A Tale of Two Follow-up Plans: Travis Robertson's aggressive, two-week system (Part 1)

When it comes to lead follow-up, there's no such thing as diminishing returns. Eighty percent of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact... yet only 52 percent of salespeople follow up even ONE time with their prospects, and only 10 percent make more than three total contacts. (Source: Chris Smith, Curaytor)

Are you ready to get more persistent as you pursue the sale, but aren't sure exactly how to follow up multiple times without coming off as a huge pest?

This week and next, we'll outline follow-up plans from two lead conversion experts with vastly different approaches:

1. Travis Robertson, an international real estate coach out of Newport Beach, California, recommends an aggressive two-week program. Read Travis' plan below.
2. Rachel Adams Lee, the CEO and Founder of Rachel Adams Real Estate Group in Roseville, California, has a six-day, six-step system she and her team swear by. She's closing 14 percent of her Realtor.com leads. Wowzers. Come back next week for Rachel's plan!

Travis Robertson's two-week conversion program

First, Travis says, it's time to accept that your leads aren't the problem. Your lead nurturing system is.

To combat what he perceives as weak follow-up across the industry, Travis has developed a two-week system that... isn't for the faint of heart.

Here's Travis' main conversion program:

• Make two calls a day, five days a week, for two weeks
• Send a minimum of five emails in the first two weeks
• Send a minimum of 3-5 texts in the first two weeks

He knows what you're going to say: "I'm going to make them mad and they won't call me back."

And this is what he says in response: "Hey, they're not calling you back anyway." In his view, why not be aggressive and know once and for all if they're interested, instead of keeping dozens (or even hundreds) of no-contact leads on the hook over the long-term?

Too aggressive? Here's Travis' modified conversion program:

• On day one, make two calls, send one text, one email
• On days 2-5, make one call, send one text or email
• On days 6-10, send one email per day, plus one text every other day

According to Travis, if you even just completed days 1-3, you'd actually make eight touches and, theoretically, you could quadruple or quintuple your conversions; you'd be doing 7-8x the follow-up to what you're doing right now.

Want to mix it up a bit? Maybe try texting an audio file. Consider emailing or texting a quick selfie video by just using your phone or a free tool like ViewedIt.com. We know it can be challenging to stand out, so perhaps try some outside of the box tactics to get noticed during your touch campaign.

How to set expectations via voicemail

If you're sent to voicemail on your very first call, set up expectations for your follow-up within your message. Travis Robertson suggests mentioning that you'll also be sending a text and an email, as you're not sure how the lead would prefer to communicate. By setting (and meeting) this expectation, you come off as a dedicated instead of desperate.

How do you systematically handle that much follow-up?

Travis recommends Top Producer® CRM, which can be set up to send auto-emails for you. Once you determine your lead follow-up plan, you can program the CRM to do most of the heavy lifting for you.

What do you think of Travis' plan?

Could you follow Travis' original or modified plan? How would you change up his tactics and ideas to make them more your own? Tell us on our Facebook page, where we keep in touch with more than 35,000 top agents from across the country!

To view the original article, visit the Realtor.com Results blog.