The Truth about How to Convert Internet Leads for Real Estate Agents - Kevin Ward

Hi there, it's Kevin Ward, the founder of yes Masters Real Estate Success Training and the author of the number one best selling book, the Book of Yes, the Ultimate Real Estate Agent Conversation Guide. And today I want to talk about the future of real estate. Well, not really, but yes, really, because everybody knows that the Internet is a permanent fixture and a major component in real estate. Now I'm going to say this up front that it is not the end all, be all of real estate, because most of the things that make make real estate happen is not the Internet. But I'm going to talk about it and I'm going to kind of help you understand it. But the topic that I'm talking about today is how do you what is the best way and the truth about converting Internet leads? Because it's really a hot subject in the real estate market today among real estate agents and brokers, and that is how do you generate and how do you convert Internet leads? Now, I want to be crystal clear that this video is not about how to generate Internet leads. That's a totally different conversation. And the reason I do very little training on video about Internet lead generation is because the Internet is constantly evolving. And so the strategies and the methods of Internet lead generation are evolving so quickly that if I do a training video like this on my blog or on YouTube or on a podcast six months from now, it's to be largely obsolete or out of date. So what I'm talking about in how to convert Internet leads are things that will not change over time. No matter whether you got the Internet lead from a paid service or from a real estate portal like Zillow or realtor.com or Trulia or any of those, or whether you got it organically through marketing on social media platform like LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter or wherever it came from, that it's not stuff that changes over time. These are principles of converting Internet leads that are dynamic, that are powerful and that are. There are fundamentals of skill and strategy that you must master regardless of where the Internet lead came from. How do you convert an Internet lead and turn it into money? How do you turn it into actual income as opposed to just getting a lot of traffic and then it all just kind of sputtering out and dying, which unfortunately happens for way too many real estate agents. So let me say this first of all about the real estate, about real estate agents and the Internet. A lot of the talk out there is today is that the Internet is completely changing the way real estate is done. And it is definitely a Dynamic. It is definitely a factor in the way we do real estate, but it is not, does not change the fundamentals and basics of real estate. Because here are the key parts of real estate. Number one is a house piece of real estate, right? That's the main thing that we're talking about. And on both sides of that, there is a seller who owns the house and there is a buyer who wants to own the house. So you've got a buyer here, a seller here, a house in the middle, and the transaction is that transaction of the seller selling it to the buyer. And as a real estate agent, your job is to facilitate that transaction and as an agent, to represent the interest of the one that is your client. So all of that being said, everything that's happened in the Internet in terms of the real estate has not changed that dynamic. Still, a buyer has a house they want, a buyer wants to buy a house, seller wants to sell a house, there's a house to be sold, Boom, they make it happen. And still to this day, virtually all of that transaction happens offline. Okay? That transaction does not happen online. Now, it's absolutely true that over 90% of, and the statistics are constantly changing, or at least changing gradually up. But 95, 96, 97, 98% of all buyers start their search to buy a home on the Internet. Absolutely. But they buy it offline. They do not buy the house online. They may find the house, they may find an agent, but they're going to make the decision. They're going to make the purchase decision and consummate the purchase process offline. So the goal for you as a real estate agent is to understand that and understand that with all the changes in the Internet, the skills and of mastery and being a professional and massively successful real estate agent still are the same. It's all about connecting with people, communicating with them, building the relationship, building the trust, helping them find the right house and buy it, or if they're a seller, helping them put the position house in the market. Right. Represent them and help them sell it for the best results. That's the name of the game. So the real estate industry is not changing when it comes to how buyers and sellers do deals. Does that make sense? The Internet's a factor. It definitely has changed some things, but it has not changed the game. So having said that, it does change, has changed how? A lot of us are getting leads just because we're getting leads from the Internet. And this didn't even exist 15, 20 years ago in terms of being a serious tool for lead generation. So how do you convert Internet leads from the Internet into actual transactions, to sellers, to buyers, to closings and so forth? So there's five steps, five key elements that you've got to understand and that you're going to want to master to be effective with Internet leads. Once you generate an Internet lead, here's what you have to know. Number one is that as you generate it, what you're actually getting from the Internet typically is a prospect, not a lead. See, a lead is someone that you know is going to make a decision in the near future, in the next, the way I define it is anytime in the next 30 days, whenever they first come online. I don't know where they are in the process, but most of them are not ready to buy a house today. They're not ready to sell their house today. And it's important that you have a clear perspective that what I'm getting from the Internet, that these leads are really, before, until I talk to them, they're just prospects. They're potential buyers and sellers. And if you'll understand that, that these are prospects, not leads, it helps maintain a perspective of where is my business, where are the pipelines in my business filling up? Because if I can have 150, let's say you're getting 150 Internet leads a month, what does that mean? How many deals is that converting into? Well, those 150. Of those, there may be only 35 that are actually going to buy or sell a house this month. So initially, I have 150 prospects. I have conversations with them, and I realize, you know what, 145 of them are going to take some time. They're not really leads today. They're going to be leads. They're going to be buyers and sellers down the road, but they're not leads yet. Now, the way I, the way to me, the way this plays out, so you have a perspective of it, is anybody that is ready to do something now, they're going to give you an appointment, an appt. That's what I'm looking for With a buyer or seller. The best thing is to get an appointment with them, which would be a listing appointment or a buyer consultation appointment. You're going to set an appointment with them, they're going to go buy, they're going to sell. Okay? If they're not, that's if they're ready to do something now. Now what if they're not ready to do something for a while, but it's near, it's imminent, here's What I look at a lead is somebody who will meet with me, have an appointment in the next 30 days or less. Less than 30 days. They're less than a month away from actually setting an appointment, making a what I call signature decision, which means to list their house or to buy a house. That would be a lead. Anybody that is over 30 days out. Okay, so it's 30 or more days out. Then they are what I call your personal circle. They are a future lead, but they're not a lead right now. Now the reason that's important is this is my final and I'm kind of drawing it from farthest away from making a decision to closest to making a decision. These are people that will make a decision right away. These are people that are going to make a decision sometime in the next month or so. And these are people that are over a month out. If I understand that these people right here, these are Internet leads, these are real leads, these are prospects, they're down the road a bit, then it helps give me a perspective of what can I count on in terms of business immediately and understand you take them through a process, through a conversation of pre qualifying them so that I can find out are they immediate business or are they future business. And it just helps you have a great perspective that if when people start out and they start getting these Internet leads and they go, I got 50 new leads, I'm so stoked. Or 20 new leads in a week and they're like, yes, I got it made. And then a month later, none of those 20 has turned into a single deal. And, and another month goes by, none of them have turned into a single deal or only one of them. And they're going like, maybe this is the wrong way to go. Well, maybe, or maybe it's just you had an unrealistic expectation that you were going to get Internet leads. What you're actually getting is Internet prospects who some will be leads now and mostly of them will be leads in the future. Okay, so just have a perspective of. Most of what you get on the Internet is not leads. What you get is prospects. Now how do you convert them from a prospect to a lead? And here's the answer, number two, you got to talk to them. The key to converting Internet leads is to go from online to offline as fast as possible. The faster I can get them from the Internet into a one on one conversation with me, the faster. Not only the faster can I get business from it, but the stronger the connection is, the more likely I am to get business from Them at all now or in the future. So as fast as possible, you want to take the conversation offline, off the Internet portal. As long as it's still on the Internet portal, you don't really have a strong connection because you're probably not the only agent that has them on their radar. Because if they've gone to your site, they put in some information, they've asked for some information or whatever, they've probably done it with more than one agent. And they are. They got four or five and they're moving along from this website to this website. They saw this property, it was your listing. They put in your information asking for information on it, and then they went right on to the next one. So you got to understand that the key to converting. And this right here, if I'm going to say there's a big one, this is the big one. Get the conversation offline, get it personal. Okay, how do you do that? If you've got phone numbers, boom. I want to be on a phone call with them immediately. If it's just an email, I want to be talking to them, say, hey, great, saw that you were looking at this property. Great. What is the best way for us to connect and see what I can do to help you? You want to take it from online to offline as soon as possible. Number three, and this is another huge one. If you want to convert an Internet prospect or an Internet lead, we'll call it, but it's really an Internet prospect. If you want to convert them to a future client, it is the speed with which you connect with them. Speed is critical. It is very important that you get in touch with them quick. Now, here's what I'm seeing with my coaching members, and I've got several coaching members that are. That are generating tons of business from Internet leads, and some of them are generating hundreds of leads a month from the Internet. Here's what they have found out. You need to talk to them within two minutes from the time they put in their information, especially if you get a phone number, Boom, you want to talk to them within two minutes. And the best. Those that are having the best impact are the ones that have themselves and a team member, either a customer service person or an isa, an inside sales agent, another licensed person who can make the call immediately. If you can't. So they're literally getting notified. Boom. You just have an Internet lead immediately. The agent you want to call them, which is a little bit of a challenge. Can be a little bit of a challenge because what happened is they Went onto your website or they went onto a website, they found your listing. Boom, they put in their information. Well, they're looking at that house that they put in their information on. They're looking at it, they're looking at it, they're looking at it, they're looking at it. Boom. PHONE RINGS it's been less than 60 seconds or less than two minutes. They're still on your house, they're still on that property and they're going like, wow, how did that happen? But now they talk to you, there's a connection and they'll actually answer the phone and boom, now you've got them. But what happens is they're only on that page looking at that house for about two minutes and then they're going to go to another house and they're going to see the agent that pops up on it. Boom, they're going to be putting their information in, then they've moved on. The further away you are in calling them back from the moment they put the information on, the less likely you are to get a connection with them, to actually get them to answer the phone and talk. Once they've got off the Internet, looking at houses, they're much less likely to actually answer the phone at all. So speed to connect with them, to call them back and actually make the effort to talk to them and is critical. Call them immediately and then call them multiple times that day, three or four times that day. If you don't get in touch with them, to do everything you can to connect with them quickly, the first agent, the first agent to contact, the first one to make the connection is going to win the battle most of the time, because now you've taken the conversation offline into a live relationship where you've not connected with them off the Internet portal that they found you on. All right, that's number three. Number four is simply patience. Again, you have to understand that the average Internet prospect, the average Internet generated lead, if you want to call it that, the incubation time for them is 6 to 24 months. Most of the time when they come to you online, they are just beginning the search. They. They're just beginning the process of getting ready to sell their house or getting ready to buy a house. They're not ready to do anything today. And so when you have the conversation, you contact them, you immediately get in touch with them. There is a high probability they're still not ready to do anything today. Now, there's always going to be some that are ready to do something right now. Beautiful, awesome. Get an appointment with them, boom, you got business. Now you have converted the Internet lead because you took action immediately and they were a lead and you talked to them, you took it offline, you connected with them fast and now you can generate, you can convert them into a listing or a buyer, but you've got to plan on it's not going to happen fast. Now another thing is a lot of the way Internet leads are set up, Internet lead generation models are set up. The vast majority of Internet leads on most portals are buyers. And one of the things that I do with my coaching members is if you that you learn and learn to build a strong listing based business and to focus your Internet lead generation toward getting sellers as opposed to getting buyers. Because it's just the way you control your business. Listings are the name of the game. And if you're going to do a lot of lead generation and you get a ton of buyers that are prospects and they're six to 24 months out, you can fill up so much time, and especially unless you're really skilled at how do you work only with buyers that are ready to do something. Now you can spend 60, 80 hours a week showing non buyers, in other words, showing prospects who are not going to buy for six to 24 months. And you're literally wasting your time and starving and going broke because you're spending all your time with people who aren't actually ready to do something today. Okay, I hope that makes sense. So you've got to be patient and be realistic that when I'm getting these Internet leads, most of them are prospects, it's going to be six to 24 months. I've got to be willing to nurture them and not get frustrated and quit. If you're going to do an Internet lead generation model, you've got to know that in general it's not a churn and burn. Boom, boom, boom. You know, get a lead, convert it, get a lead, convert it. It's going to be get a lead, get a lead, get a lead, get a lead. And it's going to be nurture, nurture, nurture, nurture, nurture, nurture, convert. And it may take you six months before you convert a single one. Now you'll probably, if you're consistent and you're generating enough leads, you'll probably convert one a little bit quicker. But the numbers and odds are it's going to be on average six to 24 months with any online generated prospect. So number five, if you're going to make all this work and you're willing to be patient with it. The fifth thing that makes the patience pay off is that you must have a nurture system and in place to take care of them for that six to 24 months until they are ready to do something. So it goes this way. I've got somebody. They come online, they find me. They're interested in selling their house, but not today. I talked to them, I made a connection with them. I got in touch with them quick. Boom. Conversations offline. But they're not ready to sell a house right now. They're not ready to move. I can do one of two approaches. I can either try to convince them to move now, which typically just leads to frustration and resistance. They're going to resist you and avoid you because you're pressuring them to do something they're not ready to do. Now, you can try to BS them, which is what some agents do, but that's the work of amateurs, not a professional. Or you can build a relationship with them and be ready when they're ready. The trouble is, you can't do it with a ton of people if you don't have a system. Because what will happen is you're getting 100 leads a month. Boom, boom, boom. All those hundred leads turned into one deal this month. There's 99 that could be a deal in the next year or two. But I don't. How do I stay in touch with them? You create a system. And again, one of the things that my coaching members learn and what I teach is you'll learn what's called my personal circle system. And what it is, is. What it is is if they're not ready to do something now, they're not a lead today. They're just a prospect. They're a future lead. I've got to have a system to nurture them that, that will work for six to 24 months. That does not. That allows me to build that relationship with them in a way that doesn't overwhelm me and where they don't fall through the cracks. Now, I'm just going to lay out for you the basics. Let's say you've got somebody that is six to 24 months out. How do you nurture that relationship? Here's what you do. You put them in what I call a personal circle. In that personal circle, I want to talk to them now. They're not a lead yet. They're not ready to do anything yet, but I want to talk to them one time per month until they are. So I may have to call them Once a month for six months, once a month for 12 months, once a month for 24 months, it doesn't matter. And my goal is to be constantly building credibility in the relationship and positioning myself as their go to realtor. That's your goal. So when they are ready to do something, you're the one that they're actually calling one time a month, you're actually going to talk to them. You want to be sending them again, this is the nurture system is you want to be sending them an email two times a month. Now, I recommend the two emails every month are very simple. It's something that you send out to everyone in your database, everyone in your personal circle. One is a market update. What's happening in the market, in your city, in your town. And it's better if it's itemized by suburb or by market area so that when, if it's their specific area, they can click on it and get more details. And it's basically a simple market update. Here's how many homes are on the market, what's the average days of the market, how many homes sold in the last 30 days, what's the average list price, average sales price, and so forth. Very, very simple. But it's a graphic that they can. It just gives them an update on what's happening in the market, but it mainly reminds them that you are in the real estate business, that you are their agent. The second email is simply a my featured listings of the month. And it's basically an email that has the front picture of each one of your listings in that email with a hyperlink, maybe the address and the price and the picture of each listing, whether it's one listing or 10 listings on that email. So they just see wow. And they're looking at it going like, wow. Kevin Ward's in business, he does real estate. And he's got listings. He's got featured listings. If they're a buyer, you got something they want, which is houses for sale. If they're a seller, they go like, wow, he has featured listings. When we're ready to sell, we want our house to be a featured listing. And either way with that, what you're doing is you're establishing credibility with the seller, with the prospect until they are ready to do something. And that's very simplified. But I want you to understand if you create a system that for everybody in your personal circle, where if they're looking to do something in the next six to 24 months, I just simply know I need to talk to them once A month on the phone and just say, hey, wanted to touch base. I know you guys were not planning to actually put your house on the market until August after your youngest son goes away to college. I just wanted to touch base and see if you're still on track with that time frame. And they go, yep, we're still on track with that time frame. Still six months away. Great. Is there anything you need right now? Any questions? You have, any information I can get for you? Nope, we're good. All right, awesome. We, well, I look forward to talking to you soon. In the meantime, if you know anyone else or who do you know that's looking at buying or selling right now that I could help and you can ask that question occasionally. The key is I'm not trying to convince them to do something that I want them to do. I'm simply positioning myself as someone who's there to help them. I'm professional, I'm consistent and I let them know here I am when you're ready. And they like that. And that consistency tells them they can count on you, that they can trust you, that you're a professional. And so when they are ready, they're not going to be calling anyone else. You're going to be their go to agent because you had a system in place that allows you to nurture them without them falling through the cracks. And yet you are realistic that they were a prospect now a future lead, not a lead today. And if you'll do that, then you've got the time and you've got the perspective and you've got the structure and system in place to know that as these leads come in, they're going to convert. Some are going to convert fast, some are going to convert slow. It doesn't matter. The key is when you build it right and I'm going to say right in here, the ones that are leads, you've got to have a good lead follow up system. When you have a good lead follow up system and you have a great personal circle system in place, it allows you, without people falling through the cracks to convert all the potential business, whenever they're ready, I'm ready to make it happen for them. So let me know what you think about the video. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, make any comments or questions that you've got, put it here, be consistent, stay focused and always expect yes.