New agents building their practice may spend every weekend sitting open houses. Likely, they are dialing up everyone they know and they might even go door to door to acquire new prospects. These are honorable and productive business techniques. Once an agent starts building their career, however, they get busy and often prefer to use lead generation marketing systems that deliver clients directly to them, enabling them to spend more time working with clients than searching for them.
Online lead generation programs can be powerful productivity tools when properly utilized, allowing agents and brokers to widen their sphere of influence, build a pipeline of present and future business, and create the ability to close more because they can spend less time trying to acquire new customers. For a practicing broker, spending less time prospecting allows more time for management and expansion.
Michael LaRocque of LaRocque Realty exemplifies these methods at the office level. He has seen a major boost in his business since he began using ConnectionSM for Co-Brokerage, a lead generation program created by realtor.com®. After picking up the program three years ago, LaRocque transformed his role from a broker spending mass time out showing properties, to a broker managing two offices.
“I started small, but as I tracked the lead conversion ratios, I noticed they were viable and we were closing transactions from them,” says LaRocque, who directly attributes his success to his connection with realtor.com®. “In the span of one year, my business went from one office in a shared rental with just three agents total, to two offices in two counties with 14 agents. And I bought a building.”
