Dividing the Leads

Indeed, the division of office leads is of crucial importance to agents, and is something that each office and managing broker handles differently.

“I’ve never lost anyone because of that [selling],” Cookingham says. “We have that conversation when they come in, and I explain to them that I do not compete with them. I think that’s what an agent would be worried about, that I would be competing with them or if a call came in, that I was going to take it.”

Cookingham avoids that issue by not taking any new leads of her own. Her name is not on the sign or in her brokerage’s marketing materials, and she only handles clients she has dealt with in the past. All the leads that come in from the sign and ads go to the agents who are working the floor.

“If the leads come in through my listings, the fairest way to do it is [the] floor,” Cookingham says. “If they come in on anyone’s listings, we have it set up like realtor.com’s program FiveStreet, where everything is distributed and people on [the] floor have an opportunity to claim the lead. If I take a general call from a consumer who says they’re calling because they’re moving to the area and can I find them someone who can do x, y and z, then I would choose someone whose skill set matches the client’s needs.”

The majority of the leads that come in to Myslicki’s office are referrals and repeat clients. After becoming licensed to sell real estate in 1989 and earning her broker’s license in 1995, Myslicki developed her business from an operation that she ran from her home to the six-agent office it is today.

Though her business has grown, she says most of her clients still come from referrals: people she has worked with in the past, or who are family, friends or direct referrals from other past clients. While she remains committed to selling, she avoids taking on more clients than she feels she can handle at once.

Her agents bring in their own business and handle their own leads. Any calls that come in from advertising are distributed based on agents’ availability.

Most of Center Coast Realty’s leads are also through referrals, but McElroy is in the process of setting up an automated lead distribution system for his agents.

“We do have an automatic lead router through our marketing platform and CRM being integrated together,” McElroy says. “When online leads come in, we can set it to distribute those to different agents. I can say, this person’s going to get 10 percent of the leads, and that person’s going to get 25 percent, or everyone is going to get 10 percent across the board.” The system would allow him to adjust which leads go where so that if, for example, a particular agent has their hands full or another agent has been slacking on follow up, he can route leads to someone else.

“Maybe somebody has too many leads and we need to dial that back, and hand those out so other people can handle them.”

The experience and perspective necessary to adequately divide up the work among agents in the office come from years spent on the ground and handling transactions. Taking oneself out of the game entirely, and for a long enough period of time, could lead to managers losing touch with the realities of today’s market.