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Adapted from TopProducer’s article on The Golden Rules of Lead Management
Responding to leads is an integral practice for all professionals. So much so that insidesales.com dedicated three years to developing the best practices for Lead Response Management and the Harvard Business Review published an astute infographic detailing their own findings (below).
It’s especially important for real estate professionals to have solid lead response practices – those who ignore this important practice will see tons of money left on the table. Time constraints and lack of know-how often aid in one’s inability to effectively manage their pipeline, but if an agent isn’t quickly following up with leads – someone else is! To help your members make the most of lead response efforts, we’ve put together 5 rules for effective lead follow-up to ensure that leads no longer go unqualified or slip through the cracks completely. Share with your members today!
- Respond in a Timely Manner
If you’re not following up with your leads within 5 minutes, someone else is! It’s imperative to be the first to respond to an inquiry. It impresses the lead and shows them that you value their time and business. Furthermore, studies have shown that if you don’t respond within 5 minutes, you’re significantly decreasing the odds of doing business with that lead.
- Focus on Specific Follow-Up Days
You’ve improved your instant response rate for inbound inquiries, but what about following up with older leads in your pipeline? The answer is not, “I’ll get to it when I get it.” To maximize results and ensure the best results, research show you should follow up on a Wednesday or Thursday.
- Optimize Follow-Up Time
It’s best to follow-up between the hours of 4:00pm and 5:00pm. According to the data, you drastically decrease your qualification rates when you follow-up outside of those times. So, set a time block for Wednesday or Thursday from 4:00 – 5:00pm to see improvements in the health of your pipeline.
- Be Patient! Be Persistent!
The chances that you’ll make contact on the first try are slim; in fact, it’ll take at least five more tries before you are successful. After six times, you’ll improve the odds of making contact by 90%. Patience and persistence are crucial in lead management, without either you risk leads turning to others for their real estate needs.
- Leverage Technology
Gone are the days where you have to manually follow-up with each inquiry from each lead-generating source. FiveStreet provides true solutions that allow you to stay connected, gather information and follow-up with your leads in real time. For the lone agent or the broker with a team of many, you’re able to able to set up auto-responders and auto-assign leads to others based on your predetermined set of rules.
Lead generation, nurturing and conversion play a major role in real estate success. Even as busy real estate professionals, your members must dedicate time to maintaining a healthy pipeline in order to grow their business. In a world where technology and mobility are ingrained in nearly every facet of life, it’s important to capitalize on the tools available to simplify your lead management practices.
Click here to learn more about the lead management tools available to brokers and agents.
