How to Convert Online Real Estate Leads: Q&A with HomeLight Elite Agents (Part 3)

You have questions about converting online leads in real estate. Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto have answers!

After our super-popular two-part series on converting online leads, Jackie and Elmer are back one more time for an episode dedicated entirely to listener questions. (Missed either one? Listen here: How to Convert Online Leads Part 1 | How to Convert Online Leads Part 2)

In part three this week, these two HomeLight Elite agents answer questions about scripts for seller leads, how they handle Facebook buyer leads, and how to find new lead sources with a couple clever Google searches.

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If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube

Free Download

Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto are offering agents a PDF download of the VIP Buyer Presentation that we discussed throughout this podcast series. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF.

Links and Show Notes

• Elmer Morales/e-Homes on HomeLight
• e-Homes Facebook Page
• HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center
• Subscribe and listen to The Walkthrough: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTube

Full Transcript

(SPEAKER: Matt McGee, Host) Let me take you behind the scenes a little bit here on “The Walkthrough.”

We send out new episodes every Monday at 4:00 AM Eastern, 1:00 AM Pacific. It goes out that early so that no matter where you live in the country, the show is ready for you when you wake up to start your day.

Now, I live in the Pacific Time Zone. I usually get online around 8:00 to 9:00 AM. A few weeks back, we published part one of our Converting Online Leads series. And by the time I sat down at my desk, I had already started getting emails and voicemails from listeners like you. The same thing happened last week after part two of the series.

You guys had questions — great, great questions. And when I asked Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto if they’d come back and answer those questions in part three, they didn’t hesitate at all to say yes.

So, that’s what we’re doing today. I am taking your questions about converting online leads and getting answers from two of the best in the business. Ready?

This is “The Walkthrough.”

(INTRO MUSIC)

Hi, everyone. I’m Matt McGee, editor of HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center and your host every week right here on “The Walkthrough.” On this show, you’ll learn what’s working right now from the best real estate agents and industry experts in the country. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. That’s why we created “The Walkthrough.” We are on a journey to find out how great real estate agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable.

You can contribute to the show in two ways. You can leave a message for me, a voicemail at 415-322-3328, or you can send an email to walkthrough [at] homelight.com. I do read and hear all the messages that come in and might use them on an upcoming show like we’re doing today in fact.

If it’s okay with you, I’d like to keep this intro segment a little shorter than normal. That’s because I hope you already know our guests by now.

Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto run the eHomes Brokerage in Southern California and they are crushing it with online leads. They are HomeLight Elite agents. That’s a program reserved for the top 1% of agents on our platform. They’re also Best of Zillow. And over the past two episodes of this show, they pretty much gave away their system for converting online leads. So, if you haven’t listened to parts one and two yet, be sure to go back and listen to those if you missed either one.

Today is all about you and your questions. We have a mix of email and audio questions from agents across the country. So, on the show, listen for Jackie and Elmer to talk about how they customize their conversion process for seller leads. We spend probably the first 10 minutes or so on seller leads, and I even do a little role play as the seller lead. So, listen for that. They also talk about their specific outreach system for Facebook leads. And then at the end of the conversation, listen for some smart Google searches that you can do to identify new lead sources.

Jackie and Elmer are also letting me share their VIP buyer presentation with “Walkthrough” listeners. So, stay tuned after the conversation for more on that. Without further ado, here is part three: Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto answering your questions about converting online leads.

(BEGIN CONVERSATION)

Matt: So, the first question that I put on the list, I think it was even the first one that came in, was from Albert Neils, who is a listener in Fort Lauderdale. And he sent this in after the first episode. He sent an email and he said, “In the podcast, we only heard about buyer leads. So, what about seller leads?” And I think he has a good point, right, because in part one, when we talked about your ALM script, we talked about the process of how leads get distributed, and all that sort of stuff, we were, kinda, focusing on buyer leads. So, let me ask you a couple questions on the seller side, since that’s what Albert is wondering about.

You told us in part one about the round-robin system when a new lead comes in, right? The communication that goes out immediately, if I remember correctly, there’s an automated text, an automated email, and then obviously, one of the agents gets on and makes a phone call. Is that the same for both buyers and sellers?

Elmer: It’s gonna be the same through some lead sources because there’s no way for us to identify whether it’s a buyer or seller for a specific source. But when the lead source does…if we’re able to identify it through a lead source, then it changes. If it’s a seller, then it’s a different text campaign that they’re receiving, it’s also a different seller email campaign. They’re still getting property alerts, but the property alerts are gonna be geared towards homes that are for sale in their current neighborhood. So, they will know what’s going up for sale or what’s going pending in their neighborhood. So, that’s information that’s gonna be useful to them anyway. So, yeah, it does tweak it a little bit.

Jackie: And the conversation is obviously different.

Matt: Yeah. So, let’s talk about that. We mentioned again, back in part one, the ALM script — appointment, location, motivation. Elmer, you walked us right through, you know, what those exact questions are as if I were the buyer lead. So, what does the first phone call, the first email, the first text look like if it’s a seller lead?

Jackie: Sellers are a little bit more specific. There is not, I feel, like a general script that we walk through. We ask more questions. We ask a lot of questions on that call to meet them where they’re at and set the appointment. So, and we really tailor that script more than anything for sellers.

Elmer: The one thing I can share with you, Matt, that has made a big difference in taking more listings for myself and Jackie, and I share it with the rest of the team as well, is what I’m trying to do on the first conversation is I’m trying to set up an appointment or an interview with them. I’m not showing up — and this is the two-step that Jackie was talking about — I’m not trying to show up to list a property on day one. I don’t show up with the contract. I’m taking tax records that show me what square footage, bedroom, bath is, and I’m showing up and all this is is an interview. And I’ll even tell the consumer that, “Hey, listen. I’m showing up on Tuesday and all I’m gonna do is a quick walkthrough of the house. I’ll be out of your house within 20 minutes.” And my goal in doing that is just to build rapport and establish some, sort of, relationship with them. That’s it. I’m not trying to take the listing, I’m not trying to do anything else on the first step of the two-step listing appointment.

Matt: So, let’s pretend that I am a seller lead, I have contacted you guys. I’m thinking about selling and maybe I sent you an email or I contacted you through your Facebook page or whatever it might be. What’s the first contact sound like?

Elmer: So, “Hey Matt. I just noticed you inquired on our Facebook landing page for your property at 123 Banana Street and I know you’re considering selling. Tell me a little bit about what you’re considering doing.” And I expect you to share what the plans might be.

Matt: And so, I, as the potential seller, I might say something like, “Well, we’re thinking, you know, our kids are getting older, they’re getting ready to go out for, you know, to leave for college and, you know, we’ve got this, you know, 3000 square foot house and we probably don’t need four bedrooms anymore. So, we’re just, kinda, thinking about it right now.”

Elmer: “Okay, Matt. And how soon are you guys considering putting the home on the market?”

Matt: “Well, the kids will be probably off to school within the next six months or so.”

Elmer: “Okay. So, Matt, so, here’s what I typically do, Matt, when sellers like yourself inquire on a property you might be considering selling, is I like to schedule maybe a 15-minute walkthrough of the home. Now, I’m not gonna show up with the listing contract or anything like that. I just wanna get an idea of what your home looks like because if you’re gonna be selling in six months, chances are there might be some things that we might need to address prior to getting the home sold to make sure we get the max dollar amount when we put your home on the market. Does that make sense?”

Matt: “That does make sense. So, you need to come out to my house.”

Elmer: “I need to come out to your house and just do a quick 15-minute walkthrough. And again, we’re not gonna sign contracts, I’m not trying to get you to list your house. I just wanna get an idea of what it looks like. So when I’m doing my reporting and comparing your home to the other homes in the neighborhood, I have an idea of what exactly I’m looking at and comparing it to.”

Matt: That’s a good role play right there. And it sounds like it’s a little less…it’s more low pressure than on the buyer side. You’re still wanting to set the appointment, right? You wanna get out there, but you’re specifically saying, “Hey, we’re not gonna be signing, we’re not gonna be, you know, it’s not gonna be sales, sales, sales.”

Elmer: Correct. With the sellers, it’s totally…we’re taking a step back. Our goal with the seller, again, is to get into the face-to-face, but we’re getting…have to get in through their door, the front door of their home, right, which is gonna be a little bit intimidating, right, because no one likes to be sold, Matt. Nobody likes to call somebody so they can sell them something. So, our goal is to get in through the front door and making sure they drop their guard. And when I’m walking in there, again, it’s just a walkthrough. That’s all I’m doing.

“Tell me about the upgrades.” The first thing I say when I walk through the door is, “Hey. So, all I’m doing today is a quick walkthrough. So, you’re gonna walk me through your house and you’re gonna tell me about all the upgrades you’ve done on the home and any issues you might have with the house. Can we get started?” And that’s how we start. And as we walk through the house, my goal of the walkthrough, Matt, is to have an understanding, number one, of what it is that they’re looking for, what objections they’re gonna have for the actual sit down listing appointment, and then what pain points they might have with the entire process. And I’m just taking notes. As I’m going along, I’m asking these questions and I’m gathering information. So, then I’ll ask at the end of the walkthrough, “So, how soon are you guys looking to move?” “Oh, we probably wanna do this in the next 30 days.” “Okay. Well, I’m gonna be back,” and I’ll ask… it depends how soon they’re looking to move. I’ll ask, you know, to book the appointment either a day or two later, and then I’ll come back with my listing presentation at that point. And then it’s a sale.

Matt: Is this first meeting when you do this walkthrough, do you give them the VIP seller presentation then?

Elmer: No, we’re not giving them a VIP seller presentation. We’ve already mailed them a packet just telling them a little bit about who we are. So, I’m not handing them anything on the day that I show up. They already have something from us.

Matt: Okay. The VIP buyer presentation, if I remember correctly, you talk about home warranties, pre-approval, stuff like that. What is in the VIP seller presentation?

Elmer: It’s similar. We talk about the same things, but we present it more in a way of them preparing themselves on what the buyers might be asking for. We talk about having a preapproved buyer…accepting offers from preapproved buyers versus buyers that are not pre-approved. So, it’s everything that we present to the buyer, just on the opposite end, if that makes any sense, and a little bit more on reviews and just things that we’ve done in their neighborhood to give us some credibility.

Matt: Albert’s question was real general about seller leads. He would probably want to know, too, what your nurture process looks like on the seller side. So, for example, we talked, I think it was in episode two, about how the agent has to choose — do they want to work with this seller lead or are they gonna hand it over to an ISA? Does that also happen with seller leads?

Elmer: It does. We don’t treat it any different. We actually have an ISA, designated ISA that just focuses on sellers right now. And her job is just to call them every week, two weeks, whatever it might be, whatever, again, however long the process might be before they sell and we…kind of gives us an idea of how long we should be calling. And all Monique does is call, check-in with them to see what’s going on with the process of selling, and then once they raise their hand, and I kid you not, Matt, right before we got on this call, I was on a phone call with Monique and she was telling me that a lead that came in 45 days ago had just called in and said, “Hey, we’re ready to list the property for sale.” So, I haven’t had any communication. I did my walkthrough five days ago. I haven’t had any communication with them since, and now, Monique’s calling me to let me know that they’re ready to list their home. So, I’ll be meeting them later this week. And that’s exactly how it goes.

Matt: Okay. So, one last thing on the nurture side with sellers. When you are sending, let’s say, they are six months or a year out or whatever, we talked about the content that you send on the buyer side, the text and the emails, are you also sending regular content on the seller side? You mentioned already the property alerts so they can understand like what things are selling for in their neighborhood, right? What else are they getting in terms of the nurture side for sellers?

Elmer: So, on the seller side, it’s more on the email side. It’s property alerts. Again, it’s just property that’s gone up for sale in their neighborhoods and then market reports. We use Altos as one of the property market updates that will be emailed out to them. And then on the tech side, it’s still similar because the one thing we’ve discovered is most sellers that are considering selling are probably looking to buy something. So, we’ll still send out texts that’ll read something like, you know, there’s properties that might’ve hit the market, if they were doing a home search in their area, or again, just market updates through text too. But text is a little bit more limited in general. “Just checking in, seeing how you’re doing, has anything changed with your plans of possibly selling?” Something super simple.

Matt: Sam Prindle from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sent in a question, and this is a question that we have the audio on. And so, let’s play that audio. He’s basically asking what happens when you get a lead that you later find out already belongs to another agent?

Sam: Was listening to part one with Jackie and Elmer, and I was curious if they ever have this happen with their system. Have they ever gone, show the property, and had the communication, a great rapport with the new folks, have they ever eventually found out that they’re already working with an agent? I’ll encounter that every now and then, where they don’t wanna bother their agent or something like that, or you find out after the fact. How do they handle that?

Jackie: So, the way that we trained our agents to handle that, if you’re at the property, you’ve already showed it, this will circle back to what we said about tattooing the zip code onto your forehead. How much value are we providing at that appointment? Usually, when they tell you that they have an agent, that’s just an objection. Sometimes the clients don’t know any better. They don’t know what they deserve, the type of service they deserve. They don’t know that there’s an agent that probably knows the neighborhood better than the person that they’re working with currently. They also don’t know that there are agents that do this full-time, instead of part-time. There’s a reason that their agent wasn’t at that appointment. So, definitely, training the agents to get there, build the rapport, overcome that objection by providing massive value at the appointment and afterwards. They’re still staying in communication even after the appointment. Likely, well, they’ve converted this client at the appointment because they provided so much value at the appointment.

Elmer: And there are gonna be instances, Matt, where they’re loyal to their client. And so, we’ll ask, “Hey, did you ever sign the buyer-broker co-op?” If the answer is no, then we’ll continue pressing to try to get the buyer to come over. If the answer is yes, then we’ll leave it alone, right? They have a contract with an agent, so, we’re gonna step back.

But Jackie hit it right on the button. Matt, it’s just an objection. When they tell you, “I have an agent,” they’re trying to tell you, “Don’t sell me anything. I don’t wanna be pitched right now.” So, that’s fine. You’re working with an agent. You can even say…we came up with the objection of, “Hey, that’s no problem, you have an agent. We can pay them a 25% referral. I have two other properties that we wanna take a look at. Are you guys available to take a look at it now?” “Yeah.” And we’ll go show them two more homes.

So, obviously, you identify the objection, “Hey, you have an agent. That’s fine. We can pay him with a 25% referral.” Sometimes, they’ll say something like, “It’s my mom,” or “it’s my aunt, right?” And we’ll say, “Oh, your mom’s a Realtor, that’s fine. You know what, since it is your mom that’s your agent, we’ll pay her a 25% referral and we’ll still provide you with everything we just discussed in our VIP buyer presentation. How’s that sound?”

Jackie: And then they’re leaving that appointment with our booklet that shows everything that we’re gonna do for them, when likely this other agent, you know, they didn’t set their expectations, they didn’t say what they were gonna be able to do for them, they didn’t show up to this appointment, and then they leave the appointment reading through everything that we’d be willing to do, going right above and beyond for them. And, you know, you get that call the next day that, “Hey, you know, I was working with this agent, but I read through all your stuff and, you know, I think I wanna work with you.”

Matt: Okay. The next question is from William Segal in New York City. He’s asking about what you said in part one where you wanna get the buyer lead into the home they wanna see right away. Let’s listen to that.

William: But the main question I have is, you know, what happens if a listing agent, you know, on the sell side is requiring some sort of backstory or, you know, proof of funds, or preapproval letter prior to seeing the apartment? You know, at many times, especially, you know, depending on the price of the apartment or the home, you know, if that home is priced on the ultra luxury side, at many times, you know, we do need to provide a backstory. So, I just wanted to throw out this question out there of, you know, what happens if the listing agent on the sell side requires some sort of backstory on your consumer for that first in-person meeting?

Jackie: When you’re working with these buyers, I do feel that you already understand and they already understand they’re a little bit more sophisticated of a buyer than it would be the first-time home buyer. They understand because if they were selling their home at that price point, they’d expect the same from a buyer coming into their home. So, having that conversation upfront isn’t very difficult, but you still wanna set the appointment, call back with the confirmation of the appointment and on that second call back from the confirmation, that’s when you’re asking for those details.

So, when you call back and you’re like, “Good news. We’ve set the appointment for 123 Main Street in New York City, and it’s $4 million. We’re gonna see this beautiful home that you wanna get into. But hey, you understand, we’re gonna need some proof of funds to get to the seller, just send those to me,” you can put the email in there, and then they’ll respond with anything that you need there, after you’ve given good news.

Elmer: Yeah. Good news. Give good news. “Appointment is set. Now, all I need from you as a preapproval and proof of funds.”

Jackie: And then you wrap it up with, “Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at 4:00.”

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Matt: William’s second question deals with mindset, which is one of the topics that I recall we talked about a little more in episode two. So, let’s listen to that.

William: We have some agents that sign up to Zillow calls when they come in and, you know, handle new leads that are inbound, but we always preach that, you know, if you’re not in the right mindset, you really shouldn’t be signing up. So, the question I have for eHomes folks is that if an agent is not in the right mindset, or they need to take a break from the industry, you know, they’ve been on a roller coaster ride and if they need to, you know, just take some time and step away from real estate, how does that process go?

Jackie: So, the process for that, I sit down with them, come up with a three-month performance improvement plan, be very specific about those expectations, then sit down with them again in 90 days. Did they improve, did they not improve? And then make that hard decision of helping them. I mean, if you’re a broker or a team lead in the area, you likely have other connections to people that run their business differently. Identify what might be a good match and, you know, offer them the connection there.

Elmer: Yeah. The one term we use a lot around here is “control the weather.” It means you gotta control your emotion. So, you know, it’s just…it’s really difficult for agents to do when… So, we noticed that a lot of the agents when they first come on, that’s probably one of their bigger struggles is taking on so many leads and so many new clients and just the big wave of different emotions and things that they’re going through in the roller coasters. So, we have to talk about emotion and controlling the weather very, very often. Again, it’s to make sure that the agents are in the right mindset daily and showing up daily.

Jackie: So, that’s another key point there, Matt, like, what are you doing as a team lead to pour into this agent? At the end of the day, what Elmer and I always say is we are responsible for these agents.

Elmer: Yeah.

Jackie: So, that’s why, when I talk about sitting down with them 90 days from now, I still feel responsible. Even if we’re gonna part ways, I wanna find a place where they’re gonna be able to grow.

Elmer: Yeah. Yeah.

Jackie: So, are you pouring into them daily? Are you holding them accountable to picking up that phone smiling every time? Are you listening to the recorded calls to be able to identify where they might be failing and say, you know, “Hey, Elmer? You picked up that call. It wasn’t that great. This is what we can do better next time.” How much accountability are you holding your agents to?

Elmer: The one thing I’ll tell anybody that’s considering building a team or starting to build a team is you come up with a model and a vision of what your team is gonna be, and you do not mold the people that are in the team to fit that model. You find the people that are gonna fit your model, and then you start building. So, if you hire someone on and they just don’t fit what it is that you’re looking for, you have to be able to get rid of them. You don’t start making changes to the way you do business to fit their needs. You just can’t. You have a model, go with your model, and then find the people that will fit that model.

Matt: Next up, we have a question from Lisa Jackson. She’s an agent in Cape Coral, Florida. She’s running Facebook ads for attracting buyer leads. She wants to know what is the step-by-step follow-up system from that initial call if you get ahold of them. And then she also says, “What’s a good system if you don’t get a hold of them?”

Elmer: Yes. So, if you talk to the client, number one, then the first thing you have to do as soon as you hang up the phone is you’re inputting those notes into your, excuse me, your CRM, and then you’re setting up your next call, so, based on the conversation you have. So, that’s number one. So, you have your next call scheduled. Number two, you should have gathered what type of home search they’re doing. So, the property update should be going out maybe, depending on how soon they’re looking to move, should either go out every day, every three days, once a week. Again, it’s gotta be tailored to whatever the process, or however long their home search might go on for. And the text messages, again, once you’ve made contact and you establish relationship, build rapport, then it’s just like simple text messages, just checking in with them. So, the text messages will replace your phone calls sometimes. So, if you’re just nurturing, reaching out, then you’re text messaging once a week just checking in. If you feel like that might be too much, then you put them on a campaign that maybe texts every two weeks. So, you’re gonna have to determine, after your phone conversation, what that’s gonna look like.

The campaign for people we haven’t communicated with, that’s the brutal one. That’s the one that goes out every day. You’re either being called, text, or emailed every day for the first 30 days until you answer the phone or you tell us to disappear. One of those two things will have to happen.

Jackie: The reason that he was talking about two different types of communication also is because with Facebook ads, you don’t know where they’re at in the process. So the first call is super important. Where are they at in the process? Are they ready to go shop now? Are they gonna be a few months out? So, I think that Facebook ads is a little bit more tailored and you need to get creative with it with who is the consumer in your area. Southwest Florida looks like they’re retirees. If you’re pooling retirees, you’re gonna get real phone numbers likely and real emails, and they’re gonna wanna have long conversations with you about their plan. So, I think it’s a little bit more tailored with Facebook ads. We do have a generic system in place, but our ISAs definitely handle the majority of our Facebook ads because they’re a little longer-term usually on Facebook.

Matt: Okay. We only have a couple questions left and this next one comes from Nadia Heinz, an agent and listener in the Tampa, Florida, area. She emailed to ask this, “How do you get the lead to listen to your VIP buyer presentation during that first meeting when you’re at the home they wanted to see?”

Jackie: So, there’s a perfect world scenario to do that in, but I’m gonna go into the pandemic world. We’ve had to adjust and pivot the way that we do that right now because right now, you’re not spending too much time and you’re not very close and intimate with this person. You’re really just trying to get through the home, you know, social distanced. And then you’re handing off this pamphlet and you’re able to then set an appointment for a buyer consultation at the initial, like, showing. So, once you’re showing, you provide a lot of value upfront, you hand them this document. They’re already curious. It’s a beautiful document, by the way. Matt, do you wanna post it somewhere?

Matt: I’d love to, yes.

Jackie: Perfect. So, we’ll share that with you guys. You guys can see it. They’re getting this pamphlet, they’re reading through it, they have questions. If they have the questions there upfront, we’re answering it, but we’d like to set that second appointment for an official buyer consultation. An easy way to do that is, “Hey, I know you’re preapproved, but we work with lenders that have amazing rates and can probably get you better terms on your loan.” We can do that at the buyer consultation.

Elmer: Again in a perfect world, you’re either meeting them before the actual showing or if you’re not able to pull that off, then you meet them at the showing. And if it’s a vacant property, then you can do it on the kitchen counter and you can present your buyer’s presentation. Or if not, then you’re doing it over the trunk or the hood of your car, and you’re going through the presentation. Again, it’s all on the delivery, guys. It’s all on the delivery. It’s what you’re presenting, you’re bringing value. If you’re excited and there’s enthusiasm, then buyers and the consumer is gonna get excited about it.

Matt: Next up, Danni Downing. She is a listener in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She wants to know about your systems and the tools you use. Her question, which also came in via email, “Why do you use so many systems for following up on leads when there are tools like BoomTown, for example, that can do a lot of it in one system?”

Elmer: So, the reason why we went with the different systems is, you know, just started having some conversations. So, we use Commissions Inc. Commissions Inc. does do all the texting and emailing, all that good stuff, but it’s gotta be tailored to what it is that you wanna do. So, we didn’t find that it worked for us, so that’s why we plugged in a second system to use. And it just goes with…I mean, it all depends on what it is that you wanna do and do you wanna go on different platforms or not? There isn’t a right way to do it. As long as you’re doing those things, then you’re gonna get the results that we’re getting. At the end of the day, there is no real solution or maybe right answer here. If you’d like to have BoomTown do it all, BoomTown could probably do it all for you.

Matt: Last question comes from Tyler Tresize — I think I’m pronouncing that right — and he is a listener in Toledo, Ohio, and he says, “Could you email me a list of all the online lead sources they use?” Well, rather than emailing, can you share the online lead sources that you guys rely on?

Elmer: So, Tyler, first of all, very, very, very good question because this is something I would totally ask myself. We’ll show you maybe the top seven platforms or lead sources that we use. Number one being Zillow. Two, Opendoor. We have HomeLight and we love HomeLight. We have ReferralExchange, FastExpert. We also have the IDX off of our Commissions Inc., and then we have our Facebook ads as well that we do. Did I forget one that you wanted to add, Jackie?

Jackie: No. There are a few other proprietary accounts, but I would encourage this person to do that by asking the right question. Just through…go online and just Google “agent partnerships” and you will get a long list of people out there that are looking to partner with agents in your area. There are some companies that are in marketplaces that aren’t here and they may be in your marketplace. LemonBrew, they’re not out in our marketplace yet, but they may be in yours. So, go online, do a quick search, “agent partnerships,” and sign up for everything that you can sign up for.

Elmer: Even better than Googling “agent partnerships,” you can do like I do all the time. And all I do was go to my zip code where I live and I said, “I wanna sell my home in 91764,” and then there’s a list of like 10 companies that come up. So, I click on every single one of those companies and I go to partnership or vendors, and then I sign up as one of their vendors. And that’s it. Simple.

Matt: Brilliant. Let me ask you a follow-up question because my wife gets a lot of emails that go something like, you know, “Dear Cari or dear agent or whatever. We have buyer and seller leads in your area that we need to find an agent to help. Are you interested?” My assumption, when I see these emails, is that it’s all just spam and junk and bull crap. Is that correct?

Elmer: Only one way to find out, Matt, and that’s to respond. I mean, I’ve responded to some of those emails. I’ve signed up for some of those lead sources, but if they’re asking you for money upfront, then I’m probably gonna bail. If they’re asking for a referral, then it’s based on my performance. So, then I’ll sign up for those and keep those in the systems because we have a few of those that’ll send us one or two leads a month and, you know, we’re gonna take everything we can get.

(Speaker: Matt McGee, Host)

Speaking of taking everything we can get, I think we all just did that in these three episodes. So, let me give a huge thanks to Jackie Soto and Elmer Morales for sharing their entire system. Seriously, guys, there was nothing where they said, you know, “No. We wanna keep this part for ourselves,” or “Don’t ask us how we do this, don’t ask us how we do that.” They were completely willing to talk about and share their entire system. So, thank you both for that.

Let’s do our takeaways segment. Here’s what stood out to me from today’s conversation.

We spent a lot of time on seller leads. With seller leads, the outreach is more tailored to the individual, they said. It’s low pressure. You’re trying to find out where the lead is in the selling process. The goal is to make an appointment to do a walkthrough, just 15, 20 minutes, so you can get to know the seller and see their home. No contracts, no nothing like that at that first visit. And then step two is the actual listing appointment a day or two later, and that’s when you bring your comps and make your case to get the listing.

Takeaway number two. If the other agent is asking for proof of funds or something similar from your buyer, you still make the appointment first so that the buyer can see the home. And then after the appointment is set, that’s when you explain, “Hey, for a home like this, the seller needs to see proof of funds before we go in. So, email that to me,” and so forth.

Takeaway number three. If you’re looking for some new lead sources, check out the Google searches that Jackie and Elmer suggested there near the end of the conversation. Pretty clever ideas, I thought.

Speaking of the end of the conversation, you probably heard Jackie offering to let listeners download the VIP buyer document that came up, I think, in all three episodes. You can find that document in PDF form on the blog post for this episode on our website, homelight.com. Now, how do you get there, right? If you’re listening in Apple Podcasts or a similar player, look for the link in the show notes to our blog post. I’ll try to make it as obvious as possible. If you have any trouble with that, just go to homelight.com/podcast and look for this episode. Scroll down, you’ll see part three, that will take you to the blog post, and then I’ll make the download easy to find on that page.

Two final things before we wrap up. First, if you enjoyed these three episodes, I would sure appreciate it if you would let others know by sharing a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Thanks in advance for that. And then number two, if you’d like to connect with our guests and thank them directly, just do a Facebook search for Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto. They are both active there, they’re easy to find and fun to follow on Facebook. I’m sure that they would love to hear from you as well if you enjoyed these episodes.

So, that’s all for this week. Thanks again to Elmer and Jackie for joining us. Thanks to everyone who sent in such great questions for this episode, and thank you all for listening.

My name’s Matt McGee. Remember, at HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. That’s why we created “The Walkthrough.” We’re on a journey to find out how great real estate agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable.

Go out and safely sell some homes. We’ll talk to you again next week. Bye-bye, everyone.

If you missed the first two episodes in this series, listen here:

• How to Convert Online Leads Part 1
• How to Convert Online Leads Part 2

Header Image Source: (fizkes / Shutterstock)