Many people sell their notes within about six weeks of turning down a quote. If they turned down yours and sold to someone else, why? Maybe it was price. More likely, when they finally decided to sell, they called the person whose name was in front of them.
That’s the case Joseph Terp made in this interview. Terp, then marketing coordinator for a note-buying company, worked 15 years in direct response television and five and a half years as a stockbroker. His method: combine a website with a highly targeted email program, so your name is the one in front of note holders when they’re ready.
Targeted email, not mass email
Terp didn’t advocate mass email campaigns. He advocated a targeted system, and there’s a big difference.
Lists of millions of email addresses are a poor fit. The note business is a niche market, and a mass mailing takes a lot of time and effort to reach the tiny share of people on those lists who own notes.
Instead, use mail-merge software to personalize each message. If you have a list of people who hold, say, mobile home notes, you can send them email that includes their name and details about their particular note. That comes across as far more interesting than a generic letter.
Before you email anyone, check the anti-spam rules where you work: CAN-SPAM in the United States and CASL in Canada. Canada in particular requires consent before you send commercial email.
Phase one: find owner-financed sales
Start by compiling a list of potential note sellers. Terp’s favorite source was online newspaper classifieds, and not the biggest papers, because many buyers already watch those. Think mid-sized metro papers instead.
- Go to the classified section and look under “Real Estate” or “Finance.”
- If the site has a keyword search, type “fin.” That pulls up “finance” and its variants: “owner-financed,” “seller financing,” “owner will finance” and so on.
- If there’s no search, copy the real estate ads into a word processor and search there. It saves hours of reading every ad.
Either way, you end up with a large list of properties offered with owner financing.
Here’s why that list matters. Most owner-financed properties sell fairly quickly, because many buyers can’t get conventional financing, so a note is often created within about six weeks of the listing. Most of these sellers won’t agree to sell the note at closing because of the discount, so they hold it. But Terp’s research and experience showed that within about a year and a half, many sell the note anyway. Your email program keeps your name in front of them for that year and a half.
Phase two: find contact details
Classified ads usually list only a phone number. At the time of the interview, Terp used a reverse directory to turn the phone number into a name and address, then an email lookup service to find the email address.
It took him about three and a half to four minutes per name. Tedious, he admitted, but the result is a list of people who aren’t getting mail about selling their notes yet, because their notes are just being born.
What to send
Terp’s surprising answer to “What should the email say?” was: nothing. Plain-text sales letters are rarely read, and attachments are almost never opened because people worry about viruses.
Instead, send the equivalent of your website’s home page as the email itself, customized for each person. The recipient’s name and a comment about their particular note appear at the top, and the page links to the rest of your site so they can learn more, ask for a quote and contact you.
Picture it: John Smith, who holds a note on a mobile home, opens your email and sees his name and a note about his mobile home. Mary Jones sees her name and a message about her note on a small apartment building. Personalized mail about a note you own makes you want to read on, and that’s how you start a relationship.
Of course, nobody sells a note because they got an email. They sell because something happens in their life: the payor gives them trouble, a late payment rattles them, or they simply need the cash. When that happens, the person who was in front of their eyes last has the best chance of getting the call. Your job is to make sure that’s you.
How often, and what it costs
Terp recommended emailing your list twice a month. That keeps your name in front of people without annoying them. Vary what you send: change the look of the page even if the content is much the same.
The cost is small. There are no list rentals, stationery, postage or brochures, and you can update your message any time. At the time, even fax broadcasting averaged 17 cents a page; email cost a fraction of that. Setting it up takes time, but after that one click sends everyone a page personalized for them and their note.
You need a website
If you don’t have a website, get one. You need a place to send email prospects and to capture their information. Hosting is cheap or even free, and a website gives you extra credibility.
More important, it lets you put a full brochure in front of note holders who very likely haven’t heard from anyone else who wants to buy their note. When they’re ready to sell, even with several quotes in hand, they’ll call the person they remember first, as long as the price is reasonable.
