Editors Note: This is an important update to my June 2004 column “How to Get the Gossip.”
It concerns me that too many of my students think calling neighbors and relatives are a waste of their time. They try to short cut my proven system by only seeking owner phone numbers and calling owners first. Then they email me with their questions…
“Alexis, I’m having problems getting good phone numbers. Do you pay for owner’s phone numbers? What other sites are out there to use for finding good phone numbers?”
Ugh! Let’s go back to square one. I DO NOT CALL OWNERS UNTIL I’VE EXHAUSTED MY NEIGHBOR AND RELATIVE CALLS FIRST. (I hope you don’t mind my yelling here.)
Why do I call neighbors and relatives first?
Because they are my eyes and ears to my owner in default. They know what’s going on in his/her life better than anyone else. They know when he’s home. They know his personal problems (wife left him and took the kids, he’s home all the time, recently out of work, etc.). They know if the house is vacant and possible where they moved.
THEY KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR CALL TO THE OWNER MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE. (Us New Yorkers do yell a lot, sorry.)
And, a good neighbor will take a note (with your name and phone #) over to the owners’ house and leave it on their door for you. Then when the owner comes home, they see your note and HAVE TO CALL. I mean, if you drove up and saw a note on your door from your neighbor to call someone, wouldn’t you call them? Wouldn’t you wonder what it was about and have to find out?
And wouldn’t your call backs be SO MUCH HIGHER then simply calling the owners house and hearing voicemail. Try leaving messages to owners in default. Their phone # is either disconnected or they simply do not return your call. If you were in financial trouble and every bill collector was calling you, wouldn’t you hide? But if your neighbor left you a note, you’ve got to return that call. Otherwise, that neighbor will come back again with another note, won’t he? 
Sometimes if the owner is home, when the neighbor brings the note over, the neighbor will hand over their handheld phone right to the owner! Voila – you’ve got the owner on the phone! No more hiding! And if you’re REALLY GOOD (like my clients HERE), if the owner is not home, the neighbor will call you back when he sees the owner return home, so you can hop in your car and know you will reach the owner.
So, rather than search for owners phone numbers – I want you to go back to the basics. Lookup neighbors and relatives first. (If you forgot how to do this, please GO HERE.)
Ask questions. Be curious. Do NOT tell them why you are calling. (The owner will not be happy if you “squealed on him”.) Be brief and stay in control, digging for the dirt. You’ll be shocked at what “stay at home”, “home schooling” moms and retired folks will tell you when you call. (I hate to say it, but ladies DO love to gossip!)
So STOP making your job so hard. Call owners AFTER you have the gossip. Your conversations will improve ten fold. Your first impression will be “spot on”. And you will start making friends MUCH QUICKER than you would by simply “cold calling owners” first.
After 20 years of investing and 15 years of successfully training others, I know FIRST HAND what I say really works. You can read my full bio HERE. You are sealing your fate of failure if you skip this critical step!
Here are some questions you can ask their neighbors:
“Hi, I was hoping you could help me… I am trying to get in touch with your neighbor (name) … He seems to be hard to reach… Can you help me? How long have you lived there? Etc… ”
The same is true when calling possible relatives. When you are done looking for your owner in the white page directories, you will have a list of persons with the same last name who may be related to your owner. So now, let’s find out who’s who!
Here are some questions you can ask possible relatives:
“Hi, I was hoping you could help me… I am trying to get in touch with (full name) … I wasn’t sure if you were related to him… He seems to be hard to reach… Can you help me? How long have you known him? Etc…”
In both cases, you need to be CURIOUS (some call it “nosey”) and expect them to fill in the blanks for you. The key here is to ask “open ended” questions (starting with who, what, where, when, why, how) and see where they take you. Some folks won’t help you at all. Others will tell you the owners’ life story. A chance to get the latter is why you are making these calls!
The nuances of exactly “what to say” and “how to say it” to neighbors and relatives is impossible – to explain in writing. That is why I have my home-study audio (Six Steps to Mastering Foreclosures 2007 Edition) and live 3 Day Lab learning program.
When you come to my office for 3 days for my Lab, you bring your own leads with you (as taught to you in the home-study course) and apply this technique LIVE with my hands on tutoring, first, before you call the owners. It’s the real thing. Except this time you are not working in a vacuum (at your home). You are working side by side with Me, my Protégé Coaches and thirteen other investors, actually doing it RIGHT!
I know you will have wished you’d come sooner. (You can checkout my Lab calendar HERE. Do not be surprised to see I am sold out 6+ weeks in advance. I have stayed full since I created this program over eight years ago. There’s a reason for this. It works!
Until next month… Happy Investing!
Alexis
