Gary Elwood started in 1995 and has tried every kind of sales profession. Gary is the President and CEO of Proquest Technologies, a company that has serviced over 26,000 agents and generated more than 28,000,000 leads. 8 of his clients are in the top 100 in the world according to Wall Street Journal. And the years he’s had many agents in and out of that list. Early his career, he had a lightbulb moment that changed the way he thought about generating warm prospects and leads.
Gary’s big lightbulb moment is a matter of making sure you’re in front of the right prospect, at their right time and with the right information. Gary believes the most under appreciated, undervalued and under cultivated lead in the real estate industry is person who got in their car to drive by a home they’re interested in, also known as the drive-by prospect.
Focusing on this method has a very high ROI. When thinking about ROI, Gary suggests considering more than just return on dollars, “ ROI isn’t just dollar figures, it’s also how much time, energy and money that you actually have to produce in the source to produce a profit.”
Why The Drive-by Prospect Is So Valuable.
The Drive-by prospect focuses leveraging what you’ve already got, which is the listing. From the listing, you can use it to generate inbound call activity (more on this in a few minutes) and incredibly high converting leads. You don’t have to create something new, you can optimize what you’ve got.
The Drive-by prospect is closer in the transactional cycle than someone who is sitting on the sofa, sees a commercial for Zillow and searches their home property’s home value on the Zillow website.
94% of real estate searches start online. According to Nar Generational Trends Report after an internet search, the very next thing that 76% of prospects do is develop a target list of properties, get in their car and go driving through the target areas where they might want to live. The key is to capitalize on their activity and capture their interest. They could just pull up their phone from their car and look up the information on Zillow. Wondering how to stay relevant when you’re up against online giants? Read up on the topic here.
Often times, Drive-by prospects are not only buyers but some are also thinking about listing.
The Nar Generational Trends Report also states that 46% of prospects last year who transacted, also had a home to sell. New home buyers are at an all time low, more and more home buyers are upgrading, downsizing or making a lateral move from an existing home the own.
How To Optimize Your Sign and Capture The Drive-by Prospect
There is a tiny window of opportunity to get the prospect to come down a path you’ve created versus heading to Zillow, getting the information they were looking for and driving away.
Gary suggests going back to an old school technique and using brochure boxes and paper brochures to interact with the drive-by prospect right at that moment. To make it just a tiny bit easier to respond to us instead of Zillow, he also suggests using a sign rider below the brochure box, right next to the curb.
Your sign needs an upgrade that invites the Drive-by prospect to take action.
Most agents just put a sign in the yard and that’s it. They’re missing an entire new way to connect with prospects. Or they might put a rider on the sign driving them to a website. The key is to get to the meaningful conversation with the prospect.
The sign rider on the brochure box offers information available 24 hours a day via phone or text message, a service provided through ProQuest Technologies. The prospect calls in and hears a recorded message. At the end of the message it says, would you like additional photos and current pricing for this property? If so, say yes.”
ProQuest knows that 9 out of 10 times, the drive-by prospect will say yes, they’d like more information. So, while the prospect is listening to the recording, Gary’s company is simultaneously calling the agent. The timing has been perfected so that as soon as the prospect has just said yes for more information, the agent is on the line ready to start a conversation.
Yes, it really is that simple!
This process works because it opens up a conversation with perfect timing.
Agents are connected with a hot prospect at the perfect moment when they’re ready for information about a home. This may or may not be the perfect moment for the agent, but it is for the drive-by prospect. The prospect isn’t just sitting down to dinner, at their child’s soccer game or grocery shopping when the conversation starts.
As a society, we’ve been conditioned to expect an automated response. When a drive-by prospect gets a live person on the end of the line, it surprises them. Usually the prospect stumbles for a moment because they weren’t expecting a human on the other end of the phone and shares they were looking for pricing at xzy house on 123 street.
Last year, 69% of buyers and 71% of sellers did business with the first agent they first agent they had a meaningful conversation with. Not the first agent they opted in to online, but the first agent they connected with. The key is making the first meaningful conversation happen at the right time, when a prospect is ready to make decision because they’re already in the cycle. Optimizing your signs and using this technique will help you make connections with the right prospects at the right time.
Proquest Technologies has a 14 day free trial, where you can test drive the service and receive training materials with no obligation to purchase. There are 8 lead generation action plans for both buyers and sellers, a training library to learn how to interact and engage with leads and more.
