An effective lead-distribution system can be the difference between an office that runs smoothly and one that is divided by infighting
By Daniel Rome Levine
At Realty World Neighbors/The May & Jones Group in Hayward, California, the term “first responder” has a different meaning.
When a new lead comes in via email or phone, broker/owner Anna May, CRS, sends out an email to all her team members asking, “Who will successfully close this new lead?”
The first to “reply to all” gets the lead. “I figure if they’re so on top of their emails that they respond to mine quickly, they’re most likely to close the lead, too,” May says. “This is fair and transparent to all the other agents that the first to respond is rewarded.”
May and her husband and business partner, Greg, distribute leads among their team in other ways, too. Agents are encouraged, not assigned, to host open houses, and they are rewarded with the resulting leads. Leads are sometimes referred to team members based on a strong personality fit with a particular client or some other connection, such as a shared language. If an agent happens to be working in the office when a lead walks in the door, that agent is offered the lead first.
Systems equal success
One of the biggest challenges facing any real estate team is trying to distribute leads in a fair and equitable way. No system is absolutely perfect and all have their pros and cons, but not having one at all is a recipe for disaster and can create a toxic office environment divided by petty battling. An effective lead-distribution system builds a culture of trust and allows team members to collaborate for the good of the group, free from suspicions of lead stealing.
It is a widespread problem. Just 16 percent of brokers and agents surveyed by Inman News said they strongly agree with the statement, “My brokerage distributes leads fairly among agents.”
Setting expectations up front
The importance of establishing a lead distribution system that is clearly understood by all team members is vital, says Linda Craft, CRS, CEO of Linda Craft & Team, REALTORS®, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Craft’s 15-page employment contract covers her lead-distribution system in detail and she goes over it carefully with every new hire and has them initial each page. “It’s all about managing what is expected of team members right up front,” Craft says. “I spend a lot of time on leads because I know that has the potential to be a friction point later on, and the last thing I want on my team is chaos and conflict.”
Opportunity time
Craft’s system for distributing leads among her team’s 12 sales agents is based on an old-fashioned model with a modern-day twist. Instead of calling it “phone duty,” she has opted for the more appealing sounding “opportunity time.”
Craft creates a calendar in which every day of the week is divided into three shifts, 9 to 1:30, 1:30 to 6 and an evening shift. One agent has to be in the office to cover each shift, and whatever leads come in during that time, whether via email, phone or a person walking in the door, are theirs. Agents like the fact that they are “protected,” as Craft says, from competing colleagues during their solo opportunity time shift.
“Everybody has an equal opportunity for capturing leads based on their level of participation in opportunity time,” Craft says.
For instance, a more seasoned agent may take only five shifts a month because they have built up a larger referral base over the years, while a newer agent may want 10 to 15 shifts a month to build up their business.
When a lead comes in, the opportunity-time agent on duty assigns it to themselves by entering it into the office’s web-based lead management program, called Dakno Admin and developed by Dakno Marketing, a Raleigh-area firm. The program takes all leads and funnels them into a central email server attached to the firm’s website. If another agent were to try to steal that lead, a notification alert would be triggered. “This is an almost bulletproof system,” Craft says.
While no lead-distribution system is perfect and guaranteed to prevent conflicts, having one in place that is clearly understood by all team members will help the entire office achieve success and foster a winning, confident attitude.
Lee Barrett, CRS, teaches the RRC course Converting Leads into Closings, and has 40 years of experience as an agent, team leader and running his own brokerage, Barrett and Co. Inc., in Las Vegas.
“Peoples’ personalities will always find ways to cause issues and you need to take that out of the equation. Without a lead-distribution system in place, people will inevitably get
suspicious of the process, and that works against the very concept of what a team is supposed to be,” Barrett says. “Lead-distribution systems work because they impose discipline and a structure on a team and prevent leads from being passed out in a way that resembles a popularity contest.”
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Five-Card Draw
Five commonly used lead-distribution systems:
1. Leads are sent out electronically to all agents on a team simultaneously and whoever responds first gets the lead.
2. One staff member handles all leads that come in and then assigns them to agents.
3. Team members work solo, in-office shifts, and whatever leads come in during that time are theirs.
4. For a rotation-based system, agents take turns handling leads.
5. For a production-based system, the top 20 percent of agents in an office are rewarded with better leads.
