Today we are talking about closing more business and converting property management leads into contracts for your company. Specifically, what can you do to get your revenues higher, while keeping your costs the same – or even bringing them a little lower? Well, certainly you have to do something you haven’t done before.
In my interviews, I have spoken with multiple property management companies both large and small, and I have explored their sales processes from the initial lead all the way to the close. I have found that many companies do not have a consistent property management follow up strategy. In other words, when a lead comes in, it goes through the sales process which is fairly well structured, however, if the lead does not respond instantly, it tends to fall by the wayside.
Let’s see what this costs us. We’ll assume the value of a single management contract is around $3,000. That total contract value comes from an average of three years at about $100 per month, plus a lease up fee. So if you find 10 clients per month, you are bringing in additional bookings of about $30,000. According to Forrester Research, companies that have “lead nurturing strategies” generate 50 percent more sales, at 33 percent less cost. That’s 50 percent more sales if you have a solid follow up strategy!
This means that even if we are more conservative than the statistic, even if you take in only 30 percent more business because of your follow up strategy, you will increase your bookings, (keeping with our example) by about $9,000 per month.
So, how can you follow up? It’s really simple. You don’t have to make things too complicated, but you may have to change the way you do things just a bit. I recommend three touches within two weeks. By “touch,” I mean both an email and a phone call.
The content of the email should be very simple. I never recommend using email marketing tools to contact the leads, at least within the first few weeks. Instead, I’d recommend sending a personal note saying, “Hello, I know you inquired about our services at Fourandhalf, and I am wondering if there would be a good time to speak this week. How does Friday look?” That’s it. If you post written blogs and you have videos or how-to information you can share, include a link to your latest piece in the email. This will help the prospect recognize your value. Even if you don’t have that information to include, make sure you send a personal email and make sure you touch your lead at least three times in the first two weeks.
The content of the phone call should be similar to the email. You will probably get voicemail, and all you have to do is introduce yourself, tell the lead that you are trying to set up a few minutes to talk and ask that they please call you back. Leave your phone number and that’s it.
Of course, whenever you have the opportunity, contact your property management leads immediately, as according to InsideSales.com, 35%-50% of the business goes to the vendor that responds first. If you don’t hear back from your lead, use the follow up strategy outlined above and watch your revenues climb.
Next week, we will talk about tracking tools and how to develop a simple strategy to ensure your follow ups are getting done. Until then, contact us at Fourandhalf if you have any questions.
