Lead Generation: Learning To Love The Thrill Of The Hunt with Lee Woodward

 In my early days as a sales creator, I worked a card system and did the hard yards, pounding the pavements, making 100 calls a day, knocking on doors, building relationships. In the two years I was solely prospecting, I created 162 listings and of those, 151 were sold (that’s a listing to sales ratio of ninety-three per cent)!

Very early on in my career, I learned the value of listings, and the fact that those who list, last. As a sales creator I understood the amount of groundwork that had to be done before listings could be achieved. It would often be up to six months before a lead would escalate. It was all long-term. My role was to capture their attention before that cycle started, build a relationship, and then hand over the lead.

I love the hunting side of this game. I suppose that’s what sets some of us apart from others – those who love the thrill of the chase and those who are afraid of it. I am equally comfortable sitting on the phone for a number of hours as I am working on a client relationship and hounding them (in the nicest possible way of course) because at the end of the day, if that relationship develops into a listing, then that relationship just keeps improving from there.

Getting systemised

The next major structural change that took things up a notch was the introduction of Complete Data into my business.

I still remember Robyn from Real Estate Academy coming into our office. We didn’t have a boardroom at the time so there were eight of us sitting around the kitchen having a look at one computer screen to watch her demonstrate this new computer software, Complete Data. It really blew our minds! It was exciting but daunting at the same time. There was a lot of resistance from the guys and girls I was working with, but personally I was super excited to be able to import all my contacts into an organised computer software system. The system would then allow me to categorise my clients and improve my workflow. Just the simplicity of mail merging letters was exciting to me.

It took a full two weeks to enter all my clients’ details into Complete Data. As I entered the data, I categorised it into four segments – Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Prospect. I was also meticulous in ensuring the data I put in was entered correctly. If you don’t have clean data you run the risk of sending someone the incorrect suburb report, spelling a name incorrectly or sending a letter to Mr and Mrs Jones, when Mr Jones passed away a year ago. Making errors like this is totally unprofessional. My PA will tell you that I am pedantic at ensuring data is entered correctly and maintained on a regular basis. So here I was 100% focused for a full two weeks on data entry. At the time I thought I was being productive, and in a way I was; but I was so busy entering data that I stopped talking to people during those two weeks. That was a lesson for me. It taught me that no matter how good technology may be it will never take the place talking to people. You can’t stop doing that for a day, let alone two weeks. If you’ve got computer work to do, allocate time for it, but make sure you leave time for the other important tasks in the day – like making phone calls.

 Article sourced directly from Real Estate Hot Topics Library.