RAP Success - Lead Conversion Experts

Rap Success Systems

One of the most common but easy to avoid mistakes I see in sales and marketing plans is not factoring in the primary motivation and pain that your target audience goes through on a daily basis.

Why is this important? Well, because it could cost you millions of dollars in sales and tens of thousands of wasted marketing dollars.

If you don’t clearly understand the psychology of your prospects, your headlines will flop, your ad copy will flop, your sales scripts will flop, and your listings presentation will flop.

I know those are dire predictions, but it’s the truth. That’s why, in my opinion, agents don’t use the right UVPs ( Unique Value Propositions) or worse yet, any at all because they don’t appreciate the importance of drilling into the psychology of consumers.

Here’s an example: There was a homeowner whose house expired after being on the market for six months. Now the seller is left wondering what is next. Should they list it again right away? Should they let it sit for a while and then relist? Should they get a second opinion? All these questions and more are floating around in the homeowner’s mind.

It’s most likely that the property did not sell because it was overpriced, had bad marketing and sales strategies, or poor negotiations, all of which can create negative emotions in the mind of the seller.

This is the point where your UVPs come in and are so important. Here are three simple but power UVPs you could use to mitigate all of that negative emotion:

Communication Guarantee- This will help the seller feel comfortable that you are a different type of agent.

55 Point Marketing Plan – This will separate you from your competition. What is common to you needs to be written out because it may not be common to homesellers.

Those are just a couple of examples. If you truly put yourself in their world, and design your marketing and sales around their needs instead of yours, then success will come your way.

You can find a sample of the best UVPs in the Ultimate Listing Machine Master Class under the “Marketing Strategies of the Top 1%” module. There you will also find a full breakdown of understanding the psychology of your prospects.

If you have not purchased the class yet and want to learn more go to www.ultimatelistingmachine.com or if you want to set up a 1-on-1 strategy session to learn more you can visit www.10xmylistings.com

Are you getting an ROI from Your Sphere of Influence?

We call agents who strive to go beyond the average to achieve mega-success “Rainmakers.” This series shares some of the tactics and strategies Rainmakers use to up their game.

When it comes to your SOI, there is a formula that can ensure you cash in on your SOI.

Let’s assume that your average gross commission is $7,500.  What if there was a way to get 43 additional transactions for an additional $332,000 in commissions? You would go for that, right?

By following the five-step process outlined below, you can achieve these results just like so many other rainmaking agents have done already. We base the five-step process on the Ultimate Listing Machine Master Course. If you use the course to follow the process, you will get a downloadable workbook and other resources to make it easier.

The five steps for success:

Database consolidation

Database detox

Partner with data providers

Database ranking

Use automated follow-up

The ULM five-step process is simple and powerful, but it’s not easy because it takes discipline. So, if you have the discipline to do it, then it won’t take a lot of specialized talents or skills. I like to give credit where credit is due. Part of what I do as a lead conversion expert in the industry is to look for other knowledgeable people who have a great message to share with our audience. In fact, part of the mission of Real Insider Pro, a division of RAP Success Systems, is to aggregate the best practices of marketers, influencers, top coaches, and mega agents to bring those proven insights to any agents who want to grow their practice.

For this article, I’ve used valuable information from the book “SOI: Building a Real Estate Agent’s Sphere of Influence” by Brian Icenhower. It’s an awesome book that I recommend you read. In one chapter, Icenhower discusses how you can predict your income by working your SOI correctly, reduce lead-acquisition costs, and increase profits. The best part is that the concepts he shares work very well with the technology used by RAP Success Systems.  

Imagine that you have 300 contacts in your SOI (you may actually have more or fewer).

I start with 300 because any agent over 20 years old should have at least that many.

If you don’t have that many for some reason, I encourage you to get Brian’s book because there’s a whole chapter dedicated to building an SOI.

One of my business consultants, Patrick Fenton, trains and coaches what he calls “the advocacy system,” you can check that out at one of our Crush It Events at crushitevent.com.  

Now, with your 300+ SOI database, how do you get an additional 43 transactions and $332,000 more in commissions without spending a lot of extra money on marketing?

Watch the rest of the video here to find out or even better; you can get my book,The Ultimate Listing Machine Prospecting Playbook” on Amazon. The ULM Prospecting Playbook book has all the scripts you will ever need. These resources contain very powerful and important training folks, so I hope you follow through on it. If you do, I promise that you will have a great 2020!

If you’ve been following the “$100k in 90 Days” coaching series hosted by Patrick Fenton, then you’re already among the exclusive class of real estate agents who do what it takes to position themselves as leaders in their market. 

This post shares what Pat covered in one of the most recent episodes. Here’s what he said:

I’ll start today by telling a quick story because it’s an awesome story. We love the rags to riches stories; those come from behind stories. I know I do because I think most of us can relate. It’s a quick story about a good friend of mine, his name is Ray Higdon, and he and his wife Jessica own a company called Rank Makers.

Ray and I have similar backgrounds. I was introduced to Ray about 13 years ago by one of my real estate clients, Ryan Chiodo, out of Naples, Florida. 

Ray was a speaker and platform sales guy for Whitney Education Services. Like most people who were in that industry, the mortgage meltdown and recession completely wiped out them out. I know it did for me as well. As Ray tells the story online, he “…ran into some problems, so life sucked for a while.” He was even facing foreclosure on his home. 

But he just woke up one day and said, “You know, I just need to get my butt going and I need to reach people–engage people–because I am very talented and I have skills.  I have all this knowledge, but it’s just that nobody knows about it!”

He realized the cheapest, best way to get started would be through social media. So, Ray got a piece of paper out and vowed that he was going to do one video every single day, including Sundays. You know, Sundays when the Super Bowl is on, and you’re cooking and have all kinds of other fun things going on. The days when you don’t feel like doing work-related activities. Ray decided to do a video, and he committed to that every single day. His commitment was not just for two weeks, like most people do when they say they’ll go to the gym, a seminar, or class. Instead, his commitment was for every single day, day in and day out. I believe this was in 2010. 

He started making a little bit of money, but obviously, it had a tidal wave of personal and financial problems that he had to address. But he just kept going, posting his videos day in and day out until he got more followers and attracted more people. At that point, he said to himself, “..great now I’m getting a following, but I’m I’m talking to like nine people.”  So while he kept doing his daily videos to attract  more followers, he also pulled together a little bit of money to place an ad. So now he’s actually running ads. Then he began to study online sales funnels and understanding the psychology of online sales funnels and learning how Facebook and Instagram worked.  He wanted to understand how to use the platforms to make money. His goal was to avoid all the traveling he had to do before.

All that said, while I don’t know exactly what Ray makes today (I’d estimate high six figures every month) he has an incredibly beautiful home in Naples, a beautiful wife, and baby He’s got a huge following now and his smashing it at his quarterly events. 

I love that story; I love seeing people win.I love seeing people with their backs against the wall and fighting their way out of the corner. It goes to show you that you really don’t need money. Nobody came into Ray’s life and said “oh you know what, Ray’s $300,000 in debt and under foreclose on a home, let’s just invest in him.”  So he didn’t start with money he started with guts, desire and commitment.

He started by changing his routine and his habits, even when it wasn’t always what he wanted to do.  He was working diligently for little to no money at first. Brian Tracy talks about this when he says, “You have to work hard for a little while and put in more effort in the work than you actually will convert to dollars for a short period so that you can enjoy the sustaining benefits for the long run.” That’s a principle we all know. 

When we work really hard it has this rippling effect, and it continues to spiral for us in a positive way.  That’s what Ray did.

So as you as real estate agents, how do we do what he did? How can we model that? 

Watch the rest of Pat’s video to learn how real estate agents can model the success of agents like Ray, to take their business to greater heights. 

You Won’t Believe What Happened in the Club Wealth Facebook Group!!

Hi everyone! Isaiah Colton here, I wanted to reach out with this incredible story regarding my Geo-Farming Secrets campaign.

So, about a week ago, I was interacting with a post in the Club Wealth private Facebook group when one of the awesome agents there posted a question about Geo- Farming postcards.

I jumped into the conversation because I happened to teach a program called GEO-Farming Secrets using what I call the 3S System. I told her I would give her free the series of 24 postcards and videos I use to farm local areas.

Long story short, over 400 agents in the group requested access to the free postcards and videos! I had to shut off my Facebook messenger notification because I could not get any work done! Those 338 comments are mostly people giving me their email and phone number to send them the marketing materials.

As I started sending the materials out one by one (ugh lol), I had several people ask me to put together an actual training so they could understand the entire system. Between those requests and how powerful the system has been for me, I felt compelled to put something more formal together and also allow you to get full access to my system and not just the postcards.

In the training I teach, “How to apply the 3S system” to your entire marketing strategy, “How I use Artificial Intelligence to identify hot geo areas,” and “The sales scripts” that I use to convert leads. You can click on the link below to get access to your free postcards and videos along with the entire system I use. Go to www.clubwealthgeofarmingsecrets.com to get your complimentary marketing materials.

The 5 Critical Steps to Cashing in on Your Database!

Crush It 2020

Today we’re going to discuss growth hacks. What the heck is growth hacking? Growth hacking is a way to hyper-grow your business. There are 12 key strategies to accomplish that. The first strategy we’ll cover is marketing. At the end of the day, if you don’t have a rock-solid marketing game plan and your marketing game plan doesn’t match the psychological profile of the client that you want to attract — good luck scaling your business over the long haul.

So we’ll begin by trying to understand the psychology of the home seller and what it takes to market to them the right way.  Here’s the deal, if you don’t do this, then your marketing plan will most likely fail, your ROI will go down and you will get crushed financially. If you don’t have some of the key things we’re covering here, then failure is inevitable. So, make sure you tune in and listen closely.

One common mistake to avoid when you’re putting your marketing plan together is making the primary motivation about you. That’s mistake number one. Here’s how that works: we talk about how long we’ve been in business, how good we are, or how many transactions we’ve made. Now that information does have a time and place. It should be a part of your marketing game plan. But if it’s at the forefront of your game plan you’ve lost the game, here’s why. Sellers have access to so much information and opportunity that they will pass you by if you’re not doing something to catch their attention.

Homesellers start making decisions based on your personality and not from listening for what value you can offer them. I will submit to you that if you don’t follow what I’m sharing with you, if you don’t implement it, over time, it could cost you millions of dollars in transactions, marketing dollars and profit.

Before you build your marketing plan you need to identify the psychological profile of the person that you’re want to attract. So let’s first focus on Expireds and FSBOs. When I first started my brokerage, although we were scaling for homebuyers, Expireds actually became a huge part of our growth. We got so good at managing Expireds that I could get on the phone, attract four out of seven and literally be out on an appointment the very next week, next day, or even the same day.  In some cases, we would begin listing the same day that we first made contact with them. 

So how do you do that? How do you get good enough? How does your marketing prospecting message get that good? Well, it starts with a focus on the psychology of the homeseller.  

The first step is to ask ourselves what are some of the key problems Expireds are having?  Most likely, communication with their last agent was probably a big one. We know this because, statistically, the number one problem that homeowners with an expired listing report that they had poor communication with their agent. They further report that the agent just stuck a sign in the yard then disappeared. So how can your marketing plans speak to that issue? Homesellers are thinking about it. Before they consider engaging the next agent, if they decide to go that route again, that agent will need to prove that they have excellent communication.  

Listen to the full training video to hear the other steps that help agents better understand and account for the psychology of the homeseller. Better yet, just get the full Master Class at ulmmasterclass.com to access the entire Ultimate Listing Machine blueprint. The ULM Master Class covers the 12 Key Strategies for success.

https://www.rapsuccess.com/growth-hacking-with-the-12-key-strategies-for-success/

How some of the nation’s top producers stay ahead of the curve

By RAP Success Systems

“It’s more difficult to stay on top than to get there.” Mia Hamm, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion.

Being the top agent in your market means building a practice that is not just okay or average. It means building a business that surpasses all the norms. Doing that means going beyond what the ordinary agent would do. Top agents stay on top by effectively managing productivity, innovation, infrastructure, and marketing. Once top agents set these cornerstones of their business strategy, they stick with them for the long haul. Here are ways you can hold tight to your top position:

Productivity

Reports show that nearly two-thirds (64.8%) of sales agents’ time, on average, is spent in non-revenue-generating activities,1 On the other hand, the productive agent spends more than half of their day in productive activity2. They spend less time on administrative, repetitive tasks, and more time on the tasks that generate revenue. 

Time management is one of the best ways to improve productivity. This is always a real challenge. Between phone calls, mountains of emails, listing presentations, prospecting calls and office administration, how do you stay productive? Time blocking is a practice that calls for you to schedule every minute of your workday. It’s an effective technique for real estate agents because it encourages you to spend your time on the activities that have the greatest impact on your bottom line, such as:

1.   Lead generation

2.   Client follow-up

3.   Marketing (your practice and your listings)

4.   Compliance and ongoing training

You should outsource or leverage technology to take over any non-revenue generating activities you’re performing. All-in-one platforms such as RAP Success Systems are designed to do just that. Are you using your time wisely, so you stay on top?

Innovation

It’s tough to stay on top of innovation in the marketplace, but with some focus, it will allow you to stay a step ahead of your competition. Start by regularly researching and staying on top of real estate technology trends. There’s a lot out there, so you can’t react to everything, but you’ll be able to identify solutions to gaps in your business or the market faster than your competition. 

One great example is the Real Database Pro platform which uses Artificial Intelligence to help real estate agents know, with impressive precision, which homeowner is likely to move and when. Imagine getting a pipeline full of leads that are “move-ready” while the agent down the street is still making cold calls to cold leads the old fashioned way.

Infrastructure

To stay ahead, top agents should maintain effective teams and processes. Do this by ensuring that you and your staff stay well trained to take advantage of the latest best practices and tools. Ensure that everyone is participating in ongoing training and taking advantage of every available educational resource. RAP Success Systems has a full suite of educational resources for real estate teams. 

Marketing

If you build it, they will come. Yeah, right. You can build the best practice in the state, but you’ll need quite a bit of marketing juice behind it to stay top-of-mind. Successful marketing campaigns needed to keep you on top include videos, infographics, blog posts, Facebook bots, email-drip campaigns, text messaging, direct-to-voicemail, and more!

This type of all-in marketing takes a team of diligent, focused people who execute consistently and flawlessly. There is nothing that gets you a better return on your investment than the right marketing strategies and campaigns. Staying on top requires that you leverage every available resource internally and externally to put together killer marketing plans for your practice. RAP Success Systems (RAPSS) combines the latest technology with the most effective strategies to make it easier for top agents to stay right where they belong, at the top.  

https://www.rapsuccess.com/youve-made-it-to-the-top-but-your-work-isnt-done-heres-what-you-need/

2019 RAP Success https://www.rapsuccess.com/ Cole Realty https://www.colerealtyresource.com/

If you’ve been following the “$100k in 90 Days” coaching series hosted by Patrick Fenton, then you’re already among the exclusive class of real estate agents who do what it takes to position themselves as leaders in their market.

This post shares what Pat covered in one of the most recent episodes. Here’s what he said:

I’ll start today by telling a quick story because it’s an awesome story. We love the rags to riches stories; those come from behind stories. I know I do because I think most of us can relate. It’s a quick story about a good friend of mine, his name is Ray Higdon, and he and his wife Jessica own a company called Rank Makers.

Ray and I have similar backgrounds. I was introduced to Ray about 13 years ago by one of my real estate clients, Ryan Chiodo, out of Naples, Florida.

Ray was a speaker and platform sales guy for Whitney Education Services. Like most people who were in that industry, the mortgage meltdown and recession completely wiped out them out. I know it did for me as well. As Ray tells the story online, he “…ran into some problems, so life sucked for a while.” He was even facing foreclosure on his home.

But he just woke up one day and said, “You know, I just need to get my butt going and I need to reach people–engage people–because I am very talented and I have skills.  I have all this knowledge, but it’s just that nobody knows about it!”

He realized the cheapest, best way to get started would be through social media. So, Ray got a piece of paper out and vowed that he was going to do one video every single day, including Sundays. You know, Sundays when the Super Bowl is on, and you’re cooking and have all kinds of other fun things going on. The days when you don’t feel like doing work-related activities. Ray decided to do a video, and he committed to that every single day. His commitment was not just for two weeks, like most people do when they say they’ll go to the gym, a seminar, or class. Instead, his commitment was for every single day, day in and day out. I believe this was in 2010.

He started making a little bit of money, but obviously, it had a tidal wave of personal and financial problems that he had to address. But he just kept going, posting his videos day in and day out until he got more followers and attracted more people. At that point, he said to himself, “..great now I’m getting a following, but I’m I’m talking to like nine people.”  So while he kept doing his daily videos to attract  more followers, he also pulled together a little bit of money to place an ad. So now he’s actually running ads. Then he began to study online sales funnels and understanding the psychology of online sales funnels and learning how Facebook and Instagram worked.  He wanted to understand how to use the platforms to make money. His goal was to avoid all the traveling he had to do before.

All that said, while I don’t know exactly what Ray makes today (I’d estimate high six figures every month) he has an incredibly beautiful home in Naples, a beautiful wife, and baby He’s got a huge following now and his smashing it at his quarterly events.

I love that story; I love seeing people win.I love seeing people with their backs against the wall and fighting their way out of the corner. It goes to show you that you really don’t need money. Nobody came into Ray’s life and said “oh you know what, Ray’s $300,000 in debt and under foreclose on a home, let’s just invest in him.”  So he didn’t start with money he started with guts, desire and commitment.

He started by changing his routine and his habits, even when it wasn’t always what he wanted to do.  He was working diligently for little to no money at first. Brian Tracy talks about this when he says, “You have to work hard for a little while and put in more effort in the work than you actually will convert to dollars for a short period so that you can enjoy the sustaining benefits for the long run.” That’s a principle we all know.

When we work really hard it has this rippling effect, and it continues to spiral for us in a positive way.  That’s what Ray did.

So as you as real estate agents, how do we do what he did? How can we model that?

Pat Fenton, real estate coach and Tim Green, top listing agent share insights on creating a winning system.

Patrick Fenton, speaker, coach, and mentor has been in the real estate industry for 18 years. Pat has presented live at over 800 events to over a million agents. Recently, Pat has partnered with Rap Success Systems (RAPSS) to help lead training and coaching strategies for RAPSS’ Real Insider Pro division.

Timothy Green has been a top real estate agent out of Fort Wayne, Indiana for over 20 years. Tim specializes in listings, luxury properties, first-time homebuyers, and staging. Tim has used RAPSS services for the past five years to help build his successful practice.

Whether you’re an agent who is holding strong but wants to kick it up a few notches or one who is struggling and needs to make some changes, the insights shared by Pat and Tim will have significant implications to your bottom line. If you’re an agent looking to become an elite listing agent and increase your sales volume by 10x or more, then these Real Insider Pro insights are critical.

The fundamentals of real estate needed to optimize your business never change.

You can probably think back 20 years ago and see that agents are handling the same seller objections they face today. Some of the marketing, technology, and resources may change; affecting where and how the consumers show interest. But overall, how agents sell and convert on opportunities, pretty much has been static for many years.

Pat calls it “getting belly-to-belly with your clients.” You can have tons of leads flowing into your inbox, but you’re not going to see the conversion until you’re engaging those leads, giving them value and doing something for them.

How do you address the client’s concerns and objections?

Tim puts it this way:

“I try to make sure that I’m not just answering just to answer I’m really listening to what that objection is. You have to slow yourself down to really understand the objection. I always restate, their object or issue so I can really get a handle on their concern. That also gives me time to prepare my response. So, I slow down and even write down the concern to be sure I get it right.  Now I’m ready to say to the homeowner “okay would this make sense?” or “would this be helpful?” These questions help me get buy-in from the homeowner as they’re responding with “

Yeah, that does make sense!” If it doesn’t make sense, then I want to understand why.

When you’re overcoming objections, how do UVPs come into play?

The reality, with the number of agents getting their license and entering the marketplace and the increasingly competitive the landscape, you must have a differential; especially when you’re working cold leads. Those are your Unique Value Propositions (UVPs). It’s not as critical when you have a high-quality referral with built in trust. Although, you never want to take any prospect for granted. But especially when you’re working cold leads, marketing-generated leads, etc.

Tim explains how his strategy includes:

Unconditional cancellation guarantee – gives them a warm feeling that this guy understands us he understands the fact that if we have any problems we can always cancel.

If I can’t sell your home within a certain timeframe, I won’t take a commission – that gives them a warm feeling like “Oh WOW! This guy is gonna stand behind what he says!”

I will buy your home if I don’t sell it.

(Note: have the conditions and structure behind this guarantee to make sure you’re not buying 20 homes.)

It’s important to customize the value proposition based on the particulars of the climate you’re working with to determine what makes sense. Focus on the things that can help you overcome the objections raised and help them see that you’re a professional who knows how to get their home sold. There’s really no risk to working with you.

Specifically, weave your UVPs into the conversation like “one of the reasons so many people choose to work with me is because you know I guarantee that I’m gonna sell your house within 39 days or I’m gonna work for free.”  That’s not a throw-away tactic; it’s a strategy that works for a lot of people. Equally powerful, those UVPs put the pressure on you to perform and do all the things you say you’ll do in your marketing plan. The good part is that it’s not a risk to you if you do your job.

Many agents don’t recognize that most objections that prospects throw out there are just smokescreens. Prospects are stalling you; they’re testing you. It’s just human nature not to want to appear easy. Most people are just fearful of making a bad decision. They think they can save money by not using a real estate broker, especially when you’re dealing with FSBOs. Our job is to reassure them and provide information that makes them feel like they made a good decision. They also want to feel like they made the decision; not that I made the decision for them. It’s the same with any major purchase; people are afraid of making the wrong decision and having buyer’s remorse.

Pat has many years of experience as a sales trainer. In that role, he finds that when a salesperson doesn’t lock in the words to handle the objections, then they really can’t say them with enough conviction to put you in a position of leadership on that phone call or in person. It’s clear where many salespeople fail is the point where they don’t simply look at bullet points. It’s not that they’ve never seen the scripts before. To be the best, you’ve got to look at your marketing plan and associated tools and resources to get the leads at the top of the funnel. Then after that, look at the strategy tactics and processes at the bottom of the funnel. Then it comes down to implementing, not just knowing, the best practices.

Fewer than 5% of real estate agents take the time to get a flashcard and say here’s my intro script, boom, go to the next card, here is my not-interested objection script, boom – repeating that process through the entire script for every objection.

Pat used to coach football for 16 years, and he says “as part of state championship teams, we used to tell our kids – listen we’re not gonna practice these five plays until we get them right we’re gonna practice them until we can’t get them wrong!”  That level of internalization enables you to focus on how you’re saying things, not simply on what you’re saying. That is what makes all the difference in the world. With few exceptions, if you’re confident, and you’re sure then your prospects are going to be sure.

Pat is working with Isaiah Colton to take every best practice they have about lead generation and lead conversion and put it into their soon-to-be-released Ultimate Listing Machine Playbook. The ULM Playbook will describe strategies for the marketing plan, lead sources, detailed scripts and develop the full game plan. Real estate agents will get all the scripts they teach, and the top agents use to convert at the highest ratios in the industry. That’s why there’s a lot of excitement around the release of the Ultimate Listing Machine Playbook. You can add your name to the waiting list to be among the first notified when it becomes available here, Add me to the list.

Follow up is critical.

Even when a lead seems to be warming to you, even if it’s a referral, it’s not guaranteed until the papers are signed. So, you must do the follow-up work to convert on your leads. Ask yourself, “how often do I personally talk to a prospect?”

Do you have teams and the proper CRM systems to help you follow up consistently? Do you leverage different types of communication methods such as email, social media, video?

Using those methods consistently, help you stay engaged, build relationships, build trust, and demonstrate your expertise with your prospects.

RAP Success Systems and Cole Realty Resource, two progressive real estate technology companies, join forces to help agents overcome one of the biggest challenges in the industry.

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” Jimmy Dean

In a recent Facebook live interview, Tyler Steenken of Cole Realty Resource and Isaiah Colton of RAP Success Systems shared how their two companies adjusted their sails to give real estate agents more leverage in the marketplace.

Cole and RAP Success Systems have established a partnership to make their data resources and lead conversion strategies work together. Harnessing the power of these two resources in tandem makes the data a thousand times more actionable than using either resource on its own.

The partnership began when both companies realized they had a shared mission to use their services to help real estate agents crush their goals. Most agents who turn to RAPSS and Cole are those looking to take their business to a whole new level in their market.

RAPSS exclusively works with mega agents and team leaders. Even among that elite group, RAPSS found that lead conversion was a huge problem. “It’s not surprising when the first training or advice new agents get is that building a successful practice is all about lead generation,” said Isaiah Colton.

RAPSS uses its strength with artificial intelligence to turn the hyper-local data provided by Cole into a SMART database. The result is a highly actionable lead database in a user-friendly platform.  It doesn’t get better than that for agents seeking to create their own sales machine. RAPSS takes it one step further by helping agents focus on different strategies that increase the lead conversion rate dramatically above market averages.

It may seem simple now, but there has been a lot of evolution in what data providers like Cole and lead management services like RAPSS provide. Both companies are experts at tracking the “winds” of the marketplace and making the necessary advances to ensure their clients stay ahead of the curve. In addition to technological advances, RAPSS also offers Inside Sales Agents as a team-building resource for busy practices.

“Because of the tremendous investment of resources and manpower that RAPSS makes to deliver services, we restrict the type of agents we support to the top agents; those who generate at least 30-40 transactions per year.  We also ensure we work only with agents who have a mindset that understands that their database is everything and it has to be managed and worked to be a cash machine,” said Isaiah Colton

It’s no secret that agents have to spend money on lead generation. There are reports of agents spending anywhere from $10,000 a year up to an eye-popping $125,000 per month.1  With that kind of money at stake, if you don’t have a rock-solid database at your foundation and you’re not partnering with advanced data providers like Cole, then you will never fully monetize all those leads generated, and you may even go broke in the process.

Consider this: the average conversion rate on internet leads is only 0.005%, ouch! Since the cost of lead generation will continue to rise, and more agents are competing for the same type of leads, agents will have to be more creative with how they’re attacking the marketplace.

“We started off 70 years ago printing Cole Directories. Since then we have expanded into an online platform and with Cole Realty Resource, small businesses are able to grow,” says Tyler. “With our database, agents can receive unlimited access to contact information such as landlines, email addresses, and cell phones. We had to find innovative ways to get cell phone numbers, email addresses and now even attributes like credit indicators and length of residence; that includes a robust set of analytics behind each record. We put a lot of focus on adding value so we can be a true partner to our clients in this changing industry. The Real Database Pro and Lead Conversion Pro products from RAPSS are specifically designed to make the data from services like Cole actionable.

The average agent just grinds through whatever data they happen to have. They pick up the phone and just start calling as many people as they can. But our job is to help agents realize that they need to be smart about what they’re doing to grow a sustainable business. You must reach out to those leads in a systematic, strategic way. It’s not about just buying the leads.

RAPSS is currently headquartered in the Eastman Kodak building, in Rochester, NY. Every day, the collapse of Kodak serves a reminder that you must stay ahead of the curve and be willing to adjust your sails ahead of the prevailing winds. “That’s why our mission is to be the company and team that helps agents convert leads. We are the Lead Conversion Experts,” said Isaiah Colton.

In fairness to agents, when they first got their license, they didn’t know they had to have a master’s degree in sales and marketing.  No one really explains that part of the job. The reality is that to be successful in today’s market; you need to be knowledgeable about fundamental sales and marketing principles. So, if you don’t already have those skills you have to be willing to learn them along the way. A quick way to acquire those skills is to partner with teams like RAPSS that have a mission to share those best practices with their clients.

To get more details about technology companies Cole Realty Resource and RAP Success Systems’ mission to help real estate agents crush their goals, listen to the full interview here: Putting data to work for you!

https://theclose.com/why-this-broker-spends-125000-on-lead-generation/

About Rap Success Systems

RAPSS builds powerful, simple and easy-to-use platforms to help real estate agents and brokers convert more leads and generate more revenue. The Company’s mission is to combine innovative solutions and modern technology to help Real Estate Agents and Brokers achieve their goals.

About Cole Information

Today’s real estate agents face enormous obstacles to maintain a consistent revenue stream — market dynamics and growing competition from other agents and digital alternatives are a constant threat. RAP Success Systems (RAPSS) simplifies and reduces the agent’s workload, providing immediate access to essential database management resources.

With all the technology choices out there, it’s important that agents try to find the most advanced and affordable solutions that can be easily deployed while meeting their market demands. Specific focus should be placed on three key frustrations faced by real estate agents:

Wasted time working leads who are just tire kickers vs. those truly ready to make a move.

Inefficient spend of marketing dollars that were meant to convert leads.

Missed opportunities in a highly competitive, fast-paced industry.

Agents who face these challenges will find a solution in the predictive technology employed by Real Database Pro, the latest service being offered by RAPSS.

Overall, agents spend a lot of money generating leads. Then they spend even more money working those leads or paying an ISA to work them. And many put just as much energy and time into cold leads as they do for warm and hot leads. How much more effective would they be if agents had a “move-readiness” score for insight before they worked the leads? You can imagine the dramatic improvement agents could achieve in their bottom line if they spent time and money more efficiently on scored leads.

Fortunately for agents, today there is artificial intelligence powered by advanced algorithms to find the “most-likely” movers.

Through its Real Database Pro platform, Rap Success System is the first all-in-one real estate marketing service company to give agents the opportunity to build a SMART database using predictive analytics to help improve their bottom line. The powerful “most-likely mover” prediction technology automates the painstaking process agents normally go through to uncover opportunities who are ready to take action now.

Imagine knowing, within a small margin of error, when your past clients, your new internet leads, or geo-targeted data are most likely to buy or sell a home. This is now possible utilizing the “Social Score” feature of the technology.

RAPSS leverages intelligent software along with other technologies to deliver a done-for-you solution to real estate agents. Through these technology-stack strategies, RAPSS offers unparalleled features and support, including database aggregation, consolidation and optimization capabilities that address the most demanding market dynamics.

How some of the nation’s top producers stay ahead of the curve

By RAP Success Systems

“It’s more difficult to stay on top than to get there.” Mia Hamm, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion.

Being the top agent in your market means building a practice that is not just okay or average. It means building a business that surpasses all the norms. Doing that means going beyond what the ordinary agent would do. Top agents stay on top by effectively managing productivity, innovation, infrastructure, and marketing. Once top agents set these cornerstones of their business strategy, they stick with them for the long haul. Here are ways you can hold tight to your top position:

Productivity

Reports show that nearly two-thirds (64.8%) of sales agents’ time, on average, is spent in non-revenue-generating activities,1 On the other hand, the productive agent spends more than half of their day in productive activity2. They spend less time on administrative, repetitive tasks, and more time on the tasks that generate revenue.

Time management is one of the best ways to improve productivity. This is always a real challenge. Between phone calls, mountains of emails, listing presentations, prospecting calls and office administration, how do you stay productive? Time blocking is a practice that calls for you to schedule every minute of your workday. It’s an effective technique for real estate agents because it encourages you to spend your time on the activities that have the greatest impact on your bottom line, such as:

1.   Lead generation

2.   Client follow-up

3.   Marketing (your practice and your listings)

4.   Compliance and ongoing training

You should outsource or leverage technology to take over any non-revenue generating activities you’re performing. All-in-one platforms such as RAP Success Systems are designed to do just that. Are you using your time wisely, so you stay on top?

Innovation

It’s tough to stay on top of innovation in the marketplace, but with some focus, it will allow you to stay a step ahead of your competition. Start by regularly researching and staying on top of real estate technology trends. There’s a lot out there, so you can’t react to everything, but you’ll be able to identify solutions to gaps in your business or the market faster than your competition.

One great example is the Real Database Pro platform which uses Artificial Intelligence to help real estate agents know, with impressive precision, which homeowner is likely to move and when. Imagine getting a pipeline full of leads that are “move-ready” while the agent down the street is still making cold calls to cold leads the old fashioned way.

Infrastructure

To stay ahead, top agents should maintain effective teams and processes. Do this by ensuring that you and your staff stay well trained to take advantage of the latest best practices and tools. Ensure that everyone is participating in ongoing training and taking advantage of every available educational resource. RAP Success Systems has a full suite of educational resources for real estate teams.

Marketing

If you build it, they will come. Yeah, right. You can build the best practice in the state, but you’ll need quite a bit of marketing juice behind it to stay top-of-mind. Successful marketing campaigns needed to keep you on top include videos, infographics, blog posts, Facebook bots, email-drip campaigns, text messaging, direct-to-voicemail, and more!

This type of all-in marketing takes a team of diligent, focused people who execute consistently and flawlessly. There is nothing that gets you a better return on your investment than the right marketing strategies and campaigns. Staying on top requires that you leverage every available resource internally and externally to put together killer marketing plans for your practice. RAP Success Systems (RAPSS) combines the latest technology with the most effective strategies to make it easier for top agents to stay right where they belong, at the top.

Fully trained, US-based ISAs with dedicated teams assigned to your practice.

Fast and consistent outreach to your leads to increase conversion, including Live Transfers of the hottest leads directly to you in real-time.

All-in-one, done-for-you marketing automation to keep you engaged with every lead in your database using the premier Real CRM Pro that identifies “move-ready” leads.

Free access to intensive coaching, training, and peer-to-peer mastermind groups to help you and your team stay sharp.

Agents choose customized packages based on the sales growth targets they want the service to help deliver. While the leads that RAPSS delivers are warm, agents must have a savvy follow-up procedure and effective closing strategies to turn them into clients. This is truly a partnership requiring both the agent and RAPSS to roll up our sleeves and deliver more leads than you ever thought possible!

With automation, delegation, and optimization in play, we position your business to achieve its goals and ensure you don’t miss a step to stay successful.

RAP Success Systems and Cole Realty Resource, two progressive real estate technology companies, join forces to help agents overcome one of the biggest challenges in the industry.

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” Jimmy Dean

In a recent Facebook live interview, Tyler Steenken of Cole Realty Resource and Isaiah Colton of RAP Success Systems shared how their two companies adjusted their sails to give real estate agents more leverage in the marketplace.

Cole and RAPSS have established a partnership to make their data resources and lead conversion strategies work together. Harnessing the power of these two resources in tandem makes the data a thousand times more actionable than using either resource on its own.

The partnership began when both companies realized they had a shared mission to use their services to help real estate agents crush their goals. Most agents who turn to RAPSS and Cole are those looking to take their business to a whole new level in their market.

RAPSS exclusively works with mega agents and team leaders. Even among that elite group, RAPSS found that lead conversion was a huge problem. “It’s not surprising when the first training or advice new agents get is that building a successful practice is all about lead generation,” said Isaiah Colton.

RAPSS uses its strength with artificial intelligence to turn the hyper-local data provided by Cole into a SMART database. The result is a highly actionable lead database in a user-friendly platform.  It doesn’t get better than that for agents seeking to create their own sales machine. RAPSS takes it one step further by helping agents focus on different strategies that increase the lead conversion rate dramatically above market averages.

It may seem simple now, but there has been a lot of evolution in what data providers like Cole and lead management services like RAPSS provide. Both companies are experts at tracking the “winds” of the marketplace and making the necessary advances to ensure their clients stay ahead of the curve. In addition to technological advances, RAPSS also offers Inside Sales Agents as a team-building resource for busy practices.

“Because of the tremendous investment of resources and manpower that RAPSS makes to deliver services, we restrict the type of agents we support to the top agents; those who generate at least 30-40 transactions per year.  We also ensure we work only with agents who have a mindset that understands that their database is everything and it has to be managed and worked to be a cash machine,” said Isaiah Colton

It’s no secret that agents have to spend money on lead generation. There are reports of agents spending anywhere from $10,000 a year up to an eye-popping $125,000 per month.1  With that kind of money at stake, if you don’t have a rock-solid database at your foundation and you’re not partnering with advanced data providers like Cole, then you will never fully monetize all those leads generated, and you may even go broke in the process.

Consider this: the average conversion rate on internet leads is only 0.005%, ouch! Since the cost of lead generation will continue to rise, and more agents are competing for the same type of leads, agents will have to be more creative with how they’re attacking the marketplace.

“We started off 70 years ago printing Cole Directories. Since then we have expanded into an online platform and with Cole Realty Resource, small businesses are able to grow,” says Tyler. “With our database, agents can receive unlimited access to contact information such as landlines, email addresses, and cell phones. We had to find innovative ways to get cell phone numbers, email addresses and now even attributes like credit indicators and length of residence; that includes a robust set of analytics behind each record. We put a lot of focus on adding value so we can be a true partner to our clients in this changing industry. The Real Database Pro and Lead Conversion Pro products from RAPSS are specifically designed to make the data from services like Cole actionable.

The average agent just grinds through whatever data they happen to have. They pick up the phone and just start calling as many people as they can. But our job is to help agents realize that they need to be smart about what they’re doing to grow a sustainable business. You must reach out to those leads in a systematic, strategic way. It’s not about just buying the leads.

RAPSS is currently headquartered in the Eastman Kodak building, in Rochester, NY. Every day, the collapse of Kodak serves a reminder that you must stay ahead of the curve and be willing to adjust your sails ahead of the prevailing winds. “That’s why our mission is to be the company and team that helps agents convert leads. We are the Lead Conversion Experts,” said Isaiah Colton.

In fairness to agents, when they first got their license, they didn’t know they had to have a master’s degree in sales and marketing.  No one really explains that part of the job. The reality is that to be successful in today’s market; you need to be knowledgeable about fundamental sales and marketing principles. So, if you don’t already have those skills you have to be willing to learn them along the way. A quick way to acquire those skills is to partner with teams like RAPSS that have a mission to share those best practices with their clients.

To get more details about technology companies Cole Realty Resource and RAP Success Systems’ mission to help real estate agents crush their goals, listen to the full interview here: Putting data to work for you!

https://theclose.com/why-this-broker-spends-125000-on-lead-generation/

About Rap Success Systems

RAPSS builds powerful, simple and easy-to-use platforms to help real estate agents and brokers convert more leads and generate more revenue. The Company’s mission is to combine innovative solutions and modern technology to help Real Estate Agents and Brokers achieve their goals.

About Cole Information

Cole Realty Resource is a product of Cole Information. Cole Information is a leading provider of vertically-targeted customer acquisition solutions to SMBs across the real estate, insurance, and home services verticals.  Cole’s suite of proprietary, technology-enabled digital customer acquisition solutions leverages its national consumer databases of more than 130 million households and 19 million businesses, plus unique datasets including cell phone numbers, email addresses, and automobile ownership. For more information visit www.coleinformation.com

Pat Fenton, real estate coach and Tim Green, top listing agent share insights on creating a winning system.

Patrick Fenton, speaker, coach, and mentor has been in the real estate industry for 18 years. Pat has presented live at over 800 events to over a million agents. Recently, Pat has partnered with Rap Success Systems (RAPSS) to help lead training and coaching strategies for RAPSS’ Real Insider Pro division.

Timothy Green has been a top real estate agent out of Fort Wayne, Indiana for over 20 years. Tim specializes in listings, luxury properties, first-time homebuyers, and staging. Tim has used RAPSS services for the past five years to help build his successful practice.

Whether you’re an agent who is holding strong but wants to kick it up a few notches or one who is struggling and needs to make some changes, the insights shared by Pat and Tim will have significant implications to your bottom line. If you’re an agent looking to become an elite listing agent and increase your sales volume by 10x or more, then these Real Insider Pro insights are critical.

The fundamentals of real estate needed to optimize your business never change.

You can probably think back 20 years ago and see that agents are handling the same seller objections they face today. Some of the marketing, technology, and resources may change; affecting where and how the consumers show interest. But overall, how agents sell and convert on opportunities, pretty much has been static for many years.

Pat calls it “getting belly-to-belly with your clients.” You can have tons of leads flowing into your inbox, but you’re not going to see the conversion until you’re engaging those leads, giving them value and doing something for them.

How do you address the client’s concerns and objections?

Tim puts it this way:

“I try to make sure that I’m not just answering just to answer I’m really listening to what that objection is. You have to slow yourself down to really understand the objection. I always restate, their object or issue so I can really get a handle on their concern. That also gives me time to prepare my response. So, I slow down and even write down the concern to be sure I get it right.  Now I’m ready to say to the homeowner “okay would this make sense?” or “would this be helpful?” These questions help me get buy-in from the homeowner as they’re responding with “

Yeah, that does make sense!” If it doesn’t make sense, then I want to understand why.

When you’re overcoming objections, how do UVPs come into play?

The reality, with the number of agents getting their license and entering the marketplace and the increasingly competitive the landscape, you must have a differential; especially when you’re working cold leads. Those are your Unique Value Propositions (UVPs). It’s not as critical when you have a high-quality referral with built in trust. Although, you never want to take any prospect for granted. But especially when you’re working cold leads, marketing-generated leads, etc.

Tim explains how his strategy includes:

Unconditional cancellation guarantee – gives them a warm feeling that this guy understands us he understands the fact that if we have any problems we can always cancel.

If I can’t sell your home within a certain timeframe, I won’t take a commission – that gives them a warm feeling like “Oh WOW! This guy is gonna stand behind what he says!”

I will buy your home if I don’t sell it.

(Note: have the conditions and structure behind this guarantee to make sure you’re not buying 20 homes.)

It’s important to customize the value proposition based on the particulars of the climate you’re working with to determine what makes sense. Focus on the things that can help you overcome the objections raised and help them see that you’re a professional who knows how to get their home sold. There’s really no risk to working with you.

Specifically, weave your UVPs into the conversation like “one of the reasons so many people choose to work with me is because you know I guarantee that I’m gonna sell your house within 39 days or I’m gonna work for free.”  That’s not a throw-away tactic; it’s a strategy that works for a lot of people. Equally powerful, those UVPs put the pressure on you to perform and do all the things you say you’ll do in your marketing plan. The good part is that it’s not a risk to you if you do your job.

Many agents don’t recognize that most objections that prospects throw out there are just smokescreens. Prospects are stalling you; they’re testing you. It’s just human nature not to want to appear easy. Most people are just fearful of making a bad decision. They think they can save money by not using a real estate broker, especially when you’re dealing with FSBOs. Our job is to reassure them and provide information that makes them feel like they made a good decision. They also want to feel like they made the decision; not that I made the decision for them. It’s the same with any major purchase; people are afraid of making the wrong decision and having buyer’s remorse.

Pat has many years of experience as a sales trainer. In that role, he finds that when a salesperson doesn’t lock in the words to handle the objections, then they really can’t say them with enough conviction to put you in a position of leadership on that phone call or in person. It’s clear where many salespeople fail is the point where they don’t simply look at bullet points. It’s not that they’ve never seen the scripts before. To be the best, you’ve got to look at your marketing plan and associated tools and resources to get the leads at the top of the funnel. Then after that, look at the strategy tactics and processes at the bottom of the funnel. Then it comes down to implementing, not just knowing, the best practices.

Fewer than 5% of real estate agents take the time to get a flashcard and say here’s my intro script, boom, go to the next card, here is my not-interested objection script, boom – repeating that process through the entire script for every objection.

Pat used to coach football for 16 years, and he says “as part of state championship teams, we used to tell our kids – listen we’re not gonna practice these five plays until we get them right we’re gonna practice them until we can’t get them wrong!”  That level of internalization enables you to focus on how you’re saying things, not simply on what you’re saying. That is what makes all the difference in the world. With few exceptions, if you’re confident, and you’re sure then your prospects are going to be sure.

Pat is working with Isaiah Colton to take every best practice they have about lead generation and lead conversion and put it into their soon-to-be-released Ultimate Listing Machine Playbook. The ULM Playbook will describe strategies for the marketing plan, lead sources, detailed scripts and develop the full game plan. Real estate agents will get all the scripts they teach, and the top agents use to convert at the highest ratios in the industry. That’s why there’s a lot of excitement around the release of the Ultimate Listing Machine Playbook. You can add your name to the waiting list to be among the first notified when it becomes available here, Add me to the list.

Follow up is critical.

Even when a lead seems to be warming to you, even if it’s a referral, it’s not guaranteed until the papers are signed. So, you must do the follow-up work to convert on your leads. Ask yourself, “how often do I personally talk to a prospect?”

Do you have teams and the proper CRM systems to help you follow up consistently? Do you leverage different types of communication methods such as email, social media, video?

Using those methods consistently, help you stay engaged, build relationships, build trust, and demonstrate your expertise with your prospects.

Like Michael Gerber says in the book The E Myth Revisited, “if you create a winning system now you can simply hire and train people on that system – the system already designed to produce results. That’s the biggest message we wanted to share. To hear the full conversation from the Real Insider Pro Mastermind video with Pat Fenton and Tim Green, watch it here.