Tips for juggling prospect visits with your 9-5 job?

[Richie Thomas]

I'm about to embark on a lead gen campaign (direct mail + social media and Google ads).  If I do my job right, I expect to eventually see some inquiries coming in, which I'll then need to convert into appointments.  When scheduling these appointments, I know time is of the essence, but I also can't control when these leads will arrive.  If they come in on a Monday, I can't imagine I'll be able to wait until Saturday to go visit these prospects; if I do, the leads may be cold by the time I arrive.

How have y'all dealt with this obstacle?

[Tom Shallcross]

@Richie Thomas - great question and a potential good problem to have.   I currently have a demanding full-time job so I've done two things to combat this:

1. I treat that first phone call like the f2f appointment. It's not just asking questions, but really learn what they're looking for and build genuine rapport. We set the tone by letting them know they have options. If a quick-close cash deal does not make sense (because it does not for everybody) we offer to refer them to the agent we use so they can list on the MLS. This puts the seller at ease as he/she knows the ball is in their court.

2. More direct to your question, I've structured a deal with my GC to handle the onsite visit as he has a more flexible schedule.  Any deal that goes through, he receives a kicker so he's not only incentivized to take these meetings but to also build rapport and do what he can to make a deal work for everybody.  I do a lot of the screening on the phone and throw out rough outlines to ensure we're in the right ballpark with the seller to ensure he's not chasing a lot of deals that never had a chance.  It also helps us get to even more aggressive numbers as he will get our true rehab number as opposed to me going and thinking "alright, rehab will probably be somewhere like 50-60k."  

I personally would love to be the one sitting down face-to-face with the seller, but this has worked pretty well and I'm lucky my GC can be very client-facing.  We continue to tweak it and I'd be curious to see how others have worked through this.  If you're GC is not an option, I bet there is someone in your area you can partner with (and try to reward on closed deals, not just cost per appointment) or you'd just have to set several evenings aside to make it happen.     

[Richie Thomas]

Thanks for the response @Tom Shallcross.  I agree it'd be a good problem to have and I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself haha.

I love the idea of offering to refer them to an agent if an all-cash offer isn't for them.  Sounds like a great way to establish trust.