Hello BP,

I am looking for a quick checklist or list of good questions to ask when I cold call multi-family or mobile home park owners asking them if they'd be interested in selling. I have recently pulled all of the titles of the multi-family properties and mobile home parks within my town and am going to start calling all of the owners to ask if they have any interest in selling. I understand the first couple of questions are fairly obvious ie; Would you be interested in selling? How long have you owned the property? Current Vacancy rates? etc; but I was hoping to get some idea's and or somewhat of a script to follow so I don't miss anything and good questions to ask as we get deeper into the conversation. 

The end goal for these cold calls is to find a few potential properties to evaluate, purchase in a Joint Venture and BRRRR. My partner and I are heading to an investment summit in a month and a half, and would like to have a few potential properties to attract investors. We know the market very well would like to transition into the smaller multi-family game. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks and happy investing!

First advice:   We are all bad at cold calls when we start.  You'll get better.   Second, some will say they are interested in selling, but in reality it is for the "right" price.   Those could be dead leads.  I'd keep the script simple.  Say you are an investor in Apartments and you are contacting a few owners to see if they would have interest in selling.   Try to start a conversation where the seller talks for awhile.   Database leads that you may have to call back in six months or a year.

PS:  If you find any Arizona Trailer Parks, I'd like to hear about them.

@Travis Hewlett The feedback from @Brian Ploszay is right on the money. Your first 100 calls (at a minimum) will be dumpster fires. And there’s a good chance you’ll be leaving a ton of voicemails. If you’re not committed to finishing, don’t start. If you’re not committed to measuring response rates, don’t start. That said, I’d tell you just to start dialing. If you have 1,000 leads then start by calling the 100 long-shots first. Use it to learn how to get comfortable, seeing what people will tell you, learn follow-up, learn to get rejected, etc. Dial 35 people a day (easy goal) and you’ll be through that in 3 days.

Anyway, as a guy who owners a couple of apartment buildings: 1.) everything has a price, so I’m open to selling but likely not at a price you want, and 2.) I’m not going to tell you squat about what I owe, vacancy rates, etc. on a first call.

Expect many owners to either have the mindset of #1 or just hang-up on you because they’ve been lowballed by a voice on a phone in the past. And if I get a call from a number in Canada expect me to want to do some diligence on you before “opening my kimono”.

Small piece of advice: cold-callers seldom, ever, follow-up. I know because I’ve gotten a few random calls from people on BP. How many voicemails? One. I’m not special in the least but it’s indicative a pervasive lack of follow-up. It’s the same in my day job ;)

Or just take my advice and trash it 🤷🏻‍♂️

I am just getting started with my cold calling campaign. Once I have done enough of them to add something of meaning on this topic, Ill post my results and hopefully be able to help someone else get started on it. 

@Travis Hewlett How has the cold calling been going so far? Get any deals from it yet?

Here is my script so far:

Hi my name is rich, is this_____________________?

-Yes

I was calling about your property located at______________

-Okay

I drove by it the other day and it really peaked my interest. Do you have time you could tell me about it?  How old is it, what do you like and dislike about it?

- ________________________________________________

What do you like most about the location?

-________________________________________

If you were to sell would you prefer a quick cash sale or a sale on terms. 

-_________________________________________

Okay great, I am sure you are not interested in selling right now but would you care to take down my name and number so I can be the first person you reach out to if you decide you would to?

-_______________________________________________

Okay great, My name is __________________ my number is _______________________. Thanks for speaking with me today. I look forward to hearing from you in the future. 

( I like to assume they are not interested to invoke curiosity on their part.  maybe they will interrupt and ask me if would like to make an offer before the end of the call.

If they do want to know what I would offer them I would insist that I do not make offers over the phone and i would have to see the property first. )

Let me know if people think this is a good cold call script.

@Rich Hupper I’ve only made a few hundred cold calls this month so I’m going to try your script out and see how it goes.

I’ve never assumed they didn’t want to sell but that’s a great idea because out of 500+ calls I’ve spoken to maybe 200 ppl (the rest Voicemail’s) and I’ve received:

1 yes i want to sell but we have to relocated my disabled sister first

3-5 “I will take $x.xx”

One was a retail number and the rest were 500+ k over what they probably found on Zillow

5 angry ppl

188 no I don’t want to sell or buy anymore. (I’m also an agent so I always ask well if you’re not looking to sell are you looking to expand your portfolio or some spin off of that)

I’ll update after I speak to 100 ppl with your pitch

@Jon Ladas yes I have done a lot of cold calling in my time. I think it is very difficult to close a deal over the phone at a certain price. So I look at the first cold call as a way not to sell but to break the ice, and try to get an appointment or ask if I can follow up with them at a later date in the future. The best thing to do over the phone is build rapport talk about the house the area what made them decide to buy it. I try not to come off as an investor but more as someone who is genuinely interested in their property and location. I am both. 

@Jon Ladas @Rich Hupper  

How has the cold calling been going the last few years for you guys? Any additional advice or feedback? I have been steadily cold calling apartment owners in my market for the last couple of years with many that I regularly follow up with. I am far from an expert and mostly just wing it so any additional insight would be great. I know it works and I'm sure I could do a lot better job than I am.

My "script" is usually something like this

"Hello is this _____"

"Yes"

"Great, im sorry to bother you but my name is Matt Watson and I was wondering if you owned the apartments at ______"

"Yes, what do you want"

"I am a local investor in Omaha and was wondering if you have ever considered selling?"

If the answer is yes then I asked some more follow-up questions. How much there were thinking of selling for? Why they wanted to sell. Etc

If they say no then I say "If you were going to sell it, how much would you want?"

I will also usually have a ballpark number in my head of what I would pay and will sometimes say "If I could pay you _____, would you be interested in selling then?"

I now have an excel cold call document with over 15,000 units on it. In the last 18 months, I have bought a 6, 10, 20 and a 48 all from cold calling. I honestly don't have any idea how many I have called or spoken to. All I know is that it works as long as you keep at it and don't get discouraged by the 99% that don't have any interest in speaking to you.

@Matthew Watson that is awesome news! congratulations on so much success from cold calling. 

You're script is very similar to mine when I am looking for properties for myself. 

When I am looking for clients (typically investors) I say:

Sorry to call you out of the blue but I am working with a client who drove by your property/building at 123 banana street and asked me to reach out to see what your plans were for the property.

I have been experimenting with a lot of different language in my calls and have found that asking open ended questions have brought the most value to both parties. 

Then at the end ALWAYS ask for the referral. This is something I have not been disciplined enough with because I tend to forget if I'm not reading my scripts but I'd say 20% of the time I receive a decent response. 

"So what I'm hearing mr seller is that you don't want to sell because this is a cash cow for you, which I completely understand and I would feel the exact same way if my properties were performing as great as yours is. So before I let you go who do you know that may be sick of landlording or just looking to offload a property?"

Never ask "do you know anyone looking to sell?" This is a question that if you give them the option to say no they will 99.9% of the time. When you ask "who do you know" almost every single time there's a pause (to think) and then a response. You still get the majority who tells you, "I don't know anyone sorry" but I have received a lot of referrals this way. A lot of the referrals don't work out because of price of timing BUT you ask them for a referral and these referrals compound and you have 10x more connections than if you ask "do you know anyone" or just don't ask in general.

I did not purchase any properties in 2020 but from my cold calls I wholesaled two properties and around $6 million of my sales came from cold calling last year. 

Advice, KEEP GOING. I have plenty of days where I leave 100 voicemails or have 0 decent conversations and want to give up. But the times when you don't want to do something are the times that its most important for you to do it. 

It never gets easier for me to start my calls and every day the first 3-5 are a force. But once I get into the double digits I'm cruising and can bang out a ton of calls.

Hope I brought some value!

Good luck going forward and keep going!

@Jon Ladas I will definitely incorporate that advice. I can see how using open ended questions could potentially spark more conversation which will only help. I have never used the referral question when cold calling owners so will have to try that as well.

Been reading this post and boy do I admire what you do. I started doing cold calling this week and it has been brutal, however after reading posts like this give me energy to keep on going. Thank you for the great scripts! 

@Julian Melo Keep at it! It can definitely be brutal but it is all worth it in the end.

@Jon Ladas @Matthew Watson @Rich Hupper @Andrew Johnson

Have you guys found that a certain time of day gets more responses or a more talkative owner? Also, have you tried using a service that does the cold calling for you? I'm curious as to how effective a service is given they're probably less personable. 

@Ken Martin

I have not found a certain time of day works best. Over the last year I have been getting more voicemails than usual. Why? My guess is because owners are dodging calls from the banks and tenants. I don't know that for sure but It's just my opinion.

I have not been using a service. A couple of my friends who are wholesalers have hired VAs to sift through the millions of numbers and narrow them down to accurate numbers. Then when they get someone on the phone they ask a few questions and then have "management follow up."

I have not hired a VA because I like to do things myself because no one is going to work as hard as you in your business. I have been receiving a lot of responses via text. If someone doesn't answer I shoot them a text.