Trends in Online Real Estate Lead Quality

Transcript

Tristan Ahumada: I'd rather spend a lot more money on building up that database, like with Facebook ads. 'Cause still for our area, facebook lead ads are the least expensive in our area. And enough I just wanna build out a database and then nurture them along the way through retargeting. Remarketing. I think to me that makes more sense than that 6% conversion rate on a Zillow lead.

Jeff Walker: That's a long-term play. And if you were starting today, like if you had zero leads in your database, it makes sense to go after some of those. Those leads that you can generate faster, go for those Zillow type leads that you're in, that are in your mix, because you can get them to close faster because they're property leads.[00:01:00] 

But it's hard to sustain a long-term business off of those because of that cost per sale. And so the way to sustain that long-term business is you build up that database. You're getting thousands of leads that are at a low price. That you have to nurture over time, but that feed you and feed you over a long period of time.

That's actually 1 of the things we're looking at today is, how those agent ready leads mature when they start out as a registration lead. Because these, leads that are registration leads are not typically ready to buy today. Half of them that do convert in the 1st year and then another half are going to convert after that.

And so the leads that you're generating today off of registration or Internet leads, they're prepping you for next year's business. And that's one of the key points. It's always building for having sustainable business in the future. 

Tristan Ahumada: All right. I like that. And for those of you who are jumping in, cause you caught us in mid conversation, I just clicked start. Jeff Walker with CINC. 

Thanks for doing [00:02:00] this. I know we're going to talk about trends and Jeff I want to show my screen really quick trend wise. Because this just came out, let me show share with you. It's a housing market update 2023 Redfin, October 19th. They always they do this every week ish or so. And you see here, Google searches for homes for sale in the nation, according to Google trends down 22 percent year over year. That's a significant drop, but I'm also noticing because we do heavy Google PPC that they're more serious. The people we're getting are less lookie-loos. They're actually looking and they're saying, yes, I'm aware. I'm still looking. What are you noticing? 

Jeff Walker: Yeah that's the advantage now is that I don't think interest rates are a surprise to anybody. So the leads that you're getting now, they're, they haven't been [00:03:00] living under a rock. So they already know the current environment. So that's the good news.

And so cost per lead for us has gone up a little bit to match the market. Leads were. $5 or $6 a couple of years ago, and now they're $7 or $8 per lead. And so they've tended as volume has gone down in transactions, of course, there's a corresponding increase because there's more competition for buyers.

But then what we're seeing is the intent is not dropping off in terms of the ability to connect with those leads and to set appointments with those leads. So I got a couple of data points on that because that's one of the things we track. We're looking at how many quality conversations are our clients having, and how is that trending against the market?

And you'll see it's actually the good news is and the encouraging news is they're still picking up the phone, so you can still reach a lead and have that quality conversation and start building them into your pipeline as successfully as ever. 

Tristan Ahumada: Yeah, I think that's the key in that. [00:04:00] We tend to shy away in a market like this from investing in our marketing and we're actually doing the opposite. But I also warn people that this is our strength, right? Our strength is the online lead conversion. It's always been from the very beginning. If that's something that your strength, or that you want it to be your strength, this is definitely the way to attract the most people that are interested.

Because I see it this way, Jeff, when people and I know, you guys have the data for this, but when people go on Facebook. They're typically scrolling through. I'm looking to see how my family's doing or my friends are doing. And then I see an ad and then I'm like, oh, that house looks cool. Click. My intent is almost 0, right? But I just like the house. I want to see more of it. Maybe it's a little higher. but when I go to Google, I have to type in homes for sale in Malibu, close to Pepperdine University, close to the [00:05:00] beach. Enter. That intent is so much higher. Which puts me down in the funnel closer to bottom of funnel and I love that.

So we gravitate more towards Google PPC, especially in this market. Where we're trying to attract the most amount of people that need to move, right? 

Jeff Walker: It's funny. And that's why I always say the same thing that the leads, even though they might not always give you accurate information up front, they're not registering by accident, meaning like they didn't accidentally type homes, for sale. And our advertising, it's very, we're not advertising on those broad keywords anyway, it's very niche and very local. And so it's people that are searching for specific locations that are in your market. And that's something that clients can can work with. They're asking to set up. So they have to be searching very specifically, land on the page, and then click on a listing that interests them and then have enough motivation to say, I'm willing to register in [00:06:00] order to see the rest of the listing details. And so it's not a mistake. And so there's a question, of course, of where are they in their intent and how long before they transact, but it's somebody who wants to buy real estate or sell real estate and is going to be interested and a potential client now, or in the future. 

Tristan Ahumada: I don't think I ever, as much as I talk about online conversion, I've never thought about that being another 1 of the key differences, which is google PPC, because you type that whole thing through, it's not a mistake. Versus, Oh, my son clicked on it, so I don't even know how I got, that's Facebook. But Google PPC, you can't do that. That's so funny. 

Jeff Walker: Even on Facebook, though, what's interesting about the Facebook is that oftentimes the ads are property specific. Like we have a product which advertises your listings. And so you do have the advantage of the clicks being for listings that you represent, and you're capturing [00:07:00] buyers who are interested in those listings. And so you're creating possible 2 opportunities there. And 1 of the questions that gets asked is, are you ready to tour this home? And so there is some qualification that goes on in those questions. It's not just one click and the leads generated. You have to, still have to confirm your information, answer a few questions about what your time frame is. And, one of the questions is if, you found the perfect house, when would you be looking to buy it? And so you get that information with that lead. Still there's information there. 

Tristan Ahumada: True. True. I'm going to answer Michelle. Michelle, the last webinar we did, I think it was 3 weeks ago or so, maybe a little longer with Alvaro. He showed us some graphics on a study that CINC did. It was like a 5 year study, or so, and our team redesigned the graphic. It's still CINC information you could see at the bottom, but these [00:08:00] are real numbers right here, percentage wise. You're looking at a 1 percent conversion. And I think the 1 percent conversion from the other graphs, I don't have them with me or bar charts or whatever. Is it in a 3 year length of time? 1 percent conversion in 3 years, the majority of the happen in the 1st year. And then the rest happened through year 2 and 3, but then you can see how for me. We don't use Zillow. And in our area, it's much higher than $5,000 per closing. It's $8,500 per closing. And over here, it's $1,800 per closing. Those are real numbers. And we've been doing Google PPC or Google ads since 2009 ish. But Jeff, anything you want to add to that? Because I know this is your data. Your guys's data. 

Jeff Walker: No, yeah. So it's, and I'll echo what Alvaro said that 1% sounds [00:09:00] like not a lot. One out of 100 leads transact, but that's about the volume game of these registration leads.

Because, when the lead is $6, $7, $8 dollars, that 1 percent is only costing you $600 per sale. And it also allows you to build a more predictable volume because you end up with a lot of leads in your database that transact over time. And so for building that long term sustainability of the business, 1 percent is a great way to generate lots of transactions. As long as you have good lead volume coming in at those low costs per lead.

Tristan Ahumada: I like that, man. Thank you. And for those of you who were just jumping in because we got another like 20 people who jumped in a little late. Jeff Walker's with CINC out of Marietta. Jeff, what's your position out there? What do you do?

Jeff Walker: I'm VP of product. So I'm responsible for what is new with CINC product. And so how are we adjusting the product to help agents be more successful, to respond to trends in the marketplace. And so [00:10:00] for us right now, lead quality is number one. And so when we look at when we look at our responsibility on product is how can we address, especially in a market where there's declining intent, more opportunities for agents to get hand raisers from their database. Folks that are saying, not just I'm registering on your website, but I want to speak with you specifically, and to make sure they're taking advantage of those opportunities. So the product changes we're making are really around hitting those goals. 

Tristan Ahumada: So what are you noticing as far as trends since you're in charge of this. What, should we be paying attention to when it comes to all of this?

Jeff Walker: Let me share my screen on this because a couple of interesting things. So we'll jump past this. This is basically the slide or the data that supports what you just showed. We love it when it goes up, but the information is good. And you can see that this, has been the declining trend in terms of the, the annual rate for existing home [00:11:00] sales.

And we all know that this has been dropping. It's down about 15 percent since the past year. And we've seen how this has impacted buyer intent on the platform when we look at certain engagements on the platform as well. And so that's really what we're looking to counteract. Okay. So we know there's going to be fewer transactions right now.

What can we do to help make sure that we're leveraging the transactions that are out there? There's still 4 million transactions to go after. And so we can be better at capturing those and as well as positioning ourselves for the future, because clearly we are at the bottom of a dip right now that as we look at today's leads that are going to be transacting over the next one to two years, we're really building up that funnel for the recovery that is no doubt going to happen when we start to see rates dip back down again. 

So as I was mentioning earlier. When it comes to in terms of just engaging with leads, this is one of the things that [00:12:00] we look at. We have this you mentioned earlier. You participated in that power hour where it's that hey, how many appointments can you get? You sit down and call leads. This is something that happens with our training team does as part of our CINC U, and it's happening at least once a month in person. And now we're doing it online as well. And we capture the metrics that happen during those calls.

And so we're looking to see two key things: how many leads pick up? And how many appointments are created from those leads, which pick up? And what's interesting here is you can almost you can set a clock to this trend line. This goes back to Q1 of 2021. So we've got about two years worth of data here for the 25,000 calls that have been made in this power hour at CINC U.

The pickup rate is always between 15 and 20%. It really averages around 17%. So they spent an hour calling in the afternoon and about 1 and 5 folks are answering the phone. [00:13:00] So this is 1 of the things that we look at. With this declining market, are people just not answering the phone anymore? That's not happening. They're still answering the phone at the same rate as they traditionally have. 

And then secondly, is this appointment rate. So the appointment rate represents for the calls that picked up, how many of them during that power hour agents able to get to agree to a follow up appointment? And that has consistently been between like 35 and 45 percent. Averages around 40%. So they're getting almost Path of those conversations to convert to an appointment during power hour. And again, going back a couple years, maybe a slight decline, but nothing that's too worrisome. In fact, we just had one, it's not reflected in these metrics that was last week. And the number was back to 39 percent in the last session. So we see these this dips and rises, but it's always in that zone. So what this tells us is that the leads, [00:14:00] Especially since now the leads that they know the state of the market, still willing to pick up the phone still willing to commit to meeting with the agent and establishing that relationship, building rapport, starting their search and the same at the same rate that they have been in the past.

So I see this and say, as long as we're approaching these with the quality scripts with the right mindset, knowing how to handle, you're always going to have leads that say, I'm just browsing, whether it's a good market or a bad market. So knowing how to overcome that and get them in a position where they're ready to meet you, if you've got that skill set going, we're seeing the same results as we always have.

Tristan Ahumada: Jeff, I love this man. I'm going to ask for you to share this with me later because I'd love to quote you guys on this 1 like I've been doing with the other graph. The number 1 question: where'd you get that data? I'm like, CINC has it, man. So I love sharing.

Jeff Walker: The trainers at these, they add them all up because every time it's a competition. So they, add them all up, [00:15:00] put them in a spreadsheet and I just added them all together and put them in this graph. 

Tristan Ahumada: Who were they calling, Jeff? Was it a mix of online leads from Google, Facebook?

Jeff Walker: For the majority they're just going through how we train them to call their CINC leads. So it's sorting by the leads that have been engaged in the platform, making sure you're calling those new leads, but it's really just getting into that database. The majority of the leads are the CINC web leads and seeing how many you can reach in 1 hour.

Tristan Ahumada: This is crazy, man. I'm looking at the the quarters here to see how things change. Quarter three, 2021 I want to know what happened there cause the contact rate was significantly lower than every other quarter. That was crazy. 

Jeff Walker: It can depend upon the location. How many agents happen to be calling that quarter? These are done in different locations around the country. And so you're going to have outliers from [00:16:00] individual CINC use, but that's why don't worry so much about an individual metric and just look at the long term trend.

Tristan Ahumada: Got it. I like it, man. A couple of questions. I'll ask Hannah's first to you, Jeff. Is there a specific time in the day that you've seen is more successful to contact people or connect with people?

Jeff Walker: I would love, I would really actually love to give you an exact answer on that. That's something that we're looking at right now, because we're trying to determine whether or not it makes sense in the product to make a recommendation to when the right time to call is. Of course, the best time to call a new lead is right after they register. No matter when. And if it's somebody who is raising their hand because they've just made an inquiry, the best time to call is right now.

So then it's really the question of for the prospecting type leads where you're not responding to a specific action, you're just doing a follow up, when's the best time to call? These are all [00:17:00] afternoon calls, and so we don't consider these afternoons to be the best time, but we can see that you're still getting a good 17, 18 percent conversion rate. But I would love to come back with an exact number because we're doing some research around this about whether it's 6 o'clock dinner time type of if that still holds true today in terms of getting people to pick up. 

Tristan Ahumada: I love that. There was a study done. I know this, it was the B2B Harvard. I think it was Harvard business. Who did this?

Jeff Walker: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The 5 minute rule. 

Tristan Ahumada: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I'd love to find out what you guys discover on this. This is cool. Definitely interested. What other trends are you noticing Jeff that we should be paying attention to?

Jeff Walker: Oh, quick, I'll go on to the next one, but for CINC clients. I did want to make one quick pitch. It's my responsibility to make sure this happens. We started doing these online conversion days to supplement the in person one. So anybody can join. And in this market, we want to give as many opportunities as possible to create an event around [00:18:00] let's call our leads because it's really emotionally often hard to do. You get a bunch of people together to commit to do it for an hour. See what kind of results you get. And have the resources there to help you get through the tough ones. That's what this is all about. This is for CINC clients. So we do invite you to to jump in on this call and you can scan that QR code to sign yourself up. These are free. 

Tristan Ahumada: So hold on. This is open for everybody or just for CINC clients? 

Jeff Walker: This is for CINC clients. I did want to, I think it's the context only makes sense because they're showing how to use the CINC platform. It's a good question as to whether or not this makes sense to open up for other folks. And I'll ask that of the training team as well. But right now, this is just for CINC clients. 

Tristan Ahumada: Hey, Jeff, you know what would be a great idea, man? I'm just thinking on my feet here, but hit up Alvaro or you and I can do it together, and maybe once a month, we could have a very similar thing on LabCoat Agents [00:19:00] where it's sponsored by CINC and we just organize it for an hour. 

Jeff Walker: That's a great idea. It doesn't matter what platform you have. The skill set of what to say when you get on that call with an internet lead for the highest success, that's going to translate, of course. And that's really what we're trying to do here. We're just trying to help develop this skill set so that agents can be successful as they can as possible with these Internet leads. 

And that's what the key distinctions. Registration leads, they're passive. They're they didn't ask for anything. They just registered to get access to the website. And so they're not expecting a call in many cases. And so there's going to be resistance when you initially call them. And so that's really what we're training around is how to overcome that resistance, that defensiveness, breakthrough, build rapport and trust, and then create a relationship, which is going to result in, in a buyer seller relationship with you.

Tristan Ahumada: I really like that man. Alright let me ask a quick question before you go to this graph. Everyone that's on, [00:20:00] let me know if that's something that you would be interested in LabCoat Agents. So we could have a conversion day, just 1 hour once a month where we all get together. And we just start dialing and just have each other as a support. Nobody has to hear you. But we're there. We're doing it all together. And if you get stuck, there's always somebody there to be like, hey, this is how you roll with it. Whether it's online leads, Facebook or Google, which I've been calling since 2006, 2007, and your database, like past clients, your spheres, just to get together to be able to do this.

I need a yes or a hell no, which one? I need. I need. Yes, because I think we, we definitely want to do it. Obviously we have it sponsored by CINC, because...

Jeff Walker: It's an awesome thing. And just being able to share your success. This worked or, hey, in that moment where you get stuck and you say, this didn't work. [00:21:00] And those types of things can actually, you're on your own, and make you not want to make that next phone call. To get that coaching, and hear from what's working with other people to get past that. So you can make that next call, be successful on the next call. It's so important. And it's so much just about doing those lead activities to get the results. 

Tristan Ahumada: I love that, man. All right. So we got a lot of yeses. Let's definitely think about this. All right, Jeff, show me what you've got here. What is this? 

Jeff Walker: Yeah. And so this is a metric we look at in house. It's called heartbeats. And so heartbeats for us represent the percent of leads that move from pipeline stage new or attempted contact to contacted in the first 30 days. And contacted means that a quality conversation happened with the buyer or seller. And so we know that it's the person who's the decision maker. We've had a conversation to find out their motivation and they've adjusted their pipeline stage in the CINC platform.

[00:22:00] So we're monitoring that because with our clients, we're helping to make sure that they are engaging with their leads in a way which will lead to success. And this also helps us just look at long term trends. And so 1 of the questions I had, of course, is with this change in the market, is there any change in the number of leads or percentage of leads which are being contacted and moving to the contacted stage in their database? 

Again, we see really it's following very much a seasonal trend, versus any type of long term trend that reflects a downturn in the market. So that again means that the leads that are being generated are engaging. And so we see at the beginning of the year, we tend to have a lot of engagement with leads. They're getting ready for spring. We see it tend to tail off in the summertime, usually November, December, not as great. And then we pick back up in in January again. This February was interesting actually. [00:23:00] And that the reason why the contact rate is lower is because lead volume really spiked this month.

There were a ton of leads that came through and it may have been this month, a little bit overwhelming, more leads that were coming into the platform versus agents ability to keep up with the flow, which could result in a lower contact rate. But we can see that then things normalized in March and have been consistently trending at this around 18 percent rate. This is across all CINC clients with thousands and thousands of agents are using the pipeline. 

Tristan Ahumada: You know why that is Jeff? I remember. This is my guess. Rates dipped significantly in February when they were spiking up, they dropped down to 6 and then they immediately shot back up within 7 days back up to 6.5 and then just continued to go up. So that could have given a bigger influx of leads when...

Jeff Walker: A little spike there.

Tristan Ahumada: Good man. I love this. 

Jeff Walker: Yeah, and so it just [00:24:00] goes to show, and that's the key message is, don't give up on the activities because don't let mindset of Oh the market's declining so that people are going to be less interested. People are as interested as they have been. And then if we look at, the top quartile of CINC clients. So these are the top 25 percent of best performing CINC clients. They're getting heartbeat rates about double of that of the average. So they're getting a 37.5 percent heartbeat rates, which means that within 30 days, they're moving. Over 1 and 3 leads from new or attempted contact to contacted, which is 1 of the key things that we can measure in the system because it's people are less likely to use stages downstream, but they're definitely using it up at the top here to mark the leads that they're engaging with. 

Tristan Ahumada: That's true. Really quick Jeff, I know this webinar has nothing to do with how you guys get the leads through the funnel, but can you really quickly go through for the purpose of understanding where the leads come from and how they funnel [00:25:00] through the agent? How does that work? 

Jeff Walker: You mean where they're originated like on? 

Tristan Ahumada: Google and Facebook. What does that look like? 

Jeff Walker: We place the ads that are basically targeted in the areas and the types of markets where you want to capture leads. And so you can work with the ads team to design what your ideal is, and then that's gonna basically generate these pay per click ads on Google. So when someone's searching for those keywords that you're targeting, they click the ad and they're going to land on a search results page, a list of properties on your website that meets that criteria. And then when someone clicks a property, they are asked to register in order to see the full details. And then when they register, that's what creates that lead. 

And so then our goal, though, is that's the passive lead. Our goal is to move them from that passive state of, I just registered and created this lead, to the hand raiser. The person who's saying I want to tour a specific home. [00:26:00] I have a question about a property. I want you to tell me if it's a good time to sell my house. Those types of questions where they're engaging with the agent and that's really our next step. I don't think we have much time to talk about it today, but our goal in the product is to move them from registration to hand raiser through the automations, the getting them back to the site. So that's listing alerts. That's AI that's engaging with the leads. That's all the automations and the CRM that drive them back into the experience over time. So that when they're ready, they're raising their hand and transact. 

Tristan Ahumada: Jeff, would that be a webinar that we would do with you then if we wanted to go that route? 

Jeff Walker: Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to. In fact, 1 thing just to take away. 1 more thing. I'm going to jump way ahead in this deck just because it's so interesting.

And that is. Now, this is a client that we're working with in one of our new betas. And we're looking at for the hand raisers, the property inquiries, the showing requests, we're working in the [00:27:00] platform to make sure that they're surfaced, that the agent knows about them and that they're prompted to follow up with them on a regular basis.

But this is just really interesting looking at this client's recent property inquiry. So this shows for Leads that are in their platform that asked a question, said, I want to see a house or I have a question about a house. The comparison to when they submitted that inquiry versus when they registered.

And this ties it all back, we were talking about earlier about the advantage of having these leads, which you nurture over the long term. They're low cost, but they convert over the long term, you look at how long some of these were between when they registered. And then when they actually finally stood up and raise their hand and say, I want to go see a house. For this particular client, the average time, but it was there's those ones that registered and submitted inquiry on the same day. But some of them took 2 years or 3 years and their average was 500 days[00:28:00] for this group of between when they registered and when they submitted inquiry. Now it's a long term client. They've been around for a number of years. So they've got a really big database that's engaging, but it goes to show the power of sticking with it for the long term. Because the longer you're in it, the more that database grows and the more you're able to take advantage of those relationships that have been built over the years with those leads who keep visiting, keep looking at properties, and then one day they suddenly pop up and say, I'm ready.

Tristan Ahumada: I like that, man. This is good. So question based on this. And it's not from me. Maria has a great question. Does the agent reach out to these leads to nurture them? Or does CINC have a process or is it a combination? What is this?

Jeff Walker: 100% it should be a combination. So we want to do as much as possible on the product side to make it hands off. But to be successful, they really should know who you are. Develop that personal connection. We certainly would never say just [00:29:00] don't call your leads. Don't engage with them. You should be checking in with, them adjusting their search, finding it was going on in their search in their life and building that relationship.

Having a follow up process that combines. Hey, they're getting good information out of the system that prompts them to come back to your site so they keep seeing you and engaging you. But also having that personal relationship that's built so that they feel a connection with you. They feel a responsibility that they should work with you when the time comes.

Tristan Ahumada: I love this, man. So what other slides did you have that were really good that we didn't get to? Because I'd like to see them. 

Jeff Walker: Something else that was interesting. This is a metric. That, really dictates the importance of what we're doing on the product side, trying to generate these hand raisers. We have that 1 percent conversion for all leads. And so that means any registration lead, the chance of converting is going to be about 1%.

So that's a [00:30:00] $10,000 commission, 1 percent conversion rate means that lead is where every leads worth 100 bucks to you. But then what we get that lead to do next is going to help to increase its worth. So we have, for instance, the AI which reaches out by text and then has conversations and then set sets a flag when it's agent ready, when they're ready to make an appointment.

So those convert at 5 times the rate of just a registration lead. So that lead that becomes agent ready via AI is worth $500. A lead that self selects and submits a property inquiry, so they're asking about a house that converts at six times the rate of a registration lead. So we can say those are worth 600 bucks. And then the showing request is the gold in the system, getting the lead to the point where they're saying, I want to see this house on this date with you. Those convert at 15 times the rate of just a regular registration lead. And so you see that showing request that's worth [00:31:00] $1500 on average. And so that dictates for us, hey, these are the goals we should be going for. We need to be generating a platform which creates as many of these agent ready leads, as many of these hand raisers as possible.

And that's where we've been focusing. Like this year we launched a new listing details page on CINC, which increased property inquiries by two times and an increased showing requests by three times. So here's the metrics on the showing requests. When we look at it across the platform. And it's interesting because we can see both the fight that we're engaged in from fighting against the market on intent, but the impact that we can have with product improvements and a focus on measuring and optimizing for these behaviors and actions that are most valuable.

And so we can see that ahead of this is when we launched our new listing details page and so... 

Tristan Ahumada: you can totally tell dude. 

Jeff Walker: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.[00:32:00] And but prior to that time, and if we extend it back the previous year, we were in this long decline of showing requests that's being driven just by there's fewer transactions happening in the marketplace, and so their intent to raise their hand and say, I'm ready to go see a house was declining. But we're still able to influence a lot by delivering a better product experience. And so with the new listing details page, we made requesting a tour a lot more sticky, a lot more visible on the page itself and optimized your mobile experience for tour requests as well.

So with that alone, we were able to nearly quadruple the number of showing requests that are being generated. But still we can see this trend line is we're fighting against that market trend. And it'll be, very interesting to see when it starts to turn what's possible here in terms of the conversion rate that we can get from lead to showing request.

Tristan Ahumada: I love that man. A question for me, and then I'll go to Peter and Angela. When you guys [00:33:00] were doing this, since you're the VP of trends and products, and you have your hands in a lot of things, this probably was an eye opener for you. What other things are you looking to maybe redevelop and change that this can happen with certain products that you already have?

Jeff Walker: So yeah, this actually is a slide, which shows across all the different ways that somebody can become agent ready, what that trend has been since the beginning of the year. So the blue bars here represent unique inquiries and showing requests. So a lead that submitted either an inquiry or showing request.

So we've been able to boost that significantly. And then that has now rolled out in Etta in September. And so we've seen that now the mobile app, this is that mobile app, that CINC clients get to share with their leads. That's doing a better job of generating showing requests and inquiries as well. 

But then on the seller side [00:34:00] the gray bar is what we call our Homepulse leads, which are seller leads or buyers that register. They register their home and want to keep track of their home's value and market activity. That is something which is building over time because it's a long term nurture in a lot of cases. We released this product in 2022. We've got a lot more potential sellers on the platform, which are raising their hands just from building a set of registered users. We're now tracking their house on the CINC platform as well to track market activity and value and such. And yeah, we're looking across various touch points to try to generate as many hand raising opportunities as possible.

And then the next biggest thing, Tristan, is getting agents to know that these actions are happening and to call those leads. Because one of the things we've seen is because there can often be a long time between the new lead and then when they raise their hand, those leads might be forgotten. And why agents are great about calling new leads. they're [00:35:00] so super about calling and calling them for the 1st week or 2, making sure that we're following up with them when they're demonstrating strong intent and engaged behaviors or requesting contact. In these cases, that is something which we've seen half the time they don't get contacted when they submit an inquiry because it's happening at that later time. And so that's where we've said Okay we can't just focus on generating more of these agent ready leads. We have to make it easier for agents to know this is happening and to be contacting them. 

And that's where we're releasing a new feature this month, which is just a screenshot of it here, which is basically elevating all of those inquiries onto the launch pad. So the agents don't miss them. And so that's all about when you get a contact request that it doesn't stay buried in your leads database, but that it surface surfaces up here [00:36:00] into a new section contact requested. And that until you actually reach them, you can keep this card front and center so you don't forget that you need to keep following up with that until you get that appointment. Because getting that low hanging fruit is... It kills me when, like the system works, and it's done this job, it's nurtured, you got that lead, it's nurtured for a period of time, then they raise their hand and then the action doesn't happen.

And since we've been testing this out with our beta clients, we've seen so many cases where they log into this new dashboard and go, Oh, I didn't even know I had this, I had no idea this person was saying, I want to go see a house. 

Tristan Ahumada: That's terrible. Jeff, I'm going to wait. And make sure that I take advantage of your partnership with door dash, so you send somebody to knock on my door to let me know that I have a lead. Okay. That's what I'm going to take this seriously. 

I don't know why agents suck at this part, man. It's ridiculous. 

Jeff Walker: Yeah, but it's not again,[00:37:00] we always look at it from the perspective of what can we do better? That means the product. The product has an opportunity to flag these in a way which makes it impossible to miss. And so that's the responsibility that we take. 

Tristan Ahumada: I love this man. The next thing though CINC is going to partner with door dash and be like, hey, you got a lead. Do you want me to help you with it? That'd be amazing. 

Jeff Walker: If you can get someone to door knock for you. That'd be pretty awesome service. 

Tristan Ahumada: That'd be amazing. All right, let's go to Peter. With long term leads, how often are you sending properties to help them make purchases or sales, because that 500 day average is a longer time, right? Year and a half ish. What does that look like for nurturing them? How often? 

Jeff Walker: Yeah, and keep in mind his is going to be a little bit longer because of the number of leads that are in the database, which are years and years old. But, yeah, daily or weekly, depending upon where somebody is, instant [00:38:00] can be certainly overwhelm... Instant is great if you're planning to buy in 30 days. You need to know the minute somebody's coming on the market, a listings coming on the market, but people generally, daily works to for folks to engage with when they want to, but it's not so overwhelming that they're going to unsubscribe.

And so that's the balance you want to take is make it so that it's not too often that they go I don't want to hear from you anymore, but enough so that you're constantly there when they need you. 

Tristan Ahumada: That's a good 1, man. Yeah, I like that. Thank you. And Angela Wallace- I get a lot of showing requests, but then I can't reach them when I call. Is there anything I should be doing other than continuing to call? Jeff, what do you think? And then I'll chime in after.



Jeff Walker: Try to reach them in as many ways as you can. And if they're not picking up the phone, they might respond to a text. I would definitely advocate for letting them know what it's [00:39:00] about. Typically we say, hey, don't leave a voicemail if it's your 1st call. If somebody's asking for something from you, I would advocate Setting that expectation that, Hey, I'm here to help you take a look at this house. Here's some options for what days I can get you in there. Let's talk about what works for you. But let them know what you're calling about. And then texting and emailing. Don't give up on email. Oftentimes people respond to email when they're not responding through, text and and phone. And sometimes I think people take it for granted now because it feels antiquated in the world of text, but people do respond and, make it personal. Always be thinking about building rapport with that, person so that they feel motivated to, to engage with you and call you back. 

Tristan Ahumada: Yep, that's exactly Jeff what I was going to say. I would just have a structure for it. I would call them, hang up if they don't pick up. All right, don't let it go to voicemail. If it goes to voicemail, hang up. Call them again in about [00:40:00] 20, 30 seconds later. Remember, this is for and just specifically for you who's saying they made an appointment or the showing request. Call them again, then leave them a voicemail if they don't pick up. Then you're done there. Then you text them and say, hey, Angela, I just left you a voicemail. Let me know if you'd like to see the property Thursday or whatever day at 5 PM. I can set that up for you. Or if the weekend is better. After you're done with the text, you're going to now grab that, put it in an email format. The subject line is I just left you a voicemail. And then what you just texted goes in the body, and then you're going to go back to a text 20 minutes later. And you're going to say, let me know dot. Because you never know where you're catching people at the beginning of this, but 20 minutes later, it's just a nudge. And the email that goes out, I would use CINC the whole process and [00:41:00] emailing them there because, they're getting properties through there because they just set the request. They're opening them. So I would send out the email through there. Hope that helps Angela. 

Jeff Walker: Something else for Angela is, build curiosity if they're not responding, send a picture of the listing or a picture of did you see the kitchen from this listing? What do you think about that? Try to engage them in a specific conversation that shows that you're a human, that you have knowledge about this. And maybe say, oh, there's a couple of interesting things about this I want to share with you, or I found out about this listing. These would be my own personal strategies of oh I looked up this in the MLS and there's some interesting notes on it that I'd love to share with you. And that way they know that you can add value. So it's not just you're getting back with them to show listing, but there's something more that you can provide to help them make a decision. So anything to do that [00:42:00] peaks their curiosity is going to get them to engage. 

All right. So now share my screen again. 

Tristan Ahumada: While you're sharing, Christina had a good point, too. If you want to try video texting video, that's a great option as well.

This was awesome, bro. Is I loved everything you shared because I love data. And then taking a look at how that compares to what we've done over the years. 

And look, if you have any questions about CINC, Jake's been putting up the link in there. We were with them from year one. So we love CINC. You'll love it too. 

Jeff, thanks for being on man. I appreciate you. Anybody has questions about CINC, jump on there. Jeff, I'll see you the next time. I'd love to have you on and dive deeper, man. Great. 

Jeff Walker: Yep. I'd love to. Thank you, Tristan.