With the first pass of Leads on PropertyEngine we’ve started with what we believe to be some of the more powerful features that define it. One of those features is lead categorisation which, as its name implies, is a way of helping you categorise your incoming leads to allow for easier handling down the line. It’s a quick and simple mechanism which allows you to concentrate on the most important leads first and hopefully accelerating your sales. The first two are hardly groundbreaking but still have value: 

Product Source

The leads that come from our products, like HelloHouse, Facebook, LiveList and Siteplan Explorer, will be allocated the appropriate product source so you can see which products perform the best.

Marketing Source

On first contact with the lead you can ask them which marketing source led them to your doorstep. Over time this allows you to allocate your money to those marketing efforts that actually give you the best ROI.

The next two are where it gets really interesting though as it is a way of grouping leads into two important categories, Interest Rating and Financial Rating. Let’s look at each of them individually below:

Interest Rating

Call it sixth sense, call it your lizard brain or simply call it being a good sales person but you can often tell whether a person is truly interested in your development or not from the first few seconds. Malcom Gladwell has written an excellent book called Blink on exactly that (his name for it - 'thin slicing'). This impression is exactly what Interest Rating with its four levels (A,B,C,D) allows you to allocate against what you perceive the leads interest to be. As an example; A could be knocking down your door and D is a complete time-waster, with B and C being the categories between.

Financial Rating

Like the Interest Rating this is an A to D rating but this time it’s around the financial capability of the lead. After all buying a plot or house requires some serious moola and it’s unfortunate that many can simply not afford it. There is very little you, as the person on the other end, can do with this other then categorise it and that’s exactly what this field is for. A is a mortgage approved lead while D is somebody who has had so much debt that they will need serious debt reconciliation before they can continue. The real power of this simple rating system comes when you put them together as it allows you to fast track the AAs, ignore the DDs and pass the ADs on to somebody who can help them become an AA. 

Here is wishing you many AAs in your future.