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Today, we’re giving you the inside scoop as we listen in on one of our clients, Ryan Weir, with Walker Weir Property Management in Auckland, New Zealand. We’re going to dissect one of his sales calls, received from his Google Ads campaign – an owner lead, interested in property management. We’ll listen to Ryan navigate this call, and we’ll make comments in between and talk strategy. Below you’ll see the transcript of the call. Feel free to use this topic to train your staff:
Ryan: Good afternoon, Walker Weir Property Management, this is Ryan speaking.
Caller: G’day, Ryan, it’s Richard here, how are you?
Alex: Right off the bat, what do you hear? This introduction is what you need – he gives:
- the name of the company
- the service he provides
- and he gives his own name as well
Train your salespeople and get in the mode yourself that you identify who you are and what your company is every time the phone rings. You want to be friendly and welcoming to the person who is calling.
Ryan: Hi Richard, I’m good, how are you?
Caller: Good. The reason I’m calling is because me and my wife just bought a new place down in ____, but we have that place in ______ that we want to rent out. One of the terms on our financials is to have a rental appraisal that’s around the 620 mark per week. So, I was wondering how we go about getting an appraisal for that house?
Ryan: Sure. What was your last name, Richard?
Caller: ——
Alex: Here’s something else to notice right off the bat. Ryan is patient and he’s listening. He’s not interrupting and instead of going in to ask some questions, he’s going to identify the person and get the contact information prior to gathering more information. Let’s keep listening.
Ryan: Did someone pass our details on to you?
Caller: I found you on the internet.
Ryan: Perfect, okay. Where is your property in _______?
Caller: It’s at _______.
Ryan: And you’re moving out to ____ did you say? That’s pretty exciting.
Caller: Yeah. We thought it’s a good time to make a move and get some land.
Ryan: And will you be enlisting the services of a property manager such as ourselves?
Caller: I think that’s the goal, possibly. We will want someone to look after the place.
Ryan: The prices for rental property do change a little bit throughout the year. Auckland is a bit seasonal. So, when are you relocating out?
Caller: February.
Ryan: Cool. As it happens, that’s a good time to rent properties. The prices are good, and there are more tenants to choose from. Can you tell me a little bit about your _____ property?
Alex: So, what Ryan did there is pretty brilliant. If you noticed, he asked how did you find us. The prospect said the internet. So, that’s a good bit of information. You don’t have to dig too deeply into it. Your digital channels should be aligned, and you should be able to go to your LeadSimple software to track and capture those details. You don’t want to move the call away from its purpose. But this is a good initial bit of information. Then, Ryan did what we always recommend and train – he said “tell me a little bit about your property.” People are emotionally connected to the homes they live in. Now that they’re renting it out, they want to know that you’re interested and that you care. It’s a great question to use when you’re jumping into the discovery phase.
Caller: Well it’s three bedrooms, one bathroom with a separate toilet. We bought it about three years ago, and it was an old hoarder’s house. I own a building company so we renovated it. There’s a new bathroom and kitchen, it’s insulated and painted. Obviously, we planned on living there for some time, so we didn’t want much wrong with it.
Ryan: Does it have a garage?
Caller: Yes, a large garage. It’s sort of a single plus workshop garage. It sits on a large property, about 680 square meters I believe. There’s a private courtyard in the back that’s fully fenced. There’s a heat pump. It doesn’t have an HRV.
Ryan: I can look at some details online, but I always like to hear about it.
Caller: Yeah, the online pictures just don’t do it justice.
Ryan: Sure, if you’ve renovated it, I’m sure it’s quite nice
Caller: Yes, we have a concrete driveway that goes all the way up and a footpath. It’s all groomed.
Ryan: I’ll do some work on that and I can give you a call back tomorrow with an appraisal.
Caller: Perfect.
Ryan: And we can give you an appraisal that is satisfactory for the bank.
Alex: And at this point in the call, most people would simply give up. You have the address and some information about the house, and you’re going to give this person an appraisal that’s required by the bank for a new home they want to buy. Most people would say goodbye and get back to them the next day. But, Ryan doesn’t do that. He continues.
Ryan: It goes without saying that we’d love to manage the property for you, but we can keep in touch about that. What’s your email address? Do you have any idea about what we do here?
Caller: Well, what kind of rates would I be looking at for the property management of that home? Is it done by percentage?
Ryan: Yes, it’s done by percentage which is great because it gives us plenty of incentive to get the property rented as quickly as possible to a very good tenant. We only get paid when rent is paid on your property. Our going rate is about eight and a half percent. We’re a little different in that our owners get a free rental guarantee, which means when we put a person into your property….
Alex: Let’s talk about what’s happening here. By doing discovery and satisfying the prospect’s initial request, which was an appraisal, Ryan earned the right to present his company as a solution to this person’s rental home. Right away, you hear the differentiation that he introduces during his presentation. He explains why they’re different. That’s a great way to make sure you introduce points of difference and why you are the best person to earn their business.
Ryan: ..and if the tenant misses a rent payment or is late with rent, we still pay that rent to you. It’s a promise we give because we’re really good at collecting rent, so we put our money where our mouth is. If we find good tenants and we want to put them in your property, we have to back that up.
Caller: Despite what the bank needs, like 620, realistically we can cover our mortgage quite well at a lower rate.
Ryan: Yeah, they want you to be able to cover your payment by 1.5 times. It’s what they do. The other thing we do is we do meth testing at the beginning and end of the tenancy. That’s not because we’re picking people who do meth, but because every corner of society is now misusing it, whether a banker or a builder or an engineer or whatever. We do that test right in front of the tenants so they know we’ve tested the property.
Caller: That makes perfect sense, so they can’t say you manufactured anything.
Ryan: The other thing we do is to help with smoke alarms. This year, they became mandatory in all rental properties, so we make sure you comply and every year we test it and give you a certificate to state you have working smoke alarms.
Caller: That’s really positive, yeah.
Ryan: And, we ensure your property is looked after by inspecting usually every quarter, and then we send you a report. It’s about 17 or 18 pages with a lot of high quality photographs. We just want you to know what’s going on. The owners like to see the inside of their properties.
Caller: That sounds really good.
Ryan: I’ll include a booklet and an e-book that tells you everything that we do for you, so take a browse through it, and I’ll send you your appraisal. We’d love to manage your property and find you some great tenants for when you guys move out to _____.
Caller: I really appreciate it. You’re actually the first company I’ve run into, so that’s fantastic. Thank you.
Ryan: I’m glad. I’m a second-generation property manager. I rented out my first property when I was 19, and now I’m in my 30’s, so I’ve been doing this for a while. I’m also the owner, so I put a big emphasis on inspections.
Caller: I appreciate your time, and I look forward to working with you.
Alex: So, let’s bring it all together. What do you think is the likelihood that Ryan will get this deal? Pretty high. So, let’s examine what he did and how he did it to get to this outcome.
Identify Yourself
Pick up the phone and identify yourself. Be friendly and then just listen to what the person has to say without interrupting. Get the contact information and ask how they found you without digging too deeply into it. You should let your tracking do the measuring if the lead came from the internet. You’ll know if it’s from AdWords or your website or some other source.
Discovery Phase
Next, you want to gather information. Ryan asked the caller to tell him about the property. That means so much to the other person. Most of us don’t realize it because we’re so much into the business. Sometimes we assume things. That really does a disservice. Every customer and prospect should be treated like the only customer you’ve ever had. What if every customer is your only customer? How would your attitude and your approach change? Treat it as such.
The Presentation
After the discovery process, you get to start your presentation. Ryan did an amazing job of quickly putting three key differentiators of his company. He explained them and connected the why. The first was the rental guarantee. Why is it important to this caller? Because he needed to guarantee 1.5 the amount of his mortgage payment. That was a qualifier. The rent guarantee gets him there.
The next thing was the meth test. Maybe it’s not as relevant in the U.S. but in New Zealand, it’s a huge factor. So, they are on top of this problem and doing this test for the tenants pre and post tenancy. This is a unique value proposition and it speaks to the FUD that a new landlord might have – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It’s realistic. The reality is that a meth user can destroy the property’s ability to make money in the future. Finally, he mentioned inspection reports and he told the caller that based on the size of his house, he could expect a 15 or 18-page inspection report. You could even offer to send a sample inspection report. There are also probably some nuggets in Ryan’s book as well.
When he closes the phone call, he says he will send the appraisal the bank is looking for, and he’ll also include an e-book with all the details describing the service he provides. At this stage, the fee that Ryan brought up is not really a problem. He focused the discussion on how he earns that fee and why these issues are important to the prospect even though he did not know about these things.
Ryan was the first person he called, and I think he’ll be the last person he calls.
End with Experience
Ryan ended the call by talking about his experience in the property management business. It shows that he knows what he’s doing. If you’re the salesperson and not the owner, you can still say “we’ve been in business for five years and we have these awards and manage this number of properties.” Prepare your close with the experience that differentiates you. Then, the caller knows that you speak and listen well and you’re qualified to do this kind of work. At the end of the call, you know it’s likely that this is going to turn into a management contract.
We run Google Ads campaigns for property management companies, and we track these calls. We provide customers with a recording of every call, even if it’s a missed call or a voicemail. These are useful tools to train and coach your team. You can sit down and do reviews with your staff. It’s phenomenal what you’ll learn.
At Fourandhalf, we have a tradition of doing “Breakfast Clubs”, which is an hour-long meeting every Monday morning. We learn something new each and every week! Something like this would be a great opportunity for your staff in a staff meeting – go through the specifics and make sure everyone is trained.
We hope this helps you get better and close more deals. If you have any questions, contact us at Fourandhalf.
