How to Lose More Money in Real Estate

How to Lose More Money in Real Estate

By Ray Stockwell, Director of Product Marketing ZipperAgent

Apple picking with Family 2018

My last blog was about apple picking and how real estate agents lose money on leads.  so to be consistent, I thought I would include this picture of my wife, son-in-law, and grandchildren from our apple picking adventure.

If you read the last blog, I wrote you would recall that in a study by The Wav Group study on  “Agent Responsiveness.”, it was concluded that:  48% of buyer inquiries were NEVER responded to. Let me make sure you got that almost one-half of buyer leads are never responded to.

In this blog, I want to talk about the ones that are responded to.  Or more to the point the lack of a good follow-up.

Before moving to Zyprr, Inc. full time, I was an active Realtor in the Boston area.  One of the opportunities I had at the agency I worked for was to partner with newly hired agents to get them through their first two deals.  In that role, I told them and showed them the importance of follow-up and how it would impact their business.

I told every one of those partners that if they wanted to be good at any one thing in Real Estate, they should be good at follow-up.  I would explain that without good follow-up they were letting money slip through their fingers. I still believe that is true and it is one of the reasons why I partnered with Depanakar Neogi, John Trayner, and Nimish Sanghi to create Zipper Agent.

The same study mentioned above also concluded that:

• The average number of call back attempts after the initial contact was 1.5

• The average number of email contact attempts was 2.07

• The response time was 917 minutes (or 15.29 hours)

Web source:   https://www.wavgroup.com/2014/01/13/agent-responsiveness-study-reveals-critical-.

Some of you may be wondering what I mean by a lack of good follow-up.  You ’re saying to

Yourself, “They were all responded to, so they did have the follow-up required.”

To that, I would have to say not so much follow-up as an attempt by a real estate agent to get a

deal going quickly.  Many real estate agents want to grab the low hanging fruit.  To get their next commission as soon as they possibly can.  Maybe to disqualify a lead so that they can move on to the next.

Why would I say that?  The answers are multi-tiered but worth understanding. Let’s start with the number of call back attempts.  The summary above shows that is the average number of attempts by real estate agents to contact a lead by phone is 1.5. This is consistent with the number of attempts made by sales professionals in other businesses. Unfortunately, that is not enough.

InsideSales.com’s internal research with Dr. James Oldroyd, former Research Fellow at MIT, and with data analysis company InfoUSA, shows that for sales organizations who rely on lead generation to create sales, 8-12 contact attempts over a 10-14 day period is the optimal strategy to maximize the value of every lead.  https://www.insidesales.com/tips/number-of-contact-attempts/.  

Did you get that? Eight to twelve contact attempts are necessary to maximize the value of leads, and the average number of attempts by real estate agents is 3.57 if you combine e-mails and phone calls.  One study I know claims, “It takes 18 or more dials to connect with a prospect over the phone and call-back rates are below 1%.” http://blog.topohq.com/sales-development-technology-the-stack-emerges/

President Bill Clinton speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention told the story of how he had to ask, then Hillary Rodman, to marry him three times. (click on the image above for video).  Now whatever your political beliefs I am sure you can understand the point I am going to make.  Imagine what might have happened if Bill Clinton had stopped after the first proposal,  or the second , or stumbled halfway through the second.  He may never have been Governor of Arkansas not President of the United States of America.  Hillary may never have been First Lady, a U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, nor the Democratic Party’s nominee for Presesdsient[RS1]  of the United States.  What a difference asking, or calling one more time can make.

Click here to watch the video

A CRM like ZipperAgent can help you keep track of your leads, how often you have called them, and when you should call them again.  Our CRM can help you provide good follow-up to those leads or yours. If you are not using a CRM, you should consider it.