I have something very important to tell you Monday and I wanted to give you a quick heads up.

Just between you and me, I reckon it’ll get quite a few agents chomping at the bit about the year ahead, and I hope you’ll be one of them.

Look out for my email Monday with all the details.

Speak to you then.

Kind Regards

Barry Liddle

There are a number of reasons why some real estate agents will hesitate or refrain entirely from purchasing listing leads. These are valid concerns and the way by which list providers address them should reflect in the quality of their leads. Here are some things to consider when you buy real estate leads.

Leads can be old. Quality listing lead providers will make sure that their lists are not rehashed versions of prior leads. They will see to it that the list is current and viable.

Real Estate Listing Leads can be expensive. While true, it should also be pointed out that making sure that the list contains names and contact information that are accurate can be quite costly on the part of the provider. In the end, it is the quality of the lead that really matters. The conversion rate should be the true test of the value of the leads.

Prequalification. There is only so much a listing lead provider can do in the way of prequalifying leads. Once they have ascertained a possible prospect, it is generally better to pass the prospect on to the agent at this point. Once the agent gets notified of the lead, this is the critical moment in terms of converting this prospect into business.

Agent Follow-up Mistakes. Mistake 1; many agents rarely call the leads within 24 hours of receiving them. Mistake 2; if the lead does not respond positively to listing immediately most agents disregard them as “dud” leads. Most leads will not be ready immediately. Selling a property is a process and a long one at that for many people. When an agent gets a lead, the prospect could be 3,6, 12 or even 24 months away from putting their property on the market. From here on the quality of the lead depends on the agent’s skill to follow up. While this sounds harsh, this is the reason 95% of agents don’t get the amount of listings they would like from their leads.

Exclusivity. When an agent decides to buy real estate leads, he does not want to be sharing this list with others. Unfortunately, this is another factor that drives up cost since the provider has no other market, presumably, for the list. Only you. Please note that exclusivity is something that is very hard to ascertain. A good deal of trust is involved in the relationship between a real estate agent and their listing lead provider on this one.

All in all, getting a good list from a reputable provider is important when you buy real estate leads. However, always remember that there is still the matter of converting these leads. A lot still depends on the real estate agent, his/her skill, and how he/she establishes a relationship with the prospective clients.

Also take into consideration that early leads are better than old leads. Some people are not immediately ready to sell or buy, but this does not mean that they won’t be. Savvy agents will not dismiss these leads as bad leads. Rather, they tend to classify those as tremendous opportunities in the future. Think of it as building a profitable pipeline of “coming” business.

At Listing Innovations, we help real estate agents set up their own lead generation systems. When you engage our services, you are assured that the leads you are getting are all yours. You are not giving away your hard-earned money to build someone else’s lead generation system. You have your own system that you could sell with your business and drive its value up even further. You can get onto our notification list if you’re not already on there to be notified of upcoming workshops by going to http://www.listinginnovations.com.au/workshop/

According to a 2008 survey of Home Buyers and Sellers, almost nine out of ten prospective homebuyers use the Internet as their initial step in their quest for that dream home. It is no wonder then that, companies offering such listing leads and lists, proliferate in cyberspace. With this large number of online list peddlers, the average real estate agent is often bombarded with emails and calls offering the best real estate leads for listings, EVER!

Most companies offering leads to real estate agents are offering people free market appraisals hoping they will be real estate sellers ready to list now. The truth is on average only about 8.4% of new leads will be ready to list now (depending on the source), and the remaining are often discarded by agents as “poor leads”. The fact of the matter is that all leads fall into one of three categories:

1.    Ready Now (about 8.4%)
2.    Ready Within 3 Years (about 81.3%)
3.    Never going to sell (about 10.3%)

The agents that are only short-term focused miss out on many of the best opportunities for listing leads and this is why those that are in real estate as a career and think long term often get much better results (up to 80% more listings) from all their leads.

Internet lead generation, while being a new concept, is not entirely unique to the real estate industry. It is currently being applied to other industries, including banking as well as the medical professions.

As the saying goes: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. It is much the same with real estate leads. Listing Lead providers will be judged by the quality of the leads that they produce. Things such as wrong phone numbers and unqualified home sellers make for a very bad impression on the quality of the companies offerings. This is the reason why a number of quality list providers have adopted proactive means in screening their lists. These include manual screenings and the use of filtering software to eliminate those homebuyers and sellers who are less likely to commit. Their goal is to provide the real estate agent with the best real estate leads listing possible.

Does this mean instant success for the agent? Of course, not. Getting a good list is just half the battle. The best estimates put only a ten-percent conversion rate on the best of them. The rest is still up to the real estate agent. Remember that the list is only a list of possibilities. There is still no substitute to the personal touch, the trust, and the relationship that the real estate agent brings to the table.

An essential part of any successful real estate business is lead generation. Real estate lead generation doesn’t have to be that difficult as long as you keep your finger on the pulse and are aware what’s happening.

In order to build real estate leads and keep track of them you need to be storing all of this information in an organised database. Simply scribbling it down on bits of paper won’t do.

Contact

Your agent leads database or contact management system is very valuable to you and you should be using it on a regular basis. Ensure that you continually keep in touch with people on your database. You can do this in a number of different ways. Sending real-estate mailings, phone calls, emails or stopping in for a chat. A nice personal touch would be to remember their birthday and send them a card. This is very easy with the correct real estate lead management system.

In order to build your database you must try to collect information. There are a few tricks to do this. You could give people information for free, or providing a service. You will then be able to collect their information and add it to your agent leads database or contact management system.

Follow up

It’s important to remember that you must follow up with your leads on a regular basis. You can do this in the similar ways. Continue following up so that you can find out exactly what that real estate lead thinks about you. Checking that they have received your information and asking whether they have had chance to look at it yet is a great way to follow up.

Improve reputation

Word of mouth is the best form of real estate sales and marketing. You should make sure that all of your clients are happy with your work and will refer you to friends. Make sure you demonstrate that you are caring and not just trying to earn money.

Your real estate lead database is very important for the success of your business. Concentrate on building it up so that you can market your business.

It’s rarely from one big mistake or reversal of fortune that leads to real estate business failures, although one is a very dangerous number in the business of selling real estate. Instead most failures come from a habit pattern of the leaders ineffectiveness in these key areas.

As mentioned by Fortune Magazine, the failure to deal decisively with people problems. Many of the real estate principals/directors I speak with often say that finding, training and keeping great sales people is a major problem holding them back from greater results. The best piece of advice I have on this subject is to hire slow and fire fast, and you should fire people at a time that suits you, not them. The chances of correcting their incompetence is remote to zero, although stubborn principals and directors continue to try. The only indispensable person should be you.

Principals and directors often fail to pay close attention to their core business and are easily distracted. In fact, most get bored with the key tasks that extract the most listings, sales and profits in their business and are easily lured away by more ’sexy’ new ideas. Instead of looking for the next “big” thing, look to make tiny tweaks in the core results based functions of your real estate business.

What sort of functions I hear you ask.

Continually searching for new sales winners.

The way most are doing this it is little wonder they don’t do it as much as they know they should. Some of my clients have begun implementing automated systems to find, sort and qualify their sales people applications. So instead of employing someone to speak to 400 sales applicants per month and discard 396 from first interviews, the system automatically discards 95% of them leaving only 5% per month for possible first interviews. This means principals and directors are able to find more of the right type of sales people instead of wasting their time trying to help their struggling sales people turn it all around.

Increasing the number of people calling the office

This is an area most principals and directors fail to invest enough time in, trying and testing new ideas. This task alone will increase your office listings, sales and profits without even getting more sales people or even training your sales people. It is pure maths, the more “warm” prospects your sales team speak to the more listings they will get, the more listings they get, the more sales they will make and the more money and success for everyone. But before you can try and test, you need the ideas and what 98% of principals and directors have been taught or learned by looking at what their competitors are doing is a complete waste of time and money.

Building a company database fast

Most real estate offices and I am talking 98% of them are not focusing on and maximizing the growth of their database. This is a task that should be the focus of everything a successful real estate business does. If you ask most principals/directors if they want to be growing their database of contacts most will tell you they do, so why aren’t they? Frankly, they don’t know how because they have never been shown. Most old school real estate franchises implement new technology and offer it to their franchisees but this is rarely done from a marketing perspective of maximizing the office’s contact list. Instead these franchises just want their office owners to get more advertising as this helps promote the franchise. What about the profits you as the principal/director want to build you fortune?

Converting more of the prospects that contact your office into listings and sales

This can be achieved in 2 main ways:

1. Sales training, so your sales team are communicating with the prospects in more compelling ways.

2. Automated systems that follow up with your office contacts and pre-dispose those that are interested in selling to want to sell with your company, so that when your sales team call, the prospects are more receptive to them.

These are some key components to improving your real estate sales success.

Best Wishes

Barry

Selling a house at the moment is more difficult than ever which means if you want to stand any chance of doing business then you need to make sure that your real estate advertising efforts stand out from the crowds. It’s important that you do everything you possibly can to satisfy your clients as this will help to spread positive comments about your business. It should also make it possible to generate great real estate referrals.

It’s important to generate high quality leads so that you can continue to expand your business with new clients.

What to Put in Your Real Estate Advertising Copy -

When writing, think about your audience; try to look at it from the point of view of your potential clients. Try to find a way to grab the attention of the reader so that the advert actually gets read. You can promise the world but if the advert never actually gets read then it will not make any difference to your business. You need to give them a real reason to read the advert and then include your contact details.

It’s important to use a heading to target the audience that you are interested in appealing to. If you are trying to sell a house that has four bedrooms then this is a family home and should be marketed to families. You should make this house appeal to families by focusing on the number of rooms in the title.

You don’t want to give all of the information in your advert for a number of reasons. Firstly you probably wouldn’t have enough space, but perhaps more importantly you want buyers to contact you. Even if they are not interested in this specific house then you can still generate a valuable real estate lead.

One of the best ways of attracting and generating new real estate leads is to use real estate marketing postcards. Postcards will help you generate valuable leads, and it is a great way to get people to visit your site. Once you have done that you need to make sure that you have plenty of marketing material and information to keep them interested.

By providing plenty of useful information, you will give your audience a reason to listen to what you have to say and even visit you again.

Making the most out of Real Estate Postcard Marketing -

If you are going to be using real estate postcard marketing then there are some tips and suggestions that can make the postcards more effective.

The first and most important thing to do is grab the reader’s attention this will encourage them to pick up your real estate postcard and actually spend time reading it. You should do this with an interesting and captivating headline. Secondly, you need to create a reason for people to do what you are telling them to do and make them feel inclined to contact you.

If you want to stand a better chance of success then targeting your real estate mailers is also very important. Create two separate real estate mailers, one to go to buyers and one to go to sellers. Include your services and lots of testimonials.

Experiment -

It’s possible to experiment with a number of different designs of real estate marketing postcards and finding out which one works best. Send them all out and decide which designs are the most effective. You should record responses to all of your marketing efforts so that you can determine which way will be the most successful for you.

Real estate postcards are one of the best ways to generate real estate leads.

Try creating some stunning postcard mailers today and seeing just how much they can change.

When it comes to real estate lead management what is the best way for agents to handle them? Some businesses choose to contact new clients directly some prefer to send information but what really is the best way to make a real estate lead into a sale.

Taking an interested client from “looking” to a closed deal can be a headache or go very smoothly the key is the real estate strategies you employ. Using a service to handle all of your clients is an excellent way to leverage your time and energy when prospecting leads. It does have the added benefit of keeping track of your real estate leads in an already set up system. So your real estate marketing strategies are outlined and easy to follow. This is a really good way for new agents to quickly get their prospecting leads organised and contacted regularly.

Real estate marketing letters are less affective when compared to an online marketing system. Letters not only take an immense amount of time to write they also cost hundreds of dollars to print and mail. Utilising a real estate online marketing system will give you the power of advertising, and generate real estate leads, without the hassle and cost of traditional real estate marketing techniques.

When comparing real estate lead generating letter with an online marketing campaign the choice is apparent. Making you real estate advertising dollars work harder than they ever have before is what utilising the internet to get real estate leads will do for you. It is the easiest and most economical way of real estate advertising today.

Some of the best real estate marketing strategies has come from the men and woman who have been in this business for years and have seen the ups and downs and lived to tell about it. They have the insight into the most powerful real estate marketing techniques to get your business to a new level and keep your clients satisfied and coming back every time they buy or sell a home.

How do these legends do it? Generating real estate leads can be a taxing and expensive process. Leads for realtors come in a variety of ways, including recommendations from family, lead generation advertising, and real estate online marketing. How does a new realtor or a principle broker create more leads for their business? Real estate marketing is what the experienced and successful business owners will say.

Getting your name and your business’ mission out to the public is the only way to increase your clients and take your business to a whole new level. So how does an agent generate real estate leads and propel their business to a whole new level? One of the best ways, that even older businesses are now regularly employing, is real estate online marketing. This powerful real estate marketing tool gives real estate agents the control of when and how to promote their business without the headache and cost of traditional methods.

In the past real estate agents looking to generate real estate leads were forced to do direct mail, or knock on neighbours doors. These are still good ways of generating leads for your business but now there are even better ways to get the job done and generating internet real estate leads is the way to go for today’s agents.

Real estate promotion has always been a tricky and frequently very expensive requirement for successful real estate brokers. Today there are so many choices as to what method of lead generation to choose the numerous options can be very overwhelming. In the past agents have relied on real estate newsletters, real estate postcards, and prospecting leads through real estate marketing letters. These methods can be very effective to build your business. They are very time consuming, very expensive and have a low rate of effectiveness usually only producing one client if you are lucky for all your hard work.

To generate real estate leads in the 21st century real estate agents are looking to a whole new generation in real estate marketing tools and finding great success in the process. Online real estate leads give agents the power to get new clients and have them coming back to your web site every time they think of real estate. The tools and real estate marketing systems will lead your clients through the beginning process of finding an agent to work with without you having to be constantly on the phone.

Keeping in contact with clients is one of the best ways to keep them coming back to you for all their real estate needs. Making 500 phone calls a week to all your clients sucks away the hours very quickly. Using real estate website marketing will let your clients know you care about their business and enable you and your agents the time to follow up on other leads, generate more real estate leads and be able to offer a higher quality of service to your clients.

Using online real estate marketing systems and techniques will launch your real estate business to a whole new level.