How Much Should You Follow Up? | Real Estate Investing

How much do you really need to follow up with real estate leads in order to find deals, close them, and generate the best net returns?

From what I’ve seen, the follow up makes or breaks investors’ success. Whoever is the best at follow up will get the best deals and the most deals—not to mention the best profits!

And those who don’t understand this? They go out of business.

The Pain of Not Following Up

Failing to follow up hurts. It can get really expensive. And in all types of sales, the one who follows up the most wins.

Think about when someone sells you on something—whether it’s physically making a purchase or fully buying into a concept. You’re usually sold by those who follow up the best, right?

If you’re not strong at follow up, every deal you do close is likely that much more expensive. This is because you’ve probably spent far more on leads and experienced a far lower conversion rate. Plus, think of all the time you’ve burned—and for what?!

There is really nothing that feels worse in this business than losing a deal because you dropped the ball. (I am speaking from experience.)

Now my philosophy is to keep following up until they die or I do. Never stop—you just don’t know what might happen.

I once missed a follow up with a couple who said they would never sell their multifamily apartment building. Months later, they wound up in a divorce—and sold to someone else!

If I would have just followed up one more time, I would’ve had that deal.

Here’s worse: imagine your mom or best friend selling a deal to your competition—because you didn’t follow up! Oh man, that stings.

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing in Real Estate

I find outbound marketing to be superior in today’s market. It’s better for finding the best value off-market deals.

Frankly, most other people seem too lazy to do it well. So, it’s a nice sweet spot for acquisitions.

Still, no matter how good your offer, or how motivated they should be to sell, it can take an average of seven to 12 contacts to get in touch with a seller. Some you might get on the first or second attempt; others might only come around after you’ve kept showing up for a year.

When it comes to multifamily apartments, that difference might be a half million dollars on the purchase price. Isn’t that worth a few extra follow ups?

You can do it by phone, personal visits, social media, snail mail, and email. You can even automate it with a CRM!

Time is your most valuable asset, and technology can really help protect that. Aside from these tools, real estate mogul Grant Cardone says the best investment is buying or leveraging other people’s time to have them follow up for you.

Over the last decade, a lot of investors have jumped on the inbound marketing train. This means running ads, distributing content, and hoping to draw inbound leads—counting on someone else to take the initiative and call them the moment they are most motivated to make a deal.

It sounds great! And also unrealistic.

In most cases, if they were to call, they’d be calling you and your competition back to back to back—and the first one to respond gets their business. Unless you call back instantly, they’ll connect with a competitor.

And if you happen to connect with them after they’ve spoken to someone else? Bidding can be fierce. How do they know who to trust?

These are all reasons to follow up religiously if you want deals.

Summary

How much do you need to follow up with your real estate leads?

Whether it is weekly or monthly, the most important point is to never stop. Once they are in your CRM, that is money you can’t afford to neglect.

Those with the best follow up get the most deals at the best profit margins. Period.

Do you agree? If you don’t, I’d love to know why.

Write me in a comment below.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.