Monday, September 13, 2010

Research Your Leads So You Don't End Up Only Working The "Princess Luncheons" With Your Son!

I recently took my 6 year old son to Disney World in Orlando for a weekend away, just the two of us.  While we were there I decided to do one of those character lunches.  Not doing my normal full research on it, I booked us a lunch "with characters" in Epcot.  We arrived at the prescribed time and were taken in to the restaurant.  We got in line for the picture of my son with the "character" at the time.  Imagine my horror when I realized that my lack of research had led us to be booked at a Disney Princess Lunch!  He was a good sport.  He got kissed by one very attractive Belle from "Beauty and The Beast" and then also got a nice smooch from Snow White.  He kindly asked Cinderella and Ariel to refrain from the kisses, which they did.

The lack of research is totally not like me.  But, I thought about it today as I was working through things for a few clients who are considering using our services for calling of their leads that may have been lost in the wind somewhere.

My lack of research is much like most agents lack of follow up with the leads that six months ago or so may have been "C" leads.  These leads may be the "big" one now, but because they are still a C in your database you aren't giving them the attention they need.  Had I done my research, I could have ended up at a lunch or dinner with Buzz Lightyear instead (much more of a great thing for a 6 year old boy).  But, because I ended up at the Princess luncheon, we had fun, but not nearly as exciting as Buzz would have been.

Our calling services find those Golden Eggs for you and do it for little investment on your end.  Imagine if while you are showing houses or taking a new listing you come back to your computer or check your Blackberry to find that we have been calling through your leads and has turned just one of those C leads into an A lead that wants to buy that big house on the hill you have been dying to sell for months!  Or when you get back and see that we found not one, but three leads for you to go sell a house to.  In the email we send you is all the details, what price range, how many bedrooms, etc.  You just need to call them and find them the house!  Our calling will find the Buzz leads for you with your 6 year old son instead of leaving them there and likely losing them to another agent because you didn't act fast enough or didn't stay in touch enough.

Let us loose!  We can make the world of difference for you and your business!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Let Us Help You Cool Off This Summer!

My son was recently in swimming lessons and on the fourth day of classes I found myself watching him with his yellow life jacket on making his way to the two story slide that was on the other side of the large pool, as I watched him make his way up the stairs I was nervous, he didn't like his head to go under water and I knew it was inevitable, even with the life jacket.  I was shocked as I watched him make his way to the top, get into the slide pool at the top and push himself off to begin the decent to the bottom.  As he shot out the other side of the slide, his head went slightly under water and then the life jacket kicked in and popped him back up to the surface.  His face emerged with a giant smile on it, he looked across the pool to me and yelled "Mom, that was cool!  I'm gonna do it again!".  That day we remained at the pool for most of the day, all the while I laid out and worked on my tan, watching him as he made his way up the stairs, got in the slide pool, pushed off, and came out the other end, only to do it again for three hours straight.

I found myself thinking about this today as I was sending emails to clients and discussing client agendas with various team members.  I've spent the past few weeks thinking about different ways to help my clients with different items so that they can concentrate on selling homes.  It was then that I thought about how we are just like the life jacket, our clients come to us either about to fall into the water and go under, or already under the water and they need to be brought back to the surface and made to see that everything is okay.

We help bring it all together, giving you the resources to stop spending hours and hours each week doing work that we could do for you.  You can't be out showing houses if you're on the phone tyring to qualify leads, or entering a new listing into the MLS or sending out marketing newsletters, can you?  Imagine being able to just send in the leads and somebody qualifies them for you, or you send in the information on that new listing and somebody else markets it for you, or what about somebody writes up your newsletter and sends it out for you!?  We give you the resources to get done the things that you don't really have the time to do...let us be your life jacket!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

You Don't Need More Leads, You Just Need To Work The Ones You Have In A Smart Way!

I recently worked with a client who's business is based in an area of Florida that has not seen much pick up in the real estate market.  She is a real estate agent that has been very successful in the past but the recent housing market crisis has changed that.

When she became my client she told me that she needed more clients.  After a brief review of her database I found that she had more than she could possibly work and that she just needed some help looking at them "differently".  One thing that I have learned is that most of my clients think they need more leads because the leads they have right now aren't in front of them.  In most cases, these current leads don't know that they want to buy or sell for sure, they are just "thinking" about it.  I hear that all the time as a matter of fact.

The truth with every one of my clients is that they have needed to clean up their database, it's just convincing THEM that they have to do it.  As with my client, she was very apprehensive about doing database cleanup work with us.  But, we make it a little less painful by exporting the leads to Excel, telling you how to code them, and you sit down and spend 5-10 hours (depending on your total database size) to clean up the entire database over a month or so instead of spending five times more than that trying to do it on your own.

After about a month my client realized that she did in fact have enough leads.  As we began sending her weekly leads reports and she began working through them, updating the notes, coding (Buyer, Seller, SOI (sphere of influence) and the rating (A, B, C) she started to notice just how many leads she did have in play.  As we worked more and more through the leads she started to realize the value in what we do for her.

It was about five months into her service with us that I had a conference call with her and the owner of our company, Steve, and we discussed her three major constraints that she had at the time.  I saw it coming, "Time, Money and Focus" she told us.  As we talked more and more we discussed her existing leads and it was then that she realized her buyer's agents weren't doing their jobs.  Instead, she was killing herself day in and day out showing houses to buyers while trying to work her active listings as well as find new listings.  Steve told her about a great idea, hire agents at $10-$15 an hour as showing agents.

A week later she ran the ad in the paper, hired two showing agents and found herself making money in April while also having time to start working the leads she had for new listings!

Had she not had those leads sheets and not cleaned up her leads database, she may never have noticed that her buyers agents weren't actively working their leads and may still be losing money.

That is when I truly realized the importance of a clean and organized database for every business, not just real estate agents.

Remember these two main points that I have learned through this experience and now preach to all of my clients...
  1. You don't need MORE leads, you just need to be able to identify your current leads on a priority level and then work them in a smart way.
  2. It's not the quantity of your leads, it's the quality of them.
If you can learn to live by these rules, I believe you can be successful at whatever your business does, just ask us how!