On today’s episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. We are continuing website month with a week, four of four, the last week in this series about how to get leads and clients from your own website. So this week, we’re talking about how maybe you’re getting leads from your website, but they aren’t converting to clients. We’ll talk about what you need to do after you get a lead. So there are more likely to turn into actual clients you love working with, and by the way, the strategy doesn’t only work with online leads, but all your leads that are coming in, this is a crucial piece of generating clients from leads. Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. I’m your host, Jennifer Myers. Listen in as I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to become one of the top 1% of agents in the US and even opening my own brokerage full of agents helping me serve all of the clients that were coming my way. I taught those agents the same strategies I used to become a top producing agent. No, through this podcast and AgentGradSchool.com, I’m sharing those same modern marketing and business strategies with you. Most of which I learned from looking outside the real estate industry, no fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads. Just the exact steps to get you the real estate business you’ve always wanted. And the life outside your business, you’ve always wanted to let’s make it happen and dive into today’s episode. Before we dive into today’s episode, I want to give a quick shout-out to one of our listeners and say, thank you so much for listening and for leaving a review on Apple podcasts. Laurie living life said all real estate agents should listen to this podcast. Thank you, Lori. She says I’m always looking for a podcast to listen to so I can continuously learn and grow. Not only grow my business, but to grow myself. I stumbled on this podcast as I was searching for something to listen to during my workout. Good job. I’m so glad I listened and can’t wait to hear more. In my first episode, I chose to listen to you was why should somebody choose you to be their real estate agent? It was so good. Thank you. I will return to listen to more well, Laurie living life. I hope you’re listening to this one. Thank you so much for leaving a review and for being a loyal listener. And if you send me a quick email at Jennifer at agent grad school.com, I have got a little package of agent grad school swag. I want to send you just to say thank you. So send me a quick e-mail jennifer@ageingradschool.com and send me your, your address. So I can get that off to you. So on to today’s episode, as you know, all month long, we’ve been talking about how to use your own website as the hub of your lead generation, that your website, if used correctly can be the number one way that you get new leads and convert. Those leads to clients who actually want to work with you, and you can use your website to also keep in touch with people, your sphere, your past clients, new leads and current clients. And is that your website can be your hardest working salesperson working 24 seven for you. So you can be off doing other things that are way more fun, like spending time with clients that have already committed to working with you or taking time off, instead of worrying about when and where your next client is coming from. Instead when you set up your website correctly and know how to use it as a marketing tool in your business is kinda the cog that turns everything. In terms of your website into a lead generation machine, you will have clients coming to you. And that’s the goal right? Of our real estate business. Do you have clients coming to you and not always feel like we’re chasing people to beg them to work with us? And so, yes, you still have to do some things to get clients coming to you. It just doesn’t have to when you build a website, but there is a lot of strategy, a specific step-by-step strategy that you can put into place into your business so that clients will come to you. They self-select to work with You. They want to work with, you may, from your website in your marketing and using your website in your marketing. They see why they should use you and why you are different than every other real estate agent in town. Now, I use my own website as the linchpin in my lead generation strategy. Over for over a decade, I was a real estate agent, 18 years for over a decade. I had all this figured out and I was using my website to build a million-dollar per year, per year, real estate business, and real estate brokerage. So I can do it. Now, you firsthand, not only does this approach work, that I’ve been telling you about all month long, and I’m going to continue telling you about, but that your clients truly do like it better than having you show up on their door with gifts or having to answer phone calls. And it’s just way more fun to run a sales business, a real estate sales business, and not have to worry about getting leads all the time. They just keep coming automatically, almost like too much. And yes, like I said, it does take some time to set this up. It does take some time to get the strategy in place, but once you get the ball rolling, you kind of just have to push it down on a Hill. And that this type of real estate business in this type of lead generation is by far the most rewarding way to grow your real estate business. And I might add a very cheap way to grow your real estate business. It totally beats running a bunch of ads, totally beats having to buy online leads. And, you know, I know a lot of real estate agents that spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on online leads and on ads to run their business. I hardly spent any money on running my business and getting leads. Once I have this setup, sharing all these tools with you on this podcast, because time and time again, I see new agents and unfortunately, agents who have been in this business for you at a decade or more, not have consistent, sustainable, scalable ways to get clients repeatedly and over and over again. And sure, yeah, you can knock on doors and you could go on a call and you can call your sphere and have lunch and coffee with people. I’m not saying that’s not relevant. If you love doing that stuff, go right ahead and do it. But here’s the thing about each one of those items as your business grows, those ways of marketing yourself, take more time, right? The more past clients do you have to keep in touch with and call and meet with the more time your lead generation takes, not less. So when I’m teaching you to do is frontload your business put in the time and the work now, when you don’t have as many clients and then build something that you could stand on and grow and scale and spend less time or eating as your business grows. And as time goes on, that is what we are creating here at agent grad school. So just to recap where we’ve in this website series that we’ve done all month long, all October long as week one, we’ve talked about turning your website into a lead generation machine and how to do that. We have to, we talked about the five reasons that you aren’t getting leads from your website. Week three, we talked about the two lead generators, every website needs, and you can go to agent grad school.com forward slash podcast to see all these episodes. And while you’re there, you can actually sign up to get free training episodes delivered right to your inbox every week, every week. So you never miss one. So if you’ve missed any of those, definitely make sure that your honor email us because we send them. We send kind of things that you can’t get anywhere else, unless your on our email list every Tuesday morning, So this week. I want to focus on the important, but often overlooked concept of filling the gap between when a lead comes in and when they want to become a client. So many real estate agent seem to forget that there’s this delay that happens when someone starts thinking about buying or selling a house and actually being ready to do it. Buyers and sellers think about buying and selling a home for months, sometimes years before they contact a real estate agent. And the majority of those buyers and sellers are online fishing around for them information for, for information, trying to gather data, trying to gather research. And we as real estate agents have to put ourselves in the mindset in our clients minds like put yourself in those shoes, buying a home are selling a home, especially if it’s like a home They lived in for a long time, or if it’s a home that they’re going to raise their family in, or it’s their first home. So, you know, maybe they’re the first person in their family to ever buy a home. And this is a huge decision for our clients, not just financially, is it the biggest investment that our clients ever have to make, but it’s also a huge one, The emotional and logistics decision as well. And so don’t be little that fact by rushing people to buy the first house they see, or, you know, if you’ve shown them houses four times, you know, and they haven’t bought one yet, don’t get frustrated. This is a big deal. I Think so often as real estate agents, we forgot. We forget how important this is to our clients and how important it is to their life. If in so many different ways, things like where do they And want to raise their kids and how their life looks. And, you know, when it comes to things like commuting and who their neighbors are and where their kids go to school. And just the fact that our home is a reflection of us, and we want to be proud of that. And it’s a huge decision and it’s a decision that okay, Should take time. So then if we are to put ourselves in the shoes of our buyers and sellers and realized this isn’t a transaction for them, this is a, Or a life. This is a huge deal for them, right? And that part is for some reason, well, I know the reasons, but for S but unfortunately, a lot of buyers and sellers feel rushed by real estate agents, not just rushed, like when they start looking but rush to get to the point that they are comfortable looking for a house. So really ask yourself, I mean, if you ever been at a party and you tell someone you’re a real estate agent, they like slowly try to get away from me because they think you’re going to sell you that, that you’re going to send them a house or to talk about real estate, or like, be that person who is trying to do Sell them. So what I’m really trying to do is show up Real estate agent, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It really think about why do buyers and sellers feel like the minute they talked to a real estate agent, but somehow we are going to make the move faster than their current School with that. Why is that? Because So How many agents try to push them along, trying to do things before people are really ready, right? And really a lot of real estate agents don’t truly have this person’s best interest in mind. Now, I know nobody is listening to this episode is that way, but it is that way out there in the world, right? Because buyers and sellers kind of push us off. That’s why there are so many, like I buyer’s coming up and, you know, ways to kind of circumvent real estate agents cause nobody wants to do it. I think it should be different. And so I’m just going to tell it to you straight as to why the public has this feeling. And then I’ll explain what to do about it instead and typical buyer and seller Dodge, us real estate agents, because most real estate agents do push buyers or sellers to do on the agents, timeframe, not their client’s timeframe or not their what’s in their clients, The best interest. So many agents don’t have enough clients and don’t get it I’m from this abundance mindset or having clients come to them. Right. And so, you know, oftentimes something agents, unfortunately, are kind of desperate to get paid and they often pushed buyers more quickly and sellers more quickly. I see it every single day. And I hear about it from people every single day. Now, again, I know nobody is listening to this as it is in that category. That’s why you’re here. But unfortunately, we have to understand, we have to get into that mindset, but that is what the public typically feels when they think about real estate agents. And it’s super unfortunate that those types of agents give us all a bad rap. What’s the saying like one bad Apple, right? So none of us here are going to act like that, right? We want to go into relationships with a client wondering what’s in their best interest, Not ours, even If it means putting their search on hold or showing them a bunch of other houses, even though, you know, they will end up in that same building or the same neighborhood. So I have a kind of anecdote. I have a really good friend of mine who is looking for a home in an area I don’t live in. And he was asking me for some advice. And he said, you know, I know the exact building I want to live in. It’s probably this one. And I’ve seen a couple of units there, but they weren’t quite right. One was looking over, you know, a garage or like a parking garage. But, and he shared with me that he felt kind of like that his agent, I was getting frustrated at him that he only was out showing, how are they seeing houses about two times? And yeah, he likes a building. The building is a good fit, but he didn’t like any of those units. And he wants to see what else is out there. And I said, you absolutely can do that. Even if you, and this is what I say to clients, even if you go full circle, even if you end up buying the exact unit you’ve already seen, it’s really important that you go see all these other buildings and see all these other units. So that at the end of the day, you have no buyers remorse. Now, even if you buy this house or this condo that you saw in the very first day, you’re not ready to buy. And so yes, you should spend time and effort and energy, but regardless of what your real estate agent is telling you to be Sure. And so, you know, I was really The kind of upset that his agent was kind of making him feel pushed and kind of frustrated. And she had only showed them like a couple hours worth of houses and he wasn’t quite ready, even though he was ready. Right. Mentally, none of those things felt right. Right. So that’s on, right. Fortunately why examples like that is why a lot of Real a lot of, kind of the general public kind of see us this way and it’s definitely warranted. And so don’t ever try to push people faster than their own. I’m ready to go, let people tell you when they’re ready to move forward, and then you provide them and then value between now and whenever that time comes. So this is a very long way of telling you. You have to just be thinking people well, don’t want us to push them. And so we need to, in our follow-up system, we need to kind of be hands-on. We need to add value to them. We need to have a consistent value-added follow up system that you are in that follow up system. You make it super clear what a lead the next step is when they are ready, which if you follow the Agent Grad Schools ystem, you know what it is, its come to the initial consultation and we have a whole script for that. Right. All right. And in the meantime, you meet them exactly where they’re at and you provide value until they are ready. And what I mean by value is, I mean, not the silly things like recipes, not how many houses sold and they’re at a certain neighborhood, nothing about what everybody seems to be talking about when it comes to real estate. So what do you do instead? Well, there’s a ton of ways to do this. And so I’ll share what I did on my own business. Again, the first step in this is deciding who first figuring out who you are today talking to, or who do you want to be talking to? And if you listen to this podcast or even just a few episodes, then, then you know that I always say, you know, pick your ideal client. Who, who, who were you talking to? Who is your ideal client? Pick a niche, all that stuff. Right, right. But ultimately what all that is saying, is it starting to prepare us for being able to do things like market ourselves, attract people, have people be interested in learning more about them and it helps you set up what to talk about in your follow up system. Right? They come, they become, they have a, you know, attract somebody that you, you have a level of interest, something has intrigued them, right. And then you have to do fill the gap between that moment and the moment that they’re ready to move forward. So how do you do this? Exactly. You provide value-added content specifically to the person that you’re talking to. So in my example, in my business, in the beginning, it was first, the time home buyers, right? And again, all of know the episodes about how to eat. I’m not going to go in to how I got there and why it was the right niche and all that stuff. Because all of the episodes that I talk about niching or your ideal client, it’s all in there. But ultimately because at that time that is everyone I knew and that’s who I was. I was in alignment. I was able to talk to these people and get to These people. So once I realized who I was talking to, I could start talking to them in ways that added value. Right. Most people, just weren’t sure how, or they thought they had X, Y, Z reasons that they couldn’t do it. And so all I did, yeah. Because I didn’t want to call people. I didn’t want to meet with people. I didn’t want to do all of that because I thought it took way too much time for the number of people that I wanted to reach. So instead I chose email, it was a bit Very passive way to keep in touch With all of my leads. And I just explained how They could remove every obstacle, everything that was standing in their way. One email at a time, I had one email per week, literally until they were ready to move forward. And so I wrote down all the ways that people can become homeowners, explain the myths and the facts and set the record straight. I commented on what they’d be hearing in the news at the time. Or, you know, if it was tax time, for example, I would do an article about how the tax benefits of being a homeowner, you know, how they could next year, this time have a refund check coming their way. Right. Essentially I saw myself as the middleman is kind of like the, the, the people’s pee preacher kind of between all the hype they were hearing out there and the news about what was happening. And I felt like it was my job to really give them the truth about what they could do for themselves. Like what does that really mean? What was the stuff that they were hearing? And there are stuff that they were thinking what is really true and what was false. And so ultimately I expect And how being a homeowner was possible for them. And I showed them how to do that. And I never worried about when they would becoming a homeowner, I would never try to rush them or, or you scare tactics about how they have to do it now. And you never know what’s going to happen next year or anything like that. It was just like him just giving them information about how are you Or how to become a homeowner and how is easier than they thought, right? Things like you don’t need a 20% down to be, to buy your first home. That was a big myth that people thought back then. Another one I heard a lot was, you know, we got mortgages. Insurance is terrible. You know, I don’t want mortgage insurance. I actually think mortgage insurance is a really good financial tool that people should take advantage of it. Yeah. I wrote about that. You know, Another article is how to buy a home. Even if you have a ton of student loan debt. Right. All of these little things that they thought were in the way I just wrote, wrote ’em all down. And then week after week after week, I just sent one email talking about each one of those things. And what that meant was I just meant them. I met them right where they were at and talked to them like a normal person. Like I w kind of How I’d want to be spoken to like, if they were my friend or my sister. And all I did was send an email that felt Like how I talked every Tuesday. That’s it, My focus was always on growing my list, getting out there and getting in front of people, You know, adding People to my email list, but giving my email list value, keeping in touch with them once per week with one email on the same day of the week, every single week. And that was truly my system. And so how are you? I think a system and having a marketing funnel that they entered and they got to hang out in until they were ready to do something. They never, you know, I never unsubscribed them. I’d invite them to the initial consultation. Even if I didn’t hear back, I kept them on the newsletter. And lo and behold, you know, a year later they would like reply to an e-mail I sent a year ago and said, okay, I’m ready now. It’s funny because there’s always something in particular. And this happens often. So often there’s something in particular that strikes their fancy. And maybe they’re just not ready at that moment, but I’ll have a sense, like an email about some subject, like months and months ago, And then replied to that email, even though So, you know, I hadn’t talked about that subject for months, but that’s the one that stuck in their head. And so whenever they’re ready, they’re reaching out to me. And I explain with clarity what their next step was, which was to meet and talk more about what they were looking for in a home talk about the first-time homebuyer programs because that was my, that was my niche. That’s who I was talking to. Right. So I said, you know, let’s meet to talk about more, what you’re looking for, whether or not you qualify for any first-time homebuyer programs out there. And it was a very specifically worded email that explains the benefits of the meeting together. Right. I didn’t just say, okay, great. Let’s meet and talk. No, that’s not going to get coffee. Now, there were particular things that we had to do during that meeting. So there’s a whole back and forth that in the Agent Grad School system, I give you like, literally every word this, like, you can change it to your, or however you want there specific things that you need to say, obviously you just need to change them if you want to sound more. And that was really it. That was my follow-up system. And I know, Oh, that sounds too simple to be true or to easy to be true. No, but that alone is how I grew my million-dollar business. All I did was I had a consistent message In a consistent way to add real value to people over and over again, like clockwork. I gave them very clear steps about when they’re ready to move forward. Here’s what we’ll do next until here’s some information that I think we’ll help you. That’s it. And yes, there is, This is an art and science to This and it’s not something that you can create overnight is not going to create overnight success or not. All of us are gonna send one email, two emails, and all of the sudden have a bunch of clients, but it’s a building block. It’s a stepping stone to a highly profitable, wildly successful, very consistent, very predictable, real estate business that has more clients coming in than truly you’d be able to handle. And that you actually, when I started to do with like slow people down in their search, cause I couldn’t take on anymore. I didn’t need to see them. I had to slow them down because I have too many clients right then. So exactly what I’m telling you to do is how I always had more clients than I could handle. And I gave the overflow of leads. So the agents at my brokerage and, and then some clients didn’t want me to pass them off and they were willing to wait and put their search on hold or put their homes out on hold until I could take new clients. So I had a waiting list of clients and it’s a very competitive market. And I, I truly am not telling you this to brag. I’m telling you this because it’s truly that simple. It sounds too simple to be true. It sounds too good to be true. I get it. I mean, I would even make bets with agents in my office. They would say that it’s, it’s got to be more than that. Yeah. And said, give me a year, give me a A year. And I promise your business will totally like that. The snowball in a good way. Sure enough, Like clockwork and I would always bet or something, you know, like something fun that we can do together. Like, you know, there’s a particular drink I loved. And I was like, okay, I get to drinks or something like that. Right. So that we could just kind of bond over it and laugh over it. And I was like, you don’t trust me. That’s fine. I’ll just use you as a Guinea pig. I’ll show you that this works. You don’t even have to do anything. I’ll show you. And lo and behold, it would work because it sounds too easy. It’s simple. It’s not easy. When the thing I do inside agent Grad schools, I give all our students my exact same content. Then, I, of course, I recommend that they change it to talk to their audience or to talk about their particular area. But at least it’s the beginning. It’s a template. It’s a starting point that they can then Uplevel and make it their own or add their own content to it that speaks to their own audience. And so as a student age in grad school, you get my, literally the exact same content that I created over a 10 year period that I’m still using to this day to attract clients and convert clients from my website. And so whether or not you use your own content or create your own, my content or create your own, you have to have a follow-up system that fills that gap between when you get a lead. Whenever that may be wherever that may be in this case, I’m talking about your website. Mmm. But it could be a lead that you meet somewhere, but you need something that was going to fill that void. I’m just like falling off a cliff. If they’re not ready to go right now, you need to have a way to keep in touch with them that doesn’t bug them. And it isn’t about asking them, do they want to talk to a lender or do they want to see this house? Like, no, you need to give them information and entertain them and add value to them and not expect them to want to meet with you or for no reason or hop in the car. Right. There’s got to be more substance than that. Yeah. They think about it or anything in your own Life. That’s big that you’ve done. It’s the same thing. Like, you know, even listening to this podcast, right. You know, we’re Getting to know me. I’m filling that void between when we met somehow on some search of the Podcast, right? And maybe one day you’ll be a student. Maybe you will become a student one day. Maybe you won’t. But it is Either way. My hope is that I’m adding value to your life If, and to your real estate business. But you being here, that’s all I’m suggesting that you do in your real estate business. So take off your real estate agent hat and put on, you know, this is like a big deal for our clients hat and meet your clients where they are all of their fears and anxieties and all of the reasons they think that they can’t do that Is this right. And don’t look at this as a transaction, think about all of the things that are in their way and have your follow-up system. Your keep in touch system, help them remove the blocks, standing in their way between where they are You are and where are they want to be and stuff. The famous as Zig Ziglar famously said, you can get everything in life that you want. If you just help enough, people Will get what they want or something like that. Let me actually look it up. Let’s see Zig Ziglar. You can get everything in life that you want. If you will just help enough other people get what they want. That’s all we’re talking about here is helping people get what they want in the way that they want it and not feeling pushed, But it’s the truth. But truly Come from a willingness and an eagerness to help people truly help and add value to people. And the reason that you’re staying in touch with them truly is to help them, encourage them and inspire them and help them realize that they can do what they want to do with their life. And you can show them how, and, and you’re willing to show them, show up for them and inspire them and entertain them and teach them as long as they need. And you’re willing to give them true value until they are. Right. Right, right. And let’s just talk about The effectiveness and the inexpensiveness and the ROI of emails. So truly the cheapest easiest, most effective way to keep in touch with people is email. In fact, I have some stats for you, just a mole over email has an ROI of $44 for every dollar you spend. So that’s a 4400% ROI. Social media on the other hand comes in a distant second place with an ROI of 28%. That doesn’t make any sense. But I think that that means is $28 for every dollar you spent. So email marketing has a double R a Y some other stats, emails are five times more likely to be seen. Then social media posts. In fact, more than half of internet users, 58% check their emails. First thing in the morning before looking at Facebook, doing a Google search, or even checking the weather and almost nine out of 10 email users to check their inbox more than once a day with numbers like that, the odds that your subscribers will see your marketing emails are pretty high on Facebook, for example, and this is by Ogilvy, they did a study. You can only count on about 6% of your fan page, or even seeing anything that you post, whereas an email, they are going to get it. Social media is a marketing strategy that is worth doing and your business. But as I teach an age in grad school, it’s only when you have a strategy that supports your overall vision in your overall brand for the real estate business that you are building and kind of what you stand for in the real estate world. And we teach our students that you add in social media only after you’ve built your website and built your once-weekly email system or whatever follow-up system that you want in its place. Then a social media on top of that. So if you want to learn how to create a follow-up system in your business, or if you want the exact same content that I use to build my million dollar per year real estate business, all you have to do is become an agent grad school student. And I give it to you. I give everything to you. So we aren’t open for enrollment right now, but we’ll be opening again soon. And you can go to AgentGradSchool.com/waitlist to be notified when we’re accepting new students. Again, very soon. Now, if you like this episode, please leave a review. Wherever you’re listening, you are review helps our little show going in the hands of other real estate agents throughout the country. And hopefully by listening more real estate agents can create the businesses that they’ve always wanted with more ease and more clients, clients that come to You and together we can, the way that we market ourselves as real estate agents, which will also change the way that the public sees us real estate agents, right? We’re only as strong as, as we all are. So, you know, I, I really Myers. One of my goals have agent grad school. And my goal of doing this podcast is because I don’t want real estate agents to be seen as people who just don’t want to sell them a house as quickly as possible, but really that we are true counselors in their life and help them with their largest investment in the most important aspect of their home, their life, their home. And so that’s what we are trying to do here at Agent grad school. And now with this podcast is to help agents who want to have a successful, modern, consistent, scalable real estate career and by adding true value to people’s lives. And so if that’s you, I’m so glad you’re here. And I hope that you’ll head over to agent grad school.com and learn more about how we can help you build a real estate business that you’ve always wanted. And wherever you’re listening, I’d love for you to leave a review and I’ll share it on the upcoming episode of this podcast. And there’s some Agent grad school swag. We have some really fun mugs and we have some really fun notebooks and things like that, but I’d love to send you so as always, thank you so much for listening. I hope this episode has helped you in your real estate business. In some ways we’ve got some really good episodes coming up and, you know, I’m always trying to focus on how to help you build your real estate business so that you have clients coming to you. And we have some exciting, special guests interviews that I’m really excited to share with you. And again, I don’t want you to miss any episodes. You can sign up to never miss an episode on age to grad school.com and that way you don’t miss what’s coming up, but there are some goodies coming up for November. So I can’t wait to share them with you. And I will see you next week. On another episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. And for all of those, I’m going to tell you a secret for those of you who listen to this whole podcast, I have a special bonus episode of the website month. Next week. We’re going to talk about everyone’s favorite subject buzzword, S E O. So I’ll tell you not to worry about it. Don’t worry about the SEO and how to get organic SEO in a much easier and a free way. So I’ll see you next week. That’s your little surprise for listening to this whole episode, and I’ll see you then on another episode of the Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember change happens when you take action. So apply what you learned today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted, and to have the life you want outside your business, to head over to agent grad school.com and sign up for the free weekly trainings, you’ll get free classes, discounts, and other goodies that only go out to real estate agents on that email list. See you next week right here on Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the Agent Grad School Podcast.