There are many ways to grow your business in 2021, including working more hours, spending more money, and adding members to your team.
However, one of the easiest and most efficient ways to grow your business is to leverage technology to automate and replicate your efforts. Automation is a powerful way to save time and focus on critical areas of your business that are most important to you.
As you evaluate your past performance and begin to plan for 2021, consider the stages of converting a lead into a client and where you might streamline and scale that process. Like a typical sales funnel (awareness, interest, decision, action), here are four areas the most successful real estate agents and teams have automated through technology partners that have helped them grow their business and increase their ROI.
1. Capture leads
In 2019, NAR reported that over 52% of people purchased a home they found online. As 2020 ends, we can estimate this percentage will increase as we continue to navigate life during a global pandemic. It is crucial to diversify and automate your lead generation efforts. Lead generation like Google and Facebook allow you to create a database of leads outside of your sphere. Building a predictable pipeline is critical in scaling your business.
“My biggest business win in 2020 was finally signing up with CINC,” said Alfonso Gomez. “This platform has given me more leads than anything I’ve ever used. With more leads, I have more closings. And now I had to bring on three agents onto my team, and we’re all productive! 2020 has been my best year ever, and 2021 will be even better.”
2. Identify who is ready to buy
As a successful agent with limited time, you must use that time efficiently. This includes correctly identifying who is ready to buy, who is not, and who needs some extra hand-holding to decide how to move forward.
“One of my favorite buyers made initial contact in August and we sold and closed by October,” said Alisa Molbert Friedbert. “It took seven weeks to get her the right home that she and her family absolutely love.”
From lead scoring to behavioral messaging to AI, make sure you use technology that has the power to extend your business. By partnering with a platform like CINC, you have access to CINC AI to have a seemingly infinite number of automated conversations built with real human empathy to streamline your follow up and continue to add value to your database. There are a variety of similar tools in the space that allows you to focus on your business while technology works to qualify leads in your database.
3. Nurture relationships
After you’ve identified where a lead is in your sales funnel, it’s crucial to build an authentic relationship through value-added communication. Thanks to data such as saved searches, your technology platform should already know what your client is looking for in a home. Now it’s time to figure out the ‘why.’
“I’m meeting with someone that finally raised her hand after 760 days on the site,” said Susan Crawford. “She has an $800,000 house to sell and is interested in a $775,000 house and doesn’t need to sell first to buy! Follow up, follow up, follow up! Even if they never respond! They will eventually, on their time.”
Purchasing a home is a huge decision for which everyone has different motivations. Make sure you’re using drip campaigns and other simple follow-up methods for the masses, and other automated communication tools like video messaging or AI to add the personal touch. These pieces of communication nurture your leads while showcasing the value you provide for the home buyer. Work with your technology provider to better understand the actions your leads take that signal they are moving closer to buy. Some examples include logging into your platform multiple times in a week or viewing the same property multiple times.
4. Convert into clients
If you add automation throughout the various stages of your sales funnel, there’s no doubt your conversions will increase. Not only will you be able to automatically send the right message to the right lead at the right time in their buying journey, but you’ll also have more time to focus on converting the now buyers in your database.
“I closed a $2 million dollar buyer transaction from a CINC lead this year,” shared Shane Collins. “By the end of 2020, we hope to have closed over 4 million in volume from CINC from this years’ leads! I love this platform.”
Partnering with a technology provider like CINC, which excels in lead generation and conversion, gives you the tools to build predictable income and goal-set for your continued growth. Streamlining operational tasks, repeatable events, and accountability data for you and your team is another important factor to accurately setting goals and boosting your conversion in 2021.