The other day I was talking to a good friend of mine about the changing market and what strategies he found worked best. We were sharing our various tweaks we had made to our own marketing plans and how successful they were or were not. It’s a conversation we often have. But what struck me this time, and I am not sure why it hasn’t struck me before, was that the one strategy we always put in the success column is Follow Up. Consistently following up with a lead always works!
If One is Good, More is Better. I have always been a person who thinks in terms of if one is good, more must be better. I figure that if I send one letter, 10 would better. If I make 1 phone call, 6 would be even better. If I sent 1 email, 100 would be better! Okay that may be pushing it, but you get the gist. Sending just one piece of marketing is good but more is better! I think that is why the idea of Follow Up has been something I have always used.
When I explain this strategy’s benefits to my coaching students, I always use the example of shopping in a store at the mall. If you are like me, you walk into the store with a single purpose…to get the item you are looking for as quickly as possible and get the heck out of there! But if you are also like me, the store is a foreign place where you have no idea where the one thing you need is located. So inevitably you walk around the store searching. Eventually a friendly employee walks up and says, “Hi! Can I help you find anything?” And what do you say? Be honest! You say, “No thank you. I am just looking.” Then you scream in your head for the next five minutes as you continue to search, “Why didn’t I ask them where it was?!!!!!!!” Eventually, said employee takes pity on you again and asks if they can help and you graciously accept. I can see you all cringing, thinking about how many times you have done this.
But why do we do this? Why do we refuse help when we know that we need it? Because we are trained to give a no answer when offered help. So, what do you think most people’s response is going to be when they see your letter, email, postcard, message offering them help? Just Wanted to Check in Again. If you stopped at one, they are going to say no. Now in my example above, it usually only takes one more time for me to finally accept total defeat and let them help me, but other people’s thresholds are different. Sometimes it takes 2 times, 3 times, even 20 times of following up with that one person to get a yes. But how do you get to that yes until you go through all the noes?
Back to my conversation I had with my friend the other day. When we got to the part again about how follow up was his most successful strategy, he told about this deal he just closed. He was saying how he had first called this guy about his house a year ago. That day, they walked the property and discussed some numbers, but the guy was meeting with some other investors and agents and wanted to see what they had to offer. My friend said that he must have, “talked to that guy every month over the last year. I thought he was never going to accept, but I just closed that deal and made a 22K wholesale fee off of it.” Just a once a month phone call led to a 22k paycheck. Not to bad for just wanting to check in again.
“I Just Wanted to Reach Out…”
I think one of the most important lessons I have ever learned in business, heck even in life, was to Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable. I am sure that most of you have seen this written somewhere. Usually it pops up on my news feed on Facebook a couple times a year or I see it on one of those inspirational posters in the doctor’s office with a cute kitten hanging from a tree or something. You may even be thinking while reading this, “Well of course you do, that is the only way you can grow!” But how many of you have actually implemented it in your business?
Do I Need to Make Outbound Calls? I would venture to guess that that most of you haven’t. I am sure that there are parts of your business that you have dipped the tip of your pinky toe across the uncomfortable line. Maybe it is writing that first offer or telling the drywaller that you want the outlet moved 2 inches to the left, but I would venture to say that most of you are not willing to get uncomfortable with one of the key marketing strategies you must use in your business! I am talking about Outbound Calling.
The reason I know most of you aren’t is because it is inevitably the first job that people ask me how to delegate off. My students are always asking for an ad or what criteria they should be looking for in an assistant, a VA, or a call center. And I will tell you the same thing I tell them. That is the absolute last job you will ever delegate off in your business!
What Are You Afraid of? What is it about making these calls that makes you so uncomfortable? Are you afraid of getting yelled at? Are you afraid of imposing? Are you afraid that they are going to look up where you live and TP your house?
I can honestly say, I have never really been uncomfortable with making that phone call in my real estate business. I think that it has to do with the fact that fresh out of high school I worked as a collection agent in one of the largest debt collection firms in the country. Trust me, there is no worse phone call you can make then the one where you are trying to collect money! (BTW Joe in Boston, thanks for explaining in detail where I could stick it. I didn’t even know that was humanly possible! No one wants that call! I have been hung up on, cussed at, you name it, but after everyone of those calls, I had to pick up the phone again and make the next call.
The 10th Call is The Money Call. As we all know, marketing is a numbers game. You have to send out a certain amount of marketing to get a certain number of deals to yield a certain profit. What would you do if I told you had to make 10 calls to get one 40K deal. Would you be willing to make the other 9 calls? Even if everyone of them yelled at you and hung up? Of course, you would? What if the number was 20 calls or 50 calls? You definitely would!!!
That is why it is so important to make that shift to pushing past your uncomfortableness. You never know if the 1st call or the 26th call is going to bring you in a 50K profit check. You just have to pick up the phone and make the call.
So, if you are ready to start learning how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, then join us November 12th or 13th at the AZREIA meeting.
by Jason Roberts