No Follow Up System = Throwing Away Money

If you don't have a solid follow-up system, you are losing heaps of money. Simple as that.

This idea is based on one very simple concept:

Seller's will forget about you and your offer.

Couple that fundamental idea with the fact that the vast majority of your offers will not be accepted on the first attempt and what you've got yourself is a bit of a catch-22. So, let that sink in for a moment. You're first offer probably isn't getting accepted, and the seller will very most likely not remember you from Adam this time next week. It's a pretty harsh reality when you really think about it.

The way we combat this problem is by staying in touch with the seller and continuously reminding them that we are still interested in the property. The important thing we are trying to ensure is that we are the person that comes to their mind when they do finally reach the point of wanting to sell their property. Sounds pretty straight forward, but there are some thing that have to be considered before we constantly ring the seller's phone off the hook.

1) We're all busy, the seller included, so we have to be cognoscente of this fact.

2) We (hopefully) have dozens of houses on our radar, so we can't pour all our resources into keeping in touch with 1 lone seller.

3) There are costs that have to be considered. Time is money, so it's best if we can systematize or outsource some or all of the follow-up effort.

4) We aren't the only people buying in our markets, so we need to stand out, head-and-shoulders, above our competition - at least in the seller's mind.

5) There's a fine balance between keeping in touch regularly, and annoying the seller to the point where they block your phone number.

So, with all things considered, we've got to come up with a reliable, repeatable, partly (or wholly) automated follow-up system that will help us be the guy or gal that get's the deal when the seller is ready to sell. Who knows when that's going to be, so we better figure out ways to hit them repeatedly and from different angles.

In my experience, it's best to remind the seller of how great our offer is in a variety of ways instead of just repeating the same tactic over and over again. In this way the seller experiences our offer in several different angles instead of just a single method. I think this is a more powerful approach rather than simply giving them a call once week.

When you are building your own follow-up system you can pick and choose the methods that you feel will work best for you. I suggest using at least 2 methods of keeping in touch with the seller. Here are just a few options that you have at your disposal:

a) Phone Calls: Schedule calls on your calendar and touch base with the seller as you often as you see fit. The key component is that you have to stick to your call schedule and not procrastinate.

b) Text Messages: Shoot the seller a quick text occasionally just to let them know you are still interested in their property. Easy to do, and takes 30 seconds to put a message together. It's low pressure, and a simple way to touch base with them.

c) Email Campaign: Set up a sequence of emails that will be automatically emailed to the seller every week. Just plug in their email address, and the program will do the rest. This is one of my favorite methods for sure.

d) Direct Mail: You can send the seller a postcard or letter that reminds them of your interest in their property. I like to send a hand-written letter to them about once a month.

Those are some great options to plug into your follow-up system. Again, I feel like we have an edge over the competition because we use more than 1 method - we use phone calls, letters, and email reminders to keep in touch. I think that since the sellers see our information from more than 1 angle, they tend to call us first over other people just because we stand out in their mind over our competitors.

The follow-up system we use  is quite simple as far as the scheduling is concerned. Essentially, we reach out to the seller once a week, every week, with alternating methods. Let me explain that better by giving you the whole sequence that one of our sellers will typically go through from the point of finding out about us, to selling us their house...

1) The seller researches the options available to them for selling their Atlanta property.

2) The seller does an internet search such as "sell Atlanta house" or "sell house FSBO".

3) They browse through the search results and click the link to our website.

4) While at http://benbuysatlantahomes.com/, they send us some info on their property.

5) We call the seller, talk about their house, and send them a written offer.

6) We enter the seller's email into our pre-written email follow-up sequence.

7) We schedule a future call with the seller 1 week after they receive the first email.

8) After a month has passed, we plug in the seller's name and address into a pre-written letter and fire that off to them through the mail.

9) So our sequence is basically email, call, email, letter - then it repeats. Email, call, email, letter - so on so forth.

10) This sequence repeats over a timeframe of one year OR until we buy their house.

After the 1 year time frame is over, the sequence changes a little. From that point forward we cease making phone calls and sending letters, and just let the email system take it from there. After a year, the emails only go out to the seller once a month as a gentle reminder.

That's how our follow-up sequence is set up. It's not super-sexy, but it's effective. Also, the time it takes to maintain the follow-up system is minimal. The email sequence does the lion's share of the work, and we're only making the occasional call to the seller. Many times, those calls go straight to voicemail anyways so the calls usually only last around 30 seconds.

If you've never had a follow-up system before that is set up to run for over a year, again, you are leaving money on the table. We've had seller's call us after well over a year of follow-up. There have been great deals that we've had the opportunity to make a profit on solely because we had a good follow-up system in place. If all we did was make the seller a single offer, we would essentially be throwing away an incredible amount of money.

Have you ever heard the saying "The squeaky wheel get's the grease"? Well, your follow-up system is built to make sure you are that squeaky wheel. A good follow-up system will minimize the time you have to spend on each lead, work in an automated fashion, and boost your "mind share" with the seller so that you are the one that the seller calls first when they are finally ready to sell their property.

Ben Clardy