December 16, 2020
Hassan Riggs
Top agents know a CRM is not enough skyrocket sales
Imagine a simple ingredient you could add to any recipe that would instantly make the meal tastier, more filling, and better for you nutritionally.
Well, I don’t know of such a magical ingredient..sorry.
But I do know of a simple ingredient you can add to your CRM that will make your business more profitable, easier to manage, and give you back hours of your life each week.
Smart Alto!
Smart Alto integrates with dozens of CRMs and lead sources and just by plugging Smart Alto into your CRM you’ll get:
And so much more.
(Easily integrate with the apps you love. See our full list of integrations.)
Because we operate on such a large scale, your Smart Alto account will grow with you as you continue to reach new heights.
So if you’re generating 50 leads per month now and want to rapidly scale to 500 over the next year, Smart Alto is the CRM plugin you need today!
Let’s explore.
What Is A CRM
A CRM is a Customer Relationship Manager. Its sole purpose is to help you organize all of the customers and potential customers in your database so you can then create follow up systems for them.
That’s a critical thing to take note of, a CRM is an organizational tool that makes it easier for you to create a follow-up system. It is not a follow-up system all by itself, simply putting your address book in a CRM database isn’t going to magically turn into business.
Many agents think to themselves “I’ll just upload my database to a CRM and wait for the deals to flow in” and that’s just not how it works.
Instead, your CRM will help you create quick sets of filters and tags so you can quickly tell which leads still have some life in them and which ones need to be retired.
Think of a CRM as your professional address book, you’ll have a contact card for everyone who may consider buying or selling a home with you.
Instead of your phone’s address book we’ll just have their name and contact info, the CRM is the place where you’ll record your interactions with them and save relevant notes.
Maybe you’ll put your neighbor a few doors down in there because last time you passed his house while walking the dog he mentioned how much of a pain it is for someone his age to maintain such a large house. Sounds like a potential downsizer, right?
Of course entering that into your CRM doesn’t in and of itself mean you’ll be in touch with him but it makes it so much easier for you to follow up when the time is right.
CRMs Are A Great Start
Please don’t misconstrue the message here, a CRM is a critical tool and will help you take action in your business far better than simply adding another lead source.
But a CRM is not the whole picture, it is not going to catapult your business all on its own.
Instead, it will act as the foundation for a great converting follow up system.
A Great Follow Up System
A great follow up system follows a lot of pretty strict rules and can be hard for most agents and teams to implement on their own.
For starters, you’ll need to respond to all of your leads in 5 Minutes or less. That’s proven time and time again to be the most impactful action you can take in your lead generation and help multiply your open rate.
Even after that, in order to really maximize responses, the data shows that you should be making a minimum of 6 attempts to get in touch with new leads as they come in. If not, you’re only contacting a fraction of all the potentially convertible leads you receive.
All of this assumes you have already made the right decision to text instead of call, using the gold standard in response generating sales channels.
Of course, no matter what channel you use, you’re still going to struggle if you’re not using a great script like BANTAR and use that script to ask frictionless questions.
Once you finally get a response and have begun a fruitful conversation, you need to know where to take it. Look you’re not going to get someone to agree to work with you through text alone. So your next step should be a simple and very approachable 15-Minute Phone Call.
All these pieces together will help you build a great follow-up process but why recreate the wheel?
Smart Alto is a perfect follow-up system ready to be deployed in your business at a moment’s notice and with great integrations to most leading CRMs we can quite literally plug and play.
That’s why we say that Smart Alto is the one thing you should add to your CRM for massive results.
For the most part, every great business revolves around a few simple ideas. Smart Alto is no different in that regard.
Our founder, Hassan Riggs, has tons of experience as a Real Estate ISA (he’s literally set over 10,000 Real Estate Appointments!) and with that tenure, he was able to develop a few simple ideas that really shape our service today.
Fundamentally at Smart Alto, we believe:
Texting Is Better Than Calling
.... for initial lead conversion, that is.
Think of it as climbing a staircase where every stair is a more engaging form of communication. Sure you can try to skip the first couple of stairs but that’s just a waste of energy.
So Smart Alto starts by asking questions via text with the goal of simply getting a response, and that tiny little commitment is enough to build real conversational momentum to get leads to agree to a 15-minute phone appointment.
Thus moving them to the form of communication we all agree will lead to a stronger rapport.
Think of it as a foot in the door, it keeps the door from closing altogether and ultimately makes it much easier to get in.
15 Minute Appointments Are The True Peak Of Lead Conversion
Most of the Virtual ISA Providers in the Real Estate space deliver their results by letting you know which leads are hottest.
Smart Alto, on the other hand, sets 15-minute phone appointments with you and your most qualified leads.
Not only do you have enough time beforehand to prepare for the conversation but the lead will actually be expecting your call and looking forward to talking with you.
(Steal our screenshots, examples and templates from our blog post 2 Things You Need To Get A 90% Appointment Show Up Rate With Real Estate Leads).
Artificial Intelligence Is All Hype With No Results
Your leads aren’t stupid enough to fall for autoresponders and “AI” chatbots, they know when they’re talking to a real person.
Not only do they know when they’re talking to a real person, they prefer it, we saw an astonishing 15% increase in response rate just by proving that there was a real person messaging them.
These two simple truths are the key reasons we’ve seen every AI chatbot company consistently miss the mark.
(Read our semi-famous blog post called Why AI Falls Short When Converting Real Estate Leads).
The Best Script In Lead Conversion
Here’s the quick and dirty on the BANTAR script.
As you probably guessed, it’s an acronym our ISAs use to shape and mold conversations in a way that both qualifies your leads and warms them up to a 15 minute phone appointment.
BUDGET
AUTHORITY
NEEDS, WANTS, AND EXPECTATIONS
TIMELINE
AREA
RELATIONSHIP TO AN AGENT & LENDER
That’s Smart Alto in a nutshell but what does it mean for you and your CRM? It means you can leverage everything we do to increase your average lead conversion.
The reason that Smart Alto is so valuable is that we address the real problem in your business instead of just applying a band-aid.
The number of leads you generate isn’t the real problem.
Bad follow up is the real problem.
A weak, unorganized or inconsistent follow-up process is costing you almost well over 6 figures a year. We originally reviewed this in our article “Are Cheap Real Estate Leads Costing You 6 Figures In GCI?”
But let’s review.
As clearly demonstrated in the chart above, the difference between good and bad follow up is likely close to $300,000 for most agents.
Smart Alto is like a “good follow-up” plugin for your CRM. Once the leads come in, our ISA’s get straight to work converting them into 15 Minute phone appointments that you can easily convert into closings.
Think of a CRM like the hub for your business, all of your leads should flow right into it and with some stellar Add Ons you can greatly increase the functionality.
Some Add Ons help you make brochures, some help you send holiday cards.
Smart Alto just happens to be the only Add On focused on making you an extra 6 Figures every year.
We can do this because our CRM integration doesn’t just give you access to a few software features. Smart Alto gives you access to a network of highly talented human ISAs across the US and the UK.
All of these talented ISAs are ready to respond to your leads at a moment's notice and they follow all of the principles of great follow up
And by leveraging all of these great principles of productive follow up they are able to set 15-minute phone appointments with as much as 25% of your leads.
If you’re ready for the best CRM plug-in in Real Estate, schedule a demo with Smart Alto today.
The Smart Alto Appointment Setting System guarantees your team never misses another sales opportunity.