Panel discussion (hosted by Mark J. Podolsky) about follow-up strategies with buyers and sellers in land investing. Key points: persistently follow up (don’t ‘give up’), use multiple contact channels (phone, email, voicemail, text, mail), delegate follow-up to paid staff to remove emotion and ensure consistency, segment leads by heat ("super hot" vs "hot") and apply different cadences, and re-contact cold leads (e.g., mail every 90 days). Several numeric rules-of-thumb are offered (see Answers).
Questions this video answers
At least six times.
Mail them again in 90 days.
Contact every 24 to 48 hours.
Chapters
He has a question. How many times do you follow up on the buy or sales side? Two to three times. So I guess Matt, to clarify is that just like how many times you can follow up these people to get the deal done? What do you, what do you guys think about that? To me, it's, it's all about the initial connection.
Right, right.
It's all about the connection and then there is some follow up time after that. So maybe he's got some deals that are going cold or something and he wants to know how you follow up with those people and how many times, Michael.
So basically do we give up on them after a few calls? If we're like say on the intake, they don't respond. No, my team, I just say, look it, you just keep hitting that until again, you know, it's just part of their daily activities that we continue to, I don't ever quote, unquote, give up. I mean, I just have them continue to follow up with them. It's just a phone call. And it's. So is that the question I'm understanding, like, would I stop doing that?
Yeah. But at what point do you give up? I think is when do you stop? Yeah.
I mean, I don't know. Those are back burners. And you know, some of those do produce. So until someone tells me to absolutely leave them alone, stop calling, I would just continue to have my team call them. It's just a phone call. I don't.
Well, that's, that's the thing. Right. Notice what he just said. I think I would just have my team to continue to call them. Notice how he didn't say I call them. So what it really comes down to is like if you're the one calling them, there's one answer and then when you're paying somebody else and you can objectively look at the metrics is probably going to be a different answer, especially on the buy side. Right. You know, we get so burned out talking to, you know, sellers to go buy land. You get an intake eye in there and you're like, okay, you know, here we go. We're going to review deals on Monday and we're not going to let anybody go until, you know, we agree we're going to let them go. And then that only takes you 20 minutes once a week and then it's a different ballgame and then you end up getting more deals that way. You know, Frank had said, hey, I think the metric for the most success is at least six. Yeah, it's a lot, right? It's A lot I can tell you. For us on the sales side, we try to communicate with people the way they come in. So if they come in on, on Facebook, we stay in Facebook and try to get them to a phone call. But a phone call is, to me, always stronger than an email. And we will put them into a rotation where we will reach out to them. Yeah. I mean, at least six times. And then when we're done with that, we'll put them into an automatic sequence from there. And I think it's actually more than six, but it depends on how hot they are. Right. If they're all over it then, and we get a phone number, then it's gonna be, it's gonna be an email, a phone call, voicemail, and a text every day. Every other day. Until we decide that you're not really paying attention to us anymore. Right.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Subscribe. What does Mark always say? Subscribe or die. Buy or die.
Here's the other thing. Let's say after those six points of contact, 10 points of attempt, they go cold. Mail them again. Mail them again in 90 days. And yeah, either increase or decrease your offer price.
It's like, are you gonna take someone off your buyer's list because they didn't buy this week.
Right, Right.
Are they gonna, oh, this guy didn't buy, he's off the list? No. You're just gonna keep hitting them, hitting his email with offers.
Yeah. I mean, we segregate incoming buyers into like super hot and hot. And the super hot ones, I want communication out to them every 24 to 48 hours. Right. And if there's no communication to follow up, boss, then I'm going to get a report that says we didn't touch this guy in the last 48 hours. Right. @ some point my sales manager can put that person from super hot into hot because they're just not responding. But you can see it. It's attempt after attempt after attempt after attempt after attempt after attempt in all different ways. Emails, voice, text combinations. Right. Hang ups, all of.
It. Yeah. So if you're not doing the work, it changes the dynamic.
Completely. Oh, yeah. Like, honestly, she follows up way more than I used to because I was super busy. But now that I have her and I can just dictate whatever I want, it's great. Like, we will follow up eight.
Times. There's, there's something too with, when we do it, there's emotion involved. Like, I'm so annoyed contacting this guy. Like, I don't want to talk to this guy again. Although I got a deal on the hook. Whereas if you're hiring somebody else to do it, who you're paying and they're relying on you for payment, they're just going to do what you ask them to do. There's no emotion.
Involved.
So that's the beauty of delegating as.
Well. No emotion, no effort, no time spent. It just gets.
Done.
Exactly. Yeah. We had a cash buyer today who my sales assistant has been talking to for weeks. And I'm like, this is just a total. I'm looking at my wife like, this is a total waste of time. I can't believe we're even. Like, don't call me until this person buys or goes away. I don't care either way. Right. And it was just conversation after conversation. Like, this is the problem. The problem is that you and I, salesperson, that we continually talk about this person, and we're going back and forth over, like, selling it for cash for 4250 or 4175 or this or that. And the other thing, I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Go sell for 3,800. I don't care. Like, I don't care. Just don't talk to me about it anymore. Just go sell it. Go away. Go sell it. That's where I'm at with.
