On Saturday at my local REIA meeting (everyone should be going to ALL of the REIA meetings in your area), I was talking with an investor who had received a nasty phone call from a homeowner who was not happy that they received a letter in the mail. They wanted this investor to know that they “did not want to sell their house and never to send them another letter ever again.” This investor was new and of course this phone call upset them. I reassured the investor that this happens and is the nature of the business.
The majority of calls that I get from these angry, crazy people is them wanting to know how I got their information, not believing it is a matter of public record, and wanting off my mailing list. One of my most memorable calls was from a Realtor who proceeded to scream at me that it was illegal to send out letters trying to buy her house, that she had been in the business 25 years and that she was going to sue me (obviously she must have been very successful if she thought direct mail was illegal…of course you can never argue with a crazy person…just ask any husband).
I can only think of one time where I was justifiably yelled at when it came to marketing — I got a message from an irate guy with every other word being the F word. Apparently, my bandit sign guy had put my sign up next to a funeral marker on the highway, where someone had recently died (yes, I told my bandit sign guy not to do this again and to use common sense when putting out my signs.)
Well, here is the point…you need to be immune to criticism when it comes to this business. If you are not getting people ticked off at you, then you aren’t sending out enough letters, you aren’t putting out enough signs and you aren’t closing enough deals. Who is going to get yelled at more, the guy who sends out 1,000 letters a month, or the guy who sends out 10,000? Also, please don’t take it personally when you do get yelled at…the person who is yelling at you doesn’t know you from Adam. They are simply yelling at some person who sent them a postcard or a letter.
Also, when you do get yelled at, remember the person probably is having a bad day, or has a crappy marriage, or a crappy home life or they are envious of you (and they just need to vent at someone.) Now, get out there and make sure you are getting criticized more often (yes…that means sending out thousands of pieces of direct mail a month and becoming successful sooner)!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally agree with this.
A year or so ago I was putting up a lot of bandit signs and a lady called to and left me a message and asked me who in the hell I was to put up these ugly yellow signs all over her neighborhood and she demanded that I come over right away to take down all of the signs.
One of my partners was like “wow, that sucks, what do you think about that?”.
I turned to her and said “Hey, at least we know people are seeing the signs”.
I called the lady back, made my apologies and told her the sign would be down by Monday morning (our normal time for taking down the weekend bandits).
Sometimes it is better to apologize later than to ask for permission first.
Main points: first impressions are huge, market history doesn’t matter anymore, and it’s a buyers market.
I feel sorry for anyone selling right now.
We used to put out a ton of “We buy houses” bandit signs and definitely got yelled at. We were putting out 50 to 100 a week for a long time and finally ended up in court for violations of sign ordinances. We ended up paying a fine of $800 but that was after we already made $24K on a deal we bought off one of the bandit signs.
Also would knock on doors to people in foreclosure when I got started and got yelled at plenty of times.
I’ll tell you one thing…it’s the fast track to learning what it takes to become successful.
“of course you can never argue with a crazy person…just ask any husband”
Hey, you guys aren’t the easiest to live with either!
Beyond that though, it was a good article. Thanks
You can’t please everyone. I have never met a successful person yet who never had an incident where someone was mad at them. It is bound to happen.
Great post. I liked it a lot.