Recently we rolled out our partnership with SalesPype, a new follow-up automation CRM that puts Agent Legend to shame. How? It’s actually a CRM. The CRM functionality is fairly basic for now, but it gets the job done when it comes to tracking your follow-up with your leads beyond the initial automated campaign. Unlike Agent Legend which wasn’t really a CRM at all, just a way to filter through all of the leads that wouldn’t answer your phone or email (on average about 60% of them). Enter SalesPype, and the platform not only supports the automated text messages, emails, and ringless voicemails that Agent Legend does, but it allows you to do so much more.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the functionality, SalesPype allows you to integrate an inbound lead source (any source that links with Zapier, or that sends you an email lead notification) and will trigger an instant automated campaign as soon as you get a new lead. If you know internet leads, you know that response time and # of contact attempts are 2 of the biggest differentiators in someone who converts internet leads well and someone who doesn’t… This system will send a voicemail to their phone (without ringing to their phone for more than enough time to show the missed call notification), a text message, and an email within a minute or two of the person inquiring. Then, if that person doesn’t respond, it will continue to send those voicemails, emails, and text messages on your behalf until they do or you schedule the campaign to stop, whichever comes first.
Now Agent Legend does these things as well but ends it’s functionality there. Whereas SalesPype will allow you to create custom pipeline stages and campaigns that you can run that won’t stop automatically when the customer engages. Think about it. If you get internet leads currently, you probably take a reasonable amount of applications where the client doesn’t qualify because of their credit history. Imagine being able to put them in a credit repair stage in your CRM and having a campaign that will drop a recorded voicemail and text message to your lead 1-2x a month to keep their spirit up and stay top of mind while they go through the credit repair program they signed up for? Or sending a text once a week to remind your leads that are out shopping (or agents that you work with) that you’re available to help with their prequalification requests this weekend? You wouldn’t want that campaign to stop just because someone texted you back, “Thank you!” right? We find that feature to be pretty cool.
Anyways! This blog wasn’t meant to be all about SalesPype, and we’re not affiliated in any way other than the custom plan we have for my clients, but I wasn’t going to write a blog post about CRM management without talking about the ones our clients are using currently.
Part of our managed service includes a monthly strategy session where we review our client’s CRM and their interactions and make suggestions based on best practices that we’ve seen our other clients having success within similar markets. We teach a very specific system of managing the leads based on what allowed me to convert 4% of my internet leads inside of a 120-day window consistently for the year that I ran this system for myself and allowed me to be a top-producing car salesman working with exclusively internet leads in my previous career.
That’s not to say that this system is anywhere near perfect, but we’ve found that having a system beats having no system a million times over. Our clients find the system easy to follow and are already seeing the results from implementing it. It’s based on having different stages in your pipeline that you can place the prospects into. The stages we use are as follows:
- Lead- This is an inbound lead that has not been contacted. They are being worked by the automated follow-up system and can eventually be placed in a dead category if they never respond to the campaign. We do not recommend our clients manually engage with these contacts.
- Working (Internet)- These are for the leads that respond to your automated campaign and are engaging with you but have not yet applied. We tell our clients that every one of these leads NEEDS to have a follow-up activity on the calendar. Doesn’t matter if it’s 2 days or 2 months from now, have something on the calendar. If you do that, none of these will slip between the cracks.
- Working (Agent Referrals)- Same as above but for Agent Referrals that haven’t applied.
- Applied In Credit Repair- For leads that have applied that you have referred to a credit repair specialist or are following a plan you laid out with a score simulator. Put these prospects on an automated campaign if possible that is meant to invoke a response, so as to engage with them once or twice a month.
- Applied Waiting to PreQualify- For leads that have applied but are either saving for a downpayment or waiting out a waiting period for a derogatory credit event. Same follow-up strategy as credit repair.
- Shopping- Prospects that you have prequalified and are actively in a market for a home, seeing homes at least on a weekly basis. Follow up with these guys once a week to ensure you stay top of mind and don’t lose the deal to any smooth talking LOs they meet while out and about.
- PreQualified- Prospects that you prequalified, but for some reason are no longer shopping or are shopping very infrequently. Use a custom follow up schedule for these but as in the Working category, ALWAYS have an appropriate follow-up activity scheduled.
- In escrow- Self-explanatory. Weekly loan check-in calls recommended.
- Closed- Recommend calling to check-in and ask for referrals at least once per quarter.
- Dead
- Bad Phone Number/Email Only- This is a new category we are rolling out as we see many leads that enter a false phone number but a good email, wanting to be communicated with just in the least intrusive way possible. These are perfect to add to long-term email nurture campaigns and any regular communications you send to your database.
The key to having an efficient pipeline that doesn’t lose deals that you should be closing is to never leave anything to your own free will. Meaning don’t trust yourself to follow-up with someone without putting it on the calendar, because it probably isn’t going to happen! Use automation not because you can’t do the work yourself, but because historically speaking you probably won’t. Surrender your will to a system that you implement (like the one above) and I promise you, your wallet will thank you.
If this sounds like something you could see yourself leveraging in your business, but you don’t have an infinite flow of inbound leads, then check out our FREE 3 Step Guide to Generating Leads w/ Google Ads. This document is the DIY guide you need to start generating exclusive, inbound leads from people who are ACTIVELY SEARCHING online for mortgage info. If you’re not the DIY type, schedule your FREE live demo of our turnkey service here.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you at the top!
Michael