Agents love to talk about lead generation like it’s a menu. Try this. Test that. Add one more thing.
But without a clear system in place, this approach will either obliterate your budget or put you on the fast track to burnout.
In yesterday’s BAM Masterclass, Sharran Srivatsaa and Byron Lazine simplified the entire conversation into four paths, two that require money and two that require sweat equity (i.e., time and effort).
Too often, agents try to juggle all four at once, especially when they’re already behind. What actually gets your business on track, though, is choosing the right path (or paths), based on your current position, then committing to it long enough to see results.
Because over the next 90 days, the paths you choose now will show up in your pipeline and in your income.
Read on for a high-level breakdown of those four lead gen paths. Then watch the full replay of the masterclass here so you don’t miss a thing.
Let’s start with the two paths agents tend to think are the quickest ways to get bottom-of-the-funnel leads.
Two Paths that Run on Money
If you want to get results in a hurry, this is where you look. For each of the two types of lead gen that require a financial investment, you’re either paying to get in front of people, or you’re paying to get access to people who are already in motion.
Both of these paths can generate leads quickly. Both will also expose gaps if your follow-up is inconsistent or your conversion skills are weak.
And you’ll feel those gaps a lot quicker when your income is on the line.
Paid
When people hear “paid marketing,” typically the first thing that comes to mind is ads:
- Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
- Meta ads (Facebook & Instagram)
- Sponsored posts
But as Byron pointed out, paid lead generation can also include ISAs (inside sales agents) or some type of sales division that is responding to leads as they come in.
Home valuation leads are another type of paid lead generation, and it’s a potent source, especially when combined with ISAs.
Byron stated:
“We have set, on our team, more listing leads through our ISAs in quarter one than we did all of last year. Because we ramped up home valuation leads at the end of 2025, knowing that the sellers are going to be interested, at some level, in quarter one, before the spring market hits, of finding out what their home is worth.”
But there’s something every agent should know if they’re looking to spend money in quarter two on paid lead gen. Sharran made this point during the masterclass:
“Anything that is paid, a lot of agents are like, ‘Man, I just will write the check to get the thing.’ Please know this, the paid game is won by doing one thing and one thing alone… it’s long-term nurture.
“If you don’t have long-term nurture, you shouldn’t do paid…
“Long-term nurture, if you can withstand 12-18 months, then it will print money because you have the database of how it’s going to work for you in the future. So, it’s an investment for the future.”
Without a system to respond to paid leads quickly and consistently, it doesn’t take long for consumers to learn not to trust the brand behind the ads.
Partnerships
Partnerships are about paying for proximity to deals that are already forming. Instead of generating attention from scratch, you’re stepping into existing pipelines.
There’s a reason Realtor.com and Zillow belong in this section rather than the previous one.
Byron explains it this way:
“Everybody thinks Zillow is a paid lead. They’ve become a partnership. Whether that’s through their Preferred (formerly Flex), whether that’s through trying to push into ZHL (Zillow Home Loans)… Showcase, or now obviously their Zillow Preview. These are all partnerships. Preview was rolled out as an exclusive partnership with multiple brokerages who are trying to give back to listing agents.”
Realtor.com is in the same boat, though Byron distinguished the two by saying Realtor.com is a particularly strong option for large real estate teams:
“Realtor.com right now, for big teams, big mega teams, Realtor.com is the most profitable partnership that there is.”
Other partnerships include relocation partnerships and referral networks. Both rely on feeder markets. And hosting networking events in these feeder markets is one way to connect with these partners to generate business on both sides.
Whether these partnerships make sense for your business depends on more than simply whether you have the money to spare (in the short term).
For one, as Byron made clear, partnerships are not a path to speedy profit.
“There’s different alignments on how the financials get structured on these partnerships, but it’s signing a long-term contract with your partner…
“Some of these partnerships, if there’s money up front…you’re going to lose money over the next six months. You’re not going to close a deal until 60 to 75 days out. You’ve already paid into that partnership for two months.
“Where you get profitable is at month 12. Where you get really profitable on partnerships like that is month 18… 12-18 months, depending on the market, depending on the price points, is where you start to see those profits come in.”
This is where “runway” comes in. And that involves looking ahead to see whether your business financials can accommodate an investment in partnerships or paid lead gen over the long-term.
That’s where the next two paths come in.
Two Paths that Run on Sweat Equity
If you don’t have the budget to buy attention or access, you can build both with time and effort.
These two paths take longer to ramp up, but they give you more control over your pipeline and your brand.
To be clear, all four of these lead gen paths require an investment of some kind, whether money or sweat equity is taking the lead. But as Byron pointed out, “organic and one-to-one can both be done on sweat equity with no (financial) investment.”
Which is what makes them ideal for agents who have less capital to invest in lead generation.
Organic
Organic lead gen is one-to-many marketing, which includes:
- Social media
- Facebook groups
- Substack
- Blogs
- Newsletters
- Open houses
You create one piece of content, and it has the potential to reach dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people, depending on how it performs and how often you publish.
Social media includes both short-form and long-form content, and effective marketing through these channels means knowing where your audience is spending time online.
The problem is, most agents treat this like a branding exercise instead of a pipeline builder. The agents who get results focus on getting in front of the right people, consistently, with messaging that speaks to a specific audience.
Sharran shared this idea for leveraging an open house to not only maximize lead gen from it but also create an opportunity for what he calls ‘one of zero” content.
It involves a food truck and a sign-in sheet, with a twist:
“Let’s say you’re going to do an In-N-Out Burger truck …But to get the In-N-Out Burger, they have to put in an entry on what the home is going to sell for… Otherwise everyone’s just going to stand in line.
“Now what you have is you have a lot of people come in. They put their entry. And then in that entry they say [their name], this email address, and I think this is going to sell for, you know, $926,000.’ Now you have a piece of data that you can work with.
“Now you can make a reel about it. You can say, ‘Hey, I did this open house. I got 82 people to come by. They looked at this home, and the Zillow value was $786,000. And the aggregate, the median of what they think this was going to be worth or sold for was $875K. You now have what I like to call ‘one of zero content,’ which means only you have that data.”
One-to-One (1:1)
One-to-one lead gen is exactly what it sounds like. It’s effort-based, and it involves one-to-one communication via phone call, text message, email, or face-to-face conversations.
This also includes door knocking, whether you’re out working your geographic farm to ask questions or bring each household something you know they would find useful and interesting, or whether you’re implementing the 4-1-1 open house formula and offering neighbors a VIP experience before the home opens up to the general public.
Early in the mastermind, Sharran asked agents to indicate where they are in their business in relation to their business goals now that quarter one is in the rear view.
He asked them to type one number into the chat:
- 1 for “ahead of the game”
- 2 for “on track”
- 3 for “a bit behind”
For those who typed in “3,” lead gen requiring a significant financial investment is probably not the move. This comes back to Byron’s point on “runway.”
If you’re reading this and you’re at number three, then one-to-one lead gen, as well as organic are probably where you should be investing your time and energy in quarter two.
Byron explained it this way:
“If I’m in a high inventory market, I want to have runway because I want to accumulate listings so that when the market turns, I’m an obvious choice. Well, do I have the runway to either invest in partnerships or invest in paid?
“If I’m on the other side—it’s how I started my career, (with) zero runway, no money—then I’m looking at one-to-one activities and secondarily, I’m building into my organic content so that I have long-term branded and I get more business coming to me.”
You can watch the full Masterclass replay here:
