Ben Franklin said that failing to plan is the same as planning to fail. That’s why we frequently talk about business planning — because it’s such a vital part of your business. If your business plan doesn’t include a strategy for every unique lead pillar, you’re probably leaving money on the table.
First of all, what are lead pillars? They’re the various avenues through which you draw in leads to your real estate business — from referrals from past clients to referrals from out-of-town colleagues, from paid leads to those who find you online through organic searches or on social media.
Nurturing leads from each lead pillar means ensuring that you know where your leads are coming from. That means using analytics and asking the right questions whenever a new lead comes into your pipeline.
Many agents understand the need to develop a skeleton plan: Figure out how many homes they want to sell and how many people they need to engage to make that happen. It’s a great start, but it fails to consider the plan for individual lead pillars. Because these lead pillars are different, it’s important to have a separate strategy for each one.
1. Have a plan for each lead pillar
Working the sphere of people you know can be very different from working a geographical farm, just as working expired listings will differ from circle dialing.
- How will you work each pillar?
- What are the specific behaviors and activities you need to adopt around each one?
- Do you have automations established for the people in each pillar?
- Are your activities specific and measurable?
- What marketing pieces need to be completed?
- Are there any pieces of content that need to be produced?
The activities around those pillars will vary, and you must have a plan for each one.
2. Develop a plan and add it to your calendar
You’ve likely heard this strategy countless times before, but this time we’re putting it into action.
- Do you have a mailing schedule ready for each pillar?
- Have you developed a content calendar for the videos you’ll shoot?
- Have you established a time block for prospecting and converting in each pillar?
When you put it into your calendar, you’ll increase the likelihood that you’ll commit to get it done. I am sure that you have heard the saying, “If it is not in your calendar, it does not exist.”
3. How are you tracking it, and what’s the accountability?
Agents who are using different lead pillars are already working hard. Our next goal is to make sure we’re working smart.
- Are you monitoring your conversion rates?
- Are you tracking the number of conversations within each pillar so you can track your conversion rate for each?
- Do you monitor email open rates?
- Are you leveraging spreadsheets to monitor mailings or dashboards to track your data?
You must have tracking and accountability, and it will differ for everyone. It will also differ for each pillar, so make sure you build unique strategies around each of the lead pillars you use.
Many agents understand the need to develop a general business plan, but they fail to build a specific strategy for each individual lead pillar within their plan, and they fail to measure their results.
The problem is twofold: They don’t know how their current activities are performing, and they won’t be able to effectively evaluate new strategies because they won’t have any data to support how they’re doing.
Business can get chaotic, and unless we guard against it, pillars can drop off. Failure to fully develop a business plan for each individual lead pillar will negatively impact your effectiveness and your efficiency. It’s imperative to have these strategies mapped out.
Tom Toole is the founder and team leader at Tom Toole Sales Group. Connect with him on Facebook or LinkedIn.
