As Jason Abrams would say, prospecting is your ‘secret sauce’ and puts you in charge of your own life and your own business. We couldn’t agree with this more, however what we find is that there are common obstacles that agents face when it comes to successful prospecting.
I asked our Metrix Head Coach, Julie Youngblood, to help me outline some of these obstacles. Throughout Julie’s years of coaching she has seen challenges that agents face when prospecting, and she has come up with ways to help her clients overcome them.
The first obstacle that Julie finds is that a lot of agents don’t know their averages or their own conversion ratios. Because of this lack of knowledge, agents stop before converting a lead. For example, if you knew you had to talk to 100 people to set one appointment, you would not stop at 50 people, you would talk to all 100. However, if you did not know this number you would stop before you hit your goal. If you are a new agent and don’t know your ratio, ask agents in your office to share their ratios/averages.
The next obstacle is a lack of preparation. Julie will find that some agents will show up to the office and they are not prepared to lead generate during lead generation time. They don’t have their lists prepared and don’t know who they are calling or what they are going to say. To overcome this, Julie recommends to prepare prior to lead generating, typically the night before. She teaches her clients to time block this on their calendars. You should know exactly who you are calling and your scripts should be hung up at your desk. The fewer steps between you showing up and you getting on the phone, the better your success.
The third obstacle, that we all can relate to, is: checking email instead of doing what your calendar says you should be doing. There is no real estate deal that will fall apart in two hours as long as you have been doing your work. Time block your email time so you are not checking email during revenue-generating-activity (RGA) time.
This next obstacle goes along with the one we just covered: it is easy to get distracted. If you set an appointment during your prospecting time, work on the details afterwards, once your lead gen time is up. All you should be focusing on during prospecting time is: dialing, dialing, dialing.
When coaching newer agents, Julie finds that they can become terrified of what to do once they set an appointment. If you are a new solo agent, Julie recommends finding another agent that you can shadow on appointments, or consider interviewing with a team, as a team will provide the support and training you need.
Julie’s final tip to successful prospecting is: Prospecting Sprints. If you are new to lead generation, you can do it in “sprints”, rather than a marathon. Spend 20 minutes on the phone, take a five minute break, 20 minutes on the phone, five minute break, and so on. The key here is to be ALL OUT during those 20 minutes; no stopping. By breaking up the prospecting time like this, you can be more effective with your lead gen, but only IF you are effective during the sprints. Have fun with this. Have contests with yourself and track how many calls you make within your 20 minute sprints. Challenge yourself to beat your record each time.
