5 Tips for Handling Qualified Motivated Seller Leads

If you are a real estate investor with the highly coveted ability to attract a high number of motivated seller leads, you need to ask yourself two primary questions:

1. "What is my process for leads that come in?"
2. "How many leads turn into contracts?"

Real estate investors often fail to scale their business and get the time and financial freedom they desire - not because they don't get leads. Instead, they don't know how to follow up with or manage leads once they come in. Lead management is ultimately about nurturing motivated seller leads as they come in and following up on qualified leads, so they don't fall through the cracks.

If you are investing time and money in marketing, you need to set aside time every day on managing those leads. Why? If you have several marketing strategies that are pulling in motivated seller leads but do not have a system in place to collect, nurture, and monetize those leads, you are likely wasting thousands of marketing dollars while failing to generate additional revenue. Then, you end up shutting down marketing channels that may have been profitable assuming you had the right lead management processes in place.

Below we look at five tips for managing qualified motivated seller leads that will create opportunities for you to close more real estate deals.

Tip #1: Speed to Lead

The idea behind Speed to Lead is simple:

The sooner you contact the lead, the more likely you will reach them. Today with high competition in practically every market in the US, this one thing can make or break your marketing campaigns.

Consider these statistics from a recent LeadSimple report:

The fact is: If you don’t get in touch with the seller quick enough, they are more likely to seek out other options. According to the same Leadsimple report from above, 66 Percent of sellers work with the person they talk to first. If the other home buyer responds quickly, the seller is more likely to go with that other buyer than you. It doesn't matter how skilled you are or if you were able to offer a better deal than the other buyer. If they move more quickly and get the deal under contract that same day, you very well may miss your shot.

Be persistent when calling the seller back. If they don't answer in the morning, try again at noon and night. There are a variety of reasons why sellers don't pick up the phone - work, personal errands, recreation, rest, and schedule. Trying throughout the day increases your chances of contacting the seller when they're not busy.

Here's a general example of how persistence pays off:

• The first call attempt has a 48 percent chance of contact.
• The third call attempt has an 81 percent chance of contact.
• The sixth call attempt has a 93 percent chance of contact.

Remember: You do not have to feel bad about calling right away or even calling repeatedly. The seller asked you to contact them.

To help ensure none of your leads fail to be contacted right away, we recommend leveraging a quick and simple text plus email automation. Within a few minutes of the lead coming in, Spark sends out an automated text and one minute after that, Spark sends out an email. This is a very simple message that confirms you’ve received their request for a cash offer and asks them to give you a call if they are available. What this oftentimes does is turn your form submissions into an incoming phone call.

Even with that automation set-up, we still recommend calling the lead right away and not waiting on or relying on the automation. The automation is more so designed to be a back-up in case you miss the new lead notification or you happen to be pre-occupied with another task.

Whether your first move is to automate your replies or manually reply to the seller, the idea here is to return their request as quickly as possible - preferably within the first five minutes of the initial contact.

Tip #2: Long-Term Follow-Up

Not all rejections are a hard no. A person who turns down an offer today may do so because they're simply not ready to commit upon request. Just because a home seller turns you down right away does not mean they will turn you down at a later date.

For instance, a person in foreclosure or bankruptcy may explore all options before choosing a cash home sale to avoid foreclosure. Dismissing them while weighing their options may cause you to miss out on a deal if they choose a cash sale but end up going with another investor since you failed to follow-up.

Long-term lead nurturing helps you stay in a seller's line of sight as they go through the decision making process. Some leads convert in a matter of days, some weeks and many in several months. Just because they don’t sell you their house right away, does not mean they aren’t motivated, and it doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. Continue to follow up, whether by phone call, text or email in order to stay top of mind.

Remember:

A lead is not dead until the seller tells you it is or until they sell their house to someone else.

Until then, create a strategy or process for nurturing the lead long-term. Make sure your process includes both manual and automated follow-up for maximum efficiency. This leads us into our next topic.

Tip #3: Combine Manual and Automated Follow-Up in Your Lead Nurturing Strategy

Manual Follow Up

Follow up that is human

• The owner (one-person business)
• Acquisitions manager
• Lead manager

That person is manually following up with leads. Manual tasks may include

• Setting up follow-up reminders
• Monitoring, adjusting, and updating automated systems such as Spark
• Making phone calls, sending texts or sending emails
• Assigning follow-up to team members

Keep in mind that not every motivated seller lead requires automation. For instance, if a seller asks for follow-up in a certain way or at a specific time, their request may not fit into your automated process. Therefore, you will need to follow up manually and not fully rely on your CRM to automate it for you.

Automated Follow Up

Automation supports manual follow-up and either simplifies or eliminates tasks that are either repetitive or unnecessary.

At Magnyfi, we use Spark Follow Up CRM, a customized CRM platform that allows you to manage all leads through the entire sales cycle from initial contact to a closed deal. It also engages your team, allowing for manual follow-up, planning, and lead assignment.

The good news is that our Magnyfi team has spent countless hours setting up automations within the Spark platform so that you don't have to. We simply show you how to use the dashboard, add in your team members & start moving your leads through the sales pipeline. Let’s take a look at what we have set-up for investors to take advantage of:

To start, Spark notifies you of new leads as soon as they come in via phone call or contact form. In the last point, we discussed the simple, yet effective automation we leverage for every new lead that comes in requesting a cash offer. After you have your first conversation with the new lead, you’ll be able to determine where in your pipeline they should be moved to next.

If you’ve attempted to reach the lead at least five times in the first twenty-four hours and you’re unable to get a hold of them (our recommendation), you can move them into our ‘No Contact’ stage. In Spark, this will trigger our series of fifteen total messages over the next five months. The first seven of these automations go out in the first seven days, as every day that goes by your likelihood of reaching the seller decreases.

Let’s say you do get in touch with them right away. In this case, you may set-up an appointment to walk through their property. If so, you can book this appointment within Spark and it will trigger a series of appointment reminders so you can be sure the motivated seller doesn’t forget you’re coming over. Now, you no longer have to worry about manually confirming your appointments before leaving.

Finally, let’s say you get a hold of the motivated seller and after one, or many, conversations, the seller stops replying to you. If this happens, or if the conversation just ends open ended without the seller giving you a timeline to follow up, this is a great time to utilize our long-term nurture sequence. To activate this, all you do is move the lead into the ‘long-term nurture’ stage and the automation will automatically start twenty-eight days later. This automation sends a total of ten messages over nine months. With long-term nurture automation, remember the goal isn’t to hound the sellers, but to stay top of mind so they don’t forget who you are.

Tip #4: Define Each Step in the Process

Every step in your lead management process is critical to converting a lead into a closed deal. Therefore, define the step. In other words:

• What is the step?
• Why does the step exist?
• How are you handling the lead?
• Where is the step in the process?
• Who is responsible for the step?

Each step depends on how you engage with the seller and your journey from initial contact to a closed deal. For example:

• If you get a phone call, how do you respond?
• What happens before, during, and after a walkthrough?
• What are you prepared to do if the seller isn't quite ready to commit?
• What do you do if you contact or do not contact the lead?
• What happens when you set an appointment?
• What is the process once you make a cash offer?
• What is the process if a lead is under contract?

Answering key questions and developing a repeatable process improves your chances of nailing down a real estate deal and makes it less likely for leads to fall through the cracks.

Tip #5: Lead Tracking and Analysis

Part of your lead management process is call tracking and analytics, which gives you insights into your management system and how you can improve it. For instance, you may want to know specific metrics within a given timeframe, such as

• Calls received
• Calls answered
• Missed, abandoned, or bad calls
• Appointments set
• Total tracking form requests
• Total tracking form responses
• Response time per form

Tracking and analysis show whether you are handling leads properly. More importantly, it shows you how many real estate deal opportunities you missed by not responding to calls or contact forms. Last, you can also assess which steps in the process you need to improve. Where are you or your team dropping the ball between the initial contact and closing the deal?

Start Generating 15-30+ Inbound Motivated Seller Leads Every Month

Magnyfi can help you develop your online credibility profile and leverage that to generate consistent, qualified motivated seller leads who are pre-sold on working with you. Learn more about how we can help you implement our Motivated Sellers Marketing Program in your area.

To check the availability of your market, fill out our application form or contact us at 877-540-4248, and we will walk you through the process. We only work with a limited number of investors per area, so claim your market today!