Top ISA Series: April Martin - Dani Blain Team

Real Estate ISA Radio

April Martin: Awesome. My name is April and I'm with the Dani Blain Real Estate Team. I was a full time ISA for three years. Now I am currently part-time ISA and part-time ISA manager. So, I used to do live ISA-ing from morning until noon, and from noon until the evening, I am managing, training, and overseeing the platform, and our agents, and leads. Currently, my stats are, forgive me they change all the time so I've got to look.

Robby T: That's funny.

April Martin: It's true. I can't keep track of the numbers. Over 113,000 calls made, over 60,000 emails sent, over 47,000 texts. Are you still there?

Nate Joens: I kind of am. Can you see me?

April Martin: No, I don't see you and I see a pan of Robby still.

Nate Joens: I do too. I think Robby has sufficiently broken this.

April Martin: Okay.

Nate Joens: Okay. Well, Robby's just going to be there smiling I guess since I can't seem to get rid of him.

April Martin: Okay.

Nate Joens: So I guess just keep going.

April Martin: I am at roughly 1,300 appointments set, and a little bit over 400 closings year to date.

Nate Joens: Okay. Great. So, can you tell us a little bit about your current role today and maybe how it's changed since you started with your team?

April Martin: Sure, absolutely. I was privileged to come on board with Kevin Blain himself, I was his original ISA, so founder from the beginning. I got the pleasure to go over and travel and see Robby, and Jim, and Eric and train with them personally. They've been a huge blessing in our life.

April Martin: From the beginning, from just not really knowing how to do it, or what to do, or what to expect, to today, I oversee four other ISA and we do currently manage and have managed up to 50 agents and 30-40 taking leads. So, my mornings are pretty busy. I come in at 7:30am, and pretty much do my leads, and my sales as an ISA until around noon. At around noon, I check out and I put on the management hat and making sure our ISA's are accountable. I'm going over current appointments set with them.

April Martin: We're trying to hold a pretty high standard for what the appointments set look like for our agents. I'm taking a look at who's converting. I am also looking at our different agents conversions. So, more of a management role and also providing training for the ISA's, because I've bene in this role three years. And since, the role is pretty ne overall in the industry, I think it's kind of up to ourselves to consistently grow and find new material. We're constantly trying new things and seeing what works. Just constantly providing new ways for our ISA's to get better.

Nate Joens: That's awesome. Could you, first of all, what are come of the tech tools you're using today. You'd mentioned you start the morning with your leads. Where are those leads coming from? Are they different than the ISA leads that they're working come noon? Kind of what's your lead, set the state a little but on your tech scene.

April Martin: Sure, so we have a basic CRM. We use Sync here. I know all ISA's and every team is different, that's one thing I've learned by studying ISA's the way I do. Is that, all teams are different, very unique and I would say some specialize in some things. We specialize in typical online leads such as Zillow, Realtor.com, Facebook, Facebook back at you, Dave Ramsey. Those are some of our traditional lead sources. My day, when I come in, any new leads on the platform, there's typically two of us at all times so, shifts tart from 7:30 until 4:00, and then one comes in from 12:30 until 9:00. All leads are round robin amongst the ISA's so typically everybody is getting a consistent new lead source a day. New leads, fresh leads, if you will.

April Martin: Then we also might have something a little different than a lot of teams. Because of our team size and the amount of conversions we do, we do do a lot of advertising. So, we do have a hotline and that phone does ring. And so typically whomever has that hotline, it's something you usually have to earn because you have to be very quick, because those are coming in live. You've got to be very, I know this is a hard thing to measure, but you've got to be very intuitive, and you've got to be very good with people skills and getting them to talk. Because, that phone can ring up to once every 15 minutes.

Nate Joens: And how may ISA's do you have? I'm sorry if I missed that.

April Martin: That's okay. It's me and four others, so four and a half.

Nate Joens: Okay, and what are their ranges of experience?

April Martin: I have one that's been here two years, and then two that have been here one year, and one that's brand new that we're currently on.

Nate Joens: And so, you know, this is probably a little bit a deeper question that I want to continue to dive into, but you had mentioned that getting access to the hotline is a high privilege. How do you set criteria for them to gain that access, gain that privilege? Is it simply based on experience? What are your criteria for that?

April Martin: Well, that's normally, when a new ISA comes in, they're typically trained for 90 days before they're going to access new leads or the hotline. They are shadowing, they are sitting with us. I do a lot of one-on-one when I put the lead on speaker and let them hear the questions we ask. We typically have a set form of information that we are to do our best to in conversation, get the information from the lead.

April Martin: Our new ISA, her name is Myra, and she said she hears us question so many different ways, just lead the conversation, so that when we come to a point where we dial, and I let her take the lead, it is on speaker and if at any time she gets stuck, she backs away and I take over the conversation in a fluid motion so that way there's no hiccup there. We do that quite a bit until she is comfortable. Even then, I like to listen to them dial, hear them for quite a bit before there's so many different scenarios in real estate that come across the hotline, that she has to be comfortable with taking agent referrals, she's got to be comfortable in the new [inaudible 00:09:00] sellers, competitive listings. Many, many different scenarios on that hotline.

Nate Joens: So, you're allowing those new ISA's to work leads that aren't new to start for the first 90 days. What type of leads? Are they calling? Tell me about what those first 90 days are like.

April Martin: Typically, the first 30 days, a lot of learning, a lot of role-playing, a lot of industry language. Real estate's a whole new language. A lot of listening to us, so there's hours of listening to us. Hour just learning our CRM. There Is hours in learning our agents and what their specialties are, and who's good at what. So there's so much, almost information overload when and ISA first starts, So, then when we actually get them comfortable with the CRM, and they're watching my girls do follow-ups on the dials and everything, then it's time for them to get comfortable with Mojo, and loading Mojo, and that whole dance that we do with Mojo. And so, one they get there and we are actually giving her leads, it's typically the older leads, the ones that maybe we never got, maybe they're just attempted contacts and there's been a lot of dials on them. But just a lot to practice on and with, so they're typically the older ones.

Nate Joens: Okay. I know that's what Robby teaches as well. ISA's don't get the privilege of the new leads until a certain period of time that they get a work through their crappy leads and kind of earn their stripes that way. When they actually do graduate to the new l...