Hey Guys,

What would you consider a successful phone follow up system?

By reading this forum, I've gotten a lot of great information on how to setup a successful system. I'm just trying to put it all together.

Here's what I've gotten so far. This all relates to IDX registrations.

• When the lead registers and the phone number is available, call as soon as possible.
• If nobody answers, leave a voice mail.
• Attempt to contact a lead 4 times.
• If the 4th attempt was unsuccessful, leave a voice mail and put them on a drip email campaign.
• If one of the attempts was successful and you were able to speak with that lead, determine when they wish to move and put them in the appropriate drip email campaign.
• If they wish to move within 3 months, call the lead once a week.
• If they wish to move in more than 3 months, call them once a month.
• Continue calling until they either buy or ask not to be contacted anymore.

Do you have any other suggestions to add to this list? Do you think something should be changed in this process?

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Russell Volk, REALTOR®
Mid-Atlantic Real Estate
Feasterville, PA
Bucks County Real Estate | Newtown, PA Real Estate | Doylestown, PA Real Estate.

Current stats show it takes about 7 attempts before contact is made so I'd up it from 4 IMO. Good luck.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately too. What about just sticking to a calling schedule of every X weeks even if you don't get a hold of them? Just assume they are buying a house and assume you are their agent until they tell you otherwise.

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Mike Taylor
Indianapolis Real Estate | Carmel Real Estate |Indianapolis Real Estate

metaylor9

Agreed, and that's what I do. The problem arises that when you start to generate more leads than you can handle, the leads that you're not able to get ahold quickly just fall further and further down the list. When that happens you will never even have the time to call them. Only solutions are to hire people to make follow up calls for you or generate less leads and concentrate more on them.

I hit leads hard for the first 5 days and if I'm able to stick to that program I can connect with 75% of them generally.

Hmmm... 7 attempts to get a first contact? You definitely need a large staff to accommodate all the phone calls. These agents need to sell also, not just call leads.

For those of you who generate at least 20 leads a day and have a similar follow up system in place, how much time do your agent spend on the phone after lets say 3 - 4 months of sticking with the system? I just think that if the agent spends more than 4 hours a day calling leads, it's time to hire another agent.

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Russell Volk, REALTOR®
Mid-Atlantic Real Estate
Feasterville, PA
Bucks County Real Estate | Newtown, PA Real Estate | Doylestown, PA Real Estate.

You are pretty much on track. We have a different follow up schedule for each buying time frame out to one year. We also only try 4 times. If they haven't answered or called back within 4 times we assume they aren't really interested in talking yet. We just plug them into our marketing system and hope for the best.

We spend all our time dealing with the customers we get hold of on the phone. Our online follow up system, (100MPH Marketing) does a great job of keeping in touch with everyone we don't get.

25% of our sales come from leads with no phone numbers but that means 75% of our sales come from people we stick in our follow up system. The key is a solid reminder technology so you not only call the lead, but you know what you need to talk them about.

We try to limit our Agents to 1-2 leads per day. Unfortunately this year our lead flow was extremely high and we were up to as high as 3-5 leads per Agent. This is really just a waste of leads as there is no way, even with our sophisticated software, our Agents can all keep up with that many calls and call backs. With that said, we are on track for another great year of lead conversion so it seems to be working. I think we will be at 150 sales by the end of July. Our goal is 350 sales this year so we have a lot of work to do yet.

One other quick thing. I'm not a big believer in calling as soon as you can. I personally get freaked out when "big brother" knows exactly what I'm doing. We set up our software to send a few emails within the first hour to soften the blow. Then we make our first call, after the first hour. We don't get to many customers upset when we call.

Whether you call immediately or call in an hour. ALWAYS call the day you get the lead. After 24 hours the lead gets very chilly, especially if you don't have any real online follow up that first day.

I hope that helps a little.

__________________
Mitch Ribak
The eHomes Realty Network
www.ehomesrealtynetwork.info
mitch@ehomesrealtynetwork.com
http://www.ehomesrealtynetwork.com/i...fm/Mitchs_Blog
(321) 258-4150

Thanks Mitch. It certainly helps.

I believe that the combination of the Calendar module and Drip Emails in REW CMS, will fit really well with this system.

How much time do your agents spend on the phone? How much time do you recommend that an agent spends on the phone?

Thanks

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Russell Volk, REALTOR®
Mid-Atlantic Real Estate
Feasterville, PA
Bucks County Real Estate | Newtown, PA Real Estate | Doylestown, PA Real Estate.

No problem Russell. I always recommend that they call all their current leads and to get hold of at least 5 follow up leads per day.

I have Agents that follow that as well as Agents who pick a coule of nights per week and a weekend day. Either way, it accomplishes the same results.

I can almost guarantee that those who are not successful with lead conversion don't have a solid follow up system both online and by phone.

__________________
Mitch Ribak
The eHomes Realty Network
www.ehomesrealtynetwork.info
mitch@ehomesrealtynetwork.com
http://www.ehomesrealtynetwork.com/i...fm/Mitchs_Blog
(321) 258-4150

One other quick thing. I'm not a big believer in calling as soon as you can. I personally get freaked out when "big brother" knows exactly what I'm doing. We set up our software to send a few emails within the first hour to soften the blow. Then we make our first call, after the first hour. We don't get to many customers upset when we call.

Me too. Every time I have experimented calling right away, I get more freaked out responses. I've never gotten "thanks for calling so quickly".

I would suggest call time every day at first, even if it's just 30-60 minutes so you can build a habit. Trying to build that habit with 2 hours 2x per week at night and 2 hours on Saturday can be hard at first with appointments ect getting in the way.

Oh and BTW, the 7 contacts was a combo of VM and email over the first 5 days with additional calls were no message was left. Then onto a drip.

If a prospect is really interesed in either buying or selling 3 or 4 times tops should be enough to contact them! Otherwise I've found that it's a waste of time. We all know it's a numbers game-- especially these day!

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Mike
http://www.HousingPredictor.com
http://www.DestinFloridaRE.com
http://www.RealEstateDomain.com