All Forum Posts by: Ryan Dossey

Honestly @Miles Stanley you should probably be fine handling that yourself. I'd use something like Callrail so you can record all your calls and listen back to them later. You'll realize this call went south when I said ________. Or wow _________ worked really well. As you start to ramp up and miss calls I'd outsource. Unless... You have a job where you literally can't pick up the phone when it rings. 

One of the guys I work with tried to take his own calls on around 1200 pieces. They ended up swamped and he missed out on a deal because of it. 

When I was working full time (not in REI) My boss had a side hustle and was super impressed with what I did. So he allowed me to take breaks whenever I needed for REI related calls. It was great. But... Very quickly it became clear that I was making more money in REI than they could pay me.

I always tell folks to stick with their W2 till it's costing them money. 

@Miles Stanley

**Disclosure. I own an answering service** 

First question that I have... How much mail are you sending? 

Answer calls yourself: If you can commit to actually picking up the phone. Even when you're out to dinner, late at night, early on Sat, etc. Great! This gives you awesome rapport with the sellers. 

Word of caution: Have you ever heard the term telephone tough guy? If someone is pissed off about your marketing... And they get the cause of their pissedoffness on the phone... They're going to tell you just how they feel about your (insert favorite sentence enhancer) marketing tactics. (Even though chances are you're doing nothing wrong.)

Set up and pay for a Call Center: This is personally my preference if you have folks with a REI specific background. When you have someone who doesn't know how REI works try to pretend to be your assistant it can get awkward and cluncky. You want to make sure that you're not slamming sellers through a 50 point questionnaire. You'll hear the typical "you mailed me you should know" response.

My experience: I make more off of REI than owning an answering service will ever pay me. I personally haven't had to take a call in years. I'm buying houses every month and I can run my business from anywhere in the world. I've literally spent time in Italy, Spain, France, Portland, Nashville, Saint Louis, and others while running my business just this year.

Let calls go to VM:

We're actually going to be releasing a formal case study. But we're currently calling We Buy Houses companies all over the country who have spent the time to set up a website and do SEO. You know what we're finding? Right at 3% of them actually pick up the phone. If you want to dominate your competition actually pick up when folks call you. If I'm a motivated seller who needs to sell and you don't answer... What do you think I'm gonna do? Call the next guy!

@Josue Llanas I look forward to reviewing it for you. 

I'd be very broad then. Target home owners in your market. You've got to give away value. People generally hate ads. You've got to make them want to interact with you. 

That's not to say that you won't get traffic from the "I buy houses" ads. But I've had better luck bringing value to them. 

Now one thing I do... I set up a pixel on my site and retarget all my traffic with every house we buy. So they get a Latest CEH acquisition.... We date them and tell the story of the property owner we helped. So they're constantly seeing us buy houses and help folks "just like them". 

@Cesar Tamayo I use @Nate Pummel's app God4d let him know that I sent you and he'll hook you up on the pricing! I also know they're doing a major overhaul with some cool features here shortly. 

@Chris Ruoff 

=IF(F2="",B2,CONCATENATE(B2," & ",F2))

Make your first name be in the B2 slot on excel and the F2 slot be the owner 2 first name. 
You can change the B and F's to match the correct Excel fields. Just make sure you keep the content in the same order. You'll paste this formula in an empty column. Click the bottom right corner and drag down for your entire list. 

Should end up where it's "John" if there's no second name. And John & Sarah if there's a second owner in your file. 

I prefer that to the Smith Family approach. While that can work... What if you have two guys with different last names? Don't want to make any assumptions. 

@Ron Smith check them out on Turn Key reviews. 

Memphis Invest Review 

I would suggest driving for dollars first. Call them. The call the FSBO. Keep an eye out for price reductions of 10% or more. That can signal motivation.

Craigslist set up saved searches so you don't have to be on it constantly. 

@Keith Coleman I would use God4d to build up a list of ugly houses. In the future their app will allow you to even send mail and pull phone #'s for the sellers. @Nate Pummel is their founder and is a GREAT guy. Let him know that I sent you and he'll hook you up on price. 

My recommendation would be to get about 1k addresses. Then cold call them. Mail the ones you can't get #'s for or can't get on the phone. 

You very well could get your 1st deal just from the calling. If you don't want to hand dial check out Mojosells.com

@Leslie Ray How large is your list? 

@Chris Ruoff Great job man. It's funny how many people will spend thousands on mail, thousands on seo, and thousands on their site. To prospect to a crappy list. It's the little things that make you stand out. Like have both owners names on the piece as opposed to just owner one. 

If John and his wife Sarah are getting bombarded with post cards/letters that are all to John Smith. The Dear John & Sarah is going to stand out.