Featured Download: The Facebook Page Setup Checklist – specifically for real estate agents – get your Facebook page setup to capture real estate leads.
Do you know what the difference is between a “Mega Real Estate Agent” and “All Other Real Estate Agents”?
I’ll give you some hints . . .
It’s not the size of their teams.
It’s not the number of people they know.
It’s not how long they’ve been in the business.
It’s not the number of their leads.
It’s not “luck”
Conversion.
This is the key.
So here’s the deal…
Converting real estate leads and closing more sales all come down to two things . . .
Follow-Up
and
Fulfillment
It’s that simple and, it’s that hard.
Follow-Up
Apparently follow-up is so hard, 48% of agents never even follow-up once with a prospect. Not a single time. Never. I’m wondering how agents expect to close a deal when they aren’t even attempting to contact a prospect even once.
Not once!! Wow.
However, that does mean that 52% of agents follow-up with a prospect at least once. Well, at least half of real estate agents follow-up at least once. This is really a pathetic statistic. Makes me wonder why 48% of agents are “in the real estate business”.
Ok. What about twice? You know, you leave a message or respond to an email or text the first time, but what about a second time? Yeah, that’s even worse. Only 25% of agents contact a prospect a second time. They stop after the 2nd contact. Wow. Again.
Maybe they think the prospect, who contacted them initially, isn’t interested? Or has changed their mind? Or they don’t have an effective method for keeping track of who to contact and when? Who knows. But still, it’s not like it’s that hard to follow-up with someone more than once or twice. Really. It isn’t.
Ok, let’s go just a little deeper. What about a 3rd contact? Only 12% of agents make three or more contacts with the prospect. That means 88% of agents didn’t bother trying to follow-up with a prospect after the 2nd contact. Wow. Yet, again.
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
Do you know what this means?
It means that 88% of real estate agents share 10% of all sales, which also means that 12% of real estate agents are sharing 90% of the sales, simply because they contact their prospect three or more times.
It means you have GOT to get over your fear of offending a prospect by contacting them “too much”. Really. You’ve got to.
You are not badgering them. They communicated to you that they are an interested prospect. You must be there, when they are ready, willing, and able to consummate a transaction.
You can never follow-up too much. No, you can’t. Stop allowing your limiting beliefs to control you. If it’s too much for someone, they’ll tell you. They’ll say go away, or unsubscribe from your email, or something else.
The key is, do not stop following-up until they buy, sell or say stop.
Now that you understand what you need to do with follow-up, let’s look at fulfillment.
Fulfillment
Fulfillment is what you are giving them. What questions are you answering, what needs of theirs are you meeting.
Their most important need is for you to be there when they are ready. This is accomplished through consistent follow-up. Their second most important need is for you to anticipate their questions and other needs, and provide answers, resources, and resolutions.
Fulfillment is much easier than follow-up, but fulfillment requires follow-up in order to accomplish it. Simply by following-up, you are meeting their number one need.
By following-up you are there to answer their questions, as they have them. By following-up you are anticipating their needs. By following-up you are able to provide answers, resources and resolutions.
So now that you know how to convert real estate leads and close more sales like a mega agent, what are you going to do differently?
What are you going to implement that will jump you into the 12% who close 90% of the real estate sales?
Featured Download: The Facebook Page Setup Checklist – specifically for real estate agents – get your Facebook page setup to capture real estate leads.
Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.
Leonie Toso says
I am doing my RealEstate course in 2 weeks I am the only female sales agent at the office and I have NEVER done Real Estate before your information that I have just read is mind blowing is it really that easy I can’t wait to try thanks Leonie thankyou thankyou thankyou
Christina Ethridge says
It’s easy – but it takes consistent work. That’s the key.
Amir says
Pretty awesome and succinct, Christina.
New agent here. Making “just listed” calls daily with quarterly follow-up calls set up on my database. I’m told that this will eventually get me leads. So when the leads are eventually encountered, how do I prepare myself for fulfillment? Can you suggest (or refer me to) approaches/material one can learn to enhance one’s ability to convert?
Thanks in advance.
Amir
Christina Ethridge says
Hi Amir –
Unfortunately, what you’ll find within the industry is a whole lot of canned “crap” as I call it. I strongly suggest taking some time and energy and learn conversion techniques from outside of the real estate industry.
Most (nearly all) agents have absolutely no follow-up for leads, prospects and closed clients. Most agents work from a perspective of “My closings come from the people who want to do something right this minute and don’t take a lot of effort on my part to nurture.”
With that said, a major aspect of what I teach is nurture & conversion. Long term. Over months and years. It’s not a get rich quick industry (though some would have you believe it is) but it can be very stabile and predictable for you, IF you set yourself up for long-term conversion.
Right away, I would start out from an aspect of “give & serve” and SHOW that by giving answers to common questions (answers that are not promotional in nature) and put those answers first on your blog site, then promote them on Facebook, then use them in weekly emails out to your leads, then use them in your (at least) twice monthly direct mail campaigns.
In other words, use your same content across multiple channels.
Andrew Gunckel says
Hey Christina, Wonderful info! I’m just wondering, as a new agent who has recently been gaining more and more leads than I know what to do with, what my follow up process should look like. While prospecting, I gain roughly five contacts a day, and I’m not sure of a god system to make sure i follow up consistently with all of the old as well as new leads that are coming in. is there a certain CRM that you would recommend? Thanks so much for the post btw!
Christina Ethridge says
Hi Andrew – any CRM will help you – I tend to recommend Follow Up Boss & Brokers Helper but again, any system will help you – even a spreadsheet. Here’s a tip to help stay connected – send out a weekly email, written by you, that has a personal connection topic in it. This goes out to everyone. This is huge in the whole “followup game”