Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're going to go back to our GoGoAgent Academy we held in Orlando earlier this year for a live session. We had such a great conversation, this is actually going to be a two-parter talking about converting leads.
If you remember, converting leads is one of the primary elements of the Listing Agent Lifestyle and we talk about the long-term conversion value of leads. How much a bundle of a hundred leads you have today, is worth over the next 30, 60, 90 days, along with how much it's worth in one year, two years and even more.
I think you're going to love some of these stories as people at the academy have had some amazing conversion experiences and you're going to enjoy the approach we take to converting leads. It’s not about hammering people, jumping on them or beating them into submission to buy homes right now. Once you understand that the people who are going to buy homes, want to buy homes, and it's just that maybe they're not ready to buy a home right now, on your timeline, it becomes much easier.
People do things on their own timeline, so we're going to talk about some really great ways to maintain your relationship with someone without chasing people off, but instead attracting them to you, so when they're ready, they contact you.
So here we go with part one, and then next week we'll have part two.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep028
Dean: Let's talk about converting leads. As one of the core elements of the Listing Agent Lifestyle, converting leads is where you have one of your greatest assets right now. We talk about all the things that we're doing lead generation wise, from the getting listings, postcards, generating all those people who are future home sellers, and all the things that you're doing buyer-wise from your info box flyers, or your Facebook ads or your print ads or everything you're doing to generate buyer prospects.
Those prospect's portfolios are valuable assets. They are what you're going to ... that are going to mature into people who end up buying and selling homes, which turns into commission checks that you deposit that turn into money. And that's really the asset of it. You notice that every time I talk about things like this, I'm always talking about it in financial investment terms. I'm talking about your relationship portfolio in your after unit. When we're talking about referrals, I'm talking about your prospect portfolio as your asset in your before unit, all the things that you've done to generate those leads.
When we look at it, the asset that you have is only going to grow over time, and it gets more valuable over time. You end up where there are situations where sometimes years later, people will pop out and just out of the blue, be ready to buy a house or sell a house. And you had them first come to your website five years ago, six years ago, could be even more. When you start looking at it, that asset, as long as you're continuing to nurture it, you're continuing to be in contact with them, that they're going to ... and you're making here's what to do next offers, that they're going to pop out whenever they're ready.
That's why this whole mindset that we take is really about the value of not trying to have somebody do something on your timeline, but to be ready and there when it's their timeline. Everybody's on their own agenda, and nothing you have to say or do is going to make any difference. They're not moving because you need somebody to buy a house this month, or you've already mailed these postcards now for five months and somebody needs to list right now, by the way. And so, you look at that and it's like the whole idea is that we're patiently understanding that people are going to mature at their own level, and we're just here to serve, to give them the information, and then whenever you're ready, we're offering the cookies. We're offering the things that are there.
I want to refresh about the core concepts that drive everything that we do in the converting leads element here. The first core belief or the core driver of all of this, is that I believe that people are going to buy or sell. That's the first thing. When they come on there, I'm treating everybody like they're a five star prospect until they prove that they aren't, versus treating them like they're not a five star prospect until they prove that they are, making them jump through hoops, making them...
And it's the pervasive mindset around the real estate industry, is that leads are somehow dirty. Are they scrubbed leads? Are they qualified leads. Meaning that we hear those words but that's what people say. It's as if they're inherently dirty, and only the good clean ones are the ones that we want. But what we have a secret code for is that I don't want to waste any time, I don't want to waste time with tire kickers, so we end up that our belief is that so few of these people are actually worth investing in our time, that there are going to not pay out that way.
And that's why you see all these people in the Facebook groups saying, "Zero leads are garbage. I tried for three months and I didn't get anything." Meaning that nobody jumped in my car and bought a house right away. They're all tire kickers or lookie loos. We're so short sighted on the way that we think about it with these leads, that I look at it that.... When I first really started getting into lead conversion and lead management, trying to maximize that, I found a study that showed that just over half of the people that inquire about anything will buy what it is they've inquired about within 18 months.
And so that really changed the way that I focused on things. If you look at it that I took an extra conservative approach to it, and I started looking and saying, "Okay, let's extend that out to two years, and let's bring it down to 50% and say if I have a guiding belief that 50% of the people who inquire about selling their house or about buying a house will buy or sell their house in the next two years, that's a pretty good place to come from. It's pretty good odds, 50% when you take that long game."
But what the study found was that only 15% of them would do it in the first 90 days, and 85% would do it more than 90 days from now. And that's from a company that handles inquiries on an enterprise level for big corporations, and they handle millions of inquiries a year. And the way they got the data was they would do what they called 'did you buy' surveys where they would call samplings of the people at different increments in 90 days and say, "Bob, you came to the home show and you inquired about faucets. Have you bought any faucets?"
And not, "Did you buy Moen faucets, or did you buy our brand of faucets, or can I sell you some faucets," they would just ask, "Did you buy faucets?" Category. And so, when you look at that, that's where they got the data that they actually ... the intention and the execution of it was that when they inquire, half of them actually do what it is they've inquired about in the next 18 months. When you think about that, that's a pretty profound thing, because it's not saying that half of the people that inquire are going to buy faucets from you, or that half of the people that inquire are going to buy a house from you, or sell their house with you.
What they're saying is that their intention is that that's what's going to happen, that they're really high quality people in the long term. So I started looking at that and looking for, "How do I establish this as an organizing principle for how I communicate with these people? When I started looking at it that I would divide people into quadrants, and so I would take a quadrant. Let me demonstrate on my fancy new tablet here for you. I would look at it and I just divide people into these categories, that I look at and say, "Okay, there are only four possible outcomes here. The four outcomes are going to be that; yes they buy, or no they don't buy, and now, or later."
And so if I look at this, it would lay out something like this. Everybody would be in one of these four quadrants here. At the bottom, up and down is, yes they're going to buy. No they're not going to buy. And at the sides it's, they're going to buy now. Meaning, within the next 90 days, or later, meaning more than 90 days from now. So every single, if I take a bundle of 100 leads today, I can fit them in one of these quadrants here. If we look two years from now ... Now, when I look at it that if they're not going to buy, it doesn't matter whether it's now or later, I can eliminate 50 of them. I can eliminate that half right now.
That leaves us with the two, "Yes, we're going to buy." 15% of them buying now, and 85% of them doing it later. What I look at is if we're going to put our ... If we're in Las Vegas and we're putting our chips on one of these boxes, where do we put our chips?
Woman: More than 90 days.
Dean: Well, that's certainly true for more than 90 days around, but it's a trick question because the only place to put your chips today is in the 15. To find out that are these people ... We don't know which ones are going to be the ones. But, it's not about convincing the 85% to be the 15%, it's about discovering which of these 100 are the 15% already. It's about discovering that, not convincing them to do that.
And so, when we look at that, everything that we're looking for are, who are the five star prospects? And so, five star prospects are people who are willing to engage in a dialogue. They're friendly and cooperative. They know what they want. They know when they want it, and they'd like us to help them. We're looking for all of those to be in alignment, and they have to happen in that order. First, they have to be willing to engage in dialogue. Next, are they friendly and cooperative?
Next, do they know what they want? Do we know what they want? And do they know what they want? If they don't know what they want, all of our conversation has to be about helping them discover what they want together, whether it's something that you are even able to help them with, then do they want to do it now, or later? Is there any reason why they would delay, or what's their timeline? And then, would they like us to help them? We don't get to the prescription part of it until we've met all of those others.
Whereas so often, people are trying to convince people to buy or to sell now. They're starting from the bottom going up. They're starting with the prescription is, "You should buy now." And not have any investigation into whether they're willing to engage or friendly and cooperative or know what they want. We're starting at the bottom and trying to impose our agenda on them, and hoping that we're going to squeeze those people into our way of thinking about this. So when we say that now, if we know that the five star prospects are in there, if we have 100 leads today, we know that they're in there. We just don't know which ones they are.
You can't tell by looking at a list of names and emails, a hundred of them lined up, which ones are the ones who are actually going to buy. You can't tell that. Let's get the mic for ... So you can't tell which ones they are, but would you act differently if you could? If you could know which 50% are with the ones who are actually going to buy, would you act differently? And why would it make a difference then?
If we're talking about there's a 50/50 chance, why would you not just come from a place of treating them like they are going to be the one that buys. It's like that ... I was talking about it yesterday with somebody about the Pygmalion Effect where they did experiments with teachers and kids, and they would tell a teacher that this particular group of kids were gifted, and then they would tell teachers that this particular group of kids are trouble. The teachers would treat the groups according to what they believed that they were, and the kids would perform to that.
If the teachers thought they were trouble and treated them like they were trouble, they would act and be troublesome. If they took the same kids and treated them like they were gifted, they would perform in a gifted way. We all mold to how we get treated. If you treat somebody like they are a five star prospect, and that you're not wasting your time with them and that you're more than happy to do because secretly you know in the future that they are going to buy a house from you, you don't mind and you're not ... they wouldn't know that you know, but you wouldn't mind treating them that way.
And I'm saying that the very best course of action you can have is to just treat them like they are five star prospects, until they prove that they aren't. And you're right, 50% of the time. Zach, what were you going to say?
Zack: The Mike Ferry script that I never really understood until just now is, are you going to be listing your house or selling your house in the next 90 days? And it's like, well, why would you only want to deal with people in the next 90 days, whereas I would like to just find out, "Well, are they going to be selling their house?"
Dean: But there's the thing that, part of that thing that these ... I would look at it ... The different philosophy is that people only want to deal with people who are right now. That's the thing. It’s a whole different philosophy. It's a different mindset. He's just burning through people, these numbers, Are you going to...? Are you going to ...?" Next. Next. ""You're dead to me. If you're not going to sell your house in the next 90 days, you're dead to me." That's really what it is.
Speaker: I think what you're saying is 100% right, Dean. That makes sense. I think where it comes from is that people, especially when they start to generate leads for the first time, I know this happens to me, now you've got more leads than you have time, and you certainly don't want to run out half a day with someone when there's someone right ... but you don't know, I got this person and I got this person, and one of them, let's just say is a five star, and one of them is a pain in the neck, someone you really don't want in your life.
And they both called you and they both want to see houses on opposing sides of town, and so you're trying to make a business decision, and I don't know the easiest, most effective, fairest way to do that. But it sure is frustrating to walk out of a ... opening a house for someone, even if there are only three or four blocks away from your home office, and they're like, "Well, yeah. You know, I haven't even talked to a lender yet." But I agree that you don't want to try and kiss your date the second you meet, so you don't want to say, "By the way, are you pre-qualified for a mortgage?"
Because I agree with you, that that's an invasive question, and it is off putting. So in a practical matter, how do you strike that balance? I was trying to be a little-
Dean: Just curious. Just Wondering.
Speaker: I can see where it comes from, and coaches who coaches stuff like Mike Ferry and Craig Proctor, they're like, "Look, you've got all these leads and you're sifting for gold, and if you get a buyer, put a collar on them and drag them in your office, and hit them over the head till they sign a buyer's agreement, and it's not natural. But a component of it makes sense.
Dean: It's a different thing. It's like, that is the short term churn through and generate a bunch of leads and just filter out hammer on them, them him down get them in the office, get them to sign a buyer agency, go sell them out, and then get on to the next one. That's one philosophy and one mindset about it, but what that requires is a level of intensity that is off putting in a way. It's not relaxing. I look at it that, if your thing is when you hear these, that when you get a lead, if you don't call back in five minutes they are worthless.
And you hear all these people about all these, like, "You got to use the bulldog technique, where you call them from this phone. If they don't answer, you call them from another one, as soon as you hang up, and then you call them again." And it's like three or four calls within a four minute, you put them in the state of confusion thing so that they answer the phone, and then close to get the appointment." It's such a different thing than realizing that 85% ... It's building your whole business on the ones who are ready now.
So the advantage, the opportunity that you have is that all those people, they're sacrificing the long term value of this. And so, when you look at it, this asset, the portfolio that you have, is that you have the opportunity now to, if you've got leads that you've generated for more than 90 days, you can send out a simple email to people that just revives those people, the ones who are ready now. So if say, if you send out an email to people who responded to something more than 90 days ago, and you say just Georgetown in the subject line or their name in the subject line and you say, "Hi John. Are you still looking for a house in Georgetown?"
That's it. That message will get people responding to you when they're ready. Now they're willing to engage. So you look at that whole thing of reengaging with people. When you look at it, what numbers are we talking about the buyer lead portfolio that you have and the seller lead portfolio ... How many buyer leads do you have right now that are unconverted that have inquired about something?
Speaker 2: GoGo Agent, I would say-
Dean: Oh yeah, We need the mic there. Sorry.
Speaker 2: If I looked in my GoGo CRM, I would say it's probably something ... This is anecdotal, 500, 700, something like that.
Dean: Perfect. So, those people over almost a year for-
Speaker 2: Or maybe even ... I'm embarrassed to say, I've been doing this for years, it should be thousands, but I'm starting where I am.
Dean: But whatever it is, that when you look at that, that some of those people have come in at varying times throughout the last year, that if ... You have you sent a nine-word email to those?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got a truck load of ... Someone had talked about this, because I actually just made an autoresponder with it, which is six weeks.
Dean: Perfect.
Speaker 2: And if you are six weeks, anyone who's sitting in there, "Are you still looking? Are you still looking?" Because it's a great conversation starter.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Not really intended to be used ... And so, whatever.
Dean: That's perfect to set it up like that. That's a great message to start the thing. The implication, of course, is that when you say, "Are you still looking for a house in Georgetown?" The implication is that I know that you were looking and you're only speaking to the five star prospects. We're not accommodating, we're only sending the messages to the ones who we're treating them like they're five star prospects. And so that level, that sort of thing is like opportunity number one.
If you've got prospects and you send out a nine-word email, you can engage with people. Now we're starting at the top. They're willing to engage. Now, are they friendly and cooperative? Do they reply back when you reply back to them?
Speaker 2: I've gotten replies. And yes, like you said, the typical, this reason, that reason, whatever, but, "Yes please keep sending or whatever. We're still interested, or we'll be back in town next spring. It didn't work out, my wife's mother died, we had to get back to Ohio, but we'll be back," blah, blah, blah. That kind of thing.
Dean: And there's the thing. And then you've got, whenever you're ready, here's three ways we can help you. I look at that as like the cool thing. Were you going to say something, Sean?
Sean: Well, I think that's the big thing. Especially talking about the financing. I can see where that could be a challenge, it feels like a sign calling somebody you don't know. I've never had a problem. It gets back to five star prospects, because the five star prospects, they're easy to deal with. It's like the fish in the boat. They jump in the boat ... And it's just part of a natural conversation. I've been sending these folks to the market watch update and then whenever they're ready to buy, they pick up the phone, and it's just a natural question to ask them where they're at and their financing, "Are you going to be paying in cash or there's going to be some financing involved?"
It's just a natural ... Not only do they answer it, but they tell you more than you probably should know, most of the time. With the five star prospects and people that you have a relationship, that's really not an issue at all. It's the shorter, kind of the 15% or somebody came in on a sign, that's where it's a little bit challenging.
Dean: You were telling me, it was you that was telling me while we were walking here that somebody who since 2012 now they're free again?
Sean: The first month that I started.
Dean: The very first month in 2012, so six years ago that now somebody is re-back.
Sean: And I spent $300 that month.
Dean: That's the fun thing, when you look at your ROI on that $300 that you spent that month over these six years, that would be an interesting chart to see the ROI on the month by month certificates of deposit. If you look at them that way-
Sean: Well, I know I was able to pay the website back, and I made some more money, and then if somebody else comes along, then it'll be real gravy, I guess.
Dean: That's perfect.
Sean: I've got a question in this converting leads area. I have been doing ... I send the market watch out religiously. It's the one thing that I've been able to be consistent on forever, but the worst email to get is the one, especially with somebody that you've been talking to, is the one where they say that they've bought a house, because people come in and go out, you lose touch that's just part of the deal sometimes.
But you're always thinking in the back of your mind if there's other stuff that we could have maybe been ... or could have done. And I was thinking about these links, the intelligent links-
Dean: You can see who's active and you can see who's not.
Sean: I've never really done that. I've just sent the market watch email every Tuesday and then answered the folks that responded, but I haven't really had any other communication with just simply the folks that are open in the email. Do you have any ideas or thoughts on that or what other folks might be doing or anybody else might be doing?
Dean: About anything-
Sean: Call it an additional follow up, I guess, within the market watch.
Dean: I think that so much of it is just the consistent stuff. And I think that when you're on that path, sending more, like going to a point where like what Chuck Charlton does every day, sending something out. I wouldn't go through that trouble until you've got at least 1000 or more people that you're that you're communicating with. When he started doing the daily ones, he was at 4800 people. So it had gone just weekly all the way up until then. And then immediately when switching to the daily, exactly what we expected would happen happened.
It's polarizing. Immediately repelled the bottom 20% and attracted the top 20%. The subscribers went down in the first few weeks of doing the daily thing because some people, they are not interested in that level, but we also got to a point where there are seven or 800 people every day watching the video. So your appeal to the top 20%-
Sean: And that's where I'm at. I have about 4500, I guess, over time.
Dean: It might make sense during the season or during things that start amplifying or doing more value. Jack was just saying at the break that adding video to something adds a new element, that they feel like they know you. Even adding your voice to something where people hear you, it makes an impact, it's just different. Now they have a multisensory relationship with you. My natural thing is podcasts, and so I do...
I have so many people who when I meet them for the first time, are like, "I spend so many hours with you because I listen when I drive to work or when I'm walking the dog or I went on the road trip and listened for hours to stuff," and you have a different sense of that they know you, they like you and that builds that ... They feel like they know you. Chuck would say that.
Speaker 3: In 2011, but you did not know me.
Dean: That's funny because when we met the other night, that was the first thing you said. You are like, "You don't know me." You see it and everybody feels like they know you.
Sean: One of the things that that just popped into my head, because one of the things, and we've talked about it... I come from a market where people are relocating heavily. So over the years, many times, the first time I'll see them is when they walk through the door, unless I have seen them on the social indicator, but I can maybe do something along the lines of, if somebody wants to schedule a computer interview, or whatever it's called.
Dean: FaceTime.
Sean: FaceTime. It's weird because people walk in office and say, "Hey, are you so and so or?"
Dean: But I think it would be great to do, if anybody ... I look at things and I look at what's the minimum viable product, what's the minimum effective dose of something. And so I get to that point where I get you to come from a baseline of a weekly, well thought out, just market watch email update with the latest updates on what's going on. That is the best launch pad, to then add and supplement stuff like that. If I look at it from ... I showed you guys yesterday, this idea of, "I have to ratchet it back to, what will you do?'
And I know that what you will do is, if it was as simple as sending an email, and this is ... Okay, let me get my thoughts about the order of how I want to say this because it's so powerful. Ashley Fray in Toronto has the ... Do you know Ashley, Tom? He's got the mobile app, the mobile app real estate list. It's the top app in Canada for ... It's all the listings that are on the market. And so, he had all of these subscribers, all these people who have downloaded the app and are using it to search homes, but he wasn't sending anything to the people, wasn't sending any email to them as a follow up thing.
And we set up the simplest of emails, where he takes two just curated articles that go in the email with a picture and a headline for the article with a link to it, and then it's just a carrier for the super signature, which says, "Here's what to do next." And it just says, "Number one, join us for a daily tour of homes, click here. Find out how much your house is worth, click here. Get your free home loan report, click here." Just that simplest thing, when he sends those out, 150 people a month will respond to those things. And so it just generates all these people who are moving into the I'm ready now phase.
And there's no amount of work that that takes to make happen. There's no creativity to it, there's no like really in-depth content, it doesn't take hours. It's done by somebody else who picks the articles. It's the fact that it's there, and that we're acknowledging, this is what to do next. There's so much-
Speaker 2: What's the name again?
Dean: Ashley Frey. He's in your office.
Speaker 2: I hope you can afford a meeting.
Dean: Yeah. Absolutely. I look at it as ... The reason that I say, "Whenever you're ready, here's how we can help you," is that so often we take this mindset of just being either too aggressive with saying, "Buy now, now's the time, are you ready yet? Are you ready yet?" Or we're too passive and saying, "Hey, if you have any questions, please feel free to email us or just reach out, we're more than happy to help you." And I'm saying that taking that leadership role is the thing that people most respond to.
And it goes back even to hospitality, that's why I call them cookies. If I invite you into my living room and say, "Hey, Zach, lots of stuff in the fridge if you're hungry or thirsty, please feel free to help yourself." That's the way we're saying it to our clients. But it's very different because we're not wired to take advantage of that as a society, we're wired to not have people go out of their way for us. What I'm saying is, we're much better off to sit somebody in the living room and to come out and say, "Hey, we've got cupcakes right over there, we could use the same thing or a plate of cookies."
If I come out with some freshly baked cookies and I stand there with the cookies right in front of you and say, "Would you like a cookie?" It would be very difficult for you not to take that cookie, even if you don't necessarily like that kind of cookie, you just don't want to hurt my feelings. We don't want to reject people. That's why we're so cautious to avoid any hint of obligation on things. That's why when we go into retail stores, "Can I help you?" "No, thanks, I'm just looking," because that way we know that if you help me with anything, I feel obligated to buy something because you were helping me.
I don't want to be a wealth share, I don't want to be like just be a leech on society. And the prospects are exactly the same way, yet we're expecting them to take the initiative by contacting us, if you have any questions or if there's anything we can help you with. You lead and I'll be happy to jump into service, so I'm saying take a leadership role. That's what people want, is a confident servant leader. That's really what it is more than trying to impose your way on them, they want people who know the way and only guide the people the way, "Would you like to go over here?" Certainly, "Well, let me help you."
Not like, "Hey, come on, this way. This is the way right here, you're not going to believe what you'll see up here." It's not about that. It's about understanding that people are on their own timeline and that whenever you're ready, we've got the ways to help you and that's where it's like, you've got this opportunity to really capitalize on the long term sustainable value of your portfolio, your asset, of all of these prospects. You're not chasing people off, burning them out, alienating or making the ones who don't buy now feel bad because they didn't buy now, or resent you because you keep trying to convince them to buy now.
That's why I'm always reluctant when somebody responds to getting listings to like, rush over to their house because it's a little bit like you're almost too anxious in a way, like you're trying ... It's in the back of their mind, they were a little bit afraid that that might be what happens anyway. That they were thinking, "Okay, it says I can just get this report, I'm not saying in here ... I'm not saying that I'm selling my house. Okay, I'll take a chance on that." And then as soon as somebody calls them up, then they're, "I knew it, I knew it. No, no, we're not selling. We're not selling, we were just interested in the ... I was just curious about the thing, and no, we're not selling for a long time. You don't have to contact us."
We want to get rid of that and cut that off at the pass. And so I'm saying, when you just send them the thing and they're relaxed and nobody is hounding them, nobody's calling them and you're saying right on there, "Whenever you're ready, here are three ways we can help you," and we let the cookies speak for themselves. It's like we've anticipated, what are they going to want? Just like we anticipated that anybody who's thinking about selling their house, the first thing they're going to want to know is, how much is my house worth?
And here we are with a postcard offering the information that's going to scratch that itch for them, that's going to provide that level of knowledge for them. Now, once that happens, we know that they're either going to want to know precisely how much their house is worth or they're going to want to know what they should do to fix up their house to get it ready to sell, or they maybe would sell if you had a buyer, that might motivate them to get off the fence of it. But we've anticipated that and instead of saying, "Hey, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out."
We're saying, "Whenever you're ready, we know that these are the next three things." Just like if I offer you the cookie and you take it, there's a pretty good chance that if I come behind that with some milk, that you might be interested in some milk. It's the same thing, it's anticipating what somebody, what their needs are going to be.
Woman: What are the three things that if you put in the super signature?
Dean: The three things for the sellers are, the pinpoint price analysis, or the room by room review, or the silent market. And for the buyers, it's the daily tour of homes, it's the free home buyer workshop, it's the free home loan report. I was going to say, "Are you new here." What are these three things? If you look at that ... Those kinds of things starting that process every month, whenever you're ready, it just works. It just works that way. Yeah, Gus.
Gus: Question. Obviously, we're in the midst of now converting leads. So we go over the super signature, we've got ways of sellers and buyers. At what point ... What I'm having a hard time to wrap my head around is the, and I've talked to Sean and Ron about it, is this market watch email versus a Home Finder or Market Sold, and-
Speaker 2: What does it look like?
Dean: What does it look like?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Gus: What does that process ... like in speaking with Sean, I was like, "We do 150 to 250." Here's a link to this, there's 250 to 350." Who's that going out to? Is that all buyers, people who have raised their hands? It's kind of like-
Dean: Yes. All buyers. Everybody who ... This is the thing, is that your lead conversion process, you're generating leads and people are coming in, so they come through info box flyer or they come to an instant open house landing page. They leave their name and email, all of those are flagged as buyer prospects. And all of your buyer prospects should be getting your weekly market watch email, where you update them on all of the new listings that have come on the market in the last seven days.
So it's Wednesday, or whenever. A consistent day of the week, that every Wednesday, here comes the new listings and you have it so that you have a format for it. And on the member blog, you'll see if you just type in market watch, you'll see examples of what those look like. But the essence of it is, you've seen ... You get my emails that have the little bit of what they are, the banner, just the stuff at the top, and then from Winterhaven in Florida, Sunny and 82 and then going ...
Then we're into the thing, that the modular part of it is that you've got one little section, that is what I call, your host chat kind of thing, where there's a person behind this, where you're saying, "Hey, we had a busy week this week, there's 132 new listings this week. I've been working with a family that's looking for three bedrooms with a pool, so I've seen all of the ones that are on the market right now. One that really stood out was this one."
You're just saying something that's kind of evidencing that there's a real person who's actively helping people buy homes in your marketplace, and then you move into the ... Almost like saying, "Anyway, there's 137 new listings this week, here's all the new properties," and you got a link. You can separate them by price if you wanted to, up to 150, up to 300, up to 500, 500 plus or however you want to divide it, and just let people click on the one that's them. And if you have those, as intelligent links, every time they click on that, it's going to flag that that person is interested in the 300 to 500 price range.
Now, every time you're sending out market watch, you're gathering new information, you're gathering stuff that they're interested in. Then you maybe get into, "And if you're in town this week, we're doing daily tours of homes every day at 10 o'clock and 1:00 p.m. If you want to join us for a tour, just click here." And that takes them to your daily tour of homes landing page. Or you could do your Saturday tour or your whatever, you make the rules. I'm just saying that I find the daily as a good thing, and everybody would be able to fit in.
If somebody calls you up today and said, "Hey, we're coming to town tomorrow, can you show us some houses." Everybody would be able to accommodate that probably.
Speaker 2: I've asked about this several times on the Thursday calls and it's been explained to me more than once, and it just keeps going like this. That the daily tour of homes in the real world, someone says, "Okay," and they click, and they go and they say, "I would like to see a house at one o'clock today." and we'll try and make it simple and say it's 8:00 a.m.
Dean: It will be tomorrow. We'd never do this on the same day.
Speaker 2: It's always going to be a 24 hour ... Okay. Somehow I build in, we need a 24 or 48 hour notice. Then at that point, I get it. But are people actually trying to set up showings for specific properties or are they saying ... How are you handling them?
Dean: You'll have the conversation with them, "Perfect, I'm going to setup your tour." Now, you're engaged in their conversation, is what are they looking for? What are they most interested in? Now, you're able to set up just the right homes from there. And then you start from, "We'll start at my office."
Speaker 2: That's where I trip is, now I'm afraid when I say that, "Okay, perfect." It's just like getting any other buyer, it's just a different way to get a buyer. But when they call me specifically to say, "Hey, I like that house 123 Main Street, can I see it?" That's okay. Well, I know there is enough property, I have a feel that they want a two, three that's about, 275, 325, in the area of town they want to be in. But when you call me and say, "I need a new home," I would say, "Okay Dean, tell me a little bit about what side of town you want to be in and what prices are you looking at." And that's like, "Wait, wait, you're not making a special tour for me, are you? I thought I was just going to join a tour."
Dean: That's never happened.
Speaker 2: That was my question. That's what I was curious about.
Dean: No, they don't.
Speaker 2: That's what I was tripping in my head, because I just want to know in my head, before someone calls me, how the calls is going ... the idea of how it's going to go.
Woman: Have you created a tour?
Speaker 2: People do ask, "Well, I thought it was going to be a group of people." So I simply say, "Well, you know what, your particular condos that you wanted to see, the other group didn't want to see, so it's just a kind of special tour for you."
Dean: Yeah. Very good.
Woman: I have found that a lot of times the reason people ask that, is that they don't know how else to ask. They want to start looking at homes or start the process and they don't know how else to ask, so that's how they ask. And by me turning it around and asking them a little bit more about what they're doing, what they've done already, it seems to make them very comfortable and I never get into, "Gosh, I thought this was going to be a tour." They never go there.
Dean: They're more like, "Oh that's great."
Woman: Yeah. And one of the things I've also said is ... Well, you know I don't have anybody else signed up for tomorrow. It’s just going to be you and me. And so we can make it real personal and you can see what specifically you want to see.
Speaker 2: That all makes sense. I was, of course, inventing options that weren't there.
Dean: That's great.
Speaker 2: My question is actually kind went back to the weekly email. So, is this only for buyer prospects or including buyers that I'm actively working with?
Dean: No. The buyers that you're actively working with you should be ... Well, everybody could be getting your ... if they haven't bought yet, they're still getting the weekly thing. That's great.
Speaker 2: That was kind of my thing, because I got the buyers that I'm working with-
Dean: I wouldn't cut somebody off of that until they've actually bought. So, they're still getting the market watch.
Speaker 2: They're obviously getting specific listings, but then you would still send in the weekly-
Dean: In addition. Yeah.
Woman: So, would you send that to your sphere as well?
Dean: No. Not your sphere, just to your prospects. This is all about your buyer or your seller prospect portfolio. Did you have one, Kenny?
Kenny: Yeah. Or a comment were not ... because I've had trouble over the years thinking about conversions. And it just clicked, because there's all kinds of ways to measure conversions, do they sign up? Do they buy? Do the checks clear? And we're not converting anybody. They're converting themselves.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Kenny: They converting themselves.
Dean: That's what I tell you.
Kenny: We're just putting it in front of them. Putting the cookies right there.
Dean: Listen to your voicemail from Chester. Chester voicemail, that's nothing-
Kenny: He converted himself.
Dean: You converted him by patiently, systematically educating him-
Kenny: It's education.
Dean: Until they're ready. Whenever you're ready, there's something just relaxing about those words.
Speaker 2: We'll not charge.
Dean: Yeah. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: So I just read this book, a month or so ago, I'm reading it again now. It's like this size and it's called So What by Mark Magnacca, I think his name is. He basically wants to flip us, whether we're talking to our kids or our prospects or whoever, into thinking totally about them and as if I make a statement and you say to me ... like right now talking about this book, and you're sitting there just thinking, "So what? What's it going to mean to me?" And that's what, every time somebody says something to me, I'm thinking to myself, "So what? What does this mean to me? How is this going to help me?" And that's the way everybody on the receiving end of a statement is.
And to just get into that mindset of always be thinking about, "So what?" What does it mean to them? It's just so hard for me, because so what. It's all about me. I'm the one that's talking right now. I'm the one that I want it to be about me.
Dean: Exactly.
Speaker 2: So, I've been studying this stuff for a long time. It's just now starting to click, so I'm just going to shut up and-
Dean: That's perfect.
Speaker 2: So where do all these buyers come from?
Dean: Well, everywhere. I mean anything and everything you do, from your info box fliers. With next ... right after lunch, we're going to have a whole session about finding buyers. We'll talk about all the different ways to get them. What I'm saying-
Speaker 2: They're going to come from your print ads?
Speaker 2: I know the print ads, because I know that when I attempted this 15 years ago, we were doing ad words about a dollar a lead. And I should have stuck with it.
Dean: Those were the good old days.
Speaker 2: I should have stuck with it.
Dean: You should have stuck with it. But there's the thing, like that's really the biggest thing that you've got right now, everybody, you've all been in long enough that you have a really incredible asset of prospects that are valuable. And just ramping up the way that we communicate, and treat that group, nurturing that relationship, is going to make such a big difference.
Even starting with just sending them a nine-word email, sending them the email, "Are you still looking for a house? Are you still looking for a condo?" I love my favorite ever story about the nine-word email is the yacht broker, my guy, Stewart's brother is a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale and he's a young guy, but he joined this yacht brokerage where it's all older guys, and it's such an old boys network. It's like they don't have any time for tire kickers. They're not at all interested in lookie loos.
And so when he moved into that office there, as a new young guy, what did they do? Well, what he actually ... they had a file paper, because it's old school guys, they can note some people or people inquire on the website and they're writing the notes on the thing, and if they don't want to come out and look this weekend, then they're not ... Are you going to buy yacht in the next 90 days? If not, then you're dead to me basically. So they had a file that they would keep all these things in and literally called dead leads. Labeled, dead leads.
And so he took this dead leads files and started going through and sending people, individual emails saying, "Hey Shawn, are you still looking for a yacht?" And he got back a reply from a guy, who was looking for a yacht and is under contract on a $130 million custom yacht, that's delivering next year. This was a couple of years ago. But in the meantime, he bought a $50 million yacht to tide him over until his $130 million yacht is available. If you look at that, has like that is the highest thing I've seen happen with a nine-word email, but it's just so instructive, it's the same thing.
You've never seen it not work. I think that's something to build into your rotation. If you haven't already integrated that into your thing. If you've got all these people who you've been generating leads for more than 90 days, it's the perfect time to send out an email like that. Yeah. Let's give him the mic.
Speaker 2: I would like to ... One of my goals is to get people ... I have an IDX website but I don't like it so well, because I don't trust its reliability. I try to drive people into the portal that's given to us by the MLS, the actual portal because I found it to be more reliable. And I've always been of the opinion, not always until recently, of the opinion, if I get them in there and they're using it, I usually have to get on the phone with them really train them how to use it. If they're in there, they're taking notes or marking stuff as favorites and stuff like that. I've got them.
They're in my shopping mall and they're not going to go to Zillow or Trulia or somebody else's IDX, if I get them in there. But I just realized once that I have in there, even though they're in there and the computer is taking care of them, sending them what they want and they're making notes, and the computer is doing it all for me, I should still be sending those people my market watch email on top of that. That was my kind of light bulb.
Dean: What IDX is, if you're using IDXes, what's happening is, it seems just so easy to send people up and set them up for automated updates, and what they get are these machine generated, "Here's the property data for February 25th," and it's just like blah, blah, blah. No personality attached to it. There's nobody minding the store. Whereas, when you're sending an email that starts out with a little like letter from home, letter from camp kind of thing, of saying, "Here's what's going on. And I saw this really great one over here. And anyway, here are the new ones that have come on this week."
"And if you're in town and you want to do this, you can join us on the daily tour or when you're ...” Always in the body, you kind of like presents one of those offers, one of the cookies that we have. We can feature a cookie. We're saying, "If you're new to the home buying process and you want to learn all the moves, we're doing a home buyer workshop at the library next Tuesday, if you'd like to join us." And then you are just presenting, making those offers. And then all the while at the bottom of the email, they get the, "Plus whenever you're ready, there are three ways we can help you get."
Speaker 2: That's huge. I have people that really liked it. They tell me, "Hey I like this, I like using it." But, still if they were getting email above and beyond that, would make a huge difference. That's a big light bulb for me.
Dean: Even more, doing like what Chuck, was doing with the daily video is even above that in a way that it gives people insight into what they're seeing. Something that they can't get from just the automated data. That they're getting the information now. And so, it makes a big difference. It's like any time you can add personality to something, I would love ... but it's again, it's a higher skill level and a higher commitment level to have. If I were trying to do a one-off, where I'm trying to think about what would be the best thing to do is, I would start a reality show in your market place starring you as living in Pinellas or whatever the thing is, though literally.
And have that be the thing. But that takes time to execute. That would be something I would do with Zack in a minute for your Atlanta thing. It's like reality shows are just, there's something about that. But you're like every bit of the personality of Todd Chrisley from Chrisley Knows Best. Has anybody has seen the show? Do you think Zack could be exactly...? He's got exactly that kind of personality. He's an Atlanta boy from Alpharetta. His mom lives in Alpharetta.
Am I the only one that watches reality TV? You guys work too hard. You need time ... you've got to get other people doing stuff so you can watch reality TV. Keep up with things. Chrisley Knows Best, is one of the top reality shows. Reality TV is like things like all those shows on HGTV that ... All those shows on HGTV where people go house hunting, all those kind of things. I would definitely have this inside the slice of life of what it's like to live in Atlanta, in town or to live in Pinellas or whatever.
But if I were to say that to people, as the thing trying to get ... I can't even get them to send out an email with two curated articles and a link once a week. If I start telling people, "You need a reality show," it would be like, "Imagine that." That's my world." It's like, "I'm just trying to get it for 18 years and she's got a note. And what are these three things again? Oh man, it's so-
Woman: I don't know pin point price analysis.
Dean: I do the pin point price analysis. It's so great. But anyway, the more you put into that, the more that you will get out of that, because it's about getting people to know you, to like you, to trust you. The more that they get to see and be revealed, and it could be a podcast, it could be a ... You could do it with ... The simplest way to do it, is with the weekly email that appears like it's got some personality to it. Now, the good news is, when we did that for Julie, for the year, those emails came from Liliam.
It used to be even Liliam would talk to Julie and get the what it was, but then it just got so hard to connect her to nail her down. Liliam just started writing them. But it doesn't take much to have the, add the personality to it and that, you know.
And there we have it. That's part one. Tune in next time because we'll pick it up right there and we'll continue on talking about converting leads. But what I want you to notice about that so far, is to compare this to the approach to lead conversion that's all about like, getting the lead right now, hammering that lead, calling them within five minutes, continuing to call them and hound them, and call them every day, till they buy or die. It's really kind of a short term approach and we're really about, how do we maximize the lead conversion? How do we maximize your lead value over the long term as well as the short term?
I think if this resonates for you, then you're one of us. That's really the way that we're about being attractive and not so much jumping on people and beating them into submission. We want to be an attractive option, that's why everything that we talk about, lead conversion wise, is about anticipating, what are people really going to want? And let's offer them that. And so I'm excited that we get to share this with you next week, we'll continue on with that.
If you want to come and check out what we're doing at gogoagent.com, come on over. We can get a 30 day free trial, no credit card required. Come on in and see what we're all about. See some of these market watch emails that we talk about. See some of the email dialogues that work for conversion. And check us out for yourself. And then I will see you next time and we'll continue on our lead conversion path.