Posted by Sgt.Sausage on February 15, 2006 at 14:25:17:
==> Am I just being overly nervous
No – you’re just being overly ineffective. Placing and ad, sitting back and waiting, will get you nowhere.
Where are the motivated sellers? - Posted by Bill (Ks)
Posted by Bill (Ks) on February 15, 2006 at 13:37:43:
Well I finally got started with a newspaper ad. I have a answering service using a sellers script to prescreen my callers. The only thing is I started running my ad on 2-3-06 and still haven’t any leads. I should be getting my bandit signs any day now and will get them out as soon as possible. Is this normal? Where are the motivated sellers? Am I just being overly nervous?
Re: Where are the motivated sellers? - Posted by Natalie-VAl
Posted by Natalie-VAl on February 16, 2006 at 08:28:53:
Bill,
How many other ads are in your paper? I ran one in my local paper about a year ago, and the only calls I received were from newbies looking to birddog. There are around other 25 ads in my paper. I thought I would try and be different and target condo and townhouse owners, but it didn’t work.
Money wasted, and lesson learned. Don’t go where the rest of the pack is.
–Natalie
Re: Where are the motivated sellers? - Posted by LandVestor
Posted by LandVestor on February 15, 2006 at 15:11:28:
Forget about a sellers script, you should be speaking to these people personally. Where are you located? The way the RE market has been going lately, you should find a bunch of motivated sellers soon enough!
Re: Where are the motivated sellers? - Posted by Patrick S. Lawson
Posted by Patrick S. Lawson on February 15, 2006 at 14:43:16:
Usually somewhere near the probate court…lol.
Re: Where are the motivated sellers? - Posted by Doug (ON)
Posted by Doug (ON) on February 15, 2006 at 14:42:13:
How many calls have you received?
How many left messages?
How many have you gotten back to and set up an appointment with?
If you expect to put an ad in the paper and get a bunch of motivated sellers calling in less than 2 weeks, your expectations are a tad unrealistic!
I find that I need to make calls to or receive calls from around 30-40 sellers, to find around 3 who are open, to find 1 I might be able to do something with.
When I tried marketing after reading all the articles and posts, I designed my postcard to screen for motivation, so I was expecting not to get many calls but that they would be pre-screened. You can imagine my delight when I pulled down more than 40 calls in 2 weeks! That is until I called them back and discovered exactly ONE had any intention of doing what I suggested on the card (take over payments).
As you can guess those results brought my expectations more in line with reality. So I redesigned my marketing.
First, my postcard no longer screens for sub2 candidates. Instead it appeals to anyone who might be concerned that the sale of their home is not moving along as quickly as they thought it would.
Second, my voicemail begins to test them a little by drawing attention to the EMOTIONS of frustration, worry and stress they might be feeling. And of course it screens out anyone who’s not willing to leave a message.
Third, I call them back and test them a little more with the usual questions about why they’re selling and if they need to sell quickly.
If all of the above goes well then we move on to the first of two appointments. This first one is very low pressure, it’s designed to let the seller and I get to know eachother face to face so we can decide if we want to do business together.
The second appointment is where we actually get things signed.
Everything has it’s purpose and this is a very systematic almost automatic process. It’s a lot like the system I developed for selling houses. Since it’s my system is probably won’t work for you at least not without some changes, but take from it anything you think might help you.