How to Book an Owner Meeting on a Cold Call, Every Time

Original automatic captions. Names, numbers, and punctuation may contain transcription errors.

0:00 Now that they're talking, the mission is
0:02 how fast can we get off the phone? Your
0:03 odds of booking the meeting go
0:05 astronomically up. If you are the one to
0:07 end the conversation while there is
0:08 still momentum, buckle in. Today we are
0:11 sharing the secret sauce. This is how I
0:13 can book a meeting with anyone. I
0:15 actually spent my entire career learning
0:17 how to do this. Hundreds and hundreds
0:18 and hundreds of thousands of dollars of
0:20 commissions, millions of dollars of
0:22 sales to learn exactly this. This allows
0:24 me to buy hundreds of rental properties.
0:26 I use sales, marketing, and negotiating
0:29 strategies in everything that I do in
0:31 this business. In this episode, I'm
0:33 going to share a bunch about sales,
0:35 specifically how I booked the meeting
0:37 every single time. Now, a little
0:38 backstory on me. I actually started
0:40 selling apparel for a group called the
0:42 Sanmark Group. I went from that to
0:43 selling land advertising, which got
0:45 bought by the CoStar Group, who owns
0:46 apartments.com, Homes.com, Loopnet, a
0:50 bunch of other websites, uh, basically
0:52 all of the commercial real estate data,
0:54 which is how I eventually ended up in
0:55 real estate. However, real estate is a
0:58 sales, marketing, and negotiating game.
1:00 And if you can learn these skills, which
1:01 are very easy to
1:03 learn, you can absolutely crush the
1:06 acquisitions part of multif family real
1:08 estate. Today's episode, we're talking
1:10 about how I booked the meeting. Now,
1:11 this took me from a sub6 figure earner
1:15 to making over a4 million a year in my
1:17 sales job every single year. I learned
1:19 how to get a yes to the meeting every
1:21 time. See, I never had a big problem
1:22 with closing. And yes, I'm going to go
1:23 into closing and negotiation. In future
1:25 videos in this series, I'm going to go
1:27 super in-depth. But you don't get to
1:29 that phase unless you get more pitches.
1:31 When you're doing a sales pipeline, you
1:33 need to get the optimal number of
1:35 pitches. And then you can work on, okay,
1:38 out of these pitches, how do I get more
1:40 meetings? Are these meetings? How do we
1:41 close more deals? We're not there yet,
1:43 though. I want more meetings. How do we
1:46 actually get more meetings in the door?
1:48 You need to learn how to get a yes on
1:49 the phone. The owner meeting, when you
1:52 call someone who owns a piece of real
1:53 estate that you know do not yet own.
1:55 Here's the strategy for this. I believe
1:57 I have just about perfected this. First
2:00 thing you're going to do is you need to
2:01 find something very specific to call
2:02 about to have a very general
2:03 conversation. Let that sink in for a
2:05 second. Very specific to have a very
2:08 general conversation. Your goal is to
2:10 ride the momentum and be the first one
2:12 to end the phone call. Let me explain.
2:16 Specific. When I was calling and I only
2:18 owned a couple duplexes and I wanted to
2:20 buy this 38 unit building. The phone
2:22 call starts like this. Hey, this is
2:25 Christian. I was calling about your 38
2:27 unit building down the street. Their
2:28 first answer almost every time, well,
2:30 I'm not selling it. Awesome. I'm not
2:32 buying it. Couldn't if I wanted to.
2:33 Actually, I just spent my last dollar on
2:34 a duplex. Uh, recently became your
2:36 property neighbor.
2:37 Oh, that's interesting. Notice we have
2:40 no momentum yet. Here's the next thing I
2:43 say. Something relatable that's true
2:45 about you. That is your story. Why are
2:46 you actually calling them? For me, I'm
2:49 trying to retire my wife. I bought two
2:51 duplexes. I learned that is not going to
2:54 retire her as fast as I want to. She
2:56 just got injured. I am looking at the
2:58 business that you've built. I drove past
2:59 this building a few days ago and I keep
3:01 thinking about it. I do not know how to
3:03 get to the business that you have
3:05 already built. How do you do it? Now,
3:07 you may get a cold response to this, but
3:09 usually you start to get them a little
3:11 bit warmer. Okay, so I'm not calling to
3:13 sell them anything. I'm not calling to
3:14 buy the building. I have a pretty basic
3:16 question. I have a reasonable reason to
3:18 call them. They've done something that I
3:20 have not done yet. They'll usually give
3:23 you either some advice and start opening
3:24 up here or you have to ask one more
3:26 question. Example, I'm trying to retire
3:29 my wife. They'll respond with, "That's
3:33 great. I'm not sure how I can help you.
3:35 I saved up for years and years and
3:37 years. I bought a bunch of duplexes. I
3:38 sold them and eventually I got into
3:40 larger multif
3:42 family. Okay, perfect. Respond
3:45 positively to what they're saying.
3:48 Perfect
3:48 example. That's awesome. If I was trying
3:51 to follow the same pathing, I'm only two
3:53 duplexes in. Would you, if you can go
3:55 back in time, continue to just buy
3:56 duplexes like I am and scale up slowly,
3:58 or is there a way that you have found
4:00 where I might be able to jump from where
4:02 I'm at to where you're at in a faster
4:04 timeline? I don't believe that small
4:06 multif family and single family is the
4:07 path that I'm trying to do. Now, usually
4:10 around this time, the response they'll
4:11 get is, you know what, I did learn that
4:13 later in my experience. And then they
4:15 share a story with you. You know, I was
4:17 buying the small properties. Once I
4:18 learned to buy the bigger ones, I really
4:19 did scale out of that pretty quick.
4:20 You're learning this early. They'll give
4:22 you some encouragement. But here's what
4:24 you're waiting for. And this is any
4:25 meeting you're booking. This is for a
4:27 sales appointment. This is for an owner
4:28 meeting. This is for selling ad space
4:30 online. It's all the same.
4:32 The calls start out cold because it is
4:34 in fact a cold call. You're not calling
4:36 to sell them anything. You're calling to
4:38 get a warm response. By the time you get
4:40 them to open up, there's now momentum.
4:42 Now that they're talking, the mission is
4:45 how fast can we get off the phone. Your
4:47 odds of booking the meeting go
4:48 astronomically up. If you are the one to
4:51 end the conversation while there is
4:53 still momentum, you dive in. Hey, that
4:55 is absolutely perfect. I want to learn
4:57 how to do this. I love the business that
4:58 you built. This is something I'm trying
5:00 to do. And honestly, you're the first
5:01 person who's taken my call. Like, I
5:03 appreciate this a ton. I'm an owner in
5:05 your market, but I'm a really small fish
5:07 in your very big
5:08 pond. I am. And then give them something
5:11 specific. Actually, book the meeting on
5:12 the call and then you're done. Hey, I'm
5:14 in town on Wednesday at 3. I'm not sure
5:17 if you live anywhere near this property,
5:19 but is it possible to get coffee when
5:21 I'm in town next week? Now, often I
5:23 actually do look up before the call and
5:25 I do know that they live in town, but
5:27 either way, a soft close. Don't be a
5:29 creep and say, "Hey, I looked up your
5:30 home address. I know that you live down
5:32 the street." Just say something normal.
5:34 Hey, this is super helpful. You've done
5:35 that what I want to do. Favor to ask.
5:38 Can we get coffee for 15 minutes? Now,
5:39 when momentum's high, it is super
5:41 awkward to tell you no. It is awkward to
5:43 have a casual conversation with someone
5:45 where you are now opening up and the
5:46 next thing they say is, "Hey, I
5:47 appreciate this. Are you able to meet?"
5:49 Now, here's what a lot of people do
5:51 wrong. They keep going in the
5:53 conversation. They add another relatable
5:54 point and now the conversation's gone on
5:56 for 5 minutes. Now they've talked about
5:58 what they want to talk about. They've
6:00 got some applicable advice from the
6:01 seller and they're like, "Okay, they
6:04 gave me what I called for." Now when you
6:06 ask for a meeting, they're like, "I'm
6:07 not sure that we have anything else to
6:08 talk about." It's easy or natural to
6:11 deflect or say, "Oh, shoot me a text.
6:12 I'll check my calendar." Hit them when
6:14 the momentum is high. That one
6:17 trick. Tell them a specific story that
6:20 is true about
6:22 you. I am trying to do X that you have
6:25 already done. I have a very basic
6:28 question about X, but it's an open-ended
6:30 question. Once you can get them talking,
6:33 now your mission is to get them to stop
6:34 talking and continue the conversation
6:37 over coffee. I did this in Co-Star and
6:40 got booking after booking after booking
6:42 after booking. And my first half of the
6:44 day on Monday, I'd book out my entire
6:46 week. The rest of my week was actually
6:47 selling where we could focus on the
6:49 actual closing and negotiating piece
6:51 that is sales and marketing. You do not
6:53 get those at bats if you do not learn
6:55 these skills. specific point into a
6:58 general topic. When there is momentum
7:00 and they go from a cold call to someone
7:02 who is actually engaged, you now switch
7:05 from, hey, I'm trying to open up the
7:06 call to, I'm trying to end the call as
7:08 quickly as possible. If you end the call
7:10 without booking the meeting, you lose.
7:13 Now, it is once again easy to say no or
7:16 defer. So, you get stuck in the endless
7:18 cycle of, "Oh yeah, I'll shoot you a
7:19 text." You text them, they don't text
7:21 back. You text them again. Oh, let me
7:22 check my schedule. You get stuck. If you
7:25 can book the call on the meeting, hey,
7:27 shoot me your email address. I will send
7:29 you a calendar invite. It's not booked.
7:30 It's on the calendar. They should end
7:33 the call being like, "Wow, I liked that
7:35 person." Also, did I just book a coffee
7:37 meeting? I never do that. That's what
7:38 that should feel like. Now, in our next
7:41 episode, we're going to talk about what
7:42 that meeting actually looks like. So,
7:45 stay tuned for that. But we're going to
7:46 talk about what it looks like when you
7:47 actually meet with them. How do you go
7:49 from, hey, we just met on a phone call
7:51 to, "Hey, we're talking about doing
7:52 deals. We're talking about buying real
7:53 estate, transacting, and I'm learning
7:55 actual applicable things to build this
7:58 relationship and build my business. How
8:00 do you get someone else to help you move
8:02 you forward? We're going to go into
8:03 that. But you do not get that at bat if
8:05 you do not land the call. By the way, I
8:08 do about two calls like this a day,
8:10 maybe 10 calls a week. Acquisitions take
8:12 me about 15 minutes of time on the phone
8:14 every single week. These are short,
8:16 quick calls. Now, I meet with one person
8:19 for coffee every week. By the end of the
8:20 year, I've met with 52 people. If you
8:22 wonder why I might own more real estate
8:24 than you, which is true of most people.
8:25 If you're bigger than me, you can
8:27 disregard this. You have your own st
8:28 systems and processes. You can do
8:29 however you want to do this. If you have
8:31 less rentals than me, this is how I'm
8:33 doing this, and this is why I'm as
8:34 successful as I am. This takes me
8:35 unbelievably little time. It is
8:37 ridiculously
8:39 effective. And I get a bunch of
8:41 relationships who know where I'm at,
8:42 where I'm going. They're bought into the
8:44 story. We have a meaningful interaction.
8:46 We have an actual real relationship. and
8:49 they've taken a meeting with me that I'm
8:51 not taking with anyone else. This is how
8:52 you play the game. This is a master
8:54 class on sales communication in real
8:56 estate.