Until they list or die: The real estate listing pipeline

Agents are pretty good at generating leads. It’s what you do with those leads that stymie far too many. Worse are the agents who trash or ignore leads that aren’t ready to transact immediately. That’s where having a healthy real estate sales pipeline comes in.

Managing your sales pipeline is critical to the future of your real estate business. Nurturing leads at every phase is even more important in this age of iBuyer, Zillow’s Instant Offers and the rest of the current crop of disrupters.

Proving the value that your services bring to the process is
imperative.

The real estate sales pipeline

From direct mail and email marketing to cold calling, door knocking and more, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to handling the real estate sales pipeline.

The pipeline itself, however, is rather standard:

• Leads are at the top of the pipeline
• They turn into prospects when they express interest
• You got yourself a client when you convert the prospect

“The big myth is that more leads = more business” Wade Vander Molen, The DC Title Guy

Much of the blame for perpetuating this myth lands in the lap of real estate coaches and others who assist agents with building their businesses. “Generate more leads!” is the almost constant barrage of advice.

In reality, though, a lead isn’t that hard to generate. Anyone who might buy or sell real estate now or in the future is a lead. And, capturing that lead doesn’t lead to an “’atta boy or girl, you done good, now you can relax.”

Converting the lead into a prospect is the second step in the real estate sales pipeline. This step involves qualifying the lead.

It starts with determining if they’re just curious (or, as retail customers say, “just looking”) or serious and ready to get going with the process. Then, there are those leads who are somewhere in between.

Staying on top of your pipeline helps you quickly see who is at what stage, whether you have enough listing prospects to convert to hit your financial goals and which group needs the most nurturing at the moment.

Schedule time with your bestie

Every agent’s best friend is his or her CRM software. Spend
time with it every morning. In fact, we’d wager to say that it’s almost
impossible to plan a productive day without consulting your CRM first.

Who needs to hear from you? What’s the most effective way to communicate with these people? Should you create an email drip campaign for any particular group? How will you convert your hottest prospects?

When your CRM is set up to track where each lead or prospect is in your pipeline, the answers to those questions and more should flow easily.

Those who need to hear from you are the easiest to deal with:

• Send a handwritten note via snail mail
• Send pertinent and valuable real estate information, such as a list of sold homes in their area
• Put them on an automated drip email campaign.
• Call them on the phone
• Visit them on social media (and be social with them)

Engagement is the key to conversion

Those prospects aren’t going to move through the real estate sales pipeline without effort on your part. Engagement is key here.

Aside from the aforementioned tasks, focus on what it will take to move a prospect through the various phases until he or she converts. Then, market to them appropriate to their location and where you want them to go next.

Respond quickly to their questions. Engage with them on social media. Get to know everything you can about those warmer prospects, such as birthday, anniversary, interests. Then, laser target your marketing.

Listings are the lifeblood of a healthy, robust real estate practice. Massage the real estate sales pipeline, finesse its occupants and you’ll be converting like a champ.

Ready to dominate your market? Here’s a list of 200 marketing ideas to get you more leads this month.

Build trust with a solid sales pipeline – here’s how: