Objection While Cold Calling
I recently started cold calling in search of motivated sellers. I would drive around and any house that seemed distressed or vacant I would search up on my local tax assessor's website. I would find the owner, than do a reverse search to find their possible phone number. I've only began doing this, this week and two calls have gone very well and I set up an appointment with them.
However, I did call one person, and once I stated that I was interested in his house he tells me: "You're the 5th person that has called me this week about that house.". I froze after that, I didn't know what to say, so I just apologized and said if he was ever interested in selling to give me a call. Is there any better way that you guys have used to overcome this? Maybe something into trying to set up an actual appointment or something to switch the topic away from everyone calling him.
Also, is there any other objections that you have come across that I should be prepared for? This one really threw me off and I'm almost positive he could tell in my voice that I didn't know what to say. I would definitely not want this to happen again. Thank you!
Hey Victor,
You will always run into negative people while cold-calling, that's jus what happens when you call a lot of people. One of them is bound to have an attitude!
One thing you can do to feel more secure about calling them, is that you can explain that you are trying to call people to see if they possibly could use your service. You do help some people, so I would stay extremely kind and apologize. If you are nice enough (and through enough practice), you may be able to stray from their anger and allow you to call them in a couple months to check back in with them!
Thank you!
@Etienne Martel Yeah you can definitely run into some negative people. About 5 minutes ago I called another person, the son answered and I was searching for the homeowner obviously. And right away, she takes the phone from her son and says: "is there any reason as to why or how you got my sons phone number?". She sounded as if she was pretty bothered by the fact that I found her son's phone number, and maybe thought I was some type of creep or something. But I just told her that I'm a real estate investor and passed by their house which was vacant and was interested in it if they were considering selling. I also let her know right away that I used a third party search to try to get in contact with her and that phone specific number was the one that was shown.
I've found that people can turn around for you as longs you stay calm, relaxed, honest, and explain everything clearly to them. Really try to get in another call with them if possible, or try to meet them for coffee one morning!
If they like you as a person and you stay in contact every once in a while, you will pop in their mind when the time is right!
Your success is waiting for you on the other side of your comfort zone.
Hahaha that sounds awkward. Have you ever worked with the public anywhere? You are going to get all sorts of these people dont let it get to you. Congrats on making the phone calls! I am yet to make that jump.
If you are interested in wholesaling are you prepared to estimate rehab costs correctly?
@Victor Barboza there's something called the "fall on your sword" technique that's great in those circumstances. Don't get crazy with it, but basically you just kind of apologize profusely and as sincerely as possible. It doesn't work every time, but I've had some memorable phone calls that worked out great thanks to that technique. I would have replied with something along the lines of:
"Oh wow I'm sorry it must feel like you've got all of these annoying telemarketers hounding you on the phone. I'm sorry I had no idea when I called it might be an annoyance to you like this or that you had so many people calling you. I don't blame you for getting aggravated....I wouldn't want to be getting a lot of calls like that either.
I would end it by going negative with something like:
"After all of this I can understand why you don't want to sell the property. Once again I apologize and I'll be sure not to call you again"
The idea is they'll actually feel sorry for you if they see how uncomfortable you are and you'll find in some cases they'll try and make you feel better about it. They might say something like "That's okay you obviously didn't know" or "Don't worry about it". If that doesn't work, the idea of going negative is that it's basically a dead lead at this point and when you take something away (aka your offer) you'll sometimes trigger them to hear you out. It's amazing how effective either of those techniques can be by themselves or when you combine them like that.
I used to do some of this intuitively, but a lot of it was reinforced or learned from John Martinez. He has a phenomenal real estate sales training program. His methods just work, and he's great at teaching them. His company is Midwest Rev. You can even find some short videos he has on youtube where he gives useful tips on different scenarios that we commonly encounter in our line of work.
I actually have, I was a salesman at Livingspaces (they have a few in California). But I did deal with a lot of different types of costumers there, I learned to work differently with different types of people. I took the idea of being the chameleon and put it to use, and I was specifically really good at working with angry/complicated costumers or costumers that had a lot of objections. I just felt like this situation with the cold call was a little different because I am the one reaching out to the person trying to buy their house, versus a costumer coming in and them showing intention
As far as rehab cost, I am not 100% prepared for, I know to ask about the A/C, look for cosmetics damage, water damage, etc. As far as estimating the cost, I have practiced very little working the numbers and researching. Is there any advice you can give for estimating the rehab cost?
Awesome, I will give that a try next time! I do see the idea of it, is if the homeowner pretty much shows that he is not interested, and wants nothing to do with it. It is kind of like the last try by showing that you are sorry and your intentions were not to bother him. I think this is great because if they are feeling somewhat motivated or in the near future have some type of motivation to sell than this strategy can help win them over the other callers that have called previously and just threw an offer or did not mind how they felt about all the calls. Thank you, this will be my go to strategy for the next person that yells at me saying they've had tons of calls!
@Victor Barboza
Hi Victor, I am just curious and my county assessors website is probably a lot differrent than yours.. but when you searched the address on the assessors site, what exactly did you do to find the owner??
When I input a property’s address on my local county assessors site, it just gives me the parcel info and any recent sales transactions but there is no info about any owners name or anything like that. Appreciate the help, thanks