Quality or quantity of the leads

richreeves

Expert
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What should be given utmost priority? How do you balance the need for a lot of leads and the need for high-quality leads?
 
What should be given utmost priority? How do you balance the need for a lot of leads and the need for high-quality leads?

I prefer to have volume of leads as an agent in the field. My objective is to get in the house and make something happen. I want to be in the field all day, every day. It's hard to get high quality leads to enable you to do that.

If I were working phones I would probably think a little differently.
 
I would rather have 1 or 2 qualified leads a day than 10 of questionable quality to burn through to find someone worth my time.

High quality and high volume are usually mutually exclusive terms.

If I were a better sales person I might opt for quantity. But I don't sell. I ask questions, listen and take notes. When I ask enough questions they will tell me what they want . . . then I give it to them.

I don't close them. They close themselves.
 
Wow. The first two answers are two different yet valid perspectives. Different perspectives because of different situations and context. Thanks for sharing your answers, guys!
 
Its a mixture, and ultimately a lot depends on your ability and personal preference. You need enough leads to stay business, but enough quality that you are profitable as well.

Ironically, the more skilled you are, the lower quality you can work with but you'll need fewer leads as you are selling more of what you see.

There really isn't a one size fits all answer, but just depends on what you are comfortable with and what your goals are. Like many things in life, you probably want to be in that middle area.
 
At some point, you may just want a pleasant, stress free day and the money may not be so important.

For example, I don't like door knocking. Since I make enough money without doing so, math isn't going to convince me to door knock. (But my son is a little hungrier right now, so he knocks on doors.)

But from a purely business standpoint the question is "Which lead source will generate the most profit per hour of your time?"

It is relatively easy to determine how much profit you will make per lead, but it is also easy to forget to track how many hours, on average, we work to make each sale.

But if you really want to answer the OP's question, you have to add up both dollar costs and time costs.

Let's say your all-in-costs to acquire a new client is $100 and your average commission is $500 from lead source A. (When calculating costs Include the cost of the lead, what you pay your assistant for the time he or she works each lead, postage, etc.)

So your profit before your time is factored in is $400.

To determine what you make per hour, add up the time it took for each phone call, and whatever else you need to make each sale on average.

If it took you 10 hours, you made $40 an hour. If it took you two hours you made $200 per hour.

(You can go super deep and figure out the lifetime value of each client from each source including how many referrals you get and the LTV of the referrals, etc. but let's keep it a little more straightforward.)

Do the same exercise for each lead source.

Then put most of your money and time into the lead source that gives you the best opportunity to meet attractive women or men, per your preference.

Just be sure not to put all your money and time into one lead source or income stream. I recommend no more than 85%, but I'm working on getting it lower.

Every lead source dries up eventually. When it does, it will be easier to scale up your second best lead source, than to start from scratch.
 
Not bragging, but I feel my skill level is fairly high. I just don't care to waste my time trying to convince someone to buy from me. I have better things to do during the day.

I completely agree with you, however not everyone is that way.
 
Yeah, Alston pretty much nailed this. Its a balance between the 2. Think of it this way, you can assign points to each item (quantity and quality) but the total can only come up to 10. I think seasoned agents will want quality to be a 7 and quantity to be a 3, where newer agents might want the inverse of this, quantity to be a 7 and quality to be a 3.

Quality leads tend to cost more per lead, but perhaps are cheaper per sale. Of course, I've never heard a lead vendor say that their leads were bad :)

Dan
 
But if you really want to answer the OP's question, you have to add up both dollar costs and time costs.

Let's say your all-in-costs to acquire a new client is $100 and your average commission is $500 from lead source A. (When calculating costs Include the cost of the lead, what you pay your assistant for the time he or she works each lead, postage, etc.)

So your profit before your time is factored in is $400.

To determine what you make per hour, add up the time it took for each phone call, and whatever else you need to make each sale on average.

If it took you 10 hours, you made $40 an hour. If it took you two hours you made $200 per hour.

(You can go super deep and figure out the lifetime value of each client from each source including how many referrals you get and the LTV of the referrals, etc. but let's keep it a little more straightforward.)

Do the same exercise for each lead source.

Thank you for this really great tip, Alston. Will definitely take note.
 
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