RISMEDIA, January 11, 2010—Rob Minton began his real estate career some 15 years ago, and over that time, has learned how to earn income even from those leads that don’t pan out.
“Originally, I only saw the opportunity to get a listing or a buyer client,” says Minton, author of the book, Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents. “If a prospect didn’t respond, I simply moved on and let them go. However, I learned that just because they didn’t list or buy a home through me didn’t mean I couldn’t generate income from them.”
Minton says he started marketing investment properties to his database and eventually turned unconverted prospects into sales and income. “Your database is very valuable even if you don’t sell any homes right away,” he says. “You need to focus on extracting that value.” To that end, Minton is quick to advise that a good portion of his success is attributed to converting leads using several different methods.
“At first, I made outbound calls to every lead trying to set appointments,” says Minton. “However, I quickly realized I needed to do something else. That led me to preparing a sales letter, which wound up being the biggest sales tool for me.”
According to Minton, the original goal for the letter was to lead a prospect to the conclusion that he was an expert—the best agent for their real estate needs. Minton also added a call to action to the sales letter. “I said at the end, ‘If you’re interested in becoming one of my clients, fill out this application and fax it in to my office,’” recalls Minton. “My goal was to pre-sell the prospect.”
Indeed, his method seemed to work. According to Minton, “that was a huge turning point in my business because I was then able to hand off these applications to my agents, who were then able to convert 50-70% of them into exclusive buyer contracts. That one sales letter allowed me to stop making phone calls and, believe it or not, actually double my home sales.”
Even after his success with the sales letters, Minton continued working his database, which continued to grow. That led to him offering a free class for consumers.
“The goal of the class was to show these prospects why they need my help as their agent,” he says. “In this day and age of foreclosures, there are a ton of mistakes a buyer can make.”
At the start, Minton hosted the class himself in order to perfect it. However, after it began rolling, he then delegated the class to his agents.
“The class offered content and useful information,” he adds. “However, the goal was to lead the person sitting in the class to the conclusion that they needed my expertise and that it would save them money. And it worked.”
The biggest lesson Minton says he learned and applied to his business was to “layer multiple lead conversion approaches on top of each other.”
Minton has written a book, which details exactly what he did in his business to double his home sales annually. For a limited time, website visitors can download the book for free by visiting www.Free-RenegadeBook.com.
