Revolutionize Your Business with our Lead Conversion System

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hi I'm Jeff Cohn host of the team building podcast where we interview top team leaders broker owners and thought leaders from across the country really excited about sharing with you our high level team leader podcast episode today specific to lead conversion everyone's always so excited to talk about lead generation what matters more and what I'm most excited to speak to is return on investment from our lead gen efforts and return on time the w o r k that we and our agents do behind the leads is what will Define our success and so today we're going to be diving deep into lead conversion best strategies that have proven to convert over 2500 internet leads from our small little team in Omaha Nebraska that's generated almost 20 million dollars in commission of which we've kept 50 if you'd like to learn more about that stay tuned over the next 20 min I'm going to be diving deep before doing so would like to thank everyone who has supported our podcast January had more downloads than any other month in history last year we are excited to report we had over 160 000 downloads and to date we've had over 6 million listeners if you've taken advantage of this podcast and you're implementing the things that we talk about on this podcast into your life and into your business and you have found it to be a success there's nothing more that would be meaningful to us than for you to go out to whatever podcast app you're using and give us a shout out give us a five star review and say something about one of our listeners give a positive as to why others should take advantage of the podcast as well when you do that the algorithm that those podcasts use will help others like you find this content so that they can change their lives as well um also for anyone that has yet to sign up for ERS coaching or one of our upcoming ERS workshops which we actually have a workshop coming up March 20th and 21st in Omaha Nebraska go out to grow with ers.com click on Workshop give us your info and we'll send you some more information about some upcoming events so in 2011 uh going back now what 12 years we signed up for Boom Town now of course that's our our experience with internet lead gen uh we've put a lot of time and energy into Google PPC to generate the leads but lead conversion best practices the ones that I'm about to talk about are specific to any lead Source it could be a referral from a friend it could be someone that you met at an open house it could be an internet lead that registered on your website what we've come to learn is that people are people are people and the number one point to help you convert at a higher levels building a relationship of trust because people do business with people who they know like and trust and trust is created by connection and if you pick up the book seven levels of communication by Michael Mayer Michael will outline the best ways to communicate with individuals to create the best type of connection so inside of the Boomtown platform there's a back-end client relationship management tool previous to Boomtown we used Excel on steroids I built out an Excel CRM that we worked with arduously and then we picked up boom of course there's a lot of other great resources out there follow-up boss real Geeks has a great CRM brivity has a CRM command as a CRM Sync has a CRM I could go on and on so it doesn't matter which one you're on of course we love Boomtown we've used boom done for quite some time but having something to have your agents plug leads into is going to be the first thing that's going to make a big difference but more important than just that more important than just putting a name into a database is to have a systematic approach behind converting leads at a high level and not only will you have that system you'll coach to the system and you'll hold people accountable to the system and you'll inspect what you expect or expect what you expect to never happen so as we put leads into our our Boomtown CRM we work with each agent to delineate different categories that those leads should go into based on what that leads interest is in using the services that we offer so keeping this really simple we have names for all these categories in boom town but I'm going to call them a b c and d a are hot leads a are leads that are under we already have an appointment scheduled so if somebody wants to go look at a house we have an appointment to go show homes on Saturday if someone needs a listing presentation we have an appointment to go on a listing presentation that would be an a category and anyone that has shown interest in doing either of those things and there's a date scheduled they'd go into a and when I sit down and hold someone accountable and they say hey here's my a list I'm going to ask the agent when is that appointment and they say well there's not an actual appointment I just haven't been a because they're ready to buy or sell right now well that person shouldn't be an A A is only for appointments and I always would you I would always tease if someone was bragging about going on a hot date and you're like oh that's exciting you're going on this hot date when is it I'm like well we haven't really actually set something up yet that's not a hot date that's a lukewarm date that's not even a lukewarm day that's a cold date so a is only appointments that are scheduled and you work with your agents to make sure anyone that they're moving into a that they have a scheduled appointment and at any point in any category once an appointment gets scheduled to meet in person you're moving them to a the goal of anyone that's in a and this is also very important is for agents to know what that goal is is to get them to know you like you trust you when you're in person even though you're showing a house or even though you're doing a list press or even though you're having coffee the goal is to get them to know you like you trust you so they'll sign on the line that is dotted and I'm stealing that quote from Alec Baldwin Glenn Gary Glenn Ross ABC always be closing Aida attention interest decision action so signing on the line that is dotted what line if you're a buyer exclusive buyer agency agreement but that doesn't work in my market it doesn't work because you don't do it it works in every Market it's a contract every type of professional company including buying a used car requires you to sign on a line that is dotted if you're truly a professional like you tell everyone get everyone that ever sits down with you to sign on the line that's dotted to say here are my Professional Services I offer and when I've done them I'm going to be due a commission of X and if you don't choose to work with me in the next 12 months you still owe me a commission of X that is what that exclusive agency agreement will create no different than a listing agreement you have them sign on the line that's dotted it's a 12-month period or whatever duration you negotiate a certain dollar amount is established if you sell the house if you don't sell the house in most instances on a listing agreement you're probably not going to get paid so the goal is to get them to sign on the line that is dotted the servicing part doesn't need to be done by you obviously none of this needs to be done by you but the servicing part more so than anything could then be delegated to a buyer's agent or a listing agent that's on your team and you hand it off so a category appointment is set you go on the appointment to get them to sign an exclusive agency or listing agreement and then you turn that contract over to somebody else B category B in our world would be nurture so nurture categories anyone that indicates to us when we've talked when we've texted when we've emailed when we've talked over the phone or met in person when we instant message when we snapchatted when we communicated in any type of way and they have said to us we believe we'll be buying or selling a home in the next three to six months that lead goes into B category the way you treat B category is going to be different than the way you treat a category B is three to six months out so of course up front you're going to take them through LP Mama part of the lp Mama acronym is asking them to go on an appointment with you asking them to meet with you well you've already done this when you've established your initial relationship because you said hey I'd love to meet up but for coffee I want to show you my buyer presentation or my listing presentation so you know my value ad and they said oh no we're not going to meet yet we're three to six months out so of course the communication with them now is going to be different what is someone that's three to six months out one if it's a buyer here they probably would like Holmes emailed to them that fit what they want a lot of people use their whatever MLS system that they have to set up automatic email boom down has a system built in e-alert is what they call it and most of the systems should have this that will send out homes based on the types of search criteria someone is looking in oh and side note if you're on the Boomtown platform and somebody comes into the website and does a search and the agent never takes the time because they're too busy out on appointments right and they never take the time to set somebody up on E alert the system will do it automatically based on the houses that somebody looked at but the goal is the agent gets them on a phone call Narrows down their specific search to four bed three bath ranch home whatever it is specifically the area they want to be in the price point they want to be in so that the homes that are getting email are accurate because what's the goal of B the goal of B is to get them to a a is an appointment set to meet in person to get them aside on the line that's dotted so when we put somebody in the three to six month category we have them set up on e-alerts we're meeting with our agents every every week to make sure every person in the B category is set up on an ealer with the types of homes they want to see if it's a potential listing lead what would they want to see well they're probably going to be buying somewhere else so they should be on a buyer search already but they also want to know how much are home selling for in my neighborhood I'm going to be listing in three months right maybe three to six months what are homes going for every home that ever sells you should email them I would suggest once a week you can set that up on the back end of Boom Town as well instead of it going out every time a house sells like if you set it up in the MLS you could have it set up so every time every once a week it sends them a list of all the homes that have sold or all the homes that went on the market and let them keep tabs on their largest investment their home so they have a little bit better feel for what the Market's doing at any given time a suggestion another little hack I'm going to use Pat hybin now that's a pearl suggestion would be that in the details section you say another listing sold provided by insert your name your team your brokerage the public is going to assume these are all homes being sold by you and they're not and you didn't lie it's a sold listing provided by you so that you're bringing them you're helping them stay aware of what's going on in their area now what do they see time and time again they're seeing all these listings being sold and you're the one providing them that information who are they most likely to now reach out to because guess what and I know this is going to come as a huge shock for a lot of listeners you're not the only person texting calling sending emails instant messaging snapping knocking on their door trying to win their business there's another 20 other agents just like you out there trying to get their business so why do they stay with you and as I get to the end of this ideation I will share with you and you'll I think get a clearer picture as to why they end up working with you versus everybody else that's trying to win their business so you're holding your agents accountable now for making sure that they have an e-alert set up sending sellers updates selling buyers up sending up buyers updates and then the last piece that's probably more important than either of the other two is making sure that anyone that's in that b category that's three to six months out gets a call or a text every two weeks so the system automatically will have Smart drips set up smart drips is a sequence of email and text messages we've created a proprietary smart drip campaign inside of Boomtown that's only available to our ERS clients that performs better than any other smart drip on the platform based on scores that Boomtown provides to us we've Rewritten and Rewritten and Rewritten and split tested and split tested and split tested this for over 10 years and that's how our teams have on average converted at a 2.5 percent conversion rate which is five times more than the nation's average I believe we've converted more internet leads than any other team in history if anyone's converted more more than 2500 internet leads and you heard me now just say that and you can verify it I'll give you a hundred dollar gift card to the restaurant of your choice just reach out to Elite real estate systems on Instagram or you can email Catherine eliterealestatesystems.com so the last piece is the communication piece a call or a text what would you say they're three to six months out well that's pretty simple hey it's Jeff Cohn just giving you a quick phone call to touch base I know you said you're three to six months out wanted to make sure you're getting those listing updates I promised you I'd be sending more importantly I wanted to see if there's any homes that you found interest in or if it's a seller lead wanted to see if there's any homes that have sold in the area that got you excited just wanted to touch base wanted you to know I'm thinking about you wanted you to know I want to be your point of contact when you have questions specific to getting your household or buying a house here's my number give me a call or text anytime I'm here to help well you're going to do this systematically every two weeks for anybody in that b category and every two weeks every two weeks that every two weeks continue to pass everybody else isn't doing that nobody else is doing that you're already setting yourself apart from everybody else because you're the one who's consistently reaching out and how long does it take 10 seconds people suggest that's a lot of work oh I'm sorry I I didn't know that was too much work to make a phone call that takes maybe three minutes if they actually answer only one out of ten people actually will answer the phone a text message takes two seconds you can actually set this all up systematically you can also hire a third party person and turtle sales agent a virtual assistant to make the calls on a dialing system that you've pre-recorded the voicemail so I can create pre-recorded voicemail sequences for category a category B and then I'm going to talk about category C and D and a pre-recorded would sound something like this hey it's Jeff Cohn touching base again just wanted to see what your timing's like I know you said you're three to six months out hope you're getting all the information I'm sending to you I was thinking about you just wanted you to know I'm just a phone call or a text message away here's my number I didn't say their name that was just pre-recorded for B category you can do the same thing for canvassing neighborhoods just listed just sold open houses the the sky's the limit we use the Mojo Dialer for that mojocells.com so moving into C category C is very similar to B only difference is they're 6 to 12 months out and the only difference in the communication is that instead of calling or texting every two weeks you call or text every month we think every two weeks is a little too much if they're 12 months out and you're calling every two weeks they're gonna be like dude I told you I'm a year out like calm down uh but if they're if you're calling or texting once a month not too crazy someone would say well Jeff they said I'm a year out why would you call them the call would be just like the one I said earlier on B I'd say hey I know you're a year out I just wanted to make sure I have you set up on the right drip and that you're getting everything yeah I've got everything I'm good all right cool bye a month later that's a lot of time has passed just check it in again just wanted to see well why are we doing this why would we check in why wouldn't we wait for them to call us and not to throw my mom under the bus I love her she's a love lovely lady she's one of the reasons I got into real estate I remember Mom had sticky notes on a cabinet and I would be I was this kid like the kid from up with a little boy scout kid fat kid with I think he has a shaved head I had a shaved head but I was that kid and so I remember going into like the cupboard little sticky notes would fall on the ground and they're probably half the people were like leads of hers that she never followed up with she would get mad when people didn't buy or sell with her and I'd say mom why are you mad she's like well they didn't call me they said they were going to call me well guess what they also told 20 other people they were going to call them as well so how does someone choose someone they choose them because they know them I can trust them they choose them because they're going to pick the person that they think cares the most about helping them through the process so how do you show you care t-i-m-e spells love right and so the more you texted the more you called the more information you provided the more you followed up showed that you're not just talk like everybody else you actually stayed in it consistently over a long period of time to win their business so a category appointment set B category you're calling every other week and or texting and we have a lot of agents that will rotate and they'll make a note inside the CRM this week I texted so two weeks from now I'll call two weeks from now I'll text and then the same thing in the C category it's caller text every month and you'll have a text one month and you'll have an email one I like the phone call I'm a little more old-fashioned I'm 41. the phone call means something now because nobody's doing it everyone's hiding behind email email's the worst way to communicate which you'll learn in the seven levels of communication every form of communication has a different goal so we talked before about the goal of the B category is to get them to an appointment the C category is to get them to the B category so the when they're in the six to twelve month you want them to say yeah I'm probably three to six months and then you're moving them to B of course you always want them to go to a so that you can get them to sign on the line that's dotted and then the last category D D is going to be your archive it's some anyone that comes into your website that's more than 12 months out now you're going to have two D's you're gonna have D contacted and D not contacted which we call archive contacted archive not contacted and we've written different drip email sequences for someone we got a hold of that's more than 12 months out and then someone we never were able to get a hold of that's more than 12 months out and we actually aren't calling any of those individuals that are more than 12 months out unless they pop up on our now wall Boomtown provides a notification wall using predictable analytics and so we know that someone's more likely to buy than someone else that's in the archive category because maybe they've looked at the website twice in a 24-hour period from two different IP addresses maybe they ran a mortgage calculator maybe they saved a home in a search there's a there's a probably 20 or 30 different identifiers to indicate to one of our agents that they need to figure out or sorry they need to follow up with a specific lead based on a certain activity that someone had so all the leads that are in archive which by the way in my art archive we have a hundred thousand leads from the last 10 years and like I said earlier we've converted about 2500 of those so that's a 2.5 conversion ratio over 10 a 10-year period And so as we've worked with the agents to work the D category getting their D category filled up with eight uh leads I told you we don't call them but all of those leads in in all four categories are getting e-alerts listing updates in the houses for the home that they live in and then listing updates for the homes that they were looking at when they first came to the website if you get a hold of them you customize that and then of course the ABC we're always calling and or texting those individuals trying to get them to go on an appointment for us to share a buyer presentation or a listing presentation to get them to sign on the line that's dotted the only category I didn't talk about we'll call it the T category that's trash trash is only someone that treats us disrespectful on a call that we'd never want to work with or we don't have their phone number or email address if we have a phone number or an email address we're going to be able to communicate with them via our text chain and or via an email chain that will go out in our drip email sorry smart email sequence our smart drip email sequence so we would never put that person into trash so those are our top lead conversion strategies it sounds like a lot but once you get into it it's not and a few really fun facts that I'll share with you from an analytics standpoint following that process I already shared we converted it 2.5 percent a bigger question is how long would one expect for a lead to convert if they were following all of those lead conversion best strategies and we've actually ran the numbers on the 2500 leads we've converted the average lead converted in six months which is pretty pretty fascinating to think it's that long of a process in my opinion but it's not a surprise so when you think about going out to a website today and you're thinking about buying a property or even buying a car you're not buying it today you're buying it you might be buying it in six months to a year so it averages out to to about a six-month process and that number isn't just for Internet leads and this is the thing that we found really fascinating that number is the same when it comes to leads from every lead Source SOI door knocking open houses cold calling people are people or people and any person that we come in contact with it's typically going to be a six month period another thing I want to make mention of is our lead conversion best strategies are the same independent of the lead source so everything I just shared with categories a through D is not just for Internet leads that's the same way you should treat a lead from an open house it's the same way you should treat a lead that was referred to you is the same way you should treat a lead if it's your best friend they all should be put into a database based on how long they're gonna based on how far out they have indicated to you they're going to be buying or selling a house they should all be on a drip email they should all be on a kneeler it fascinates us how often teams that we coach we have over 100 teams we coach in a thousand plus agents it's fascinating how many will follow these lead conversion best practices for internet leads Zillow leads paid ads Facebook ads but they don't do it for their SOI and they don't do it for their app on prospecting efforts and I'll ask like why and people like well I figure if they're in my sphere they're going to call me like that's a bad figure that's a bad assumption we should be using the system in this process we also should be putting them in to a closed category we call that the C category everyone enclosed should be getting drip emails as well what would you email out to someone that's closed probably a quarterly email that's just bringing them up to speed with how the Market's looking that should be going out monthly but at least a minimum of quarterly people that buy a house what do they want to know they want to know if they did it got a good deal they probably want to continue to know what are homes selling for in my area and so you would want to always set them up on an automatic e-alert of homes that sell in their new neighborhood that they just bought it we also find you've heard of buyers remorse people still want to look at houses at after they've bought a house it does not hurt to have emails going out to these people after they've purchased a home of homes like the one they bought so that they can be looking at homes they continue to look at homes and hopefully they're picking their neighbors and they're telling their friends and family to reach out to you because they're finding other properties so make sure that you have people on an e alert after they've closed make sure you have some type of a drip sequence that's asking them for referrals and of course if you have the other verticals as part of the lead conversion process once they are in your a category or hot category you're talking about who are you working with to get your mortgage and then of course once they've secured that you're talking about who are you working with to get your insurance who are you working with for your title who are you working with home inspection and Home Warranty and then after point of close you should have other verticals that you could upsell if they don't use them at at the sale like home and auto insurance so within after the 12 months is up you could have part of your email or text sequence be checking in at the two month before their anniversary date two months before their anniversary day checking in to see if they'd like to shop home and auto insurance and then you could also a whole plethora of term life whole life disability financial services and there's a lot of other rabbit holes we could go down as far as additional verticals after point of sale but I I have a strong belief as everyone knows that follow the podcast that to stay relevant in the market we have to give more value than just helping people buy and sell real estate we have to be agent advisors we have to take it further than just the real estate transaction and as Leaders team leaders we have to help coach our agents to be more than just somebody that opens a door what's your USB what's your unique selling proposition what what's what's your unique ad that you can offer so part of our team coaching with Elite real estate systems it's group coaching it's a thousand dollars a month you get on a call every Thursday for an hour 30 minutes of content 30 minutes of q a the first call of the month is provided by myself and then the following three weeks the call is done by Andy CUNY where he goes into the weeds on the actual actionables surrounding whatever that topic was January was Big Picture February was lead gen March is lead conversion and throughout the year there's 12 core topics you can find our elite team building guide which outlines what those 12 topics are and the actionables that go along with them we give that away for free and you can get that at grow with ers.com if you want to sign up take your business to the next level we've got the content necessary we have the actionables necessary we know the steps we've done it we're doing it and we've helped thousands of others do it and we'd love to invite you to be part of the ERS family and take your business to the next level in 2023 so don't hesitate to go out schedule your demo call you can sign up for that upcoming events the podcast if you'd like it emailed to you so you can watch the video version the PDF and all of the other content out there at grow with ers.com hope to see you on one of our upcoming team leader Thursday calls and on our next podcast episode so thank you so much