Mailbox Motivator FAQ

Based on data from almost 4 years of tracking, the best results are achieved by sending 3 letters … spaced at least 2 weeks apart and a maximum of 30 days apart, with each one followed by a telephone follow-up approximately 4 days after the mailing. This is a process built on repetition and frequency, which leads to recognition. Your main objective is to be “top of mind” when the Personal Representative decides to seek assistance or actually start the selling process. After you get started with the mailing and calling program, and even though some of your letters may be ignored initially, you will have made an “entry” in their memory. When the right time occurs AND and if you’ve been the one they heard of most recently and/or most frequently, they will be most likely to remember you. Therefore, you’ll logically be the one they will most likely contact. Just remember, more impressions and more frequent impressions equals more success!

The letter that often gets the most traction is the “options” letter that lists all of the things you can bring to the table to help them, such as: a) getting rid of no longer needed (not unwanted – choose your words carefully) personal property; cleaning the house to get it ready to be shown; providing trusted contractors to deal with “deferred maintenance” (again, best choice of words since no one wants to hear that their house is in bad shape); estate sale and auction company assistance; and any other services you offer. The reason is that one of these “services” may be exactly what is standing in the way of starting the selling process. Often, people begin with the “options” letter and then follow that with one of the more “I want to list your house” letters and re-send the “options” letter as the 3rd letter. We also have successful subscribers who do an initial letter; followed by a postcard; then another letter during month three and then they alternate with cards and letters over the next 9 months. Again, repetition equals recognition.

First, be aware that if we do the calls for you via our ISA program, some scrubbing is automatic. As our ISAs make contact with Personal Representatives, they note the disposition and opportunity. Then, when they are done with the initial round of calls, they update them all in your CRM. That makes good sense and doing this will narrow your list each month thereafter. However, scrubbing in advance is generally not a good idea and not recommended. The primary reason is that the only thing you might use to scrub against (without significant additional work on your part) is to filter using the last known address. The problem is that it’s not always a reliable indicator of property contained within the estate because many people’s last known address might be an assisted living facility or they were staying with another family member or somewhere else they did not own. However, they may actually own substantial real estate that is not located where they last resided, so scrubbing based on the last known address would miss those completely and you could be wasting as many as half your leads by doing that. Usually, the only valid way to determine if there’s property in the estate is either doing time-consuming tax record research or MLS research on your own. That can narrow the targets, but we recommend not doing that and letting the system we’ve designed do the work for you. When you get calls from your letters, you can update the CRM and as you (or our ISAs) make the followup calls, you can also narrow the list by updating the dats in your CRM to exclude from future mail or calls based on info you’ve researched. The final reason not to do this is that even if there is no property to be sold, the Personal Representative might have recently inherited at some substantial funds from the estate. You should always keep that in mind because “found money” can certainly trigger the start of looking for a new home.