When Your Real Estate Leads Become a Network of People

Full disclaimer: leads are great for business. A healthy funnel of leads typically means that your business is gaining some recognition, and the public is generally interested in your services and the solutions you're offering. Converting leads to closed transactions is a healthy sign of business growth, as well.

Yes, leads are good, and everyone in real estate would love to get more.

Here's the thing. When our business is about catering to an experience – in this case, it is home ownership – we can't speak about lead generation and conversion in the same manner as other industries. Real estate is about caring for arguably one of the most emotional transactions a person will ever make. If we were to trade places with our clients, we would want to have an agent on our side looking out for our interest – both from a financial and a personal perspective.

The moment we sense that our agent only cares for his commission, and sees us as the conduit to that commission, we will lose faith in the transaction, in the agent—or, worse, in the industry all together.

No one wants to be treated like they don't matter—or, worse, like something to be used and disposed of afterwards.

Start treating your real estate leads like the people they are.

How are you defining your clients?

Here lies the conundrum: how do I properly scale my real estate business AND not make all my leads feel like they're just a number? The only way we can solve this issue is to shorten the amount of time it takes us to think of a lead as a client. If I can make that leap in my mind right away, then I stop thinking about leads – I start thinking about clients.

A client is someone that is much closer to my business, to my services. A client is a person that is much closer to me.

We can now stop thinking about a random contact that we need to call a couple times. We now think about people who we have contact with and need to provide value to continuously – either daily, monthly, or annually, in some cases.

We call them clients, and we become protective of them – not because we fear that someone will come steal them away from us, but because we want our clients' best interest, and truly believe that we are the one positioned to service them.

A client is someone that is much closer to my business, to my services. A client is a person that is much closer to me. A client means saying "Yes" to meaningful connections, interactions, personalized service, and a better outlook on a transaction. A client means "Yes" to people – and a complete rejection of impersonal attention.

When leads become people

And just like magic, the very tools we use to connect with our clients are in fact a full extension of this approach – tools much like Contactually, whose sole purpose is to empower your relationships through meaningful yet effortless outreach.

It changes your outlook on the business if your goal is to have clients – people who trust you and your services, and not simply get more leads. When others worry about lead conversion, you basically "worry" about connecting on a deeper level with people you've already claimed as part of your business family and community.

Clients. Not Leads.

People. Not leads.

To view the original article, visit the Contactually blog.