I spent a few days this past weekend at Preston Ely’s FreedomSoft event. It was a lot of fun, great networking, and I got to meet a bunch of great people. Actually before FreedomSoft even began, we had a small Mastermind at our home in Encinitas. We had Darrel from here in San Diego, who is absolutely KILLING IT with short sales right now. We also had Ed from IL, and Tim and his wife Suzanne from TX. Also joining us was Minx from NYC, one of my coaching students who started with me last year. Here’s a picture of us:
San Diego Mastermind 2010
We all shared a lot and learned a ton from each other, and came away with specific action plans to grow our business in 2010 to new heights.
The purpose of this blog post however, is to give you some insight into what is the best way to convert a lead into an appointment, and then into a deal.
I have a new realtor on my team, and I recently got a lead from one of my websites. I had the realtor qualify the deal over the phone, and set up the appointment. I had put him through some training, and I explained to him that you should ALWAYS email the client the paperwork in advance of the face to face meeting. I do this because:
- Short sale packets can be extremely large and overwhelming for someone to sit down and sign all at once, right away. Letting the homeowner review the documents in advance can help you close the deal on the first in home visit.
- I tell the homeowner that they should review all of the documents in advance of my arrival. That way I can clarify any questions they have either before, on the phone, or once I arrive. If I send the documents in advance, it removes the “I want to think about it” objection (more on how this isn’t even a legitimate objection in California)
- The homeowner needs to gather all of their documents such as paystubs, bank statements, tax returns, etc. By giving this to them as a “homework” assignment a few days before the meeting, they have an opportunity to gather all of this information in time, so you can submit a complete, accurate short sale packet the first time.
- Even if the homeowner DOESN’T review the information, when I arrive for the appointment, I am in much more control of the situation, because I’ll just assume that they reviewed everything and printed it all out. In fact, if the homeowner hasn’t looked at anything, it allows me to close the deal that much more easily because of the homeowner’s feeling of obligation to the time and effort we spent preparing the documents to send to them.
So here’s what happened: my realtor said that he spoke with the homeowner, but he DID NOT send him the short sale documents in advance. I told him that when he shows up for the meeting with a huge stack of paperwork, it could be very intimidating for the homeowner to sign everything.
So my agent heads out there with paperwork in hand, but the homeowner has never seen it in advance.
So guess what happens?
The agent arrives, the homeowner says “I want to think about it” and he doesn’t pick up the paperwork. My agent just wasted time driving to an appointment and then leaving with no deal in hand! What a waste of everyone’s time.
I think that this convinced him to believe me and he’ll now start sending the short sale packet to the homeowner in advance!
My advice to you, moving forward, would be to send the package to the homeowner in advance. Here’s a little script you can use when on the phone.
“Well Mr. Homeowner I look forward to meeting you on Thursday at 4pm at 123 main st in San Diego. Now what I’m going to do it to send you a list of all of the documents that you’ll need to collect. Things like paystubs, bank statements, etc. Don’t worry about writing it down now, I’ll email you a list. I’ll also email you all of our agreements. I would like for you to print them out, and review them BEFORE I arrive. If you have any questions, I’ll be able to answer them in advance, on the phone, or I can answer them for you this Thursday at 4pm. This way, our meeting time will be much faster, and you’ll have had a chance to review everything before our meeting. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea and the best use of our time, Mr. Homeowner?”
Now going back to my realtor, who didn’t send the package in advance, here is one sales strategy that you can employ, and how I would have handled that situation. Here in CA the homeowner is given a 5 day right of refusal. This means that up to 5 days after signing the deal, they can change their mind and back out. So had I have been on the appointment, I would have closed the deal by telling the homeowner:
“Mr. Homeowner, I know you want to think about this. In fact, so do I, and so does the state of California. You see, by law, you get a “5 day right of refusal. That means that even after you sign all of these documents today, you have 5 days to changes your mind, and cancel. We both know the foreclosure clock is ticking, and I’m out here anyway. So to make best use of our time, and the time that is ticking with your home headed towards foreclosure, let’s get all of these agreements executed today. That way, if you decide in the next days you want to cancel, no problem. Otherwise, we’ll have to come back, and we’ll lose all of that time. I’m sure you’ll agree that sounds like the best plan to help stop this foreclosure as soon as possible.”
Well there you have it. But I would like to hear back from you. Please tell me what state you’re in, and what you do: send the paperwork in advance, or show up with it and try and close the deal right then and there. I’d love to hear what you’re doing and what’s working for you.
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