Regardless if you are wholesaling or flipping your deals, how well you build a buyers list is critical to your success. You may be able to acquire great deals with potentially lucrative profits, but if you can’t do anything with them on the back end you will end up making less. By having ready, willing and able buyers that can close in a short amount of time, you can turn your deals over at a faster pace. By having buyers in place, you should never have to miss out on an opportunity.
Building a good buyers list is more about the retention of data than anything else. Every investment meeting you go to or bandit sign you see is an opportunity to find a buyer. Reach out to these people and see what they might be interested in. You may not have anything in your current inventory that is a fit, but you never know if you will in the future. All of these investors are in the business and should be included in any mass emails you do. It can’t hurt to place them in your database as well.
In addition to bandit signs and club meetings, the internet is full of potential buyers. From Facebook to LinkedIn, there are investors all over the internet. Any property that they are selling means they had to have bought it at one point. Come up with a good introductory email or phone script and reach out to them. Your local investing community is only so big and you never know when you are going to meet the person that changes your business. They may not like your property, but the more contacts you make the greater chance you have to sell it. Perhaps they know someone that may be interested.
Every property that you sell should be displayed over every social media platform. This should not only produce a buyer, but should generate interest in you as an investor. Every conversation you have should be stored and filed away for a future date. If someone has a quick question for you about the property, ask if they are an investor or an end-buyer. If they are an investor, get the conversation started. While taking someone out to lunch may seem easy, it is rarely done. There is no problem with establishing relationships in this business. In fact, it is perhaps the most important thing you can do.
Making contacts with real people in the business is the best way to sell your property quickly, but you can also do things to generate interest. Your own website, bandit signs, direct mail, billboards, Craigslist and newspaper ads are all things you could do at a cost to generate buyers. Depending on the costs associated, these may make sense for you. However, none of these will do you any good if you are not diligent on following up on any incoming leads. Getting your phone to ring is a start, but what you do from there to find buyers is as equally important.
Once you have a list, it is important that you stay in contact with them every few weeks. Send them a quick newsletter or link to a blog post just to keep you on their brain. You may do this for months and never get a response, but when you do have a property, all it takes is one buyer. Building a good buyers list takes time and effort, but it may just be the most important thing you can do as an investor.
