The Importance of Following Up with Potential Sellers

Again, we're going to talk about follow-up. Once you send this report out, this is only the first step. Do not send it out and then just never call the person. If that's what you're going to do, then don't even waste the postage and paper. Don't kill the trees if you're going to do that.

Sequence

It is a sequence, guys, a sequence. You send this out, you call, you email, you should have a 5- or 10-step sequence process planned out. This might be step two or three or four, who knows, but it's fairly early in the process.

I guarantee you, if you want to be successful and you want to get the really good deals - not the crappy deals that all the other real estate guys are fighting over - if you want to be in the 5% group that are getting the really great deals, you've got to follow up, and that means some work.

Tickler System

That means you create a tickler system. A week later you call the individual. If they don't return your call, you call them the following week. If they don't return your call, maybe you email them. Work multiple ways to get at them. Maybe their phone died, who knows. Maybe they'll answer their email or phone, but get to them somehow, and don't give up after just sending it out. Don't expect that person's going to call you.

The classic follow-up system would have a flurry of contacts early on, the first month, because that's really when you're hoping to convert that to a fairly quick deal, but if it's not going to happen, if the person's not returning your calls, don't give up on it. Put them in your system, in your database, and start hitting them every three months.

What's it going to cost to send out a $.40 postcard to somebody every three months? Right now they might just be in the very early stages and they might think they have some other options, and those other options are going to take six months, nine months, or 12 months to fall through, but maybe they're going to fall through.

Maybe they're going to list it with a realtor for six months and waste time, and after six months they're going to say, "Crap, this doesn't work. I'm in trouble now. My foreclosure is 30 days away, where is that card that that guy keeps sending me? Let me go find that," and bam, then they call you after nine months, and now you've got a deal right in front of you.

Don't just give up on them. Put them into some sort of database where you follow through for a relatively longer period of time.

The goal ultimately is to get to a one-on-one meeting where you can meet with that person, develop some rapport, see the property, and start to evaluate some way that you can structure a profitable deal. We're not going to talk about how to structure profitable deals tonight, but you want to get in the door, meet them, and start to learn about their situation. Get the facts and then you can structure a profitable deal.

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