Wednesday, April 30, 2008

STOP LOSING CONTACTS

Dear Friends,

I'm curious if you are aware of how much business you are losing each month because of lost contacts?

How many calls do you get each month from all your advertising?

How many people walk into your open houses?

National statistics show that the you will receives on average 25 contacts per month from your overall marketing efforts. These 25 people are not prospects they are contacts.

You may be wondering what is the difference between a contact and a prospect.

Definition of a Contact: A prospective Buyer or Seller who Contacts you inquiring about information on a specific listing. i.e. Open house, Ad calls, ect... They are curious but act disinterested in buying now.

Out of the 25 people that may contact you each month the agent usually eliminates most of the contacts and works with 1 or 2 people. These 2 people now become your prospects for the month.

Experience also shows that you now will also turn 1 of the contacts into a Customer that decides to buy a home with you.

What happens to the other 23 lost contacts and what do we know about them?

50% of theses lost contracts will buy a home with in the next year.
That's 12 lost buyers.

Almost half of these 12 contacts lost contacts that will buy a home must sell their current home.
That's another lost 6 sales or listing.

Lets go over those numbers again really quick in simpler terms:
(see The Problem Funnel)

25 contacts per month
-2 prospects.
=23 lost contacts

23 lost contacts
50% will buy a home
=12 lost buyers

12 lost buyers
50% have homes to sell
=6 lost listings

12 lost buyers
+6 lost listing
=18 lost transactions

How much money are you losing?
Whats the average sales price in your area?
Whats your average commission?

18 transactions
X commission rate
= LOST $$$


Why are you losing these contacts?

Contacts are lost when they are in the educational phase.

If the Problem Funnel represents what the problem is, the Buyers Time Line represents why the problem is.


What we know about the Educational Phase:

Buyers from the time they start looking till the time they buy is a 6 to 9 months process.

That may surprise some of you, most agents think buyers are out there 60 - 90 days.

The 6o - 90 day buyers are past the educational phase. They are the bottom of the funnel. They are the 1 or 2 prospects that you are currently working with.

10% of the buyers currently in the market are in the Action Phase, these are your "A" buyers.

All the agents in your market are fighting for the "A" buyers, for that 10%

90% of buyers are in the educational phase.
They are looking at homes, shopping around, comparing values, discovering home styles, driving through different neighborhoods, and finding out what they can afford.

The average buyer, over the 6 - 9 month time line, will contact 17 agents. either through open house, phone calls, or the Internet. They are the also buyers that can lose there dream home 3 times and not care... and that is what drives most agents crazy.

What does this 90% of buyers want?
Information without obligation.

I would like to suggest that you have a system to focus and capture this 90% of the market before all the other agents start fighting over them when they become "A's" and turn these buyers into your customers or clients.

That you have a way to pull these 90% of buyers out of the market by having a way to nurture these relationships, stay in constant contact with them, with out spending all your time doing it, and turn them into your "A" customers and clients

So, we know know what the problem is and why we have this problem of lost contacts.

What can we do about it?
How do we do it?
How do we stop these lost contacts, these 18 lost transactions?
What is the solution?

A contact conversion / management system and a buyers incubation program.

You have a MLS system to place and incubate your listings, do you have a system to stop the problem of lost buyer contacts?

If you had a system to convert these lost contacts into customers or clients and dominate your market, would you find it of value?

I have a secret that I would like to share with you.
I have this system and can offer it to you at no cost!

You are probably curious what the system is and why I haven't told you about it before now.
If you are curious now, and you want more information, all I ask from you is that you want to increase your business by an additional 2-3 transactions per month, and you want to schedule a 10 minute meeting with me.

When is now the best time to contact me. JeffStanton@jeffreysjournal.com or 908-421-5247

On Your Contact Conversion Team
Jeffrey Stanton
Your Trusted Advisor For Life



One of the fastest ways to build a successful referral based business is by training. Now, with me, I like to invest significant time immersing myself in training, while some people prefer to take it in bite-size chunks. Whatever your preference is, now is the best time to contact me.

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