Getting through to homeowners 30-60-90 days late on their mortgage payment

It’s Sales 101. When you want to capture your prospect’s interest and speak to their felt need (the thing that makes them want to buy), you sell the benefits, not the features of your product or service.

Take the electric drill. Nobody is going to buy one just so they can have an electric drill. They buy one because they want holes. Clean holes, deep holes, accurate holes, fast holes, holes of many sizes, holes in different materials. Most people don’t care what the drill is made from or how the circuitry is toggled – they do care that it makes holes. They might also care that the drill is light-weight, but spare them a discussion of the space-age aluminum casing. Thy might like that it is maneuverable, UL approved, has a super-long cord and comes in its own carrying case. But they only care about those things because they add to performance, convenience or safety – benefits, not features, and they appeal at an emotional level.

The same with distressed homeowners.

You’ve saved 28 homeowners from foreclosure last month? Great feature, but it doesn’t help them. Your a member of the Better Business Bureau? Another feature that doesn’t in any shape or form provide relief to the struggling homeowner that can’t sleep at night. You are among the top 5% sellers in your market? Great feature to have on a resume, but it doesn’t stop annoying collection calls that keep coming in since the homeowner lost their job and the bills are piling up. You are a Certified Distressed Property Expert? The homeowner doesn’t care about your expertise or training, or credentials. Zig Ziglar once said, “people buy on emotion and justify it later with logic”.

To get through to distressed homeowners, you must present yourself not as a real estate agent selling your services, but rather, a problem solver that communicates in terms of benefits. While features talk about you, the agent, benefits answer the question that is foremost in their minds – what’s in it for me? How can you make my life better?

Some examples of benefits might be:

• Stop the harassing collection calls
• Get a good night’s sleep for the first time in six months.
• Save your credit
• Comfort your family
• Relieve the uncertainty
• Return to normal day to day activities

We can provide more examples. The main concept to get at 40,000 feet is that distressed homeowners that are at their wits end will make their decision to work with you based on emotions, not logic.

At preforeclosuredata.net, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on distressed homeowners before their hardship reaches any public file.