The BEST Way To Call Owners (How I Bought Hundreds of Rentals)

Stop talking, book a meeting, get off the phone. That is the mission. This whole phone call should take less than 5 minutes. I'm like unreasonably excited to tell you guys about this. This is a topic I've wanted to talk about for a long time. It is the owner call. If you don't know who I am, my name's Christian. I'm the host of this channel, and I've bought a couple hundred rental properties starting with no money. How did we do this? We met with people who've already bought all the properties that we'd ever want to buy in our market, and then we just asked them how they did it. I networked with everyone until I was in the inner circle. Once you're in the middle, you can find deals anywhere. So today we're going to talk about the phone call. In my next video, by the way, I'll talk about how to run the owner meeting. So this will be a two-part series. Number 1, how do you actually get the meeting? I do not like cold calling. I do not like email lists. I do not like door knocking or any of the other mass-marketed, overused, ridiculous ways to buy real estate where you give yourself a horrible job that no one wants and then eventually probably buy a deal if you don't burn out first. I do like drinking coffee, so I like to book the coffee meeting. So we're gonna lay this out really simply. These are the steps that you need to follow to successfully book meetings, making maybe 2 calls a day to an owner that you would like to meet with. Number 1, understand the objective. The objective of the phone call is to book a meeting. It is not to make a friend. It is not to get a valuable takeaway. It is not to talk for 30 minutes about their business. Some people think that, oh, we had a good conversation, therefore this was profitable. Did you book a coffee meeting or a lunch meeting? Are you meeting with them in person? If the answer is no, you have failed. You have not done the thing. People do business with people they like, know, and trust. You do not get that from a cold call at any level. I see that mistake made all the time. So number 1, understand the objective is to engage them, be personable, get conversation started, and before the conversation flourishes and takes off, They're now interested in you. Stop talking, book a meeting, get off the phone. That is, that is the mission. This whole phone call should take less than 5 minutes. Now, how are we going to frame this? Everyone who calls them on a cold call is calling to buy their property. They're probably going to assume that you are someone else trying to buy their property and get you off the phone. So your most common objection: I'm not selling, goodbye, click. The great thing is you're not calling to buy the property. You're calling for a coffee meeting. Remember step 1. So you're going to go back and you're going to say, that's fine. I don't have any money. I don't know how one would buy your property. Couldn't call about it to buy it if I wanted to. I am interested in how you built your business. That is different. Now, never call and tell people why you're not calling. I've seen this happen where people literally call and they go, hi, this is Christian. I'm not calling to buy your property. Like, why would you call someone to tell you what you're not calling to tell them about? That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. What you're going to do is you're going to introduce yourself like a normal person. Hi, this is Christian Osgood. I'm an owner in your market. And I just drove past your property at 123 Main Street. Their answer is probably going to be either okay, or I'm not selling. Great. Couldn't buy it. Don't have any money. Here's what I'm interested in. Now you insert your goal. For me, it was I want to retire my wife from teaching. She just got an injury. And I've spent all my money buying two duplexes. So I've started multifamily. I'm an owner. Relatable point. I have a goal, retire my wife so that we can move to Texas, have kids, and she can be in a safe environment. So there's some significance behind that goal. And that's what we've mapped. I can communicate that in about 15 seconds, maybe 20 if I'm feeling really passionate. It is not a 5-minute explanation. This is a quick, like, the original intro is going to be like seconds. Hey, I'm Christian Osgood. I'm an owner. Could buy a property if I wanted to. I'm trying to retire my wife and I bought a couple duplexes. I saw your 20-unit building here and I have no idea how one would buy such a thing. How did you get started to a point where you could scale to 20 units? I just want to know from someone who's done it. And then shut up and let them talk. And people, more often than not, after you've got through that initial icebreaker, if you're not hung up on at that point, which sometimes you will be, they will tell you a story of, well, I actually started here. Or, "Well, this was my third property. I started with houses." Sometimes they'll even give you some stupid advice of a business model you don't want to do. "Well, I wholesaled for years and then I was a broker and eventually, I saved up enough money to do this." My question then would be, "All right. Now, trying to retire my wife a little bit more urgently, have you learned anything being an investor that would help me accelerate such a project?" That's the type of questions that you're going to ask though, engaging open-ended questions to get them talking. Once there is momentum, so they're telling you a story, thank them for telling you the story, then give them a time and a day that you are there. So that is amazing. I want to learn from someone exactly like you. Can I buy you coffee? I'm in, like, I'm near your property on Wednesday, somewhere between 3 and 4. If I'm there at 3, can I get you coffee? Like an actual time, an actual place. Specifically, if they say, oh yeah, let me think about it, I'll get back to you, you have failed. Because remember step 1, you didn't book a meeting. They say, oh yeah, let me think about it, or oh, I've already told you everything that I can think of on the phone. I don't know what we meet about. Well, you have failed. You didn't book a meeting. If they give you any smokescreen, just ask again for the meeting in a different way. And I promise you this works like 99% of the time. If they say no, I don't think we need to meet, that's fine. I just want to learn from someone who's done the thing that I'm trying to do. And if that means that I have to buy someone coffee, that is the best trade of time ever. It means the world to me. Does 3 work for you? And amazingly, they usually say yes. Even if they said no, you ask it again in a different way and you almost always get a yes. That's— I'm not about like the one magic trick. I hate YouTube videos like that, but that really is the one sales magic that tends to work. They say no or they're hesitant, ask the same question in a different way. Now, if they say no again, be respectful, thank them for their time, get off the phone, and then just remember, hey, when I come up with a good reason that I would call this person again, or maybe I've done something that's significant, I'll call them and say, hey, I remember you gave me this advice and I did this thing. I would love to take you to coffee to learn more because your advice meant a lot to me. Those type of things. Just remember the conversation you had. I just put the person's name and one conversation piece that I can pick up and start with them again. And that is how I track all these conversations. That is it. It's an Excel sheet. But remember, your goal is to book a meeting. Your call should be about 5 minutes. You're gonna communicate a goal, uh, a relatable point, then a goal, and then the significance behind that goal. If you do all of those things and make the rest of the call about them, as soon as there's momentum, book a meeting, get off the phone, you're done. My next video, I'm going to cover what that owner meeting looks like, the anatomy of the owner meeting, and how you're gonna navigate that to get takeaways, to eventually buy deals. I'm going to share all of that with you. But this is probably the most asked question that I get. And again, if you don't know me, I've just done this without all the marketing, without all the cold calling. I built a couple hundred unit portfolio and growing, starting with no money. If you want to learn how to do the same, follow this channel, Multifamily Strategy. I will see you on the next episode.