2018 Top 10 Award Winner: John Martinez

Mike: This is the flipnerd.com Expert Real Estate Investing Show, the show for real estate investors whether you’re a veteran or brand new. I’m your host, Mike Hambright and each week I bring you a new expert guest that will share their knowledge and lessons with you. If you’re excited about real estate investing, believe in personal responsibility and taking control of your life and financial destiny, you’re in the right place.
This is episode number 406 and my guest today is John Martinez. Now, whether you know John yet or not you’re in for a very special treat today. John has evolved as the nation’s leading sales trainer and really expert around all that is sales for real estate investors and today he shares some of the amazing techniques with us so you could take your business to a whole new level. I’m not kidding. You’re going to listen to the show over the next 30 minutes and improve your business.
We all feel the competitive pressure across the country right now yet some investors are completely crushing it. Some are giving up. What’s the difference? Honestly, a lot of it has to do with truly being able to stand out with sellers that are talking the multiple investors and position yourself as the person that they want to work with more than anyone else, a lot of that my friends is a sales technique. Today isn’t about lead generation, today we’re not going to talk about lead generation on the show. It’s about converting more of the leads that you already have. As I like to say squeezing more of the juice out of that fruit. Maybe the fruit’s a little harder to find these days than it was in the years past. Maybe you just need to squeeze more juice out of the fruits you already have. You’re really going to love today’s show, please help me welcome, John Martinez to the show.
Hey, John, welcome to the show.
John: Hey. Thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike: Yeah. I’m excited to have you on today, always good to see you my friend.
John: Yeah, good to see you too.
Mike: Yeah.
John: I feel like we see each other all the time but . . .
Mike: Yeah. It’s funny there’s a group of us, Gary Harper is one, there’s a bunch of folks that I feel like I’m talking to a lot of these days. We’re finding ways to work together and help each other. Of course, we’re all in the Investor Fuel Mastermind as well. So that’s one reason we see each other, but, you know, you and I have been talking a lot lately about it’s a difficult market, it’s a challenging market, actually last week on the show I interviewed Jamie Wooley and, you know, talk about crushing it. Like she came in, she’s only been an investor for two years. I don’t know if you know that. She did 17 deals in 2016, 102 in 2017, and is on track to do over a 150 this year.
I love talking about some of the stuff we’re going to talk about today too is you’re in this market where a lot of people are tucking their tail between their legs saying “I can’t compete, it’s too hard to do this business, and I’m giving up,” and the truth is there’s people that are crushing it here too. They’re just not willing to make excuses and they’re not willing to give up, right?
John: Absolutely. Yeah.
Mike: So today for everybody listening I’m excited to bring this to you because John is going to share some tips today on how to effectively squeeze more juice out of your fruit using sales techniques. Historically real estate investors we just thought “I’m a nice guy and I like talking to people and that makes me a good salesperson,” and the reality is some of that might be true. If you’re a grouch like nobody is going to want to talk to you. But there’s some techniques that you could follow to do better. And I think that’s really what we’re going to talk about today is, hey, the fruits are a little harder to find these days but you can squeeze even more juice out of it if you know what you’re doing from a sales technique and process perspective. Does that sound about right, John?
John: Yeah. I mean that sounds perfect. You know, there’s so much focus as there should be on lead generation but in my perspective that’s half the battle, right? Hey, you have all the leads, you got to convert some of those things into deals and if you’re not then you’re losing time, money, and resources on developing those leads so you’ve got to get some type of ROI and that comes in the conversion process.
Mike: Yeah. That’s interesting. We don’t really talk a whole lot about information marketing and online marketing here. Obviously, we do some of that in FlipNerd but in the info-marketing space, the online marketing space, I had a conversion about a year or so with Justin William who obviously does a lot of online marketing as well. And we were just talking about how the online marketing industry is a couple of years ahead of the real estate investors because they focus a lot more on conversion than real estate investors. We’re just focused on leads and we’re like just give me more leads and it’s such a traditional sales guy approach, right, that lead suck and I need more of them. And it’s like well, let’s talk about conversion here because maybe you just need to work with what you got.
John: Yeah.
Mike: Well, hey, John, before we jump into this, tell us a little bit about your background for those that maybe don’t know you. I don’t know, if there’s many people that are listening now that don’t know who you are but if there, why don’t you tell us a little more about you?
John: Yeah, no problem. Sales background, I’ve been in sales my whole life, started telemarketing, my first kind of real sales gig was selling insurance, worked my way up into management with that company, random agency, recruited, trained, managed salespeople. And my career took me up into corporate America, in the software and IT always in sales though, always director of sales and marketing or VP of sales and so it’s always around training salespeople, recruiting salespeople, you know, motivating salespeople so my whole career at very different levels is been all about sales. And a few years ago, probably going on four years ago now my attention was kind of turned to real estate investment and we’ve been all in in this industry for the last four years just knee-deep in it.
Mike: It’s sorely needed. This industry historically there’s some interesting things going on with technology in this industry of course, like FlipNerd, like we’ve things to like bring people together that are knowledgeable guys like you. But I think this industry is so fragmented. There’s so many individuals that are out there, and if you’re not part of a mastermind or you’re not part or you didn’t come in under a coach that’s well connected or whatever, people are just having to kind of figure it all out themselves in their own silos all over the country, right?
John: Yeah.
Mike: And so I think this industry is ripe for some improvement whether it’s sales techniques, training marketing improvement, stuff that like Trevor is doing in InvestorCarrot bringing people together so they can have a nice website without having to have any technical experience whatsoever and so it’s cool to really see how thing are transitioning here.
John: Yeah. I think it’s really cool too, because kind of like you were saying how on the marketing side or technology side, real estate investment is a little bit behind infomarketers and in the education space. I think the same has been true to a certain extent for the sales training. As I came into this industry from the outside world, a lot of it seemed to be just . . . some stuff was really effective but some stuff was a little outdated and we knew it was outdated. So I think we’re catching everyone up on that aspect as well and just stuff that we’ve been doing in other industries that we know works, right?
Mike: Yup. So today we’re going to talk about really conversion, right? So we’re not going to spend time talking about generating leads. This episode number 406. I promise you we’ve got at least 50 other episodes on lead generation and the importance of lead generation. But today we’re going to assume you already got those leads and what do you do next. So, John, let’s say that after a lead has been generated let’s kind of take it from there and we’re going to follow this, this whole episode we’re going to get all the way to the end of kind of getting a contract and if not, then following up in the process. But let’s talk about improvements from the time a lead comes in let’s talk about what folks that are listening right now can do optimize that and taking it to the next step which is getting a chance to meet with the person or have a sales kind of meeting, right?
John: Yes. So I think you nailed it. The way I see it, Mike, is there’s three potential conversion points in this process. So you’re generating leads, so obviously when that lead comes in and this is what we’ll talk about first, you want to convert that to some type of next step, that might mean if you sell over the phone it might mean extending that phone conversation or having a wholesales call. For most investors still today though it’s going out there and meeting face to face with a person and walking a property. And then so if you’re walking a property, then the next possible conversion point is, is this going to turn into a deal, and it either does or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, the next potential conversion point is in the follow-up bringing them back into the funnel. So starting out with how do you optimize that initial lead and turning it into some type or next step.
So, just from a high level, very practical, usable, actionable advice is first of all, I think you just go to realize what kind of state of mind these people are in, what they’re worried about, what they want to accomplish and if you take that mindset, you can have a much better conversation that’s going to convert to something. So real quick, you got to think, what are these people want? What are they thinking? So first and foremost, they got a problem, right? They want to sell a house. So at a very high level they want that problem solved, right? So the first thing a real estate investor has to do is realize, “Okay, on this very first contact I have to make them feel like I’ve got the tools, resources, or the knowhow to solve their problem. Does that make sense?
Mike: Yeah, absolutely.
John: And if the investor is able to convey that message that hey, we do this a lot. I’ll walk you through this. If I can help you, I’ll point you in the right direction. Just give a lot of reassurance. That’s going to also help the prospect convert to the next step not only because they think they can solve your problem but because they’re more likely to take that step instead of reaching out to someone else. I mean if you do [inaudible 00:09:59] about it, I like to think about it like the old Yellow Pages or Google search nowadays, right?
But I remember back in the day when I had a problem, I’d open up the . . . I mean this was a while back and I do it on Google now but when I had a problem, I’d open up the Yellow Pages and I’d start to dial and if that first person doesn’t pick up, what do I do next? I’d just go to the next one. Dialing until I feel like, all right, I got to hold to someone, they’re going to send someone out, they’re going to solve my problem, they know what the issue might be, and stop calling. So rule number one is have the mindset that I’ve got to let these people know, “Hey, whatever problem you have we’re well-equipped to solve it. I’m happy to do the best I can for you.”
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John: And I’d start to dial and if that first person doesn’t pick up, what do I do next? I just go to the next one and I’m dialing until I feel like, all right, I got to hold to someone they’re going to send someone out, they’re going to solve my problem they know what the issue might be, and stop calling. So rule number one is have the mindset that I’ve got to let these people know, “Hey, whatever problem you have, we’re well-equipped to solve it. I’m happy to do the best I can for you.”
Mike: Yeah. And like you said and well, we teach too on top of that speed matters, right? You got to get to those. If you have internet leads coming in or you’re not answering your phones live and it’s going to voicemail or a call center or something else, like somebody has to convey that message if it’s not you, like as fast as possible. Otherwise like you said, John, they’re just going to call the next person and the next person and the next person until they feel like, I not only contacted somebody but I feel like I found somebody that can really help me.
John: Yeah. I mean if you look at the data from sales or insidesales.com their data says that if you contact within the first five minutes after a lead received, then you’re nine times more likely to convert that lead to the next step.
Mike: Wow.
John: So I mean nine times I mean it’s huge. So [inaudible 00:12:42] five minutes is the best practice we always preach.
Mike: Yeah. And even if you get internet leads like kind of what we do we have our leads, I have an email address set up just for internet leads on a Google, a Gmail address and I have it on a cell phone so that cell phone is connected to the Gmail address and we have a setting setup to where it’ll ding if we get an email. Which I don’t do to my personal phone, I would go crazy. I get hundreds of emails a day. But on a lead phone, the money phone, it’s like ding away like we want to hear those things, right? So I just tell my folks when I train them. Treat that email lead lie the phone is ringing. Like it dings, pick it up and call it back like right now because you know what that person is doing right now they’re clicking the next one down. They’re clicking the next one down, they’re filling out forms, so they get to stop that, you got to stop that process.
John: Yeah. And even if you’ve taken a step further, right? If you got an email lead, then you probably their email address and you got thier phone number which means you can set up different automation so an email automatically goes out that says, “Hey, listen, I’ve got you a lead, I’m on the other line, I’m going to call in just a minute. That’ll buy you sometime. We could do some other stuff with text messages and things like that too.
Mike: Sure, sure, yup. So after you get that lead, you’ve conveyed to the person that “Hey, I’m here to help you and I’m capable of helping you.” Where do you from there in terms of appointments? That was the next step which is appointments.
John: Right. Yeah. So the next step, so usually on those calls you want to just really talk about, “Hey, what can I do for you?” Let them say their piece, “We have plenty of experience and we’re happy to help you.” I want to end those calls by explaining your next steps. So one thing that will keep people from converting to that next step is that they don’t know what’s going to happen, right?
Mike: Yeah.
John: So where I see a lot of investor’s kind of fall down and lose some potential leads is when they just say, “Hey, let’s set up an appointment but don’t explain what’s actually happening on the appointment. All of this is super simple and easy but you will drastically increase conversion rates if you explain what happens on that appointment. So to convert to that next step you want to say, “Hey, listen, here’s what typically happens in these situations.” Or next step is we send out Joe. Joe is an awesome guy. You’ll love him. Joe’s going to walk the property or I’ll walk the property, just kind of take a look at the conditions so I can give you my very best offer,” you always want to phrase everything to their benefit, right?
Mike: Right.
John: So I can give you the very best offer possible. And then I’m going to also release some pressure, any sales pressure they might be feeling, right, because this guy is going to hard sell me into something by finishing that up by dying something like, “So, we’ll take some pictures. I’ll have an offer for you. Hey, if you want the offer we can figure out what to do next, what the next steps would be, and if there’s anything that doesn’t feel right, if the timing is off, if the offer wasn’t what you’re looking for, no probably at all, no sweat, at least we know we . . . ” you know, we kind of both gave our best shot.
Mike: Right.
John: Right, I don’t buy every house that I’m walking into and I don’t expect to.
Mike: Right.
John: So setting those expectations with a little pressure relief at the end will help you increase those conversion rates to that appointment.
Mike: Yeah. And it’s reliving pressure to say that I’m not going to get the hard sell. It’s also a little bit of a takeaway, right? You’re kind of like, “I might not be able to buy your house. I might not want it.” Right?
John: Absolutely, absolutely, because your general demeanor the whole time needs to be just like that Mike. It needs to be a little bit, you know, not as enthusiastic as the prospect, right? Maybe a little bit reluctant, not too much but just enough to relieve that pressure and say, so they don’t . . . it changes the paradigm so they almost start trying to sell you the house instead of being reluctant and pushing you away.
Mike: Right, right. Yeah, it’s interesting when . . . and you probably, I’m sure using this before where we use that a little bit and people say, “Well, aren’t you going to buy it?” They’re likely kind of like started selling you a little bit like, “Well, I hope so. Hopefully, we can work it out.” But yeah, when you start to do that little bit of that takeaway, sometimes people feel like not only do they have to guard themselves from being sold, they kind of come back and say, “Well, no, I want to be sold,” like start being . . .
John: The whole paradigm shift and it makes a much easier conversation, everything going forward.
Mike: Yeah, that’s how I got my wife by the way. I was like, “Yeah, I’m not sure if I’m that interested.” I’m kidding, totally kidding. I had to beg her. No. So what’s the next step after you . . . and I do agree with you. I think people that are listening to this can, you probably had an experience before and when you were talking about this it came to mind of a . . . we had our carpets cleaned at our house like a year ago and the guy was so thorough. He just kept explaining everything and I was like, even though I wasn’t necessarily paying attention that I’m hanging on every word, I was like, “I just need my carpets cleaned.” But he was so like thorough in his approach that he really cared that I understood the process that I was like, “Man, this guy . . . ” like at one point I started talking about real estate and it sounds like I got to pull this guy away. This guy have a ringer, you know?
But, yeah, I think that you’re right, a lot of people . . . we sometimes forget. We get so caught up in the business of, “I’m a real estate investor, I’m buying houses,” we forget that that person is not a real estate investor. This is probably one of the biggest decisions they’ve ever made in their life. And if you come off as more thorough, even if they don’t hang on every word you’re saying, they’re like, “they took the time and they just show that they cared by explaining something to me,” right?
John: Yeah. Let me translate it for you. Otherwise this is what they’re hearing. “Hi, I’m a complete stranger invite me over to your house.” All right, I’m not telling you how long I’m going to be there or what’s going to happen, but I may or may not end up buying your house. Like, who’s going to accept that appointment, right? So it’s pretty obvious when we think about it in those terms how to increase conversion rates by just simply explaining what the next step is.
Mike: Yup. And I’m kind of making the assumption and I know a lot of folks buy on the phone. I teach and I practice where we actually go out and physically meet with people. So let’s just assume because I think most real estate investors are physically going on appointments. Let’s make that assumption that the next step here for us to is to physically go to the house and meet with a seller. So I’ll let you kind of take it from here.
John: Yes. So you know, I’d pick up exactly where we left off on the phone by explaining number one, what the process would sound like. You don’t want to take it for granted that they remember that phone call. They might have talked to three other investors or it might have been a few days or just life happens in between. So one of the best things to do though to build rapport right away, you now, when I’m talking to new acquisition agents in doing trainings and things like that one of the biggest hurdles is I feel like, “I get there and I feel like they’re guard is up.”
So in order to help them take their guard down, go ahead and do it again and explain, “Hey, real quick, I know we talked about it on the phone but here’s how this goes down, I’m just going to do this, this, this, and at the end, no pressure either way. It’s fine. And it’s going to do a couple of things. It’s going to build a lot of trust, especially if they remember that last conversation because when they hear the same thing over and over they start to believe it and trust in it.
And also it’s going to allow them to again, take a little bit of their guard down because why you’re in that appointment I guess this leads to the next point. The next thing you have to do is that whole . . . you’re going to have a lot of conversation. There are investors that buy some of houses they’re able to buy and then there are just investors that buy almost every house that it’s possible if they buy. So the difference in between those who are kind of squeezing all the juice out of the fruit as you put it, and those who are just squeezing a little bit. The difference is what the conversation is about.
So the ones who are doing really well and just squeezing all the juice out that they can their conversations are not about what they do or how they do it. Their conversations are 100% about the seller. What are you looking to do? What can I help you with? What’s going to get in the way? What are you worried about with this whole process? If you do decide to sell, you know, what’s going to stand in the way of the move or what are you worried about then? You know, come paint me the picture, where do you want to go? Why do you want to go there? That’s what their whole conversation is focused on.
Mike: Yup.
John: So good actionable items for that one is if you find yourself talking about yourself or what 2X4’s cost and your construction technique or how a house is built instead of what they’re actually trying to accomplish, you just need to kind of realign yourself and go, “Okay, let’s course correct, what can I do for you? What am I here to help you do? You know, I’m a problem solver the way I do with real estate. We can structure deals in a ton of different ways but in order for me to help you the best I can, I need to know exactly, you know, the best way I can hello you.” Right?
Mike: Yup.
John: So just focusing in that conversation on them instead of . . .
Mike: So, John, let’s cover a couple of different scenarios. One is an investor that’s listening right now that has office manager or an admin of some sort that’s taking that initial call, they’re lead manager maybe, they’re taking that call and then an acquisitions manager versus just somebody that is answering their own phones and going on the appointments, because, one, it’s obviously important that they’re consistent, right? If it’s different people. If you’re the only person, you should be consistent. I found in the past that it’s easier as a salesperson I can go out and say some of the same things that the coordinator did because even though she told me everything I pretended like I just want to make sure I understand the situation here and kind of. But maybe walk through those two difference scenarios for folks that are listening that have an admin or somebody different that’s taking the leads versus the acquisitions manager.
John: Right. So honestly, there’s not a lot of difference between it. I’m going to recommend the same process no matter who takes the call and who goes on the employment. Right? The same type of conversation, the same setting expectations on the phone, the same setting expectations when you show up at the door. That doesn’t change regardless of who goes. So I guess the caveat there is, “Hey, if you are setting up your own appointments, don’t feel like you don’t need to set expectations again when you get to the door. You absolutely have to.” And then just the higher level of make sure you and your . . . if you have someone else doing that, an account manager or a lead manager or admin assistant, make sure you are on the same page. Make sure they know exactly what you’re going to do and say when you get there.
I would even encourage cross training a little bit. So in our sales training we have tons of people who record their sales calls and then what I encourage them to do is, hey, when you bring on a lead manager they don’t know what these appointment sound like or what happens. So let them listen to a couple of the actual sales calls and then they’re going to be much better versed at talking to your client or your perspective client of what’s going to happen. So I guess the bigger picture is don’t operate in silos. Make sure your lead manager knows whoever is going out there does and vice versa.
Mike: Right. So the next step is, you get out there and what’s the next step. Where do we go from here?
John: Well, so we want to have the right conversation with them and then eventually you’re going to give an offer and when you give the offer, I’m trying to realty think what are a couple of just key points that can really move the needle by implementing something super simple. So everyone is going to end up giving an offer. Here’s what I recommend though, the way you leave it. I think this will . . . anyone who’s out there running appointments, if they implement this next thing they will win more deals, absolutely guaranteed. I’ve been doing this long enough.
So don’t take a maybe or a think it over. So I’ll tell you why. So many investors are going to end the sales call with giving an offer and then there’s going to be some form of, “Well, let me think it over. Let me run it by this person, right?” I would venture to say that most investors, 80%, 90% leave appointments and that’s how everyone ends. Right? Not a yes, not no, but probably 90% or so some form of a maybe or think it over. So what I’m going to encourage everybody to do is no longer accept those. Now, that doesn’t mean you got to be a jerk. It doesn’t mean that you’re mean about it. I’ll even give you the verbiage for it in very nurturing way. What you want to do is explain that if it’s not a yes, it’s a no. And I’ll tell you why we want to do this.
The reason why we don’t want to leave it as a maybe or think it over is this, two reasons. Number one, this is a huge decision, right? And most people . . . when do they make a huge decision, a huge complex decision? Do they make when they have to or just when it pops up, right? When they have to, right?
Mike: Right.
John: So you want to give them a have to. Sometimes all people need that little nudge, right? If you have the right conversation about, “Hey, how can I help you? What’s going on?” And then you’d say, “Hey, if it’s not a yes. After everything we’ve talked about, we probably just need to call it a no. You know, if you’re not a 100% confident that this is right for you after what we discussed, then let’s just call it what it is, we probably don’t need to move forward.” Sometimes that’s just enough of a nudge for them to say . . . it’s the takeaway of what you’re just talking about, right, for them to go, “No, this is something I got to do.” That alone will win deals.
Mike: Yeah, absolutely. When do you set that expectation, John? So you don’t wait until you give the offer to say, “Hey, I either need a yes or a no or if you don’t say yes, then it must be a no.” You’re setting that expectation up probably when you set up the appointment and maybe even again when you get to the appointment, right?
John: Bingo, yeah. So, again, when you’re setting up that appointment it’s, “Hey, I’ll give you an offer. If you love it, we can do the paperwork, happy to. And if not, then we’ll consider it a no and at least we gave it a shot.” Then you show up at the door. It’s the same thing, “Hey, just to kind of recap, so we’re on the same page. Here’s how this usually goes, we’ll walk the property, I’ll put together an offer. We’ll chat a little bit. If you love the offer, we can put it in writing for you. We could go ahead and take some action on it. If it doesn’t work for whatever reason, no sweat, I don’t buy every house I walk into. We’ll just consider that a no and, again, we’ll know if we gave it our best shot.” So you’re setting that expectation all the way through.
Mike: Sure, sure. And, of course, most appointments we go on they . . . even if you’re good like that they’re saying no or usually like you said, I’m laughing because I know I’m guilty of this, my team is guilty of this, of leaving and thinking, “I don’t know what they think. I think they’re interested but we don’t really know.” So we need to do a better job with this for sure. By the way, I’m excited to come to your training. I’ve been to a training before but coming to your training, you’re coming up here next month so it’ll be good to have some sharpen myself saw if you will.
John: Yeah.
Mike: But, yeah, so then the follow-up process starts, right? So we leave and the next step is, and maybe you could talk about the transition too from leaving the place to the follow-up and what that looks like.
John: Sure. So, just to hit that one leads into the other. So let me revisit just for a second the really kind and nurturing kind of if it’s not yes, it’s a no. Real quick, the other point there was beyond just pushing them over the edge, giving them that little nudge they need. Oftentimes if you do that right, sometimes there’s this hidden objection or we call them deal killers and that’s when it pops out, right? When you say, “Hey, we just got to call this a no and that’s perfectly okay. No hard feelings.” It’s just, if you’re not confident in a yes then, we obviously can’t go around leaving open-ended offers to every house we visit.
Mike: Right.
John: Oftentimes that can bring up the deal killer, the one thing holding them back and you will hear these words. “Well, I didn’t say that. It’s just that . . . ” and then you can oftentimes deal with that thing and bring the deal to fruition. Now, the other reason why it’s important to do it, this goes into the lead follow-up. The other reason why it’s important to leave it in that aspect, in a very kind, nurturing, if it’s not a yes, it’s a no is this. Let me give you the justice scenario.
Mike: Yup.
John: Let’s say you’re in a car lot. Right? I always use car sales because like the quintessential sales experience. But let’s say you’re in a car a lot and you don’t do a deal but the sales guy just pours it on thick and it’s high pressure, high pressure, high pressure. They got your keys because they didn’t like, you know, they appraised your car and you got to beg for your keys back and they won’t let me of the place. Finally, you get your keys, you get out of there, it was a horrible experience and then he follows up or you can even . . . you see that name on the caller ID of the car dealership, are you’re going to even pick up?
Mike: No.
John: No, right? So when you leave it in that nurturing way, when you give them the, “Hey, if it’s not a yes, it’s a no and that’s okay.” And we’re still pushing to close them in a different kind of way but if it ends up being a no, do you think they’re more likely to take your call then when you gave them the no or they [kick stuff 00:29:04]?
Mike: Yup.
John: So that leads into more effective follow-up by finishing up the sales call that way.
Mike: Yeah. Because I know your approach, your approach is kind of like, kind of, “Oh geez, I was really hoping to help you here today,” you know? It’s not like, “Well, screw you then if you can’t . . . ” you know what I mean? It’s like you’ve got to leave it, because we all know that a lot of the deals come from follow-up, right? The majority of my deals come from the process. Right.
John: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike: So you’ve got to make a smooth transition there and not leave where somebody doesn’t ever want to see you again.
John: Yeah. When you use the yes or no, but no is okay, you’re going to close more deals on that first call than you would otherwise but then it also makes that follow-up more effective. So let’s talk about the follow-up conversion. How do we get them back into the pipe afterwards? Just a couple of quick things. I always recommend, well, usually just know this. Going into a follow-up more times than not, I’d say three out of four it’s . . . the deal is going to happen for one of two reasons, okay? There wasn’t enough motivation or there was a hidden deal killer or hidden objection, something that we’re scared of or uncomfortable with.
So going into follow-up those two things should be in your mind. Number one, I either need to build more motivation by talking about their problem or whatever they want to accomplish or number two, with my follow-up what I need to do is uncover that deeply hidden fear or objection or concern and bring it to the surface so we can see if we can deal with it. So first of all, most people during the follow-up go, “What do I say? What do I need to accomplish?” That’s it. We’re increasing motivation or we’re uncovering that hidden deal killer.
Now three out of four times from my experience it’s going to be the latter. It’s not the motivation part. It’s that there’s something they’re concerned about. Fear of leaving money on the table, not being sure if they’re making the right decision, not knowing where they’re going to go. Maybe scared of a little bit of the risk and the discomfort associated with making a move or a deal like this.
So usually on that follow-up, concentrate on either the motivation or uncovering that deal killer. And you can go right after it. You don’t have to be beat around the bush. When I do follow-ups, I like to literally put it on the table and say, “Listen, obviously, we didn’t make it happen and I completely understand. I’m assuming that nothing’s changed but let me ask you this. Usually when we have that type of conversation we had and we talked about all of the things we did, it sounded like you wanted to sell the house, but usually when you want to but you don’t, in my experience at least and I could be wrong, it’s because there’s something you’re uncertain of, something, you know, a fear or something you’re not comfortable with, or just a next a step you haven’t figured out completely. Maybe you don’t know where you’re going to go or how you’re going to get there or how certain it could work. Which was it for you?” And then we’re drawing out what’s holding the deal back.
Mike: That’s great man. That’s a good stuff.
John: Yeah.
Mike: That’s a good stuff. I hope people were taking notes here. This is like killer stuff. Yeah. Maybe you can maybe share a couple of quick tips. You just got a couple of minutes left here but a couple of quick tips on the follow-up process. So now you make that next call which is obviously, after you’ve left there, it could be a day later, it could be a couple of days later, probably has a lot to do dependent upon how they left it like, you know, they need a little time or whatever or maybe they’re like they need a week or maybe they need two days or whatever.
But how’s that transition look like to where when you’re following up you’re able to still have that same approach of trying to get them to make a decision without sending the message that you’re ultimately willing to follow-up forever if you have to? Because usually we probably are willing to follow-up forever if we have to but you don’t ever want them to feel like, “Wow, they just keep calling me all the time anyway. I’ll just whenever I’m ready, I’ll let them know.” Like how do you keep sending that message and doing the takeaway without it starting to feel like that it’s not really going to be taken away?
John: Right. It’s a good question. So there’s a lot of different approaches. First of all, never go into the call assuming that it’s going to be a deal. You want to, again, relieve that pressure so I just go, “Hey, I have heard from you so I’m assuming nothing’s changed or maybe you already sold the house to someone else.” But I like to blame other stuff so I’m just going to give you some of my secrets and tips that I use.
I like to just blame my calendar. So obviously in a follow-up sequence, if you’re following up, whoever is doing the follow-up is going to have some type of reminder popup in their CRM or Podio or their calendar or whatever. So I just blame it. I just say, “Hey, listen, I know we talked sometime back, obviously, we decided not to sell which I completely understand but I had a reminder pop up in my calendar just to touch base with you.” And that’s how I get back into it. I almost like you don’t even remember why I’m calling or what I’m calling about that I blame my calendar. I just, “Hey, your name popped up from my calendar. I know I’m supposed to reach back you to you and just follow-up or touch base. You know, just kind of give me a quick update, did you ever end up selling the place?” “Oh, really?” You know, then you’re right back into that conversation.
Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome.
John: Another thing you can do to keep that sense of urgency is just ask for specifics. So what I mean by that is not that you’re willing to buy any house but you can call a month later and say, “Hey, listen, we’re looking at that neighborhood again for two-bedroom or three-bedroom and I know you had a three-bedroom. We’re looking to buy in the next one or two weeks, two or three bedrooms in that neighborhood so I thought I’d touch base with you to see if anything changed or if there’s anything we need to discuss.
Mike: Yeah.
John: So when you specifics like that periodically that helps keep that window short but open up the conversation again.
Mike: Yeah, just coincidentally. We’ve said some things like we have another appointment, we’re actually going to be in your area, again tomorrow in your neighborhood. I don’t know if it would make sense to meet up again and talk anymore about it or, you know?
John: Perfect.
Mike: Yes, stuff like that. That’s good man. That’s good. I’ve learned a few things from you, my friend. This is good stuff. John, gosh, sometimes at the end of a show I just say where do people go from here, but if you don’t know where to go from here, you need to rewind the show and listen again, so good stuff. I know you’ve got an event coming up. I’m actually coming to it. I’m going to come as a student to your REI Sales Bootcamp and I know, you know, this is show number 406, we’ve got a ton of . . . this is only going to matter for people if they listen to it here in the next few weeks but tell us more about the REI Sales Bootcamp and give the dates out too in case that works out.
In fact, I know you’ve got some other, you might do some other ones, one more towards the end of the year but maybe just tell us about the events and then how folks can learn more.
John: Cool. So we do a two-day event called the REI Sales Academy Bootcamp and basically what I have is a 12-week course and it’s just like a bootcamp. We take that 12 weeks and it’s hardcore, two days. We have, just all about the acquisitions process. What’s that conversation sound like? How do we buy more houses at a deep discount? We have people in there who, big names like yourself, people who have been in the industry, people who coach others, people who’ve been doing so for 30 plus years and we have people who, you know, investors who just hired on new acquisition agents and they throw them in the room because they want some quick training. So it’s always a really good group of people, a lot of good interaction.
April, I believe it’s 23rd and 24th, so this is 2018 is the next one coming up. We usually aimed to do two or three of them a year, Mike, so there’s always information about the upcoming bootcamp on our website. We’ll probably do another one sometime in the fall, maybe in August or September. That will probably the final one for 2018 but if you could check out website, there’s always more at midwestrev.com. You can always find the bootcamp info.
Mike: Okay, midwestrev.com and we’ll add a link down below for those that are, if you’re driving right now and you didn’t take that down. Just look up the show, we’ll have it in the show notes here. How about anything else you got going on, John, if folks want to learn more about you? I know you got a lot at Midwest Rev on your website and this is where everything’s at.
John: Yeah. Just on the website, we do free trainings. We’ve got sales management training that we have on there for free so if you’re an upper level investor and hey, how do I hold me salespeople accountable, how do I keep coaching them to higher levels of performance, there’s free training on that. We’ve got something called the 21-Day Sales Challenge, so it’s a daily sales tip or tactic or strategy that we give to you one a day easily, easy to implement. So we encourage people to implement one a day for 21 days and see what happens to sales. So like there’s all kinds of stuff like that we put on the website.
Mike: A lot of resources. Yeah, we’ll add that link down below. It sounds good. Well, John thanks for spending time with us today. I’ve been blessed to have a lot of great people, made a lot great new friends through the show. This is amongst the most kind of actionable type of information that we could even have on the show, so thanks for sharing with us.
John: Yeah. I love to. Thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike: Yeah. Good to see you, my friend. Everybody, this is show number 406 with John Martinez, good stuff. John is really become the leader in the industry for training salespeople or if you have salespeople that work for you or you’re training your salespeople there’s some folds who just seem to send their teams to his events to be trained and all you have to do is just make the decision to send them, be willing to make that investment.
Well, John is a great guy. This is episode number 406. If you love which I heard here today, if you like the show, if you’ve been following on us, if you want us to keep doing hundreds more episodes, I’d ask that you go give us a review and subscribe to us. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, and even YouTube. If you can go out there and show us a little love, we’d appreciate it. We’ll see you on another upcoming episode. Everybody have a great week.
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