Leads—Lead Generation vs Lead Receiving

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LEADS

Figure 9

Nothing is more important to your sales career than prospective buyers and sellers. To have a viable business, you simply must have the client leads. To have a

Receive

business that pays you a lot of money, you will need a lot of leads. Funny, but some real estate agents miss this not-too-subtle point and end up spending their time on other less financially rewarding activities. I can’t tell you why this is, but let’s be perfectly clear about it in this book—no leads means no sales.

Wemust have leads, and, in fact, if it is helpful to you, you should think of yourself as being in the “lead-generation business.” Many will say, “But I’m in the real estate business,” to which I reply, “Fine, then try staying in the real estate business very long with out leads.” If it makes you feel any better, please realize that all businesses are, in addition to their particular business, in the lead-generation business. What you have to embrace is the fact that it is the number of qualified leads you have that will either grow your business, keep you in business, or put you out of business. Nothing else about your business will have “Without leads, we wouldn’t be in business.” Chris Cormack Millionaire Real Estate Agent Ashburn, VA Sales volume—$70 million

as big an impact on it as the number of leads you have. For this reason, Leads becomes the first of the Three L’s. Without them, the other two are not nearly as important.

When I taught new agent sales training classes, I would sometimes start my class discussion on leads by asking the audience, “If I told you there was an out-of-town buyer who just got in this morning and who will be paying cash and needs to purchase a home by the end of the week, could any of you help him out?” Everyone would raise their hand.

“Well, I can guarantee you there is a buyer getting into town today who has cash and needs to buy a house now. The problem is we don’t know where or who this buyer is. And that is the leads challenge of the real estate business.” In a prosperous market, there are usually many agents relying on passive lead generators, casual referrals, and luck to create business. I call this Lead Receiving. Unfortunately, real estate agents who are in the business of Lead Receiving may find themselves selling very few houses when the market shifts. Conversely, if you actively and systematically focus on Lead Generating through direct prospecting and marketing activities, you will always be doing the best you can even in shifting markets. In the battle of Lead Generating vs Lead Receiving, Lead Generating always wins, no matter what the market. If you count on the market to deliver leads when times are good, you better count on it to take them away when times are bad. What is given can also be taken away. . . .

One of the first questions I ask when consulting one-on-one with someone who wants to earn more is: “Do you have enough leads that if you close them properly you’d be reaching your goals?” If they answer yes,then it would seem that they have a conversion problem. If they answer no, I tell them to put everything else on hold and go get more leads. The issue of leads should always be at the forefront of your business consciousness.

The catch is that lead generation is not something that can just be turned on and off. Some very good lead generators make the mistake of turning it off when they think they have more business than they can handle. They turn it off and six months later they suddenly realize that the market has made a slight shift and now they don’t have enough leads. If their methods still work and work quickly, then they will be able to ride the roller coaster again. If they find that their methods aren’t quite as effective as they once were, they may be in trouble. Lead generation stays on, even when the volume might appear overwhelming. This isn’t