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Joe McCall:
I’m almost done. I also have my VAs do cold calls. This is the script I have my VAs, when they’re doing cold calls, this is what they say. They’ll typically cold call anywhere from 30 to 50 sellers a day in each market. Sometimes we’ll go after different types of deals. We’ll go after cheap rental properties and our only message is, “Hey, we want to buy your house.” We’ll go after nice rental homes and we’ll ask them, “Do you want to lease purchase your house?”
We’ll also go after properties that are listed for rent and we do the strategy called quick turn leasing where we will actually flip the lease. We give an option to the seller to lease the property, we get it under an option contract, we advertise it for rent, and we fill these things within a week. We get them rented and we keep one month’s rent for our profit to do this. We do this in the higher end markets like California where the rents are $2,000.00, $3,000.00. We flip these as leases and we keep one month’s rent because of profit. It’s not a whole lot of money - $1,000.00, $2,000.00 but you can do five, six, eight of those a month very easily and you can outsource literally 100% of that to realtors to do for you. You just need to get on the phone and have a VA make those cold calls for you.
On those calls, we’ll call and say, “Hey, I saw you had your house on Craigslist. If we could find you a tenant in a week or two weeks in exchange for one month’s rent, you wouldn’t be interested in that, would you?” We just be quiet and my VAs let them talk. One out of every 30 will say, “Yeah, we got a deal.” We average one deal a day with that.
My cold calling script is real simple. My VAs will say something like, “Hey, I saw your house on Craigslist. Is it still available? Can you tell me a little bit about it? We are investors who buy and lease properties. Would you be open to leasing your house for a few years and then selling it?” Simple as that.
My VAs have great English. You can’t tell they’re from the Philippines. We have different scripts depending on what exactly we’re trying to do here. Some of my favorite questions to ask sellers – this is either when I am talking to them after my VAs have prescreened them out or my VAs are actually closing them.
We’ll ask questions like, “What are you going to do if you can’t sell your house? Rent it?” A lot of times sellers have never thought of that, so then we’ll say, “Why would you want to rent it to a tenant? Are you prepared for your typical landlord headaches? Why not rent it to somebody who wants to buy it?” Then we shut up. We always are asking questions. Everything in my script is a question. It’s pull versus push. I’m not pushing them into anything.
I am the buyer, this is really important to write down. When you’re talking to sellers on the phone, remember you are the buyer, they are the seller. They need to sell you on their house. You need to play the role of the reluctant buyer. Use negative phrasing. I start conversations all the time with, “Hey, it sounds like I caught you at a bad time.”
“No, no. This is fine. I can talk right now.”
Then you know they’ve invited you in. They’ve given you permission to talk to them. Then you say things like, “I don’t know if this could be for you. I understand you probably have a good handle on all of this, but we have a bunch of buyers looking for homes in this area. You wouldn’t be interested in them, would you? You wouldn’t be interested in getting access to our buyers, would you?” using the negative phrasing.
I like this question, too, “Mr. Seller, would you mind if I asked you a few questions about your house to see if I would even be interested in making an offer on it?” I’m staying in control. I’m asking the questions. I used to spout off all the benefits of working with me, “I can buy your house fast. I can close in seven days. I’ll buy your house as is.” Now I turn it into a question. “Mr. Seller, let me ask you something. It’s okay if you say no, I understand. If I could buy your house in seven days, pay cash, close quickly, buy it as is,” etcetera, “what’s the best price you can give me?” I asked it as a question. I listed the benefits in the question. “If I could do this, would you be willing to do this? Is there any reason why we couldn’t do business today?”
The seller brings up objections. I’ll say things like, “I can understand why you might be concerned about that. Let me ask you something. If I could resolve that for you and take care of that for you, is there any reason why we couldn’t do business today?” Probably not.
My scripts that I give to my VAs are very simple. It’s just some basic questions. My big thing I tell my assistants, and even when I’m on the phone is never be on the phone longer than three to five minutes with a seller. You should know whether they’re ready to do a deal or not. You’re in business to make money today. If the seller is not ready to do business today, get off the phone.
Don’t send them a contract unless they’ve given you a deadline of when they’ll give it back to you. Sometimes I’ll tell sellers when they say, “I need to think about it,” I’ll say, “Mr. Seller, let’s just be honest with each other. When I hear that somebody needs to think about it, that really means no. Isn’t that right? You’re just not interested. That’s fine. It’s okay to say no.”
“Well, I need to talk to my wife about it.”
Jason Medley:
That’s somebody who’s too polite to tell you no.
Joe McCall:
Yeah, that’s why I get to the point. They say, “I need to talk to my wife about it.”
“Okay, great. When can we talk to her? Let’s get her on the phone right now. Will she be available tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. or tonight at 5:00 p.m.?” I give them deadlines.
If they say, “Just come out and meet me at the house.”
“I’d love to meet you at the house, sir, but I don’t want to waste your time. Let me ask you something. If I could send you an agreement right now and if we can agree on the numbers and agree to the terms, would you be ready to sign that agreement right then?”
Unless they say, “Yeah, if I agree to the numbers I’ll go ahead and sign the agreement,” I’m not going to go out and meet with them. This is all about managing your time.
This is so important. If you’re going to be flipping these deals virtually, you don’t have time to waste talking to unmotivated sellers. The harder you chase them, the faster they’ll run. Think about it. You’re trying to negotiate this deal from 5,000 miles away. You have to be on your A game and you need to be able to convince them that doing business with you is their best option. It’s really not that hard.
That’s why I talk about the four or five keys to success, marketing, automation, and delegation, and then learning how to talk to sellers, learning sales skills like this. It takes guts, but you can do it.