Years ago I made a mistake that most investors make.
I thought our leads were bad. So I was blaming the marketing team and the channels. It took me months to consider:
“Maybe we’re dropping the ball in sales”.
So I decided to pull up old leads. I looked at the property records and I was shocked by what I found. Some of these exact leads that we put aside as ‘not a good lead’... sold to someone else!
And not at retails… but to other investors!
That peeved me. We missed something there. So I dove into our sales process, our cadences, our follow up, etc. We made changes to our entire flow of things (including scripts). And we dramatically changed our total conversion rate. So I made a checklist for you all.
A 15 point checklist of all the problems in sales and how to fix them!
1. Call every lead multiple times.
We initially had a problem… There was no set number of times that AM’s must call a new lead. It was “When they felt like it” So we placed it in our SOP that every new lead gets called on at 3x+ per day. This is a KPI built into our process -- we have a minimum of 100 dialed phone calls for our AMs. That could be cold calling (if they’re not busy) but also follow up.
2. Follow up after presenting an offer.
Some of the deals that fell through were because we didn’t follow up with the offer -- even if they rejected it. When an offer is sent, we have a process of how many times we follow up on that offer until we hear yes or no. And if we have a “no” they do into a bucket of follow up checking up on if they sold their house or not.
3. Make more offers.
We now have it set as a KPI on appointment to offer ratio. Our goal is that 60% or more of the appointments we have, we give an offer. Before, we would “hide” the offer to those that didn’t seem like they’re ready to sell… Well, turns out that was hurting us. And those sellers ended up getting an offer from someone else, and closing with them. The more offers you make the more deals you’ll close.
4. Stop trying to close on the first call.
In our CRM, the average time it takes to get a contract signed is 59 days! That means that the first step in your call is NOT to close the deal. It’s to: Collect information, find out what their pain points are, get them into the next “step” of your sales flow. Think: "smaller sales” rather than shooting for the contract from the beginning.
5. Ask better questions.
Don’t focus on the house. Focus on the seller’s situation, timeline, and reason for selling. We're not worried about the bedroom, the bathroom count, we're not worried about the square footage… We just want to see if they have a problem that we can solve. When you reframe and you think about sales through curiosity, it does make you a better active listener… to hear those pain points that you'll ultimately end up solving.
6. Stop assuming leads aren’t motivated.
Many sellers who seem unmotivated today will sell later. Your job is to stay in position. This person's living in terrible circumstances… you think they should want to leave. But the truth is, they've been accepting this for a long period of time, and so they're less likely to change their behavior unless you give them a reason to do so
7. Track your numbers daily.
The first thing — start tracking your numbers and putting them out there… How many people are you talking to? How many offers are you making? That alone will change the outcome. Know how many calls you make. How many conversations you have. How many offers do you present… There needs to be a 15 minute huddle every single day where we're talking about our KPIs… How many appointments did you go on? How many offers did you make? How many contracts do we have? How many outbound calls did you make?
8. Increase your outbound call volume.
More conversations create more opportunities. More opportunities create more deals. We need to have a minimum of 100 calls a day outbound for the sales team, for closers. The people who are closing 30 deals a month… have to be extremely aggressive in getting a hold of leads… chasing them to the end of the earth to get them on the phone.
9. Use a script and stick to it.
Early on, we relied too much on improvisation. We thought good sales meant being naturally persuasive. It doesn’t. The first guidance we give them is to have a script… memorize it… practice it… speak it… practice it in the mirror until you can breathe it. “If you do that… and you get nervous… you're going to revert back to what you know. And if what you know is a script, it's going to come out of your mouth really, really easily.
10. Be curious, not pushy.
One of the things that is inherent to what we do is curiosity… When you reframe and you think about sales through curiosity, it does make you a better active listener… to hear those pain points that you'll ultimately end up solving. When I have a conversation that's focused on how I can help somebody else get to their goal… that changes the whole conversation. What that does is it builds trust. Always be curious… When people give you answers that are very closed off, you have to dig deeper to get them to open up.
11. Follow up with old leads regularly.
Some of your best deals are already in your CRM, waiting for the right timing. We dug through them and we saw who they sold to… we lost a couple deals out there that would have been a game changer for our business. The average time from the time a lead came into our CRM to the time we signed a contract on average 59 days… then you're following up for a few times.
12. Stop waiting for perfect deals.
The biggest mistake investors make is they'll analyze the deal and they'll think, oh my gosh, I can't pay what this person wants. And then they won't get back to the person. They'll have anxiety about giving a low offer, and so they'll never make that offer. If you don't make any offers then you get no deals. Make offers consistently. Volume creates opportunity.
13. Respond to leads quickly.
Speed matters for new leads. The faster you contact a lead, the more likely you are to convert it. With all the tools and services available the bar has been raised for “speed to lead”. There are answering services, call centers, and AI tools that make it easier to get to the lead. This isn’t just for new leads, but leads that respond to one of your follow up emails or texts.
14. Don’t take rejection personally.
Rejection is part of the process. You will get angry responses, you will get no’s. But persistence is what separates top performers. This is all just a numbers game. And you have to develop some sort of “persona” to help bounce rejection of your “armor”.
15. Treat every lead like it could become a deal.
Many sales people throw the lead away when it’s not a perfect deal or there’s any motivating situation. We treat all leads the same -- unless they get hostile. We know that sellers need to trust us before they can open up. We know that some aren’t ready to sell yet. Our job is to build trust, tell them how we can help, and deliver. We can’t do that when we give up on homeowners too soon.
