Real estate investors spend a lot of time on the phone. Think of all the people you might talk to during a typical day:
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People on your buyer’s list
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Potential sellers
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Private investors
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Contractors
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Tenants
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Potential renters
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Title agencies
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Inspection offices
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Family
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Friends
The list goes on and on...
Do you start your day with a whole list of people to call? Then as the day goes on, is it difficult to get all the way through the list?
One of the reasons it’s hard to call everyone, is that one (or more) of those calls is a ‘talker.’ You might have to listen to a property seller tell you their whole life story. Or a potential investor wants to go on and on about every detail in a deal to minimize their risk.
Wouldn’t it be great to have short conversations with each person on your list?
Maybe if you knew who the big talkers are and who the ‘get-to-the-point’ people are, you could… you could send an email or text to the big talkers and call the quick people.
Trouble is, investors need to make lots of cold calls. Marketing is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get.
Voicemails Don’t Talk Back
Texts and emails can easily get lost in a sea of other texts and emails. Recipients of ‘cold’ emails will often dismiss them as spam and delete them.
There’s a reason telemarketers do cold calling. It works. It’s hard for people to ignore phone calls.
The next best thing is voicemail.
If you could just leave voicemails with lots of different people, you could get through your phone call to-do list very quickly. If you had a big long list of leads, you could burn through them with blazing speed.
What if you could record one voicemail message, and send it out to a big list all at once? I’d say that’s a ‘huge productivity jump.’
There’s a company that helps you do all the above. It’s called SlyDial. It’s available for both iPhone and Android phones. They advertise the service as one you can use to avoid talking to annoying friends and family members.
It’s a lot more than that, though…
SlyDial will allow you to go through all the phone calls you need to make very quickly. The app simply sends your call straight to the recipient’s voicemail without activating the phone’s ringer. The person will think they just missed your call.
Just remember this only works if the recipient’s number is a cell phone. SlyDial cannot bypass a landline phone to go to voicemail.
How It Works
Once you have the SlyDial app downloaded on your phone, you will need to determine if you want a regular or premium account. You can use SlyDial for free, but you will have to listen to ads every time you use it.
To lose the ads, you will have to sign up for one of their 2 premium plans. As of the writing of this lesson, their premium plans looked like this:
The pricing isn’t too bad for the service it provides.
After picking which service you want, there are 2 ways to ‘SlyDial’ from your phone:
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Dial 267-SLYDIAL from any landline or mobile phone.
When prompted, enter the number of the person you want to reach. SlyDial will connect you to their voicemail after listening to one of their ads. This is the free version of the service.
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Use the SlyDial App.
SlyDial will automatically upload all your contacts. You can either dial a number through the app, or you can select one of your contacts. If you have the premium service, you won’t hear any ads, and you’ll go right to the recipient’s voicemail.
You can see an example of SlyDial in action for a real estate investor here. Joe McCall is using it very effectively.
What if I Have a Big List?
SlyDial is very good for making phone calls one-at-a-time. That’s not so good if you have 500 potential motivated sellers you want to contact.
What if you bought a list of phone numbers for out-of-state owners? Or you have a large buyer’s list you can’t wait to tell about your latest deal?
Either way, you have a great message crafted to leave on their voicemails, and you REALLY don’t want to make 500 phone calls.
Maybe SlyDial wouldn’t be so good in that situation?
True.
But its sister site SlyBroadcast might be just what you’re looking for.
SlyBroadcast is just a website – there isn’t an app. Once you have signed up and logged in, sending out a message is simple.
It just takes 4 easy steps:
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Upload or record a message.
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Schedule when you want the message to go out and what caller ID number to show.
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Upload your contact list.
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Send your message to your entire list.
The time-saving compared to making tons of individual calls could be enormous. Here’s a video on how SlyBroadcast works:
Since you are sending voicemails to tons of different people, the pricing for SlyBroadcast will be a little higher.
When you consider what it would cost to reach the same number of people through a direct mail campaign, all of a sudden this seems like a pretty good deal.
Are You Sly?
We’d love to hear about your experiences with these Sly services in the comments section below.
Market to Lots of People – Response rates from marketing are really good if you get 10%-15% returns. Make sure you get your name out there.
Be Productive – Figure out what is taking so much time in your day. Is it really that valuable? How can you get some time back for more valuable activities?
Avoid the Time Wasters – People can take up lots of your time, without helping you. Learn how to steer clear of these people.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.