Leveraging CRMs for Real Estate Success with Stephanie Betters

"Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Collective Clicks podcast. This is your host, Brandon Bitman, and today I'm joined by Stephanie Betters. Stephanie has done a ton of stuff we're going to dig into her background in just a minute. Stephanie is one of the people in this industry that I respect the most and really appreciate a good conversation with. In this conversation, we're going to talk all about how marketing turns into acquisitions, which is through lead management like getting in contact with leads, CRM systems for that, and what kind of metrics to hold your team accountable to. Then we also talk about how you measure your marketing metrics in your CRM. So I think it's a really good tactical episode that just digs into a lot of the weeds. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, I think you'll enjoy it."

"Hey Stephanie, how are you doing today?"

"Hey, hey, how's it going?"

"Pretty fantastic, thank you. I just heard you got back from CG this week. I didn't make it, but lots of traveling?"

"Yes, it was awesome. I was hanging out on the West Coast. Now I'm back on the East Coast."

"Yeah, that's cool. It's funny because I love it when events are on the West Coast because they're closer to me, and I hate when they're on the East Coast. We probably feel the opposite."

"I gotta tell you, you win way more often than I do on that."

"So I'd like to think that a lot of the people listening know who you are. If you would mind just sharing briefly like who you are, what you do, what your background is, so people understand the context of the conversation."

"Okay, yeah sure. I think I have kind of like a little weird story, so weird journey in the real estate space. I'll try to be super brief, but I did not start off being a real estate investor. I started off being a nurse, then nurse practitioner, and I thought like that was going to be it. I thought that was the dream, you know, where I was going to end up and retire from. And then I've gone on this beautiful journey that has led me a different way, which is cool."

"So super long story short, husband and I started with a house hack in 2007 that kind of gave us the real estate bug. Right after we sold that, we went to grad school, him to be a physician assistant, me to be an NP nurse practitioner. Then he really wanted to get back into it, and I was kind of on the fence. We went to school in Long Island, New York, and it was very expensive to live and to be a young professional. And we didn't have family there, so we decided to move to Charlotte for the real estate market, but also because it was great for medicine jobs."

"So we started working in medicine. Like I said, that was my endgame. I was like, 'We're good.' Two years passed and I was like, 'Okay, we can buy some rentals.' I see the picture here we're painting with long-term wealth building with buying rentals. And as I'm sure you've probably heard incessantly, it takes a lot of cash to buy rentals and you need a lot of active income to buy rentals. So we started building a residential real estate fix and flip wholesaling business to kind of fuel income so we could buy more rentals while we were still working full-time."

"Let's see, probably six or seven years into that business running, my husband left being a PA. Essentially as soon as we had financial freedom, he's like, 'I'm out of medicine. This is nuts. These hours are way too long.' And I sat in there and struggled with that decision for a while because I really loved my job. I was working in heart surgery here in Charlotte. I loved my colleagues, I loved my patients. Although I loved doing what we were doing with real estate, I just had a huge identity crisis and so much went into that education and getting that job. I was scared to leave, but two years ago I did leave. So I left after 10 years."

"But while we were working our W2 jobs and building our real estate company, we ran into lots of problems like lead management, data management, marketing challenges in general. And the one in particular that really fired me up was our CRM. There was not a really great CRM choice. This is like in 2018. We were spending $100,000 a month in marketing. We had... I couldn't tell you what worked. I was like, 'I don't know,' and I'm used to the medicine side where like I have data, we get lab work, we get vital signs and make decisions, right? And in real estate, I was like, 'I don't know.' I mean, the phone rang, we got a deal. That's basically all I could have answered. And I kind of hit a wall and got really upset and tried to find a better solution, which there wasn't one. So I made one."

"And now fast forward, like you know, 10 plus years in, we have a real estate company that still does wholesales and new build construction, about 200 deals a year. So here in Charlotte, about half and half between the two those two product lines, wholesaling and new builds. And then I run our real estate... our CRM company, which is based on Salesforce called LeftMain. So my husband runs the real estate company now and I run the software company. And I've since left medicine. Got three... I'm part of lots of fun groups."

"Yeah, that's super cool. And obviously through those groups that we know each other and I've gained a lot of respect for you. And yeah, I don't think we can overstate what you and your husband have accomplished. It's super cool."

"So and it's part of the reason I'm grateful to have you here. Better Path, I'm sorry, that Better Path as a customer of yours, super happy."

"Oh yeah, yeah. Wait, you... we work together?"

"Yeah, you do... We render PPC or something?"

"Yeah, yeah. That's very cool. I honestly, I honestly did not even know that. So I'm grateful that we worked together in that capacity too. That's hilarious. How did I not catch on to that?"

"I don't know. Team is clearly amazing."

"Well, that's great. Yeah, usually our best clients I don't have to hear too much about, so you guys must be pretty good too."

"So all you know, all that considered, I guess just being really open, like part of the reason I'm so excited to have you here is because you match like the theme of this podcast really well, which is this is kind of like... I feel like there's way too much BS in all areas of real estate and we like to use data, we like to use numbers, make sound decisions and kind of cut through some of the myths, some of the thoughts that people have about things that just serve them around, right? And we just end up like running in circles trying to solve a problem one way and really we need to go a different way."

"So this being the podcast, it's mostly about marketing. I thought it'd be a really cool direction to talk about the companion part of that, which is lead management, right? Something that you mentioned to me many times is oftentimes it's not the marketing channel that's the problem, it's the lead management that's the problem. So that's something I want to dig into, and I know that's a lot of the reason why you built the CRM product that you did. And to be honest, like nobody really used, in my opinion based on what I saw, I didn't see anybody really using Salesforce in this industry until you kind of made it possible. It was early before then, and now so many of our clients are LeftMain customers. So that's cool to see how it's come full circle."

"But anyways, that considered, I know it's kind of a broad topic to start, but I really want to just dive into the weeds and some of this stuff. What would you say is like the most simple way to explain how, in your opinion, most investors are failing at lead management?"

"Well, I think that the biggest reason is that they don't have a dedicated process after thinking about live answer. And so I think really to answer this question, we really have to go all the way back to the basics of what was understood about how to monitor if a channel is working or not. And you know, news flash, all the channels work, right? Like we can, and I... we have like 20 different channels at this point. We have so many. But the problem really began with how real estate investors in general started measuring where the things worked, and that was all based on phone calls."

"So and by the way, that's a great metric, but it's just not the only metric. So for example, you sent out a bunch of mail. Did you get phone calls in? How many phone calls did you get in? And did you live answer? And how many outbound phone calls are your teams making, right? It's very entry-level, like dipping your toe in this in the water, like measuring lead management, right? Is really just incoming leads, and it's less... it's more like defensive metrics than offensive metrics."

"So defensive metrics are things that like just come inbound, like I put my stuff out and I generated leads. But offensive metrics is what I did with that lead once I had it, right? So after the phone rang, okay, you live answered. What happened next? Or what if you missed the call? Or what if the lead was generated in a way that didn't answer, that didn't ring the phone, like they filled out a web form, right?"

"The next question that people or the next initiative that people say is like, 'Oh, we got to call that lead as soon as humanly possible,' right? So like a PPC lead comes in, they fill out a form, it didn't generate a phone call you could live answer, but what was that first attempt out? Right? So okay, we all know it's five minutes, right? The sooner we physically call a lead form, the better. But what if they didn't pick up? Now what? Okay, you made the first outbound call, you made that first activity within five minutes, but what's the rest of your lead process? And that's generally where people fail, right?"

"So the current metric of the number of attempts that it takes to contact a lead form, and this is across PPC, anyone who goes to your website and fills out a form, it takes approximately 14 attempts before you actually contact them. Like you receive a response back or they pick up the phone or they text back or they email back or what have you. 14 attempts."

"What I've seen, and I'm super guilty of this in the past as well, we would make that first initial phone call or maybe we'd even triple dial and they didn't pick up. And then we'd maybe call tomorrow, or you know, then we call tomorrow, they didn't pick up. Okay, we'll call in a week. Like we just all of a sudden just put that lead off in the future and we didn't understand that key metric of being contacted."

"So once I personally started measuring the percentage of leads I physically had a conversation with, everything changed. When I first started looking at that metric, it was like 60%, 70% of my leads were actually contacted, meaning like we had tried but then stopped or put them in a follow-up sequence. All of those leads were viable. I just stopped too soon, you know?"

"So the next metric to look at is yes, how many leads have you generated, how many phone calls have you generated, but what percentage of your leads have you physically talked to? And if you hold your lead management team accountable to that metric, everything changes because now it's about quality, not necessarily that quantity. Both are important, of course, but the end result is that we talk to people, right? Not just we like check the box, I made an outbound call within 5 minutes, I'm going to talk to them next week, right?"

"So that's kind of where this lead management conversation starts. How many attempts on average does it take for you to contact somebody? Because once you contact them, now you can actually qualify it. So when we measure our lead channels and we're trying to answer that age-old question, is it a lead source problem or is it a lead management problem? We look at what percentage of leads we contacted, and that is a lead management metric. And then what percentage of those contacted leads were qualified? That's a lead source metric, right?"

"Because once I've contacted you and we talked about your house and you have a house in Timbuktu, okay, you're out of buy box, you're not even qualified. So call or take me off my list, I hate you, I'm gonna kill your family, okay fine. You know, or they're retail and they're not qualified yet and they're a follow-up, right? Now that is giving me insight into the marketing channel because I've physically had a conversation. You can't blame marketing until you've talked to them."

"Yeah, that is super insightful. Thank you for sharing all that. I think it's funny because there's some things... I mean, all entrepreneurs kind of do this where like we kind of know better but we still do the same dumb things. Yeah, I can tell you one of those most common ones that I see across my clients is that like we'll ask them, 'Hey, how long is it taking for you to get to leads?' or 'How often are you contacting leads?' and those kinds of things. And they'll just tell us, 'Oh, we're always getting to leads immediately and we're super aggressive. This is what that looks like.' And then we just dig into it. We're like, 'Well, I found that this lead looked good but it wasn't contacted. Can we pull up your CRM and can we look at this?' And like first contact was made after like three hours, and then they've been called like once a day for a few days, and like that's it, right? And it happens all the time where like the business owner, the way that they're measuring this... like do you talking about actual like data and accountability in a system to measure these things? Unfortunately, what we see so many of our clients doing is the way they measure it is they ask their team, 'Hey, you were getting... you're getting to leads immediately, right?'"

"Right, and their team of course assures them that they are when they're not because the team, like whatever, no sales people do, they just like remember the best case scenario that's ever happened. Like, 'Yeah, I got a lead in yesterday and I called it immediately when it came in and I got in touch with the person. It was perfect, leading blah blah blah.' But they don't talk about the nine that they didn't call or something like that."

"So really hard because perception becomes reality and our own bias can change our mind when we are looking at something objectively. And I'm super guilty of this too. Like a good example for me that I'm always guilty of is, 'Oh, I feel so... like I feel so busy, like I've just done so much today.' And I'm like, 'Okay, what did I actually do?' I made one phone call, I sent three emails, and I spent the rest of the day like stressing out about something that didn't even move the needle, right? But I felt super busy and like I did so much. Why didn't I get the result I wanted? But if I actually look at what I did in an objective way, I'm like, 'Oh, well it's because I actually only did a few things.' Like I shouldn't stop wasting my time like... you know, pulling my hair out and it's... it's hard to be objective. It's super hard."

"And that objective feedback loop also needs to be in a non-confrontational way for you personally or your team to not shut down because you don't... you want data to help you. You don't want data to like be in your face, like slap you in the face, you know? So if we get used to looking at things together on a daily basis and figure out what actually does help you do your job better, then data is your friend and can make you feel empowered instead of being disabled, you know?"

"So a lot of those... 100% what percentage of your leads did you contact? That should be a daily conversation. Like, 'Okay, great, I'm getting towards that 90% metric. I want to make sure I get in contact with 90% of my leads.' Instead of like, 'Hey, when did you call that person first?' and it's like pulling them out of a meeting or pulling them out of a phone call to try to answer a question that's in... like, 'Oh no, you didn't.' Then it just... then it just feels terrible, you know?"

"Yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. One thing, sorry to get maybe a little too nitty-gritty with this, but just talking specifically about some of the metrics I was talking about, I just want to share with some of the clients some of the issues that I'm seeing on my side. And one of them is like, let's just say you took gross leads and you look at how many are contacted, it kind of ignores the fact that not every gross lead really is a lead that can be contacted. Like there are some that are spam or whatever the case is, right? So how do you deal with those fan of situations? Like do you just assume that like works into it or do you like separate out those leads somehow on those metrics?"

"I can tell you what we do is we have two separate metrics for our clients. We have a gross to net lead rate which cuts out all the spam and stuff like that, and then we look at what percentage of the net leads are contacted. But even that's not perfect. Like we just had a situation with a client this week where they have like a really high percentage of spam leads based on the feedback that they're giving us, and we're looking at... we like can't figure out what's going on. And then we have the suspicion that like a lot of these leads could not actually be spam that they're marking as spam. And then one of my team called a couple of them and asked them like, 'Hey, are you trying to sell a house?' and they like answered and they said yes. And we're like, 'Okay, well that... whoever their lead manager is was just saying like because it's suspicious, it's like, oh all the leads are spam.' Or of them that aren't spam, 100% of them you contacted. That doesn't look right. How do you deal with those kind of things, I guess is what I'm asking."

"Very, very specific criteria. So I love this question. This is such a common thing and I love it, I love it. Okay, so a gross lead is anybody who's opted into anything. A net lead is anybody but spam, right? And so what is spam? Spam is like, 'Oh, I'm calling you about your car insurance' or whatever, right? Trying to sell you something, businesses to business services, right? Like that is what spam is."

"Unqualified is different. Like if somebody calls you and they don't have a house to sell, that's not spam, that's unqualified. They're like, 'I don't know, I thought I was playing a video game online, I filled out your thing.' Okay, that's unqualified. That's different than spam. Same thing with somebody who's like, 'Well, I'm not sure if I'm going to sell. I'm just trying to figure out what's happening, like what the value is of my house.' That is follow-up or potentially unqualified depending on how crazy strict you are, but that is not spam, right?"

"And I think that sometimes the culture we have of like turning, turning, turning and trying to call someone first can also lend to quickly disqualifying people when they shouldn't be disqualified or falsely labeling them as spam. Like spam is very specifically something that makes absolutely no sense, right? Like, 'I'm calling you about your tires on your car.' Like, okay, that's spam."

"And I even have a tendency, depending on how frequent it is, to just delete those. Like just delete them out of your system, don't even keep spam BS in your system. But to your point, if you have this huge uptick in spam, like maybe one of your numbers got placed somewhere or you know, you need to... you know one of your channels is infected in some way. So you do need to have a way of labeling that and tracking it, but spam is literally only that. And I think being specific with that and teaching your lead managers, especially if they're overseas and don't know what these things mean, that has to be number one, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah. I totally understand. Yeah, we had a client just the other day get like name... Lead: Tony Stark. Like, like those kinds of things you're like, 'Wait, that's... but that's... that's not normal,' right? And it's... it should be clearly identifiable."

"One other metric you might be interested in, I recently did like a study across a few of our clients and what we looked at is like on a lead basis, how quickly was it contacted? And we put those into different buckets and we looked at how the whole funnel progresses based on that data. And what was really interesting is our clients that got to the lead slowly, or another even way to say is the leads that were gotten to slowly, maybe even from the same client that sometimes gets the leads fast, those leads had a higher contact rate than the ones that we... I'm sorry, if we got to it quickly, then we had a higher contact rate than if we got to it slowly, which everybody expects that to happen, right? That's super standard."

"The thing that surprised me is looking deeper in the funnel, we had a way better opportunity to contract conversion if it was contacted quickly initially, and we had a huge number of opportunities per contract if it was contacted slowly. So I think there's this common bias that people have where they just assume like, 'Okay, maybe I wasn't super quick, but I still got in touch with the lead, then it's fine.' But I guess what we're seeing is the faster you can touch the lead, the greater likelihood that it becomes a contract later, even assuming you already got in touch with it, which is honestly not something that I expected to see until I saw the data. And then I thought that actually makes a lot of sense, like how it even affects your downstream metrics, which like reassures me like why it's so important that you hold people accountable so they respond to... like in or you know, you pay them based on the results or whatever the case is, or getting contact with the lead. But you still have to hold accountable to that process. Like just because you called after 10 minutes and you still got in touch with them doesn't mean that's okay if our standard is 60 seconds for new leads or whatever the case is."

"100% because what happened? They had had enough time to have a conversation with someone else, and then now you have competition, right? So okay, you got an appointment, but so did three other people."

"Exactly. Then that's exactly what my hypothesis was on when I looked at... I'm like, it's got to be... it's got to be a competitive thing, especially if you're looking at like a PPC lead. Like do you think anybody has a hard time finding a wholesaler on Google? Like type in 'sell my house fast,' you will find dozens and dozens on Google of all of your competitors. Do you think they only just reach out to you, or they only intend to reach out to you? No, they reach out to everybody unless they reach out to you and then you call them so quick that like they're caught in their tracks. And then you have that kind of conversation with them that makes them feel like they don't need to go somewhere else, and that that's the end of their search. But I don't think everybody thinks about it that way."

"But like these... especially with PPC, because let's just say we're talking like Facebook ads or something like that. Okay, they saw your ad, they could see someone else's ad. Let's say we're talking about TV. Like yeah, they could be seeing both ads, but PPC is the only place where they see your ad and everybody else's ad at the same time."

"Exactly, exactly. In an active search that exact moment, it adds a whole new level of urgency."

"100%. And I think if you... if you miss that, if you miss them on the first outbound phone call, you have... so not only like you're saying you have to have immediate action, but if you don't, and that's got a clock... like our standards, it's less than five minutes. You have to... and obviously the sooner the better. Don't hang up the phone if you're talking to somebody to call somebody else, but within five minutes you have to make that first outbound phone call physically from a human being. But you can text them right away automatically. You can email them right away automatically. Like you can do things minute zero that will help you when you make that first outbound call."

"Nothing's going to replace a human being calling another human being, right? Like that's definitely gold standard. But all those things need to happen within the first five minutes. But if you make that first outbound call, maybe it is five minutes and somebody called them at 60 seconds, or maybe you called at 10 minutes and they called at five and they don't... and whatever, whatever it is. If you, when you made your outbound call and they didn't pick up, the first 90 minutes of activity is extremely important. Like you... there needs to be massive outreach within the first 90 minutes."

"So you make the phone call within the first five, you call, you text, you email, and then you call, text, email again, and you do everything you can to get those 14 attempts done as soon as humanly possible. And I think that's the second piece that people drop in the management process. They're like, 'Well, I called right away. I'm off the hook.' No, you need to call 20 times within the first day because if you didn't get that answer the first time for whatever reason, maybe it came in after hours and now it's 8 a.m., whatever, right? You have to make massive outreach for them to actually respond to you, and then now you actually have a chance. But if you gave up and put it on for next week, like that lead is going to be dead. You're not going to be able to close it or qualify it even, you know?"

"Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I highly doubt that anybody's listening to this and thinking that's really dumb. I don't think anything that they're saying makes sense. Highly doubt it. But where we all struggle is like implementing and knowing exactly like... you know, my biggest pet peeve in business is when you have KPIs that don't actually ensure that things are happening, right? So all your KPI scorecards are looking brilliant, but still things aren't working. And I think a lot of people are there with their lead management."

"So, so like, I totally agree, right? Like first contact matters a ton, number of touches within 90 minutes for example matters a ton, number of touches within 24 hours. And I think everybody would generally agree that like you start out heavier and then you know, you're probably not going to call them 20 times a day after 6 months if they haven't picked up the phone, right? So there's like there's some type of like gradual decline of that. But help me understand like where the rubber meets the road here. Like what exactly is happening on a day-to-day basis? Like what exact numbers are you recommending that people use where you think like if they measure the numbers that way, then they're most likely to ensure that they have a gapless lead management process?"

"I think the number one most important metric is the percentage of leads that you've contacted. I think that is more important than the number of leads that came in or your even first outbound call. That's the most important. And then incentivizing your team and/or even just metric them to that. Like if you are a lead manager, you have a full-time lead manager, and you are having a hard time hitting 90% contact rate, then you probably need more than one lead manager. And generally, that is the case that you just have so many leads in your system that you physically can't do... you know, hit that 90% contacted ratio without additional help or additional automation."

"And I would not underestimate automatic text... text messages and even automatic emails. People are shocked... like emails do really well. And even mail. Like for example, a first... a step one form where people just put in their address, right? And then they never fill out anything else, or maybe you don't even get their phone number. Just send them a piece of mail. You can look up the address and get their first and last name. That's easy. And if you have, you know, CRM that can look that up like LeftMain, fine, look up who the owner is on record on that person and send them... send them a letter."

"Like 10% of our... of our step one forms respond to mail but never respond to calling or texting when we try to skip trace them. Like, riddle me that. I don't get it. You opted in on the internet. Why... I can't... why you don't want to talk on the phone, I don't know. But if I send you a check letter, you call back 10% of the time. That's wild, you know?"

"So sometimes you need to do some of these like companion channels where you introduce another way. Just like retargeting, right? Like okay, they went on your website, but they didn't fill out your form, but then they... you got them on Facebook. You can retarget with other outbound metrics too besides just a phone call, like texting, emailing, mail."

"Yeah, super insightful because I mean, everybody has their own way that like they like to be contacted, and it's not always the way that you like to talk to, right? Or your sales team likes to talk to people, right? And you know how some of these people are... like some are super financially distressed and they probably have a million people calling them all the time. They don't recognize phone numbers. So even if they filled out a form, they're not interested in responding to an incoming call. But they probably would open something that looks like a check if they're financially distressed, right? And so how quickly you get a check out to somebody or... or a letter out to somebody... kind of like when you get pulled over by the police and you get a speeding ticket. Like you get 17 letters from lawyers like, 'Yeah, we'll get you out of that ticket,' right? Takes a day or two, but then you get them."

"For whatever reason, people... feels like you're speaking from experience."

"I got a speeding ticket for the first time in 10 years recently, and I was like... I was just thinking you don't... you don't seem like the kind of person that gets speeding tickets to me. Maybe... maybe I read you wrong."

"Yeah, I got a Tesla, and the first week I got a Tesla, I got a speeding ticket because it was so much fun to drive. And I waited so long for the stupid thing to come, and then I was just like... it was totally clear, it was beautiful, you know? It was very safe on the highway. And anyway, I got a ticket, and then I got a letter like... then like two days later from a ton of lawyers that could get me out of the ticket. And I was like, 'Why aren't we doing this with real estate?' Like, why... obviously like, you know, people are foreclosures or whatever, but what about... what about if they fill out a form on my website? Or if someone I'm having a hard time getting a hold of, why don't I try to send the mail too? And I'm like, no lie, the response rate is right around 10%."

"Yeah, that's... that's high. That's really significant."

"So it sounds like to you 90% is kind of the benchmark for the percentage of leads that we should be contacting?"

"Yes."

"Over what time period is that? Is that like 90% measured up the... the first 24 hours or a week or a month?"

"Super good question. We... we... it's a rolling total over the quarter. So like essentially every week you should be getting to the 90% mark, but sometimes you won't contact someone until later, and that's totally fine. But for the quarter, you should be averaging 90%."

"Understood. Okay, that... that's super helpful and actionable. And I... I can tell you our clients average about 85%. Just for whatever reference point it is. And then our clients that are really on top of it often will be 90%, 92%, 93%. It's huge... that little difference, that little lever is so beginning of funnel that if you can improve that just... that... that one KPI, you're going to make a few more deals just because of how the conversions go down... down pipeline, you know?"

"Yeah, you know what... like makes my blood boil? From the salesperson says that a lead's not good because they don't answer the phone. Like they must not be that motivated, that's why they're not answering my phone call. And meanwhile, I'm just thinking like, if you... they're probably not answering anybody's phone call. If you could be the person that actually get ahold of them, like that's a good lead."

"Yeah, exactly. So try something else, bro."

"Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, turns out commission is not the only way to make sales happen, right?"

"I know, like a lot of people have that mindset of like, 'Oh, I'm paying them commission so they'll just do whatever it takes,' but like, no salesperson is going to think, 'Oh, let me just send a check letter,' right? Nobody thinks that. That's why, you know, there's a combination here."

"Okay, that... that's super helpful. I feel like I have a better understanding of like how you... how you view lead management. Is there anything else you'd say that's like a key thing where investors are just usually getting this wrong with lead management?"

"Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing is just being too quick to disqualify folks or screen them out if they don't seem motivated, right? So trying to be a little bit more objective with that is helpful. Like for example, 'Oh, I'm just checking the value of the house,' right? And you're like, 'Okay, well tell me a little bit about the property,' and they're... they're on the hook enough that they're going to talk to you about the property. I'm not talking about those people who are like, 'Oh, email me an offer.' Those people, put them in follow-up. But for the people who are like, 'Well, I... you know, I don't have to sell anytime soon. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. I need to downsize,' or what have you. 'So here I am, you know, but I'm in... you know, I'm in no way in a rush,' and they're on the phone with you and you're able to talk to them a little bit more."

"I think that a lot of times these people can undersell their motivation but truly have like a lot of repairs. So one of the ways that we qualify people and set an appointment, especially if they'll let us, right, is if they have old systems. So if you... if you're on the call with us and you're like, 'Well, I'm not... no rush, you know? I... I have a mortgage but I have equity, you know, so I don't care,' but, 'My systems are 30 years old,' or 'They're original, this is a 1970s house, I've never replaced the roof,' or whatever. I'm going out to that house, right? No matter how cool they seem on the phone and not in a rush and maybe 'I'm going to list it.' I want to go out because those systems are old. And a lot of the times they... they... they're cool as a cucumber on the phone, but you get out there and they're... they're hoarder or they have so much distress and they just were... had a wall up on the phone because it was easy. You see them face to face and they just kind of crumble, you know what I mean? So, you know, obviously the hallmarks of motivation are personal motivation, financial motivation, but don't forget about repair motivation. Like that is important to ask."

"That's super cool. I totally... I totally agree. And honestly, I'm speaking out of my like area of expertise if I'm talking about like... like motivation. Like I've never been in a seller's house. I do notice some interesting things across our... across our data though. One thing I've noticed in particular is that there's a strong bias usually of companies that are coming from outbound channels to inbound channels with how they qualify leads because they're sort of used to assuming that a lead is unmotivated until you can prove that it is motivated. Versus with a lot of our clients are doing from the... the best ones, PPC and Facebook ads and SEO, we find that they're usually assuming that a lead is good and that it's motivated until they can really prove that it's not. And there's this like continuum you could picture like on one side it's like we go on every possible appointment that we could ever go on, and then on the other side it's like we're cherry-picking appointments. And everybody's just so afraid of being on the side where you waste time at appointments. But it... I can't even tell you how rare it is that we find a client with... with these channels that we manage specifically. Maybe this is super common across other channels, but it's so exceptionally rare that we find a client that has more than like five appointments to get to a contract. Like everybody they... like there's a... there's a happy middle, right? I'm not saying you have to go... like every single possible appointment, but they... we find it so much more common that our clients are like afraid to go on the appointment, afraid to waste the time. But all day, every day we have clients that are like over-qualifying leads because they're afraid of under-qualifying them. And it's so... so rare that we actually have a problem from under-qualifying leads. Just almost never happens."

"I couldn't agree more. I think... so I'm very triggered by 'waste my time.' Like nobody says that to me because I get so upset. Like nothing is... what do you mean waste your time? We just... especially after how much money we've just spent to generate a phone call or to generate a form. Like nothing is a waste of time. And if that's you saying it about yourself and... and you're the guy going out in the appointments, the girl going out in appointments, you're like, 'I don't want to go out there. I've got all kinds of stuff going on. I don't want to go out there just to waste my time.' That is a personnel issue. That is not a lead issue. That is 100% a personnel issue, and you need to fix that problem because it's not a waste of time. Like nothing... there is a waste of time."

"If you... if you are worth your salt as a salesperson and you go out there and they're not a great fit, like you just made a relationship. And birds of a feather flock together, and what do you think is going to happen next? Like all that is extremely worth it, right? You made a... you've made a connection. These people likely have friends and family. This is a person in your community. Like you can get a good review out of this even if you tell someone, 'Hey, I'm not... I'm not the right fit,' and ask them for a Google review. Like you can turn something into something, right? Just by even... not even someone you can't physically help, by telling the truth or being a human being, right?"

"So but like you said, what you'll find most of the time is that it's a deal. Like you just need to go on more appointments. And if you're burnt out and tired of going on appointments, then find somebody else to do it."

"Yeah, yeah. It's a... super fair... super fair thought. I think it's funny sometimes. I think like some of the best salespeople are like almost delusional. I... I... so we took our... our clients to have the best lead conversion, 'cause we measure this stuff full circle and how they're actually doing from a lead conversion standpoint. Everybody talks some big game, but like I... I took like a few of the ones"

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