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Long-time CINC client Anthony Knight is a Las Vegas, Nevada-based real estate agent who is committed to agent development and client satisfaction.
He has been a top performer in the Vegas market through Century 21, RE/MAX, Keller Williams, and most recently, an EXP branch. With experience educating both his buyers and his team, he is now in the process of developing a nationwide agent coaching program.
He is currently the managing broker of the "Knight Real Estate" eXp real estate team. Here are some of his real estate team's stats by the numbers:
- Real Estate Team Size: 18 real estate agents and 3 admins
- Average Home Sold Price Point: $500,000
- Number of Years in Real Estate: 14 years
- Average Annual Real Estate Team Production: 320 transactions / $140,000,000
- Total Homes Sold: Over 3,300 homes sold
- Years Awarded "Best Real Estate Company" by "Best of Las Vegas": 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
How did you build your real estate lead generation and conversion system?
Answer from Anthony Knight: I started in March of 2009 during the housing crash and only closed 48 transactions in my first year. At that time, CINC was not established, Zillow wasn’t a lead gen source yet, and I had never heard of a CRM.
My broker primarily derived leads from an $8500/month yellow page ad. After that first year, I realized I’d found my calling, and I wanted more of it, so I went to RE/Max.
I started looking for an online resource because almost every single one of the 48 buyers that I closed came from out of our market.
There were a lot of Canadians, almost all cash buyers, and investors. I started thinking, “these people must be starting their search before they pick up the yellow pages.”
Right around this time, I happened to call one of my cousins up in the Pacific Northwest, and he said, “Hey, I can’t talk. My broker bought this thing called TigerLead (a real estate lead generation company later purchased by CINC in 2016), and I have all these leads to call.”
I Googled it and became one of their first signers. In my second year, I did over 70 transactions, and in my third year over 100. I never went down the path of cold-calling or knocking on doors; it was purely digital marketing and building a real estate lead database.
Within a couple of years, I found the need for an assistant and then started adding agents and growing a team. The first lead I got from TigerLead ended up closing 3 years later.
Now with 60,000 people in our database in 12 years, we’ve come across many people who didn’t buy until 7 years later or people who never bought but sent a referral. That’s why it’s important for agents who spend money on CRM services to have the right mindset and expectations. They need to be in it for the long run.
Example of a Geo-Targeted Real Estate Google Ad (powered by CINC) in Las Vegas for Knight Real Estate
Example of a Geo-Targeted Landing for Real Estate Lead Generation (powered by CINC) in Las Vegas for Knight Real Estate
Is it better to have a real estate ISA or a licensed real estate agent follow up with online real estate leads?
Answer from Anthony Knight: I prefer having real estate agents follow up with our online real estate leads. I’m not against ISAs, but on our team, speed to action is important.
If the agent makes the phone call within 5 minutes, you don’t need an ISA. I’ve gone back and forth, but I have a hard time getting an ISA that isn’t through a trusted source (through the lead provider themselves or in-house).
When you don’t have any control or access, it’s hard to gauge what’s really happening.
When a lead is in front of the computer and in the moment, they are receptive and more likely to get on board. Also, if we ran some sort of beta on ISA vs. agents, I bet the agents would have a higher conversion rate.
A real estate agent that is motivated and committed is going to be a better closer than an ISA.
Example of a CINC recommend opening line script for following up with a real estate lead that helps clients achieve a 33%+ appointment rate.
How do your realtors improve the conversion rate of online real estate leads into closings?
Answer Anthony Knight: Realtors need to be trained on how to educate their clients. Many don’t know how to handle objections. For example, people want to buy, but they might be concerned with rising interest rates.
One of the lines we like to use in our role-playing is, “how much is your landlord’s interest rate?” People ask why, and we gently remind them, “well, you’re the one paying for it.”
I think, as an industry, there needs to be better education on market conditions. I don’t do a lot of transactions anymore; I want to stay fresh and engaged in the market. I went from doing 80-100 transactions to less than 30.
I tell my agents every week that when they talk to clients, they’re the expert. Clients cannot be telling agents how the market is or why they shouldn’t buy, agents need to be educating them.
I’m in the trenches every day. I constantly hear agents getting an objection and saying, “thanks, I’ll call you next year.” That can’t be happening.
Additionally, I tell my agents, “If you blindly email someone with a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) without seeing their house, and it’s too low, you’re done.” We try to set an appointment to make a personalized connection.
We only started a few months ago, but I’ve been working with Grant Cardone’s team and Cardone Ventures (a one-year training program for business owners). It’s really helped me grow.
I got everyone on our team into sales training at Cardone University to improve real estate lead follow up. We do assignments every week, and every Tuesday, we have a coaching meeting. It orients our agents to think with the same mindset, and all those little things add up.
What are the the most effective lead generation channels for your team?
Answer from Anthony Knight: Our biggest real estate lead generation channel is Google Ads (which is managed and run by CINC). Our next biggest real estate lead generation channel is Zillow.
We also do a lot of our own pay-per-click campaigns, billboards, and some radio and paper ads.
An Example of a Billboard Ad from Knight Real Estate in Las Vegas.
We get about 300 listing calls a year to the office from our local marketing. Our conversion rate is in the 40s with local marketing, which has doubled by focusing on scripts and objection handling.
What tips do you have for other brokers and realtors building a system to generate and convert online real estate leads?
Answer from Anthony Knight: It's all about training, role-playing, and accountability when it comes to success in building a successful system to convert real estate leads.
We’ve hovered around the 300/year closings for a while, and I know we’re going to grow well beyond that. We now have an admin meeting every Monday morning and set our Tuesday team meeting agenda.
Wednesdays and Thursdays are 1:1 coaching and accountability questions. What’s the action plan? What should the follow-up be? Constructive criticism is a huge part of our accountability meetings.
On Fridays, we draw real estate lead objections out of hats and roleplay, which helps prepare the agents for those calls. We’re not trying to trick anybody into buying a house. We want them to decide what's best for their life based on the information we know. We know when the time comes, we’ll be their source. “I don’t care if it’s today, tomorrow, or in 10 years. I just want to be your guy.”
How has an all-in-one real estate lead management CRM impacted your team over time?
Answer from Anthony Knight: We pull real estate buyer and seller leads from multiple sources and channels and integrate them all into our all-in-one lead management CRM with CINC.
I really see the big picture here. It's about building and managing our database over time to give us a strategic advantage in the long-term.
Like I said, we have so many stories where we’ve closed clients who come back one day or refer us years later. A lot of the leads come out of the pond in our CINC CRM after 3 years, 5 years, or even longer than that. I feel fortunate we now have enough people in our CRM to feed us for life.
What additional benefits have you experienced from building a successful real estate lead generation and conversion system?
Answer from Anthony Knight: I’m working with a company to build out my coaching platform and software. I want to be able to offer that nationwide to CINC clients, to FNF clients. It will be online courses and coaching that I’ll sell online. All of the content should be ready in the near future.
Interested in learning more about Anthony Knight and his prospective coaching business? Follow him on social media and keep up at the end of the year for the opportunity to be a pioneer client.