Tips to Improve Your Cold Calling Success

According to many cold calling experts, the average cold calling success rate is as low as 2% even under the best of conditions. But what is success in the cold calling world of real estate?

If you’re looking to buy only one mobile home park in your entire life, then sure you can probably accomplish that using a mass calling system. But if you’re looking for any long-term career in the industry, then you'd be wise to use you cold calls to build bridges rather than a variation of spam calling.

Most experienced real estate agents and investors know that a successful cold call is simply the beginning step in building a relationship with prospects, rather than a way to gain instant gratification.

Unfortunately, what most cold callers forget is that because the average mobile home park or RV park owners deal with so many sales calls, they can sniff out B.S. better than most.

Quality Over Quantity

While it may sound old-fashioned and really inefficient, successfully cold calling prospects isn’t something that should be automated and rushed through. Nor is it hard to get your foot in the door with a park owner, when your able to discuss the right subject properly.

No, I’m not talking about how much money your fund has raised. The park owner doesn’t care as long as the check clears. I’m also not talking about how important you, or the people that sit on your board are. Honestly, names are only impressive to the people that are familiar with them.

The subject you actually should be talking about is…. drumroll please ….the park and its owner your calling about!

By simply taking couple minutes to look at a park’s information before the call, you will empower yourself to ask specific questions that reinforce to the owner why you think their park is worth the call.

Even just glancing at the park with the integrated Google Map in ParkSitesIO will at least give you a good idea of the park’s physical makeup.

No, you won’t know the park’s intimate details. But you also won’t be asking questions that let the owner know you you have zero knowledge of their park, while telling them you'd like to buy it. Remember, that type of conversation is what gets you hung up on and why so many people simply burn through good park leads.

Be Selective

Sure, when you are brand new and need practice, practice on everyone! But you typically wouldn’t call every number on the internet to buy your home so why call every random phone number you find on Google or Facebook to see if they’re selling a mobile home park? It’s a huge waste of your calling time and does nothing but hinder the quality of calls you should be targeting.

Instead, be selective of the calls you make by choosing to use tools such as ParkSitesIO and the features we offer to target the right leads. By spending more time talking with the owners of parks you’re actually interested in, and less time randomly calling parks that have no value to you, you’ll be able to focus on building those solid long-term relationships.

Take Notes Of The Call

For every call you make there’s a good chance that you’ll forget the conversation by the end of the week or even the day.

By using the Park and CRM Notes options in ParkSitesIO during your call, you’ll be able to quickly reference the date you last spoke to that owner, the highlights of the conversation, and even the general feedback they gave you.

Believe it or not, referencing small specific details about a previous conversation you had with someone, is a great bonding practice. It may be something as simple as a joke you both laughed about, but it’s still worth mentioning. It not only highlights an experience you both shared, but lets the person know your last conversation was important enough for you to remember it.

Follow Up Calls

The world is full of people seeking instant gratification. When they don’t get it on the first try, they quit. The cold hard truth is that if you’re one of those people, then I would strongly advise you to find something other than real estate as your career path. That’s because real estate and cold calling will never successfully be a one and done endeavor. This is absolutely true no matter what you may have been told or falsely believe.

Think about it. When you've just met someone, it can take multiple conversations to build any level of trust. Cold calling is no exception!

For me personally, I like the internal phrase “Check-in Calls” rather “Follow Up Calls”. The phrase “Follow Up” gives the impression there is something specific to do or ensure something has been done. But in reality, you’re simply checking in with the park owner to see how things are going while gently reminding them you are still interested in their park. A simple, “How ya been?” goes a long way to building a bond.

To me this step is so important that unless you decide to never to purchase a park again, you should still make check-in calls even when you aren't actively buying. The truth is, they probably aren’t actively looking to sell at that moment either, but it keeps the conversation going.

That way when you’re ready to buy another park, you won’t have to hear that they just sold it to someone else because they haven’t heard from you.

Limited Opportunities

When you look at social media, it’s easy to get the false impression there is an endless sea of mobile home park to contact and owners to call. However, even if we use the questionable park numbers provided by the U.S. government of 53K, it’s not hard to understand that a list of owners is actually a pretty small target in the total U.S. population.

In fact, if one owner represented each park every park owner would fit within Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium. It's even more likely that because of your park criteria, your calls will be targeted to a considerably smaller group of people.

This means no matter what cold calling method you ultimately choose to utilize, treat each call like the true limited opportunity it is, rather than burning the lead with a bad call. Afterall the people you are calling are humans and have the same expectations, and reactions, of receiving a phone call as you do.