Cold calling RV Park owners is a great way to find deals. But it’s very uncomfortable for those who have not done it before. In this RV Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some great ideas to reduce your fear of “smiling and dialing” and help you make this an important part of your sourcing of potential deals.
Episode 117: Tricks To Breaking The Ice On Cold Calling Transcript
There are many ways to find an RV park to buy, and one of the best is cold calling. The simple, free act of picking up the phone and calling the owner of the existing RV park to inquire as to whether they would like to sell or not, and what price they might be asking. But many people, when they look at all the alternatives to find RV parks to buy, that's the one they don't want to do. They don't mind looking at the online listings, of course. That's simple. That's low stress. They don't mind cold calling brokers to get on their email list and see what offerings they have. They don't mind doing direct mail because direct mail is very impersonal. But when it comes to cold calling, they typically try and shun it because it makes them uncomfortable. This is Frank Rolfe of the RV Park Mastery Podcast. We're going to be talking about how to break the ice with yourself on cold calling. How to get over the hurdle of doing something that you probably don't like to do. Let me start off by saying that before I ever got into the RV park business, I owned a billboard company.
In fact, I grew that company into the largest private owner of billboards in Dallas, Fort Worth. And when you own a billboard company, it's all about cold calling. Because we used to have to make about 100 cold calls to rent a single billboard, and I had 300 of them. So you can imagine how many cold calls it took per year to keep all of those 300 billboards occupied. It was absolutely crushing. And nobody likes doing that. But that became the biggest part of my life, was all about cold calling. So here are some tips that I learned on how to be a better cold caller, and how to get over the stress of doing it. The first thing is don't take it too seriously. You're just trying to see if the mom and pop RV park owner wants to sell or not. No one's going to die. You're not a surgeon. You're not an air traffic controller. You're just somebody calling up to see, hey, do you want to sell your RV park? I once had a salesman that worked for me cold calling all the time. He took every call so seriously. One day he was cold calling someone and they told him, nah, I don't think I really want a billboard.
He got so uptight that he snapped a red pen in half and got red ink everywhere. And then he just started screaming and cussing. And I said, look, you're gonna have to get a different job. You're upsetting everybody. You're just not cut out to be a cold caller because he took everything so darned seriously. But that's not what you do when you cold call. You're simply a matchmaker. You're just out there trying to find what people want. And then those that want to sell, well, you're trying to match how much they need to see if you're the one to buy it. But it shouldn't be anything you take with such a life or death intensity. Number two, when you're cold calling, I have found it always works best if you're extremely direct. Rambling introductions make sellers uncomfortable. Picture yourself answering the phone. You're a mom and pop owner of an RV park. It's a complete stranger on the other end of the line. If they just come straight out in the front and said, hi, I'm Frank. I'm just curious if you'd want to sell your RV park, you're no longer worried as to what they want. You know what they want.
You can breathe a sigh of relief if you thought it was someone selling you insurance or something. But when you call up and the RV park owner says hello, and you say yes, how's the weather going there in Denver? It's delightful this time of year. Well, they're freaking out because they don't know what in the heck you want. And their better judgment tells them just to slam down that phone. It's probably someone trying to enroll them into some kind of Medicare program or trying to sell them a reverse mortgage. So being direct really makes cold calling much simpler. Another good thing to do is to send a direct mail piece out before you cold call, because the easiest way to cold call someone is to say, hi, this is Frank Rolfe. I'm just calling to follow up on something I sent you in the mail. Typically, that earns you a lot of brownie points. It means you cared enough to send them something in the mail. Doesn't really sound like a cold call. Right? You're just trying to follow up, make sure they got it. So that's always a good way to do it. If you're doing direct mail out to people, it's much easier to cold call.
That's why a lot of RV park buyers, that's what they do. They'll send out that direct mail postcard or their letter, and then they'll follow up with with the cold call. And they're doing that deliberately because it makes it easier on them. I've also found it works better with a person on the other end of the phone because they may have gotten in your postcard or letter, and now it's being reinforced with that follow-up call. So they're more likely to say, yes, I did get it and here's what I think about it. So that one, two punch always makes things go easier when it comes to cold calling. Also, you got to remember what your role truly is. You're just a matchmaker trying to match sellers and buyers. And so don't take it personally if you do get rejected. If someone does slam down the phone on you, if they say, no, I'm not interested, that's not some kind of negative on you as a person. They're not saying, oh, I hate your cold calling ability, and so I'm judging to hang up on the phone, you terrible cold caller, you. They just don't want to sell at this point.
Maybe they want to wait around. Maybe they don't want to sell their RV park ever because they just like it. Maybe they don't like the timing right now. Maybe they're waiting for something to happen down the road before they want to sell. But you're just a matchmaker. You're just gathering data. You're like someone with a white lab coat just trying to find out scientifically what's going on, but you can't take it personally at all.
Also, unlike what many people tell you, always be very enthusiastic because when a mom and pop talks to someone who's enthusiastic, it's a huge turn on. I know that many negotiating books would say that is absolute heresy. That's the worst idea I have ever heard in my entire life. Because now you're tipping your hand to your adversary, the RV park owner, that you really want their RV park and that'll make the price go up. Here's the problem. The first problem is getting the RV park owner interested in selling it. A lot of those negotiation books you read at the bookstore, those come from things like buying a refrigerator or buying a car where it's just a commodity that's always for sale.
And all you're trying to do in the negotiation book is to get the price down. But it's there, there's already a price on it. It's always fully for sale. And they're correct. If you go to a car dealer at 4:59, when they close at 5:00 on the last day of the month, yeah, you will get $100 off because the salesmen want to get one more sale in on their scorecard before the month ends. That has nothing to do with the way RV parks are bought or sold. Instead, if you are very enthusiastic about the RV park, that tells mom and pop, oh, this person might be a good steward of this property. This person might actually close on this thing. This person might be a fun person to work with for a few months during due diligence. Always be happy, always be friendly, always be enthusiastic. That is among your best ways to get the job done. Also, remember that bonding is a very big part of the whole buying process. And what is bonding? Bonding is when the mom and pop owner of the RV park like you.
When they like you, magical things happen. Lower prices, seller financing. Nothing but good things come of when mom and pop bonds with you. And the biggest way to get bonding going is listening, not talking. When you're cold calling people, you often feel like you need to keep talking, right? You're cold calling them. Instead, ask them questions and then just listen. A great way to break the ice is simply to say, okay, tell me how you came to own the RV park. That answer can go on for a minute, 10 minutes, an hour. It's a great bonding introduction question. And you just attentively listen. And by you attentively listening, then they're going to often like you better because you're respectful of them and they feel like you're truly interested in them and their RV park. And you'll get huge brownie points from that. Also, before you ever hang up the phone on your cold call with mom and pop, always try and find out when and at what time you're supposed to call them back again. Because typically, it's a journey, it's repetitive. You may have to cold call someone several times to find out if they will sell and at what price. So before you hang up with mom and pop, say, hey, what do you think if I would call you a week from now, maybe on Thursday the 12th at about two o'clock again? And they'd say, oh yeah, that sounds fine.
Then when you call them, say, hey, this is Frank. You told me to call you Tuesday the 12th at two o'clock and here I am. And then it seems like it was their idea. They're empowered, they want to talk to you because you're very respectful of their time. And you didn't call them out of the blue. You called them because they already had an organized period in which to do it. Finally, it doesn't hurt just to practice the whole idea of cold calling. And that's basically just talking to strangers. And I don't mean in a weird way that gets you in trouble with the police. But if you go to, for example, your farmer's market, an antique show, a garage sale, an estate sale. The simple act of going up to the front and saying, hey, you know, what's the price on this candlestick? That breaking the ice in conversation, which most Americans don't have anymore, don't do anymore, that can pay huge dividends to you in feeling comfortable to calling complete strangers to ask them, hey, would you want to sell your RV park? Most importantly, don't forget that when you cold call someone to buy an RV park, the whole sales relationship has gone topsy turvy.
Because when I was renting billboards, I was calling people to want to give me money. But if they're going to sell their RV park, you're trying to give them money. It's complete role reversal. I cannot tell you how refreshing it's been to be in the RV park business from the billboard business for that very reason. You always get a warm reception when you're trying to give someone money. And maybe we shouldn't call it cold calling in our industry, but something that sounds a little more friendly, maybe warm calling, because rarely do you get a bad response. This is Frank Rolfe, the RV Park Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.