04/12/2022
"I'm Not Selling to a 'Company' That Uses "btw".
If you don't know how to handle the fallout from being in a negative reputation industry, you'll have a hard time making it in real estate.
Either as an investor or as an agent.
I get this reinforced for me every day of the week from conversations with home sellers who reached out to Virginia House Partners for help selling their homes.
Some have hidden concerns.
Some are upfront with what they've heard or read about investors.
Then there was the bizarre one that happened yesterday.
It started out as merely strange, but went downhill from there.
There were 5 seller leads that came in yesterday. This one arrived around 2:00 in the afternoon.
But the address that I got for the property this seller wanted help with was in Pennsylvania - which is weird because our ads are only for VA properties.
Not only that, the address given didn't come up on Zillow or any other online portal, and didn't even come up on a standard Google search.
Looked like the address didn't exist.
So instead of sending the standard reply, I started by asking this person to confirm the address.
Turns out the street name was misspelled.
Once I got the right spelling I was able to find the property online.
But then I saw it wasn't in PA. It was actually in VA.
I confirmed that with the prospective seller and then sent him the standard first message to get him to fill out the info we need.
That's when it got bizarre.
Rather than try to explain it to you, let me show you his next 4 text messages:
"Never mind you can cancel all of this."
I found a real person to sell to."
"I'm not selling to a "company"that uses "btw" "
"And I looked you up in the bbb website ur not legit" "
================================
When I saw that come in my train of thought went like this:
"What the f*ck is he talking about?"
"Who has a problem with someone using 'btw' in a text? And then uses 'ur' but is okay with that?"
"A real person? Like I'm not? Didn't he notice that I asked him specific questions related to confirming his address? Not something a bot could/would do? And on a Sunday, no less."
"What is he talking about on the BBB site?"
I had no idea what the BBB site said about Virginia House Partners, so the next thing I did was go look.
What I found was that Virginia House Partners has an A+ rating on the BBB site.
He lied!
I was pi**ed at this point (not a very productive reaction on my part) but a real one.
Fortunately, I knew better than to mishandle the communication because of my reaction.
But...
I also wasn't going to let it slide.
He needed to be called out on what he said about us not being 'legit'.
Ryan Fletcher has taught me in the past that I need to use media to show people what I want them to understand. Rather than just telling them.
This includes 3rd-party proof when trying to prove or disprove something that affects the decision to work with us.
Basic marketing principles.
So here's what I did...
I texted him back with a screenshot of what I found on the BBB site (see the image here - showing an A+ rating).
Calling him out on his bulls .
"You mean this BBB website? The one at www. bbb.org where you can look up Virginia House Partners in Woodbridge, VA...
I'll honor your request above and cancel anything further on our end."
You can probably tell I was still a little pi**ed.
But here's the thing...
I kept everything civil and polite.
While STILL calling him out on his bull.
Then I changed his record in our system so that we would never contact him again.
At that point, I took my attention off of this bizarro exchange and started working on responding to the next person requesting help.
Funny thing...
He didn't just ignore me or slink away.
He replied to my text with this:
"Sorry I've been scammed to many times and didn't want to take a risk if it's okay we can continue the process."
Good for him.
And continuing with the process is exactly what we did.
This is a perfect example of how this Negative Reputation Industry fallout works.
And how en ethical investor can win despite it.
One of the 3 Fundamental Reasons people don't work with you (i.e. Sellers won't sell to you) is that They Don't Believe You (i.e. they don't trust you).
My friend and mentor, Ryan Fletcher, explains why this makes your job so much harder:
"YOU ARE HATED BEFORE YOU ARRIVE.
DISTRUSTED BEFORE YOU SPEAK A WORD…"
And that's why...
I'm spending so much time studying marketing.
To be able to counter the negative reputation assigned to us because of what others in the industry have done or are doing.
There's no getting around the negative reputation.
Ignoring it or wishing it didn't exist doesn't get the results we want.
But knowing that it exists.
Knowing how to handle it.
And providing a superior level of service.
Gives me a leg up over our competition.
So, here's the deal...
There are problems and barriers in any business.
And in any attempt to better your life.
Dealing with the negative reputation that comes with being in this industry has to be viewed as just another problem to solve.
A barrier to overcome.
One that can be beat with the proper use of the proper tools of marketing.
