BiggerPockets

Hi Ember,
This topic comes up it seems every other week around here. If you check the bottom of the page, in related discussions, you'll find some worthy and pertinent responses.

Having said that, let me repeat something else you will hear often: "this is a numbers game..." You are going to get all kinds of responses like the ones above...both are legitimate responses to your marketing and business model...frequently; and in time, you will learn who is wasting your time and who isn't.

People who hang up on my voice mail are obviously not motivated enough at the moment. When I get enough of them saved up from a particular campaign, I will continue to reach out and touch them from time to time with some text marketing. It's free, easy and takes little time. Who knows when the situation might change?

But as to finding those truly motivated, you are doing all the right things. I'm assuming your list is good and message on point. The key is to stay consistent and persistent. You'll be getting calls months from now from the marketing you've already sent out. When you put your marketing "on hold" it stops that flow. I got so many 'no's at first that when my first truly motivated seller accepted my offer I nearly disbelieved her. Almost didn't make the offer.

There are no magic pills or formulas, no secret strategies. Just keep doing what you're doing and accept that while simple, wholesaling is a lot harder work then most people realize.

Ember Dye : If you have the time to call them back, I say go for it. If nothing else you get more and more practice talking with people. They were motivated enough to pick up the phone and call...they are now warm prospects.

I use Google voice, so adding a number as a contact and adding it to a group (warm prospects) only takes a few clicks. When I have a dozen or so I send out a group text...simple as pie. If they really want to talk about their house, they will. If they become a little more motivated as time goes on, guess who will be first on their minds? It's such a simple strategy...thank you Michael Quarles!

Hi Ember,

Like Jerry said...keep doing what you are doing. Getting the calls from the idiots is part of the process. Expect the same types of calls when the bandit signs get put out. It sounds so cliche I almost hate to say it but...its a numbers game! There I got it out...LOL.

Gotta go through the suspects to get to the prospects. Sometimes i can smell a suspect during the first 20 seconds of a phone conversation, so I will qualify them right there on the spot...

Like Mr. "why would you need to ask me questions about it?" I would say to him " The reason I need to ask you questions is because I have a number in mind I would like to pay for your house that you may very well like to hear. I have to make sure that number is correct by asking you very specific questions about the house. My time is extremely valuable as I'm sure yours is also, so the only question I will ask you at this very moment is do you want to continue with the questions now or do you want to call me back some other time when you are ready to answer the questions?

I'm about to run a small Pennysaver WE BUY HOUSES CASH type classified ad to see how that draws leads. I'll run it for 10 weeks minimum in 3 areas to see how it draws. It will cost me about 400 bucks. Cost of doing business.

You might want to add probates to your motivated sellers campaign. I find the sellers of estate properties to be much more sensible. They generally are pretty staight forward.

The phone wont ring by itself so dont stop your marketing.@ the end of the day... No leads...no houses...no cash.

We have developed an ink to put on our letters that hypnotizeses the reader. It controls every thought they have. Were working on an envelope that only requires one piece of mail per house purchase.

The idea is that if we leave the envelope unaddressed and by using a very incripted weaving pattern on the envelope that it will only be delivered to only highly motivated prospects.

Here's where it gets great. The stamp is actually gps tracking devise. The prospect doesn't even have to call us.

We are there at the house signing the contract before the hypnotic state wears off.

It's brilliant.

Nathan

We did the grow a money tree thing a few years back. We found that all it caused was a bunch of people to stop and pick the newly budding Georges. They would pick them dry before the George buds could produce Ben fruit.

Glad it works for you however.

Guys,

It's not April 1 yet ... :D

First of all just wanted to clarify that when I said I was thinking of putting marketing on hold-I didnt mean all marketing, just the yellow letters. I got about 5 good leads from 100 bandit signs. I got no good leads from yellow letters-and hours of my time wasted. Yes I will finish using the list I purchased, but probably give it a few weeks before I sent out anymore. Maybe it would have even worked better with a different list other than "absentee home owners."
Michael G.-Thank you so much for your post! I really like your response to the question of, "why would you need to ask me questions about it." Also I agree with you that probates may be a good list to target. I recently started targeting them. Just curious how far do you go back when you target them? Obviously probate can take awhile, so I am debating looking through December's or going back to June or Julys?
Carlos-Thank you for your post. Its always good to hear about successful stories so thank you for that. Very encouraging.
Michael Q-thanks for the sarcasm. Obviously I know its not that simple to get leads.
The reason I started this was to find out what other avenues people are using to market to: like probates, etc. So if anyone else has any segments they have been marketing to that seem to be working great I would love to hear about it......

Thanks for the referral fee offer but no need. I just want the people contacting us to hopefully just get their home sold to another investor. I just don't have the time to all the work anymore.

Michael I will forgive you for making fun of me! Ha ha-I know us newbie investors-theres lots of us on here with lots of questions!

When you say rethink my direct mail-what list do you feel works better than absentee home owners? Also not sure if its better to target out of state home owners? Most of mine are all from here too....

I know you work in the yellow letter business...so have you tweaked the letter yellow, or is it the list you use that makes this your only method, and your still successful?

Here's the deal on being new. You don't know what you don't know. And irrespective of the sarcasm if you ask enough questions you'll get the right answer.

I thinks it's cool you're trying different avenues.