Tips for. closing leads. A guide to response, cultivation and conversion

Transcription

1 Tips for closing leads A guide to response, cultivation and conversion

2 Tips for closing leads STEP 1 Respond promptly and establish a relationship Respond promptly. This may sound obvious, but if you can t respond immediately, it should take you no longer five minutes. It seems logical that if a buyer makes contact you shouldn t make them wait. Buyers walking into an open house or your office will likely get help within a minute or two (if not the moment they walk in). Customers who show up physically are not asked to sit in the lobby for an hour or two. But phone calls, s and form leads often linger that long, or longer. Why do we make them wait? The call comes in when you are working with another customer Other things come up and the return call waits until a quiet moment arrives You are with friends and family and they need your attention You may not be able to distinguish the incoming or call as a real customer lead There are legitimate reasons why leads go unanswered in real time. But from the customer s perspective, if they find a home online they expect to get information immediately. Most web experiences resolve in immediate gratification; particularly when seeking information. When customers make an inquiry through Connection for Co-Brokerage, they have their web browser open, looking at the house they want. It s likely that they will soon move on to view another property and if they can t get a response from you, someone else may answer questions about both homes. According to the National Association of REALTORS, 41% of homes purchased in the U.S. were found by the buyer themselves when searching online. If they reach out to you, it s critical to respond before they reach out to another agent. SM Why should you respond immediately? The property is fresh in the customer s mind The customer may be on their smart device at the time of inquiry. This gives them the best chance of receiving your response Customers view multiple listings and may fill out other inquiry forms. Over 90% of consumers work with the first agent they contact

3 Get yourself ready to respond: A. B. C. D. Have your customer leads route to a specific phone number or address, so they stand out for immediate follow-up. Have ready-made texts and s on your mobile device, so you can let buyers know you received their inquiry and will be with them as soon as possible. Use a conversational style rather than a canned response such as, your call is very important to me. Set expectations with your clients, so they know you may need to take incoming calls or messages while with them. Get their permission to take a moment to respond, and let them know you would afford them the same courtesy. If the lead has a phone number call them, otherwise them back immediately. Once you get through, take a moment with the lead and set up a time to talk. Top Producer CRM has mobile tools that enable you to schedule appointments instantly from your smartphone. Hold off explaining important information about the listing (good or bad) until you can speak with the buyers at length or, better yet, meet with them in person. I see someone is trying to get hold of me. Would it be okay with you if I just take a minute to let them know I can t talk and that I will follow up with them later? Why? If you give too much information up front, buyers won t have any reason to respond to you. Even if a property is pending, it is important not to concentrate on one house that may be out of reach; instead, remember that this buyer contacted you because they need to find a home. Establishing a relationship first puts you in position to sell them other homes you may find. Providing information before the buyer has a chance to get to know you only helps you if that listing becomes the one. If there is bad news about the property, ask what they liked about that property in particular and discuss similar properties before giving them the details.

4 STEP 2 Keep the relationship active First, get the buyer to talk about what they like about properties they ve seen and what they are looking for. This will help you break the ice, discover their interests and needs, and find comparable properties. The key is to get them talking so they start to feel comfortable working with you. After getting a buyer on the phone, try to get them to a face-to-face meeting as soon as possible. If you can t get them to a showing, consider meeting for a cup of coffee and showing them property details on your computer. Getting face-to-face will help solidify the relationship. If a buyer is out of town or can t meet face-to-face for another reason, try to connect with them in multiple ways. We recommend follow up calls, s, texts, social media and even Skype. Any way you stay connected with the buyer builds the relationship. Ultimately you want buyers to contact you about any additional houses they find online. Make sure your buyer clearly understands that you want them to contact you when they have questions about any house they see online. Realtor.com offers a free solution to build this kind of relationship with your buyers. Engage the mobile consumer. More people are expected to shop through mobile devices than desktops in the coming year. The realtor.com Collaborative Search Mobile App keeps your buyers coming back to you when they find houses online. Buyers can search for properties, ask you questions and view your responses at anytime on their smartphone or tablet. You can invite your buyers to connect with you through your branded version of the app just by sending an . Get started at

5 Take a positive action: Any time a buyer contacts you, make sure you send something vs. not re-contacting them. Here are some ideas for s you can personalize. Remember: You will have the best results when you reply to leads immediately. If the consumer does not reply to your original within 48 hours, you can take one of these next steps: Hello. This is. That s a great property you inquired about on realtor.com. Please send me your phone number or call me at to discuss it. When would be a good time for you to see the property? Best regards,. A. Send the buyer an with details of three or four comparable properties that are active (to demonstrate that you know the market). If the consumer still does not reply: Create a two or three line Bio and it to consumer (to show the buyer how your expertise makes you the right REALTOR to help them achieve their goals). B. the buyer a link to all MLS listings (to give the buyer the knowledge of what the market has to offer). Set up the consumer with automatic listing alerts for properties in the same market and the same price range. The buyer may be at the beginning of their decision cycle. Keep in constant contact automatically by using the tools available to you. C. Send the buyer an something like this: As an expert real estate agent, I am privileged in having access to cutting edge data that may not be available on the local MLS. If you can provide me with your telephone number, this would give me the opportunity to share data that gives you an advantage over other buyers in our area. It will also allow me to continue to reach out to you with real-time data. Please call me at or me your phone number.

6 STEP 3 Be persistent and steady Keep trying to contact the new buyer. Research shows 95% of internet leads convert between the 2nd and 12th contact attempt.* It is worth your investment to keep up the communication. The examples shown above can be sent out by you one at a time, or you can configure Top Producer CRM to do this for you automatically. Many buyers have busy lives and procrastination can lead to months of inactivity. If you take the initiative by following up regularly with valuable information, many buyers will warm up and respond well. Ideally, you should use contact relationship management software with automatic drip marketing to keep in contact with your leads. Find a way to be remembered: Send them a variety of different information to retain interest. Ask them to contact to you so that you can put them on new listing alerts. This way new listings matching their search criteria go immediately to them from your MLS as soon as the listing hits the market. Use this as a reason for them to respond to you. On a different , send them market trends or a buyer s guide. On further s offer other opportunities to get valuable complimentary information. Put buyers on a monthly newsletter (the realtor.com Housing Trends Newsletter is free) or similar drip marketing, so that longer-term buyers or sellers will contact you when they are ready to act. In any case be quick, follow-up, be persistent and vary the content you provide. If you have too many leads to do this manually, consider investing in technology to convert consumer leads and close more business. *Source: How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold? Lead Response Management Research Summary, Marketing Sherpa s Business-to-Business Demand Generation, Move Sales, Inc. All rights reserved. 2263CA