What Is a Real Estate ISA Company?
Once your real estate business progresses to a certain point, hiring an ISA for real estate is the only way for you to move forward past that point. Without an inside sales agent (ISA), your company will most likely fail to bring in enough new leads, not be able to properly follow up with and nurture the leads you have, and, generally, fall into stagnation.
Once hired and properly trained, leveraging an ISA will allow your business to grow by leaps and bounds. Within their first 12 month, you can expect your ISA to produce between 50 and 60 transactions. According to a statistic from the Real Estate Trainer, real estate teams which utilize ISAs have found the income they produce to be at least five times the cost of employing them, amounting to a 5 to 1 return on investment.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What exactly is a real estate ISA and what do they do for your business?
What Is an ISA for Real Estate?
Like we already mentioned, an ISA is an inside sales agent. I explain the role of ISAs to my clients in terms beyond the general view of appointment setters or lead scrubbers—ISAs are skilled real estate professionals who are highly trained, skilled and dedicated to their craft in the same degree as an outside agent. The advantage of the ISA is that they specialize in the initial tasks of lead generation, lead nurturing and setting listing and buyer consultation appointments.
The ISA’s role is most effective when the scope is limited to tasks that develop the position into a lead generation and conversion machine. The raw materials are leads and lists—the product is viable listing or buyer appointments that result in contracts.
Here is the basic structure of the inside sales role:
- ISAs receive inbound leads and conduct rigorous outbound prospecting to uncover leads.
- ISAs scrub leads, determine motivation, timing and ability.
- ISAs set the listing and buyer consultation appointment for an outside agent.
- ISAs also maintain a nurturing database of leads and work that database to produce future appointments.
Different teams and agents have varying degrees of difference with this model, like not using the ISA to set appointments or having their ISA conduct marketing and advertising efforts, but the role’s effectiveness is greatest when clients adhere to the above description.
When to Hire a Real Estate ISA?
If you are already bringing in around 150,000+ in annual GCI, and you already have a solid and well-trained assistant handling your transactions for you, then you are ready for an ISA. At this point you are able to scale and do more business.Â
You can leverage your lead generation while producing more appointments and contracts. The other requirement is that you must have some type of lead generation platform or farm in place, or well-established online profiles where you can run advertising. In other words, before you hire an ISA, you need to have a steady stream of leads coming in. If you don’t, then your inside sales agent won’t have leads to work and they won’t be worth the salary you are paying them.
What Is an ISA Company?
Once you determine that you are ready to hire an inside sales agent, the next question is whether to hire an in house ISA or an ISA company. The difference between the two is that an in house inside sales agent is a direct member of your team, while an ISA company is an organization you pay to make use of their inside sales agents.
An ISA company often focuses on one particular industry, in this case real estate. Once you hire them, an ISA company will take the leads you generate, qualify them, and either set up appointments for your agents or send them live transfers. The third party company handles the initial legwork, then after that it’s up to your real estate agents to take the sale over the finish line.
Benefits of Hiring an ISA Company
Although many companies or team leaders may be hesitant to hire an ISA company because the ISAs are not true members of your team, there are some significant upsides. Benefits of using an ISA company include the following:
- You don’t have to worry about sick or vacation days
- You don’t have to go through the tedious interview process
- You don’t need to spend time or money figuring out ISA employee bonuses
- You don’t have to think about the entire HR side of having an employee
- You don’t have to track individual ISA performance
- There is relatively little training that you’re responsible for (just teaching the ISA company how your business operates)
- If you hire a reputable company, you know you’re getting a team of sales experts ready to go to work for you on day one
Another benefit of hiring an ISA company is that you only have to worry about paying for the services your business needs. Whereas with an in house ISA you are paying the salary and taxes no matter whether you have leads coming in or not, with a company you are only paying them for specific lead generation campaigns or for a specified time period.
ISAs Require Consistent Training
The advantage with in house ISAs is that you control more of the situation. You’re able to hire the ISA directly, train them directly, and use the process that you developed. Hiring a full time ISA is a large investment, but one that has the potential to pay off big for your business. If you do it right.
The problem that many real estate companies run into, however, is that team leaders or owners don’t have adequate time for training. Successfully training an ISA takes time. In fact, it could take up to between four and six months to effectively coach and evaluate if your ISA is productive or profitable. By hiring an ISA company, that training is done for you; all you have to do is inform them of the specifics of your process and market.
In House or Third Party?
At the end of the day, whether you hire an in house inside sales agent or a company is up to you and your specific goals and constraints. If you have the time and funds to hire a full time agent, then that is probably the route to go, however if you don’t think you’ll be able to devote the necessary resources, then a third party is probably the best way to go.
If you do decide to hire an in house ISA and want them converting leads fast, then give us a call at Smart Inside Sales.