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Dear Friend, 

I’ve been in “Student” mode for the last several months. 

I’ve been really studying what I believe is the single biggest opportunity for you to triple your business — Lead Management. 

For years now, I’ve been completely devoted to developing the most cost effective and magnetic ways to generate tons of leads of people who want to buy a home, sell a home, or get a mortgage. 

I would consider myself among the best in the world at direct response advertising when it comes to Real Estate and Lending. 

I can go into any town, anywhere, and within 2 weeks generate all the leads anyone can handle. I’ve done it, again and again. 

What always happens when I generate a bunch of leads for someone who doesn’t have a SYSTEM in place to handle them, is the business blows up and all those leads become a source of frustration. 

I’ve seen it happen again and again, and then I realized what was going on. 
I started thinking… 

“Why is it I can generate all these leads for people so effectively, and one company has such a different experience with them than another?” 

I came to the conclusion the reason I can generate leads so consistently and predictably with almost no variation in the cost or response rate is because I set up the EXACT same systems every time. 

I say “Run THIS ad, in THIS publication and record THIS script” 

It works every time. The ads ALWAYS work every time. And, the messages that people leave in Winter Haven, sound just like the messages people leave in Orlando, Toronto and anywhere else the ads are running. 

Or, when I do direct response websites for my Money Making Website Internet Academy clients ( www.moneymakingwebsites.com ) the websites ALWAYS generate 30% to 35% response rates of people who are raising their hand to identify themselves and ask for help. 

I discovered the reason people have such varying conversion rates, is because they have such varying conversion SYSTEMS. 

It’s the VARIATION that makes the difference. 

What I would do and say with a new lead is very different than what YOU would do and say with a new lead, and unfortunately, very different than what your buyers agents or employees would do and say. 

Until you can remove this variation, you’ll continue to get varying results….usually poor. 
Check out these interesting statistics I’ve discovered in my study… 

45% of all inquirers WILL buy within 12 months.  (15% in the first 90 days) 

50% of all leads are NEVER followed up. 

58% of all resale home buyers surveyed for the most recent

NAR study only spoke to ONE agent before buying. 

So, there’s some good news and bad news in those statistics. 

The GOOD news is nearly half of all inquirers will buy in the next 12 months, and if you connect with them 58% of the time you’re the ONLY person they will talk to. 

The BAD news is that half of all inquiries are NEVER followed up, and that’s probably true for the leads you generate too. 

Let’s assume you’ve got a direct response website, or you’re doing some form of direct response advertising or mail to generate leads, and let’s assume that the leads are coming in the form of e-mail, or voice mail. 

Those people have proactively taken a step to contact you because you’ve offered them something they perceive valuable enough to go out of their way to respond to your offer. 

They wouldn’t have responded to you if they didn’t have some intention of buying or selling. 

It got me thinking. 

What if I was given 100 leads tomorrow — and not told which 45 of those 100 were going to buy and which were not? 

And, what if a condition of getting those 100 leads was that if even ONE person on that list bought a house in my town before December 31st, and it wasn’t with me, that I would, quite literally, be beheaded? 

Wouldn’t that be a different way to start off your team meeting this year?! 
Try thinking like that some time…like your life actually depends on the success of your follow-up program. 

I did.
 
And I came to a number of conclusions, and I want you to reason along with me… 
If my life literally depended on my follow-up with these 100 people, what would I do? 
Well the absolute first thing I would do is… 

1. Make CONTACT with them. 

I would do everything in my power to make contact with these people, and I’d do it as FAST as I could. I’d hate to lose my life over someone who wanted to buy a house right away and I didn’t get back to them for two weeks. 

The first thing I would do is see if I could get them on the phone, and I definitely wouldn’t give up after 3 “no answers”. I’d try them in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, the weekend, whatever it takes. 

I’d contact them by e-mail. 

I’d contact them by mail. Priority mail even. 

Telegram? Telex? Carrier pigeon? 

If my LIFE depended on it…I’d drop by their house. 

In short, I would do everything in my power to contact those people at least ONCE, so I could have a conversation with them and… 

2. Make a DECISION about them. 

I would want to TALK to them, so I could determine for sure what their needs are and if they are going to buy in the next 12 months. 

I wouldn’t try to sell these people on the phone. 

I’d treat that phone call like the only time I may ever get to speak to them, so I would LISTEN very carefully to what they tell me. 

I’d take notes. 

I’d treat them like they were my best and only clients. 

I’d plan my call very carefully so I didn’t forget to ask them anything that might help me determine whether they were going to buy NOW, LATER, or NEVER. 

If my life depended on it…I wouldn’t throw away those NEVERS just in case they change their mind sometime later this year. 

I’d also… 

3. Have a Clear NEXT Step. 

If they’re going to buy now…I’d know EXACTLY what to do next. 

If they’re going to buy LATER, I’d make sure and have a way to keep in touch with them until they are ready to buy. I’d make sure they know what to do if they see some houses they’d like to know about right away. 

Lucky for me (and my life) only 7 of the 45 will be buying in the first 90 days…so I’m not likely to lose any in the first few weeks it takes me to contact them all. 

And even luckier for me, once I make contact with them… 26 of them (58%) won’t even talk to another agent. Thank you NAR. 

These two statistics put everything heavily in my favor — as long as I actually make contact with them, I should be pretty safe with 33 of them. 

I’d also be thankful that MOST of them are going to buy more than 90-days from now so I have more time to BOND with them. More time to be HELPFUL to them. More time for them to see all the benefits I have to offer them.
 
I’d make sure they know that I can help them find the best mortgage for their specific needs, and help them pay it off faster than ever. 

I’d invite them to special classes where they could learn about the whole homebuying process and get any of their questions answered. 

I’d organize tours of homes for them, so they can conveniently see several homes at one time. 

I’d make sure they always have a FRESH list of homes for sale they can drive by at their convenience…and that when they see one they like, they know exactly how to get all the information they need and how to arrange to see it if they’d like. 

That’s what I’d do… 

What would you do? 

Does this change your perspective on those leads you’re already generating? 

What about the leads you generated six months ago? 

Guess what…over half of the people who are going to buy on that list, have still not bought a home…and probably NOBODY is in touch with them. 

If you made a list of all the leads that you generated in the last 12 months and went back and called them to see what happened…it would make you cry to see how many of them actually DID buy. 

I know, because I’ve had clients do it. 

It’s not too late. 

If you’ve been generating leads all year that haven’t been contacted, you can still go back and contact them. Start with the last six months. 

It’ll be good practice for you. It’ll be good for you too. 

Luckily your life doesn’t depend on your follow-up, but just knowing what you COULD do if your life depended on it will give you a new outlook for the abundance of leads you’re going to generate when you apply any of the strategies your learning HERE. 

Okay – it’s time for another…  

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Make My Life Better Day idea: 

This is a pretty interesting concept I was just recently introduced to.  
It’s called the 30-day trial.  

The idea is to think about some change or new habit you’d like to develop, and just commit to a 30-day trial.  

You can do anything for 30 days.  

For instance, one of the things I have recently realized is that I drink a lot of liquid calories.  

Probably 500 or 600 calories a day.  

You do too.  It’s not that difficult to do.  

One thing I love to drink is the mocha from Starbucks.  

Now, I found out that a Tall Mocha has almost 400 calories!  370 calories to be exact.  
I also found out that a Tall, Toffee-Nut Americano has about 40 calories.  

So, for 30 days, I decided to replace my favorite Mocha with a Toffee-Nut Americano.  
It doesn’t taste as good as a Mocha.  

But the reality is the mocha doesn’t taste 10 times as good.  

I feel better after drinking it and its encouraged me to think about replacing my favorite Cherry Coke about 150 calories with the new 1 calorie Black Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke.  
The regular coke definitely doesn’t taste 150 times better!  

I’ll let you know how it goes.  

You can do anything for 30 days.  

What would make your life better if you just tried it on for 30 days?  

Let me know on the message board at MarketingMonday.com 

Now on to…

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Calamity-Proofing your life.  

What would happen right now if your hard drivecrashed on your computer?  
Or you got a virus that crippled your computer right when you needed it most?  
Viruses and crashed are a very real threat to your productivity, and you can be sure they never happen at a convenient time.  

One of the ways we’ve decided to combat this, is by having someone come into our offices once a month, and do a routine virus check and remove any spyware back up our complete system, and update our virus protection software.  

It costs about $1000 a month to do all the computers in our office, and since we’ve started, we haven’t had a single problem.  

How up-to-date is your virus software?  

When was the last time you did a complete back up?  

How much spyware is lurking in your system without you even knowing it?
 
One simple phone call now- when you don’t need it is going to save you hours of hassle and lost productivity.  

If you’re talented enough you can do it yourself but you probably don’t.  

So having someone else do it regularly is a great insurance policy.

PS- Are YOU the subscriber of the week?

Check the message board to find out…

click here

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