Loving Ugly Leads
In Real Estate and Mortgage, we buy leads at an increasingly rapid rate, and this acceleration shows no sign of stopping. Leads come in all shapes and sizes, cost and value. Agents, loan officers and brokers all rate, rank and sort leads in many different ways – and I’ve seen it all.
In listening to hundreds of our clients, I’ve come to think about leads like the old western “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”
The Good
“I need to buy that house right now”
Once qualified, to most, this is a really good lead. Stop, drop what you are doing and roll over to meet this buyer/borrower because they are on fire! While not totally without issues, they close at a high rate and in short order. However, as markets cool, the ratio of hot good leads will decline, dwindle and eventually diminish till mostly Bad and Ugly leads remain.
The Bad
“There is no such thing as a bad lead”
This is false. There are lots of bad leads. Perhaps you’ve received a lead named Al Coholic, Seymour Butz or Amanda Hugginkiss? It’s not worth keeping leads with fake, profane or non deliverable email addresses. You also don’t need to keep other realtors and LO’s in your database of prospects and leads.
Pro Tip: Revaluate automatically removes the bulk of this Bad Lead nonsense from your database.
The Ugly
“I’m Just Looking”
All too frequently, leads come in and they say “Just Looking”. The source doesn’t seem to matter. They could be from Quicken, an open house, Zillow, Realtor.com or a grocery cart) Contrary to your feeling at the time, this is a really great lead. Sure, they look like the “before” in The show Fixer Upper – but look at the potential! Over 80% of sale transactions were with people in agents existing network. With ugly leads, now is your chance to build / enhance the relationship over time – Make them part of your network!
In almost every Ugly lead the issue is related to timing. What you need is the ability to connect with Ugly leads to help point them in the right direction when the timing is good.
Timing is Everything
- Ideally, you would engage with the lead at the right time: when the prospect is thinking about moving and has questions, so you can build trust
- The time is right PRIOR to the prospect typing their name into a ZTR or Quicken lead capture portal – otherwise you have to compete with all those other agents or LO’s that are trying to buy your lead!
Revaluate can help you know when to follow up
Our top performing clients upload their ugly old leads, SOI and even their church/ country club /neighborhood association email lists – so Revaluate can tell them who to talk to, at the right time. Revaluate lets you find the Good from the Bad and Ugly.
Revaluate leverages artificial intelligence to identify likely mover leads from within your existing prospect database in as little as 48 hours. To learn more and see if Revaluate is a fit for your business schedule a time with a Revaluate data expert.
