What Your Inside Sales Agent ( ISA ) Should be Doing Every Day

Once you hire an Inside Sales Agent ( ISA ), you need to make sure you keep that person busy so you can get a solid return on your investment.

To do this, you must task your ISA with a variety of daily activities that puts them in position to help you get consistent results.

There’s a delicate combination of things they need to do to work “on” their craft as well as “in” their craft that will help them achieve the outcomes you both seek from them.

The important thing to remember is this: consistent action doesn’t always consistent results, it does produce success.

Here’s a closer look at what your ISA should be doing every day.

Prospecting

Sorry for being so obvious, but that’s the main activity of every ISA. I know you’re probably rolling your eyes, but it’s amazing how many agents I speak with every day who have their ISA doing all kinds of other activities: administrative work, running errands, working on marketing, etc.

Your ISA’s highest and best use every day is getting on the phone and doing three things:

1. talking with new prospects to identify timing and motivation,

2. talking to existing prospects and moving the ball down the field with them and

3. setting appointments with any prospects when the time is right.

They should be on the phone actively talking for 6 to 6.5 hours per day - at a minimum - uncovering and converting opportunities.

To that end, they should be touching each of their lead sources in this order every day:

1. New leads in the door: Home Value Leads, Expireds, Withdrawns, Buyer Leads, etc. Anything new in the door from the prior day or that morning need to get called first as speed of response is most one of the most important ingredients in conversion.

2. First attempt at nurtures: Each day, your ISA has a list of nurtured leads that they need to call. Once all new leads are called, your ISA should then call all their nurtures to see with whom they can get in touch. Instead of leaving messages with people they can’t get on the phone, they should hold off so they can call them again later in the day and give themselves two shots at contacting each nurture every day.

3. Circle Prospecting: The next best thing to do after these two activities are completed is to get in at least an hour of circle prospecting. They can call around just listed and just solds properties, open houses, in neighborhoods where you’re running a marketing campaign or simply in areas where you want greater penetration.

4. Lead campaigns: After they’ve hit those lead sources, your ISA can create special campaigns of any lead sources they want: old nurtures, expireds that are 30-days, 60-days, 90-days old (or older), past clients, etc. 

5.Call all hot prospects: By the end of the day, your ISA should have a list of people that they’ve really wanted to get in touch with but just couldn’t reach. It’s likely comprised of a second run at uncontacted nurtures, hot leads that asked for a call back or anyone who who they really needed to reach but couldn’t. It’s at this point your ISA will leave a message for any nurtures with whom they couldn’t get in contact earlier in the day.

Role Play

“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.” - Zig Ziglar

Your ISA’s biggest weapon on the phone besides the use of tone of voice is the set of scripts and dialogues they use to conduct their calls.

Prospecting experts throughout the sales industry have shared a variety of secrets in books, videos, sales training courses, forums, and blogs over history.

And despite all the recommendations they make for having success over the phone, virtually all of them agree that the most important thing about prospecting is the script.

Your ISA needs to have significant command of the scripts they use every day when making real calls. Without doing this, they will fumble words or forget important suggestions that can make you them sound unprofessional and even foolish, impacting the results they get on a daily basis.

The best way for them to become bulletproof on the phone is to role play every day for 30 minutes.

The role play should be scheduled, happen at a time of the day when you’re least likely to get in contact with a prospect and happen consistently.

You can role play with your ISA or you can find a role play partner in your office or in another office anywhere someone is willing to get on the phone and work scripts and dialogues.

No matter what option you choose, you must have your ISA Role Play.

Notes, Texts and Emails

Phone calls only comprise a portion of the contact strategy your ISA should employ each day.

With over 98% of texts getting opened and even 40% of emails getting looked at, it’s important that your ISA use both these contact elements as part of their day-to-day prospecting strategy.

Texts should be used as part of their speed-of-response strategy, in an effort to get in contact with someone they’ve been having trouble reaching, to confirm appointments and even pique someone’s interest with a unique selling proposition.

Emails should be used to strengthen existing relationships in between phone calls, send out market updates, notify prospects of calls and text that have been sent and even to confirm appointments as well.

In all cases, a handwritten note should be sent out to each nurture your ISA generates every day.

It’s a great way to differentiate you from your competition and to start a relationship with a potential seller or buyer down the road.

Handwritten notes and letters carry a lot of weight in an era where texts and emails rule the communication roost, so to speak.

A day in the life of your ISA

Taking all of this into consideration, here’s a breakdown of what your ISA’s day should look like:

• Call all new lead sources first (send handwritten notes for all new nurtures)
• Send text messages and emails as part of contact strategy
• Break
• Call all nurtures due to be contacted that day (don’t leave messages for those not able to be reached)
• Circle Prospecting (send handwritten notes for all new nurtures)
• Lunch
• Role Play
• Make calls to different call campaigns, i.e., old expireds, old FSBOs, old nurtures, etc. (send handwritten notes for all new nurtures)
• More circle prospecting if time permits (send handwritten notes for all new nurtures)
• Break
• Finish day with nurtures (leave messages this time) and any hot leads from earlier in the day (send text messages as part of contact effort)

This schedule is ideal and not always attainable. The important thing to do is to implement it and get as close to possible to this approach each and every day.

Track, track, track

One last thing, make sure your ISA tracks all of their activities every day so you can see their results and give them feedback on how to alter their approach to get even better results each day.

While there’s no such thing as perfect, there is the ability to get amazing results for yourself if you do things the right way.

Set up for success by making sure they do the right things every day.

If you do that, great things will come from their efforts and it will be one of the best investments you’ll ever make.