On Lead Quality: A Chat With Premier Agent Matt Delhougne

'We went from being an unknown team ranked 60th to the No. 1 RE/MAX team in the Greater St. Louis/St. Charles area within one year.'

That quote, from Matt Delhounge, a team leader at RE/MAX Suburban in Chesterfield, MO started off a very interesting conversation on lead generation, quality and conversion.

Matt, who has been licensed for 16 years, runs a team of 12. All team members are licensed and the team consists of ten agents, one transaction coordinator and one client coordinator.

Lead flow and process

Every agent I've ever talked to that is successful with online leads (and I'm defining 'successful' as converting those initial contacts into clients and ultimately closed transactions) has an established process for conversion. Matt and team are no different.

When a lead comes into the team, the client coordinator is the 'first responder,' getting back to the contact in less than five minutes. Quick response is a common mantra among successful online lead converters. But the initial response is just the first step.

Matt's client coordinator is armed with everything they need to fully vet the contact. Scripts are developed and used for the different lead types that might come in such as inquiries on current listings, off-market listings, information inquiries, home valuation requests, etc.

Once the client coordinator finishes vetting the contact, the lead is passed over to an agent on the team.

In some brokerages and teams, which agent gets that lead is often based on random rotation in a 'round robin' format. Matt prefers not to leave anything to chance and has each of his agents select ZIP codes that they have lived in or are intimately familiar with — new contacts are routed to agents based on those preferred ZIP codes.

Smart move. The contact is inquiring about a property in a specific ZIP code, so why not route that lead to an agent familiar with that area?

When asked about conversion rate, Matt told us that on the team level, they convert between 5–10 percent of incoming leads. This is a very good conversion rate, especially considering typical conversion rates for online contacts are often reported to be in the 2 percent range. Naturally some agents convert better than others — as Matt says, it's very dependent on the agent, the scripts they know and use, drip campaigns and the simple fact that some agents are better closers than others.

Getting the lead vetted and passed on to an area expert is a key component in the success of Matt's team.

On lead quality

Like most successful real estate professionals, Matt and his team employ multiple lead sources. It's the age-old 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' philosophy, and it makes sense.

That doesn't mean, however, that all lead sources are created equal. As a Zillow Premier Agent®, Matt and his team have noticed that contacts they receive via Zillow are generally of a much higher quality than contacts from other sources. They tend to be further along in the process and more educated (on real estate matters). They understand that the Zestimate® home value is just that, an estimate. They want additional information on the value of their home — and they seek input about that from a real estate professional.

“Zillow is an advertising company whose job it is to get my phone to ring, and it does. Zillow users call us, the specialist, to help them,' Matt said, more than once during our conversation.

Next steps for the team

When asked what they plan to do next with Zillow, Matt told me that he's in the process of creating prospecting systems to take advantage of FSBO and Make Me Move® listings on Zillow.

'The script for this is really easy,' said Matt. 'Hello Mr. FSBO. I understand your house is for sale on Zillow. We have 100 approved buyers we’re currently working with within your ZIP code. Are you willing to pay a buyer's agent fee?”

What kind of response does that typically elicit?

'100 percent of the time they are going to say yes. And we either sell the house to one of our buyers, or we have our foot in the door. We’re first in line when they are ready to list with an agent,' Matt replied.

'It just makes sense to utilize Zillow to its fullest. The consumers are there, the information is there, and it's our job to educate the consumer and guide them through the process of buying or selling a home. Yes, we pay Zillow for impression-based advertising, but why not also fully utilize all the tools Zillow offers, both paid and free?'

Why Zillow?

“We hear from consumers, 'I’m on Zillow all the time.' If they are on Zillow, we need to be there too.”

That pretty much sums it up.

Running the No. 1 RE/MAX team in a metropolitan area is no easy task. It takes a lot of hard work from the entire team. Having systems and processes in place, creating scripts, handling sales objections, creating drip email campaigns, and automating steps where possible are all components for success. Matt and his team clearly understand that.

Thanks, Matt, for your time, your sharing and your insight!