Real estate brokerages are way behind in the curve of excellence in lead management. This report is not about best practices of routing leads to agents, it is focused on measuring lead quality, and appending lead information with business intelligence that will convert more leads to drive more revenue.
WAV Group’s brokerage business is focused on enterprise brokers, 500 agents or more – and usually a brokerage that also has some type of relationship with a mortgage or an insurance company. We use the term “home services” or “ancillary services” to refer to a brokerage that provides a full suite of residential, mortgage, and insurance services to the consumer through its enterprise business units. These companies also frequently have a complement of settlement services and home warranty services that may also be offered. Only brokerages that have significant size and offer a suite of home services will have enough data to profit from the harvesting practices outlined in this report.
This report illustrates the best data analytic and business intelligences practices by the nation’s largest banks and mortgage companies. Using these examples, we explain how large real estate brokerages with home services offerings can become more competitive and more profitable from adopting these best practices.
To access this report, please click this link.
Great Article! I have been teaching lead conversion techniques around the country the past few years based on what we have been doing for 12 years (8 years in a brokerage environment, 4 years as an Agent and team). The common denominator with regard to the lack of Internet lead conversion is that Agents are usually unwilling to pick up the phone.
We have found in our brokerage, the difference between a weaker agent doing 6-8 sales a year from leads and a stronger agent doing 25-35 sales a year from leads is all based on the Agents ability to follow up leads over the buying cycle. Regardless of how good the software program is used to build the relationship, we have found that nothing beats the phone call.
The other leading issue I have seen, is the lack of tracking systems from brokers and team leaders. They generally acquire a lead, hand it off to the Agent, and then expect the Agents to follow the lead from there. In reality, most Agents won’t do this. For a brokerage to be successful in lead conversion, they must have inspection tools to verify the lead is being worked. Most of your basic crm’s do not have the proper capabilities to accomplish this task.
In our brokerage, we couldn’t convert at the level we do without our LCA’s (Lead Conversion Agents). I developed this program once I realized, about 4 or 5 years ago, that if I don’t take control of the leads, our conversion rates wouldn’t be at my expectations. Our LCA’s follow behind the agents, make phone calls to build relationships with our buyers and sellers, and if needed, we transfer leads to other Agents that are putting in more effort in our lead conversion process. We have saved many a sale by transfering a lead from a non productive Agent to a productive Agent.
Finally, it’s about mindset with all lead conversion. We know that an Internet lead is most likely not buying for up to 6 months or more. Where most Agents mindset is to “call me when you see something you like”, our mindset is, “We have a 6 month opportunity to create a great relationship”. Change the mindset of your Agents and the outcome will change too.
Outstanding.
[…] report was given by WAV Group Inc., and can be found in its entirety here. The term “home services” refers to providing residential, mortgage, and insurance […]