3 Types of Prospects And How to Convert Them

SUMMARY

Three types of prospects:

1. DIE HARDS. (STUCK to their current person or plan)
— Back burner…not pressure… wait til the die-hard moment happens

2. CROCK-POT PROSPECTS. (LOOKING FOR RESULTS.)
–Be consistent, respectful, the best…stay on their radar.

3. S.O.S. PROSPECTS (LOOKING FOR HELP)
–Get their first and stay with them…with confidence.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

There are different types of prospects. Some prospects are different than others, and there’s some prospects that frankly, no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to get their business.

Hi there, it’s Kevin Ward, the founder of YesMasters Real Estate Success Training. Helping you get more yeses and more successes in your business and in your life. Yes, I am competitive. When I would prospect for listings, I would get competitive against the prospects themselves. So if I had a prospect that wouldn’t give the time of day, or played hard to get I would just, “Err, somehow I’m going to get them.” Or if they would talk to me but they kept throwing these objections, I would just be like, “I’m just determined.” Or if they were committed to another agent that I wanted to beat, I would just go after them and I would beat my head against the wall and never get the listing and never get anywhere.

Maybe you’ve been in one of those scenarios where you talk to somebody and they’re friendly and they’ll talk to you, but you can’t ever get anywhere with them. It’s like, “Why can’t I get them to hire me? Why can’t I get them to do that?” Finally I realized … I got this from one of my coaches and some training that I went through with him, that there are different types of prospects. Some prospects are different than others. There are some prospects that frankly, no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to get their business.

So in this video I want to break down the three types of prospects that you run into in your business, in your prospecting, in your lead generation, and how do you convert them. How do you convert each one of them? Because the three of them all require a different strategy. There are three types of prospects.

The first type of prospect is what I call the die hard prospect. The die hard prospect, they are the ones that, they already have a plan. They are committed to either another person, or they’re are committed to another plan and there’s not anything that you can do. No objection handling ninja powers that is going to change their mind. Okay? “My mom is the number one Re/Max agent in town. I’m not going to switch agents,” that kind of thing. That would, in a sense, be a condition rather than an objection. What it represents though is, you got a prospect that is a die hard committed to another person or committed to another plan. There are some for sale by owners, they’re just like, “I’m going to try it, for sale by owner period. I’m never going to hire an agent.” There’s just that they have loyalty or that commitment to their cause, or there other person, that there’s nothing you can do to break through it.

Now, some people will pose as a die hard prospect. So whenever you run into somebody and they act like they are totally die hard, “We’re not moving,” or, “We’ve already got an agent,” or, “We’re just going to do it ourselves and we’re never going to list.” They may or may not be a die hard. You’ve got to dig a little deeper, ask some more questions and find out. Are they a die hard, or are they just posing as a die hard to get rid of you? So don’t just think, because somebody gives you and answer that says, “No, we have an agent. We’ve been friends with them forever. We’ve used them 17 times,” therefore, they’re going to stick with them. That maybe a bluff. They maybe trying to act like a die hard case, a die hard prospect, so that you give up on them. But if you dig a little deeper you find out that was just a smoke screen to get rid of you, because they don’t want pressure, okay. So, die hards.

Here’s how you approach them. Number one is, you want to prod a little bit deeper, okay? You’re going to prod a little bit deeper by asking a couple of questions. Kind of dig in. Are they really a die hard or not? If you’re using the Book of Yes scripts, you just keep on with the script. You acknowledge what they say, and then very friendly, very nicely, you just keep going. You keep asking more questions about their motivation and so forth, and prod a little bit deeper. Then I’m going to decide, “Are they actually a die hard or not?”

If they’re not a die hard, then I’m going to find out if they’re one of the other two types. But if you find out, yes they are a die hard, they are committed, they’re locked in with their plan, or with their other person, there’s nothing I can do. Then what is your strategy? Your strategy is very simply is patience. What that means is, back off. If you can keep them in your personal circle, if you can keep them in your vortex, where you can just continually … send them an email every month or two, but probably never talk to them. Not do anything overtly or proactively to try to change their mind. The worse thing you do here is, you try to change their mind. When you try to change their mind, all you do is make them resist you and that pushes them further away. So instead, you back off and just be present, be available, be professional. You just continue to do your stuff and try to stay on their radar if you can.

Because what has to happen here is, they have to have a die hard moment. Which means that loyalty that they had to that other person, or to the other plan has to die. It may be, everybody that is loyal, is loyal until something changes. When that changes, then they maybe an opportunity. But for the meantime, do not beat your head against the wall. Because I would get competitive with these guys, I would be trying like, “I’m going to get them, I’m going to get this listing.” I would just waste too much time trying to convince a die hard to change. It just freed me so much when I realized and learned this, if they’re a die hard … There’s lower hanging fruit elsewhere, go work on the other types of prospects right now.

So, what are the other types of prospects? The second type of prospect is what I call, a crock-pot prospect. So what’s a crock-pot prospect? A crock-pot prospect is somebody that’s going to take a little bit of time to warm them up. You’ve got to warm them up, you’ve got to simmer them, you’ve got to build that relationship. They’re looking, they’re somebody that needs help, but as a prospect they’re weary, they’re going to do some research and they want to kind of check things out and so-forth. So what is your approach with them?

Number one, is you got to be great at what you do. So you’ve got to be a pro. If you’re an amateur, forget about the crock-pots, because they’re going to pay attention. They’re going ask great questions, they’re probably going to look at your track record. They’re going to be looking for somebody who is competent, confident, and knows how to get results. So you’ve got to be pro.

Number two, is you’ve got to be persistent. Stay with them and don’t back off. With these people, back off a little bit. But these guys, they don’t need you to back off, they don’t need you to be pushy. So there’s … Persistence is different than pushiness. It’s not like getting in their face, I mean, occasionally, maybe, depending on that type of personality. But for the most part it just means you’ve got to be constantly in front of them. Your goal is, “I need to stay on their radar and let them see that when it comes to their options, I’m the best option.”

If you’re not the best option, if you’re an agent watching this and you’re new, you’re like, “I’m just trying to get listings. I’m just trying to get started,” I’m going to make a challenge to you, that if you want to win in this business, you’ve got to go pro. You’ve got start getting coached, you’ve got to get training, you’ve got to do whatever is required to become the best so that when you’re in these conversations, people go like, “Can I trust you? Does this agent know how to take care of me?” When you know how to deliver a great result, people are going to trust you. So you’ve got to be a pro, you’ve got to get good, and you’ve got to be persistent and stay in there. The crock-pots are typically going to take a little bit of time.

The third type, they’re everybody’s favorite. I call these the S.O.S. prospects. These are the S.O.S. prospects, what are they? They’re the ones that are going, “Help, help me, I need help!? They are sending out the S.O.S., they’re the expired listing that’s like, “I need … I got to do something. I need another agent. I need somebody that help me.” They’re the for sale by owner who’s desperate. They may pose up here, okay? They may pose up here, but when you prod them a little bit, you’re going to find out, they’re going, “Please, I just need somebody that can help me.” They are the perfect ones, they are the S.O.S., they’re the one’s who are looking for an agent that can help them. They’re just looking for the right agent, but they’re going to make a decision today. They’re going to make a decision this week. Again, some of them may pose as a crock-pot, or as a die hard, but in reality they’re ready to go. They just need the right person to come along.

So the strategy here, you’ve got to be a pro, but the main thing is, you’ve got to be urgent about these. You’ve got to get in front of them fast. You’ve got to talk to them, you want to be urgent about it. When I say urgent, I don’t mean be aggressive, it’s not just like go after them and just dog-pile them. But you want to get there day one, and you want to be talking to them regularly. If you can’t get an appointment today, I’m calling them tomorrow. I know that these are people that they need my help right now. These are the ones, by the way, the S.O.S. prospects, the best example of that is a motivated expired that’s looking for another agent. Those are the ones you could literally call them in the morning, set an appointment with them on your first call for later that day. You pre-qualify them, you do your market analysis, you don’t even have time to send a pre-listing packet, you just go straight on the listing appointment, and you leave that night with a new listing. I’ve done that so many times when you find these people.

However, what I’m going to tell you is, that these are few and far between. If I were making a guess, based on 20 years of experience, both selling hundreds and hundreds of listings, and working with clients all over the country, I would say probably this is 20 to 30% of the prospects out there. This is probably 5 to 10% right here, and this is probably, we’ll say 65 … yeah probably, 65 to 80% of the prospects.

So you have to know that consistency … This is why, right here, this is why lead follow up is having a good lead follow up system. Why having a good lead follow up system is so critical, is because 65 to 70 to 80% of all the prospects you’re ever going to run into, they’re going to be crock-pots. They’re not ready to make a decision today. They’re going to be a little bit thoughtful, they’re going to take their time. You’re going to have to talk to them more than once. This is where most of your business is going to happen. These, this is why you want to have a solid, daily lead generation time, as you want to be everyday, that I’m talking to the new for sale by owners, and the new expired listings, because they’re the hot ones. A lot of them, there’s a high probability, that they’re going to be and S.O.S. prospect. But if you’re not calling them that day, you’ve already missed them. Because the agent that got in front of them sooner, that was good and knew how to lead them to a decision, won on that one.

Here, just having a system that keeps you out in the business doing stuff and having something that you can kind of drip to people over time, maybe send them a market update and so-forth, in a way that they don’t go, “Get away from me, leave me alone,” gets you enough on their radar that when the die hard moment comes, you’re going to be available. But I will also tell you, these people are icing on the cake if you ever get them. Do not try to spend your time trying to win here. This is where the opportunity is. When you’re competing and you’re going … These people, they like the top agent in the market and that agent just gets … don’t try to beat that agent. Don’t worry about that. Go on for the people that don’t have that loyalty, that don’t have that commitment. These are a lot easier to get, and your batting average is going to be a lot higher with these people.

So, are there any other types of prospects that you think I missed? You could say, “They’re not motivated,” that would be another type of prospect that’s not really a prospect. But if there’s prospect types that I missed, or anything things that you think we should be doing that I didn’t include here, make sure you put them in the comments below. Let’s carry on this conversation. If this video’s been helpful for you, make sure you give it a thumbs up. We filled in the page, there’s a lot of stuff here. If you’ve not subscribed to my channel yet, please do that. Share this with other agents that you know this my help and I’ll see you on the next video.