During the first 4 years of building our business in Short Sales, and even to this day, we discovered a flaw in our conversational approach with prospective homeowners who were calling off our newspaper and commercial advertisements.  Here's what we found and we can almost guarantee that this tip will help you.  It was often that the very first question a homeowner would ask us, when calling off of an advertisement, was "Hi, I saw your ad.  Would you please tell me more about what you do?"  I found myself wanting to talk about everything under the sun that I did in my real estate business, especially talking about how our primary focus was to save homeowners from the devastation of foreclosure by helping them to sell their home through something called a Short Sale.  Amazingly, I has numerous people hang the phone up on me after I told them I could help in assisiting them to sell their home.  This is what was very interesting and as soon as we changed our approach, it drastically effected our business, in a very positive way.  What we found is that 8 out of 10 homeowners who called us off of an advertisement absolutely did not want to hear, at least for the first 15-20 minutes of the conversation, that we (our company) provided services in helping homeowners to sell their home if they were behind on their payments.  In a nutshell, this was simply an alternative they weren't ready to consider, yet.  No matter how far behind on payments a homeowner is, or how dire their situation is, most homeowners want to believe that they can still stay in their home, regardless.  I will tell you right now that if we sense that a homeowner can continue to stay in their home, and they just need a little help from their lender, either through a loan mod, or whatever their lender is offering, then we'll do everything to keep them in their home.  Unfortunately, we also know that many homeowners, regardless of how you slice it, will ultimately have to sell. 

So, if you are marketing for prospective short sale leads, and you mention anywhere on your advertisement that you help Sellers, who are potentially facing foreclosure, to sell their home, there is a very good chance you're causing upwards of 80% of your target audience not to even pick up the phone and call you, because they aren't ready to sell, yet!  When you get on the phone with a distressed Seller, listen carefully, seek to build the trust and rapport, and then, when you feel the moment is right in your conversation with them, talk about the possibility of them selling their home via a short sale.

Have a great one!

Michael Spickes

America's Home Rescue

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