An Active Rain Challenge ~My Leads in Real Estate
Our fellow blogger and friend Jeff Dowler agreed to host a contest this month. It’s a perfect challenge at this time of year when we should be tracking our leads, qualifying them and analyzing where our business is coming from. It helps to examine systems we are using and make those important decisions on where to allocate our advertising dollars for next year! I track my numbers monthly and know exactly where my business comes from.
The 3 categories of this challenge we should all have a firm grasp on:
REPEAT BUSINESS AND LEAD GENERATION
One of my main focuses is referral business. 25 years in business taught me keeping in touch with my sphere, past clients and market area through consistent monthly marketing produces a steady and strong stream of business.
My most loyal and consistent clients come from repeat clients, a personal referral or someone in my market area. I’ve worked with many of my clients on 4-6 transactions! Every month my e-newsletter (short, sweet and personal) hits my clients email and I immediately receive responses. Quarterly, my statistical reports are delivered and in November my calendars are delivered. Every day blogging in Active Rain shows on my website I host for my market area. My posts are read by many and keep me top of mind when it comes to all things real estate. Giving back to my community is important to me. I enjoy sponsoring community and school events which results in keeping me in front of my target market.
HOW GOOD ARE MY LEADS?
Usually the leads I receive are thinking of selling, buying or both and often want my advice on what to do in terms of updates in readying their home for sale. Some are 2-3 years out. I always make time to go over and review with them what is needed to obtain top dollar and suggest projects that give them the biggest bank for their buck.
There are always those that may have a past agent they want to use or are only interested in a discounted commission, but will call me to get my opinion of value and what to do. I don’t rule them out. One never knows.
When a past client calls or someone from my market area, I know it is a serious lead and deserves my full attention. I work hard to provide an “experience” in my transactions. With past clients we often pick right up where we left off on a previous transaction that happened years ago. Clients value my expertise, professionalism and dedication and know I will take care of their best interests.
On-line leads are not as serious and depending on the availability of my time I may refer them out to another agent.
TRACKING MY LEADS AND BUSINESS FOR THE YEAR
Knowing your numbers is the key to long term success. I keep a spread sheet that is filled out each month...one for sellers and one for buyers. I have a completed sheet for the 10 previous years so I can track how many sellers or buyers I handled each month and each quarter (it helps to measure my goals for a given year and adjust my strategies if need be at any given time). Each sheet contains the sellers name, the address, the initial price of the listing, what it sold for (good to track my list to sell ratio and average listing price) and most importantly “where did the client come from”: personal referral, past client, from my market farm area or the internet.
Each year my goal includes a number of Listing and Buyer units. As I move towards my 75% listing to 25% buyer goal my strategy to place more emphasis on blogging and advertisement to sellers becomes more pronounced. I use Act to compile my data base because I can organize my contacts as to sellers, buyers etc. As importantly, I make notes of conversations with clients, names of children and or pets, when I closed on a transaction, etc. so it’s easy to jog my memory when they call to work again!
My pie charts tells it all!!
Thanks Jeff for hosting this challenge it’s a good one!
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