Dear friend,

This week we’re going to talk about four big reasons that leads don’t convert and what to do about it.  So let’s get right in.

No.1: Not connecting quickly with their leads.

You know here’s the thing you have to remember in real life is that whenever somebody asks for something on your website, a prospect, they ask for something on your website or they call your voice mail hotline and they leave their contact information for an offer that you have made in one of your direct response ads, they have never in the history of your relationship with them, been more excited about you and what you have to offer than that moment.  The moment they press submit, they are most interested in it.  They are most interested in getting whatever information you have been offering, and the time that goes by between the moment they press submit and the time that you ultimately connect with them, that excitement is rapidly declining and the best thing that you can do to improve your lead conversion is to improve the number of people that you connect with, the number of leads that you connect with.

See I see people often gathering up their leads, they will see that they have got a lead, they watch it on their Blackberry, or their Trio, or their Smartphone, or they see it come in in their email, or they get a notice that somebody has left a message on their voice mail, and they get all excited about it.  They print out the lead, you know, they gather them all up and put them in a pile and make sure they get everybody into their contact management system, and then they wait.  You know they wait because ‘I am going to gather everybody together and I am going to make my follow up calls later on in the day’ or ‘Tuesday night is lead follow up night’ and the reality is that the very best thing that you could do is start the connection process right away.  I guarantee if you take the next 10 leads that come in and you made it a game to try and connect with them while they are still on your website, while they are still sitting by their phone when they have left a voice mail for you, the faster that you can make that initial connection people are going to be wowed, and you will connect with them more because you know they are right there, right now.

Try getting into that habit even if you can’t ultimately talk with somebody right now, the very best thing you could do is call them up and say ‘hey, it’s Dean.  I just got your email, I just got your request for a website.  I am on my way out to show homes right now, is there, can I connect with you at 4 o’clock today?  I will be back in the office.  Is there a better number to reach you or will you be here?’  Or even to have somebody, an assistant call them and say ‘we just got your request, you just missed Dean, he was just in the office but he wanted me to make sure that I connected with you and see if it would be Ok if he calls you at 4 o’clock today?’  See those things, when you are connecting with people that quickly, you are going to connect with more people and it’s always impressive to them.  So it’s a win, win, win.  You can’t lose by connecting with your leads quicker.

No. 2: Giving up too soon.

They will maybe make an initial attempt to contact them, they will leave a message and maybe they will call back again and that’s it.  They don’t continue to try and connect with people, or they give up after two attempts and no returned phone call and say ‘those leads were no good’, or ‘I tried calling them and they never return my call’ or ‘they were never home.’  The very best thing that you could do to remedy this situation is to try at least seven attempts before giving up on your prospects.  If you have an orchestrated way, like we have, or a seven step connection process, where you make sure that everybody gets all seven steps before you give up on trying to connect with them, you will find that you will be able to connect with 70 to 80% of all the leads that come in.  Just connecting with them quickly is going to improve the number of people that you connect with, but also carrying on those attempts to contact somebody beyond your normal one or two tries, will yield a much higher percentage of people that you ultimately connect with.  And you want to do this with multiple forms of trying to connect with people, calling them on the phone, leaving a voice mail message, or not leaving a voice mail message, sending them an email to try and engage them in a dialogue.  So make sure that you have got enough steps in your process that you are not leaving people there without making all of the attempts that you could possibly make because you don’t want to rush to judgement and say that somebody is not going to buy a home, just because the reality is that you didn’t end up connecting with them.  Just because you don’t know whether they want to buy a home, doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to buy a home.

No. 3, Asking weak questions instead of having great conversations

This is when you actually connect with people.  A lot of times the big thing that I see people doing is calling people up and asking them weak questions.  You know, let’s say that they have asked for a report on your website, they have asked for something that you have been offering.  The worst thing that you can do is just call them up and say ‘did you get the report?  Did you get a chance to read it?’  You know, the reality is that it doesn’t matter whether they got a chance to read it, what you really want to get into is start having a conversation with people and knowing that the reason that they asked for that report on ‘How to buy bank-owned homes in Winterhaven’ is because they want to buy a bank-owned home.  So the very best thing you can do is get into a conversation with them, knowing that that’s what they want and knowing that our whole objective in having a conversation with a new lead is to determine whether they are 5-star prospects, whether they are willing to engage in a dialogue, and if they are on the phone with you right now that means that they are willing to engage in the dialogue.  If they are friendly and cooperative, now you are going to know the answer to that in the first 30 second of talking with somebody, and the bulk of your conversation is going to be around trying to determine no. 3 and 4, which is ‘do they know what they want?  And are they moving in the next 6 to 12 months?’

You can have a 15 minute conversation with somebody about those two parts of your objective where you can find our exactly what their plans are, what their hopes are, what they are looking for, what they have seen, what their intentions are, when they are planning on moving?  All of those kinds of things are the bulk of the conversation that you are going to have and it’s going to be better than having a conversation that is just kind of asking fill-in the blank questions that are not really leading to anything.

No. 4: Not knowing what to do NEXT

And we are going to know what to offer to people based on what our conversation reveals.  See the big thing that often people make is mistake no. 4, of not knowing what the next step is.  See a lot of times people want to leave those conversations by saying ‘if you have got any questions feel free to call me’ or ‘I will follow up with you a little later when you are closer to buying’, making it seem like their wrong for being at the point in the timeline that they are right now.  See the very best thing you can do is make everybody feel like wherever they are right now on the timeline is perfect.  It’s exactly where they are supposed to be, and to have a specific offer for people at each step along the timeline.  If somebody is a 5-star prospect, there’s only two options.  They are either going to buy now, meaning they are ready to go and start looking at homes right now, or they are going to buy later, and depending on how long it is down the road, you want to have different levels of ways that you connect with people or to continue to follow up with people and serve them as prospects.

So we have got, if somebody is right now or ready to start within the next 30 days, you might want to invite them to a home-buyer workshop, or you might want to invite them to your Saturday tour of homes.  Those are the things that are going to get people out of that cyber world and into the real world where they are kind of meeting with you right now face to face, and that’s what we are really looking at.  If somebody is going to buy 90 days or 6 months from now, we might want to offer them your home-finder newsletter, or a way of keeping in touch with them with all of the updates of the new properties that come on the market as soon as they come on and send them right to those prospects.  So we want to make sure that you know what the next step is and to have a next step for your prospects.  The very best thing you can do is if you can follow up with people, build a relationship with people that you are sending them valuable information for 6 to 12 months after you initially connect with them, that’s going to improve your conversion rate dramatically.

So there we have it, those are your four big lead conversion mistakes and what to do about them.  So tune in next time and we will talk about even more ways to get listings, find buyers and convert leads.