What is the best prospecting or lead generation method?

Originally Posted by realtor Here's the situation, you are a new agent with no contacts or sphere of influence but you have identified 50 people that you want to talk with about the chance of doing business together. What prospecting or lead generation method would be the most effective or efficient?

At face value this appears to come down to initial contact which is going to happen one of two ways, either they are going to contact you or you are going to contact them. I'd take the bull by the horns and either pay these people a visit or call them on the phone and then follow up consistently with timely and relevant messages.

Originally Posted by realtor My brain is in a knot trying to put this all together because there are so many people saying that cold calling isn't effective but I don't see a better choice when I already know who I want to sell to.

Don't get me started on this "cold calling doesn't work" propaganda. The question shouldn't be "Is cold calling effective?" the question should be "In this scenario is cold calling the most effective tactic for achieving my objective?".

Originally Posted by realtor Here's the situation, you are a new agent with no contacts or sphere of influence but you have identified 50 people that you want to talk with about the chance of doing business together. What prospecting or lead generation method would be the most effective or efficient?

An episode of Celebrity Apprentice from a few weeks back comes to mind. The job was to raise money for charity selling hot dogs...with a $10,000 price tag. While the other celebrities argued and waxed philosophic about the best way to do it, Gene Simmons of KISS started making phone calls and was honest with the people he called. "I want you to buy a hot dog for $10,000. Yes, it's for charity." Nothing fancy and no "sexy" hook...just the truth.
While the others argued, he raised somewhere around $60,000 himself, which was more than the others combined.
There's a great lesson to be learned here...don't let fear guide your actions. Fear wastes time, fear leads to poor decisions and fear loses you money.
The best way to prospect? Whatever you do, just DO it. Cold call, knock on doors, shake hands and pass out cards. For crying out loud...ASK for referrals. Just tell people what you do for a living and you're trying to meet as many new people as possible. It works. Yes, you will experience some rejection. Not everyone wants to meet you. No problem. There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people who are your potential client base.
If you spend too much time mulling things over and not enough time just getting it done, those people will become someone else's clients.
Whatever method you choose, just do it.

I find that cold-calling generally doesn't work when the person doing the cold-calling isn't committed to it. Your most successful long-term agents have used cold calling with success in their career.
As a real estate coach, I've also found that most agents who are indecisive about cold calling are afraid of it. Afraid of rejection, no matter how anonymous it may be. Fear is the career killer.

You cut through the BS and mulling over the mull, Mark - stop churning and get busy! EXcellent.

MitchM

I think the bottom line is this, do it the way you're most comfortable. Learn from you're mistakes. The boomerrang will never come back to you unless you learn how to throw it! But by all means, do something, and learn from it. Everyone has an idea that won't work!

In my job we do a little of both cold calling and face to face. The face to face works well if you can get in the door with someone. I have always found cold calling the easiest and fastest way to generate solid prospect leads.

The hardest part in all of this is just doing it. I have seen sales reps that will just sit there looking at the phone like it is going to do the work for them, or driving around the block ten times before they pull in to speak with someone. You just need to grab the bull by the horns and go after it.

I just began, for back of a letter phrase, face-to-face cold calling. I'm going to the businesses on the suspect list that I made and am gathering contact information for the specific person that I need to speak with about my line of products. Next I'll follow up with a call to that person.

I was nervous at first but out of 16 places that I visited I came away with 15 names and direct numbers of the person that I will need to speak with. I'm sure that it got me further than just calling and asking for the information.

The biggest plus about going about it this way is that I'm seeing potential clients around every corner that I never had even noticed before. With my list of ten I ended up visiting sixteen businesses (industrial) just because I saw them while driving by. Not bad for one morning.

I know that this approach won't necessarily work for every salesperson but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

Jamie

That's great. At least you made an effort to try something. As said in an earlier post, some people will drive around a business 15 times before ever going in. Just nervous. One thing that I do when cold calling face to face is carry a fax back sheet. I just simply tell a little about my business and if I can't get to the right person, I'll leave that sheet. I have a space where interested parties can fill in and fax their information back to you. You would be surprised at the number of people that will fax it back.

Again, not everyone agrees with that approach, but so be it. You have to try and do something or nothing will ever happen. As I have always heard in sales, "Things don't just happen, you have to make them happen."

I like that idea...

Look, Realtor, you seem to be asking a question when you are already part way through the prospecting phase of doing business. How did you find these 50? Referrals? Advertising?

When you quote that cold calling doesn't work - even if I do not argue that it works only if you know how to do it properly - it is irrelevant to the situation if you have for instance gotten 50 names of friends from your friends. In this case, calling is the ONLY way to proceed. You do not want to trust a message as important as "My name is _____________. The reason fro the call is we have a mutual friend in Jim Smith and I wanted to introduce myself to you .... by the way, I am in the real estate business ..."

Cold Calling is about not having any kind of link to the prospect. They are COLD. If you have 50 names then you must have some connection to them. Don't trust that to a letter important information to a letter.

Also - realize that the cold calling does not belong in business any more stuff is not new. Sales people have been crying that their company does not do enough advertising for hundreds of years, ever since the invention of newspapers!

The point is; don't beleive everything you read. we know prospecting and the phone is an incredible source of business. Not only that but I can show you exactly how to use it effectively with a very high probability of gaining a qualified prospect with a person you did not know or with someone you have some kind of lead into (referral, ad response or commendations/announcements).

Seriously, we need to know exactly how you got the 50 names together on your list to advise you any better than we have.

If I was in real estate I would be using referrals big time. After that I would be using direct marketing and door knocking. I would also use the newspaper for lead generation, especially the announcements portion of the paper. I would also target people relocating from out pf town/state/province ... with a website and Pay Per Click ads. Lastly I would never stop recontacting my prospects and past clients with letters, Christmas gifts, etc.

In short, I would do it all.