A new service from Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Elite Connect Inc. offers to save agents from having to pick up the phone and call strangers to scare up listing presentations.
For $2,599 per year — and a $500 cut per closed transaction — Elite Connect will call expired and for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) listings on an agent’s behalf, talk the agent up to the potential sellers and direct exclusive leads from as many ZIP codes as an agent can handle within a single multiple listing service (MLS).
Elite Connect charges the per-year fee for each MLS coverage area agents want to mine leads from.
“Cold calling is a very discouraging business,” said Vladi Gold, co-founder of Elite Connect. “We specialize in that — putting people on the phones for you everyday.”
Gold said the script for the calls follows a basic structure, hyping the agent with specifics about his or her success (“We have the perfect agent for you”) and asking prospective sellers if they’d be interested seeing a listing presentation from the agent. Elite Connect then sends an email with all the leads it has generated to the agent.
Gold and a business partner founded the company eight months ago. Now, he said, the company has 40 people working full time calling expired and owner-managed listings generated from databases like RedX (expired listings) and LandVoice (FSBOs).
As another way to engage potential seller clients, the firm also mails out a flier to all of those homes in the designated ZIP codes, Gold said, directing homeowners to Elite Connect’s website and an eventual connection with the agent.
Before engaging Elite Connect about a month ago, Niles Bollinger Jr., a Keller Williams Realty agent based near Baton Rouge, La., used to make three hours of cold calls each weekday, and that was two to three times less than he felt he should be doing to generate sell-side clients.
“The opportunity to have someone call on my behalf was very enticing,” Bollinger Jr. said. “Now, I’m only calling (leads) that are serious.”
So far, Bollinger Jr. said, he’s received 23 leads from the service that have turned into three listing appointments and one listing. He expects two more listings soon.