How To Get Leads Without Cold Calling

Cold calling sucks. I’ve never been a huge fan of it myself. For that reason, I too, tried to build my real estate career and business without cold calling. There are some ways to get leads without cold calling.

In this post, we’re going over some of the marketing strategies you can use to get leads without cold calling. Despite what all of those fancy real estate coaches might be telling you, it is possible to get leads without cold calling.

Let’s go.

Phone Averse or Cold Calling Averse?

Before we dive into the exact strategies for how to get leads without cold calling, it’s important to do a bit of self-analysis to determine if you are phone-averse or averse to cold calling.

They are different.

Phone aversion is a bigger problem in this career. You will have to pick up the phone and call your leads if you want to maximize your results.

But, I’m talking about calling on leads that — at some level — expect your call. They expect it because they opted in to your site, filled out a form on Zillow or took some other action that expressed interest in hearing from you or someone.

Cold calling on the other hand is using the phone to reach out to someone who isn’t expecting a call from you. They didn’t ask to be called or contacted in any circumstances.

Easy examples include cold calling for-sale-by-owners, expired listings, or executioners of an estate in probate.

It’s this kind of marketing and sales tactic that I’m referring to when I say cold calling. If you believe you can get clients without ever picking up the phone and calling them, you won’t be very successful in real estate.

You will be able to complete a few deals a year from family and friends, but never enough to make a full-time living.

Determine If They Are A Cold Call

From my own personal experience and helping other real estate agents, I find it’s helpful to determine the receptivity to a call from a real estate agent by considering the source of the lead. Sometimes real estate is a mental game and it’s worth exploring our thoughts and feelings.

So, certain leads are more likely to expect and want a call from a real estate agent. Other leads understand you calling is a normal part of the process, but they might not be ready to talk.

When picking your lead sources, I recommend you start with calls to lead sources you’re comfortable with and then work toward progressively lead sources that aren’t as receptive.

Find your comfort-level, and push slightly past that. For example, maybe you have no problem calling your sphere of influence, but you have some anxiety over calling Zillow leads, even if they filled out a form.

This could be a good place to start. Maybe you’re okay with Zillow leads, but don’t like to call leads from your open houses. It’s possible this is the region to push yourself into.

It’s likely that every lead source, no matter what, will require some form of follow up like calling, texting and emailing.

If you work with only ready-to-go leads, you will find it hard to build a solid real estate career. Everyone wants to work with these kinds of leads.

The number of ready-to-go leads is small and the number of agents who want to work with these leads is huge.

Let’s get into how to get leads without cold calling.

Floor Time

Many real estate brokers offer floor time — or at least, some form of it. Floor time is an opportunity to generate leads from potential home buyers and sellers that call to inquire about a property.

For example, a home buyer might find a listing on Zillow and wish to speak with the list agent. Since Zillow lists the brokerage phone number, they will call the broker and speak to the agent on floor time.

Depending on company policy, these are potential buyers you could help and with effective scripts, turn into a lead and client.

Plus, this is often a fast channel. Some of the lead channel strategies we’ll cover later take significant time and money before you start to see results.

Open Houses

A little harder to do as the real estate market changes, but there are still agents who are using open houses to get leads. Like floor time, this is a fast-acting channel. You can hold an open house this week and get a lead this week.

It often takes a lot of open houses to convert a lead into a client. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating the number of open houses required.

Depending on your strategy and skills, it could take anywhere from 5 to 20 open houses. Too many real estate agents hold a single open house and hope to generate 3 to 4 buyers and listing appointments from the open houses.

These are misaligned expectations and lead to disappointment.

Many of the leads you generate from an open house will require follow up through the phone, text, or email. Remember, while we don’t need to cold call, we still need to follow up.

Referral Websites

There are several referral websites out there that will provide buyer or seller leads for a referral fee — typically 25 to 35 percent of the sales price. Example companies include UpNest, HomeLight, and several others.

You do need your broker’s permission to participate in these referral programs since the broker needs to pay the 25 to 35 percent referral fee. Most brokers don’t have a problem with this, as they want you to generate sales.

My recommendation, unless you’re a well-established agent, is to avoid any referral companies that have an upfront service fee. An example company is ReferralExchange.

Your broker may also offer referral programs through Rocket Homes or other relocation companies, like Cartus.

These leads are expecting a call from a real estate agent, but not necessarily from you. It’s also possible they may get a call from several other agents — as is the case on some platforms like HomeLight.

You might even compete with agents inside your own office if they, too, are enrolled in the referral program or website.

From experience, several of these programs attract leads based on the price of real estate services. Many websites will tell leads they can get real estate services at a lower commission.

Be aware of this because you may need to lower your commissions in order to win clients over. That might be worth it to you. It might not be.

For me, I avoid the referral programs that are focused on price. Those aren’t the kinds of clients I want to work with and it’s hard to earn a decent wage when you’re only getting two percent.

Sphere of Influence

Your friends and family can be a great resource of leads — either directly or from referrals. You have several options for communicating with them, such as email, newsletters, phone calls, texts or social media.

I find that people love to use their personal social media to promote themselves as a real estate agent. It’s a very non-intrusive way to get business without annoying your friends and family constantly.

Great post ideas include posting clients at closings, you showing a home, or a day in the life of a real estate agent. But, you should also create balance and do some personal stuff, too.

For example, posting photos of clients with custom signs are an awesome way to spread the word about you being a real estate agent and get some leads.

The exact social media platform you use is up to you. Most agents choose Facebook, but there are several real estate agents who are killing it with social media platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok.

Past Clients

Many of your past clients are an opportunity for referrals or repeat business. As a new agent, this can take some time to build up. However, many of the strategies for your sphere of influence apply to your past clients.

Technically, past clients are part of your sphere of influence, but I felt it was worth it to point out your past clients. It’s a good practice to communicate with past clients frequently and in more ways than just social media.

The best approach is to create an integrated multi-channel communication plan. That means using email newsletters, print postcards or newsletters, phone calls, text messages and social media.

You should use as many platforms as possible to communicate with them at least 33 times over a year. The more the better, as long as you’re adding value and not being annoying.

Passive And Long-Term Channels

Many of the marketing strategies listed above for how to get leads without cold calling are active and work in the short-term. When I say active, I mean there is usually a better link between cause and effect.

For example, if you hold 20 open houses, you get a client. The market channels I’m about to share are more passive. There is less of a tie between the action and the desired outcome.

Example: getting reviews on your real estate Google My Business doesn’t have a direct action-outcome relationship. There is no getting 10 reviews, you get a client.

Get Real Estate Client Reviews

Reviews on any platform is a great way to generate leads without cold calling. Often, these come to you determined to work with you and minimal sales is involved.

Some platforms where you can ask for reviews include Google My Business, Zillow, Realtor.com, or your profile on your broker’s website.

By collecting enough reviews, you can rank in the search engines like Google or at the top of search directories like Zillow.

For example, our company ranks for the keywords “real estate agents”.

Your Agent Bio

When done right, your agent bio can be a great source of leads. It’s not enough to have real estate reviews. You need real estate reviews to be found and a killer real estate agent bio to convert those leads.

Do your best to stand out, target a niche, and speak to the emotional side of real estate. Focus less on yourself and more on your client.

Create a real estate agent bio that stands out and gets potential leads to say, “Wow. I feel like you know me so well.”

Your real estate bio isn’t about you. It’s about your clients and potential buyers and sellers.

Content Marketing

I’m going to group all content marketing in this category. That means publishing blog posts or creating videos. You will find a ton of strategies out there like for growing a YouTube channel for real estate agents and how to use content to rank in Google for relevant keywords.

This is a very long-term strategy. The effort to create content and to learn how to create content takes time.

I would pursue this only after you’ve explored and exhausted all of the other marketing channels. It’s best to take a dual-approach. Create content and still hold open houses.

This will create a perfect blend. Over time, as your content efforts payoff, you can take a step back from open houses or other more active marketing channels.

Final Words On How To Get Leads Without Cold Calling

Cold calling isn’t very fun, especially if you have more of an introverted personality. I’m with you. While you can be successful in this industry without cold calling, it’s difficult to have success in real estate if you’re totally phone averse.

You do need to pick up the phone and call leads, as necessary. However, these don’t need to be cold leads. We looked at several ways to generate leads that are either people you know or who are expecting a call from a real estate agent like yourself.

You can use active strategies like open houses, floor time, Zillow leads, and referral programs. Or, you could build your business off passive strategies like content creation, getting reviews and writing a killer real estate agent bio. These passive strategies require a significant investment in time and money before results start to show.

For that reason, these are better strategies for established agents and agents who are doing a few deals per year, but are looking for more.

As a new agent, I would focus on active marketing strategies.