Whether you’re currently running a team, are curious about building a team or are just interested in how teams function, these are the top 7 strategies used by the top teams in the industry RIGHT NOW. They’re not doing all of them at once, but are using a combination of these strategies to effectively generate leads for their teams. Comment below and let me know which strategy you like best and how you plan on implementing it in your own business!
7 Proven Lead Generation Strategies for Teams
People always want to know the strategies that are working when it comes to the real estate teams that we coach. As a result of our unique perspective, we get to see inside their businesses to see what works and what doesn’t, so we came up with the top seven strategies that are used by teams. Now, not all of them do all of these things, but the majority of them have some level of most of these things in their business.
IMPORTANT!!
Do not, under any circumstance, try to do all of these things at once. Do not start them all at once or start a bunch of them at once. Focus on a couple of things. Maybe one, maybe even two activities maximum. Get them up and running, get them successful, and then add in if it even makes sense. Most of the teams, while they may have a combination of all or most of these strategies, their focus is generally only on a few of them at any given point in time. They’re very focused on a few strategies that generate the majority of the results, not just trying to throw a whole bunch of things against the wall and hope something sticks. Be very very intentional with everything that you’re doing. Please, for your own sanity and for your own pocket book, be intentional. It can get very expensive if you try to do all of this at once. If you’re trying to be a Jack or Jill of all trades, you’ll become a master of none.
#1: Database Marketing
The great teams have a great database marketing strategy, which includes sphere of influence and repeat and referral business marketing. They know how to leverage that database and they know the money works in the database. They have a very specific strategy. They know when they’re contacting their database and they know what they’re doing. They’re finding ways of engaging their people that have done business with them, that refer them business, or that they have a relationship with because they know this is one of the cheapest ways to get business long term.
A quick note here: the top teams don’t get more than about 70-80% maximum of their business from their database and there’s a reason for that. When the market goes down or shifts, which it will do eventually, their business would fall. The real estate industry fluctuates like anything else, and when it does, referral, sphere of influence, and repeat business tends to dry up because people aren’t referring and aren’t repeating at the same rate.
The top teams always have a lot of other strategies in there, but database marketing is a very very important strategy that they leverage in a big way. They know how they do it. They know when they’re contacting them and they’re bringing value to their database on a monthly basis, if not more often than that.
They’re also finding ways to engage with them, not just in a drip fashion, but also in a relational fashion. They know that these are relationships, not just people who wanna be “dripped” all the time. It’s all about building that relationship.
#2: Listing Portals
I know a lot of agents who HATE using listing portals, like Zillow or Realtor.com. All they’re doing is raging a holy war that nobody really cares about. While they’re “protesting” listing portals, other agents are out there crushing it. It’s your choice.
I recommend that you use them, invest in them, and do it wisely. But you have to have a process for following up. If you just follow up once, or twice, or three times, yea, you’re gonna suck at it, but it’s not the leads that suck – it’s your follow-up process that sucks. Instead, you’ve got to have a very successful follow-up strategy for these, so that you’re working them, you’re staying on top of them. You should know what’s going to happen in the first two weeks, what’s gonna happen in the first two months, six months, twelve months, twenty-four months, and on.
Remember, the average online lead is anywhere from 6-26 months out from being ready to buy or sell. But when do most agents need business? 6-26 days ago. That creates a big gap between where an agent’s need is and where the client’s need is. Your follow-up strategy needs to bridge that gap. Not everybody who comes in through one of these platforms is gonna be hot and ready to go right now. It’s about having the process to make it work for you. The teams that do very well with this have a very specific follow-up strategy.
#3: IDX Websites
IDX websites are like your personal website, but give the user ability to run a search. In return, you can capture their information. There’s a lot of different companies that do this, but two platforms that a lot of our clients use are Commissions Inc. and Boomtown.
IDX website are great. This is where you should be driving traffic to. You control the website, you control the field, and you control your branding and messaging. They’re great for generating buyer leads, but remember, a lot of times buyers also need to sell a home in order to buy, so it also generates home-listing leads for you as well.
If you have a team, this is what you want to be feeding them with. It’s all about having leads that you’re taking in and that you’re pumping into the system and this is a great way to do it.
#4: Geographic Farming
This is everything from mailing and door-knocking to community engagement and circle prospecting. Geographic farming is a great strategy among teams. They’re going into specific neighborhoods, they’re looking to dominate, and they’re looking to get all over these things. Just because they’re pumping leads through these online sources, doesn’t mean they’re not looking at some of these as well.
A lot of teams will organize door-knocking days where the whole team gets together and they knock a neighborhood together. They’re paired up and they’re just building relationships with the people in the neighborhoods that they’re trying to serve. They also do a lot of community engagement. These are things like shred days, where they’ll hire a shredding truck where people can come and they can get stuff shredded. They’ll partner with a lender or title company to bring people there, which is a great way of cross
promoting, bringing in other relationships, expanding your sphere of influence, and expanding your reach.
The bottom line is this: the top teams get very involved in the community that they’re trying to farm and that they’re trying to build a relationship with.
#5: Open Houses
Teams love open houses. Their agents are sitting open houses every single weekend or almost every single weekend because open houses work. If you’re doing open houses correctly, having agents sitting those every single weekend can just grow your numbers dramatically. It’s a great lead generation strategy.
If you’re a team leader, your job is to provide leads for your agents. It is not their job to go out and lead generate without you, because if they can do it without you, why do they need you? There’s other reasons other than leads, but the primary reason agents join teams is they don’t know how to generate leads. One of the ways they can generate leads, that doesn’t cost you anything, is an open house. It’s a great way for them to bring traffic and bring people into the mix and not just sit back fat and happy waiting for the leads to come in through online sources or offline sources that you may be doing.
One of the top strategies we see our clients using over and over and over again that are team leaders: open houses. It’s a requirement for the agents on their team.
#6: FSBOs and Expired Listings
The top teams have a whole strategies for this: call strategies, scripting, and everything their agents need. They’re using services like Landvoice or RedX to get the information on FSBOs and expireds, and then they’re calling down.
A lot of times they use this with an ISA (inside sales associate), somebody who’s calling on behalf of the agents on the team. Other times they have the agents do these. And sometimes some teams break it down and say, some of the agents are really good at calling on these, and so let’s have those agents be the ones who are calling on FSBOs and expired, while these other agents are working maybe some of these other lead sources like open houses, or whatever it is.
Based off of what they do, they match up strengths and weaknesses for the agents on their team to the strategies. This is something you could absolutely do as well.
Working FSBOs and expireds is an awesome strategy and there are a lot of great ways to do it. The team over at Landvoice has some incredible stuff that can help you with these things, so check them out, but there’s a lot of great companies that can help you do this. Don’t try and do it all on your own. Outsource it, because there are companies that can help you find out who’s on do not call lists and other important stuff. Don’t try and do it all on your own; it’s just a big time waster.
#7: Social Media
Teams are investing heavily in social media strategies. This is not just ads, and it’s not getting on social media and building friendships. They’re doing a combination of both. They’re building relationships as team leaders, as agents on the team, and they’re doing a lot of things with the community, and they’re promoting it on social media , but they’re also advertising. The top teams are running a lot of Facebook ads, driving people to landing pages and to websites. This is a big time lead strategy for generating listing leads and for getting more clients.
They’re also investing money, but most teams have a paid strategy and a free engagement strategy and they’re using both of those very very heavily.
Those are seven strategies that we’re seeing now across our top level teams. Again, they’re not doing all of them. Some of them are doing all of them, some of them aren’t doing all of them. But I will promise you this: that they’ve got probably 4-5, at least, of the strategies that I just listed out. And some of them are wanting to add more. This isn’t the only seven that they do; there’s a lot of other strategies out there. But if there are seven strategies that we see among everybody at the highest rate, these are them right here.
Here’s what I want you to do: download the team job responsibility outline and compensation guide, which are linked above. This guide will help you kick-start building your team and structuring it correctly. We’ve also got a team building webinar coming up. Register for that; it’s free and also linked above. It’s a great resource and we’re going to walk you through exactly how to build a high performance real estate team. You do not wanna miss that training at all.
Join us at one of our live events. Bring the agents on your team and/or bring the agents in your office. If you have desire to grow your business, live events are some of the best ways to do it. These are chock full of massive content and massive value that we don’t teach outside of those events. We use those events as a great way of bringing new fresh strategies to the market. We’ve got a lot of cities coming up and we’re adding more and more, so check out our list of live events and make sure you join us at one of those.
Lastly, get your free coaching session. We’ve got some great strategy sessions for you and they’re free so take advantage of them. Even if you’ve tried it before, try it again and see what you think about it. We’d love to find out how we can help you with your biggest challenges. And I promise it’s not a glorified sales pitch – it’s a great way that we can bring value to you and give back to the community as our way of saying thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do this, and to serve you.
Let me just leave you with this. Don’t ever settle for anything less than you deserve. If you believe in yourself just half as much as I believe in you, you’ve got an amazing career and amazing life ahead of you, and it is an honor to serve you in this capacity. Take care!