← Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Episode 842: Zillow Leads are Expensive Junk: How to Close Them
00:09:16
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This is part three of our three part series on paid leads. We covered Google, YouTube, Meta, Instagram and Facebook. Now we're talking about the hottest leads you can buy. This is your daily real estate. It's a podcast, it's a show, five to ten minutes every single day to help you grow your business. I'm Tristan Aomada. I've spent the last 22 years helping real estate agents, helping this industry, helping teams and brokerages get to that next level level. And again, I'm here helping you today. Let's get started. Portal leads, that means Zillow, realtor.com and I know homes.com's on here, but they're not a lead Source. But still, homes.com these people are not browsing for fun. They're on these platforms with purpose. They're searching specific homes, saving properties, clicking the contact buttons, and in many cases they're already halfway through decision cycles. That's why I want you to understand these types of leads. Yes, they're higher converting, but they're also talking to a whole bunch of other real estate agents. And it's important for you to get on it fast. If you're on this and there are a lot of pressures or portal leads, you want speed, confidence, direction. They want someone who can help them take this whole thing to the next level. And at the same time, they don't want to feel pushed. And if you strike the right tone in the first message, you can turn more of these into real conversations and of course, real relationships. By the end of this session, you'll know the mindset behind portal leads. If you don't know already what they're expecting from you and the first messages that get them to respond before they move on to another agent that they're probably already talking to. When it comes to what we call portal leads, I've spent millions of dollars and I was the number one realtor.com product spender. I guess you'd call it back maybe like over 10 years ago. And that's how I became a national speaker, through them and all that. And I learned a lot. I learned not only how to convert at a high level, but I also learned the feeling that you get when you get these leads, that feeling that you're attached to these leads, they can't do much outside of these leads because they become such a big part of your business. So there is that weird feeling because they do convert at a higher level. Now back in the day, they probably converted much higher than they do now. And also there was a bigger amount to net. Now you have to be careful because now these companies are gouging you and they're taking a big chunk of your money from, from the commission that you make because they figured, wow, you know what, we need the agent, but we can charge a lot more for this. So. So you've gotta be careful. This can't be the only source of business, especially if you're a team or a brokerage. It's a good add on, but this can't be your plan. Knowing that these leads do close faster, specifically the Zillow ones, Zillow, Premier, Flex, preferred, whatever it is, these close a lot quicker. But they also require you to be able to have a system to be able to reach out to them because they are hot. Right? I call the intent level here high. It's bottom of funnel leads, meaning they're ready, but they're also talking to a lot of other agents. The mindset on this one, they clicked on homes, they're ready to talk. Your approach, confident, fast and more importantly helpful. When you're working with these leads, it's a different concept than what normal real estate agents are used to. That means you're going to have to go out to the property, connect with them there, show them, talk to them, see where they're at, have them sign the paperwork right there before you see the property. It's a whole different ball game. So if you've never done this and you're considering it or you are doing it, you need a better system. I can tell you, because I've got a few agents that I coach right now that are in Flex or Preferred and they can tell you the pressure on this. Coming in from Zillow, I have other agents that I coach that are on the realtor.com market VIP program. It's the same thing, same pressure, but how to work them. You have a system, you've got to respond within 60 seconds or less and you've got to attempt it in many different ways and you can't be scripted. You have to come from a point of authenticity, sincerity, wanting to help. You got to be direct, but at the same time you also have to look at the things and say, well, where do they come from? What are they looking for specifically? Don't try to sell them on something else. Before answering that one question about the property that they had, answer the question about that property and be as helpful as possible with that one. Because in the world that we live in, I mean they can go and check as much information as they can and online on ChatGPT or anywhere else. And if they can't find that information like they thought, that means they're reaching out to you because they want a little bit more information about that property or they want to go see it. They don't want to talk about anything else. So think about those things as you're listening and asking questions that pertain to that property or their specific questions. See where you can add the value. Is there something else that you can add and layer in? Like I talked about in part two of three of this yesterday. Ask questions, get to the point quickly and then get to meet them. If they want to meet at a property, great. And then do whatever your brokerage says you need to do before you meet them or your state or whatever MLS you're part of different rules right now. The first message here's what I've got Joe, I saw you wanted to take a look at or you had questions on one two three Brilliant Street Would you like to see the home or did you need some questions answered? Or I can check availability on that property. When would you like to see that? Today or tomorrow? Because a lot of these are pretty quick now. If that one's booked, are you okay if I send you other homes in the area or did you already have that taken care of? Something along those lines so it goes directly to property. These are different. Just remember that because your best follow up is going to be short and fast touches. Use voicemail drops. Hopefully you got them on the phone. Hopefully you can text them. Texting really helps a lot on these. And then use property based value. So if you're sending value off market homes work incredibly well on these homes that are maybe coming on the market soon. Putting them on something because remember they're ready to go now. Putting them on something that relates to what they're looking for right now. And the faster you set appointments on these, the better it's going to be. So when you look at Zillow you've got to look is this something that fits into my wheelhouse? It can't be the only thing this is good to bring in other agents into your team, into your brokerage because you're giving them opportunities. You're not going to net a lot but you are going to get volume if you do it right. Realtor.com you pay up front. It's a big fee. You've got to have the right system where you're going to go broke. Homes.com not lead gen but more putting out your listing out there to many eyeballs and at the same time you're going to get those leads that come to you. So lead gen indirectly, but more about marketing. Now those are the main three. There are other companies out there that provide leads, but they're not going to be the same. The closest I would say is Redfin, but Redfin's changed over the years and that model may be changing soon now that rocket purchased them. So quality leads. Now I want you to better understand these as you're testing them out. My suggestion, if you're a single agent and you want to test them out but you don't have the funds, join a team that has these. This way you can understand how it works. And if you're like, Tristan, this is great information. Thank you so much. I just don't. This is not going to be for me. I just wanted to see how it would work. Great. More importantly, I want you to understand the three different sources. If you were going to ask me, Tristan, where would you start with this? Well, listen, it would probably be Google. I would go all in on YouTube videos because I've seen how they work. They just take a little bit longer to, to produce actual people wanting to buy. So that's my long term play YouTube because it's done so well. Number two would be Google pay per click. And I'd probably match that with meta. Facebook and Instagram. They do very well quickly if you're doing volume. And then obviously lsa not the same in every area. Right. Local service ads, Google, it's like pay to play. They're going to show your face out there when anyone's looking in your area. But it's very competitive and it can get super pricey fast. So that's how I would do it. I'd leave portals until the very end as an added pillar to, to just bring in other agents to then grow my business because my net's not going to be big on that one. If you have other questions about this specific thing, this is episode 7 37. Message me on Instagram, I'll send this over to you. This is the type of stuff that we go over in group coaching at a brilliant tribe. If you're ready for that, I'd love to see you over here. You're already part of it. Thank you so much. If not, just keep listening in and I'll keep providing value to you. Have an awesome day.