The Secret to Converting Unresponsive Leads

If he talks to them and they're not hanging up on him or telling him to go, you know what, and they didn't sell yet, they're a lead until they sell. What else is on your mind, guys? Anything else we can help?

Yeah. So I had something I brought up and I didn't have a chance to bring it up at last week's call. Short-term rentals and ADUs. So my understanding is short-term rentals may be a little bit more restrictive than if the property has an ADU. And like I was talking to a seller and she's like, oh yeah, I've got a permit. It's been approved. And it seems like they have to get approved every year to have that property be a short-term rental in that area. But I mean, I just briefly looked at it and it seems as if I purchase it, then her permit is no longer valid because ownership is transferred. So just curious how you navigate that with short-term rentals, if you're able to utilize them and if it's different, like from your experience from like doing ADUs.

When you say, how do I navigate it? Are you saying hypothetically you'd want to do a short-term rental in that property and reapply or no?

Like, let's just say it's a 3/3 and then the basement's a mother-in-law suite. So you got main unit is 2/2 and then they have like a, they're like, oh yeah, we've done short-term rentals in the basement. It's great. And so I'm just thinking to myself, do I want, like, ideally I'd want it as simple as possible. I just want to sell the whole thing. And maybe I can— maybe there's a value that comes with the fact that it's got short-term rental capability that I could then push that value and slightly increase the price, whether it's monthly or the actual overall cost to the buyer. Or do you just don't even care? Just be like, oh, it's a 3/3 and just leave it as is.

Hey, 2 answers. One is I'd only bring that history up that, hey, it was easy to rent if they asked, if and only if. But guess what? You're not going to let them do that until they finance it anyway.

Yeah, you can't.

That's number one.

They can't sublease.

They don't want to. Number 2, if it's going to be, you know, your typical 2-family marketing, the way we do it is, or an in-law, is we— if they can't afford the whole place because your rate's higher for the whole place, then they're going to take it without the basement and you're going to rent it out, maybe, perhaps, until they prove themselves for a year or 2 and get their deposit up. That's the carrot we always use. You guys have heard me say that in workshops. We've done a lot of that. So you really wouldn't— in my opinion, I wouldn't mess with the short term. I'd put a regular— if I was going to run that for a little while, I'd put a regular renter in it for a year while they prove themselves. But ideally, they want me to take it for their parents or whatever and afford the whole thing.

Okay. No, that answers my question. Yeah, just because short term just sounds like a lot of work.

I think so, but there's also companies that run at 100%, so you don't have to. John, you run your own, John, right? But it's your back app.

Yeah, I turned it into a long-term because the short-term is too much.

Yeah.

And that's right in his, it's his, you know, it's right there and he's still the, yeah, I don't blame you. Okay, so there you go.

Thank you.

Sure. Who else has a Something we can work on. These are good nuggets.

I just like have one major frustration right now. We have two people who are close to be taken, but it fails because they did not provide the mortgage statement. You know, I had a visit last week on Thursday. The person was on the phone. I mentioned it again. I wrote over the weekend, said like, "Hey, I know you're busy. Maybe you want to send this." Dismal. Nothing there. You know, so you say, Vlad, when you say it failed, so.

You're obviously trying to get it taken, but they won't give you the mortgage statement.

Yeah.

Does it have verbally agreed that the offer that we send is good? Sent me the formal offer and so on. I said like, yeah, all that we need is a mortgage statement. I reminded them of the longer we wait without this, I cannot do this. The longer we wait, there's their mortgage payments and then HOA.

Are they behind yet?

Well, this is kind of like a suspicion with one of those two. Yeah. Mike, Mike, you know the gentleman. I didn't get the whole truth in the phone calls, you know, where he might be behind and just doesn't want to show up, you know. But I had him on the phone directly, addressed it and said like, say, I cannot do anything without— do you still want to do the deal? He said, yeah, absolutely want to do this. You know what?

Why don't you let him sit, Bjorn? 2 weeks ago Saturday, Yeah, 2 weeks ago, last Saturday, I went on an appointment for us personally.

Yeah.

Pretty laid-back guy. I thought everything was cool till I got there. I realized, well, one unit's going to go empty. And then he keeps talking, tells me he's in forbearance. He has to start payments back in June. All that spelled to me is, oh, this is why he's selling. And June's coming real fast. I asked him the same thing you did. I said, I'm going to need that to go forward. I put my email options together. He didn't send it. So just today I texted him, hey, John, I'm assuming you sold, which is what I always do. Hey, I'm assuming you sold. I haven't heard from you. No, no, no, no. I was waiting a few more days so I'd have to cancel my realtor, but I will get it to you. I said, okay, but I'm not going to worry about him. Like, I just put it in REI for another week because I'm not in a rush. So your 2 sellers, nothing failed. They, they might be trying some other stuff before they get back to you. Like last ditch effort. Like, can I get this done? Were they FSBOs by chance? Not sure where to get started? Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/getgoing for free books, strategy calls, and a whole bunch more. We're going to help you get going the wicked smart way. We've been after this for over a decade doing exactly that.

No, not originally.

No, I'm just curious. So don't worry about it. Who did the calls with you?

Mike?

And then Mike on both?

No, no, Mike.

I did one. I did one. I think Rusty did the other.

So, Mike, without knowing what was done on the call, is that about accurate? Like, you can just give this guy time, right?

Yeah. Yeah. This guy needs to sit a little bit. I think I told you that too, Bjorn. Just he's got other things going on that are probably distracting him from committing, whether that be him not wanting to share the mortgage statement because he's behind or just other life events that happen. It's not— he doesn't have enough pain to make a decision now, is what I'm trying to say. So let him sit.

We'll shoot it.

We'll do what Chris said. You know, I'm assuming you sold this property. Just checking in, and maybe that'll strike a chord with him, and and he'll respond.

Right?

What was the last touch base you guys on that one?

For this one particularly now two weeks.

So no communication at all, or you've been communication at all?

At that time, I was pretty much at the beginning daily, and then after every three days. So I have been reaching out with him for two weeks pretty intensely, and then since two weeks it's just like sit.

Nah, it's too much. Yeah, I would stop, Bjorn.

Don't don't light a scam.

Yeah. Pull away. You don't want them to feel like you're, you're like desperate for the deal. It could have a negative.

Yeah.

If you followed up every day, I— there's not a lead ever that I want you doing that with. So slight tweak there. Yeah, I just did. I did the, I did the offers and I'm not attached to it. Yes, I want a deal. Yes, you want a deal. But that, to Mike's point, it's their deal, not right? It's their life. It's their house. So you got to give it time.

We haven't really reached out in 2 weeks to that gentleman here.

Let it go another week at least.

Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah.

Yep.

I was just calling my leads this morning. There's one I made an offer to when there was snow on the ground, and he said he was going to do it if it doesn't sell in 30 days. Still not like— you just got to— time's on our side.

Time's on your side.

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, I remember, Bjorn, that property was vacant, right? He's probably making a payment on it. If— unless he's not anymore. I doubt it. He had some equity in there from what I remember.

Not too much. Yeah, but a little bit.

Yeah, there's a little in there.

Yeah. Crazy.

People are crazy. Yeah. Nothing you can do. And the reason I'm telling you stories, guys, I go— we go through the same thing. Like, I don't have a different set of circumstances. We're not doing some magical thing that, you know, Gets these over the hump. You want to strangle some of these people, but it is what it is. And just keep moving. Deb gave me 2 leads today. I'm sitting at my desk. Yeah, because she's like, oh, I posted my call session with her, I think, in Slack too. And I said, what happened to Raj and Joe? Because we did live calls last Thursday morning together on Zoom. And she's like, I don't know. It's strange. So I said, just give me the thing. You're going to call today? Said, no, I'm not going to rush, but I'll call them eventually because Same thing. It's okay. I said, get to work, go get some more leads, and you'll eventually have— let me say this to you guys. If I don't hear the President's Club, you'll eventually have— I don't care where in the country you are, you're going to have a little bit. If you've done a lot of work right now and you keep pushing the lead flow, you're going to have a little bit of an influx towards mid-August when parents are going, oh shit, like school's coming now.

I got to— this didn't sell.

And then you're going to have another one in the fall. for the holidays. There'll be like 2 if you did a ton of calls ahead of time. So Dev's like, oh my God, I have all these things in the air. Great. They'll eventually come out of the air, right? They're either going to sell or come to you. So don't worry about it. Just keep moving.

Mm-hmm.

Makes sense, you guys?

Good point.

Yes.

Yes.

In regards of the benchmarks here, I don't know exactly what was— who was saying this earlier. So my VA creates about 60 calls per day right now. And when I was on the phone with Dave last week, he said like, okay, what's realistic is 1 hot lead per hour. That's kind of like KPI that he thinks like is fair and realistic.

And that way for over a decade, that's the number, Mike, that I've always used. 1 per hour, 2 if they're kicking ass, right? But 1+ per hour.

And if it's— if that doesn't come through, do I fault the seasonality of things or because we had the training last week, this week is already starting with barely anything coming through here.

Well, now you said— after you set the expectations, say Mike's your VA and last week you set that expectation, right?

Yeah.

Now Mike's aware. Now you can't give it one week. You got to give it a month, unfortunately. And you got to listen to a couple miscellaneous calls and see what's going on.

Yeah.

Okay.

Normal process. And as good as MJ is, I check in with MJ every now and then if I don't like the ratios. And she's like 100% self-sufficient.

Hey, Chris and Mike, on that, I posted something in President's Club, but so my VA, in order to get a lead, for me to count it as a lead, it has to have a completed property lead info sheet. Is that what you're doing?

You mean mortgage information, everything?

Well, Before he was getting if there was a mortgage, how much was the mortgage, things like that. Now he's completing more of asking, okay, what is the condition of the home? Why are you selling? Things of that nature. And ever since he, he gave me pushback when I asked him to do the lead sheet. And ever since I asked him to do the lead sheet, he's averaged 1 to 2 leads a week.

You say asked him to do a lead sheet. What was he doing before that? He was not filling out our standard lead sheet?

No, he said he didn't do that.

Who was your VA again?

JB. And he used to be with Rusty. So I talked to Rusty and Rusty said absolutely he did.

Okay.

I, I've heard that name. So he's been around. I would get a new VA if he's not willing to do the work. And I'm not saying it has to be fully filled out. That's why I asked you, what do you mean by fully filled out? MJ will usually get it as a mortgage, but she doesn't always get the, like, the amount or anything yet. I don't really care. I do care there's a mortgage if you can get it, but I don't get too, too caught up. I want to know the motivation.

Okay, so should I have him keep asking? You know, the why are you selling is the motivation, but what happens if If it doesn't sell, things of that nature. If they're with a realtor. Should we clarify?

And then what if it doesn't sell is the 3 things I want them to ask.

Okay. Because that's— but all of a sudden my lead, you know, he was before when he was counting a lead, just somebody that would be willing to talk to me. They might want cash, they might be with a realtor, but they're willing to talk to me. He was counting that as a lead.

That's what we do.

Okay. And then all of a sudden I asked him to fill out the lead sheets. And now for the last 3 weeks, it's been 1 to 2 leads a week.

You're probably thinking that it's not—

it's incomplete if he doesn't get all that information. That's probably why. That's what I'm thinking.

Yeah, me too. Yeah. He's like, he failed or whatever. There's a block there. You have an open conversation because you're probably missing out on leads. Because in my opinion, if he talks to them and they're not hanging up on him, I tell him to go, you know what? And they didn't sell yet, they're a lead till they sell.

Okay. And at that point, should he be filling out a lead sheet or just kicking it to me and then I take it from there?

Well, I always have him fill out a lead sheet, whether it's the physical lead sheet or it's in REI, the way, you know, the format. I want all the data that we have on the lead sheet. Yeah. Or as much as they can. Sorry. But yeah, it should be a lead sheet or lead form online, however you guys are doing it.

Yeah, name, address, phone number at the very least. I mean, and some type of description of what the conversation—

yeah, a little bit of the where, by when, and why it doesn't sell. A little bit of that. They have— they're in no hurry. They're moving to Alabama tomorrow. Something like so that my partner or my boss can call you back, you know, something.

Okay.

At the very least, he should be able to type that up for you. So there shouldn't be any Blocks there. I'm getting you leads.