What’s the secret to closing more real estate leads than your competition? Is it buying online leads at a higher volume? Is working your sphere of influence to ask for more referral leads?
Does the secret to closing real estate leads than your competitors come down to more cold calling, increasing your social proof with online reviews or spending more time on social media marketing strategies?
Well, if our recent podcast guests Justin Seeby and Ryan Graham from the Graham Seeby Group in Atlanta are any indication, it is all of those and more.
But more importantly, these real estate agents told Pat Hiban the real secret to closing more real estate leads could be summed up as speed to lead, planning and persistence.
Speed to lead is vital to closing more real estate leads
Is your lead response time killing your business? Speed to lead can be the difference between getting double-digit listing presentation appointments and winning more listings each month or seeing your competition plant their sign in those sellers’ front yards.
How important is speed to lead? Well, our guests pointed out a Forbes Magazine piece which shared that 71 percent of internet leads are wasted in part because of a slow response time.
And the two went on to share that if real estate agents were to just focus on responding to web-generated leads in five minutes or less, then they would increase their contact rates by 900 percent.
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Plan for faster response times, and you’ll close more real estate leads
So, how can real estate agents — agents who are often showing properties to buyers, writing offers, going on listing appointments, etc. — drop everything they are doing to respond to an online lead.
The good thing is you don’t have to be on your toes 24-7 ready to respond before the clock hits five minutes. It’s all about planning and technology.
Plan ahead with your team on the procedure for reaching back out to real estate leads in five minutes or less. If your volume of leads is too high to handle, hire an inside sales agent or outsource to lead response management company.
Once you have a plan in place, find the right technology to fit your needs and budget.
There are highly-sophisticated options available as well as lower-cost options to improve your speed to lead. Do your research, and you’ll easily find the right fit for you or your real estate team.
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Persistence pays big dividends with real estate leads
The third part of this strategy for closing more leads is simple – don’t fade away after coming out of the gate fast. Going back to the initial study discussed in the Forbes Magazine article, Seeby and Graham shared another interesting fact regarding lead responses from businesses.
This is pretty amazing — or sad, depending on how you look at it. Businesses only follow-up with leads 1.3 times. Think about that for a minute. As a real estate agent, if you can just reach back out to an online lead two times, you already have a jump on your competition.
And talk about persistence, Seeby and Graham utilize a four- to five-year follow-up program with all buyer and seller leads. And they offered some very sound advice for their fellow agents — don’t spend money on leads if you are not following up with persistence.
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Listen to this podcast as it is packed full of strategies on everything from closing more real estate leads to free Zillow tactics, an awesome video email strategy, a surefire script for non-mets, listing presentation tips and more. These guys were on fire during their interview!
Pat Hiban is the author of NYT best selling book “6 steps to 7 figures – A Real Estate Professional’s Guide to Building Wealth and Creating Your Destiny”, the founder of Rebus University and the host of Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars an Agent to Agent Real Estate Radio Podcast with Hiban Digital in Baltimore, Maryland. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter.
