So, Congress is looking at making the Do Not Call Registry permanent. Being a salesman, I have mixed feelings about that. See, I hate getting calls from solicitors. So, I can empathize with folks not wanting to be “harassed” over the phone. (Well, okay, I hate getting calls from MEDIOCRE solicitors. I like good solicitors; I’ve been known to make a purchase or two over the phone. And I LOVE bad solicitors!! Those folks are just plain fun to mess with!)
On the other hand, as a salesman, I know that making these calls is necessary. Heck, here at Century 21 First Realty, we have a whole call center dedicated to soliciting sales over the phone. Granted, the vast majority of our calls are follow-ups with people who have inquired about our properties/services or are currently working with one of our agents. However, we do make our share of cold calls. And the DNC List really takes a bite out of the available numbers to call.
One issue our call center is constantly running into is that of calling our clients “too much.” This mainly comes from our agents. We do hear it from the clients occasionally, but that is actually a rarer occasion. The argument is always that we are going to make people mad and drive off potential customers.
So, we add all that together; folks putting their numbers on the DNC registry, agents saying that we call clients too much, even some clients saying we call too much and we should come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t call people so often, right?
Then, why is the biggest complaint people have with Realtors that they never hear from us?
I did a little home work on our lost sales. Of the 81 sales that we have lost since 1 May 2007, (these are folks who were in our hot little hands because we found them searching for homes in Tallahassee, but purchased or sold with another company), 22 told us that they went with someone else b/c we didn’t keep in touch with them enough. That is how many people actually said that to us as opposed to, “Oh, we found something already. Thanks.” Do you know how many people took their business elsewhere because we called them too often and harassed them? Zero. Yep, exactly none.
Which leads me right back to my original question, how much is too much? I have at least 22 lost sales that say we haven’t even come close to it yet.
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Joe Manausa, MBA, CRB, CRS | Broker / Owner | Century 21 First Realty
2365 Centerville Road | Tallahassee, Florida 32308 | 850-386-2001 | http://www.manausa.com
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