The first step to higher lead conversion is developing a better definition of what a lead is. What's the criterion of a lead for you? Is it a specific timeframe or level of motivation? Is this a subjective or a pre-determined scale you use? For most Agents, a lead is defined as any human being who can fog a mirror when held up to their mouth. It's basically anybody and everybody. That definition is much too broad for us to ever reach the Champion Agent level.

Too many of us are investing our time and money trying to convince any and every lead to turn into a good lead. We, in effect, say, "Oh, please, Mister lead, if I work with you long enough, won't you turn into a good lead; because I really don't want to have to prospect, and I need to make my mortgage payment next month." Are you trying to turn bad leads into good leads, or are you looking for good leads? It's almost as if we are trying to water dead plants in hopes of resurrecting them from the dead. They are dead ... move on! What is the quality of your leads right now? What would someone pay you to buy your leads? If the answer is not much ... Houston, we have a problem.

Champion Rule: The leads you have in your database are in other Agents' databases as well. Whoever calls them and meets with them first wins the game.

This, my friends, is the truth of our business. For some reason, many Agents haven't come to grips with this concept. We think somehow we are the only Agent who knows about this prospect's desire to buy or sell. This is particularly true of Agents who work exclusively by referral. You are making a huge mistake in today's competitive market if you feel that you have the inside track or non-competition track. Couldn't another friend have referred them to someone else? Isn't it possible that they searched the Internet a little and got information from other Agents? Could they have been out to an open house? When a lead appears, we need to take action toward a face-to-face appointment immediately.

Effective lead follow-up is like threshing wheat at harvest in ancient times. Threshing is, essentially, separating the wheat from the chaff. The good kernels of wheat would be removed and used for food, while the chaff would be blown away in the wind. If we aren't actively threshing our leads, we will become complacent. Too many leads can cause lead complacency. Too many leads can be a bad thing. You did read that right. Too many leads can be bad!

An overabundance of leads can lead to complacency in your prospecting. You can stop or slow the flow of new leads by reducing your prospecting because you feel comfortable because you have a certain number of leads (50, 100, 1000, or whatever the number may be). You may feel that you don't need to prospect today because you have enough. What if what you have left has a high percentage of chaff in it that you haven't found out yet? It's going to take a lot of effort to find that out.

When I started working with a particular client a few years ago, I asked him how many leads he had who wanted to buy and sell in the next six months. He said he had 247 that fit into that category. He was proud of himself, yet I found out he had not talked with them in a while, and he hadn't been prospecting because of this volume of leads. His attitude was "I don't need to; I have 247 leads". I asked him to call all 247 in the next two weeks and ask for an appointment. If they were not ready to list or buy, he was to set an appointment with them anyway to move the relationship along, so he could secure them as future clients. Two weeks later, the first thing out of his mouth before hello was, "I have fifty-nine leads." He dumped over 182 leads that were junk. He realized he needed to prospect to create new leads every day.

Published: May 21, 2010

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Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print. To learn more regarding this article, please visit www.realestatechampions.com.