The #1 Key to More Sales- And Most Agents Are Terrible At It

Angela was great at prospecting, but she sucked at getting listings. She was an agent in my office back when I owned my own brokerage, and I had one conversation with her one day that over the next 2 days cost her 3 listings, and then she never lost another listing again because of this one simple switch that we made in her business. And that switch was in how she did her lead Follow-up. See, the reality is most real estate agents are generating leads, they're doing the marketing, they're doing the prospecting, they're getting the leads, they're doing the hard work, and then they're passively dropping the ball or walking away before the sale actually happens, and they don't even realize what's happening. Most agents suck at lead follow-up. In this video, I'm going to tell you exactly what to do so you don't suck at it. You see, here's what happened with Angela. Angela was great at getting leads. She would prospect, she got lots of leads, and then if she couldn't get an appointment with them on the very first conversation, she never called him again. And so she was just frustrated. She's like, I'm not getting listings, I'm not getting deals. And so I said, okay, here's what I want you to do. Bring me all your leads. I wanna see how many leads you got. She goes like, really? And I'm like, yeah, bring me your leads. So she brought me a folder of all her leads. And when she walked in, she had this folder that was like this thick. I mean, it probably had 150 pages in it of leads. That she had generated. And I'm like, okay, how many are there or not? She was like, I have no idea. And I'm like, okay, so here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go to your desk and you're gonna call all of them. Okay? You're gonna call all of them. She's like, that's a lot. And I'm like, you're gonna call 'em all day tomorrow, all day, all day today, all day tomorrow till you're done. You're gonna call all of 'em and you're gonna find out who in that stack is actually still a lead and who's not a lead. Because the reality is we don't know. 'Cause here's what was happening. She's generating all those leads and she was never calling 'em again. So they were just piling up. And the bigger the pile got, the more intimidated she got by the pile. And she goes like, "I don't know." She got overwhelmed. She's like, "I don't know what to do. I got all these leads." Well, here's what you do. You call all of 'em and find out if they're ready to set an appointment and if they're ready to do something right now. So over the next 2 days, there were 3 different times that I would just hear she's in the office and she has her cubicle and I was in my office and I would hear this blood-curdling scream As Angela just found out that she had just called somebody that she had talked to 3 or 4 months ago and never followed up with them, and they had just listed with somebody else. And over the next 2 days, that happened 3 different times. 3 different sellers that she found out had listed with a different agent because she didn't follow up. You see, here's what the data actually shows. Here's the reality. That 70 to 75% of your sales, of your appointments, 70 to 75% will come after the initial conversation, which means that if you're not following up, you're missing 70 to 75% of the business opportunities. You are losing the vast majority of your business. And so in this video, I'm going to show you 3 reasons why that happens, why agents suck at lead follow-up, and more importantly, I'm going to share with you exactly how to fix it. And one of these is going to really surprise you because it's not so much about what you're doing, it's about what you're thinking. And that is going to be huge for you. So by the time this video is over, you're going to understand why lead follow-up is the single highest leverage activity in your business, the reason that agents don't do it, and you're going to have this— a simple framework. I'm going to give you the complete system that you can implement today. So make sure you stay with me to the end of the video because I'm going to lay out for you the system. And it's— I've got it right here. It's crazy how simple it is. And it's like, this is, this is a sneak peek. At it, and it's amazing how simple it is. Okay, so here's what happens with most agents. You call a prospect and they say, yeah, we decided we're not going to move, we decided we're not going to sell, we're going to wait a year, or we're going to do this or that, and you don't get the appointment. And so you say, okay, well, you sniffle a little bit and you go like, well, if anything changes, let me know. And then You never call them again. Or worse, maybe you call them back once or you call them back twice and then you stop because you don't want to bother them. I don't want to be annoying. And then you're driving through the neighborhood a couple of weeks later or a month later and you're driving through that neighborhood where they live and you see a for sale sign in their yard. And you're like, what just happened? They told me they decided not to sell and then they decided to sell. You see, The brutal truth is you didn't lose the deal because you were bad at real estate. You lost because you quit. You lost because you didn't follow up. And it's one of the most common and one of the most expensive mistakes that agents make, and most of them never even realize they're making it. And so the solution to it is what I call the lead follow-up vortex. In your business, and if you want to build a complete business, okay, I train on what I call the 9, the The Real Estate Vortex, which are 9 vortices. There are 9 specific systems in your Real Estate Vortex that will make your business just explode. And this is probably the most neglected. It's the Lead Follow-Up Vortex. See, lead generation gets you into a conversation, but lead follow-up is what gets you into a commission. Okay? They're not the same. See, most agents treat lead generation as like, that's the big game. That's like, I'm hunting for big game. And they treat lead follow-up kind of like an afterthought. It's kind of like having to eat leftovers, like, uh, I gotta do my lead follow-up now. I don't want to do it. They don't do it. See, but the difference is top producers treat it like a system, and it is the system that is where the money lives. Okay, now if you want to complete like all the 9 vortices of the real estate vortex, all the systems, you can get a copy of my book More Yes, More Success. Go to moreyesbook.com. Description's in the link, and it will lay out for you and teach you how to do all the systems, what to do, how to set them up, how to run them to make all of it work. But your lead follow-up vortex that I'm talking about right now, this one, my friend, it is absolutely a key. So let's talk about the 3 reasons that most agents suck at lead follow-up, and then we're going to talk about how to fix it. Okay, number 1, the number 1 reason agents suck at lead follow-up is they don't want to be pushy. It's a fear of being pushy. And that fear, just to let you know, that fear is a lie. Okay? You're not being pushy. You see, most agents avoid follow-up because they don't want to be salesy or they don't want to be annoying or they don't want to sound desperate. I don't want to beg. I don't want to sound like I'm begging for business. And that's, see, that my friend is fear talking. That's your own discomfort talking. See, here's the reframe. You got to completely flip the switch on how you see this. Because it's in your mind, is that you're not following up because you're trying to sell them something. You're following up because you're trying to help them. Like, why are you calling me? Well, because I help people who want to move. I help them move. I help them sell their house for the most money. I'll buy a new house for a best deal. And if you want to move, I'm here to help you. So when you're following up, what you're doing is you're offering your professional services to help people get what they want. Right? If you look at it as like, "Oh, I don't want to bug people." Listen, if they're going to move, they're going to need your help. They're going to sell their house. You're going to need a professional agent who knows what to do to help them get the best terms and price and with the best experience. And if you're trained and you know how to do that, that's you. It's not respectful to say, "Well, I don't want to call them back because I don't want to be pushy." That's not respectful. That's selfish. Because you're making it about you. You're making it about, "I don't want to feel uncomfortable. I don't want to be uncomfortable. So, I'm not going to call." Okay, when you call them and you follow up with them consistently, you're telling them you matter to me, your situation matters, your motivation matters, what you want matters, and I can help you do that. My friend, you will never lose a deal because you followed up too much, but you will lose many deals because you don't follow up enough. Because by the time you call them back, just like happened to Angela, she— by the time she did finally call them, she's going through all these things, and these are leads that she generated in the last probably year or two 2 years, and many of them had already made a move and they completely would have used her, but they didn't, they didn't know where she was. They didn't have her business card. They just forgot about her because she never followed up. So stop being afraid of being pushy, okay? People that need to move and want to sell or want to buy, they respect an agent who is consistent and professional in their follow-up. Second reason that you suck at lead follow-up is you don't understand how lead conversion actually works. And what that means is the average lead that you generate, the average prospect, they don't make a decision on the spur of the moment. And so they don't typically convert on the first call because people don't like to make a decision on the spur of the moment. Now, if their motivation is there and you know what you're doing and you're great at it, you can a lot of times convert them on the first conversation. That's at 25 to 30% that you can get from a prospect to a lead to an appointment in one conversation. But a lot of times it doesn't happen on that first call, and many times it doesn't happen on the second or the third call. Okay, in fact, the research shows that the average buyer or seller, one, they don't make a decision in one day. They typically take 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 months to actually make a decision. And to decide on somebody they've not met before, they're also getting to know you and they're getting to feel like, do I want to meet with this person? So you're competing for the long game not the short game. And if you stop showing up, you stop following up, you're going to lose. Okay? And this is why lead follow-up is a conversion activity. You've already generated the lead, you've already got the lead, but now the conversion is to get them to go from a conversation with you to an appointment with you is you have to keep yourself in the game to convert a lead into an appointment. So you already did the heavy lifting to get the lead. Now you just gotta stay in the game long enough to give yourself a chance to win. And the agents who win aren't necessarily the most talented, they're the most consistent. They're the ones who are still in the conversation when the prospect is finally ready to make a decision. Okay, because one of the questions agents will ask me a lot is they'll go like, okay, so when's the best time for lead follow-up? When is the best time to follow up with a lead? And here's the answer: at the exact moment they're ready to move. At the exact moment they're ready to do it. They're ready to make a decision to sell their house. That's the best time to follow up with them. But what's the problem? I don't know when that moment's going to be. So how do I increase my chances of calling them at that right moment? By staying in touch with them more, not less. By being consistent in your lead follow-up. And as I do that, I stay in touch with them. I'm also building credibility. I'm building trust. I'm helping them to see me as a professional who's consistent, who's dependable, and I maintain top-of-mind awareness. Okay. Now, there's other pieces of this, like in the script when you follow up with somebody, then the psychology of it, we really— you don't ever want to say, "I'm following up." And the reason of that is to say following up, following up is kind of a resistance trigger because who follows up? Okay, the doctor's office follows up, your attorney follows up, a detective, they follow up. Follow-up is not something that people feel good about. Okay, so we don't follow up, we touch base. Okay, and so the script, the way the script goes is, "Hey, Mr. Smith, this is Kevin. I'm a local real estate agent. We spoke a couple weeks ago." At the open house where we met and you said you guys were thinking about putting your house on the market, and so I just wanted to touch base and see what the next step was. So we don't say I'm following up, we say, hey, I just wanted to touch base and see what the next step was. And so when we do that, it's that because you follow up with people you have to follow up with, you touch base with people that you like. Okay, now I'm gonna give you one quick story, an example of why this is so important. Her name was Diane Totten. And the reason I remember Diana Totten, she was a for sale by owner. And this was like 25 years ago. This was like when I first got into real estate. There was a for sale by owner. I used to prospect for sale by owners. I called for sale by owners every day. I love for sale by owners. I've made millions of dollars off for sale by owners as an agent. And Diana Totten was a for sale by owner and she had a lot in Keller, Texas. And I called her and she just wasn't that motivated. And I called her again and I followed up and I followed up and I followed up and I followed up for months after month after month. I followed up on this little piece of crap lot in Keller, Texas that was for sale by owner. And then after following up with her for 4 or 5 or 6 months, they never did sell the property. They just decided, yeah, we decided we're going to keep it. And they never even did anything with it. I spent month after month after month following up for a listing that I was never going to get, but After about 4 or 5 months of me following up, she said, I don't know, I don't, I don't know if we're ever going to actually sell this thing. We're that motivated, we may just keep it. But my mom and dad have a ranch and they've had it listed for over a year and it hadn't sold and they're kind of unhappy with their broker. Why don't you call them? And that referral from a for sale by owner that was not motivated turned into my first ever million-dollar listing. And over the next 5 years, I got from Diana and her family deal after deal after deal after deal after referral for one simple reason. Number 1, I made the phone call. And number 2, I didn't stop making the phone call. I followed up, I followed up. And at the time, I didn't realize what I was doing, but this was the conversion process. The longer I stayed in touch with her, The more trust we developed, the more she liked me. And she was like, okay, I felt like this guy's a go-getter. My parents need a go-getter to sell their property. And so talk to my parents. So by the time I called her parents, she had already told them about me. She was like, you need to talk to this guy. He's awesome. That made all the difference in the world. Okay, now, so you got to get this figured out. Okay, you got to get this going and you got to understand it's a process and sometimes it may take months and months and months. All right, here's the third reason that agents suck at lead follow-up, and it's that you don't have a system. You don't have a system, and without a system, you're just winging it. Okay? And when you're winging it, things are going to fall through the cracks. Things are not going to happen. When you don't have a system, you follow up when you feel like it, and the more leads that you generate, the more out of control it gets. And like Angela, you got this big stack of leads, just like, I don't know, And I'm like, inside of that stack, there had to be somebody that was ready to list their house today, but you're not gonna find 'em 'cause they're buried in all these other people, right? And so it's like, who do I know? Who do I call today? How do I know? And so what a system does is it removes the uncertainty, it removes the confusion, which removes the decision fatigue. So you don't end up asking yourself like, oh, I've got all these people, should I call? And you start looking at them, should I call him today? Should I call her today? Should I call them today? And this— you don't have to worry about all the system tells you who to call and when to call. Okay, so here it is. Here is the lead follow-up system. Okay, I'm going to give it to you very straight and very plain. And like, what about digital and all this? I don't care. Okay, but I'm going to give it to you how to do it manually in the old good old-fashioned way with folders and lead sheets. Okay, this is how you do it. Okay, and if you want the entire system again, you can go to moreyesbook.com, get a copy of my Moreyes book. It's got all the systems laid out in it. It'll help you get it set up right away. But here it is, here it is right away. So number 1, first piece of your lead follow-up system is your lead sheets. These are your seller sheets, your buyer sheets. Okay, every time when you get a conversation with a new lead, you need to be taking notes on your lead sheet. This is my, this is my lead sheet. It's my information. I have the conversation, I ask questions. So I can remember what they've said. I can remember their situation, their motivation, their concerns, their fears. I've got it all here and I have the conversation. Now that's the first piece. The first piece is your lead sheet. Second piece are your lead follow-up folders. Okay. And you assign a follow-up timeline based on their timeframe. Okay. And that determines in the system here. There we go. Okay. So number one, is your hot leads. So you have hot lead folder, you have a warm lead folder, and you have what we call a future lead folder, okay? Otherwise known as your personal circle. And then we have an appointment folder for the person that you call that is ready to make a decision right now on the first conversation, and you set an appointment with them. It's like, yes! So I take them and their lead sheet and I put it right into my appointment folder that I'm going to process when I do the CMA and get all the stuff ready for that listing appointment. Or buyer consultation. Okay, so now back to this. So who goes in what folder? So number 1, your hot lead folder. Your hot lead folder is for people who you need to follow up with in 1 week or less. Okay, less than a week, they go in the hot lead folder. These are people I could set an appointment with in the next 2 or 3 days. Okay, today's Tuesday, I need to call them on Thursday, I need to call them on Friday, they go in my hot lead folder. Today's Tuesday, I need to call them on Monday, they go in my hot lead folder. Okay, they're people that I need to call in less than a week. Now, my warm lead folder is for people that I need to call in less than a month, but it's longer than a week because if it was a week or less, they go in my hot lead folder. But somebody I need to call back in a couple of weeks or 3 weeks or, you know, maybe 4 weeks, they go here. People that I don't need to call in the next 2 or 3 weeks, within the next 30— in less than 30 days, go in my future lead. So my future leads is somebody who's going to move in 6 months. Maybe 3 months, maybe a year, maybe 2 years. They're like, yeah, we don't know when we're going to move, but probably sometime after school's out or next year or whatever. And they're people I need to call regularly, but I don't need to call them every week. I don't need to call them next week or in the next 2 weeks. I probably call— want to touch base with them every month. Okay, we call that your personal circle A-team. It's an A-teamer, means I want to build credibility and trust with that relationship, but they're not ready to do something right away. Okay, so that becomes your future lead machine. And all of them need to go immediately into your personal circle, i.e., your CRM. Okay, whatever your CRM you use, whether it's Bold Trail or iRev or whatever it is that you use, they need to go in there and they need to be tagged appropriately. Okay, now I like the— I like this paper folder system because nothing falls through the cracks. Okay, now that's the second part of the system. Third part of the system, your daily schedule. Okay, what is your daily schedule? A daily time block in your schedule for lead follow-up every single day. It's in the morning, either right before or right after you do your prospecting, right before or after you do your lead generation. In the morning, you need a 30-minute block where you're going to pull out your lead folders, okay, especially your hot lead folder and your warm lead folder, and you're going to go through it and look at who you need to call today. Okay, if it's less than a week, I'm going through this every day. Every day I'm going through this, and these are people I need to call in the next 1 to 6 days. Now this, I typically go through this once or twice a week, okay, because there's people I need to call them maybe in 2 weeks. So they've kind of gotten where now it's like, oh, I look at this and he's like, oh, I need to call her back, um, now in 5 days. Okay, cool. I may— I don't need to call her today, so I'm probably gonna move her from a hot lead folder, warm lead folder, into my hot lead folder. Okay, I don't want to get too complicated here yet, but the bottom line is every single day I'm going through my leads and I am calling the ones I need to call. I don't make notes on the lead sheet. When do I need to call them back? Now, if you're doing this in a CRM on your computer, it's awesome. If you've got reminders and all that, that's great. You just have to have it systemized. And this is why where a lot of agents fail with their fancy CRMs, okay, you fail because you don't have a designated time every single day in your schedule to do your lead follow-up. And so they're You'll get the notification, you're supposed to call them today, but it's like, oh, I'll call them later, and you don't. And then the notification's gone and they don't ever get called and they list with somebody else. Okay, now the last piece of the system is actually the script. Okay, it's your lead follow-up script. And again, when you go to moreyesbook.com, you can get the scripts and your lead follow-up scripts, because the lead follow-up scripts depend on the situation. Is it a buyer? Is it a seller? What their time frame is. All that kind of stuff matters. But again, you want to use your lead follow-up script. Remember, we're not following up, we're touching base. Okay, now I'm going to give you one last key on this lead follow-up thing. Whatever time frame they give you that they want you to call them back— call me back in a month— divide it in half and call them back then. Okay, so they just call me back in a month, what I'm going to do is I'm going to call them back in 2 weeks. Hey, just wanted to touch base, see how things are going. Okay, I spoke to you a couple weeks ago and you said you guys were thinking about doing this, this, and this. I just wanted to touch base and see how things are going. Nobody's going to ever say— and I've made countless thousands and thousands and thousands of lead follow-up calls, and I always would cut the time in half and call them back in half the time they said. I've never had anybody say, I told you to wait a month to call me. Okay, so like if it's a for sale by owner and they go like, well, call us next week because we're going to have an open house this weekend and we'll see how that goes. We're not going to do anything for them, but you can call us back next week. Okay, what I would always do is call them on Friday and say, hey, I know we're going to the weekend, I know you got an open house coming up, just wanted to touch base and see if you had any questions or anything I could do for you, uh, to help you get ready for the open house. Now we're good. Okay, cool. Well, I hope you have a great open house this weekend. I look forward to talking to you soon. Okay, and then I'm going to call them back next week. Okay, but here's what's happening. All the other agents aren't calling them. Every time you call them, You're creating more credibility, more top-of-mind awareness. They're getting to know you. You become the agent that is on their radar so that when they are ready to make a decision and you call, they're going like, who are you again? Well, I called you 2 months ago and you said to call back in 2 months. I did? I don't remember that. Of course they don't. They don't remember because they were trying to get rid of you and you listened. And so I know that if they tell me to call back in a month, guess what? They're telling every other agent that they talked to to call back in a month. So I'm going to call back in 2 weeks, but the time a month comes, I have a relationship with them that the others do not have. Okay, now there's more here, like personal intro videos. There's a whole lot more we could talk about. But I hope this has been helpful for you. If it has, make sure that you give the video a thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Post any comments. What are your systems that you're struggling with, or where do you know you need some systems that you don't have systems? So post that in the comments. It helps me to know what videos to shoot for you next. And if you are an agent who's really like, I'm committed, I need to get these systems down, I know that systems are the foundation to build a profitable business, and you would like to have a conversation with me about working with me personally— I work with elite agents who are committed to growing their business. Sometimes they're brand new agents, but they're committed to growing their business fast and building a true business. Then in the description is a link for you to schedule a one-on-one call with me, a strategy session, to just to see if working together might be a fit for you and how the best way is that I can help you accelerate your business and your income as you build a business where you get more yes and more success. So thanks for watching the video, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one.