Good vs. Bad Property Management Leads: Where to Draw the Line

What’s your definition of “good” property management owner leads? How do you determine which leads are “bad” ones? And if everyone has a slightly different definitions, then are we just comparing apples to oranges?

Jeremy Pound is the CEO and founder of RentScale. He’s joining us on The Property Management Show to talk about the difference between various types of leads. He’s going to give us standard definitions for things like market-qualified leads, sales-qualified leads, and prospects. Then, he’s going to explain how to set up a basic sales process.

This information will provide you with an industry standard for determining your cost per acquisition, which will ultimately help you close more doors.

Introduction to Jeremy Pound

Jeremy founded RentScale with Jordan Muela of LeadSimple. The goal of RentScale is to bring a professional level of sales and sales management to the residential property management industry. Property managers are operationally-minded. You would probably agree that most companies have their customer services dialed in and their maintenance policies and accounting practices where they need to be.

But, a lot of management companies are winging it when it comes to growth. RentScale aims to bring professionalism to the sales side the same way Fourandhalf brings a higher standard to property management marketing.

What is a Lead?

Property management owner leads can be great, and they can also be a source of friction.

Not everyone even knows what a lead is.

Part of professionalizing and operationalizing any process includes creating labels and boundaries. You need a framework for communicating about things. Leads can sometimes feel like magic. But magic isn’t an operation. It’s not a process. Instead of trusting some magical sales process, you need labels and buckets and guidelines.

At its most basic definition, a lead is simply contact information.

If you have a name and a phone number, or an email address, or a LinkedIn profile, you have a lead.

Even just a name is a lead. You have discovered someone who may have an interest in what you do. That’s a lead.

What are Property Management Owner Leads?

Now that we know how simple it is to identify and define a lead, let’s talk about what property management owner leads look like.

A lead might be someone who fills out a form on your website. It might be an owner who has a question. It could be a landlord who wants to know how much you charge. It might be a referral.

These are inbound leads and it’s what most property management companies wait for.

All those listings that are managed by owners are also leads. If someone is renting out a property in a building where you’re already managing three units, you have a lead.

Prioritizing Hot and Cold Leads: Developing a Pipeline

“Pipeline is life.” Remember that. If you don’t have a pipeline, you don’t have the opportunity to sell. You want to talk to people who will potentially do business with you. So, in your sales pipeline, you want to move your leads into the prospect category.

Prospect is another vocabulary term. A prospect is a lead who is in your sales pipeline.

Your lead is the name or the contact information. That lead becomes a prospect if you call them and talk to them and find out two things:

* Are they qualified to do business with me?

* Would they be interested in doing business with me?

How you qualify a lead depends on your business model. You probably want them to have the financial stamina that’s required to own investment properties. You want them to have maintenance reserves and maybe you want them to be ...