October 21, 2021
Ginger Crosbie
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“Ghosted again! Why do all of my leads keep ghosting me??”
It’s frustrating…
You are paying for a lead and following up only to get ghosted and never hear from them.
You tried calling them back multiple times, but they still didn’t answer. What gives?
At Smart Alto, we know how frustrating it is to get ghosted by a lead because we know that your fortune lies in your follow-up.
You’ve told us it’s hard to find the time to remain consistent with your lead follow up and the fact that you keep getting ghosted isn’t helping your desire to remain consistent.
After all, there are so many other things you have to do on a given day as a real estate agent. You have:
And that’s just the work stuff!
You’re busy. We get it. Your time is too valuable to spend hours chasing leads that are just ghosting you.
That’s why we always use three specific strategies which practically guarantee a 90% appointment show-up rate with real estate leads.
Let’s dive in.
This might feel like a no-brainer, but make sure you set an appointment with your real estate leads instead of just randomly calling them throughout the day.
It looks like this…
(Editor’s Note: Read Real Estate Appointment Setting: Your Secret Weapon to Supersized Growth. It talks about the process you must follow to confirm a specific day and time you’ve both agreed to talk).
Like we mentioned, you have a ton of commitments and responsibilities in your day. It’s hard to break from a task and switch gears all throughout the day to try and reach a lead.
That’s why setting an appointment is so important. It not only respects your time but respects your lead’s time as well.
Setting an appointment establishes a commitment between you and the lead.
It’s a 15-minute block that lives on both the lead’s calendar and your calendar that reminds each of you of the commitment.
It also shows that you value their time and your time. It says you understand they have responsibilities and that your discussion is something important that requires time and commitment.
So what happens when you set an appointment with a lead and they still ghost you?
You make sure that you set up reminders for the upcoming appointment.
Oftentimes a lead isn’t ghosting you intentionally. More often than not they just forgot they had an appointment with you.
Think about it…
As a real estate agent, each day of the week can look different than the previous. You rely so heavily on your calendar because your days are in constant flux. You may have:
No two days look the same. However, typical W-2 workers have a set schedule. They go to the office each day at the same time and leave at the same time.
These people really only use their personal calendars to remember appointments, birthdays, vacations, or other one-offs. They don’t live in their personal calendar app on a day-to-day basis.
You can’t fault them for that. Instead, plan for it.
Send them text message reminders. Send them a few! There are services that can automate this for you. We know you’re busy. Why take the time to send manual reminders if a service can tackle it for you.
At Smart Alto, we’ve found that three reminders are good:
One 24 hours before the appointment
a second 30 minutes before the appointment
and a third 5 minutes before the appointment.
An important note about these reminders, they aren’t meant to be long or sales-y. They are a short and simple reminder of the appointment.
(Editor's note: You can learn more about SMS reminders by reading our semi-famous post called 13 Step Real Estate ISA Appointment Setting Template)
If a lead still ghosts you after the reminders that’s when you use Strategy #3.
Strategy number three is the clutch hitter in this three-step process.
This is the ace in your pocket that you saved for just the right moment.
That moment when you’ve done your due diligence. You nailed your follow-up, set the appointment, and sent reminders but the lead didn’t answer when you called at your scheduled appointment time.
So what do you do? I’ll tell you what you don’t do…You DON’T call them back immediately.
Calling a lead back immediately can feel spammy. In fact, if you call back immediately your number might even get flagged as SPAM or a robocall.
Apple and Google have made it simple to block and silence spam calls and if your number gets blocked your opportunity to connect with the lead goes out the window.
So what do you do instead?
Instead, you send them a screenshot motivator and this message.
A screenshot motivator is simply a screenshot of the appointment in your calendar with the lead accompanied by this message…
“Are we still on for the call you scheduled with me today at X time?”
That’s it.
That screenshot and text message is way more effective than immediately calling a lead that ghosts you a second time.
Why?
Because this appeals to the fact that people prefer to behave in a manner that is consistent with the commitments they’ve made.
If you’re not sure what we’re referring to you can read more about it in this article, 2 Things You Need to get a 90% Appointment Show Up Rate with Real Estate Leads.
Basically, this simply says that Commitment and Consistency is a core principle for influencing people and by sending a screenshot motivator you are very directly reminding a person about a commitment THEY made.
Stop getting ghosted by leads.
Instead, steal our three strategies to get a 90% appointment show-up rate with real estate leads:
Are you excited to try out these three strategies and start seeing your appointment show-up rate skyrocket?
Or maybe you’re getting hung up on the fact that we’ve been talking about needing to set up appointments?
If you’re feeling uneasy about setting appointments with your leads, download our Appointment Booster Checklist.
This checklist will give you all of the tools that Smart Alto’s team of ISAs use to set appointments and (practically) guarantee 90% of buyers show up for their phone appointment with our clients.
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The Smart Alto Appointment Setting System guarantees your team never misses another sales opportunity.