A Critical Habit In Your Real Estate Career: Lead Contact

Definition
This is the process by which you consistently contact the leads that you generate.

Simple yet Profound
When I ask an Agent the question, “Do you contact all of the Web leads you generate?” Most Agents tell me that they do not.
Do you follow up on all the ad calls and sign call leads you generate?
Do you follow up on all your open house leads?
Do you always have leads that you don’t contact or follow up?
After you call a lead once, if you don’t reach them, do you keep trying? And if you do reach them do you stay in touch if they don’t convert immediately?
These are simple questions and the habit of contacting the leads you generate is a simple one. Most Agents do not have this habit and it is one of most limiting barriers to their success. Creating a lead contact habit has a profound effect on your production, income, confidence, and your self esteem.

Imperfection is Perfect
It is not necessary to follow up on all of the leads you generate. In fact it may be a mistake to do so. You can spend too much time chasing all the leads at the expense of quality time spent on the high potential leads. This is just one of the philosophies that make our coaching program so unique to others.
With our coaching clients we identify how many initial appointments with buyers and sellers they need each week to achieve their exceptional goal. With over a decade of one on one work with Agents and accurate data from that work, we have discovered that an average Agent after a year in the business is successful with at least fifty percent of the clients with whom they have an initial appointment.
So, two appointments per week with new clients just forty weeks out of the year yield eighty appointments and at least forty sales per year. For most Agents forty sales is a significant increase in their production. These numbers and calculations are easily found kept current within our online charts exclusive to our coaching clients.
Here is the point. Let’s say you sold four million in production last year and you calculate that two initial appointments per week take you to an exceptional goal of seven million dollars. You don’t have to be perfect in your lead contact and follow up to achieve the seven million. You only need to be good enough with lead contact and follow up to make two appointments each week.
So, it is not necessary to follow up on all the leads that you generate. Only to follow up on enough of the leads to generate the number of appointments that will result in your exceptional goals.
Some people say, “Rich, it’s never enough. I want to follow up on all of them and do as much as I can.” We don’t agree. We don’t coach this. We want you to know what amount of effort will take you to your highest goals this year. Then take satisfaction in that. Pat yourself on the back. Enjoy your life. Once you are able to generate that level of leads and sales for this year, next year you will be able to more easily take it to the next level.
Constantly going for everything, all the time is both unrealistic and causes breakdowns in service, breakdowns in attitude, and breakdowns in consistency. We believe in balancing work and quality of life and these systems will enable you to increase your production while maintaining the life you want.

Success Hours
The ideal way to build the habit of contacting and following up on your leads is to set aside an hour each day to call your leads. We call these your “Success Hours.”
There is an easy way to schedule this. Everyone checks their e-mail early in the day. Plan to do lead contact and lead follow up before you open your e-mails. Open your contact management software, take out your box of index cards, or gather all the scraps of paper with your leads on them. Make the calls. Note the results. Prompt yourself on your calendar to make the follow up calls. Use your Success Hours to both make contact with your leads and to manage the system you have for retaining the leads.
If you take this time at least three days a week, you will take complete control over your lead contact and follow up. Your production will rise along with your confidence and self esteem.
Some Agents just aren’t built to be that structured. No problem, you can contact leads and follow up randomly throughout the day as long as the result is, that each week you derive the number of appointments you need to reach your exceptional goals. Whatever system you choose stick with it until it becomes a habit and part of your everyday responsibilities.
You may notice that I keep referring to your exceptional goals. This is a term we use with our coaching clients. We offer a free hour of coaching to introduce our program in which we set these goals with you, reduce them to the number of appointments you need and we do a thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your entire business.