In today’s fast-paced world, having a strong phone presence is essential for building relationships, conveying confidence, and achieving your goals. In Episode 2024, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive deep into the art of phone presence in real estate negotiations. They discuss why how you communicate over the phone can significantly influence negotiations and client relationships. Through role-playing and answering listener questions, they demonstrate the impact of effective phone communication on closing deals and building lasting relationships. Tune in to discover how mastering this skill can transform your real estate transactions and skyrocket your success.

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The Art Of Strong Phone Presence In Real Estate Negotiations

Introduction

This is episode number 2,024. The topic is, Why Your Highest Quality Phone Presence Is Imperative When You’re Negotiating or Buying and Selling Real Estate. This is one of those things where I thought this was automatic. 

It’s funny. This has come up many times throughout the years. I can tell right away and you can ask who should be answering their phones and who shouldn’t. It’s funny that people don’t get it sometimes. They talk monotone. Maybe they’re too soft. They’re never excited.

Here’s a spoiler alert. My personality on this show is not my real personality. Her personality, this is really Jill.

This is true. We’ll get into this and we’ll do a pretend, “I’ll answer the phone how I do it and you answer the phone how you do it.”

That’s good. We’re doing something different this week. Maybe it’ll stick, maybe it won’t. Only our readers will be the judge of that. We’re running one episode per day this week, starting Monday and with a theme. This episode’s theme is Rules To Live By In Your Land Investment Business. Now, we’ve already mentioned it. We’re talking about why your highest-quality phone presence is imperative on Tuesday, Jill. Go ahead.

We’re going to talk about great land deal flow is automatic following the Land Academy system.

Wednesday, how to locate places to send mail using The Land Academy red, green, and yellow test.

Thursday, how often does land purchase price renegotiation happen?

Response Times

Friday, getting the land deal under contract to be purchased within just two days. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our land academy member discord forum and we take a deep dive into the land-related topics at your request. This episode’s question.

Tara wrote, “When sellers call in, what are your response times? Do you have a specified response time to call a seller back initially? Do you have a time limit to process the deal? Whether you decide to pass the deal or go to purchase. We’re currently using a maximum of two days to respond to PatLive messages and then two weeks to move to a decision. We tighten those, and if so, by how much?”

This was a question for me. We do one-on-one coaching now. Surprise. For many years, people have asked us, “Can we just do this one-on-one coaching?” We tested a little beginning. We did group stuff. Anyway, we offer that again. This is a person in my coaching program that I’m doing personally. I answered her. I’ll read my question, and then we can talk about it because this is a hot topic,
Especially right now.

The whole point is speed. You have to move quickly and close on these deals. That’s what I wrote. PatLive should be letting every caller know when to hear back from you, such as the owner reviews deals every Tuesday and Thursday, whatever it is, they know the schedule. Today’s Monday and the owner is going to look at the deal tomorrow on Tuesday, or where can she reach you on Tuesday afternoon? What is your best contact number? That should happen.

The whole point is speed. You have to move quickly and close on these deals. Share on X

The seller knows and you follow through. I would make every decision I said within four business days max. That gives you plenty of time to check with the county, confirm the zoning, do all your due diligence, make a decision, and open escrow. I always want the sellers to have a next step. They should always be moving forward.

It’s imperative to set up a system that you’re managing each one of these transactions the same way every single time. It’s not imperative, it’s not important in my opinion at all to get it right the first time, the second time, the eighth time, or the tenth time, but the more you do it, you’re going to develop a system where it will be developed on its own.

At some point, you’ll say, “I think I got this. I think every single call I’m dealing with is the same way or within parameters. Systems are absolutely important and very personality-driven. I’m a systems person, and luckily for me, Jill is too. Even though she has the phone personality and the sales personality, I have the technical one. She still wants to put systems in place because, at the bottom of Jill’s soul, she wants to spend less time at work, not more.

True.

At the beginning of our career or the beginning of our career together, that just wasn’t the case. We just wanted to get deals done, which is probably where you are but please just keep in the back of your mind that systems will save you once you’re getting 30 calls a day.

Exactly. Thank you.

Phone Presence

Our topic, Why Your Highest Quality Phone Presence is Imperative.

Let’s role-play.

This is the meat of the show.

I would like to call you. I got your mailer. I’m going to call you. This is a good example. This is not meant to throw you or anybody under the bus.

It happens anyway.

That’s true. I want everyone to hear. Let’s just hear the difference, shall we? Answer the phone however you would answer the phone.

This is not how I would do it, because, by the way, for a lot of years, a lot of decades, I had Jill’s job successfully. This is not how I would do it, but this is the opposite.

Let’s just give an example of what you should not do. How’s that? Jack’s going to play the what you should not do.

“Hello.”

“Hi. I got a mailer. I don’t know if I got the right number.”

“Yes. Do you have a price that you want to pay? I would like to buy your property. Did that price work in the mailer?”

Hold on a moment. Hell no.

You want to have a routine. Jill’s going to show us how to do it. You want to put your Disney-like personality on that phone so that you have about 15 to 30 seconds of first impression to feel them out and they’re judging you whether or not they want to sell their property. They wouldn’t have called you back if they didn’t want to sell their property.

You want to have a routine and put your Disney-like personality on that phone so that you have about 15 to 30 seconds of first impression to feel them out. Share on X

I believe there’s always a deal there. That’s the whole point. People say, “No, they called me to yell at me.” I’m like, “Hold on a moment. Dig a little bit.” I think that in the end, they would have thrown it in the trash and laughed if they hadn’t had any interest at all because most people are busy. Most people have stuff going on. They don’t want to take the time to do this. That’s the thing but give them a chance. We could stop right there. You could see how the first impression just goes right away, “Woo.”

You don’t want to say, “Hello.” as if you’re answering your home phone. They probably have looked you up on your landing page already. They have a visual of what you look like and whether or not they identify with you, whether it’s conscious or subconscious. In The Land Academy methodology, what we teach is to set yourself up before you send out the mail. Put a website or landing page up so that they know what you look like and that you’re a regular person. If they think they’re calling Bill Gates, it’s probably not going to work.

Perhaps another country. That’s not going to work.

You want to present yourself like you’re just a good old boy, a good old person or however you describe it.

My turn? Ready? I do this every time you guys laugh at me, “No, you don’t.” I do. When the phone rings, whatever’s going on, I could be having it out with the TV remote, but I pause, throw the remote, and then change my personality, focus, whatever that is, my mentality here, and get right into it. You’ll never know. It could be a seller, it could be a buyer, it could be an agent saying, “We’ve got the best offer on the planet. Where are you? I’m sending over the stuff.” You’ll never know. I always answer feeling great about that call. “Landstay, this is Jill.”

“I received a mailer or I received your interest in buying my land and you offered me $5,800 for my 25-acre property. I’m sorry, that’s not going to work.“

“Hold on. What did I miss? Can you tell me about the property?”

“I have never been there. My wife inherited it about 25 years ago. We had plans to build our retirement house on it. It’s just not going to work out that way.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m tired of paying those real estate taxes, but I’m sure it’s not worth $5,800.”

“Let’s figure it out. Can you give me some of the information? What’s the state? what’s the county?” Blah, blah, blah. Now, I got you talking.

“Ely County, Nevada.”

We can stop there. Home phone presence. We could keep going all day on this. I do. In Land Academy, I have recorded calls that I share with everybody. We could do that again here on the show, too, if we want to. My point is it’s that first impression. Get them talking and find out about the property, whatever the price is. Let them vent, and let them come to you. Let them and let them unload. You started to tell me information about, “I’ve never been there.” Got it. “My wife inherited.” Got it. “Taxes are getting to me.” Got it. “I think it’s worth it.”

At the end of the conversation too, my $5,800 might be the price that we all end with, but we need to talk it through because he doesn’t know. Don’t always assume that you’re wrong and that everybody wants $2 million. You just need to get through this and see where they’re coming from. One of my questions down the road would be, “What do you think it’s worth?” I bet you’d say, “I have no idea.” I said, “We’re at $5,800.”

It’s important to remember, and this is hard for me in the beginning, that you’re not just doing a real estate deal. What I want to do is get through the phone call as fast as I can so that I can get back to doing what I would call, “Real work.” For Jill, real work is what she’s doing on the phone. When she gets done with an eight-hour day. I know this from personal experience. She has been on the phone for six and a half of those eight hours, she is satisfied, and happy and feels she put in a solid day’s work.

I think I wasted six and a half hours. It’s important to know that when you get on the phone, getting off the phone is not the goal. Doing a real estate deal is not your goal. It is your ultimate goal, but I’ll tell you, if she identifies with that person who owns the property, the guy is going to eventually tell us the whole story about his wife, how they received the property, they didn’t know anything about it, they’re tired of the tax bills, and he’s going to end up selling the property to Jill if she wants it.

When you get on the phone, getting off the phone is not the goal. Share on X

Jill has that much confidence, and that’s where if you’re not there in your career, you can find that Jill’s also a lifelong corporate salesperson. If you’re not there in your career, you will be if you have a real interest. The point of this episode is you must go through this. There are several things in life, believe it or not, in my opinion, that can’t be solved by the internet. 

It has to be solved with human interaction or not face-to-face. In this case, but human interaction and that’s how we get deals done. One of the reasons that Jill and I are successful at buying and selling real estate is because she establishes a relationship with the seller or the buyer. They like her. They look forward to talking to her on the phone, and they want to sell to her or buy from her. That’s what this episode’s about.

Thank you. That’s perfect. Do you know that it’s sweet when I think back about it? There have been many times over the years where sellers have told me, “I’m going to miss talking to you.” I’m like, “You can check in. Let me know how you’re doing. It’s great.” I’ve been invited to dinners. We’ve been invited to all kinds of places. It’s sweet.

Join us next time where the topic is Great Land Deal Flow Is Automatic if you follow the Land Academy system. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.