When Should My ISA Lead Generate?

Hiring an inside sales agent for your real estate team is a big step forward. It’s also an increasingly popular step as agents and real estate team leaders begin to realize the immense value that an ISA can bring to their team. An effective real estate inside sales agent (ISA) will lead to higher conversion rates and has been shown to generate 5 times the amount of revenue that it costs to hire them.

But like anything, that level of return is not completely guaranteed. The success and value that an ISA will bring to themselves and to your real estate team depends on a variety of factors. These factors include the inside sales agent’s individual motivation to lead generate, the company or team culture and sales mentality that are cultivated by its leaders, and how the daily schedule of the ISA is structured.

Your ISAs Should Respond to Leads as Quickly as Possible

One of the most critical factors determining whether you’ll be able to turn a real estate lead into an actual client is the speed with which you are able to respond to them. In today’s digital world, most companies are getting tons of leads coming in from a multitude of online sources.

Buyers are able to access a variety of listing services to get information that they once had to go through agents to get. To take advantage of this new world you have to be one of the first (ideally, the first) to reach out to a lead. Of course, in reality it is not possible for real estate agents or ISAs to follow up immediately with every single online lead. But experience and evidence shows over and over again that speed to a lead has a massive impact on lead conversion.

The reason you hire an ISA is so your real estate team can get to more leads as quickly as possible. Their job is to start the conversation with leads, find out the problem they are trying to solve, and explain how your team can help them solve that problem and help them reach their goals quicker and easier.

What Time a Day to Contact Real Estate Leads

You want your team to respond to leads quickly, but there are also certain times during the day that are MOST productive for reaching out to leads. Research has shown that the best time of day to make contact with leads is between 8am-9am or between 4pm-5pm. That is when you should make sure your inside sales agents are concentrating their prospecting calls because it’s during those times that leads are most likely to pick up the phone.

Between 8am and 9am should be when your ISA is contacting those newest and hottest leads that have come in. And then towards the end of the day (between about 2pm and 5pm) they should call the following:

• Any nurtures not reached earlier in the day (leave messages this time)
• Any expireds, FSBOs and withdrawns from the past 7 days that haven’t been reached
• Any follow up tasks that haven’t been completed for the day or prior days

Have an ISA Work after 5pm if You Can

A study done by hireaiva.com of about 100,000 real estate leads showed that only about half are generated between normal working hours (9am-5pm). As I already mentioned, one of the most productive times to lead generate is between 8am and 9am. But there are also extremely productive times after 5pm and before 8am during the week. In addition to that, the study also found that about 30% of the leads were generated during the weekend.

What does this mean for your inside sales team? It means that if you are able to, (i.e. if you have more than one ISA) you should schedule different ISAs to work at different times of day. Creating separate shifts will allow your team to take advantage of all the prime lead generation times throughout the day and lead to more conversions and more success for your business.

Conclusion

Hiring an ISA is a must for your real estate team once it hits a certain size and amount of revenue. But you can’t expect automatic profits and success just through the act of hiring. They need to be properly trained and motivated, and work within a structure that will set them up to create value. And a big part of that is knowing when to hammer home the lead generation. Know what times a day and preach immediate response. Your real estate business will thrive as a result.