Timelines & Situations – How to Leverage for a Meaningful Follow-Up

As previously discussed, your when and your why are the most important factors of a conversation that you should be attempting to retrieve from your lead. It’s going to allow you to determine the frequency of your followups, but it’s also going to allow you to categorize that lead and essentially put them on a shelf so you can find them later or be able to sort your leads based on those various situations. Whenever we have your leads, and this again is where the tags really come into effect for yourself, so if we open up the tag list here, we can see that we’ve got several situation tags depending on that individual. Whether it’s they’re a blended family, they’re a homeowner, they’re a first time buyer, maybe they’re an investor, by having these essentially, and I’m adding them to the lead, you’ll be able to pluck out your leads that have those various situations.

Now, understanding these situations is also going to allow you to educate your lead. Unfortunately not a lot of people will take the time to educate their leads. They’re looking more or less for the quicker opportunities, and a lot of the time, a lot of your leads, they just need help. Unfortunately, not a lot of people will give it. If you’re able to offer those solutions to their problems … Let’s say they’re saving for a down payment and you’re able to push them to a financial advisor or a mortgage expert that deals frequently with individuals that are working on their goals to saving and getting into that home purchase, you are now building credibility for yourself.

Whenever you can offer solutions or offer a service where you’re not really expecting anything in return, you’re building that trust with that lead. When you have your conversations, the situation of your lead is often one of the easiest things to get. Do you mind me asking? Do you guys currently own your home, or are you renting? Right there, we know if they’re renting, we can put a situation tag that they’re renting, but we’re also going to ask at that point, “Is this going to be your first purchase?” Then we know if they’re first time buyer or not.

Adding those tags on there can be quite simple. Again, it’s just focusing on a conversation. If you ever wanted to pull up, for example, by tag, anyone that has the tag, let’s say first time buyer, I can apply this filter and see that I’ve got eight leads in my database that are first time buyers. If I just came across a new opportunity or new incentive that’s going to be truly valuable to these individuals that are first-time buyers, I would be able to call them or perhaps send them an email with that information or shoot them a text message again, building that value.

Let’s say if we don’t want the first time buyers, but we’re looking for those investors in here, maybe you just happened to land an amazing investment opportunity. You can within seconds blast it off to these investors because they’re going to be the ones that are most interested in that opportunity. At the end of the day, the more information you’re able to grab from your lead on an initial conversation, sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not as easy. Sometimes it’s the follow through. You’re achieving more information, but the more detail you can grab, the more effective your followups are going to be, because you’re going to be able to categorize your leads, as well as if you have detailed notes on your database, you’re going to be able to refer back to those notes so that you can. I’m going to see if I have any on this individual.

You can refer back to that conversation in your next conversation. I always suggest leaving notes about your conversation in full detail because you’re not going to remember, as well as if opportunity presents itself to start discussing things outside of real estate. If you notice that there’s dogs barking in the background or they can’t talk as they’re just dropping their son off at hockey, those are different points of connection with that individual. That’s going to create their walls to start dropping. People love talking about themselves and things that make them happy in general. Always having those in there and again, going back to the previous where we’re putting in those check-ins so that we are continuously following up with these leads. Leads are going to act on convenience first and foremost. We have to be able to be convenient as well as be effective with our followups so that they feel more committed.

More or less, the more you follow up, the more committed they get. Not every lead will transact with you, despite the amount of effort you put in, but you’ll notice more and more will start engaging with you as the more frequent you’re following up with them.

One great question you can ask your leads when they’re not ready to make a purchase yet is, “What has to happen to make this move possible?” That is a loaded question that is open-ended and will often result in a ton of information for you to put notes about, but also talk about, as well as it gives you the opportunity to offer assistance with that individual. Always try to get those timelines and those situations. The criteria is often, what I say, a bonus. It’s how you can end your conversation and modify their search, adding some value, shooting them off that new updated list. Then again, we’re following up with them to essentially gain their trust, build the conversion, and start seeing results.