Show notes
Good morning.
If you want to convert more leads, this is where it starts.
Here we are in journal number six, and what amazes me going through it is how much I've stacked on top of these foundations over thirty years.
But fundamentally, these pages are the core of it.
Dan Kennedy once said the person who can spend the most to get a new customer is going to be the winner.
And one of the things that lets you spend more is being able to convert more.
That's where the big opportunity is.
Back then I was starting to realize I had a hit on my hands with the seller book. How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar.
It generated leads like they were going out of style.
Here's the thing about lead generation. It's the ultimate leverage.
You just multiply. Run another ad, get more leads. Send more postcards, get more leads.
The leads aren't the problem. It takes zero extra effort to get them.
Where the effort actually lives, and where you can distinguish yourself, is converting them. That takes a human touch.
And the more you operationalize that, the more you stop thinking of it as converting leads at all.
You start thinking of it as discovering the people who were always going to buy... and then serving them so well that you'd be the only choice.
People ask me how I journal.
Always in fifty minute blocks, under a timer, so I can gather my attention in one place.
I set a guidance thought for the session and then let my mind go wherever it wants inside that.
Focused within a constraint, but with novelty to roam. That's the ADHD accommodation right there.
So, looking at these pages. This is how I built my brief for converting those leads.
It's labeled the follow-up system for the seller's guide, but it could just as easily be the follow-up system for the stop your panic attacks book.
It starts with questions.
How can I get more of the people who expressed interest in selling to want to meet me?
Notice that's the next step, not the final destination.
People ask how do I get them to buy, how do I get them to pay me. But it's a series of incremental steps, and if you focus on the next one, the one after it gets easier.
Newton's law. An object in motion stays in motion.
Once people are moving toward you, everything else kicks in. Reciprocity. Commitment and consistency. Liking you. Social proof.
Next question. What messages do I want to keep expressing to them?
This is where the research earns its keep. Think from their point of view. If you were them, what would you want to know?
Then, how long should I keep contacting these people before I take them off my list?
My answer is never.
I was guessing back then. Now I have the evidence.
Everybody who has raised their hand is an asset that yields revenue every year, and grows in value.
People come out of the blue after ten years and buy for the first time.
In our case study with Tony Kelsey on the getting listings program, we mailed postcards into one neighborhood for ten years. Over four and a half million dollars in commissions out of that neighborhood.
And we tracked when people first responded against when they actually listed.
In the tenth year, somebody who had answered the very first postcard we ever mailed, and had a newsletter every month for ten years, listed and sold their house with Tony.
As long as they're active, opening, clicking, showing signs of life, keep the relationship going.
Then my favorite question of the whole page.
How can I get them to call me, instead of me calling them?
Here's the provocation I use. What would I do if my phone only accepted incoming calls?
That forces you to work out how to show up and provide value without chasing anybody.
This isn't about pouncing on people and getting them to do what you want. It's about knowing and serving them so well you're almost unbothered.
So I listed all the questions. And on the next page, I listed the facts.
They called for a guide to selling their house for top dollar. I didn't force that. They saw an ad, decided to go to a website, entered their name, left their details after a recorded message.
They volunteered. At some level, they're interested in selling.
And I have their name, address and telephone number.
Now you start thinking like a detective. What can I learn from what I already hold?
A picture of the house. What kind of house it is. The transfer information. How long they've lived there. What it's worth.
There was no Zillow then. Now it's the first thing we do.
And the data enhancement available today, from just a name and an email, is genuinely crazy. Four hundred data points to build a picture of who this person is.
It's those detective shows with the bulletin board, the photographs and the red string running between them.
Josh and I were talking about lead generation for people who build decks. You get a name and an address, you take a satellite view of the backyard, you see the value of the house and how long they've owned it, and you can approximate their equity.
Then you sort people into likelihood buckets.
Some aren't selling in the next six to twelve months. That's probably half of them. Maybe seventy percent if you take the full year. And that's fine.
Some are. Some are buying another home locally, some aren't, some are leaving the area altogether.
On that page I circled my best client. Selling in the next six to twelve months, and buying another home right here in Polk County.
Which is also why I love transitional real estate like townhomes. First-time buyers moving in don't have a house to sell first, and people already in a townhome aren't likely to buy a detached home next.
That triangulation is a beautiful thing.
Understand all the possible paths, sort people onto one of them, and you can customize the follow-up to the path they're actually on.
That was thirty years ago.
Today we do exactly the same thing with scorecards and profiles and assessments.
Somebody downloads the book on stopping panic attacks, and we invite them to take a panic profile. Questions that sort them from the very beginning stages all the way to severe.
Because you talk very differently to someone with severe panic than to someone who just had their first one and has no idea what to expect.
That detective work, inquiring, finding out what people actually need, is the real foundation of converting as many leads as you possibly can.
Here's your nudge for today.
Take the last twenty people who raised their hand, and write down everything you could find out about them without asking.
Then write the one thing you'd still need to ask.
Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/100-how-to-get-your-buyers-to-call-you-instead-of-chasing-them/
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