Finding Motivated Buyers And Sellers With A Story

In this article I’m going to talk about finding motivated buyers and sellers with a story.

This is Real Estate Marketing for Multifamily Investors Part 2.

Creating a story is the one thing missed in marketing today. Every message should have a story.

I want you to think about what holds your attention in a book, video, blog post, podcast or any other way you consume information.

I bet you realized that it’s around a story. Sure, educational content is good to consume but if it doesn’t have a story in there somewhere it will lose your attention.

Finding buyers and sellers is no different. We need to capture their attention then hold it, so they hear and understand what we have to say.

Creating Your Story

First, let me be clear. The story we’re creating is about the prospect, not you!

When you look at an ad or video and the subject is all about how great that person is and why you should listen to them are locked in to what they have to say.

Now, flip that on its head and do the opposite. If the ad or video was all about you, I bet you would be intrigued enough to stick around and listen to what they have to say or click on the link in the ad to learn more.

This is the big misunderstanding most investors have when they prospect for buyers and sellers. They immediately give the prospect their wants and immediately turns them off.

Here’s an example: “Mr. Prospect, I’m calling to see if you would sell your property to me?” This is all about the caller and gives the prospect the out he’s looking for, “No!”

Now let’s look at a script that has the prospect’s best interest in mind:

"Hi Jim, My name is David Monroe with A&M Equity Group. I understand you’re busy so the reason for my call is to set up a time you and I can talk because we acquire multifamily properties in the Southeast that have management challenges or stabilized properties where we see an upside potential.

I thought the best place to start is to schedule a short phone call to see if any of your properties fit our acquisition strategy. Are you available tomorrow morning around 10AM?”

Do you see the difference? In the second example we show the prospect we care about their time.

The second example showed one part of the story that I’m going to help you create so you can get and hold the prospects attention.

Prospect’s Issues

https://www.davidmonroeccim.com/finding-motivated-buyers-and-sellers-with-a-story/

The first part of creating the story is listing out the prospect’s issues. If you remember in the last article, Real Estate Marketing For Multifamily Investors Part 1, we created our Avatar.

If you didn’t follow the instructions and create your Avatar, stop now, go back, and create him or her. You cannot create a story for a person you don’t know.

Finding the prospect’s issues is the first building block of the story and refers to:

·        Pains we remove

·        Problems we solve

·        Results we help them achieve

Notice in this list there’s nothing about you! It’s all about the prospect.

We will know the issues that come out from the questions we ask during our conversations with the prospect.

Below are some of examples of issues you can encounter.

Pains We Remove

For the seller this could be several issues:

·        My tenants are more trouble than their worth

·        I can’t get a hold of all the maintenance issues

·        I must pull from my savings to keep the property running every month

·        The property is taking too much time away from my family

Examples from a buyer could be:

·        I’m not making enough cash flow from the properties I own

·        I’m not meeting my investment goals fast enough

·        I’m frustrated with multiple offer scenarios

If we can target their pain points, then it becomes easy to find the solutions to easing those pains.

The one thing I want to always remember is, never try and harm the seller or buyer in a transaction. There must be a win/win for everyone.

If your goal is to try and steal the properties from sellers and screw the buyers for the highest price you can to make the biggest buck, get out of this business now, you’re not welcome here!

I want to get out a piece of paper and write down your Avatar’s issues now.

Stop reading and write down your list.

Once the list is complete, we need to move on to the problems we can solve for the prospect.

Problems We Solve

What problems can you solve for sellers stuck in a property they don’t want or buyers that are having a hard time finding good deals?

Some of the problems we can solve for the sellers include:

·        Assuming the debt if there’s a big pre-payment penalty

·        Master leasing the property if it’s unfinanceable in its current condition

·        Allowing the seller to owner finance if they’re afraid of the tax bill they can incur

For the buyer some of the problems we can solve may be:

·        Presenting them deals that meet their investment criteria

·        Owner finance to the buyer if it’s a challenge to get financing

·        Leave value in the property so the buyer can have room to increase the revenue

Now I want you stop here and write your list of problems you can solve for your Avatar.

Do not go any further until write out your list.

Results We Help Them Achieve

What are the buyers and seller’s goals? Obviously, we won’t know until we have a conversation with them, but here are a few examples of seller’s goals:

·        Make a profit on the sale

·        Sell to a well-qualified buyer

·        Ensure the buyer will take care of the tenants the seller worked hard to find

·        The Buyer isn’t a slum lord

In the buyer’s case we can see examples such as:

·        Purchase above an 8% cap rate

·        Looking for 20% internal rate of return

·        Looking for a 12% cash on cash return in the first year

·        Looking for distressed properties that need repositioned

From these goals it will be easy to find the results you can provide and make them feel comfortable to do business with you.

Write down your list of results you can provide the buyer or seller, or both, and don’t go any farther until you’re complete.

Offering

Now that we have all the issues written down, we can create our offer. It’s very important that this part of the story is brief.

This is the only part of the story that we focus on us and we must be as quick as possible in the delivery so we can get back to talking about them.

“So why are we putting it in the middle of the story?” We need to be transparent and let them know what our intentions are early, so we don’t waste their time.

What We Sell

Don’t let the sub-title fool you. Whether you’re looking to purchase a property or sell a property you own, your selling.

So, what are you selling? If you’re an owner, wholesaler, broker, or bird dog looking for buyers, then you’re selling your ability to help the buyer meet their goals.

If you’re a buyer, wholesaler, broker, or bird dog looking for motivated sellers, then you’re selling your ability to help the seller meet their goals.

Be very careful not to oversell allot of fluff here.

A good example of the offer for sellers to could be: So, we offer to the right buyer a property that has been taken care of and with tenants we’ve worked hard to put in place and make this a better community for everyone.

For a wholesaler you can use: So, we offer buyers that are struggling to find deals in today’s market, properties that meet or exceed their investment criteria, so you don’t have to.

It’s your turn. Write down the offering for your Avatar now.

You will see how we tie all of this together to create our story after we identify our differentiators.

Differentiators

These are the things that separate you from you from everyone else. To be honest, just by communicating the story, you’re already different and setting yourself as a professional, and not someone just trying to make a profit.

Why We’re Different

Why are you different? If you can answer this question and express it in your story you will be successful.

Some examples of how you can be different include:

·        All cash buyer in a hot market

·        Looking to provide housing for disabled veterans

·        Our properties operate at a 98% collection efficiency

·        You can purchase our properties at 50% below market value

·        All our tenants have a 700-point credit score or higher

What are some of the reasons you’re the best choice? Here are some examples:

·        We can close in 15 days with no contingencies

·        We can be creative to find a solution for a property that’s having a hard time selling

·        We’ll pay all the closing costs

·        We can make you a partner in the deal if you want to stay on-board

If you noticed, the differentiators address some of the issues we talked about earlier.

Are you ready for it? Take out lists and write down the differentiators that will benefit your Avatar before moving on, because the next thing we do is tie it all it all together.

Power Statement (Value Proposition)

By this point you should have your list of issues, your offering, and your differentiators in front of you. If you don’t, STOP, and do them before proceeding.

Knowledge is only information. Knowledge combined with action, is power.

It’s time to create our power statement, also known as the value proposition.

This will become your script for all your prospecting moving forward, including:

·        Phone prospecting

·        Direct mail campaigns

·        Email campaigns

·        Voicemail campaigns

·        Social media messaging

·        Text messaging

We start with a headline and a transitional phrase.

Headline and Transitional Phrase

The headline is your introduction. This is a one or two sentence statement that captures the prospects attention to gets them read or listen for more.

An example could be; Hi Jim, my name is David Monroe, CCIM with A&M Equity Group. I understand you’re busy so the reason for my call is…

This captures Jim’s attention first, because I called him by his first name, second because I told him who I was, and it shows I respect his time.

If I would have said, “Hi Mr. Prospect, how are you today?” How professional does that make you sound? Or, does that make you sound like everyone else that call him?

Did you notice the start of the transitional phrase in my initial example, so the reason for my call is…? Continue this statement with, “Buyers look to us when they…”

This allows you go right into addressing your Avatar’s issues. Here are some examples, Buyers look to us when they are/have:

·        Striving to achieve result 1

·       Frustrated from dealing with pain 2  

·       Under significant pressure to eliminate problem 3  

·       Committed to accomplishing result 4

·       Had it with pain 5       

·       Facing threats or regulatory pressure from issue 6  

·        Finally tired of living with problem 7 

Buyers look to us when they are frustrated with multiple offer situations and losing all the deals they find.

Sellers look to us when they are finally tired of living with not being able to find a good property management company.

Stop now and create you’re your headline and transitional phrase before going any further.

State the Offering

We have our headline and transition statement, now we need to tie in the offering we created earlier. Here are two examples:

·        So, we offer buyers that are struggling to find deals in today’s market, properties that meet or exceed their investment criteria…

·        So, we offer the sellers a chance to get out of the struggle of dealing with the bad property management companies…

Finish with Differentiators

The final thing we need to do is go back to the list of differentiators and include two or three on the back of the offering to tie the story together.

Here a couple of examples from the offering statements we created above:

·        Because we can offer the properties at 50% below property value with no closing costs to you

·        By paying cash for the property with no contingencies and a 15 day close

Are you ready to put the final together? Here are the two examples we created:

·        Hi Jim, my name is David Monroe, CCIM with A&M Equity Group. I understand you’re busy so the reason for my call is sellers look to us when they are finally tired of living with not being able to find a good property management company, so we offer the you a chance to get out of the struggle of dealing with the bad property management by paying cash for the property with no contingencies and a 15 day close.

·        Hi Jim, my name is David Monroe, CCIM with A&M Equity Group. I understand you’re busy so the reason for my call is buyers look to us when they are frustrated with multiple offer situations and losing all the deals they find, so if you are struggling to find deals in today’s market, we offer properties that can meet or exceed your investment criteria because we can offer the properties at 50% below property value with no closing costs to you.

Do you see how these two power statements can separate you from all the other investors looking in the same pot for buyers and sellers?

You can complete your power statement and tie your Avatar’s story together now. NO, do it. Stop reading and finish your power statement.

I hope you see that finding motivated buyers and sellers with a story is a powerful tool that can make you successful in multifamily real estate investing.