Editor’s Note: Dennis Fassett is a former corporate finance executive turned real estate investing “Cash Flow Mercenary.” Dennis specializes in single-family and multi-family cash flow properties and thoroughly enjoys assisting his fellow investors with their own strategies, including how to buy your first apartment building.
As an ongoing contributor to Mogul’s “Market News Updates,” Mr. Fassett provides us with his own unique, lively, and thought-provoking commentary on the timely industry news and events of today that are impacting our industry. And be sure to check out his other super-helpful Market News Updates. For now, enjoy...
From Dennis Fassett, Cash Flow Mercenary...
Just closed a deal for a cool $10k wholesale fee.
Not the most I’ve ever made and certainly not the least. And it’s not going to make or break my year. But I’m telling you about it because of how it went down and why I got the deal.
It started last month. As you know, I have a day job. I’m an IT Director at a bank in Detroit. And we were at the tail end of a really big and really painful system implementation that we’d been working on for 14 months.
I got home from work at 7:30 pm on a Friday after a brutal week, and I was looking forward to a whole lot of nothing that weekend.
After I had pretty much settled into doing absolutely nothing, wouldn’t you know it… the phone rang.
At 10:15pm. On a Friday. An out-of-state number.
My first thought was, ‘Who the hell is calling me at this time on a Friday???’
Then came the quick debate – answer it or not? I really didn’t want to because I was most of the way through my first scotch of the evening.
But I answered it. Because I always do. And I surprised the heck out of the woman on the other end.
Her first words were, ‘Oh! I thought I was going to get a recording like everyone else.’
Her name was Susan and it turned out she lived in Washington State. She was also the executor of her sister’s estate here in Michigan, and she was responding to a marketing piece I had sent.
So I went through the questions I normally ask, trying to build rapport along the way.
She was in a really chatty mood, so once we got through the property stuff and making the appointment, I started asking her marketing-related questions. The first one was about her initial comment on expecting a recording when she called me.
She explained that she had received a whole stack of letters and postcards regarding the estate since the home was in a nice area, and since she had a day job and she was heading out of town for the weekend, Friday after work was the only time she had that week to contact the investors in Michigan who had sent her mail.
So she started calling. I was the 6th call that she made. And except for one answering service, I was the only one who answered the phone.
I used that opportunity to explain that that’s the way I do business. I explained my approach, my company, my years of experience and my ability to close and take the load off of her once we signed a purchase agreement. I built great rapport with her and at that moment I became the one person who could solve her problem.
By the time we were done with that part of the conversation she told me she was going to work with me and not call anyone else.
But I didn’t stop there.
I learned a long time ago that when you have a chatty seller on the phone, you need to get as much information as you can from them.
So I did.
I asked her about the marketing pieces she had received. Which ones caught her eye and what she liked about them, and what suggestions she had about mine.
And just as importantly, which ones were a total turnoff. I also asked her about the answering service (she hated it). And leaving voicemails for investors (she hated that too). And so on…
She answered all of my questions. All in all, we talked for about 50 minutes.
That was about 10 minutes or so about the house and setting up the appointment. And the rest was gathering invaluable marketing intelligence from a live prospect.
Intelligence that I implemented that weekend.
The bottom line?
She didn’t work with anyone else, and I got the deal and made $10k.
All because I answered the damn phone.
Listen – I know it’s sexy to hire a VA or PatLive to answer your calls. It’s cool to say you’re hands off and that you have people. Heck, there are investors in my market doing 15 deals a year that use VAs to take calls.
But guess what?
There’s not a single VA or PatLive phone answerer who could have done what I was able to do on that call.
I know “systems” are all the rage right now as we all chase after the next deal. But as more and more people choose systems, more and more human contact gets lost.
And the thing is, human contact gets deals.
So answer the damn phone already.
You Answer?
Do you answer phone? Tell me why or not below.
Dennis Fassett
earned a BS in Economics and followed that up with an MBA in finance. After working and corporate finance and banking for several years, he started buying single family houses, and quickly built a very nice portfolio of cash flowing rentals. When the credit markets started to dry up and he couldn’t get any additional single family mortgages he shifted his focus to apartment buildings. He now has over $3 million in rental real estate. He manages most of it his self and still has a day job. Dennis has even created his own Private Equity fund to buy apartment buildings.