Quick! The phone is ringing. It is a call about your vacant unit. There’s hope!
What does the caller want to know? Everything? No, not even close. The prospective tenant only wants to know what he or she cares about.
What does the average landlord often tell the caller? Everything. It’s the data dump.
The data dump is what landlords usually do when they get an ad call. Data dumps don’t help us or our prospective tenant. They have two disadvantages: one, they tell the prospect a lot more than he or she wants to know; two, they don’t help us get any information. If we are talking, they aren’t. Nobody can find out anything important while talking.
People buy stuff, or rent places to live, for their reasons, not ours. That’s too bad. Because if they rented for our reasons, all we would have to do is tell them all the things we love about the property. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way; prospective tenants might hate some features we thought were the best selling points of all.
What does a prospective tenant want to know? Only what interests him or her. It is really, really hard to find out what interests him or her if we don’t ask questions, and listen carefully to the caller.
For example, here’s how one call might go.
“I’m calling about the house on Maple Street.”
“Good choice,” you reply, “we’ve had a lot of interest in that. What was it that attracted you to the property?” Always say that you’ve had a lot of interest in the property, even if this call is the first one you’ve gotten. It’s true, you have had a lot of interest—you have been really interested in getting the property rented.
“Oh, it’s right near my work. I work at the shopping center down the street. Your flyer says it has three bedrooms, is that right?”
“That’s right. Is that the size home you’re looking for?”
“Yes, that would mean each of our kids would have their own room.”
Then there’s the usual data dump where the landlord lists all the features of the property.
“Hello, I’m calling about the house on Maple Street.”
“Yes, it has 3 bedrooms, 1 ½ baths, gas heat, double-paned windows, a large yard, a single-car garage, and is close to the Mid-Town Mall. The schools are Franklin High, Jefferson Middle and Lincoln Elementary.”
Dead silence.
“You said it had a large yard,” replies the caller.
“Yes, it’s one of the largest in the area.”
“Oh, we didn’t want a large yard. Thanks.” Click.
Look at the difference between the two calls. With a couple of questions the landlord finds out several things about the prospective tenant and what attracted him or her to the property. Not once was there a mention of the fact that it has gas heat or that the windows are double-paned, because the prospective tenant never asked. And the conversation never brought up the deal killer, the “large yard.”
The fact is, the yard is only large relative to the others in the neighborhood. It is undoubtedly small compared to rural lots or even those in some other parts of town. The yard may not seem large to the prospective tenant, at all. But the mental picture of the prospect’s idea of a large yard killed the deal.
You can never find out the buying motives of any prospect unless you give him or her the opportunity to talk. By being interested in your prospect and asking simple questions you find out what those motives are. If you are doing a data dump, you can’t find out any of that.