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Is it the Lead or is it the REALTOR®?

By
Education & Training with Thneed, LLC

I posted a bit earlier about the cost of buying leads from lead generation companies and in reading a lot of correspondence and feedback about these services, it appears that there is a lot more to getting a sale than just buying a lead.  If you look at how different companies aggregate leads for their customers, essentially they have a commercial website that invites visitors to submit their contact information in exchange for a comps report, or some other information that has to do with the housing market.  On a very rare occasion, the offer is to actually help the visitor buy or sell a property.    The information collected from these sites is then aggregated, sorted by zip code, and emailed to members of the service.    

Unfortunately, these are the leads that REALTORS® are paying thousands of dollars to buy.  They are just random people surfing the net that ran across a real estate site.  Arguably, they are warmer than leads out of a phone book, but certainly not frothing at the bit to list or buy a home.    

With this in mind, why the disparity between people that find immeasurable value in these services and other agents that feel like they have been robbed?  I think the answer lay in the system that the agent uses to prospect, market, educate and eventually convert the lead into a client.  In reading posts about real estate agents that find value in these services, they treat every contact and lead as a potential client and use a prospecting engine to educate and eventually close that client.  Regardless of the lead source, these successful agents use a prospecting system to touch the prospect multiple times across a variety of mediums with their value proposition.  The system that these agents use educates the prospect about the services available through the agent and provides the prospect with enough "brand" exposure for them to recognize and remember the name of the agent.  Through this system, the prospect makes the agent their first call when it is time to get the services of a REALTOR®. 

This is in contrast to other agents that purchase these leads and when they follow up find that the prospect was just surfing the net and "mistakenly" filled out a comps request.    The prospect gets no further exposure to the agent, and if the prospect eventually decides to use a real estate agent to buy or sell a home, they contact a local agent with whom they are much more familiar.

This begs the question, are the leads of any great value, or would a good real estate agent be just as successful if they bought a mailing list of a few hundred people in their area?  The leads collected online are a little warmer, but not significantly so.  

I would argue that those individuals that swear by the services of third party online lead aggregators would be just as successful by implementing their prospecting engine on a random group of contacts.  Statistically speaking, 20% of their contact list will need the services of an agent with the next two years, and I would guess that their system would be just as effective in this group without the monthly outlay of money for a small list of "leads."   I guess what I am saying is that even when you buy a lead it is likely to be cold until you spend the time and money to make it hot, so save your money and invest it in your own marketing system.

For me, I would rather have agents focus on developing their own prospecting engines so that they attract leads and clients through their own resources instead of laying out their hard earned cash or a portion of their commission for a lukewarm lead.

BN at 4MySales.com

Comments (1)

Joseph Abreu
Abreu - Waterbury, CT

I agree with you.  We use similar services on a trial basis and most of these people are are surfers.

I do have a lead in Danbury Connecticut.  please e-mail me at joe@abreurealty.com

Aug 29, 2006 11:30 AM