Real Estate Success

3 minutes
Collaboration with tablet and laptop

The Path Toward Real Estate Success: Conversations Into Appointments

Real Estate Advice
Joshua Smith
Real Estate Success

Consumers love to consume (in this case, buying and/or selling real estate), but they HATE being sold to.

To find success in real estate, your mindset must be to come from a place of adding value by leading with contribution. And know that once your contacts are ready to buy and/or sell, they will think of and reach out to you.

So, yes, more frequency than ever is required to convert leads into appointments; however, you do not need to resort to using high-pressure tactics. In fact, when delivering high-pressure scripts, you will end up turning off far more people than you are allowed to help.

The goal is to follow up frequently, lead from a place of contribution, and develop a relationship over time.

Let me give you an example:

My team generates a ton of leads and business by running Facebook Ads. These leads register on my website to unlock the ability to search for homes. Let’s say I just received a new lead who saved a property as a favorite on my website.

I would call this lead ASAP and say “Hi (lead's name), this is Joshua Smith with REVISITO Real Estate. I wanted to reach out, as I noticed you saved (the property address) as a favorite on my home search website, and I wanted to see if you had any further questions on that property, as well as see if there is other info/data on that home and area I can send you. (Pause to let them answer, answer any questions they may have, then try to set an appointment). I have some time this evening between 5pm and 7pm if you would like to meet at that home on your way home from work and spend a few minutes checking it out. Is that something you would like me to set up?”

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember from Creating Real Estate Success: Lead Follow-Up, that the same lead will reject you for an appointment five times before saying yes. So, I am expecting a no and will then say, “No worries at all. If you have any further questions, or ever need anything, please feel free to reach out anytime! Have a great day!”

The goal is to follow up, lead from a place of contribution, try to set an appointment, and if unable, repeat the process.

As you can see, my lead follow-up is far from pushy, but I do follow up frequently with courtesy check-ins.

As the famous sales saying goes, “The fortune is in the follow up”. And I have seen time and time again that it really is.

To make your life easier and your business manageable, a lead follow up plan/system is essential. But the plan or system is not enough. You also have to execute. Please know that generating leads is not the main issue. Converting leads into appointments is a much more crucial step, and one that most realtors struggle with, as they do not have a dedicated lead follow-up system in place. 

Thanks for reading!

  Joshua Smith, Realtor/Mentor/Entrepreneur

-Voted 30th Top Realtor in America by The Wall Street Journal

-Over 5,000 Homes Sold & Currently Selling More Than 1 Home Daily

Joshua Smith Apr 3rd, 2020
2 minutes
Classroom Setting

7 Modern CRM Must-Haves to Drive Real Estate Business Growth

Real Estate Advice
Real Estate Success
CRM

A CRM, or “Customer Relationship Manager,” is a system that can help you automate your lead follow-up, stay organized, and help ensure you do not miss tasks. Your CRM might be the most important tool you use to fuel the success of your real estate business.

Most realtors do not have a CRM and those who do, don’t use it effectively. The first place to start when selecting a CRM is with your budget. Like most things, you get what you pay for, but you must work within your budget. The real estate technology world has no shortage of CRM choices, so I am going to focus on the critical features your CRM must have to boost your ability to succeed.

7 Must Have Features of any Real Estate CRM

1. Add leads both manually and automatically into your CRM

2. Add notes to each individual lead inside your CRM

3. Organize your database by type and category: Buyers/Sellers/Leads/Clients/Past Clients/etc.

4. Mass email feature that allows you to bulk email everyone in your database all at once

5. Drip campaign plans for both email and text

6. Auto responses, both email and text

7. Manual and automatic task capability

Is it time to invest in a CRM?

These seven absolute must-have features are what a modern CRM needs to be effective. A good CRM is critical to establishing and adhering to a follow-up process(for more on lead follow-up best practices, click here). A CRM will help you stay on task, and stay organized. Once set up correctly, a solid CRM is a massive game changer.

If you do not have one already, we’d love to help you start working on identifying and setting up your CRM.
Ready to learn more? Lets talk!

This blog was originally published on April 10, 2020 and has been updated for clarity and with the latest information.

Dominate Your Real Estate Business
Joshua Smith Feb 10th, 2021
2 minutes
Typing on laptop

The Path Toward Real Estate Success: Lead Follow-Up

Real Estate Advice
Real Estate Success
Joshua Smith

The average realtor follows up with a lead within 40 minutes and only follows up twice. These numbers are just not good enough for any agent to ever be able to create a profitable real estate business. As you read in Creating Real Estate Success: Lead Generation and tracking, the average realtor only converts .5% of leads into a closing. More on predictable lead generation systems here.

But as you have demonstrated by your dedication to learn to perform at the highest level in the real estate business, you are not the average realtor.

Let’s now dive into what steps you can take to turn your leads into appointments and point them toward closing.

Consider these averages about lead follow-up:

-- You must follow up with a lead fifteen times before that lead will reach back out to you.

-- Each lead will reject an appointment five times before ever agreeing to meet with you.

-- Every consumer is sold to 2,000+ times each and every day.

You must be diligent about lead follow-up. I recommend, at a minimum, that you follow up with every lead 21 times in the first 30 days. You can use any combination of phone calls, emails, and text messages, but the key is to reach out 21 times in the first month of your relationship with a lead.

Plan to get voicemails and few responses. That’s okay and is expected industry-wide. You can only focus on and control your actions. So your job is to continue to follow-up via phone, email, and text until you can get a lead to respond to you. At that time, you can work with that lead to identify goals, expectations, and time frames for purchasing or selling a home. More on how to turning conversations into appointments here.

In real estate as with anything else, hard work and persistence are key.

Thanks for reading!

  Joshua Smith, Realtor/Mentor/Entrepreneur

-Voted 30th Top Realtor in America by The Wall Street Journal

-Over 5,000 Homes Sold & Currently Selling More Than 1 Home Daily

Joshua Smith Mar 27th, 2020
3 minutes
Man looking at phone with laptop

What You Need to Know About Lead Generation as a Realtor

Real Estate Advice
Joshua Smith
Lead Generation

The real estate market has changed drastically in the past year, and as a realtor, you always need to think on your toes to bring in more leads.

The unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of realtors do not understand the amount or type of actions that are required to generate business (or to stand-out amongst competition).

But all is not lost.

You have come to the right place to learn how to grab a slice of the massive amount of business that top agents and teams are responsible for. There’s plenty of room for an agent who is willing to work relentlessly with the right tools and appropriate knowledge.

Perhaps the most foundational concept for building a real estate business is effective lead generation systems and data trackingSo, let’s start there.

Your Real Estate Lead Generation Action Plan

Without setting specific goals that you want to achieve, it can be difficult to meet your expectations. First you must create a lead generation action plan. Consider these stats:

Lead Generation Statistics for Realtors

  • The average realtor converts .5% of leads into a closing.
  • Top realtors with world class follow-up convert 3% of leads into a closing.

Real Estate Lead Generation Example

So let’s use these stats for our example and split the difference. For the example, let’s say you can convert 1.75% of your leads into a closing, or basically one for every 60 leads. To convert at this level, of course, you must know how frequently to follow up with leads. That said, you can do a rough calculation of the amount of leads you need to convert one closing, so you know how many leads you need to accomplish your goals.

Let’s say your goal this year is to close 36 homes. Based on the above conversion rate, you must generate at least 2,160 leads this year to hit that number.

You can then break things down further for more easy to manage targets. This will equal out to 180 per month and 44 per week if you take off two weeks per year. You can even take it down to leads per day, if you would like. The important thing is to stay on track and make sure you are regularly hitting your numbers.

Pro Tip: The only way to win the year is to win enough months. To win the month, you must win enough weeks. To win the week, you must win enough days. So every morning when you wake up, just think about winning the day!

What Are Your Real Estate Growth Goals in 2021?

Successful businesses are built on predictable and practical systems. And in real estate, lead generation is the number that fuels your growth.

Are you ready to exceed your lead generation goals this year? Schedule a lead generation demo to propel your real estate business forward!

Dominate Your Real Estate Business

This blog was originally published on March 20, 2020 and has been updated for clarity and with the latest information.

Joshua Smith Feb 3rd, 2021
2 minutes

Mastery: The Key To Real Estate Success

Converting Leads
Making Money in Real Estate
Mastery

“Mastery” is an absolute MUST if you want to grow your Real Estate Business!

Here is the really cool part about “Mastery”. So few people focus on it, so, once you do, you really have no competition!

What is Mastery?

In the dictionary, Mastery is defined as: “ Superiority or victory: mastery over one’s enemies. The act of mastering. Expert skill or knowledge. The state of being master; Power of command or control.” You do not truly know your craft until you have “Mastered” it.

How does Mastery happen? Mastery happens when “Eyeballs” are not on you. It happens behind closed doors, with extreme focus.

You will not “Master” your craft by simply working each and every day inside your Real Estate Business. Mastery happens after you put in a long work day, and you go home, and then practice your presentations and scripts over and over and over.

For example, if you want to “Master” your Listing Presentation, you will not go on enough listing presentations daily, weekly, or monthly to truly master the craft. So, in order to truly master it, you must practice it over and over. After a long work day, once you get home, after you spend some time with the Family. While your competition chooses to watch TV and relax, you choose to practice your listing presentation every single night for 2 hours.

This is how “Mastery” takes place!

What are some critical items you MUST “Master” inside your Real Estate Business:

• Lead Generation

• Lead Follow Up

• Your Appointment Setting Scripts

• Your Buyer Presentation

• Your Listing Presentation

• Your Objection Handling Scripts

• Your Closing Scripts

Are you ready to master “Mastery?”

Of course, there are more critical things to know, but the above is a list of some essential items you must focus on mastering inside your Real Estate Business if you want to create success.

Dominate Your Real Estate Business
Joshua Smith Mar 29th, 2021
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