Turning An Awful Lead Into A Sale

There are three fundamental truths in real estate when it comes to leads:

1. Most agents believe that leads are defined as either good leads or shitty leads
2. Despite their constant demand for more leads, many agents, when given a big list to call, will often find excuses to avoid calling them and ultimately dismiss the leads as worthless
3. Shitty leads in the hands of a skilled agent will result in more commission than good leads in the hands of an unskilled agent

The sobering reality is the quality of leads is directly correlated to the agent who is calling them. Yes, there will be unicorn leads that will be ready to buy within the first minute of the conversation, but their decision to purchase was made long before you called them.

So what we’re really going to be talking about here is not how to turn awful leads into good leads, but rather awful agents into good ones.

To be clear, I’m not calling you an awful agent because that would be entirely unwarranted, but you get my point. Everyone stands to get better at their craft, and if the average lead conversion rate (according to the National Association of Realtors) hovers between 0.4% – 1.2%, we all have lots of room to improve.

This means for every 1,000 leads you create a relationship with, only 4-12 will actually result in a closing. This isn’t very motivating, until you realize that this benchmark reflects an inordinate number of real estate agents who have no formal training in calling leads.

Think about this for a moment. The vast majority of real estate agents who are calling leads are doing so with no real strategy and they’re still stumbling their way into the odd deal or two.

There’s got to be a better way, right? Of course there is.

It’s the reason that skilled agents can call leads and get a conversion rate of 8% – 10% or higher. Same amount of work, different car in the driveway.

From Fruit Fly To Jedi

There are only two things you need to train:

1. Your Thoughts
2. Your Words

Yes, I used vague phrases because I’m trying to pattern interrupt you from using words like mindset and skills that I know you’re going to gloss over. You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that success comes in mastering the fundamentals, and it’s incredibly boring to hear.

Your Thoughts

Some people have tremendous anxiety about making phone calls. The vast majority of time this anxiety is rooted in the fear of rejection. Most real estate coaches and trainers will tell you overcoming rejection only comes from putting in your reps.

While this is true, I’m going to break down your fear so that you can tackle your phone calls with the right mindset. For this, we’re going to look at the standard cognitive behavior model so that we can really understand what’s going on under your hood.

First, we have to understand that our Thoughts create Feelings which lead to Actions and subsequently give us our Results.

The Typical Day – Every morning you wake up and secretly hope that today will be the day you call your leads. But every time you think about calling them, you have this pit in your stomach. The same thoughts race through your mind:

• people are going to tell me to eat turds
• the leads are too old to call
• I piss them off more every time I follow up
• phone calls are for pushy agents

You despise bothering strangers to beg for business, so you feel completely unmotivated to call. In desperation, you switch up the place that you make calls from. Instead of calling from your home office where you can get easily distracted by your pillow-laden sofa, you convince yourself that calling from the office will be more productive.

When you get to the office, other agents are having a coffee in the back and sharing stories from the field, so you decide to listen because you might learn something important. Maybe you’ll get motivated enough that you’ll start to feel inspired about calling your leads.

For the rest of the day, you find yourself dealing with more urgent issues like checking emails and looking at new listings. You drive home tired from a full day of being unproductively busy and your list of leads grow older by another day.

The problem that you have is you think you need to change your feeling or your action in order to feel motivated to call your leads. The reality is that you have to confront the underlying thought that is driving this chain of events in your head. What do I mean? Let’s go back to that chart and fill in what’s happening.

No matter how much you try to change your feelings or your actions, they will always be overruled by your underlying thought. This means that the only way to make a permanent change to this sequence and get the action that you desire (to book appointments and close deals) is to examine the thought and then change it.

So what is the thought we’re dealing with:

Nobody wants to be hassled on the phone so it’s not worth my time and discomfort to make calls.

The secret to changing a thought is to first examine it objectively and see if it’s an accurate statement.

“Nobody wants to be hassled on the phone…“

Is this really true? Here are reasons why this part of the thought is false:

• Many people who leave their contact information are actively seeking more details and assistance
• Prospective buyers and sellers often appreciate personalized guidance and insights that can be better conveyed through a phone call
• Direct phone conversations can clarify questions and expedite decision-making processes for potential clients
• Some individuals prefer real time communication to receive immediate feedback.
• A friendly, helpful call can differentiate you from other agents and build a rapport with prospects
• Calls can lead to building a trusting relationship, which is crucial in real estate transactions
• Many successful deals start with an initial phone conversation, showing that calls can be instrumental in progressing a lead

“… so it’s not worth my time and discomfort to make calls.”

Is this really true either? If we examine this closely, we can say:

• Increasing your call volume statistically raises the chances of finding interested leads
• Even a low conversion rate can be profitable given the high value of real estate transactions
• With practice, your discomfort will decrease, and your skills and confidence in making calls will improve
• Many top producing agents attribute their success to persistent follow-up and engagement, often initiated through calls
• Every call is an opportunity to learn more about your market and potential clients’ needs, improving future interactions.
• Rejection is a natural part of sales, and understanding that it is not personal can reduce discomfort
• Each call brings you closer to a yes, as success in sales often follows multiple rejections.

Okay, so that’s a lot of information to challenge the validity of this thought. Let’s roll this all up together and come up with a new thought that can rewrite the subsequent feeling, action, and result that will follow.

“Prospects who share their contact details are interested in real estate, and my calls can provide valuable information that will lead to more appointments.”

Our new model now looks like this:

What’s the point of all this?

If you can’t sort out your mindset, you’re never going to get around to calling leads consistently. No one can wave a wand and change the way you feel about it unless you confront and shift the underlying thoughts you have about it. This is a hard truth, and one you must accept.

Your Words

We’ve just spent some time talking about some heavy stuff, so I want to bring this all back to what this guide is trying to teach you:

The quality of your leads is unlocked by your performance; they are neither inherently good or bad.

Let’s dive into harnessing some important skillsets to greatly improve your success on the phone. First, we need to remember a few foundational concepts:

1. Your objective is not to sell on the phone, you are booking appointments.
2. Why are you calling people? Because they’ll never call you.
3. You’re not the only agent that’s calling them, so you better make it good.

It’s important to emphasize again that the singular purpose of your call is to book an appointment. If you think back to any major purchase in your life that required gathering a lot of information before spending a large amount of money, the transaction never happened on the phone.

Perhaps the initial touch point with the vendor happened via email or phone, but inevitably you would only be comfortable proceeding after you met someone in person to discuss further details. This is true whether you’re buying a car or making a large investment, and real estate clients are the same. We’re going to come back a little later to how we integrate this into our call.

Mastering Your Script

If you’ve read any of my previous guides, you’ll know that I’m not the biggest fan of scripts for a variety of reasons. However, they’re useful in the context of calling leads because these conversations tend to be shorter, and you’ll run into the same 5 or 6 objections repeatedly. It’s important to know how to handle these objections with a measure of confidence and pivot towards booking an appointment.

The first important step in becoming a skilled agent on the phone is knowing what you’re going to talk about. This applies whether you’re calling resale or pre-constructions leads, old leads or new leads. You’re likely going to rely on some sort of script, and you’re going to need to study it like you’re auditioning for a Broadway play.

So let’s step away from real estate to reset your thinking and use a different scenario. Imagine you work for a gym, and you’re calling prospects who have done a trial period of 7 days at some point in the last 6 months.

Some of these leads may have already signed up for a gym somewhere else, but you know that the vast majority of them just wanted to work out for free at the gym for a week. Your job is to call this list of leads and book an appointment for them to come into the gym so a salesperson can talk to them about their membership options.

Before you even make your first phone call, you have to intimately know what you’re going to be talking about on the phone. You’ll also need to learn about the gym’s hours, type of equipment and classes, and other essential facts.

This means you have to learn your scripts and have product knowledge.

The best way to prepare is to spend time deliberately rehearsing your scripts out loud until you internalize them, and study information about the gym. This may take you several hours or days to complete but this practice time is important because you don’t want to be practicing on real leads – you want to be making money on the phone.

When you are able to connect your scripts with your product knowledge, your conversations will become effortless and you’ll develop a strong sense of confidence. Confidence is your super power on the phone, and can’t be faked.

In our gym example, what would be common objections that you would need to handle?

1. Gym memberships are too expensive.
2. I’m not sure if I’ll use the membership enough.
3. I prefer working out at home.

Let’s now create a sample script that you would need to roleplay. You have to take this as serious as if you owned this gym and your livelihood depended on every sign up.

Script For Calling Gym Membership Leads

Handling Objections

Objection 1: “Gym memberships are too expensive.”

Objection 2: “I’m not sure if I’ll use the membership enough.”

Objection 3: “I prefer working out at home.”

Creating Urgency

Asking for the Appointment

Confirming the Appointment

Although this script is certainly not the best script in the world, it illustrates how most lead calls will follow the same structure. If you commit to practicing this conversation in conjunction with having thorough product knowledge, you will extremely equipped to handle most calls.

Calling real estate leads is no different, and although you may not be offering anything for free, you are providing valuable information. Remember, if someone has gone through the trouble of providing their contact information, there is a level of interest that exists.

Recall that your goal is to ask questions and provide enough information to book an appointment to meet in person. This is the simple framework you’re going to be following:

1. Introduction
2. Build a little rapport
3. Ask questions (provide information where required)
4. Book an appointment <—Go big or go home!

One effective way to ask questions on the phone is to follow a simple formula:

Ask the question > Wait for them to fully answer > Repeat back and confirm

Using this format, you want to ask several questions to gather information and then ask for an appointment to proceed further. Here’s how it would go:

Depending on the type of real estate leads you’re calling, they’ll have a handful of common objections that you’ll need to master. Below I’m going to give you typical objections you will want to review.

Instead of providing you scripts to memorize, it would be beneficial for you to print them out and write down how you would reply. This will force you to think about the objections and help you internalize the answers since they will be your own.

Common Real Estate Objections

Not Interested Anymore:

Timing Issues:

Financial Concerns:

Skepticism or Distrust:

Commitment Issues:

Competition:

Information Overload:

Specific Preferences:

Previous Negative Experiences:

Unclear Intentions:

Concerns About Market Conditions:

If the lead is asking you questions about certain properties, or the area, or market conditions, you’ll want to give sufficient answers but not spend time educating them on the phone.

Again, your only objective is book that appointment, not to sell on the call. It’s important to emphasize the importance of meeting in person, where you’ll be better equipped to provide more useful information.

A good tip to remember when speaking with leads is to reduce any pain points for them and increase the value you’re giving. However, this doesn’t mean trying to give more information on the phone. You can give a lot more value to a prospect when you’re sitting face-to-face.

If you find yourself answering a number of questions on the phone, book the appointment.

If you find yourself falling into a conversation where you are answering too many questions, continue to push for an appointment. If that isn’t possible, you can simply say:

This allows you to reset and go for appointment on the next call.

Okay, so I’m not talking about sucking people’s blood, but you do have to be persistent if you don’t get anywhere on your first try. You know what’s harder than calling someone for the first time? Calling them for the 5th time.

I don’t have reliable sources to give you accurate numbers, but the common belief in the sales industry is that you typically have to follow up between 8 – 12 times before you can convert a lead. Of course, this includes all forms of communication including emails and texts.

In my experience, if you’re strictly calling someone to follow up, I would keep them in my rotation until they’ve purchased a property with me or they’ve explicitly told me they’re no longer in the market. This could mean 3 – 5 calls. Some agents can be jerks and find pleasure in hounding someone even after they’ve clearly indicated that they’re not interested anymore. We’re in the business to help clients, not harass them.

The takeaway here is that you’re never going to make money doing one-and-done calls, so your success greatly increases the more you stay in touch with a potential lead because of one simple fact.

Most people won’t be ready to say yes the first time.

This could be for a variety of reasons:

• They don’t know you well enough so they don’t trust you
• They need time to digest the information they’ve been given
• It might be the wrong timing for them
• They need to talk to family or friends before they commit
• The market conditions aren’t favorable at the time

You’ve put so much effort into calling someone and you’ve encountered a no (or at least a ‘not yet’). It would be a shame not to continue to follow up until they’ve made a solid decision about what they want to do. And you can bet that since they’re still in the market to buy, they’ll continue to seek information until they eventually bump into another agent who will happily serve their needs and find a property for them.

In the end, a lead is a lead. It’s someone who has expressed interest in a real estate product that hasn’t been served adequately enough for them to make a buying decision.

Providing adequate service comes down to giving useful information and being close by. A waiter who is constantly pestering you about how you’re doing is annoying… until you need them and they’re nowhere to be found.

In real estate it’s no different.

Commit to getting better at your craft and calling those leads. They’ll be happy to speak with someone who is competent and helpful, and you’ll put more deals on the board.