Winning With Whiskey

The Kentucky Derby was earlier this month, and the underdog (Rich Strike) beat the 80-1 odds to Win. The horse came from several horses behind to overtake the leader at the very end of the race. This was far from predictable, and was a stunning victory to watch.

Now, I’m not a horse racing guy – I really know nothing about the tradition, betting on horses or fancy hats … none of that. I’m much more of an NCAA basketball fan (Rock Chalk Jayhawk). So it was funny to fly over Churchill Downs and land in Louisville KY, the home of the derby on Monday following the race, to talk Real Estate Lead Gen with Real Estate folks at two back to back events.
The first event was the Sierra Interactive CRM Summit, (Why yes, Revaluate IS integrated) and the following was Real Estate Distilled, a master class hosted by Liz and Scott Hack.
Being in bourbon country, we decided to give away two bottles of the local liquor, and our own Ryan Dendievel devised a clever analogy to closing leads / data to do so.

First, he pointed out that of the 150 number of people in attendance, one person would be randomly selected to win. 150/1 odds. This was a similar ratio to the odds of cold calling a lead in your database: 0.6%

To have a chance to win the Second bottle, attendees were asked to stop by the Revaluate booth, and drop off a card. The winner would be selected from the cards we received. Ryan speculated that 50 people would drop off a card, giving those folks 50/1 odds of winning the second bottle. This ratio is similar to the average conversion rate on internet leads across the industry that is 2%.

He pointed out that while those odds are better, they still are not great. But then he asked the true question. “What if there were a way to convert 19.5% of your leads – would that be of interest to you?” He continued “Revaluate can correctly identify people in your database who are likely to move in the next six months 19.5% of the time”. (here’s the white paper proof) The crowd instantly rose to their feet and threw blank checks, bars of gold and all their hard earned money at Ryan – who has now retired to an island in the Pacific, and Revaluate is now sold out nationwide.

Look, you already know this industry is hard. Most real estate agents fail at real estate. Churn in our industry is appallingly high. (I don’t have a source, but think I remember 80% of agents fail in under 2 years). The odds are stacked against you. Thats why many individuals, teams and brokerages seek out expert advice at events like those we attended in Louisville – in order to improve their odds.

However, frequently people seek and expect a golden bullet – a tool that does it all, or a flawless system. The thing is, there is no sure bet. Even if your horse has the best odds out there, it’s not guaranteed to be a winner. Only death and taxes are, right? The point is to put yourself, your systems and your team in the best possible position to win, to refine your process, system, scripts and tools – and over time, like Rich Strike, you may also come from behind and stun the world when no one thought you could.