Real Estate Seller Leads: The offrs Secret To SMB Growth

Real Estate SMB's Thrive On Seller Leads

We've brought to light a lot of the history of real estate and lead generation technology, but the relationship between small-to-medium-sized businesses and a solid inbound lead pipeline are so inter-threaded, that it's nearly impossible to separate your business's bottom-line success from your ability to continuously market your brand and services. Let's go out on a limb and say that your business thrives off of past clients and/or client referrals... your ability to reach out to them and remind them that you are (and always will be) their gal/guy is still imperative to your long-term survivability. And yet, even with this outlier case (where your entire business does not rely on or even include active efforts to generate new leads), you'll nevertheless benefit from a solid data source (updated contact info for referrals, for example, to locate them in this busy world). In a more realistic scenario, your daily operations are likely pulling in new business from all over the spectrum. And this is probably a much healthier scenario to model.

In real estate, seller leads are nothing new. It's simple really... they're either buying or selling and they're either a lead or they're not. But, as many agents out there that are working hard to find and convert leads ultimately find out over time... not all leads are the same. So here we have an interesting scenario: real estate survives off of seller leads, but the definition of a lead (buyer or seller) is often misunderstood. Think about it... you just sold a home, so you have a seller lead and a buyer lead that melded time and space (two objects met at the right time)... and job done! But your buyer lead just became a seller lead and your seller lead a buyer lead. They've inverted and the only variable now is the element of time... when each will truly become their destined role. So, this is all to say... if you could identify when this transition (from buyer lead to seller lead and visa versa) is likely to transpire, you could then focus more of your marketing dollars on fewer and more optimally-identified clientele. This is an important distinction to grasp because this means that you are surrounded by leads, and you're simply tasked with discovering which ones are the highest priority to focus in on.

What's The Value Of A Seller Lead?

So, technology aside for now, how much is a seller lead worth to your business? Naturally, this depends on how hungry you are. We've all been in situations where you've got your office space, your desk, your phone, business cards and a smile... but then it sets in... where are the calls? Okay, so you work through our sphere (online and offline) and got a steady amount of clients. Awesome! But slowly, the "certain deals" become less certain. In a panic, you call everyone back and... promises. It's a scary prospect. How would you like to have someone on your team next week not only gathering and regularly updating contact info on all of the homeowners in your farm, but going through the list and highlighting (with a highlighter) which ones today are the ones you should call first (knowing that the team member has an unworldly 70% success rate in predicting which homeowners are going to move in the next 6-12 months)? Wouldn't you like to take that teammate to Vegas? ;)

And this is the value of a seller lead. As the title of this article implies, the secret to your real estate business's growth is a steady pipeline of inbound leads. We'll up the ante and say... a steady pipeline of warm inbound leads (because remember, these aren't just names... they've been identified on the back end via our algorithm and in many cases, on the front end via our call center's pre-vetting processes as well). Obviously, we're talking a lot about results and really, isn't that the only factor that matters? But let's talk a bit about the process of identifying a lead. As we mentioned, pretty much everyone's a lead in your farm. Short of them passing the property on down through the family for generations to come, the property will eventually sell. And while you're the real estate specialist in that neighborhood, it's yours to lose (at least, if you're claiming it to be yours by truly doing everything you can to identify and own it). Again, it's just about knowing ahead of time when a homeowner is thinking about listing. So let's explore that a bit...

How Do You Predict A Seller Lead?

It's quite simple, we listen. Consider this... your best leads come through the grapevine. Someone reputable that you know shares with you, info on someone they know that has expressed interest in a job they've been offered on the other side of town, but... that they'd have to list their home and don't know where to go. They go on to say that their friend's children have moved out for college a year earlier and that in prep for the possibility of listing their home, they're doing some around-the-house fix-ups they've held off on doing for the past few years. That, in a results-sense, is what offrs does. offrs listens to movement in the consumer space, looking for things like changes in careers, changes in family status, and home improvement purchases. We run hundreds of data points through our predictive algorithm and, over the past few years, have honed in which combination of indicators are the best tell-tale signs that someone is going to list their home in the next 6-12 months. It's business intelligence and, as hinted at, it's the secret to thriving in a competitive marketplace.

So... are you ready to act on the seller leads offrs can put into your hands? That's a whole other article (conversion preparedness), for now... are you ready to accept the seller leads offrs can put into your hands? Reach on out to your offrs business strategist today and learn what predictive analytics and more specifically, what predictive lead generation could mean for your business this year. It's not magic... it's math. =)