How Buyer Leads Boosted This CA Agent's Real Estate Business

Transcript

Derek Fricke: [00:00:00] Again, within the first week of flipping to all buyer leads, I got John and Rita 760, 000 house. My brokerage's commission on that was 19, 000 from that first week.

[Intro]

My name is Derek Frick. I'm with a Signature Real Estate Group in Murrieta, California. That's in southern California. I'm a solo agent. My son's getting his license and he's just about to join the team.

My son will be the first one. We'll have more come on and really because of your ad spend really up to me how much I want to spend if I want another five, 50 leads, I can spend another, X amount of dollars. And then the more people I bring on, I just want to be able to say, this is what I've seen work. This is what's happened with me so far. This is the ROI for me and sell myself as, a team lead. So I think it's nice to live.

My beginnings in real [00:01:00] estate were actually over 20 years ago. Right out of college, I was doing mortgage loans and real estate back in Michigan. I got out of that did a number of different things in contracting, always stayed in the home industry. But just a few years ago, during the pandemic, I started exploring, maybe the need to get back into it.

So when the time came, I'd be ready. I started making those strides back into getting the license, getting re licensed in California. But as far as a lead source and anything to keep me organized, I just didn't have really anything. I really wanted to go full bore, 100 percent in. If this is going to work, it's going to work now.

Take whatever risks are necessary. So I asked my broker, I said, what would you think? What is your opinion when it comes to platforms like CINC? Our office actually used CINC as a platform. So she was all on board about it. What she didn't do was ever take advantage of it as a lead source. When we started the use of ad spend [00:02:00] and funneling leads in.

So I stumbled upon CINC in that regard. So when I first talked to my sales rep, I went, Oh, I didn't realize that's what this was. I thought it was more just a paid for a lead here and there, but it was a total ad spend divided by how many I think that I'm going to get that month on average, you get 30, 45 leads, something like that.

And that same happens while I decided to take the jump and take the leap, it's been great so far.

From my initial account manager from Nate Randall, who brought me in and scheduled those calls and spent that one on one time with me we walked through my dashboard. He'd be able to tell me here's what you're doing well, here's something you probably overlooked.

Check this out, probably help you out a little bit. Now Nate said, after the first, month or six weeks, I can't remember how much time I spent with him. We're always here for you, but now I'm going to convert you over to your regular account manager, but even in the meantime [00:03:00] I also had my trainings with Sarah, which was all about the training on the site itself. So I would say that I was having a difficult time just keeping up with all the trainings that were available to me. The more I, there was so much available, I had to buy out more time to do it myself.

But it was super, super helpful in all those ways. Sarah really helped me see the potential and the functionality of the site as a whole things I never would have seen, from my first introductory training. The training's been awesome. I can't recommend it more..

It's nice to see the engagement of when they register and when they log back in. And if I can see active users that are constantly logging back in or at least opening the email. Very quickly your leads accumulate. For me to be able to just quickly filter groups and go, okay, these are the ones that are actually going back to the website, that means I need to spend more of my time inking with that than [00:04:00] placing them in the pipeline.

Then there's those at the very bottom who just checked it out one time, left, and never came back. Not to say that they would at some point down the road keep checking out again, but They're probably not as motivated to make a move right, but I can use my time more efficiently by using CINC and its features, by saying who's using it, who's checking this out.

When I first started with CINC in mid June, I was thinking I would do 80 20 of seller and buyer leads. I started to see that CINC was designed around more of it a buyer interaction. And so I took a few weeks to realize that I talked to my account manager and he said, yeah, no problem.

We'll flip you to all buyer leads starting August 1st. Trying to follow the scripts, trying to follow, the call cadence and whatnot. Within the first week, I got a call from a buyer and his wife, John and Rita.. And what they were doing was [00:05:00] moving from Arizona, coming back to California.

He told me in the very first conversation, look, I'll be honest with you. I've got three realtors that I'm talking to. You're one of three. But if you can find me what I'm looking for in. Get us to the next step. We're going to be moving in six weeks. So let's see what you can do.

In the first few interactions there, I could tell that I'm going to have to do something different than the rest of the guys next to me, if I was going to get to this. So I said, tell you what. Since you're in Arizona, the house that you're most interested in, let me see. And by the way, that house already had an agreement on it.

So the buyer would have to do, or the seller would have to take backup offer. So I'm thinking my best way to audition for the business is to do a video walkthrough of the house if they allowed a backup offer. They were. So I went the extra mile and just did the video tour without ever actually meeting my buyer face to face, he says the other guys haven't done that, so [00:06:00] you've got my business.

The way it went through that particular house, I think he was at a $620,000 price point. He walked to the house, but the other buyer that was on the transaction ... We couldn't have that one, but as we started to look at some other listings, he came from one, two days, I believe, drove over to California and we looked at probably 10 houses and it ended up being above what he thought his budget was.

Long story short, within a week, we're in contract for a $760,000 house, which he closed upon on. October 14th, so I would say that was nine weeks after my very first contact with him. Again, within the first week of flipping all buyer leads, I got John and Rita, a [00:07:00] 760, 000 house. My brokerage's commission on that was 19, 000 from that first week.

The buyer leads are good because half of them end up being sellers anyway. So when you're looking for, if you're just trying to isolate the marketing with just sellers you're only getting potentially half of the transaction, right? But by signing up for buyers, if half of them or a little bit less or something are sellers as well, then you just, if they're in your same market, then you do potentially collect both sides of the equation.

People might dip their feet in the water and just go, I just see a bunch of junk leads. They're not calling back. They're hanging up. Again, that's sales. That's just what we can expect in sales. If you're not going to anticipate that going in, you're probably in the wrong career.

There is a bunch of pent up [00:08:00] demand, especially on the buyer side. They've seen higher rates than they've seen in decades. And now that we're coming down now to more reasonable rates, they're touching the waters a little. And even the sellers, as we start to turn over, they're starting to adjust mentally to what the rates are.

So they'll think about turning over too. So I look at this time as pretty crucial, that I get ahead of the curve a little bit, Build the pipeline now so that I know the 2025s are huge. CINC just allows you to pull all of these leads together. And as long as you follow the system, go through methodically do, the call cadence, and do it on a regular basis, the training's there. As long as you're doing it, you will have success. It's a proven method to do it. I can already see it myself. I'm looking forward to seeing what this does for me the following year.

It's about relationships. The longer those go, the more you'll convert. Unless you get a John that's ready to go right [00:09:00] now. And those come through CINC too.

In my house we have a saying, it's "do it right or go home." And I feel like in real estate, because of the turnover that we see and agents, 90 - 100 people get their license, 90 fall out the first year or something, it's some crazy number like that, and a lot of it's because they're dipping their toes in a number of different waters, not really fully committed to something.

I knew that when I went out with CINC, I'm going to have to fully, there is a sizeable investment per month to make that work. But for my ROI, I was looking at the numbers myself and the first commission of $19, 000 that my brokerage gets over the 8,000 that I put in so far. And that's not counting what's in my pipeline right now that I'm still building. I mean, the numbers really speak that if you're willing to put the work in and follow the model and put some of that elbow grease financially, it does [00:10:00] pay off. It is a numbers game.

You've got to be able to filter through the bad to get to the good. It works out, the numbers work.

My site is called temeculavalleyhomesforsale.com. Temecula Valley is this triangle, in the middle of wine country between L.A., Riverside, and San Diego. So it's a little sweet spot. So that's my site. I've lived in the area for many years and just love it here. So if you ever have any interest in coming down just to visit, I'd love to take you out to the wineries and enjoy it. Thanks.