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...
- 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.
- It's not the quantity of your leads, it's the quality of them.
