Finding Your Voice with Potential Sellers

After months of learning about Wholesaling, I dived in with my first direct mail campaign almost two months ago.  Once the postcards landed, I immediately began receiving telephone calls, and I immediately got scared.  

I was fully equipped with scripts, and had been learning about techniques and strategies for dealing with different types of potential sellers.  But when it came down to the real one-on-one conversation, I felt completely inept.  I watched as my "Motivated Seller" hotline blew up, and I was too nervous to pick up the phone and talk to them.  I didn't feel like I "knew enough".

I returned the first call with my lead intake form in hand, and began working through the prompts.  I was barely listening to what was being said on the other end, as I felt it was more important to hit everything on my list.  I fumbled through the first few phone calls only to realize that these were just conversations with real people, who happened to own properties that I may be interested in buying.

Slowly but surely, I found a rhythm.  I put the list aside, and just introduced myself, and asked if it was okay to ask questions about the property.  I listened to the sellers detail their property and their current predicament with an empathetic ear.  More and more, I began hearing things like "I really enjoyed talking to you."  I learned that establishing a rapport should be the number one goal in that first phone call.  My past career taught me that people often do business with those they actually like.  So focusing more on being myself and making my clients comfortable with me is now priority.

I recently got my first deal under contract (fingers crossed on getting it sold), and nothing made me more proud than the day the Seller passed over his keys and told me "I have enjoyed working with you."  So let this be a lesson to each of my fellow new investors, that it is much more important to be liked and trusted, than to be perceived as a greedy nuisance.  Good luck out there!!!