So you are giving Agents lots of leads and they aren't working them. Why?

Ok, so after 9 years of using the Internet to generate business, and doing a pretty successful job at it, I've learned a few things.

Over the past few years, we have had a very good run of success with our online marketing. Our systems work and work well. However, no matter how well they work, I'm never satisfied. I've been trying to figure out why. Well firstly, I know that most of my Agents are mediocre at follow up. This has been an ongoing frustration for me yet I built my systems knowing Agents will be mediocre.

Over the past few weeks I've really been digging into the psychological reasons that Agents won't do the work. What I've found is that most Agents will convince themselves through a multitude of excuses why they are not successful and none of it has anything to do with themselves. I've had numerous meetings in my office to try to help Agents raise the bar and bring themselves to the next level. However, this hasn't worked like I had expected. They are all very comfortable being who they are and having the limited success they currently achieve. Interesting I think. Why would someone not want more out of their business?

Last week I had a meeting with my agents and we discussed what is holding them back. Basically it was the normal excuses we all hear. They are too busy to follow up with their leads (really??), they don't have a good time management plan, they don't like to make phone calls (they shouldn't be in the business) and a few other lame excuses. Keep in mind that my agents have a ton of training at their disposal through my Education company yet most of them never use it. Interesting again. Why wouldn't someone listen to the webinars or reread our training manuals that so many other agents outside our office have used to increase their business?

While we were having this meeting, one of my Agents said something very profound. He said, and I quote, "until you threaten to fire us, we probably won't do any more work than we currently do". At first his comment didn't sink in, but then, after a day or so, I realized he was 100% right. Let's look at the facts:

• My average Agent has 2000+ leads in their systems.
• They have over 150 leads each who have logged in the last 30 days and logged in over 100 times
• They have over 700 leads on average who have read their emails the last 30 days
• They closed an average of 19 deals last year and will probably be around that this year.
• Almost all our sales (329 last year) came from our Internet leads or a referral from a customer that came from an Internet Lead
• Those who make even minimal calls, make more sales.

Ok, so those are a few facts and here is what I have figured out and will be implementing starting next month.

The problem, and it's a biggy, is that when you are supplying other Agents with leads for free, they don't see any value in them. Just think about it. My Agents receive 1-3 leads every single day. If they don't feel like calling their leads, they know that tomorrow they will receive another 1-3 leads. It's very much taken for granted. So how do you fix this? It's really not very difficult. Agents need to have a financial investment in the program too. It can't be all about you supplying and taking care of them. It doesn't have to be a large amount of money, but it has to be some sort of "buy in" or they won't respect what you give them. It's not a priority because they have nothing financial to lose.

Starting on July 1 (I'm still working on the dollar amounts) I will be implementing a monthly fee for my Agents to receive leads and keep the current leads they have. At this point, the monthly fee will be $200. However, if they have 1 closing, the fee will go down to $100. If they have two closings the fees will be waived. It's my belief that the only way to really get Agents to take their game to the next level is to hit them in the pocket book.

What are the repercussions going to be? My guess is out of my current 18 Agents, I will lose half of them. Sometimes you have to take a couple steps back to move forward. In the end, even if I lost all my Agents, I would start over with new Agents that respect and understand the value of the lead system.

One thing I do want to say before I finish this post. I care tremendously about my Agents both on a professional and personal relationship. They are all awesome people that I feel need a shove to help them to the next level. In the end I will have 20 Agents who sell 40-50 homes per year each. That's my goal and I won't rest until I reach that goal. As much as I care about my Agents, it's time to take my game to the next level, with or without them.

So, if you are giving your Agents lots of leads and they refuse to work them, start charging them. Once part of the cost of burden is put on them, I believe they will step it up a notch. Of course I could be totally wrong, but I don't think so.