify any skepticism you face during any phone call.     Good phone game isn’t just about what you do or say over the phone. It also involves what you don’t do or say over the phone. Below are some examples of bad phone game that you can integrate with rei skip tracing: Don’t tell the homeowner you’re an investor   It’s poor phone game when you risk referring to yourself in a way that the home-seller finds offensive. It may not be a turn off to every homeowner, but we’ve had plenty of experiences of losing potential deals because one of our callers would tell the homeowners that we were investors. As soon as they heard that  we were investors, they would say something like, “Oh, your investors? I don’t deal with investors”. Click….   We also usually don’t tell people that we’re cash buyers. Instead, we tell the homeowners that we buy houses in their area. By using the right terminology on the phone you will differentiate yourself from the shady people in the real estate business who lowball homeowners and aren’t able to close many of the properties they get under contract.   Don’t ignore the homeowners pain points   Part of your job as an investor is to solve the problems other people have. Distressed properties are often a problem to the people who own them, and it’s bad phone game when the investor fails to demonstrate over the phone that they are actually trying to help the homeowner by buying their property. You can convey that you’re trying to help by making the owner aware of the pain points associated with the property they own.   If you’re talking to a homeowner who lives in another state from the property you’re trying to buy and the property has tax issues, make the seller’s pain clear: Let them know that If they don’t do something with the property it will continue to accumulate taxes and become more and more of a financial burden.   If you’re talking to someone who owns a distressed property and they want retail (or close to retail) for the property, make it clear to them what their options are and how painful and expensive it will be for them to repair the property so that they can list it at retail value. Let them know how much time that whole process can take and that as time continues the distressed property will become more of a financial burden.   If it will cost the home-seller more money to repair a property and pay off any liens or taxes on it than it would for them to sell the property to you, then educate the home-seller of the pains that are associated with the distressed property they own. Educating the homeowner while you’re speaking with them over the phone is good phone game.   Don’t waste time calling the wrong leads   Some investors have great phone game in all areas but one: they spend too much time calling the wrong leads. You may have a list with thousands of leads on it that you want to skip trace so that your team can call the whole list, but some of the properties on your list are going to have more distress signals than others (not to mention more equity), so why not prioritize your list so that you can spend your time going after properties that are the most likely to become deals? If you’re spending a lot of  time calling the properties where the numbers won’t work even if you did get the

What Job Qualifications Should A Good Cold Caller Have?

As real estate investors use cold calling to scale their business, there inevitably comes a time when it isn’t practical for them to make cold calls anymore. This means that it’s time to hire one or more cold callers so that you can better spend your time. The position of a cold caller is an important job that you want to fill with the right person. You want to hire callers who enjoy talking on the phone and who have other important job qualifications. This article answers some common questions we get about what makes a good cold caller and discusses some important qualifications they should have to be a good fit for the job.   How do they sound all the phone?   It’s really important how your callers sound over the telephone. You want callers who sound like someone you would want to talk to. How your caller sounds over the telephone is one of the most important job qualifications, so pay close attention to their voice tonality, how they speak, and the rhythm of their dialogue during your conversation with them.   Are they personable and friendly?   It’s really important that your callers have good mannerism and that they are polite while they are talking on the phone. This will help you decrease the amount of people who get angry when you cold call them and it will maximize the leverage you get from each contact you make. So, make sure that the person you’re considering hiring as a cold caller is both personable and friendly while you are interviewing them. If they aren’t personable and friendly towards you, then they probably won’t be personable and friendly towards the people they talk to when they’re making calls for you.   Would they cause someone to let their guard down?   A bonus quality to a good caller is their capacity to cause other people to let their guards down. Sometimes the leads you call will be guarded for various reasons. They will have their guard up to know why you called, how you got their number, and what the purpose of your call is. Sometimes the leads you call will have their guard up because they are embarrassed that they are losing their home. They are understandably guarded because their house may be going up for auction soon, so it’s important that your callers are able to put potential sellers at ease. You want the seller to cooperate with your caller, so it’s important for your caller to operate within the context that your company is trying to help them solve a problem. If the seller won’t put their guard down and acknowledge that there is a problem, your company cannot effectively offer them any solutions.   Do they need to have cold calling experience?   It’s nice when they have experience with making cold calls, but for us experience is not a necessity. Instead, we place more importance on the job qualifications discussed above. How much time should your cold callers spend making cold calls?   The time range will usually vary between 2 to 4 hours a day, but if you have the lead volume it’s fine if your callers make cold calls for full 8 hour shifts.   Are they good at autodialers?   If you’re using auto-dialers, finding a caller who is familiar with the type of autodialer your company uses is a bonus to consider when you’re hiring. However, if you find the right caller who sounds good over the phone and they aren’t familiar with your autodialer, you can always train them on how to use it. In other words, it shouldn’t be a deal breaker if they don’t know how to use autodialers.     Do you hire a professional company for cold callers?   It depends. If you decide to hire a company to make calls for you, make sure that you find out if they call both landlines and mobile phone numbers (some call centers that use power-dialers don’t call mobile phone numbers due to compliance issues). If they don’t call mobile phone numbers, this could make a major difference in your hit rate. Our experience has shown us that callers who we hire as a part of our team perform better than call centers. We did an experiment once by sending the exact same list to both a call center and a caller who works for our company. They called the same list, but our caller produced more leads.   Commission only callers vs Hourly wage callers   If you hire callers that you only pay commission to, make sure that a commission only pay scale is a realistic and fair model for them. If they don’t get paid enough, then their performance is likely to suffer and there will be a high turnover rate. You will consistently need to hire and train new callers to replace the old callers who have quit if a commission only pay scale is unrealistic. Paying your callers hourly and offering them commission is another option. An hourly wage provides security for them so that they will be inclined to stay longer, and the possibility of commissions ensures that they will put extra effort into their work.   Where do you find good cold callers?   We find our cold callers by posting jobs on Indeed.com and then we vet all the candidates.   What if I don’t want to hire a cold caller?   Knowing what job qualifications a good cold caller needs is imperative if you want to consistently generate business from making cold calls. Some investors don’t hire cold callers and make the cold calls themselves, but it’s important for them to evaluate themselves to determine if they have the qualifications to be good at making cold calls. If they’re making the cold calls without possessing the job qualifications and they don’t sound good over the phone, their business will suffer because they’re doing a job