[00:00:00] Zach Hammer: Welcome to the Real Estate Growth Hacker Show. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about the only follow up sequences that you need in your real estate business. We’re going to be diving into what those look like. We’re going to give them names, give you clarity on them, so that you know exactly what you need to do in terms of follow up, whether it be email, text message, ads, whatever you want to do.

[00:00:24] In your real estate business. On today’s show, we have our co host, Charlie Madison, back with us again. Charlie Madison, who is the founder, realtor, developer of Referrals While You Sleep and Realtor Waiting Lists. So if you’re a real estate agent or a lender that is looking to leverage actually some of the same principles I’m about to talk about today but in a really cool, scalable, automated fashion, definitely check out what Charlie is up to.

[00:00:48] Charlie. How are you doing today?

[00:00:50] Charlie Madison: It is great to be here. And I love this. I’m so excited because the fortune is in the followup. That’s where [00:01:00] the successful people make their money. That’s where the profit is.

[00:01:05] Zach Hammer: Absolutely, so yeah, let’s dive into it. Let’s talk about, you know, my goal in diving into this is to give people clarity on what exactly good follow up looks like. Cause really good follow up is going to be dictated on. What these different phases are that you should move somebody through so that you know how to properly communicate with them depending on really the depth of the relationship that you have with them, what you know about them, what you don’t know about them all sorts of stuff like that.

[00:01:32] So the idea is that you’re going to have some key goals or outcomes. They’re going to happen as a result of each of these different sequences and some ideas about how to achieve them, how long they should last that sort of idea. So, when I’m talking about a follow up sequence, one thing that I want to get clear right off the bat is that I’m not talking about exclusively email, exclusively text messages, exclusively phone calls.

[00:01:55] Really, I’m talking about everything that is part of your process for [00:02:00] communicating with people, including. For the smartest agents and lenders out there leveraging ads and the way that you show up online in a scalable distributed way as part of your follow up sequences. So that’s part of where this fits in is it’s all those aspects of how you communicate and stay in touch with somebody, over these different phases.

[00:02:19] That’s what I mean by follow up sequence. Now, all that being said, you might, as a real estate agent, need to focus. On one area first right you might need to say well, how am I going to leverage email effectively? Okay, great how can I integrate text messaging into that where do phone calls fit in where what like why and how?

[00:02:38] All of that there might be aspects where you’re bringing in multiple things and that’s okay. But just remember it’s not the medium, that makes the difference on what, on, like, what your goals should be in each of these sequences. The medium might make a difference for how often you do something, right?

[00:02:56] Like, you’re probably not going to call somebody 20 times in the same day[00:03:00] in order to get a good result, right? Like, you’ll almost definitely get in contact with them. What you hear on the other end may or may not be a good experience. But, so when we’re talking about follow up sequence, we’re not talking about any specific medium.

[00:03:12] We’re talking about kind of the goal of that sequence there. So, that’s what we’re talking about. So why does this matter? Well the reason why this matters is that just like Charlie said, right? The fortune is in the follow up, right? Ultimately whether you’re generating leads or whether you’re staying in touch with your sphere, your database ultimately, if people don’t hear from you, you don’t exist.

[00:03:36] Right, so that’s the idea here is that we need to make sure that you have things set up to make sure that whether you’re generating leads, whether you’re interacting with your sphere, your past clients, their friends and family, whatever. That we’re making sure that we’re showing up consistently.

[00:03:51] But not only that, that we’re showing up in the right way depending on that relationship. And so having clarity on what does that look like, because if [00:04:00] you’re using one sequence for everybody, you’re probably doing it wrong and likely causing yourself problems. Because here’s the reality. If somebody isn’t in the market for, you know, buying a house. And what you’re doing is exclusively sending them listings all the time.

[00:04:17] All you’re doing is you’re training them to ignore you, right? So that’s not good follow up for that situation. So, let’s dive into what these different sequences are. The other aspect that’s worth noting is, well, while I say ultimately this list boils down to six different sequences to me you may or may not need all of them, but I’ll explain what they achieve and what they’re designed for.

[00:04:39] You might need more than six in total when you take into account that you might have people who are exclusively buyers, might have people who are sellers who need to buy. That sort of idea, you might have a list for people that are renters that are going to ultimately buy. Maybe you work with people that are renting, and so you need [00:05:00] a sequence specific to that.

[00:05:01] Really, the, like, what you talk about might modify these sequences a bit, but the goal of the sequence will fit into one of these six categories. So, that makes sense. Any questions so far on just that context before I get into the sequences themselves, Charlie?

[00:05:15] Charlie Madison: No, that makes sense. I’m excited to see if you know, if someone was like, well, which ones do you think are most important if there’s any of that, but I know we’ll get into the list.

[00:05:26] Zach Hammer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright, so our first one. Our first one I call sort. Okay. So here’s what your sorting sequence should do. Ideally your sorting sequence has this key goal. By the end of the sequence, the person has either started a two-way conversation with you, so they’ve responded to something that you have sent to them.

[00:05:50] Or, they haven’t. Right? Like, that’s the goal of the sort. And then the ideal outcome is that you get clarity on what [00:06:00] their need is. And how soon it’s coming, even if what their need is that they have no need right now, right? But you want to get clarity on things like do they own a home? Are they looking to buy?

[00:06:10] Are they looking to sell? What is their need? What’s the way that you can help them? That’s your sort phase. And where this really comes into play is when you’re generating leads online. You don’t know exactly what’s going on with that person aside from some guesses based on the context of how you generated the lead.

[00:06:26] If they’re inquiring about a listing, you could probably guess that they’re most likely interested in buying a home, right? And so you could start down that process of trying to get further clarity on that in your sort sequence. If they reached out to find what their home is worth, you have an idea that they have a home that they own.

[00:06:43] They may or may not be looking to sell, but you could start to go down that path of uncovering what are their needs, what are they looking for, what actually matters to them, okay? Now, to me, a sort sequence should last for about two weeks, okay? Any longer than that, you start [00:07:00] getting into the realm of it becomes hard to actually get somebody to respond and to make sure that you’re communicating in a way that’s relevant.

[00:07:06] That doesn’t mean that we stop following up with somebody at the end of that two weeks. It’s just that we shift from a sort sequence to a different kind of sequence. And the reason why I think two weeks is the right, you’ll level for this is that it gives us a little bit of clarity on we know that during this time It’s potentially worthwhile for us to have some manual work in this process. Like it might make sense to actually pick up the phone and call somebody who just inquired about a listing.

[00:07:33] Over that two week period it might make sense to call them a few times It might make sense to text them manually, even if you don’t have automated systems for this there’s some manual effort, but after that two week period I require somebody to revalidate that it’s worth my time to reach out to him before I reach out to him again.

[00:07:49] If they don’t respond to me in that two weeks, it’s sort of that, okay I put in hard work. I made sure to get the opportunity to talk to them. I didn’t get into communication. I’m not [00:08:00] going to stop following up with them, but i’m going to put them into more of a long term plan after that point. Does that make sense on what we do in that sort phase?

[00:08:07] Charlie Madison: Yeah. So this is when we first meet new people. Is that right?

[00:08:13] Zach Hammer: Yes. And very typically. Yeah. And that’s actually, that’s a great point. So, if you’re talking to somebody, like actually in person, this sort phase might literally happen person to person in that first conversation. Right? You might qualify that person and find out what their needs are literally just in talking to them.

[00:08:29] If you’re networking, and you’re just out in the world talking to people, your sort phase might literally look like just that conversation. Right? Because, ultimately the goal is to get to that two way conversation, and then have some sort of qualifying conversation where you get to understand them and know their needs.

[00:08:45] So in person, you might actually completely skip over the sort phase. Where you’re going to most often deploy the sort of phase is if you are generating leads in some sort of, like online marketing, like Facebook leads, Zillow leads those kinds of things. We’re going to have some sort of phase where you’re taking somebody where [00:09:00] you’ve got some vague idea of what they’re interested in.

[00:09:03] And you’re going to follow up with them in your best guess, sort of way to get them to respond. Typically to do this well I really recommend that you lead with the idea of here’s something you might be interested in. Do you want me to send it to you? Or do you want me to help you in this way?

[00:09:19] So like, as a for instance, if I’m following up with somebody who’s giving buyer interest, I’m gonna say, hey one of the things that I help people with, or that I’ve helped a lot of clients with in the past who are looking at buying a home, was pointing out all this down payment assistance money that’s available.

[00:09:33] Is that something that you might be interested in? And I leave that question. And then they respond with, yes. I am interested in potentially hearing about down payment assistance and then from there I use that as the anchor point to actually go into the conversation to sure, connect them to that information but also to learn all the rest of the stuff.

[00:09:51] I use it as a hook to get them to respond to then go into the rest of it. You know what I don’t do?

[00:09:57] Charlie Madison: What do you not?

[00:09:58] Zach Hammer: I don’t send an email that says, [00:10:00] hey, here’s a list of all the down payment assistance programs. You wanna know why?

[00:10:07] Charlie Madison: What?

[00:10:07] Zach Hammer: They don’t have to respond. If they got the value out of it, they got the value out of it. And then I don’t actually learn anything. So I always want to leverage that, and that’s, that holds true through most of this as well, is that typically, if you don’t know what’s going on with somebody, you want to, you still want to do that idea of leading with value, but you more so want to, you want to hint at the value and offer it, but require a response in order for them to get it, if that makes sense, because you, go.

[00:10:36] Charlie Madison: I think the other thing is you’re also training them that you make an offer. They respond, then you reward them.

[00:10:45] One of my good friends, he does that. He’s a coach. He does that anytime that he’s got something on Facebook or anywhere or email, he never puts it in there. He always describes it and says, if you’re interested, message me [00:11:00] below.

[00:11:00] One that helps get more people to see it through the algorithm. You know, that also helps more people email because you know, emails tracking if people open and respond. So you’re training them and the systems. That this is important stuff.

[00:11:17] Zach Hammer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so there’s lots of great reasons for it. To me, the primary one as a real estate agent is that sure, all of the other algorithm influencing things are powerful and useful. The most powerful thing is that you can’t do your job until you know how you can help them.

[00:11:34] Right? And have that conversation. This starts that micro commitment into having a conversation with you. So that’s the first one. That’s SORT. Okay? So that, our, you know, our primary outcome is to get into a two way conversation where we learn about their needs. Ideally, you’re doing that for about two weeks.

[00:11:49] And those two weeks, you go hard. You send a lot of messages, you potentially send a lot of text messages, you send a lot of phone calls. If you really want to do it to the full extent, that is valuable. Okay? So that’s SORT. Our next [00:12:00] sequence is our HOT sequence. Okay? And what qualifies as HOT?

[00:12:05] Well, HOT is somebody who has given signals that they are looking to do a transaction. This really depends on how much business you currently have and it may shorten or lengthen depending on how busy you are. But anywhere from within the next three months to maybe within the next 30 days it depends on the time frame.

[00:12:26] But it’s your group of people that have said. I’m looking, like, I am actively looking to buy a home, or I’m actively starting this process. I want to buy a home you know, ideally within the next period of time, right? Those are gonna be hot. In terms of sellers, it’s the same thing, where it’s like, Hey, I am looking to sell my house.

[00:12:45] Within this next period of time, okay? And so your hot sequence is designed to warm somebody up or create that sales conversation if possible. Right? It’s designed to be that period of communication that happens [00:13:00] before they get to the next one, which we’ll talk about in a second.

[00:13:02] But it’s designed to be whatever information you might send to say, this is somebody that I know for sure wants to do this thing because I’ve talked to them about it. And I’m sending them information that helps me, set me up as a professional, as the person that’s going to be helping them through this process.

[00:13:18] In this sequence, because you have already gotten. Like, an understanding of what they want. You can potentially say, Hey, I found this and thought of you. And I thought you might enjoy it. Here’s why I thought so. And you could potentially include the link. There’s still some benefit. Potentially in saying, Hey, I found this article.

[00:13:38] It talks about this. Here’s why I think it might be valuable. Do you want me to send you the link? And that way you still learn a little bit you’re engaging. So, this one, you can mix it up a bit if you want to, depending on, like, how readily do you check those messages and how likely are you to respond et cetera.

[00:13:52] So there’s a little bit of like being able to modify this depending on your needs and the sort phase, you almost always want them to have to respond [00:14:00] in order to get it in the hot phase. Maybe not. You can just give them the things of value. And the idea is like, what can you do to help them in their journey?

[00:14:07] Can you, do you have like a sequence of videos that’s like, how to, actually here, you have a great asset for a hot sequence. I know because we just recorded an episode for your show and we talked about it, and it’s what you said to listings. What is your asset that you send to potential listings before you go and meet with us?

[00:14:24] Charlie Madison: My listing book, my pre listing book that walks through everything that I do to get a house sold.

[00:14:31] Zach Hammer: Right. And so that listing book itself would be a great thing to send in advance as part of your hot sequence. You could potentially take that, that listing book and extract out some of the key steps. And maybe those are an email sequence that goes out in advance that says, Hey, one of the key things that I found to being successful in selling a listing fast is to do this thing.

[00:14:49] Here’s why it matters. You know, here’s what’s interesting about it. You know, if you decide that this is important to you, this is something that we could accomplish if we work together. Here’s where you book a meeting with me or here’s something we can talk about [00:15:00] when we meet together in X amount of time, right?

[00:15:02] So, those are the kinds of things that go into your hot sequence. It’s all about what do you send in advance of a sales meeting or in order to get the sales meeting itself. Does that all make sense?

[00:15:13] Charlie Madison: Yeah, yeah. That makes perfect sense.

[00:15:16] Zach Hammer: Perfect. And so, naturally, after you’ve sorted and you find the people who are hot, well, you’re going to generate some people who actually say, I want to work with you.

[00:15:29] And they decide to do so. They, you know, they sign a listing agreement they come on, they are your client, you’ve got the listing, you’re starting to work with them, you’re starting to market their listing, get their home sold, or they decide to work with you and you’re helping them buy homes, right?

[00:15:43] Or helping them buy a home, helping them look through the available inventory, all of that, right? And so for those people, you need some sort of active sequence. Now your active sequence is, really it’s, often it’s very simple, right? It might be hey here’s the communication about what’s happening along the [00:16:00] way.

[00:16:00] Maybe there’s some communication that you set up that automatically goes out that helps to make sure you have a good relationship depending on what typically happens at various phases. But the whole idea is that you have to, very specific dialed communication to say, here’s what communication looks like while I am actively working with somebody.

[00:16:17] Okay, does that make sense? And so, the goal of that is for people to feel like you communicate with them, for people to feel like that transaction goes as smoothly, as easily as possible, that they feel good about the process. That’s the ideal outcome. The ideal outcome of active of an active follow up sequence is that somebody feels good about working with you as their agent.

[00:16:38] That one’s pretty simple. Now there’s a lot that could go into it, but that’s what that sequence looks like. Does that make sense?

[00:16:42] Charlie Madison: Yeah. You know, my favorite thing to do really with the hot and these people, what I’ve seen works just the best is once a week call and tell them when it’ll be, you know, it’ll be Tuesday or it’ll be Wednesday. [00:17:00] And wednesday. That helps one, whatever questions they’ve got, you can answer them to you again, you’re training them, you know, to expect that.

[00:17:09] And then I’ve noticed when I do those calls. You know, especially with buyers, they can get discouraged. You know, they haven’t seen anything. Those calls. Let me one, encourage them and two ask them questions like maybe what they’re looking for doesn’t exist. So, you know, I can judge them like, Hey, would you like to change location?

[00:17:31] You know, what about, you know, a different type of home? You know, price. So just having that rhythm works well. And, you know, and with listings too, you know, if once they’re ready, they’re used to a Tuesday update call or a Wednesday update call.

[00:17:48] Then when the house is listed and you have to have price adjustment calls, it’s not out of the blue. They’re already expecting your call.

[00:17:55] Zach Hammer: Right, yeah, I love that. And honestly, that’s a really great answer and system for what I [00:18:00] would call this part of the sequence. It’s literally, when I say follow up sequence on these, again, the idea is this is a period in the relationship, what does communication need to look like to get a desirable result?

[00:18:13] And you’re exactly right. It could simply be a weekly call, and maybe the other aspect of that communication is the weekly call plus any follow up emails or text messages based on what goes on with that call. But doing that, that’s gonna take care of like 99% of the communication needs during this part of the process and you’re exactly right. It’s the same idea with somebody who’s hot, right?

[00:18:36] If somebody’s hot and you’re moving toward an appointment as long as you’ve got some sort of commitment or expectation that, they want you following up with them and how you can help them and that sort of thing. It’s a great way to make this simple and say this person is gonna do a transaction I need to call them every week. With something that I feel like might be valuable for them that triggers the opportunity for us to have a sales conversation. Where they [00:19:00] actually become my client.

[00:19:01] Charlie Madison: Right.

[00:19:01] Zach Hammer: And that’s perfect. That’s a great way to look at this for sure So we’ve got our active so so far. We’ve got our sort. We’ve got our hot. We’ve got our active right and that’s really, those are three very linear steps in an ideal flow, right? We sort somebody we end up with somebody hot. So they get into our hot sequence.

[00:19:20] We got a hot person, and then they end up becoming a client. So they end up in our active sequence, right? Well then, what naturally happens after you’ve got somebody active? Well now, they become a warm nurture, right? They end up in this bucket of this is somebody that’s in your sphere, that you know that you don’t have an immediate need to help them because you just help them, right?

[00:19:41] Like they just bought their house, they just sold their house, whatever, you don’t have an immediate need. And so you need something in order to stay in front of and stay in touch with these people that are in your sphere, that are in your warm list of people that you don’t necessarily know if they have an immediate need.

[00:19:58] And so what is the [00:20:00] goal of your nurture? Well your nurture, your warm nurture, is going to be anybody who you know, like you’ve had the conversation with them. And you know that they don’t have like an immediate need for a real estate transaction, right? Like, they aren’t close on needing a real estate transaction.

[00:20:20] You might have some people that end up in this vein from your more cold marketing. Your Facebook leads and that, that sort of thing. Most often, the people that end up in your warm nurture are often going to be your sphere, your friends, your family, your past clients, right? That’s most often where this warm comes in.

[00:20:35] And so what does the communication look like in this? Well, it’s a little bit, it’s not tough because Charlie, you know how to do this and you know, you know exactly what this looks like at this point. It tends to be tough for most real estate agents to know how to do this well though. Because if all that somebody ever hears from you is communication about, listings and open houses and that [00:21:00] sort of thing.

[00:21:00] It will do a decent job of potentially impressioning them that you’re a real estate agent. But unfortunately, if you do it in the wrong way, part of what it does is it trains them to ignore your emails. It trains them to ignore your Facebook posts. It trains them to ignore you when all that they hear from you is something that is no longer relevant to them.

[00:21:18] And so what you want to do in your nurture phase is you want to get communication and marketing in front of people. That will keep you top of mind as a real estate professional who. What are the three things that ultimately are required for somebody to hire you as a real estate professional, Charlie?

[00:21:33] Charlie Madison: First, when they’re ready, they think of me. Two, they feel comfortable reaching out and three, I’ve got the capacity to respond.

[00:21:44] Zach Hammer: Absolutely. So those are the three things that we want to achieve with our warm nurture sequences. Is that, first off, we want to make sure that whatever we’re doing. We’re training people to continually want to expect to hear from us. What does that look like? That, to me, looks like when you have [00:22:00] emails, they’re done in a way that everybody on the list should find them at least some level relevant.

[00:22:06] Right? It might be a market update of what’s going on in the market. Which anybody that lives in the area would find some level useful, right? Not they may not consume it every time it may not be. You know, they may not engage in all of them, other things that fit into that nurture sequence to me that warm nurture is what I call lifestyle and local. Lifestyle information is the, you know, the kinds of messaging that fits into like, depending on your interests.

[00:22:33] It could be like the, hey, seasons are changing. You know, it’s that time of year where people typically need help cleaning out their gutters. If you need help with that, I’ve got a great connection that I’d love to make for you. They do a great rate. They take care of all of my clients. Right, that’s a great message that’s centered around the home.

[00:22:50] But is relevant to them and keeping you top of mind right then and there. The other things that fit in that sort of vein a little bit less relevant, but can [00:23:00] still be interesting. If you have like a passion for say design. And, like what’s in or the styles that people like you could create content around that sort of stuff to say, Hey here are some of the styles that people are finding interesting, or here’s the most expensive home for sale in the area right now.

[00:23:15] And you can leverage those as sort of just entertainment factors, but that keep you interesting to people. The goal again is first and foremost, is this interesting and relevant to the audience. And then the other things that you could do. That you can leverage the power of the way that ads work on social media and that you could just continually show up where they don’t actually even see it as a communication that you’re forcing into their eyes.

[00:23:38] But just happens to serendipitously show up and keep you top of mind. Now if only there was a way, that you could do this, that this would be easy and fairly effortless you know, to do this, we’re saying it automatically is able to grab the contact information from your phone, from your emails, to be able to make sure that you’re building a list to target effectively.

[00:23:59] That [00:24:00] is the warmest people that already know I can trust you. And then automatically puts ads in front of them that show you are a successful real estate agent who gets great results, helping people, happy faces, good reviews, and great content. If only there was something like that.

[00:24:13] Charlie Madison: It would be amazing if someone made that.

[00:24:16] Zach Hammer: It would be amazing. It would be amazing. Why? Today is your lucky day the joke here is that Charlie has already made that. That’s what referrals while you sleep and realtor waiting list is all about. Is, it really fits into this zone for sure of your nurture warm strategy. I think it goes hand in hand with with other things as well, an email follow up newsletter, potentially print newsletter for some people.

[00:24:38] But it’s a great part of the strategy to make sure that people are thinking of you when it comes time for real estate transaction. And so, yeah, if you want to check that out and what Charlie does with that if you are a real estate professional, go and visit. ReferralsWhileYouSleep.com. If you’re a lender, visit RealtorWaitingList.com.

[00:24:55] Both of those programs have limited capacity. So if you get there and find that you [00:25:00] aren’t able to get access to the program immediately, join whatever you can for sake of the waiting list and when the next test group is available when the next, you know, a batch of people who are able to go through and test out the program to see if it’s a good fit for you.

[00:25:13] Charlie will make sure to reach out and have a conversation with you to see if it’s a good fit and if you should move forward. Anything I missed on that and where where those fit in to nurture a warm sequence.

[00:25:22] Charlie Madison: Yeah, I think you nailed it. You know, just make sure to mention Zach. Zach’s friends go to the top of the list and yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s it you know, events work really well for this you know, so my friends do Thanksgiving cards instead of Christmas cards, cause they want to do something.

[00:25:39] You know, it’s, how do you. calls and they ask how do you stay in front of them? Some people do quarterly calls and they ask the Ford questions, you know, how’s your family? I never really did that. You know, I’d maybe call them you know, once a year. But you know, if there’s events out in your city [00:26:00] too, that you know, your clients are going to go to, you know, go to those things and go to places where your clients are going to be.

[00:26:06] A lot of times you can, you know. You end up getting a lot of this nurture by just, it doesn’t work if you’re locked in your house, unless you’re on the phone calling and emailing, you know, just something needs to be done.

[00:26:20] Zach Hammer: Yeah, exactly. And so that’s the key is that what you’re looking for here is you’re looking to make sure that you’re staying top of mind, that they think of you when it’s time and that honestly, this is one of those times or those sequences where you get to do this in probably the most fun way possible, right?

[00:26:36] What works for you? What ways can you leverage to you know, to love on your list and make them feel welcome, get those opportunities to have those conversations whether, yeah, whether it’s events, whether it’s, you know, cool gifts, like whatever it is, this is the opportunity where you just look to say, what can I do to maintain contact with people over this period of time.

[00:26:57] Ninja Selling has some really good ideas for [00:27:00] sequences around this. I know in the Keller Williams world I think it’s called the 8×8 is what they tend to leverage for for this sort of style of what do you do for is it the 8×8 or is it the different? I don’t remember. Anyway, there’s like two main ones in Keller Williams.

[00:27:14] Charlie Madison: It’s the 36 touch.

[00:27:15] Zach Hammer: There’s 36 touch. That’s right. 8×8 is a different one. That’s more like the equivalent of my sort or whatnot. It’s kind of like that activating one. Anyway, yeah. But yeah, 36 touch to Keller Williams. Really, the idea here, there isn’t an exactly right or wrong way to do this. The wrong way is to not do it.

[00:27:31] The right way is to have some sort of strategy and to implement it consistently. That’s the right way. And so whatever you do to stay in touch with people, that’s what you’re looking to do with nurture worm. Okay, so we just covered there five sequences so far that were really the ideal outcomes, right?

[00:27:50] But we missed a couple of potential outcomes if we go back to the sort. Okay, so now let’s go back to the sort and say we don’t end up with a hot ready to go person, [00:28:00] right? Or we don’t end up with somebody who’s warm and in our nurture sequence. Well, one of the options that comes out of it is that we reach out for two weeks.

[00:28:10] And we don’t get any response. Okay, so what do we do with those people? Well, for those people, we want to drop them into what I call the archive. Okay, and the archive sequence is designed, it’s similar and related potentially to the nurture, but a little bit different in that you’re continually trying to get people to reactivate back up into the sort, if possible.

[00:28:34] You’re trying to put offers and things in front of them that give you either a clear signal that they sort of reactivate as a new lead, right? Where they engage in an offer maybe they opt in for a lead magnet. They, you know, they opt in to learn more about a listing. They do something that sort of puts them back into the top of your sequence.

[00:28:52] And so you’re leveraging communication over that period in order to try and get them back up into the top where you could again have that two [00:29:00] way conversation. The other thing that could be happening in the archive is that you can have systems that give them information. Like say it sends them listings and then you look at that information.

[00:29:13] In order to see who is visiting my site, who is being active, who is showing signs that I should reach out to them because they are very active right now. And that gives you the clarity that you should manually go in and call them, text them, try and get them into that sort sequence, even if it’s not automated, right?

[00:29:31] So the whole idea for your archive is it’s either designed to get them. to re enter your sort sequence themselves or it’s designed to give you the information of who you should call to enter your sort sequence. The other thing that’s really great for an archive sequence in terms of what you do with it that’s a really great place to like throw those names into like a multi line auto dialer where you call to see what’s going on with them to try and reactivate them that way.

[00:29:59] [00:30:00] However, this is the key to me. Do not give people in your archive the same level of attention as you give the people in your sort. Right? Because they’ve shown that over that period of two weeks that they aren’t ready to talk to you quickly or effectively. So you need to move them from a bucket of potentially doing one to one communication where you’re reaching out to this individual lead.

[00:30:24] to moving into, they either give me evidence that I should reach out to them again, or they actually enter the bucket themselves, or I do one to many styles of outreach in order to find the opportunities. Now, you don’t have to do all of those, and honestly, for a number of people, it’s possible that your archive. Maybe could just be ignored aside from things that potentially drop them back into your sort.

[00:30:52] You don’t have to do, you know, the multi line dialer calling. You don’t have to potentially even pay attention to what people are being active on your [00:31:00] sites and searching for listings and that kind of thing. You don’t have to do that. It could potentially just be they have systems that drop them back in that sort bucket when it’s time based on how they’re engaging with offers.

[00:31:09] But that’s the idea. In terms of time frame for archive buy or die. Is how long they stay in the archive. You could follow up with people in that list, again, as long as you’re doing that one to many or automated style outreach in order to stay as effective as possible. Don’t manually call one by one through your archive.

[00:31:27] It’s a waste of your time. Put people in that bucket and then leverage mass systems in order to try and get into communication with them. Does that make sense?

[00:31:36] Charlie Madison: I love that. I’ve never heard of that before. But that’s, a question that I’ve had, you know, most people just call those dead leads. Right? And you know, what I love, I’ve got a one guy, Perry, he does really good at this in that he creates offer sequences where Gary V says, you know, jab, left hook.

[00:31:57] Like he gives good information leading up [00:32:00] to an offer. But then you have to opt in to get the rest of the content. And, one of my friends, he called it. It’s almost like these people are on a highway and you’re giving them off ramps to get deeper into your world.

[00:32:12] And, you got to think, you know, could you possibly come up with just one every year, like eight, you know, eight week sequence to kind of get people to opt in or, you know, eventually build some of those you’re giving them a reason to ascend basically into one of the others. I really like that. I’ve never, really like that. Never seen that before.

[00:32:33] Zach Hammer: And then often, that archived sequence. It is often the same sorts of messaging that you might do in your sort, right? Or even maybe some of the same sorts of messaging that you do in your hot, but you offer it first before sending it to them. Right? So it’s, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for this. It’s often the same messaging. This is something that people miss.

[00:32:55] Like, like down payment assistance is a really great example. Just because they didn’t [00:33:00] respond to it the first time, doesn’t mean that you never offer that again. You just want to space it out, right? So I offer it in that sort sequence, and then I’m gonna mention it in that archive sequence. Like, if I’m following up with them every couple of weeks or so, well, every couple of weeks.

[00:33:15] That style of offering information about buyer assistance will be another attempt to try and get them to respond and try and come back into my world to have that two way conversation. I’m just not going to do that manual you know, that manual processing anymore once they’re in that archive sequence to make sure that my time is most effectively used on the people that are giving me the biggest indication that I should be manually following up with them, right?

[00:33:38] I should be staying in communication with them. So that’s our sixth one. The other option is our Nurture Cold. So what I call the Nurture Cold is this is, it’s sort of a subcategory to what I, you could even call it hot. Well, I might have mixed up how I would call these, but really you have your nurture.

[00:33:58] That’s like, they have [00:34:00] no interest in a real estate transaction. And then you might have your nurture where they have interest, but like maybe their timeframe is really far out. Right? Like they’re starting the process toward buying a house, but like they’re starting a year in advance. Right? And so the way that you follow up with that person might look a little bit different than the person who’s looking to do business within the next couple of months a lot of the information is going to be the same.

[00:34:23] The strategy and the timing and the spacing might be a little bit different but that’s your other nurture sequence so really we kind of have seven here. We’ve got like our no interest in a real estate transaction that we know of, nurture sequence, and then our we know there’s interest but the time frame is far off.

[00:34:39] Does that make sense? And so for those the key idea, they really look a lot the same but for the one that has real estate transaction interest, we just make sure to drop in information that’s relevant to what we know they’re interested in. So we drop in offers to help, ways that we can potentially move them down the line, how can we show up to be helpful until they essentially move into [00:35:00] that hot bucket. That’s the idea. And then I’ve actually got, you know, one more.

[00:35:05] Charlie Madison: One more, a bonus one.

[00:35:08] Zach Hammer: We’ve got a bonus sequence here. So, are you, do you want to hear it or should we stop their.

[00:35:12] Charlie Madison: Well, let’s just stop. Let’s just stop.

[00:35:14] Zach Hammer: All right. Well, that’s it. All right, everybody.

[00:35:16] Charlie Madison: All right. Let’s get one more. As my kids say, one more, one more, one more.

[00:35:23] Zach Hammer: So this is a bonus sequence that may or may not be necessary but this is a sequence that is designed for those of us who maybe. Have let our list go that we haven’t done a good job actually emailing our list, emailing or staying in contact with people.

[00:35:40] This is typically done through email. Might be done a little bit through text message but this is what I would call the reactivate follow-up sequence. And the reactivate sequence is different from the archive but similar where this is more about a strategy of saying you haven’t been responding.

[00:35:59] You haven’t been [00:36:00] opening, you haven’t, like, you are not communicating with me, should I stop communicating with you, right? This is an opportunity to say, hey, here’s what I would like to help you with, here’s the kinds of things that I do. This is an opportunity for people to essentially say, yeah, oh yeah, no, I actually do want help with that.

[00:36:19] And reactivate and say, no, please keep sending me this information. I’m finding it helpful. I’m finding it useful. But it forces them to actually communicate or do something to indicate that. And it’s a really great way to make sure that, like, if you’ve got this segment of the list that you want to see, like, Hey, should I even keep emailing this person?

[00:36:34] Should I do that? It could be a good style to do that. And what I like to do for this style is literally those kinds of messages. Basically saying, hey, it looks like it’s been a while since you’ve opened my emails. It looks like it’s been a while since you’ve responded. I just wanted to check in and see should I keep following up with you?

[00:36:49] Do you still need help with this? If you’re familiar with Dean Jackson and the nine word email, it’s kind of a great way to integrate that. One thing that I do recommend as a real estate professional though, is that you don’t [00:37:00] specifically say I’m going to stop emailing you unless you really intend to.

[00:37:04] But it can be a great way to sort of. Like, have an aggressive sequence for a second, or for a bit, and then ease back off. And maybe go back to a shorter emailing. So, you might say, hey you know, let me know if anything changes, and you still need my help, right? So anyway, as a concept, it’s just a little bit of a different angle that potentially fits into what you would do for archive list.

[00:37:28] You know, your archive list. But it’s kind of its own strategy, if that makes sense. So, that’s why I include it as its own bonus. It really fits in as the archive, but it’s kind of a different angle for how to leverage that archive list. Does that make sense?

[00:37:40] Charlie Madison: Yeah, I like that.

[00:37:43] Zach Hammer: So there you go. Those are the six plus one different strategies for follow up, the follow up sequences that you need. Again, those are sort, hot, active, nurture, archive, with the bonus of reactivate. Any does that bring to mind anything? Any final thoughts or any takeaways from that discussion?

[00:37:58] Charlie Madison: I’m guessing [00:38:00] kind of most important is if you’ve got hot people, if you’ve got warm people, you know, but from my realization, I see a lot of real estate agents. The reason they do four deals a year instead of like 10 or 12 is they get these hot, they get these warm people and then they think they don’t want to hear from me anymore.

[00:38:21] And those people have raised their hands saying that they’d like help. And you know, what I found is just having the Tuesday update call. You know, a week with those people have, like, if you just do that and then let more people, like, that’s a foundation that I’ve seen work really well.

[00:38:39] Zach Hammer: Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point, I mean, you didn’t make this point specifically, but I think it fits in with what you’re talking about. One of the big mistakes that I see people do is that they get, either people don’t follow up enough because they feel overwhelmed by what they have in front of them. And a big reason for that is often because they haven’t done the work to properly [00:39:00] categorize, like, who they’re following up with and what needs to happen to effectively follow up with them. Right?

[00:39:06] Because if you do that and you have clarity, that’s part of what this helps you with. Is it lets you know there is work to be done if you want to, like, if you’re going to be generating leads. There’s work to be done to successfully process those. And, but the important thing is to know there is a process for that.

[00:39:24] And when they exit that process, you don’t keep following up with them as if they’re the same as somebody that you just generated a new lead this week, right? And so being able to clearly differentiate between those makes a world of difference on what your workload actually looks like and makes it actually more manageable and lets you figure out, do I need more leads?

[00:39:42] Do I need less leads? Et cetera. So that’s one of the takeaways to me is that when you do this properly, it makes your life easier and makes the process easier. It’s easier to understand, wrap your head around, and actually do the right work at the right times. The other thing that I see people make the mistake of, is that if they are doing some level of [00:40:00] follow up, they get way too focused on thinking that the answer is new leads, rather than putting the actual work into the warm end.

[00:40:08] Those hot and warm, you know, warm leads that you already have. That’s the biggest place where people need to start. They need to make sure that they’re actually communicating with that warm audience of people who already know, like, and trust them adequately, effectively, consistently. Because it is the best payoff compared to the money or time invested 100% of the time.

[00:40:32] It is going to take more work to process those cold leads into a deal, even in the best cases and in the best scenarios than it will to just simply follow up with the people that already know I can trust you. And have a good relationship, good strategies for that. And again, as a reminder, a really great way to do that is realtor waiting list and referrals while you sleep for sake of how you do that.

[00:40:54] And we forgot to mention it on this, but we do actually have a dedicated link for that. [00:41:00] RealEstateGrowthHackers.com slash I think it’s referrals while you sleep. Yeah, RealEstateGrowthHackers.com/ReferralsWhileYouSleep is our dedicated link if you want to go and check out what Charlie is up to and support the show in the process.

[00:41:13] But yeah those to me, those are kind of the big takeaways. When you categorize things correctly, the workload actually starts to feel easier and that if you’re feeling overwhelmed, chances are you’ve got too much mixed together of leads that you shouldn’t be following up with. At the extent that you’re following up with mixed together with the leads that do really need your attention.

[00:41:31] And when you properly categorize that, you set up your system to make that clear and to do the follow up at the right times and the right places. Everything starts to feel easier because, you know, it makes more sense and your time compared to payoff aligns much more readily. So there you go.

[00:41:47] That is the only follow up sequences that you need in real estate. Again, wrapping those up. Sort, hot, active, nurture, archive, and reactivate. And [00:42:00] and there you go. Thanks so much for coming out again Charlie. Hopefully this episode is helpful for people and they take action.

[00:42:06] They start going in and looking in their CRM or their systems, their processes, their calendar and start putting together a plan of action for how to do each of these. If you got to start someplace, I recommend starting with Nurture. Do that right first. And then everything else sort of starts to take care of itself.

[00:42:22] After that, probably your HOT and your active strategies, which again, weekly call is going to be the easiest one for those. And then after you’ve dialed those in, your sort and your archive strategies are going to be great ones to tackle after that. So, that’s my recommended plan of action for those.

[00:42:36] And yeah, there you go. So until next time thanks for showing up for another Real Estate Growth Hackers Show. And we’ll catch you on the next one. All right.