Follow up Filters – Preventing Leads from Slipping Through the Cracks

Following up with your leads after initial conversation is where you’re going to start to see the rewards for all your efforts come to life. Follow ups, when it comes to leads in general, doesn’t matter what industry, there is a high percentile of individuals that fail at that. They’re always missing out on opportunities. We do have a system here where we’ve created some followup filters for your check ins that are very simply to create and utilize.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is create your check in tags. You can do that by clicking on the plus sign on any leads, and you can see that I’ve created check in tags. You’re going to want to have them with an asterisk in the beginning. This here we’ll then group all your check in tags together, essentially. To add a tag, you’re just going to simply click at the bottom, add new tag, give it the asterisk for example, and then you do a one week check in. You then click on the tag color icon and select the color that you wish to use. Then go confirm. You’re also probably going to want to have all your check in tags the same color again, so you can easily identify them.

What essentially you’re going to do is create a one-week check in, a two week check in a one month check in, a quarterly check in, and a six month check in. Now you do of course, also have the option of doing a one-year check in. A one-year check in is great for clients that perhaps have already sold. They’re past clients, so it’ll just remind you to follow up with them every year, or perhaps if you contact a lead and they already purchased, you can have an annual check in on them as well, if you wish to.

To create your filters, what you are going to do is simply go, and I’m going to show you exactly what these filters are. They’re very easy to create. The one week check in, for example, you’re going to have the tag option as your filter. You’re going to select any as the middle option and then you’re going to select the tag one week check in. We’re then simply going to use the was not contacted filter by phone, and you can also include SMS, so you haven’t contacted them by phone or SMS. It’s all leads within the last number of days, so if we go down here, it’s all leads within the last number of days. Then you just have a seven. You’re then going to give this an asterisk, and then this is your one week check in. You’re going to simply save it as a company filter.

Now, as you’re creating your additional filters, you don’t have to keep backing out. We’re just going to update the tag, the number of days, and what we’re calling that check in. For example, now I want to create the two week check in. I’m going to just unselect the one week, select the two week, and then with this one, I’m going to then change it to 14 or 17. I like to create my two week check ins as 17 days. It’s just right smack between a two and a three week check in. If you prefer to be consistent and have it at the 14 day mark, you can definitely do that as well. Again, you would just change this number to two and then save it as a company.

Then again, with the same, you’re going to do your monthly, so your one month check in. Then you would change this number to 30 days, and here you would just remove that and you would go monthly check in and save it. You would then do the same again with your quarterly, and then you can change this to 90 days. Then again, you’re going to just type quarterly and then save that.

Now with a monthly, a quarterly, a six month, or a one-year, I would actually remove the SMS because if your communications, are that spread out, you should probably be calling them. Whereas if it’s every week or every two weeks, you’re more consistent with your follow-ups. So alternating between the two is 100% a-okay. Everyone has their different comfort levels. That is just a suggestion.

Now, when it comes to creating your six month check in, what we’re going to do is actually add an additional asterisk right here. We’re going to have two asterisks and then you’re going to go six month check in and then again, this would be 180 days, and then you would change that to company. The reason why we’re adding the asterisks and the additional asterisk on the six months is, we want your check ins to be in order. By doing that, it just puts them in chronical order from one, two week, one month, quarterly, six months, one year, that sort of thing.

We can see that we’ve got eight leads in here. This lead here is in this list here because they haven’t been contacted for eight months by phone or one-year by SMS, essentially. If I open up this lead and just send a text even, and send that to the lead, what we’re going to notice is this number eight is going to drop to seven leads. They are now off of this list, and what’s going to happen is in seven days from now, that lead is going to automatically pop back into this list. It’s just a matter of checking your filters daily to see who’s in there. Again, if we were to go onto this lead, for example, and even just call this lead, let’s go dial, call the lead, and there was no message left. It’s a bad number. It’s a fake number.

Again, if we go to the next thing, we’re going to notice again, that number is now reduced to six leads. How you’re going to do this is whenever we’re talking to a lead, we’re really trying to grab their timeline: their when, the why, the what. The when is going to indicate the frequency of your followup. Now, again, you want to aim for every conversation at bare minimal, you’re putting in a check in tag. Typically, somebody that’s on a one-week check in, these are hot to trot leads. There’s typically somebody that’s planning a move within the next three months. If they’re on a two-week check in, they’re typically between the three and six months. If they’re on a monthly, between six and 12 months, if they’re on a quarterly, between 12 and 18 months and a six month check in is essentially people that are a year and a half out, plus making a move.

Again, always just use your best discretion as to how often you feel you should be following up with them or if you’re asking them, “When would be the best time for me to connect again?” Then always cut what they tell you essentially in half. If they said, “Follow up with me in six months,” we’re going to follow up with them quarterly at that point. We’re going to cut that in half because often the check in date that they’re telling you is often when they want to be moved by. Always just checking in a little bit earlier. When you’re following up with them, they’re not going to remember they told you six months, so you can say, “Hi, Crystal. Just wanted to do a quick check in. You said to reach out in a few months here, da, da, da, da, da.” Those are there.

Now, one thing you’re also going to want to do is in addition to having these check in tags and filters, you’re going to also want to edit your main contact filter. What you’re going to do in this filter is add a filter option for tag, and we’re going to go none, and we’re going to select all the check ins. We’re going to have anyone that has a check in tag on them. We don’t want them in this list anymore because they already have their own list that they’re following into and for you to follow up with. Once we have that in here, what that’s going to do is it’s going to leave you with a list of individuals that you’ve made contact with, but you’ve yet to gather enough details about their timelines to have an effective follow-up plan.

Essentially, we have one lead in here, so if I was to call Bronna for example, and I talked to her and she said, “You know what? I’m planning a move maybe in six months from now,” I’m going to put her on a one month check in. I’m going to go done. Essentially, Bronna is now going to fall off this list because she now no longer matches these requirements of the filter. If you guys require additional assistance with respect to these filters and ensuring that they’re set up appropriately, please contact support@agentlocator.ca. They will redirect your ticket to our Training Department and we will have one of our trainers walk through you to help get this going.