Are you struggling to find leads for your real estate business? Are you spending too much time generating leads and not enough time acting on them?
Here are five simple ways to speed the process of lead generation and free up more of your time to make appointments, sign listing contracts, and close sales.
Understand the Data that Drives Your Business
Track your numbers to find out where you should be spending most of your time so that you can get the best return on your investment.
If you know which areas get results, you can focus the majority of your efforts in those areas rather than spending too much time doing things that do not generate income.
Use a Script When Talking to Prospective Leads
This doesn’t mean that you have to have something written down or that you say the same thing word for word every time. What it does mean is that you get familiar with a pattern that works and practice so it becomes natural. A successful script generally has four basic parts:
- Build rapport. Get to know your prospects. Ask them questions about themselves and find things that you have in common.
- Get homeowners to talk about their home – what do they like about it? Find out about their previous experiences with trying to sell their home and with real estate in general.
- Qualify the lead. Find out about their time frame, level of urgency, pain points, etc.
- Ask for an appointment. Get inside their home to see how you can help them with their real estate needs.
Go After Multiple Lead Types
By expanding your pool of prospects, you will inevitably create more leads and increase your numbers overall. Include referrals, expired listings, FSBOs, online buyer leads and geographic areas.
Implement Multiple Prospecting Methods
There are a number of different ways to prospect leads. When you commit to doing all of them, you increase your efficiency and your opportunities.
- Calling. Successful realtors know that calling a lead only once is not enough. If you call during the day, follow up with those numbers that went unanswered in the evening or during the weekend. Use a dialer to speed your calling process.
- Mailing. Though it’s an older method, it is still an extremely relevant lead generation tool. Customize your mailings to the listing rather than just sending out generic mailings that look like junk mail. Remember, the goal is for your prospect to open your mailer and read it rather than toss it in the trash.
- Door knocking. While this may seem archaic or too time intensive, it is highly effective. There is something very powerful about meeting someone face to face, shaking their hand, and telling them what you can do for them.
Invest Money Where it will Serve You Best
A lead service can save you an enormous amount of time to spend on other, more productive aspects of your business. Rather than spending a good part of your day looking through the MLS for expired listings or combing the newspapers for FSBOs, you can get someone else to dig up that info and spend your time making the appointments and listing presentations that will actually lead to sales.
The difference between realtors who make $70,000 a year and those who make $250,000 a year is in where they focus their efforts. By spending your time doing what really counts—connecting with prospective clients—you will see dramatic results in your productivity and bottom line.
Stay tuned in for the next few weeks as we discuss each of these five steps in depth.
