In the real estate sector, we always live with two very clear objectives that can sometimes even become obsessive or monopolize our agenda: the objective of increasing the number of leads and the objective of increasing the number of contacts with potential buyers. However, in this spiral of generating leads at all costs, we sometimes overlook the importance of how to properly manage these commercial opportunities.
The factors that make a lead move in a direction that is favourable to our interests have a lot to do with how we understand how they are generated from the client’s point of view. If we come to understand what the appropriate times are to contact the client and why, we will have gained a lot both in the quality of management and in the effectiveness of the results obtained.
The curve of desire
The first thing we need to understand is that the sales process begins long before contact with the client, just as the end of a transaction ends long after the client signs the contract. The real estate agent is part of the process for a large part of its journey, naturally, but the beginning of the process is at a much earlier point in time, when the potential buyer begins to evaluate, first internally, and then with the people in his closest circle, the possibility of acquiring a property.
This internal process can take days, weeks, months or even years. From the moment a person considers buying a home until they decide to start searching, it can take an indefinite amount of time with multiple ups and downs, both objective and subjective: losing a job, starting a new job, getting promoted or getting a pay rise, passing a competitive exam, receiving an inheritance, facing an unexpected expense, becoming independent, living with a partner, the birth of a child, a change of residence, the possibility of accessing financing, increases in rental prices, fluctuations in the Euribor and its implications for accessing a mortgage loan, and many other factors, are determining factors in the long process of searching for a home.
It is essential to understand this journey because, although for the real estate agent, the contact begins at a certain moment, it is essential to understand – with an adequate sales interview in which we extract the maximum possible information about both the purchase motivations and the journey until reaching the moment of lead generation – that the client has a path already taken and that this path will determine the next steps that he will take. If we want to connect emotionally with the client, we must make the effort to understand the situation in which he finds himself in his particular buying adventure.
Therefore, the emotional process framed in time by which a lead is generated could be translated or represented in a time curve. This would describe a function similar -except for the scientific part- to a kind of Gaussian bell curve in which the desire starts at a low level, the result of uncertainty, ignorance, and other fears, and progressively increases until it reaches the highest point, the moment in which the lead is generated.
This curve of the lead generation process can be called the “curve of desire” in which the highest point of desire coincides with the precise moment in which the commercial opportunity is generated.
Let’s give a practical example :
A client has been looking for a home for weeks, so he or she searches the streets where he or she would like to live to see if he or she sees a “for sale” sign, looks at the offers that appear in the windows of the real estate agencies in his or her area, and, above all, uses the Internet as a search tool (remember that more than 80% of home searches are done through real estate portals). In this search on portals, there are hundreds of homes, advertisements, photographs, descriptions, search filters, videos, hopes and disappointments for not finding what I am looking for or for finding what I cannot acquire.
Continuing with the previous example, when after a long search, the potential buyer finds the “perfect house” – or at least the one that fits all his search parameters – he has to overcome the last step, which is the one that generates the lead as such. Well, that moment of clicking “send” is the highest point of desire in the curve described above. That is the moment when the client is most emotionally receptive: he has seen the advertisement, it fits him objectively and he has fallen in love with it subjectively, he wants to see it in person and find out more, it is now when his predisposition is at the most optimal point for contact.
Why is the speed of contact vital?
This situation, which we have described in the previous example, places the contact at the moment immediately after the lead is generated. In fact, if we could, we should contact the client one second after asking us for information. As this is not always possible for logistical, technical and practical reasons, we do have to set a time limit for contacting the client.
The ideal contact should occur within the first 24 hours after the lead is generated, and at most within 48 hours after that. Once this threshold is passed, the effectiveness of the lead is considerably reduced (remember the image of the desire curve) since everything that happens after the commercial opportunity is generated goes against the “emotional desire” at the beginning.
Thinking about our hypothetical client from the example, after requesting information, he will continue browsing the portals, he may discuss it with his environment or even his own internal thoughts may raise fears or uncertainties again (e.g.: what if I wait to find a better or cheaper one, what if they don’t grant me the loan, what if I wait a little longer to have saved up, etc.).