Hello BP Community,
I recently mailed out my first yellow letter batch to absentee owners, and I wanted to provide some info as to how things were going so far. I purchased a absentee owner list of 250 leads and used the services of yellowletter.com to mail them out for me, which I received confirmation on 8/11 that they were mailed out. During that time I have received about close to ten calls or so from people: a couple were people angry demanding that I never contact them again (that kinda caught me off guard at first lol), a couple that were already listed with a broker (put them on a follow-up list to see how that works out), one or two that were demanding a price way more than the property was worth (I didn't think there was much I could do with them), and I have a couple of hot leads that I have appointments scheduled to check out this upcoming week. Since this is my first campaign, I have learned a lot from talking to the different people who responded to my letters. At first I was practicing role playing with my wife and a partner of mine reading a script that I found on the BP site, but as I was practicing with them, I felt as if I were a robot just going through a list of questions interrogating them. As I kept reading through the forums and listening to the podcasts there was a common theme of letting a natural conversation start and extracting the information that I needed during that time, so thats what I aimed to do. The more I fielded the incoming calls the more I knew what I needed to ask them, and the conversation sounded more authentic. There was one older lady who we probably spoke on the phone for about an hour or so, but I felt it was worth it because I established rapport with her, and she is very interested in doing business with me. I am very motivated to get at least a deal on this first direct mail campaign, but even if I do not (I pray thats not the case lol), I know that I am learning so much, and as I continue my marketing efforts and start to increase the number of pieces that I am mailing out, I know my close rate will increase greatly. I am just staying encouraged and continuing to push forward. I have really tried to stay persistent with making sure I return all calls the same day. I own and operate a landscaping business, so thats my day job, and I rarely get the chance to field the incoming calls live. I make sure I set time aside at the end of my work day to call all of the leads back, and if I don't reach them I make notes to follow back up with them. Investing in real estate while working a full time job is not easy at all, especially when I don't have a mentor/coach to help guide me through a lot of my learning curves that I am constantly coming across, but I just use the motivation that I have to be successful to keep me going. I try dedicate time everyday towards educating myself and learning from the people who are successful at doing what I am not only doing, but what I strive to do in the future as well. I wrote this so that it hopefully encourages someone who is still fairly new to the game, as I am, and it lets you see that even though this may seem challenging at times, there is still light at the end of the tunnel if you just stick with it. I'll keep the updates coming and let you all know how things work out. Until then, good luck to everyone out here being productive and making things happen instead of just talking, and I wish you well.
Larmon
