You should have entered and saved your new Lead in Peak in the previous step.
In this step you’ll be putting your lead into the appropriate CMP (Client Marketing Plan) for their needs. For most Quality Leads, this is one of the 14 month follow-up programs, either “In-state”, “Out-of-state”, or “Canada”. Note that the 14 month plan includes a regular follow-up emails, as well as certain tasks that will appear on your Task Summary, or on your Home Page in under Today’s Tasks. These emails typically start out very intense, with many emails in the first week. Remember, the lead is also going to be receiving home updates from you, possibly as often as every single day. Add in the Tasks that remind you to write a personal email or call the client, and you have a full-featured follow-up regimen that gets results–with a minimal amount of work from you!
When you receive the email with the lead information, you’ll often find information describing the location of the lead. They may be In-State, or they may be relocating from Out-of-State. They could even be from Canada. Keep in mind that this information is not 100% accurate! It just means that the advertising that attracted the lead was seen In-State or Out-of-State. If a Canadian buyer was visiting your city when he responded to the ad, he would be shown as In-State, because that’s where the ad was shown.
So obviously then, you should try to match the lead to the system that is most likely to match the buyer’s situation, but be aware that the buyer could be from a location other than specified in the lead data. And of course, some leads don’t specify the location where the ad was seen at all, so in those cases, you’ll probably just mark them as In-State (the most likely choice) and forge on ahead! You can change that in the future if you learn otherwise.
Click to Enlarge
To Select a CMP you need to be in the client contact page (which is exactly where you will be once you Saved the lead in the previous step.) At the top of the page you will see six tabs, with the last one being Client Marketing Plans. Click that tab, and the click Assign a Client Marketing Plan to this Client. a new tab will open up. From here you can select the appropriate plan and assign it to the client.
We Suggest opting to let Peak Performance Automatically send all emails without my needing to approve them. Though most people’s defaults will already do this. The only option we suggest you do not select is By placing in my email queue so that I can review them before sending. The reason for this is once you have 200 leads in your system, you don’t want to have to select 50 letters a day to be sent out. We would rather that this process is automated.
A few more thoughts about Client Marketing Plans–
- You can see the entire contents of the CMP as you select it. You’ll note that we slow down to about one piece per month after the initial phase is over. This is when we settle in for the long haul. And remember, the prospect may also be receiving homes by email from you through his Property Tracker every single day. The design of the system is to give you a LOT of contact to the lead.
- Short, punchy emails work best. Think of how you write an email to a friend…it’s brief and to the point. When you read the standard emails in the CMP’s, don’t be tempted to turn them into long dissertations about how great of an agent you are. We can tell you from years of experience, that won’t work. By putting your buyer-lead into a Property Tracker and following up through the CMP, that buyer is going to know how good you are. Let your consistent effort speak for you! (Your client doesn’t need to know that it’s mostly automated!)
- The CMP will probably end with a Task to Evaluate and Select A New CMP. In other words, after 14 months, you’ll want to decide whether to keep sending letters and homes to the client or not. You can keep him on the Property Tracker, but take him off the CMP’s. Or, as we recommend, put him into another long term follow-up CMP, while continuing to send homes as well. It takes no time for you, and it’s proven to get results.
- Most Leads come into our system very early in their home search. The good news is that you have a real chance to make them your client, because they probably haven’t yet selected an agent. The client will see your consistent and on-going efforts as a good reason to choose you. But in most cases, your leads won’t be turning in to buyers in the next week or two. Be patient!
- In general, you can assume that the higher the price point, the longer the lead will need to become a prospect. The opposite is also true–the lower priced, mainstream buyers tend to be much closer to their purchase window. So there are good reasons to take both high end and low end buyer leads.