Accountability and lead tracking for Buyer's agents

[Mitch]

Timu - It's everones problem. I was just talking to one of my members tonight who is doing a good job, but can't get his agents to really work their leads. Our biggest, and so far most promising addition this past year has been our LCA position. My goal is to take the follow up completely out of the Agents hands in recently we have been able to increase our contact rate by 4 times and our ability to leave messages by 100 times through a phone calling system we now use.

The LCA position is the only way I can ensure that our leads are being worked properly. The problem was, until two weeks ago, our LCA's could only handle calling for 4-5 Agents. This resulted in talking to 3 leads per day per Agent for a total of 15 contacts per day and about 35 messages.

Since adding the new calling system, we are able to call so many more leads, that my LCA's think they can even add an Agent or two.

I look at it this way. I can stress out trying to get my Agents to follow up leads, or I can take control of it and make them successful in spite of themselves. The upside, I end up making more money and regardless if the Agents stay or leave, I can plug any Agent into the picture and still convert the lead to a customer for life.

[Timu]

Mitch,
Thanks for the info...
What phone system do you use? I will also test a new idea which will get LCA to involve more with a team members asisting agents. I will test it out on 10-20 big leads first.
The idea is maturing the leads till to the point they are ready to see properties, then we will pass those leads to the agents. The agents may sacrify some % in that case to handle clients ready to see/buy poperties. I bet most of the agents will be more motivated to handle clients ready to see properties. What do you think about this idea ?

[Mitch]

If you want to discuss the phone system, please give me a PM and I'm glad to explain how it works. It's very cool! I have to be a little careful what I say on here since several of my local competitors are on here and read my posts.

I am at the point, and have been for quite some time, where my goal is to put our customers in my Agents cars for them. Yes, it cost the Agent a small % of their commissions, but I'm not willing to sacrifice sales because of my Agents lack of follow up. My goal has always been to let Agents do what they do best, show property and write contracts.

We know the following numbers are true. If we schedule 24 appointments per month for our Agents, 12 will show. Out of that 12, 4 will buy. So that's our goal for 2011. Is it possible? I'm not sure yet. I'll know more after I do my first quarter numbers.

You are on the right track. As mentioned above, if you want to discuss this, send me your contact info in a pm and we can discuss some of the mistakes I've made so you can save some money. I've made a ton of mistakes getting to where I'm at now!

[Brett M]

Hi Mitch,

When you say that 12 of 24 appointments will show-up...Are these in office appointments or showing appointments? Do you require a pre-qual for either or is this something you address at the first meet?

Thanks for sharing!

[Jonathan Long Brea]

I would think that it would be easiest to get a clients relationship software that is tied into everything and manage the leads and your agents.

[Lakereeltor]

The last company I managed had a militant accountability system that involved logging every call, e-mail and contact and turning it in by 4 pm that day. We paid a consultant to compile the info and e-mail it back to myself and the owner at 5:30 am the next morning for our review.

In the end, agents sold the same amount they would have without the strict tracking, and it made a lot more work for myself and the team leader. It did not make an average agent any better, and didn't motivate anyone to do anything but exaggerate about their daily activities and their prospecting. I had previous been on a very successful sales team that had a weekly meeting to review new listings and pending contracts, and if you failed to have either it was an uneasy feeling without anyone pointing fingers or calling anyone on the carpet. We toyed with the idea of minimum production quotas and tying one's employment to them, but in the end, the decision to terminate someone for non-production is best left to the instincts of the team leader.

I remember a quote form a famous football coach that was asked what he said prior to a big game to motivate his team. He replied, "I want players that don't need a motivational speech to perform well in a big game" and that to me is real estate. The hunger and desire to succeed is hard to measure, but is also the determining factor in this business.

[Mitch]

John - I saw Terry Bradshaw speak last year and he said the best thing I have ever heard. "I'm not here to motivate you. If you aren't motivated, you never will be, there is nothing I can say or do that is going to change who you are". In the end you can motivate someone for a day, maybe a week, but if they aren't able to motivate themselves they never will.

This is an old thread and I have commented a couple times on it. As you plan and build your teams base it on mediocrity. I know that as much as I like my Agents, they are going to do as little as they can...it's just their nature. I also don't micromanage. I know who is working by their results. In my office, if an Agent goes more than 2 months without a sale they aren't working. They are then off leads. No sales in three months and they are most likely out of the company which is how I went from 35 Agents to 14 Agents (now we have 17 as I just hired three new agents).

You can go crazy and kill yourself if you micromanage your leads. I will continue to remove and replace Agents until I have my 20 Agents selling 40-50 homes per year each. It's all about results. The only difference between my Agents who sell 25+ homes per year and those who sell 10 homes per year is work ethic.

[BrandonD]

Look at affiliate programs and how they track. Could be something useful there