How to leverage Automations to double your business
![How to leverage Automations to double your business How to leverage Automations to double your business](/pic/how_to_leverage_automations_to_double_your_business/cllXalpZbGxrR2M_.jpeg)
So today we're going to talk about how to leverage some automations. Uh, very specifically the automations that already come inside, a follow up boss and some of the Zapier integrations that we can have. And just some, a lot of ways to just take your business and figure out how to create some leveraging it.
We all know that we're getting more and more and more leads every day, and we're also doing less and less up with them. So hopefully we're going to share with that, how we do that and look at that picture of Barry Jenkins on that. I'm not sure there's a better opportunity for me to do right now than the past. So they told me to make a surprised face.
So that's awesome. But I'd had to do a sassy one in front of a bear and a fireplace. I just, it wouldn't fit landscape in this, but maybe for the next. Perfect. Yeah, no, absolutely.
So, um, did you guys, I know we talked about a little bit of structure. Um, go ahead. Regardless, I'll I'll sort of just, I guess, kind of kick us off.
Um, couple of housekeeping items. Yes. It's being recorded.
We've successfully managed to do that. We'll send you a copy once we wrap up. Um, if any of this seems overwhelming, don't worry.
You'll have myself, we have our success community and everyone else will be able to kind of follow up with you. Book a hands on one-on-one. If you have questions.
Um, if you do have any questions, use that Facebook group, um, or the chat box provided in your zoom panel and, uh, we'll get to them as we go through. Here's kind of, um, to give us a lay of the land for the next 30 or so minutes, here's what we're going to cover. We're going to cover how to smart automation creates long-term value for you and your real estate business. Um, we're going to talk about high and how, and what sort of relevant drip content we should be sending. Cause you know, sending the right message at the right time to the right prospect is the number one way to close more, more deals, and then specifically how to leverage Zapier and follow up on. Um, and all of the workflows that, that Barry has managed to kind of crack to create more time and leverage in his business.
Does that sound about good? Sounds good to me. Awesome. Let's talk about that. What's our next slide. That's awesome.
Um, I think that the thing that sticks out for a lot of people and for a lot of folks, you know, as you guys registered for the webinar, I asked. What's your single biggest challenge right now when it comes to setting up automations in your business or setting up workflows. And a lot of the responses are, I don't know where to get started. All of this seems overwhelming, um, et cetera, et cetera. And right now I'm willing to bet for a lot of people.
You're pouring a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into generating leads organically in your business, but you're all. Throwing money and investing, uh, to generate leads from a lot of different sources in your business. So, um, I look at Xavier as our connectivity tool. It's the thing that strings a lot of these, um, systems and workflows together.
So, so I say, let's, you know, let's talk about that. And, and Barry, how did you, let's talk about how you sort of started to leverage, um, your tech stack and connect all your tools to create more time? Yeah. Uh, you know, it's really unscientific. And so I'm going to give you guys my secrets to how I decided what to automate and when it's super complicated. Okay. You ready? Bring it.
If it was annoying, I automated it. If I screwed up, I automated it. That's it.
Let's talk about what that means. So if it was annoying, so give us a couple of examples of things that were annoying, that you've said, you know what? I don't want to deal with this and frustrated and it irritates me. Give us an example of that so that we can give people an idea where they go with something like that. Right? So you get a buyer and a seller under contract in escrow, depending on if you're cool or not.
You know, the rest of us say ratify contract, but, um, the there's a lot of people you gotta tell. And then there's a lot of things compliance wise, and I'm a salesperson I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I'm having fun.
And, um, and I would just have to like stop and think. Who, when, what did I do this? And it's just you. And at that time in my business, I didn't have the clarity of thought to like, write it out or have a template of any kind. And, and I would just carry the list in my mind, which is a horrible thing to do. Like you're just using all your hard drive and you're off your processor is just, you know, running.
It's like having 50 Chrome tabs open and. I could come up with a way that I could do an information dump all at once and have everybody know everything that they need to know. And so, uh, you know, in 2016 that started my Geoff form. To, um, uh, I don't know if deals was around then and follow up boss, but eventually worked its way into deals.
Um, and basically I, when my agents ratify a contract, they go to this job forum and all of the things they should be thinking about. They're just answering the questions. And then when they hit submit that data goes to all the many places that it has to.
And so those are, those were, that was an example of something that was annoying. I would remember at 2:00 AM. Oh, man.
I forgot to schedule the inspection. That's annoying. Right? Like I did a good job and now I've got to like the stress of, okay, what do I do? Like, and then I wouldn't fall back asleep. So anything that is annoying or anything that I made a mistake on.
There's a lot of deadlines in a real estate contract. There's, um, a lot of leads, you know, we spend all this money, we get all excited about all these systems and processes and follow a boss is showing me who's active and all this stuff. And then I miss it because either I'm distracted or it's confusing.
And I don't find out until 3, 4, 5 months later that I had all these hot leads that I didn't capitalize on. And they bought with someone. And so figuring out what do I do? How do I fix that? And, you know, I think, I think we as agents, our frame of reference is not what's broken or what's burdening me, let me fix it. It's Hey, I heard Barry did this, so I'm going to, and so, you know, w so I, you know, it is a mistake. To view what someone else is doing and just try to say, well, that's what I'll do without any context. Uh, so really focus on what what's blocked.
What's where are your blockers? And what you'll find is the stuff I did in 20 16, 20 17 on, on and on, I'm still reaping the dividends from those investments of time. And I actually don't enjoy setting this stuff up. I don't, I just don't like doing annoying things. Yeah. Yeah, so I love it. And I think, you know, so for those of you who are thinking about that, like, you know, what kind of things are we talking about? So the first thing is, and I don't know if you're doing it this way, not Barry, but most of the stuff I do simply by adding a tag in follow up boss, is that kind of what you're doing? Oh, gosh.
I mean, that's, that's a one way to do it. Yeah. I mean, and that's a great way to do it. Uh, it's probably one of the, um, most straightforward ways to do it. There's a lot of other ways too, you're talking about triggers, right? Like what absolutely.
What, what, what is going to set this off? So stage changes is another one, right? Like when my agent changes the stage to cold, I want something cool to happen. Right. So what happens when an agent on your team changes a stage to cold? Well, I know that they're probably not going to remember to call them regularly. And so I'm going to have an automated campaign of some kind be created to start maybe five, six months later, uh, with some tasks, you know, an action plan. Um, I know that my, my agents, when they convert a lead and they change the stage to hot, they changed the stage to hot because it shuts everything off.
I've only asked my agents to focus on stages. That's it? I'm like, look just. I'll do lots of things. Just you just focus on the stage and they know that the different stages are telling me and the computer what to do based on that. So I'm actually, the adoption of stages is really important and has grown. But, uh, when my agents changed the stage, I don't give them an opportunity to let our preferred lender know that they got I've lead.
So, uh, you know, the, the, the lender is added as a collaborator. An email goes out, and this is risky by the way, what I admit, but it's an apologetic email from the assigned agent. Hey, I'm sorry, I'm going a million miles an hour. I can't remember if I shared the detailed information of how to contact our lender.
Here it is. My lender really, really likes it. And the more he likes it, the more money he spends and the more leads I buy and that that's what makes the world go around. Yeah. And it's at a follow up boss automation that you're using to do that. Yeah.
Yeah. So for all of you who, I don't know, um, you know, maybe we should talk just for a second about the, the triggers that you can do. So Barry's already talked about when he changes the stage. So if I change a stage in, in follow up boss, one of the things that can happen is I can create an automation.
That's right. So when you, when, so I'm assuming, you know, for those of you who are watching, uh, and I'll just read off what the triggers are for those of you who don't know them, you can just go back into the admin and then you just go to automations. That's where you find that there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 triggers. And those seven triggers are a state change, which Gary, which with Barry, you talked about, there are tag, which I talked about. I do a lot of stuff with tags, um, deal, stage, change, new inquiry, property safe. Property viewed calendar dates.
So if any of those things happen, then we can do other things. And that basically that's what Barry's talking about. So what are some of those things that we can do? So if I change the stage, then I can actually do another action in any of those actions.
I can reassign a lead. Hopefully we don't have to do that. Um, you know, we can add notes or we can create another action plan.
And I know sometimes when, as I first got into this, and I don't know if you had this experience, Barry, but it felt like I kept trying to change things too. So I love what Barry said at the beginning of this map, this out. And here's what I'm saying.
What a stage when somebody changes stage, what are the things that I want to happen? So then you can just simply map that out and then you can go in and create data around it. You know, a lot of us don't like to do this mapping out on a piece of paper. We were making a joke at the beginning and I said, you know, we were going to have a class on how to use a notebook and a calendar. Maybe we should have that class, but it's a good place to start is on a piece of paper to map it out.
So you know where you want to go. So I don't know if that's how you create stuff buried, but I have to, because. It can all work in my head without seeing it on a piece of paper and kind of drawn out. Yeah. So I'm actually looking for one that I just did. Um, I, I'm a very visual person and I would S I would add, I would say that most of our culture is just the way that we were.
So I really just want to show off that I have, um, this is, uh, you know, me just basically. Doing a wireframe of what I think should happen. And it does two things, you know, uh, I've gotta be able to teach my salespeople what, what we're doing and why we're doing it. Um, but I think we, we, as, as team owners, we look at this and we're like, yeah, I need to do a flow chart, but, but I didn't do flow charts in 2016. Okay. Like I should've, but easier.
I was still selling. Right. And that, that matters. If you're still selling houses, you're still in production. You know, you, you've gotta be more. What, what can I do to free up some of my time? And what we need to recognize is the more you do this, you're effectively raising your hourly rate because you're, you're, you're putting tasks that you no longer need to do, um, off your plate.
And that's why, you know, look, I love Zapier. Um, but the automation. Feature inside a followup boss.
It took it like, it multiplied my ability with Zapier by like tenfold, because now I can do things like if someone views a home or saves a home while they're in my storage pond, storage pond means it's like, they're just there. We're marketing to them. But my agents aren't bothered with. If someone views a home or saves a home or triggers a why Lobo priority alert. I want to create the action plan of move to priority pond and the priority pond action plan takes the lead out of the storage pond ads. And it tags it.
The note allows me to notify everybody on the team. Hey, this one just went from the storage pond to the priority pond. First one to talk to them, gets it, and then, you know, creates this frenzy.
But I wasn't able to do that with Zapier because I wasn't able to get it. Granular of what the lead's behavior was. Um, and, and so, you know, automations inside a up boss plus Zapier is a really dynamic duo that will get your nerd inner nerd doing cartwheels. But if you don't start. What do I need to fix? You're just going to have like a lots of stuff and life's complicated enough, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
And I'm going to share my screen for just a second and show people exactly what Barry's talking about and how simple this is to do. So I think. You are scared by the word automation and a lot of it.
So I want to show you guys, and this is just a simple, I'm going to take what Barry just said. He said, when I get someone who viewed a problem and actually go one step back. So I'm going to add a new automation here. And Barry just said, Hey, somebody viewed a property. So I'm going to create this.
This is an automation I'm creating real time right here. And the action would be, I want to reassign this. I don't have ponds.
It's similar to bury. So I'm just going to pick up on, I'm going to say. Assign it to this pond. So literally next time, I'm not going to turn this automation on because it doesn't make sense in my business the way I have it set up, but I want you to know the next time somebody views a property on my website. They will get reassigned to this punk.
That's literally how simple this is now. I'm not going to save this automation. I'm not going to turn it on, but that's how simple it is to create automations in, in follow up boss, you know, and you could do that one, or you could say, you know what? I don't want to do, you know, have somebody assigned to a pod. I wanted add automation. When somebody views a property, I'm going to just a gray. And then we can just, they start doing a certain action plan.
That could be a drip that could be a notification to the agent to call them. There's all these different things. You can add a tag, all of these things can be done very simply. And what things can I do? You know how I could figure it out? I go to action plans. All of these things I can do in an action.
I can create a tag. I can send an email, I can change a stage. I can add a note. All of these things can be done. So that's why I was saying that, you know, I love what Barry did. It was great that he actually had that piece of paper in front of him, but Barry didn't sit down and he'd do it this way.
He sat down with a piece of paper and said, what do I want to see? What's the trigger? The trigger is, um, somebody looked at a house. What do I want to happen? And. A lot of this. I want to say that it's, since the last, probably six to 12 months, I don't quote me on that.
Time is time is a blur in the pandemic, but follow up boss is added automation. After automation, after automation, we still use Zapier, but I use it about 10% of what I used it a year ago. I don't know if that's where you're at as well.
Barry. I, I, I think I, I agree, uh, that the automations have just continued to layer. I felt it now. So it, it hasn't decreased anything. It's just made it more like, it's honestly, it's just more difficult to talk to people about because it's like I'm speaking a different language sometimes, but I will say that that. Storage pond, a priority pond, uh, automation came about because a mistake was made.
There were, I, you know, occasionally I'll go in and I'll do some searches and say, did we miss anything? And I saw theme. That my agents were busy and there wasn't enough exposure to all the, you know, we're all excited about dynamic remarketing, all these old leads coming back to our website, but it is also leveled up or required a leveling up of organization because the days of just kind of being disorganized and haphazard, but good on the phone, like, you know, answering the phone and just kind of work in the lead. Those days are, uh, it's more and more and more difficult to run a profitable business with that type of environment. And so, you know, I began to look through where, where are the holes in my database? Where am I missing opportunities? And I, I found several instances where. I had all these cool drips and people responding to them and nobody was getting notified. And so I was like, okay, I got to funnel this.
I got to figure out. And so that's how I came up with the storage to priority pond idea. Uh, but that doesn't mean that everybody else should copy that you should just look for.
Where are your missed opportunities? Right. And, uh, and how can I capitalize on a next time without having to pay attention? I do not want to be. I don't and I do something similar that I do add a zap for.
So when somebody takes an activity, that's in one of my ponds, I drop that into a slack channel. And then from that slack channel, everybody on my team has access to that. And what they get is a URL.
To the lead in the pond. So they go, they click on that slack channel and now that lead and they can go in there now, sometimes it's dumb, you know, sometimes it's like, um, somebody just added a note. Okay, great.
No big deal. But a lot of times this is what I found. I've got a lead. That's a, uh, a curator lead from five years ago and they just became a why local lead five minutes ago, whether in my poem.
Well, no, one's really monitoring that pond, I think is kind of Barry was having a similar situation. So now there a Y LOPA lead now they're ready because five years ago they weren't, they were just bored searching the internet at two o'clock in the morning. So one of our agents can click on that claim, that lead and go, Hey, great.
This is Brian with curse. Really grip, just following up with the assignment and inquiry on our website. Wondering if you're looking to make move sooner, just windows. Awesome. And that was so the types of things that automations can do for you. And again, sit down and think about it.
So we have a couple of questions. Um, the first one was, what's the name of the system that's Barry's mentioned the agent can fill out and then it sensitive to everybody, you know? And that was the first thing that you talked about. It was just, uh, JotForm, J O T F O R M. It's just a form software just does not even real estate.
Yeah. It's like you could use Google phone. I was going to get it. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, JotForm is a good, is a good thing. We use Google forms in our, in our business as well. So I hope that answer your question, Sydney. Next question.
Is there an automation that can be set up to reassign a lead after a certain amount of time has passed that that new lead has not been called? That is actually a fun automation barrier. You're familiar with how to do that, or I'd be happy to talk about it either way. No, actually I learned it from what you. Are doing, uh, with the tags. So go ahead and share it.
Cause it was your idea. Anyway. So basically what we're doing is we're looking at you. You can basically do a search with, with smart lists and create that.
And if for whatever reason that person is. A, in a certain amount of time, we add tags and subtract tags with action plan. It's kind of a complex concept.
So the answer is yes, you can do it, but ultimately a lead comes in and then after a certain action is taken, there's an if then conditional in the automation, it'll either remove the tag or add a tag. And so when certain tags are still on. I added to that the tag will trigger the reassign is the short version of that.
Um, yes, it can be done. And I apologize that didn't give you the exact workflow, but it's, it's a little bit more complex, but yes, it absolutely can be done. It's add and remove tags and action plans.
And then it's reassigned based on certain tags and you can look at it. Called you can run smart lists. Last call of last contacted. Uh, you know, Gabe did a whole bunch of that stuff that he's doing with his team.
Last call last contacted last text. And you can look at that and if that has not happened, then yes, you can automatically create a reassign. What'd you do that? Using tags, like adding and removing tags, or could you also do that using stages if they don't move it out of a specific stage, you were to reassign it, but that's a really great way to do that. And does it, yeah.
So you can, you could definitely create an automation that if it's not, if it's not at a certain stage after, you know, you're going to run, run those conditions, if not contacted and stage X, then you could remove that as well. Absolutely. Or you could reassign that as well. And the other thing I do is, uh, that I got from, uh, Jeff and Brian is in our action plans. We have. Day one day five tags that are added on day one and day five day, 10 day, 15 day 20.
And for me, I create automations inside of followup boss that on day 10, for example, if the number of calls is less than one. Then, why didn't you call note is added. Like you're allowed to add these tags into the standard action plans and they're just audit moments. They're moments where you can say, what do I want to look for? Zero outbound texts, zero, um, outbound calls. Okay. Well, that's a problem, right? Do you want to give them a note to nudge them or do you want to just reassign it to somebody else? Really you can do anything.
I would default on nudging to start. Um, and, and then if the nudging isn't working, then you can kind of come up with a scenario where your agents buy into the fact that look like. If you're not trying, can we just give it to somebody else? You know, like, and, and just, and when you automated follow up boss, as the bad guy, you can close your ears, Ricardo, but not systems. The system didn't call. Yeah. And, and let me just kind of show you a real quick, and this is not an actual, this is not the best way to do this.
Exactly, but I'll just show you real quick, basically what Barry's talking about. A simplified version of that. So ultimately we can add a tag. I just picked a random tag to do this by the way. And then I can say, okay, the last two here's the condition.
Last call was more than five days. So I've got a new lead. Literally a lead comes into my system.
I can add a tag date, one, like with an action plan, it automatically gets a tag added to it. And then I just pick this as a random time event. You can pick whatever you want, but last call was more than five days ago, by the way, if it's zero calls, this will still trigger this. And then if that happens, I'm going to reassign it to the, to a pond. And that's all that is. And I think sometimes we make this really complex.
It doesn't have to be that complex. I created that as we were talking about this during the webinar. So that, that drive with what you're talking about.
Lee, Jerry, a Barry. Wow. I can't say your name, blah. Brian. It absolutely is. Ooh.
Wow. Um, it's it's Monday here on this Wednesday, so, but pretty, you know, pretty civil cops. All right, we've got another question. Um, Hey Barry, um, directed for Barry. Uh, I have a copy of your lead follow-up plan flow chart. Is it possible to automate this plan and have it assigned tasks to remind a call, text the lead on particular red days, or even have text messages automated as well? That was a big question.
Once you answer the first part, can you have it called remind to call or text on the, on particular days? I need to read it again. I had trouble, let's say lead follow up on flow chart. Is it possible to automate this plant and have it assigned task? So yes, you can do that, but. If you're not careful tasks become this place in follow up boss, where you get to just be a loser and you go there and you have like a hundred past due tasks. And so you just stop using it. I call it task hill.
I don't know what you guys call it, but, um, I've literally emailed follow-up off. Four times over my tenure with follow up boss and said, Hey, I'm going to call my tasks, please. Just like wipe my entire team's tasks.
Just wipe them all. Let's just start from scratch. And, um, and so now we only use tasks for unique tasks to the, between the agent and the client. Um, and they're, they're, self-made outside of 3m. Call tasks that we make for our agent.
And the reason why we do that is so that they can organize. They can do all of their morning call tax. On one day a week, they can do all their midday, lunchtime tasks another day, and then they can do all of their evening call tasks. So we, we actually allow them, we have, our ISA is managing the, uh, urgency of new and calling right away. And then we allow the agents the ability to plan their schedule. And, um, and you might say you only have three call tasks for your agents? Yes.
And I bet they call more than yours. Right. And I'll piggyback on that. So what Barry's talking about, I had the same experience. So I had, I don't know, for my team thousands and thought, I remember what the number was, you know, 7, 8, 10, 20,000 overdue tasks. I don't know what it was.
And so for me, once you get about 20 overdue tasks, you might as well. And that's, that was kind of the, the threshold that we figured out past our fabulous, but I used to have a task that would run action plans. They want to set this task. They too had set this path and it would, by the time it was day 10.
If the agent hadn't done a good job, they had 15 overdue tasks. So. I'm also not a fan of over tasking people. I love the concept of what we were talking about a second ago. If you're not going to work to lead, I'm just going to read, assign it and let somebody else grab it.
And I love what Barry said there too. He said, don't be the bad guy. Blame it on follow-up boss. Hey, this is a system. We talked about it.
When you joined our team, you're joined our organization. And matter of fact, I can't even know how to stop it anymore. Now it might be an exaggeration, but my point is. Everybody plays by the same set of rules.
We're not treating you special. We're not treating you in that in a good way or a bad way after X number of days that lead will get reassigned. What does that do? And that's basically we're inspecting what we expect, right? So it's just a way to do it from an automated standpoint. So I love that where you're coming from. Um, what about automated text messages? Very cause I know that you cannot, unfortunately do. In follow up boss, uh, you know, I think we've all harassed Dan, but he's decided that that's not in his business model.
And I respect that because if you know the rest of all bosses, so amazing, but what if you want to send an automated text messages out? I can talk about what I can do, or I'd be happy to listen to what you're doing out there as well. Follow the boss was really ahead of its time with this feature because, um, for those of you that don't know. The way, email providers, scrutinize email, deliverability and spam. Well, it's, uh, going to be a whole nother level of that with cell phone providers, Verizon at and T all of these mobile providers are holding, texting vendors, hostage with paperwork and money.
Um, and, uh, and, and so it's just not going to work anymore, to be honest with you, not like it used to, and the level of creativity, um, Is really, it's just gone up a lot. So, um, and, and look, I mean, even the iPhones adapted, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but you can, you can go to select messages in your text. Now let me go to it. There's three dots at the top, and then you just hit select messages and then you can click a read all button. So I don't even read all my text messages anymore. I'm tired.
And so I just, so it's changing. Okay. Five years ago it worked, it doesn't anymore.
And so, yeah, I would tell you that, um, having we've made our lists, Smartlist our workflow and I've numbered them so that my agents do one first in two seconds and three third text template. And I created text number one and text number two in text number three. So when they're in list three, they text number three. I know, I know it's crazy and they use it today and, you know, we joke, but I want my agents to be creative. I want them there, Greg area's nature to come out and I want them to be funny when I needed them to examine these lists and decide who they should contact.
I'm not only getting them to use their, their pragmatic side of their brain, but I'm, I'm immediately decreasing their efficiency. And what I've found is by removing as many options, As possible from their day to day, I've watched as the time they spend following up has increased 33%. I mean, it's, they're spending more time, not because I'm making them, I'm making it easier for them. And this is very doable with the follow boss platform.
In fact, it's, I would argue that I have never had a CRM be as adaptable to what my needs are. Because there's no right answer. What's right.
For me today is not, what's going to be right for me a year from now my business adapts, my lead sources adapt my agents. My market adapts. And so I need my system too, and that's, that's really what I'm, you know? Um, and I'm getting my follow up boss tattoo right here next week.
Excellent. It's going to look like just like that, right? Okay. And I'll answer the question slightly different Cheney. So I'm wondering, first of all, let me say, I agree 100% with what Barry just said.
If you give somebody a simple plan to follow. They can follow it. If they log into follow up boss and go, oh, I've got to send this text today. And it's in a text template that takes me about seven seconds.
And then I go to the next one. I do it over and over and over again. That's what you're saying is in essence, right? Barry, you're telling them exactly what to do on date 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 20, 30, whatever it is. That is a fabulous way to do that. And it keeps people, your agents specifically engaged.
Um, the alternative to that would be to, to add on. And this is one of the things that I personally love about follow-up boss followup boss has become the hub of my business. And what do I mean by that? Well, I've got coddle action. I've got agent legend. I've got am cards.
I've got OTC open to close. All of those things are now integrated inside a followup boss. And as far as I know, there's no other CRM that has direct integrations. That way that I can use all these systems, I don't even have to log into the other system to use it anymore.
And I love that. It seems like that one step would be no big deal. Oh, I'm going to start a call.
Action, drip, what do I gotta do? I gotta log into call action. I'm not going to do that, but since it's built into follow up boss, like click, click, and I'm done. So to answer your question in a different way, you could set a task. And again, we talked about the, the, the PR the trials.
Formulations of tasking to start a drip with something like call action or agent legend, or you could have an automation that puts a tag on that. Again, I'm clearly a big tag guy and that tag can trigger an automation to send out a text message through call action or agent legend as well. So it just depends on how much you want your agents interacting. And how much you don't. So for, for active leads inside of my CRM, I like what Barry said for people who are sitting in my pond.
I like to do more automation. That's my difference. I want agents interacting with the ones that are assigned to them, the ones in the pond I'm going to over automate and send out text messages and voicemails and things like that. And I use, I use call action personally, to do that. Cool.
I don't know how much time we have Ricardo. Where, where are we at? I don't know if this is supposed to be 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour or hours. It's our workshop now. We're, we're, we're tracking good on time.
Um, we'd love to open it up to Q and a. If you guys have questions, keep hitting us in the chat and, uh, and we're good. Um, you know, I think, uh, also outside of working backwards from, uh, what's annoying and what's broken, I think some other things you can do is. You know, optimizing. So I've gotten to the point now where, um, I'm, I'm not so much what's annoying and what's broken I've, I've, I've really addressed all of that. Now it's more focused on how do I optimize my business.
Um, and you know, one of the ways, one of the ways I do that is focusing on, um, what's the cheapest way for me to generate opportunities for my age. Without taxing my agents. And so then I obsessive we look at my database and look at the trends and I go into reporting inside a followup boss.
And I look at, um, you know, just the, the detailed alerts. I also, um, have that another. Follow up boss bolt on product of Optum. Uh, that is my basically it's become my lead manager inside of the followup boss ecosystem. And, um, and somebody just asked what's my favorite automation. You know, that's like, that's a, that's a hard question to ask.
Um, they're all my favorite ones. I launched them. I mean, I think, uh, I think. Probably the one that has had the biggest impact is having all contracts. And, um, when my agents get something under contract, going to a, a little Squarespace website with a jot form on it, I I'm able to change my systems. Like people change their socks.
And my agents don't know my job form has been the same for five years and I literally change what happens to the data constantly and nobody knows. Um, and it allows me, you know, I know what I know automatically how much it costs me per lead source. They get a closing, you know, mine. And this is because of the data I get, the moment they ratify the contract.
When my agents went to listing, there's that, oh gosh, I gotta order photos. Gotta do I have a menu. It's a jot form. And they S they, they select what they want. And then based on what they want, it tells specific people on my team what to do.
And that's why now I think I've got, I think I'm up to eight VAs in the Philippines that are. Man handling the data. Um, and, and, you know, the outcome of this is we're closing 15% of our realtor.com leads and, uh, we're closing 1% of our Y LOPA leads. And so at first glance, it's like, Hey, I should buy more realtor.com. Right.
And that's what I used to do. Well, tell us why library. Cause I think that's a very important concept you just covered right there. And now that I have all this data, I was like, I was looking at the cost per closing and, um, forever. A a thousand dollars.
I spend on realtor.com. I lose $500 at a 15% closing ratio. And for every $1,000, I spend all my Lobo. I make four. So my rep thought I was like quitting the business@realtor.com.
Cause every time there was a renewal, I was like, noo, noo, noo. No. And that's just because I, I, the data was leading me to, you know, go where I wanted to go. So I think for me, yeah, Uh, business insights have been my favorite. And, uh, um, anything that gives you more transparency about your business is a huge win.
Um, and I think it should be really brought up a lot more in my head. I love that. I'm going to answer a question real quick. Somebody asked about Optum that's a U C T M.
It sounds like it starts with an O, but it starts with an a, so it's a Latin word. That means something. I feel like many of these software companies come up with the most, like, what's the most difficult way we can name our company and use.io at the end. Like it doesn't matter.
Oh, they did.com. Oh, well. And again, you know, w w we'll spend a couple more minutes covering anything. Um, we'd love to hear more questions. I, you know, we'd love to just share any of those thoughts with anybody.
Who's got anything. I see. We've got about 75 people right now, and in a way of people watching online as well. So if you have any questions, please throw them in the, in the chat or the Q and a, and, uh, otherwise you got to listen to Barry and I pontificate about whatever we decide.
Well, and, you know, th th there could be, um, Some listening, being like, yeah, that's great. I'm really glad for you that you have it. So dialed in that, you know, how much your costs are closing.
Right. So let's talk about some others that I think, um, I think are really important, uh, uh, automating your lead follow-up I think for a lot of agents that are trying to scale, um, that is, uh, it's important. And so some things that you want to keep in mind is what did the consumer expect? When they registered wherever they registered from, what did they expect and does the messaging you're providing and the automated campaigns does it match? And one of the things that I started to do was I call it being generally specific. And, uh, what I would do is I would bolt on call action and say, All right.
When a lead comes in on day two in the morning, I want to leave a voicemail that says, Hey morning, I know you were checking out lead source. Right? So I knew what lead source they were on. And I knew that I was sending the text in the mail. And I did all my messages in, uh, it was there, my voicemail, but I'm the client care coordinator say, Hey, this is client care coordinator. Um, and, and, uh, so generally specific. So I, I, whatever fixed about the messaging, whether it's text or email or voicemail or video.
I use it to my advantage. And then, um, I leave my company number, my follow-up office company number as the callback number that's because anyone that calls that number that's in my CRM automatically routes to the assigned agent. Right. And another example is when I get a home evaluation lead, I did a video and it's, I it's hilarious. I'm generally, but I'm specific.
Hey, this is Barry. I saw you just were checking out your home value and I wanted to see if you wanted me to send you this cool report. It's called home bot and I happened to be on somebody else. Digest. So I figured I would just show you, do you want all these things? Let me know. And people ask me all the time, like, Hey, what's, what's an automated video you sent.
And I send them that one and they're like, oh no, that's for one person. I'm like, no, no, go back and listen. It really isn't like, literally like all the time people are like, oh, that's just for one person.
And, um, And so, you know, uh, but generally specific is good. Um, and, uh, you know, recognizing that you need something, bringing them back to your search site. Uh there's there's different companies now that offer dynamic remarketing, but, uh, just focusing on new opportunities, I would say it's half the battle. You really need to focus on old opportunities because I can get an old lead. To come back to my website for about a dollar 50 a person a month.
So, um, uh, that's way cheaper than anything else. So absolutely a couple more questions. And so these prerecorded automated voicemails per lead source time and day. So I'm not exactly sure exactly what that means. So I'm going to try and think about.
Changing that. And so, um, they are prerecorded is the answer. Yes. But they're not necessarily time-specific. Is that accurate or do you have ones to go out in the morning once we go out in the afternoon? No.
Uh, well, yeah, no, I have some that go out in the morning. Um, uh, call action allows you that opportunity, but, uh, you know, greeting time is a merge field inside a followup boss that is, um, hugely effective. Um, and it's also a merged field in call. Yes. And, and so that allows you to say good morning, good evening, you know, and all that stuff, the videos, you just want to reference anything that is always going to be. True.
Yes. You know, and so if you can control the time of day, then say, good morning, right. If you can control what type of lead source this is going to, then, then, you know, mention it. Um, and, uh, you know, the merge fields and follow-up boss are the best. There are for any CRM outside of just real estate.
So some merge fields that we do to create that authentic, uh, automate. Um, last five previewed. I slapped that at the end of every automated email. I don't even say I found some homes because I don't know if they're actually looking or not.
Right. And, um, and so, uh, let's see, hold on a second. I'm trying to see if I can find one. Yeah.
So let me show you guys, I'm going to share my screen. This was one I just randomly sent just before I left the office today, but to come back to do this webinar, and all I sent was the body of the email or the subject just says, what did you end up deciding? And I sent it to 150 people. 10% of them opened the email.
13 of them. Oh, only three uniques. So they must have sent it to somebody, but, um, you know, I'm, I'm getting them. Are you still looking at moving? Let me know.
I had a few things to discuss that might help you. And I just slapped the last five previewed at the end of the, I didn't say I found some it's just there and they click it and they start searching. And so, you know, these, these merge fields of website activity and time of day it works, they really does.
Email marketing is a big deal. Now for me, Yeah. And I will say using merge fields has really changed our business as well because it makes it feel more authentic. So yeah, we use call action as a, as a, as a bolt-on for follow up boss. And I might say, Hey, or can I call you in 45 minutes? The merge field is 45 minutes and it'll come across as 12.
Or one 30 or two 30, whatever, whatever time zone you're in right now. So those are cool merge fields that you can use because it makes you feel authentic. Now I will say this be careful when you use merge fields with have a specific time on them. You got to have to say, if they'll come back and say, Charlotte, let's talk at 1230 and then you don't respond.
You look like a moron. So using merge fields is a very powerful thing. Um, a couple of quick questions, I'll answer this one real quick. What, what companies bear using in lieu of realtor.com various using why Lobo and others and other ones, but, uh, why Lupo is a, they do Facebook lead generation and pay-per-click lead generation great company.
We're burying our bolts associated with them. So, and then how do you decide which groups to start with when you've got so many holes to plug. Very, I don't understand the question.
Do you understand that question? I would tell you, you know, depending on what are the ones that are most likely to make you money the fastest and focus on that and work backwards. Perfect. Another question. Last five previewed option of up boss. That's the last five that they looked at? Yes.
So if you have a website that's associated with your followup boss account. So again, I'm very, very, and I use so we can S we can just simply that those they're integrated again, the inner that's, the beauty of follow up boss. If any of you's are not using follow up boss, there is a free trial that we'll, we'll talk about here in a second, but it plays so well with everything else. So.
Plays with CRS even plays with, uh, like it plays with all the sites, you know, it just works great. I don't know how to say that. Y LOPA real geeks. There's a million of them out there, but it basically it'll allows that to be the backend of your front end website.
So it says, oh yeah, here's the last five houses that you looked at on Y LOPA, real geeks. I don't know, there's tons of them out there. I can't think of may off the top of my head, but yes, it actually does all of that. And it'll send the last five houses they looked at.
Sometimes you look like a genius. So like, wow. I really like those houses. Like how did he know? I mean, I hate to think that that happens, but I think it literally happens every day. Like how did Barry know that I was interested in those five houses? Well, because of the last time he looked at.
Yeah. And you can also do the last address they looked at. So when one of our leads saves a home. We, if they're in the pond, we set up to where it is. Lead saves home and they're in the pond.
So that's the condition. This is an automation and followup boss do priority alert, email, and the priority of the alert email just sends the address in the subject line. And it just says, are you still looking in the 1, 2, 3 Smith street? Whatever the address is, merge field area. Let me know. So the house they just saved, I'm asking them if they looked at it in the area.
Now, if by chance the address doesn't merge fields, cause you always got to have a plan B, then that 1, 2, 3 Smith street wouldn't be there. And so it would say, are you still looking in the. Area.
So you don't look like an idiot. Um, and so you just, but the open rate is like insane on that. Uh, because it's, that's what they just saved. Perfect. All right.
Um, somebody asks this question, I'm going to share my screen real quick to answer it. Somebody asked what the seven triggers were and the seven triggers are right here. And how did I get to them? I'm just going to come back. You see my screen very on my show and follow up on zoom in a little bit, though. How about that? Yeah, that's good. Okay.
So if you want to know where those triggers are, you just go to admin, you go to automations and then you click on add and automation. Here's the seven triggers right here. Hope that answers your question. All right, Barry, I'll let you answer this. How do you spell, why LOPA? You gotta sing it very last five letters of monopoly backwards for Y L O P O.
That's where it came from. I'm bias. Um, I worked there. I still run my real estate team in Virginia Beach, but, um, I don't like it when people don't say how they're affiliated and stuff.
So. Supervised ask somebody else if it's good. Cause I think it's amazing and I'm one of their first 20 clients. So I'm also extremely biased. I'm been with them since the beginning.
So, um, Y LOPA, Y L O OPO. Um, it's not this wasn't meant for them be a webinar for them, but they do play very well with follow up boss. So as we get near the end, Another question, but I wanted to remind everybody if you're not a followup boss user, we've got a link.
And, uh, let's, I'll share that in the chat. Once again, it's already in the chat, but I'll share it again. That allows you to get a free 30 day trial follow up boss.
And that's a real trial, by the way. That's not one of those trials that you only get to use three of the features and you don't really know this is 30 days. Follow up boss believes in their product.
It's a good product. And they know that if you use it for 30 days and you're actively need a CRM that you won't switch. And I feel that with extreme confidence, Barry and I have both, uh, straight at times to other CRMs and we're back where we came back home.
You know, we're, we're, we're proud of the prodigal children, I guess. Uh, when I, when I came back, uh, Dan sent me. The YouTube video of Homer Simpson, going back to Mr. Burns, trying to get his job back. So that's, that's what he sent me. Perfect.
Easing troll level billion. That's awesome. All right. Um, let's see, we got two more questions.
We're going to answer them. And then we are going to thank everybody for being here today. Okay.
I know you can make an automation to add collaborators when the lead stage, but when do I, when I do that, it only works if I change it to a lead from something else. So if it's not autumn, I don't know what that means. Very do you read that? Um, when I do that. So when they do that automation, it works. If I change it to a lead stage from something that's not, if it's automatically added as lead.
Um, so the trigger is changing the stage. Right. Um, and so if there's no change, Then it wouldn't automate it. What I would do is create an automation that says anytime there's a new lead. Then add collaborators or in the action plan. So not in automations, but in the action plan, you created an action plan that says for this specific lead source, I want you to use these emails, but I also want you to add these people as collaborators.
So instead of using automation, uh, for a lead in the lead stage, that's new. So it hasn't been changed to lead. It comes in as lead use the action plan, not automation. I think that's very spotlit right. They're very okay. Um, somebody asks, is there a list of automations for, is anyone writing a book or a manual anytime soon? So I'll throw that over to follow up.
Boss. Ricardo, do you guys have a list someplace that we can share with anybody? And if not, I'm sure. Um, in between myself, Barry Barry mentioned Jeff Moore, who I work with does a lot automation stuff. Um, I don't know that we have an active list, so they made a list of mine when it first came out. Okay.
And then one final question. I'm sorry that we don't have this, but uh, somebody asked about dynamic remarketing company. So once again, somehow we got to know I want the webinar, but why local is one of those companies who else does dynamic re return also? Uh, why LOPA? Um, I'm just kidding. No. Okay. So, um, Uh, S uh, commissions Inc.
Launched, uh, dynamic remarketing early 2020 Sierra interactive launched dynamic remarketing in mid 2020. Um, uh, BoomTown now has a form of it. Uh, Oh, chime also has a form of it. We, we, we hijacked, it's a retail product.
Dynamic remarketing was designed for retailers. You know, here's your shoe catalog. And they're going to Facebook is going to shop the shoe catalog to find shoes that match the person's behavior.
And while I look Bo hijack that theory and uploads the MLS every morning, we did that in 2017. So it was part of our innovation. But lots of other products that offer dynamic remarketing. Now, if you're not looking at, so Barry mentioned all of those are CRM that he mentioned. So if you're looking, if you're using a up boss, you want to continue to use follow up boss, you might also look at Whitley. You can do, you can do some dynamic retargeting for that as well.
So, um, I think it's a property-based though. I think it's more like, it's probably not. So yeah. It's like, These are all the people that see the ads that are this branding. And these are all the people that see the ads that are, you know, these scenarios, but like shopping for homes and pushing them into the newsfeed. I think only those companies listed and why Lupo integrates with all of them.
I don't know why you would integrate with follow up boss. Yeah. It doesn't make sense to follow Boston.
Chime just sounds like a train wreck, right. So, yes. Uh, you know, so think if you want that.
Definitely. Why LOPA does a great job of, of retargeting. And again, I think you can use Whitley. You can use a couple, there's a couple of other companies out there.
Um, you know, obviously I'm a big fan of grant wise, too. He's good. Yeah. And if you want in four minutes, I'm going to interview him on lab coat agents. So if you want to see that, so that's, that's what put it in my head, but, uh, we appreciate everybody being here today. I'm sure that, you know, we could probably sit here and answer questions all day long.
Unfortunately we need to get back to work. Um, so thank you everybody for your time today. We appreciate it everybody. And, uh, if you wanna see a replay of we'll, we'll definitely put a replay up in the group. And we are also please check out the free trial. If you're not a follow up boss user, you're missing an opportunity to really create an amazing hub for your business and everything else just brings forth from it.
And I know that varies using it the same way I am when it comes to that. So thanks Ricardo. Any thoughts, Barry? Any thoughts before we go? Peace and chicken grease.
That's my only time. Amen. I was going to mention that. Awesome guys.
Thank you so much. Thanks.
2021-09-12 02:09