There is no doubt that once you kick off a serious yellow letter campaign, the phone calls from sellers will start to flood in. This can be overwhelming to even the most experienced investors in the bunch. While one of the most awesome features of a yellow letter campaign is the incredibly high response rate, you still have to manage to pre-screen each and every seller that calls. If you miss some, you may miss the one that could make you several thousand dollars.So what is the best way to handle seller calls from a yellow letter campaign? You can handle it one of three ways. You decide which one works the best for you.
Take the Calls Yourself - If you are on a tight budget and can't afford to outsource your seller calls to a professional answering service, then you can take the calls yourself. Here's what you can expect when you mail out a bundle of letters on Monday. It will take 1 to 3 days for your yellow letters to get into the hands of the prospects. They'll immediately ready your letter, and you'll start to get responses. The majority of the calls will come in all at once (meaning all over a span of 1 - 2 days), with a few stragglers trickling in behind them. You must be prepared to answer each call, and capture the necessary information in order to make a decision on whether or not to move forward with that lead. (Not recommended unless absolutely necessary).
Send Your Callers to a Pre-Recorded Message - Every yellow letter has a phone number on it where the seller can contact you if they're interested in selling their house. Generally, the callers are directed to a "normal" person who answers the phone with a simple "hello",to keep the warm and fuzzy feeling of the yellow letter going. But there does come a time when the seller needs to know that they are dealing with a real estate investor. This could be the point that you decide to let them know that. You can have callers directed to a pre-recorded message that tells them about you and what you do for a living. You can explain the process a bit, and then give them another phone number (a cell # maybe) where they can call you to speak in person if they want to talk to you directly. This weeds out alot of people who are "tire-kickers" or trying to sell their house for top dollar. It will eliminate alot of junk callers and in a way, they have pre-screened themselves just one step further in the process. (Recommended)
Hire a Professional Answering Service - While this is most expensive of the choices, it's the least amount of work on your part. And in this business, time is money = money is time. If you have a full time job, or are busy talking to sellers and negotiating fantastic deals, then you simply won't have time to answer calls from sellers. On average, your going to get about a 10% response rate when you mail out your yellow letters. if you mail out the minimum recommended quantity of 250 letters, that is at least 25 people that you have to talk to and pre-screen. it's just too time consuming. You can easily outsource this task to a professional answering service and let them handle it. They'll forward all of the leads to your email inbox and you can handle them from there. Not a bad deal, eh?
Whatever choice you make for handling your seller leads, I commend you. You are one step closer to landing that real estate deal and being able to choose the lifestyle that you deserve.
Tracy L. Caywood is an active real estate investor since 1999 and now a well known real estate coach and marketing consultant to new investors.For more information on "Yellow Letter" Marketing or to get a Free Sample, check out Yellow Letters Complete, your one stop marketing shop.
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