Accountability and lead tracking for Buyer's agents

[Gloria Singer]

HI, not sure if this is the write forum to post this. I was wondering what any of you with buyer's agents do to require your ba's to track their leads and any accountability that is required back to you. I am just expanding my team and only have two BA's right now... and other than assigning them leads in the backend and also giving them other leads (ad calls, etc) that come in, I don't have any tracking mechanisms... We do have weekly meetings I was wondering if any of your require your agents to track how many contacts/leads/appointments/etc per week they do, and if so if you could give me some advice and possibly documents or systems descriptions.
I really appreciate it!
Gloria

[thataway61]

Looking forward to hearing some options here as well!

[jessiesc]

We require 3 things at the moment and may be requiring additional as we grow...

All leads given to agents must be commented - Date, Initials and a short comment of what they did with the lead on that particular day. It's not intended as a book, just a short 1 line description (Keep it simple).

Also, we require the agents when writing an offer to forward all information to our admin for tracking.

We also have started having them complete a spreadsheet using the mock up of the KW lead sheets.

Basically it's a summary tally of:

• Name
• Phone
• Email
• Prop type
• Working w/agent - Y/N
• # Phone calls (before agreement to work)
• # emails (before agreement to work)
• On Drip - Y/N
• # Showings
• # Offers
• Sold - Y/N

Our admin also tracks the sales/offers by agent:

• Name
• # offers
• # contracts
• # closings

As more agents join the team, it is quite difficult to monitor their follow up individually. Using the spreadsheet we can glimpse their numbers to see if we need to adjust techniques or provide counseling for a given area.

[Gloria Singer]

Jessie,
When you say commented, do you mean in the backend of the CMS?
Regarding KW lead sheets which I have not seen because I am not with KW-- do you have them do this for every lead that they are assigned? I also have an issue where my BAs get leads that did not come from the website, from ads, sign calls etc -- I try to get them to put them into the backend as well so they will then be able to get our monthly enewsletters etc, but that isn't going so well. I am going to speak with Mitch Ribak later today or tomorrow to see if he can help me with some of this stuff. Thanks for your input. Anyone else have any comments?

[thataway61]

Comment - sometimes we are too kind in not insisting that things be done a certain way. Of course we aren't dealing with employees, but independent contractors. It is very difficult to call out a producer and tell them if you don't jump through this hoop you are gone.

It is often best to have a sound plan in place with an understanding up front of what is to be done.

Still you have those that will skirt those commitments. It is really frustrating especially when it is someone that is not producing starts slacking. However, you will learn quickly that reassigning leads that were not followed up with timely and stopping new leads is much like jerking on the reins of a horse. Either that horse will become cooperative and anticipate how and where you want to go, or you send it to the glue factory.

[jessiesc]

Jessie,
When you say commented, do you mean in the backend of the CMS?

Yes, within the CMS

Regarding KW lead sheets which I have not seen because I am not with KW-- do you have them do this for every lead that they are assigned?

No, it is a running tally of their leads for the month

I also have an issue where my BAs get leads that did not come from the website, from ads, sign calls etc -- I try to get them to put them into the backend as well so they will then be able to get our monthly enewsletters etc, but that isn't going so well.

This is a requirement for all agents and is in their contract

[CLTMichael]

Is there any software that is web based that I can purchase for this? I simply just send my leads to agents with no real follow up.

[Mitch]

We have been working hard on this at my office. Currently our system notifies us if the Agent has not opened the lead and made a least a note. Of course this is easy to fudge. In fact, an Agent can fudge pretty much any tracking you give them if they really want to. The real test to see if they are working leads are sales.

As most of you know, I track a lot of stuff, but I don't micromanage my Agents with regard to their leads. My business model is based on mediocrity. I know they won't do a good job so I plan on it. As long as my Agents do an ok job of working their leads they will get the minimum amount of sales needed for my business.

So here is my plan for this upcoming year.

1. Quota - Agents will now have a quota of 1 sale per month if they have been with me less than 2 years and 1.5 sales per month if more than 2 years. If they miss a month, leads will be shut off. If they go three months without a sale they will lose their leads to another Agent.

2. LCA - We will be reducing the Agents they serve from 5 down to 4. This will hopefully allow more contacts per Agent daily.

3. Stricter random checks. I will be checking leads randomly by going into each Agents accounts and checking their work. As I said, I'm not going to micromanage, but I am going to let the Agents know I will be doing this. Once I catch them once or twice and they know I'm looking they might be better.

I think the quota policy will probably do the best. In the end, I don't want to spend my life chasing my Agents around. If an Agent is working their leads in my system they would have a minimum of 18 sales so far this year. Only 10 of my Agents have hit those numbers. The rest need to look out for their jobs!

In the end you can drive yourself crazy trying to track every lead. Once your database gets big, it becomes almost an impossible feat. It all comes down to sales. If I'm getting the transaction count I want, then I'm happy. My goal right now is to get all my Agents to 18 sales per year minimum. Once I have 20 Agents doing that, I will have reached my goal.

[CLTMichael]

Good stuff Mitch

[Timu]

Mitch,
You have some good points. We are currently letting agents to decide for the lead flow by updating their leads. If there is no update, then the lead flow stops.
This issue is the biggest problem we have been having currently. I have been looking for some solid solitions to have better work from the agents. We have our own customized lead system that can be easlity modified to increase the agents performace.