This is how a great agent works a lead and wins it. Not a checklist to scrape by, the ideal every team and member is expected to run: instant at the front, relentless through the first two weeks, and steady every week after until the deal closes.
Most online leads go to whoever calls first, and most agents quit before the lead ever picks up. The agents who win do two things everyone else won’t: they reach out instantly, and they keep going long after the rest gave up. Plenty of leads never answer until the seventh call, sometimes the twelfth. The whole process below is built around that reality.
Every lead carries a rank. The rank decides the lane, with no ambiguity about who calls and when.
An unknown lead with no prior relationship. It routes to the team the instant it arrives and gets worked speed-to-lead, immediately.
A lead the referring agent knows: a past client (1), a personal connection (2), or family or a best friend (3). These go to members and require a warm handoff first.
How the rank 1–3 handoff works
The member calls the referring agent immediately to ask for the handoff. That is the first move, before anything else.
The handoff depends on the referring agent. We tell them up front that doing it promptly gives their client, and themselves, the best shot. If they choose not to hand off, the lead drops to the speed-to-lead lane, and that is their call.
Once the handoff is made, connect within 24 hours. That is a buffer, not the goal. Sooner is always better, and a genuinely serious lead or close relationship survives a short wait when the expectation is set clearly up front.
The same five phases apply once a lead is in your hands, rank 0 immediately or rank 1–3 the moment the handoff lands.
Send an instant text with your name first so your call doesn’t look like spam. Then call within 10 minutes. No answer? Double-tap, call right back immediately, so it is clear you are not a telemarketer. The goal from the first second is an in-person appointment.
Call 7 to 14 times across the two weeks, send at least two more texts, and leave at least three voicemails. Vary the time of day you reach out, morning, midday, evening, and weekends, so you are not always calling when they happen to be busy. If you cannot reach them in 14 days, the lead is about 90% dead, so treat these two weeks like everything depends on them. It does.
The moment you make real contact or meet them, the standard becomes weekly communication until the deal closes, with a weekly update logged on your side. If they are engaged, one meaningful touch a week is enough. No need to blow up a client you have already met.
Don’t hammer them. Attempt contact twice a week, one a phone call and the other a call or text, for about a month. If they are still dark after that month, move them to long-term nurture.
Two kinds of leads land here: the ones you never reached in the first 14 days, and the ones you met who then went quiet for a month. Both get the same rhythm: one call a month through the first 90 days, then a quarterly call after that. A quarterly touch revives more dead leads than you would expect.
Keeping them on a long-term email sequence is good practice and worth doing on your side alongside the calls.
We deliver the lead instantly. The speed clock is on you because we did our part first.
You protect the sender’s experience. Every rank 1 to 3 came from an agent vouching for you by name. Be worth it.
You answer us. When we reach out about a lead, respond quickly. Go dark and the leads stop.
You represent the network. Professional, responsive, honest. Our whole business is a good name.
Not working the first-14-day push.
Letting leads sit, or quitting after a call or two.
Skipping the weekly updates once contact is established.
Going dark on the client, the sender, or us.
Failing to sign referral agreements.
Hiding a close or misreporting activity.
We reach out first when something slips. A repeated pattern means we pause your flow and send those leads to someone ready to work them. Your leads and your market are earned by how you work, and they stay earned the same way.