Real Estate Investing Coaching - Brian Gibbons

Getting Referrals is a CRITICAL Skill

Getting Referrals is a CRITICAL Skill.

If you earn no referrals, you will will be going to Cold Calling Hell!! :)

Brian Gibbons, http://REISkills.com

Cold Canvassing - Finding Houses to Make Offers On

Cold Canvassing

                                       

Posted by: admin, in Buying Houses                                

Today, it’s pretty easy to find properties for sale in most markets, but most of the time in most markets, finding fairly priced listings can be pretty competitive.  The same goes for finding qualified buyers.  A long time ago I was given a technique that every debit insurance agency or paper boy has know for years.  It’s called “cold canvassing”.  It amounts to going door to door and asking people if they want to sell their house.  Even though this is a very effective technique, relatively few people use it in real estate.  Instead, they spend a lot of money sending letters to various lists of potential sellers, hoping that their letter is somehow more entrancing to the owner than the others he receives every month.

Cold canvassing eliminates all of the costs of mailing and maintaining lists, and enables the entrepreneur to buy and sell houses with virtually zero competition.  Here’s a short course on how to do this:

1. Determine which neighborhoods have the most potential for the market you’re trying to sell to.  Many large metropolitan newspapers have sophisticated marketing departments that make periodic demographic studies of neighborhoods and city areas.  Sometimes the Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce has this information.  The Building Bureau and Tax Collector also has a lot of information concerning ages and value of houses in each neighborhood.  Use this data to target the neighborhoods you want to work.

2. Armed with a small tape recorder, clipboard and pad, supply of specially printed business cards, 3X5 index cards, and door hangars that offer to buy, sell, or lend money; and which include your cell phone, home phone, and office phone. Start at the first intersection in your neighborhood and place your door hangars down two blocks on both sides of the street, returning to your point of beginning.  If you walk briskly and aren’t interrupted by long conversations with residents, in half a day you should be able to place door hangars on about 200 houses.  The clipboard, business cards, and index cards are for you to make notes when you are talking to people; getting their names, employer, family composition, length of time since their last move, and estimated time until their next.  The tape recorder is for use when you see any vacant houses or building lots, or houses in poor condition that would make good rehab candidates.

3. Go back home and check your messages.  Next, go to a wall map of your town and mark and date the routes where you left door hangars.  At the end of the day, after homeowners have returned from work, use a Criss Cross or City Directory to find the telephone numbers names of occupants of the homes you left door hangars on.  Call them up and see if they’ve read the door hangar and whether they think they’d like to sell.  Don’t hang up until you at least get their idea of what they their house is worth, how big it is, how much they paid, how long ago. Put this information onto your file cards, or store it in your computer for future reference.

4. Before you hang up, ask them if they know of anyone who would like to live near them; or anyone at work who might have mentioned wanting to buy a home; or anyone at a PTA meeting, social club, church, or Union meeting.  What about people who are renting condos or apartments whom they know.  Prospecting for buyers is very rewarding when sales are slow.

5. Don’t waste your work.  Call builders, brokers, and entrepreneurs to see if they would pay you a finder’s fee for the address of a potential opportunity that you don’t want.  If this is illegal, return to the owner and try to get a short term Option to buy it, then see if you can’t list the property in MLS or proceed to prospect for potential buyers.

6. Repeat this every time you find yourself in need of business, cash, customers, or properties.

TRACKING PROSPECTING RESULTS - Realtor.org

TRACKING PROSPECTING RESULTS

Tracking helps you understand which prospecting methods have  been most productive.

1. Set up a database of prospects.

• Enter first and last names in separate fields. That allows you to use a first name on the letter, but the entire name on the envelope.

• Be sure that you include phone, fax, and e-mail.

• Create fields that allow to you to code prospects by:

Source. Cold call, personal contact, call in, Web site. Use codes here for easier entry, but be consistent.

Quality of lead. Ready to buy, interested in learning more, and so on. Use number or letter codes. If others enter information, code leads for them first.

Date lead was added and date of last contact. This helps you pull up contacts that have not been called recently. It also helps determine which leads are inactive.

• Add a date field for special days. This field helps you remember and locate birthdays, anniversaries of home buy, and so on easily.

• Include a memo field for personal information on a prospect. Little reminders of personal information—children’s names, profession, and so on. Next time you call, they’ll be impressed at how well you remember them.

• Create separate fields (or even a separate database) of information on houses in your farm area. Include the chief factors that buyers in your market need to know:

Address

Brief description of architecture 

Number of bedrooms

Number of baths

Approximate size of lot

• Be sure that databases are up-to-date. Enter new prospects every week, and clean out bad addresses as they come in from your mailings.

• Once a year, eliminate unproductive leads, or move them to a separate file.

2. Code all direct mail materials with an unobtrusive letter or number.

3. Using the coding you have established, determine response rates to various promotions and sources of clients. A good response to direct mail is usually 2 percent to 3 percent. Cold calling should yield a 4 percent response rate.

4. Ask all callers where they heard about you. Ask source questions near the end of your conversation, then thank people for their help in tracking your marketing efforts.

TIP: Asking callers where they heard about you is harder than it sounds. Be sure to get specifics, not just “We saw a sign.” Try to probe prospects’ memory about the true source(s) of the response. For example, did they receive a postcard, which in turn, made them think of walking into your office?

5. Re-evaluate your marketing program two to three times a year and make adjustments based on the prospecting techniques that are yielding the best results.

TIP: Another good method for evaluating the success of your marketing efforts is a survey to determine name recognition in your market. Use online surveys to evaluate online marketing; mailed or phone surveys for traditional direct mail efforts.

TIP: Have your Web designer set up a simple lead collection form for prospects responding via e-mail. Ask no more than five questions to help increase response. 

For the Advanced Salesperson

Number of responses is only the first step in lead analysis.

• Determine your cost per lead. If you spent $2,000 on a direct mail effort and receive 25 leads, your cost per lead is $80. If you spend $1,500 and receive 20 leads, your cost per lead is $75. The second promotion was more cost effective.

• Analyze the quality of the leads. If after one year, 25 percent of the leads generated by canvassing are rated as hot prospects, while only 3 percent of those generated by direct mail are in that group, you may want to focus more of your marketing efforts on canvassing.

• Use the coding described above and develop a spreadsheet or database report that will automatically calculate response rates for you.

• Assign tracking tasks to your personal assistant, who can generate monthly reports for you.

Great Prospecting Ideas and Resources, next page >

Propecting Tips - Realtor.org

http://www.realtor.org/rmoprint.nsf/pages/pros16

Prospecting and Marketing go hand in hand.

Prospecting is more personal.

Below this post are links from www.Realtor.org

---------------------------------------------------------------

Motivated Seller and Tenant Buyer Prospecting
1. Walking your preferred neighborhoods and handing out business cards, postcards, and or fridge magnets.
Most people do not want to do prospecting face to face.  Shoe leather prospecting is not for the lazy or meek.  Just have 1 sentence to say and drive the suspect to a website.  Keep at it regularly, every month.

2. Call old ads for Sellers.

3. Use door hangers for tenants. DON'T drop into mail boxes.

4. Where do Tenants hang out?  Laundry mats, Food Supermarket Bulletin Boards, etc.

For more ideas, see below:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LINK:  http://www.realtor.org/rmotoolkits.nsf/pages/prospectmain?OpenDocument&ExpandView&count=1000 Here you'll find the best strategies to locate hot prospects and convince them that you're uniquely qualified to serve their real estate needs.
Direct-Mail Prospecting Secrets Use these proven strategies to let effective printed materials presell you to your prospects. Build Your Business with Community Involvement Use this simple quiz to find a volunteer opportunity that's both personally and professionally rewarding. Is Your Prospecting Cost Effective? Use these simple calculations to find out. 21 Spectacular Prospecting Ideas We provide a list of readers’ most successful strategies for drawing in new business.     Ask Mr. Internet: Compelling Offers That Turn Site Visitors Into Leads Ask Mr. Internet: Channel Those Leads Tech@Work: Lead Generation How I Found My Niche Don't Let Fear Derail Your Success How Real Is That Lead? Get It Done: Prospecting Reinvent Your Sales Skills in a No-Call World Sales Coach: Build and Keep Your Leads Why Your Best Clients Don't Give Referrals     Field Guide to Farming and Prospecting Field Guide to Anti-Solicitation Laws: Do-Not-Call, Do-Not-Fax, and Do-Not-E-mai Field Guide to Direct Marketing Field Guide to Targeting Over-55 Clients	Prospecting Planning   Income-Planning Worksheet   Permission Marketing Warm Calling   Warm Calling   Adding Home Renovation to Your Business   Prospecting Buyers Call Ins   Call-ins and Techniques for Telemarketing Advanced: Use Personal Assistants for Prospecting   Use Personal Assistants for Prospecting Advanced: Public Speaking   Public Speaking Community Involvement   Community Involvement   Community Involement (Part2) Prospecting In Print   Prospecting in Print Tracking Prospecting Results   Tracking Prospecting Results Prospecting Quiz Quiz: Prospecting Bright Ideas: Prospecting   Bright Ideas: Prospecting Code of Ethics: Prospecting   Code of Ethics: Prospecting More Resources: Prospecting   More Resources: Prospecting