How to Pick Which Real Estate Leads To Call First

Identifying which leads to call first can be the difference between a very successful day of prospecting and a completely deflating day of No’s and wasted effort.

If you get started by calling the leads who are least likely to answer or most likely to reject you, you can easily drain yourself of mental energy before you get to the quality leads that actually will answer, or better yet do business with you.

You can accidentally let high-quality leads go cold by defeating yourself before you even get a chance to call them.

This topic fits in a very special place of your business for two main reasons:

We’re talking leads.
When we say leads, we’re not talking about active clients or your sphere of influence. We mean people who have at some point registered online to receive more info about homes or your services. More likely than not you’ve never spoken to these leads personally.

These are your calls, not texts.
It’s become insanely obvious over the past few years that text messaging is the new gold standard in making contact with new online leads. So it stands to reason that with this list, we won’t recommend that you call your newest leads first. You should text your newest leads first!

This is about prioritizing your calls.

The best agents focus their time wisely and prioritize the leads they have the best chance of winning. Rather than working through their list in alphabetical order or some other brainless approach, they allocate their effort and time to prioritize wins.

You have to start winning your day early, after all, winners win.

The sooner you get a win, the sooner you’ll feel like a winner, and what do winners do?

1. Call Your Appointments FIRST

Seriously, if you have a phone appointment set with someone CALL THEM!

I really wish this one went without saying but here at Smart Alto we set thousands of 15-minute phone appointments for agents and way too often we hear back from the leads that the agent never called them.

I mean talk about an easy win, this is a lead who you haven’t spoken to yet who is just waiting to take your call!

Just imagine if the first call you made today resulted in a signed agreement and a new client?

You’d be on fire from the start of your day and feel a whole new rush of confidence, right?

Why does that matter? Again winners win, so if you feel like a winner you’ll keep winning.

That’s called momentum, after a start like that you’ll be on cloud 9 and that bounce in your step will show up in every subsequent call for the rest of the day.

It shows up as confidence and when you’re confident you’ll perform so much better, leading you to close even more difficult calls later in the day.

2. Call Your Unkept Appointments

Next up, you should call your unkept appointments.

This one might seem a little less obvious but think about it, at one point in time these leads agreed to talk to you.

They either really wanted to buy/sell a home or they genuinely thought they could get some valuable information from you.

(NOTE: Want this as a PDF? Then Download The Ultimate Checklist On Which Real Estate Leads To Call First).

They didn’t suddenly have a change of heart and decide they hate you or that they never want to buy a house.

In fact, as we explored in our article 2 Things You Need to Get a 90% Appointment Show Up Rate it’s usually a lot more innocent than that.

And as long as you’re committed to doing the 2 things you need to do in order to maximize your appointment rate, you’ll find the reason the-leads-who-ghost-you don’t answer really isn’t much of a hurdle at all.

Odds are they just forgot or something came up at the time they scheduled with you and they have no ill feelings towards you.

So for all intents and purposes, these are people who want to buy or sell a home and want to talk to a professional like you in order to begin taking the next steps.

When you put it like that, this is pretty much a no brainer right?

For that reason alone you should be calling these leads second, if they answer it’s pretty much like getting on the phone with one of your scheduled appointments.

And coming off the easy wins of your appointments, you’ll feel agile enough to handle whatever objections or mental limitations that might’ve held them back the first time.

3. Call The Engaged Leads

Real Estate agents who don’t use Smart Alto often have a tough time determining which leads are the most engaged.

When you partner up with Smart Alto, not only do we set 15 Minute phone appointments with every lead we can. We also categorize the ones who are responsive but not quite ready to commit to a phone appointment. 

We put these leads into a section called My Call List.

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These are online leads that have been qualified meaning you can call and dive straight into building rapport with them, they may be more ready than you think.

At a bare minimum, you’ll know for certain that you have the right number because they’ve already responded to a text message or two.

How discouraging is it to make 20 phone calls just to hear “this number is no longer in service” or the wretched fax dial tone, ughh. It’s insufferable!

By calling your engaged leads before completely cold leads, you’re keeping your momentum alive and at the very least you’re practicing your gift of gab for the cold leads you’ll call later on.

4. Call Everyone Else Last

After you’ve spent the whole day prospecting on your most engaged leads and appointments, you’ve built up a ton of momentum and positive energy.

Leverage that energy to tackle as many of your remaining leads as you have time to.

Matter of fact, this whole routine is designed to build energy and momentum, it’s based on one of Tony Robbin’s principles.

This is a virtuous cycle touted by Tony Robbins for years.
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You start with the belief/attitude that you can have a fruitful day of prospecting, that gives you the potential to have a productive day, so you take action and make a few calls to your appointments, this leads to the result of one or more of your appointments becoming an active client.

Reinforcing the initial belief/attitude that you can have a fruitful day of prospecting.

Wrapping It All Up

At the end of the day, your business is as much about allocating your energy correctly as it is about allocating your time and money well.

That’s why we suggest you start with the calls that will help you build energy so you have a massive reserve of enthusiasm when it comes time to call leads who might never answer.

But what about your brand new leads, shouldn’t you be reaching out to them immediately?

Well sorta.

Someone should be reaching out to your new leads immediately but that someone doesn’t have to be you.

Here at Smart Alto, we have real live human ISAs ready to reach out to your leads around the clock.

They pretty much turn online leads into warm appointments ready for you to convert into clients. (At the beginning of your day so you can build energy!)

First off, if your leads aren't responding to you like they should, and you want to know why, take our 5-minute survey to find out why and how to fix it.

If you’re ready to save your energy for leads and clients that matter most and begin having 15-minute phone appointments set for you then schedule a demo call with Smart Alto today!

Either way, click below to Download The Ultimate Checklist On Which Real Estate Leads To Call First to learn how to prioritize your call strategy for maximum ROI.