Why Following Up Leads Right Away Gets Results

We talk a lot the importance of follow up on your real estate leads right away, and hope it becomes second nature. That assumption on our part though, means we probably aren’t often enough explaining why you should be following up on your leads straight away.

Here are some stats to get your mind going:

“Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.

“Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.”

“50% of sales go to the first salesperson to contact the prospect.”]

Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rate compared to standalone email blasts.

If you follow up with web leads within 5 minutes, you’re 9 times more likely to convert them.

Sources: InsideSales.com, Hubspot, and The Annuitas Group

By using a tool like Follow Up Boss, you already have the systems in place to make sure your leads actually get followed up on in the first place, but it’s still up to you to decide when to follow up with them, even if Follow Up Boss is giving you a friendly nudge to do it now.

Today we are going to be going through some of the reasons and compelling arguments for following up on your leads sooner, rather than later.

There’s no time like the present…act now

It’s like being asked to a high school dance and waiting to give an answer. Then after 3 days of pondering your decision and/or trying to seem super exclusive, to your surprise your would-be-date ends up promenading with the person who said yes straight away.

Moral of the story? No one is waiting nervously hoping you’ll call them. They have more important things to do.

Your leads want to buy or sell a house. They’re going to look at options from the first person who gets in contact with them. This isn’t a romantic relationship and they have absolutely no loyalty to anyone before they build up some sort of trust in the early stages of the potential transaction.

The early bird gets the worm, and in this case, the worm is a big, fat commission check.

When you see that lead communication pop up, follow up right away. Following up in that once moment can affect your sales for an entire quarter.

The misconception of the desperate businessperson

Just like the high school dance analogy, many people have a picture in their heads of an overly eager businessperson following up on their leads immediately out of desperation. That’s just not the case.

Customers never think, “Gee, I wish he had taken a little longer to get in touch with me about that thing I wanted him to contact me about.” They want you to be in consistent communication with them.  

For instance, if you call them within a few minutes of viewing a property its probably top of mind. If you wait even 10 minutes they could have checked Facebook, called their mom, and be diving into a steak dinner – so your window of opportunity is diminished.

If this is the case, then why doesn’t everyone follow up immediately?

There are many reasons why people don’t follow up. Real estate agents are juggling thousands of emails, dozens of appointments a week, and more. So it’s easy to see how leads can slip through the cracks. Plus, if there is no lead management system in place, it can take a while just to distribute the lead!

This is why automation is your friend, using a system like Follow Up Boss you can:

• Have leads flow in from ALL of your lead sources
• Automatically distribute leads based on source, price, and/or zip code
• Receive a text or phone call the instant a lead flows in
• Have relevant drip content start the minute contact is initiated
• Send personalized communication with a click
• Track communication with the lead and hold yourself and other agents accountable for follow up
• And more!

One final fact

Most importantly, after a presentation 63% of people remember stories, while only about 5% remember statistics. So, you may not remember the exact stats above, but hopefully you don’t wait to say yes to that prom date, aka your lead.

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