This is a follow up to my post about real estate lead quality.

 

Most agents are converting online leads to sales at a rate of around 2% (-Inman study).  I’ve seen 1-5% considered to be the industry norm for quite sometime, which leads me to ask… can it be better?  I’ll cut to the chase, and say YES we can do better.  Looking at the real estate industry as a whole, I see an oil and water marriage of sales process, and marketing technology.  Put bluntly, I think a lot of teams are running  models/processes that could be more efficient.   Whether you’re simply looking to go from 2% to 3% or want to take a team well above the 5% margin here are a few concepts I think will prove themselves effective at any level.

1.  Understand what your lead types are, and where they come from.

The word “lead” gets thrown around a lot in the real estate industry, and can typically mean anything from a request for a property showing to a person who simply “liked” a page.  Do an analysis of your lead gen systems, campaigns, website, etc.  Consider what actions are occurring in order to bring this person to your attention.   Here are a few examples…

  • Property inquiry: User requests a showing.
  • Squeeze form: This is one of the most common online lead capture methods.  User must create an account to proceed.
  • General inquiry: Think “contact us” emails, and related general forms.
  • Request for info: CMA’s, ebooks downloads, etc. The user asks for information to be delivered.

Next consider the sources of your lead generation.  Even if all traffic points to one squeeze form it’s worth noting where that user likely came from.  Portals, Google, and Facebook are typically the norm here.

2.  Define what “prospect-able” leads are for your business.

Give most agents a name, email, without a phone number and you’ll likely watch them squirm.  If the majority of their sales training, and prospecting tasks revolve around using the phone/dialer then why would we expect anything else?

Building an effective real estate team/brokerage requires people to take on dedicated roles.  Agents can’t do it all.  We see the agent-centric models of the past few decades fledgling already.  If we want to hold agents accountable, and set achievable goals then we must give them leads that they can effectively prospect with the resources they have.  The team leader or marketing dept needs to handle those that are not.   Unfortunately there is no one size fits all metric for “prospect-able” leads.  This is likely a conversation that a team/company needs to have, and decide on.

Some football coaches will say “if you can touch the ball you can catch it” others might say “it’s the QB’s responsibility to place the ball in a catch-able position”  Whatever side of the coin your company sits on make it a point to create a lead profile that agents can work with, and set expectations from there.  A quick list of potential variables to get started…

  • Name (real or fake?)
  • Email (valid or no?)
  • Phone (valid or no?)
  • Financing? Pre-approved?
  • Time frame?
  • Geographic location?
  • Desired Price point?

When I see agents moan about lead quality or claim they can’t prospect a lead it’s usually, because of the info or lack of info provided in one or a few of the above variables.

My observations have been that most teams consider a valid name, phone, email is enough to give to an agent, but what do the agents always say?  “Not pre-approved, too far away, or low price point. I can’t work these”   This is where conversations need to happen…

  • “if a lead is too far away then where exactly is the threshold for distance?”
  • “Should agents only be talking with pre-approved/qualified leads?”
  • “If a lead asks to go on a showing for a $90K property what needs to happen?”

3. Create  Processes Based on steps 1 & 2.

Let’s get one harsh reality out of the way…  After looking at steps one and two one might think that all they have to do is change up their lead gen to yield only “prospectable” leads their agents want.  This is where headaches can occur, and a lot of money gets left on the table.  Creating one process to rule them all, and trying to force the uncontrollable isn’t effective.  The smart money is in creating multiple processes for all the different scenarios.

Here are a few examples…

1. Lead: Joe Smith, (123) 555-6543, Joe@gmail.com.  “I would like to speak with an agent about 123 street”

Process: Attempt call within 5 minutes.  Identify if pre-qualified or cash buyer.  Setup showing.  If no answer use 21 days of gain until appointment set.

2. Lead: Micky Mouse, No phone, joe@gmail.com (valid email), registered via squeeze, viewed 22 foreclosure properties.

Process:  Smart-drip enabled.  added to investor email list.

Very rough example above, but I just wanted to demonstrate that even with a lead that doesn’t fit prospecting thresholds there is still work to be done.  Often the question is who needs to do it.  Who contacts these leads?  Who is monitoring them?  Who is creating content get them prospectable?  When a bad lead turns good who makes that next contact?  These are the questions teams have to find answers for in order to create effective processes.

This is where the ISA model has proven effective.  Often ISA’s handle the initial prospecting of leads, and pass off workable prospects to agents.  Where I think smart teams will take things further is in the formation of dedicated marketing roles that are building campaigns to market effectively to all lead types.  This is being done already by some, and plenty of coaches recommend a dedicated marketing role to high volume teams.

Lot of info covered today so here’s another TL;DR recap…

  • All leads are not equal in value.
  • All “leads” are not “prospects” Define who is who.
  • Who’s responsible for what? Roles and responsibilities are crucial to efficient team building.
  • One process does not fit all.  Have the conversations. Test, and implement different processes for different scenarios.  This will keep everyone moving, prepared, and accountable.