Zillow

Cold 3rd Party Leads

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I hate these.

We recently subscribed to Zillow in a small way. The closest actual area with leads available in it is about 30-35 minutes from my home. That’s where we did it.

I know the area okay, but it’s not my backyard. I’ve sold a couple/few houses over there, but there are parts of it I don’t know, and the surrounding towns are even more obscure for me.

That’s not what’s important though. What’s important is the quality of the lead.

I have friends who sell tons of shit and their primary lead source is Zillow. I’m not knocking it for them. But for me? Eh…

So, I got the Zillow call. It’s Saturday, 1:30 in the afternoon. I just finished lunch with my family and we’re literally walking out the door to go for a walk in the woods. Classic Zillow timing.

I try to actually not take the call because I was feeling very invested in spending time with my family and going on this walk.

They connected the lead to me anyway.

I texted the person because I was prompted to, saying that I was out and about, that today would not work, but that I would work on scheduling something when I was with my computer a little later. They said okay. Tomorrow after 2 would work for them.

I’m still reluctant. It’s gotta be tomorrow because it can’t be today, and I have the afternoon saved so my wife can go out with her friend while I stay with the kids. That’s not until 4. If I schedule this for 2, maybe I can get back in time to make it all work.

Zillow’s model is predicated on you being the appointment scheduler—the door opener. It degrades, at least initially, the role of the buyer agent to the most banal of examples of a real estate professional.

Can you tell it hurts my pride?

I get back and schedule the appointment. I reached back out to the buyer. I’d like to connect for a couple minutes on the phone before we show up at the house together.1 They don’t respond.

I wait a while (hours) and then text a question mark. They said something like, “Can’t talk now. Still good for tomorrow at 2?”

I replied that the appointment was scheduled, but that I like to jump on the phone, at least briefly, prior to the appointment so we can cover a few things.2

They didn’t respond.

I texted a while later that if it was easier for them to text, we could do that too. I asked whether they’d be using financing or cash to buy a home if they found one they liked.

Nothing.

I’m very reluctant to drive thirty minutes each way to show a condo anyway, not to mention to a cold lead, not to mention to an ice cold lead I’ve never spoken with, NOT TO MENTION an ice cold lead I’ve never spoken with who can’t seem to see any importance is humoring me with ten minutes on the phone.

Finally, I said that if we were not able to connect briefly to chat—whether via text or call—prior to the appointment, I was going to have to cancel it and I wouldn’t be able to help them.

They immediately texted me that they could talk.

They preferred texting.3 I asked whether this would be the first home they’d seen, or if they’d already been out to see some. They immediately texted and said that their agent was away tomorrow, and that’s why they needed me to show them the home. Their agent will be writing and submitting the offer, he just can’t show the house tomorrow.

Thank God.

I responded by thanking them profusely for telling me that, and telling them that I would be canceling the appointment, could not help them, and that they should ask their agent why if they felt confused.

I sent the email to cancel the Zillow subscription and to notify me when there’s availability closer to our office.

Bah humbug, and it’s not even October yet.

  1. I’ve only done two others in the last month or so. I’ve shown up at the house to meet them, and the listing agent in one case, and had established almost zero rapport prior to the appointment. I was tired of that because of how foreign it was to my process with warm leads. And I’ve always thought that agents who’ve done that when I’ve represented sellers in the past were weak, especially when they show up and the buyer doesn’t. Call me an asshole. It’s just not strong salesmanship or agency. ↩︎
  2. Qualify them so I don’t waste any more of my time. ↩︎
  3. This is also beginning to make me skeptical. I had an experience earlier this year where I listed a piece of raw land for someone who didn’t own it. It pays to be scrupulous with people these days—if it ever didn’t! ↩︎
Cold 3rd Party Leads

Never Judge the Lead

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Here’s how I almost threw away a $1,250,000 lead.

The day before yesterday, I showed a $725,000 house to a buyer I connected with through Zillow.

I’ve primarily done referral-based business for the last three years, with some early help from Zillow and Bold Leads. We recently decided to throw some money at Zillow because we’ve heard from so many people (watched so many people) significantly augment their business with it.

That being said, I don’t love it. I get the value, but the forced intro, the expectation that I’m going to get you your appointment in 45 seconds, the expectation of seeing a home together before meeting in person to talk and form a client relationship — these things all go against the grain of what I’ve done for a while.1

So, I got connected with this guy. He seemed a little terse or timid (couldn’t tell) on the phone, but I hung up, scheduled the appointment with the list broker, called him back to confirm, and sent him a subsequent email with the showing packet.

He doesn’t respond to the email… Alright. Whatever.

The next day, I finish a late-morning listing appointment and head to the general area where I’ll meet this guy.2 I have lunch. Then I called to confirm the appointment.3 He doesn’t answer.

At this point, I’m saying f-it and going for it with the hopes that maybe it will all come together. And if not, I’ll autopsy it and get better with my process — especially around these strange leads I’m not used to.4

I pull up. Nice house, amazing view, excellent plot of land. I’m pulling up the long driveway after driving up the long road, and two cars are in the driveway. A man and a woman (the listing broker is a woman), a late-90s drop-top Mercedes SLK, and a black Chrysler 300. Here goes.

Turns out, the Chrysler is here from the owner, and the SLK is the buyers’, and it’s him and his wife. They’re friendly and pleasant. All is good.

The other agent shows up. She’s a stud that’s been doing it for 100 years. She walks us in around up and down and talks the whole time. Little for me to say other than my little noises affirming what she’s saying and occasionally chiming in.

We finish up, say goodbye to the list broker, and go to depart. He thanks me for my time and getting them in there, shakes my hand, and says take care. The wife shakes my hand and says it was nice to meet me.

What would you think or feel when you got into your car and they were already driving away?

Did they really just want to see the house and are otherwise not interested in anything? Did I not say enough, or did I say something wrong or something that bothered them? Did I seem desperate?

Mind you, the showing was positive. All was good, or as good as one could expect, regarding establishing rapport with people you met in the last thirty minutes. But there was no, “We’re going to think it over,” or, “What do you think?” or, “We’re going to chat and let’s touch base later.” I had to insert something to that end and was met with no affirmation in return other than them saying it was nice to meet me.

So, I’m driving away thinking I just wasted a goddamn afternoon on this. Not to mention money and resources.

Something Brian Moses taught me was to never judge the lead. He hammered that, and I didn’t understand it at first. As time has gone on, I’ve grown to understand it more.

I knew these people just fucking blew me off. Still, I persisted.

Internet, or the lack of it available there, was a concern they mentioned. A large one. The wife works from home, and the husband owns a company and needs to be accessible even when he’s not at work.

Best you can do up there is satellite internet. The listing broker texted me later and said she spoke with a neighbor, and they said they had a high-speed provider. I had the thought of suggesting Starlink as well. So, I put together a simple email explaining that I couldn’t verify the availability of the Internet provider online but that they still may be worth a call. I mentioned, too, that Starlink was another option that appeared to be available, and I included screenshots and links and such.

No reply.

At this point, I expected that he wouldn’t reply to the email. I planned to call him yesterday to follow up on it and get some feedback.

That I did. I called him yesterday afternoon before I left with my family for a weekend getaway. No answer.

I left him a voicemail with something to the effect of, “Hey ________, it’s Sam. Give me a call when you get a second? 603-____-_____. Thanks.”

I expected I wouldn’t hear from him.

As we drove north to Lake Winnipesaukee, I got a call back. Spoke with him and he told me that, while the house was interesting and had beautiful views and a nice lot, it needed too much work. He explained some more about his reasoning and told me to let him know if something came up that checked those boxes or if the price on this one trended downward.

Fuck me, right?

It was fine. Everything was fine. But I about talked myself out of wanting to deal with this guy. I had begun to convince myself that he was just a jerk who didn’t care about wasting my time and didn’t even have the respect to call me (or respond to me) to let me know he wasn’t interested.

I was wrong. Never judge the lead. That’s. a $700,000+ buyer lead and a $500,000+ seller lead. That’s a $1,250,000+/- lead!

And I was about to flush it because I judged the lead. Thanks, Brian.5

  1. I’m trying to be open-minded in the interest of generating new business and leaving no lead source unexploited. ↩︎
  2. My immediate marketplace has next-to-no Zillow availability. So, I bought some in a small city about half an hour from my office. Not a place where I love to work, but the only viable option to experiment with Zillow. ↩︎
  3. This is typically not something I do. I want to show up and have them not be there so I can have a justifiable position of what-the-fuck for when we next talk because it puts me in more of a powerful position in the relationship. Unless they’re very callous (or if they just never respond again), they’re typically apologetic and regretful and experience the burden of reciprocity. In this situation, I didn’t want to drive another 20 minutes farther away and have this guy not even be there. Mainly because the showing was assisted, and I’d be wasting the listing broker’s time as well as my own. ↩︎
  4. This is something I’ve decided to do anyway. I need to qualify these buyers on the phone after I make the appointment. I need to develop a list of qualifying questions and run through that every time. They’re not warm, referral-based leads like I’m used to. To them, I’m the equivalent of a telemarketer, somebody who gets them their real estate showing and unlocks the door. ↩︎
  5. This is not an extreme or unusual example. This happens to me fairly often. Sometimes, people don’t fit into the mold of behavior that I expect them to. I trust this will happen less and less as I gain more experience, but it still gets me. How much money have you lost in commission income from judging the lead? ↩︎
Never Judge the Lead

Reviews

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Several people I know in real estate don’t collect reviews. This is something I learned the importance of early on and made an effort to gather them since. I’m no multi-hundred review Realtor, but I frequently meet new clients primarily because of the reviews that I have displayed on the internet.

Another friend doesn’t like the term “review” and instead prefers to call them “testimonials”. I can understand his reasoning. The word review has a negative connotation to it. I’m not asking people to review me, as though it’s a grading sheet for how I performed, but more so to validate that they had a positive experience.

I still call them reviews. But creating a process around this has made a big difference for me. I tend to meet people who are looking online for a real estate professional in my market. I don’t get everyone, but I often at least get a seat at the table.

I’ve found that a lot of the time these people only interview me, but not always. They’re often people who do not know another real estate professional. This makes them easier to convert to clients. Win for Sam.

The process is simple enough. I used to wait until the deal was over before I would ask for the review. Sometimes I still do (especially with people that I have a strong rapport with) but this is more a point of bad form than it is process.

When it’s optimally executed, I wait for a high point in the transaction. Sometimes for listings, this actually precedes the transaction and is somewhere in the time between taking the listing and getting an acceptable offer. But in either case, I wait for a high point when I’m the obvious hero to them. In that moment of elation, when they’re happier with me than they ever have been or perhaps ever will be again, I ask them if they’d be willing to do me a favor.1

I’ve never had anyone that I asked this say no.2 Usually people are delighted, especially in the elated moment, to agree to do something like this.

So, then what? Hope that they are disciplined and get it done, eventually?

That’s what I used to do. Not always effective. What I’ve found is that most people want to write me a nice review, especially once they’ve learned how helpful it can be for me.3 Sometimes, oftentimes, that’s the problem. They want to write me a nice review. An excellent review. A perfect review.

And so the review never gets written.

This is a human problem. Being that the content of the review seems to be less important than the quantity of positive reviews, I emphasize this to them as well. I take it a step further and offer to write the review for them, highlighting things that went well, and then encouraging them to edit it to their liking and just to use it as a starting point.

Well, I did that for a while, but then I took it a step further. I just wrote it, and sent it to them along with a direct link to my Google Business Reviews where they would then just have to paste it and click once for it to be complete—if they wanted. I do this all through text messages or emails if I have to. Texts are optimal because I can share the language and the link and they can do it quickly. Of course, they are welcome to just use it as a starting point if they want to write me a review of their own, but I’ve found that most people are content with the review I write so long as it’s honest and well-written. They’d rather not spend more time on this than needed, their ambitions about writing an excellent review notwithstanding.

Only one person has written a review altogether different than the one I provided them. As it turns out, I’m quite a bit better than the average consumer at writing a review for a real estate professional!4 I know which things to emphasize and am able to remember the points of the transaction that they may have forgotten. It all gets packed into the review. If it’s a high-priced property, or a transaction type that fits some marketing funnel I have, I accentuate that too so I can add it to those marketing funnels and channels. This will speak more specifically to prospective clients that fit those price points or demographics or stages of life. Did I get chosen over a well-respected Realtor in the market? It’s going in there. I wouldn’t name their name, but you better believe I’m writing it.

It works really well. I don’t feel shameful or unethical about it either. The client approves the language and posts it. That’s what’s important.

Some platforms have been easier to get reviews on than others.5 Zillow used to be a crapshoot. It might get published, but it might not. They would make the consumer click more times and go through more hoops. And it wasn’t always immediate. Bad enough I have to ask these people to do this shit. Worse still, when they do it and it doesn’t publish for unknown reasons, I have to politely ask them to do it again.

These reviews are money—they matter. But the client only cares a little about doing me a favor. After all, they’re paying for my service. “Raving fans” or not, the less friction I create by asking them for anything other than the order, the better.

In closing, I’ll add that it’s important to own the reviews as business assets. Keeping them published on these third-party sites (Zillow, Realtor, Trulia, Google) is good, but copy and paste them into a Word file and/or onto your website. If for any reason any of those companies dies, goes away, glitches out, deletes your shit, locks you out, etc., etc., etc., you are without those reviews. They own them, not you. Take it from me. I’m one of many people who were subject to a phishing scam where some jerkoff somewhere hacked into my Facebook profile and began posting obscene videos. Within seconds, Facebook locked my account. It was subsequently deleted and there was no recourse I could take. That was a kick in the balls for a guy with 2500 Facebook “friends” where I would post every new listing and sale. I still have some work to do around this gathering all mine into a file and republishing on my websites, and so I’m telling myself this as much as I’m writing it for others here.

So, go get those reviews! It doesn’t have to be a terribly uncomfortable act to ask someone. Wait for the high moment, ask them to do you a favor (after you’ve just made their day), and write up a scripted text that you send after they agree explaining that your business is dependent on people like them leaving positive feedback for other people thinking about doing business with you in the future. If they agree to write a review, then send them another scripted text explaining that in your experience, oftentimes clients want to write the perfect review, and so it never gets written. Because of that, you took a couple minutes to put together this quick review for them to use or not. They can use it as a starting point or just copy and paste it if it’s easier for them. Then send the direct link to whatever platforms you prefer if they agree. Follow up as needed if needed and be politely persistent.

  1. The closing is not always the high point. In fact, it’s usually not. It’s also awkward to ask for it because, at least for me, it feels way more forced and like they’re expecting me to ask them for a review before/during/after the closing. I think the client sometimes feels they’ve done me a favor when we’re at the closing because they’ve acknowledged once if not more times very recently just how much money my services cost them. ↩︎
  2. I don’t typically ask people for a review if the relationship feels strained for any reason or if something went poorly through the transaction. Call that what you want, but I’m actually not interested in people leaving me a negative review on the internet. ↩︎
  3. I explain to them that this is how many people either find me online or “interview” me before they reach out at all, both of which are true. ↩︎
  4. It’s important not to write it in Realtor jargon though. You’re playing the consumer here, so don’t say deal, double-side/double-end, over ask, DOM, or any of this other nonsense language we squawk to each other. The consumer doesn’t have a goddamn clue what any of that means, for one, and for two, they’ll likely intuit that it wasn’t their fellow consumer that wrote it. ↩︎
  5. I’ve found Google My Business (GMB) to be the easiest to work with. I have some on Realtor.com, more on Zillow.com, and most on GMB. I think I’m going to begin trying to get more on Zillow again but will prompt clients with both links and will not ask. The instructions will be to post them here and here, not one or the other. Ask for what you want, don’t hope for shit. ↩︎
Reviews