Sales leads are from Mars, Lettings leads are from Venus!
Whilst it is reasonable to assume that both sales and lettings leads are broadly similar, when taking the time to look a little deeper, the two could not be any more different.
To take this one step further, if we look at the often misunderstood differences between strategy and tactics. Strategy can be defined as an action plan that takes us to where we want to go. The tactics are the individual steps and activities that will get us there.
Let’s look at this in the context of sales and lettings businesses, the overarching strategy is broadly the same for both. Now if we list some of the key differences between the two disciplines’ leads, it becomes clear that we may need to have very different tactics to the yield most value from each.
Which type of lead is worth more?
From a purely revenue-based perspective, sales leads are rich with opportunities such as; financial services, conveyancing, potential house sales, buying for investment and other referral income streams. If we compare this to lettings, it is in-effect illegal to do anything to monetise the rental leads we receive. However, dig a little deeper and we will see that sales leads are often 5 to 10 times the value but lettings leads can be up to 5 to 10 times the volume.
How do you manage these leads?
As agents, we are selling time. How we spend that time will have the single biggest impact on the success of our business.
The answer is relatively simple, for each and every sale lead we need to combine automation with the necessary training and development of our most valuable resources, our team, to actively qualify every lead to identify their motivation, ability and needs. By asking better questions we can deliver better answers and service.
For Lettings, my personal view is that it is not commercially viable for most agents to employ high-quality front-end sales teams to engage on unqualified lettings calls or enquiries in the first instance. If we look at the questions we need to ask such as: affordability, CCJ, credit scores, etc. All of these can be automated and must be done and none of which can be easily monetised.
Let’s put this into context. Look at the race for agency talent, the industry skills shortage, and the ever-increasing cost of employment… Where would you want your best and brightest people to focus?
About the Author
Mike Nettleton is the founder of Agent Response
Agent Response, the portal lead management tool by agents for agents.
“Our easily customisable system provides busy estate agents with perfectly pre-qualified portal leads. Save time, raise standards and help realise your agency’s potential.
Agents using agent response have reported a 40% increase in front and lettings efficiency and a 10% increase in bottom-line revenue from sales referral opportunities.
We have an exciting roadmap for future development & would love you to be part of it.”