Real Estate Inside Sales Agent – ISA Scripts & Systems

hi this is Brian Icenhower welcome
today I am here with a good friend alarge deacon from Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Dale welcome to the showthanks Brian I appreciate it love being
here hey Dale I mean we’re all pros thatDale on the show
Dale’s team did 250 million inproduction and about six hundred units
per year pretty excited about thathe they have four is A’s the Dale works
with we’ve been working together forover a year and a half now
Dale himself coaches team leaders insidesales agents directly and and even
agents that just want to convert leadsin that right Dale that’s right yeah so
this is gonna be awesome trying to pickyour brain about about some of the
topics we got today yeah you know it’sfunny as usually people come to me
they’re like hey you’re really good atinside sales and my agents aren’t
working the leads I’m giving them so wewant to hire an inside sales agent and
I’m like wow that’s fantastic book Idon’t know if we’re gonna fix your
marriage by having a baby so let’s let’swell let’s do some marriage counseling
first with your agent boy I’ll tell youa men on that one that’s actually a
great point yeah there’s there’ssomething something not in place if
we’re having that problem we got to fixwhat’s not in place well you know what
is funny and you I’m sure you’ve seenthis all the time Brian yourself is that
running inside sales requires thehighest level of accountability right in
order to make it profitable and make itwork
it requires the highest level ofManagement the highest level of
accountability that you can that you canbring to the table right it’s just
another level that you have to go to andif you don’t it you need to have the
same level of accountability for youragents to agreed and so if these agents
or these people are calling and say heyI’m you know my people are not following
up with the leads I want to go way backto the to the basics here for a second
okay so a lead comes in right all leadsare not quick
equal correct correct so tell me what’sthe first thing we’re trying to do when
a lead comes in do by way of classifyingthat lead right yeah so first off
everybody should understand thedifferent lead types that we have right
the different lead sources so typicallythe less you pay for a lead source
unless it’s referral or just spherebecause you’ve been in business for 40
years the less you pay for the lead themore of them you’re gonna need in order
to get a conversion right correct thetypically hopefully the more you pay for
the lead the fewer of them you’re gonnaget but the better quality they’re gonna
be one would think one would hope yesthat’s what we got to keep an eye on the
budget so typically you know you wantyour agents and is a is to understand
what lead source is this because youwant them to have the right mindset
around it so if you’re getting a ton ofwebsite registrations or responses to
your facebook ads or whatever it may beyou want your agents and isas to have
the right mindset that listen we’regoing to we’re gonna kiss all these
frogs the same and one of them is gonnaturn out to be a prince and that’s just
the way it’s gonna work so let’s not getupset and disregard them because if
we’re gonna convert three or four orfive percent of them we don’t know which
one of them the three or four or fivepercent is going to be yeah and I think
like letting those numbers be knownbecause if you don’t let them know that
it’s quite it’s considerably a losingproposition right I mean people if you
have a favorite baseball player and hegets up to bat every single time you
know that you can make the all-star teamif you bat 300 which means you hit the
ball 30% of the time which means 70% ofthe time you fail yes you can say wow
that guy’s terrible because he’s onlyhitting the ball 35% of the time yeah
he’s gonna be the MVP of the league ifhe does that though so we have to set
the right expectations with the peoplethat converting the leads or what’s
gonna happen is they’re going to followup and immediately assess all the leads
is terrible and get discouraged rightexactly so if you’re not will it tell
them basically show them get them tounderstand if you’re not willing to
invest that 70% of strikeoutsthat’s 70% of failure you will not get
the 30% right you know no all-star teamthat’s right it’s not gonna happen so
that’s the first place to start we wantpeople to be in the right mindset right
we want them to be on the right pagethen when these things come in when
these leads when the leads when thesepeople human beings right when they give
us their information and when we get intouch with them we really just want to
start out with finding out about themand it’s not about these you know what I
kind of break with most of the trainersand coaches and everything that’s
standard out there in the industry it’snot about having a clever conversation
it’s not about tricking somebody intosomething it’s not about fooling them
it’s about having a legitimateconversation with another person and I
like to break I like to break down theconversation that you have with somebody
into three critical elements and if youfollow these three critical elements and
just remember in my conversation am I amI tracking toward any of these three
you’re going to be on course forconverting this person and that would be
motivation their motivation do they havemotivation right do they have ability
and do they have the willingness to meetwith us or work with us those three
critical things that’s really whatyou’re looking for agreed and what we’re
looking to do with those three elementsmotivation ability and willingness which
I love we’re not to do that we have toask questions right we can’t just be
telling them we’re not trying tomanipulate them and close them in the
traditional sense we’re coming fromcuriosity here and asking questions to
find out those three things absolutelyyeah and so I’ll demonstrate for you
right so if we’re work so we first wantto see do you have motivation right sure
do you have motivation if you do greatlet’s move on and ask lots of questions
about what you’re motivated to do andwhether you’re going to be able to do it
okay that’s ability if the answer is noto motivation or not yet why write a kit
make sense to melet me understand your situation the way
you understand your situation rightwhich is often inaccurate right a lot of
times yeah they don’t quite know thewhole situation that’s why we are the
ones with the licenses we are the onesthat have some experience in this
business right so we got and that’s howwe’re seeking to help exactly and we
understand that through questions rightsure we don’t we don’t understand that
by trying to change your mind or negatewhat you have going on we first seek to
understand let me understand you likeyou understand you and then when I
really understand what it is that youwant maybe we can find a faster cheaper
easier better way for you to get itright even more of whatever you’re
looking for I think that’s the key tojust every about every step in sales is
we have to dig into their motivation Imean it always starts there right and
that motivation starts to determinetheir ability and then their willingness
to move forward if they have the abilityit does tie in because I think the whole
purpose here when we talk aboutassessing the the quality of a lead or
the classification of a lead or personas they come in we’re typically always
trying to determine how best we can helpthem which means how best we can follow
up with them right so don’t we ratethese guys based upon that sense of
urgency on how quick they’re going to bemoving based on our best guess on that
first phone call yes absolutely wedefinitely want to do that so talk about
how you rate and categorize thoseinbound leads when they come in
okay so typically you’re gonna have youknow that the standard qualifications
like a zero to thirty a thirty to say 90and a 90 plus or something like that
right okay these are the big bucketsthat you’re gonna put people into just
so that I understand and I can sort offorecast and I can look at mine my
spread of nurtures right and I can seelike a leaderboard right I want to see
how these people stack up and who I’mgonna be following up with when that’s
how you really organize your follow upright so we’re talking lie and these get
these get talked about as all differenttypes of names right you’re a
leads are often called your zero to 30people your 30 to 90 people will called
your B leads let’s say your C leadscould be your 90 plus or ninety to a
year or 90 to a year-and-a-half hotleads warm leads cool leads however you
want to name those it’s all based uponthat initial call or that initial
contact where we start to determinetheir motivation ability ability and
willingness so we’re using that like athermometer to kind of take the
temperature to see how fast we thinkthis person is going to be able and
willing to move yes and we’ll ask somequestions about that and not just when
do you think you’ll be moving rightbecause oftentimes you’re gonna get I’m
not sure or sometime next springor some vague answer so other than the I
have absolutely no idea answer you knowyou may get some kind of inkling of when
things are going to happen what we liketo do with everybody is ask them process
questionsjust like you would if you were
interviewing somebody right I’m gonnaask you process questions about okay
let’s work backwards so if you weregonna be in your home by X date when
would you go out and start looking athomes if you were gonna be moving in in
the spring do you think it’d be morelike March or April or May maybe work we
work backwards down that timeline yeahso if there’s longer with when it’s
gonna be and then we actually startbacking with okay so when would you be
ready to that and then we can startgetting an idea of really pinpointing
which bucket we’re gonna throw them intoyes gently okay and then okay I like
that I like that a lotyes place them in so then and then what
let me give you one more point aboutthat another reason that we do that we
get them to think down the path we canalso uncover where do I insert myself
right into the process and then get youto agree that I should be inserted into
the process at that point and now youand I have a tentative agreement for a
future conversation yeah I like thatit’s almost like we’re getting a
partnership to at least help them outalong the way because what happens in
those different buckets right you gotthe a the B’s in the C’s let’s just call
them that okay so that actuallydetermines the amount of frequency of
your follow up with them correct yesright so if we’ve got a let’s say we’ve
got an a lead we’re gonna be staying incontact a lot more frequent because we
know that they’re planning on moving andsome time between now the next 30 days
as opposed to a see lead that it’sreally a little too premature to be
blowing them up through every you knowphone and email and text message right
so we said that’s true and so Brian theway that we’ve designed and the way that
we run lead follow-up is that we have weautomate as much as we can and then we
have and then we figure out what you’retalking about as we figure out what the
personal touches are the actualactivities that I’m gonna do to take out
to follow up with you right the the livefollow-ups on top of my automated
follow-up soyou so in our systems everybody with the
exception of that person who I have anappointment with is gonna have the same
consistent automated follow-up from meright through emails and sometimes text
messages that are planned out in asequence that everybody goes on right
and it just looks like personal touchesthat were sending to you coming directly
from me as a person looks like I satdown at my computer and wrote you an
email and just to clarify that everybodyin the same bucket right so the aide
leads are all gonna be on the exact sameplan they’re all on the same plan as B’s
C’s everybody just different frequenciesthat they’re sent out nope everybody
gets the same consistent automated dripsto make our keep us sane got it okay
changes is our active outreach to thosepeople okay tell me about that tell me
what the active outreach is for each a Bor C if we call them yeah so what we do
is depending on their time frame we usethe standard where you cut it in half
right so we’ll take whatever their timeis cut it in half actually first what we
do so you you’re talking to somebody andthey turn out to be a nurturer right yep
you’re gonna go into one of thesebuckets we don’t set an appointment with
them right now and we don’t think thatwe’re gonna be setting an appointment
with them in the next two weeks okayokay that’s the qualification sure so
now you’re gonna go into our follow-upsystem right so you’re set onto the same
automated follow-up through with emailsand texts on top of that I’m going to
tag you in my system so that I know thatI’m gonna take whatever the time frame
is I’m going to cut it in half I’m gonnareach out to you at the halfway point oh
I skipped over something the reason Iwent backwards I just spoke to you
you’re going into my system the firsttouch is going to be a couple days after
you get put into my system okay becauseI want to make sure you’re getting the
emails that are coming for your homesearch and that my communications are
coming through to you it’s just anothercheck-in to me
it gives you a reason to call gives youa reason yeah and make sure you don’t
get lost in cold storage somewhere rightright and you aren’t getting this stuff
from us the emails and things you shouldbe fat bucket right right then half way
to whatever your time frame is we’regonna follow up again right personal
touch see where you’re at check in withyou and I what I think is the best thing
to do it’s not just hey it’s Dale I wantto make sure you’re still buying a house
I want to make sure you’re still sellinga house are you ready to buy or sell a
house right instead it’s hey I’mchecking in with you and you’re gonna
look at your notes and you’re gonna readwhat it is that they told you and you’re
going to revisit what it is that theytold you right you’re just gonna
basically paraphrase back then hey lasttime we talked we talked about this is
that still the case we talked about thisis that still the case I want to see if
things have changed and you’re showingthat you’re listening and you’re showing
yeah so you’re giving a lot ofvalidation there too which builds
tremendous rapport yeah so that’s greatokay so in a nutshell take me from an a
a B or C buyer what is the degree ofyour phone calls the automated point to
an a versus a B versus a C like forexample are you calling the A’s every
week twice a week bees how frequent C’show freaking what’s the norm you think
it should be okay I want to talk about Ineed to talk about this concept first
sure cuz the vast majority of agents andthe things that I hear out there go
something like hey when are you lookingto buy a home when you want to be in
your new home oh I have no idea we’rejust looking right now and you know I’ll
let you know we’re getting the emailswe’re getting the houses you’re sending
okay great can I follow up with you in acouple of months oh yeah sure yeah that
is not a nurture okay yeah that is wherethese questions come from where it’s
like I don’t know when to follow up withthis person I’m just gonna keep calling
them until something happens right yeahwe need to do something there has to be
some sort of action plan here right yeahlike there’s a there’s a check point
like here’s where we were we also haveto say here’s what’s coming now
right so here’s what I want to do I wantto dial back to that conversation that
conversation should dictate when youfollow up with those people right okay
it shouldn’t just be I’m throwing dartsof the board hoping that you’re ready to
move forward you need to get the piecesyou need to get their pieces of their
puzzle right whatever they are becausethat’s going to determine how often
you’re following up with this peoplewith these people
so back to your question if you’re in mya bucket for instance and you’re a zero
to 30 when I’m first speaking with youand I’m qualifying what’s going on with
you I need to understand when you’regoing to take your next action or what
your next action is going to be I needto ask those questions right and to me
in the 0 to 30 day a bucketyou’re hot lead bucket we should be
trying to think about meeting to methat’s that that’s that’s
person-to-person we’re moving them intoeither with a lender a buyer consult a
listing appointment or meeting or we’reshowing something we’re trying to get in
person there so that’s a lot of contactreally trying to look for reasons to
help them to go if they want to movethat quick there’s work to be done right
yeah and if you exit a call if you exitthat first call with what you think is a
0 to 30 and you don’t understand whenthey’re gonna talk to a lender when
they’re gonna look at homes when they’regonna figure out the finances when
they’re gonna talk to the spouse whenthey’re gonna look at their lease as to
whether they can break it yeah we haulthem back and find those things out
right that’s your next callyeah because they’re not going to get
what they want 30 days if we don’t knowthat so we’re not helping them okay so
now go to our B’s our bees are so giveme an example of what that process
moving a B that which is a 30 to 90 daybuyer let’s say what type of process
what type of moving forward to the nextstep are we talking about there okay so
the same with A’s do not get off thatcall with what you think is a B unless
you understand what their process isgoing to look like or without getting an
agreement from them that together you’regoing
to start some piece of the process at acertain time in the future hey if you
can can you give me some examples ofwhat that might look like like what
would what would that conversation looklike where you’re trying to secure some
sort of commitment or agreement to thefuture yeah so I’m not getting them to
agree to work with me over the phoneokay I’ve never met with this person I’m
not getting them to agree to anythinglike that right what I’m getting them to
agree to is when will you start to lookat the finances if I can’t get them to
talk to the lender yet right when do youthink you’d go out and start looking at
homes when do you think you’d be able todecide whether to stay in the house or
to move forward when do you think you’dbe able to decide – when do you think
you’ll start making the repairs on yourhome when would you like to speak with
an agent in order to find out whatrepairs are the best investment for you
to make in your home see I think that iscrucial Dale you ate every one of those
as a question every every one of thosequestions started with a when very
time-sensitive everything is trying tofind out when and we’re probing to look
for because if we can find somethingthat’s in range then we can actually
help them we can start moving themtowards that objective so I really like
that you’re not trying to overcomeobjections you’re you’re really not
trying to manipulate anything you’re nottrying to win an argument here that they
really need to do this now instead oflater you’re just asking with that faith
that they are going to give us somethingthat’s in range where we can start
helping them towards that goal yeah theycan put you to work basically between
now oh yeah and if what you keep gettingis I don’t know I don’t know I don’t
know that’s a legitimate answer thatyou’re getting from this person they
don’t know they haven’t thought about ityet right which is good do you ever get
them to finally think about how to dosomething in 30 to 90 days exactly
you’re gonna have to at some point soyou can help them work backwards in it
right then you can say okay well greatcan I can I tell you how the typical
timeline works from when you do decidegreat now
have permission to educate you yeahanother question right right is amazing
let’s talk about the long-term right sothe C ones let’s say 90 days plus yeah
we don’t call them cold we call themcool cool they’re eggs right or positive
yeah so those people you’re gonna hear alot of I don’t know there’s gonna be a
lot of I don’t know right it’s justthat’s okay
so what you’re gonna do with them is thesame thing you’re gonna try and what we
like to do is we want to get themtalking about their ideal future right
talk about the ideal scenario and seeingthemselves in it and then if you can try
working it backwards and saying whenwould you like to get started on that
right right give me an example give meone hypothetical so let’s say somebody’s
saying we’re you know we’re recordingthis in the fall right now okay winter
actually I guess and if somebody saysyou know what I’m just I think we’re
thinking we’re probably gonna move likenext summer we’re not really sure where
we’re gonna go or you know how much oreven what our budget is we just know
that maybe we would like to get a biggerhome something like that right just put
it off right they got a they have avague idea of what’s gonna happen okay
does it makes let me ask you this fromthe perspective of lead does it make
sense for us to get together right nowno does it make sense for you to drive
to my office and sit across the tablefrom me a strange salesperson no okay
that doesn’t make sense so let’s havemore of a conversation to help make it
make sense if we can and if not that’sokay what we’re gonna find out is where
along the line could could a real estateagent help you and when would you like
to to start that processfind out from them yeah yeah I love that
I love the confidence in doing that toobecause you’ll be surprised so let’s say
so say you asked me that question and Isay I don’t know probably you know I
guess sometime in the spring sometime inthe spring great and so when you started
working with an agent what do you thinkthe first thing is that you would do
what would youthe agent two together where would you
be at in the process a lot you know I’mgonna disagree with what they’re gonna
say but I’m gonna say we’d be looking athouses look at houses great so how will
you do you have you figured out howyou’ll determine which agent is gonna
provide the most benefit to you in yourhome search know I mean we got a few
friends we do have a few friends thatare agents my nephew just got his
license oh that’s great congratulationsthanks yeah it’s good he’s a great kid
six will you be using one of them oh Idon’t know I mean he’s our nephew but I
don’t know I you know I don’t know mywife you know she may have her friends
or I don’t we I don’t think we’re atthat stage yet got it got it so what I
would do is I would progress with askingyou more questions about what’s most
important to you about your homepurchase right I want to try to push the
conversation and what I would love tofind out from you is that you don’t know
everything about the home purchaseprocess you’d love to find out how you
can save more or avoid risk or get agreat benefit from your real estate
agent order that you would want to feelreally comfortable and confident with
the person that you worked with rightright I want to find out if these I want
to elicit those as outcomes from youthings that you want and then I would
ask you when you’d like to start thatprocess so if I can’t get a face-to-face
meeting soon sooner with you then whatwe’ll do is we’ll set a tentative
meeting for you said starting in thespring right right you already said that
so now we’ve dialed that back fromsummer to spring sure so I can shoot for
that I’m gonna keep asking you questionsto see if I can even bring that back a
little bit farther as close as I can getit so that I can get a face-to-face with
you yeah you’re really trying to get meinto the B category you’re trying to
take that C and make me a beer or atleast make give me close enough so when
I know you can that’s kind of what we’retrying to do here is move C’s to B’s and
bees to A’s throughout the whole processif we’re trying to move up a timeline so
that’s why we’re always I love howeverything you’re saying has a win
attached to it everything you’re doingis according to time sensitivity here
and I think that’s where we need to andyou do that just by asking questions
about it and asking them questions aboutthe process they don’t realize I mean
clients never do they never realize allthat goes into you know if they want to
move in the summer they got to get on itthat they want to list in the summer
they need to get on it much earlier thanthat so we’re just kind of playing that
out to them by asking questions all theway through about the process exactly
now let’s presume because this happensall the time right let’s assume that you
aren’t gonna buy until the summer you’redefinitely not gonna start looking or
even working on this until late springokay so we understand that so we’ve
established that now I can’t move youany farther up I can’t get a
face-to-face with you can’t get you tocommit to it so what I’m gonna do is
instead I’m gonna commit to sort of ouronline relationship right so the the
information I’m gonna be providing toyou or questions I’m gonna be asking you
or questions I’m gonna be answering foryou we’re gonna agree I’m gonna get us
to agree that we’re gonna have anotherconversation at a certain time in the
future even if it’s just over the phoneor what it would have you right could
you tell me how that looks could yousure
so hey Brian you know I hear that youand your wife really aren’t going to be
working on moving forward until you knowsometime in the future you know next
spring I totally get that would it bebeneficial to you if we had another
conversation say you know like lateFebruary where we just get on the phone
answer any questions that you havebecause at that point you’re gonna be
much farther down in the in your processand you’re probably gonna have some
questions you want to answer would thatwork for you yeah and I think anybody’s
gonna say yes you just put me out a fewmonths yeah yeah that’s pretty much it
right yeah and it’s that isn’t it thatis it as an agreement between the two of
us versus oh I don’t know oh okay wellcan I follow up with you in a few months
randomly right right yeah you can I callyou out of the blue randomly when you’re
and catch you off-guard which youabsolutely hate and you know in
don’t want like that’s just that doesn’tfeel good for anybody yeah I agree I
agree you do secure a commitment thatwe’re gonna have future conversations
and that you’re gonna help them out Ilike that a lot some of the best
salespeople do it to me and I hate itright yeah yeah they’re like okay great
so Dell can we talk again two weeks fromtoday on November 17th and like fineexactly because now we’ve agreed to it I
said I would do wise you’re going intowe’re breaking up script which is
exactly no I really like this Dale andthank you for really outlining how we
how we look at leads and how wecategorize them and the right
expectations how we talk to him you knowI think that’s important how we do treat
them like people they find out theirneeds all the way through excellent
stuff there today Thanksyou bet all right Dale everybody thanks
for being with us today Dale I’ll betalking to you soon my man sounds good
thanks again Brett you bet