The average internet lead registers as a new lead seven times (for seven different agents) before you ever get them back on a real call.
By the time you’re calling somebody back after three, six, nine, or twelve months of silence, they’ve had over a year of scattered real estate experience. And they don’t remember one piece of it.
Here’s what kills me. Most agents call that old list and ask the laziest question in the business. “Have you seen anything you like?”
A better way to reach out is with the two-call system.
Tom Toole and I shared this framework on a recent BAMx Roleplay Mastermind. It’s built around one idea: stop trying to book a showing on the first call. Book a second call instead.
That’s the whole system, and it’s the highest converting process I’ve seen for old buyer leads.
Why “Have You Seen Anything?” Is Killing Your Conversion
If you’re calling an old buyer list and driving straight to an appointment on 123 Main Street, you’re going to get a low percentage of appointments.
That’s just math. Leads who’ve been on the sidelines for three, six, nine months aren’t ready to jump straight into a showing off a cold call.
The worst version of this call is the one I hear about every day. An agent texts or emails an old lead and asks them to check the automated search. That puts the entire job back on the customer. It’s the path of least resistance, and it’s exactly why so many agents in this business do nothing with their old databases.
Lee Barr runs an ISA department managing around 50 agents and over 1,000 leads a month, so he hears this play more than almost anyone. I asked him how often he runs into it.
“I see this every day. I speak with our agents every day about it. They always send it in a text message or an email because they have them on auto search, and they think that’s the be-all end-all.”
That person on the other end of the phone already showed you real interest once. Right now, they’re a customer, and a lazy text pointing back to an automated search is a bad experience for someone who trusted you with that interest.
Old Buyer Leads Have Way More Baggage Than You Think
Here’s the stat straight from the call.
“The average internet lead registers as a new lead seven times. These are real numbers that are out there.”
Walk through what that actually looks like for a lead who registered back in January.
Three months later, they pick up a Zillow search. Three months after that they’re on Realtor.com. Nine months in, somehow, they end up on Homes.com. Somewhere in there, they hit a PPC ad and land on a local site too.
Now they’re running searches off IDX feeds, and at some point, they walked into an open house and got added to two more searches tied straight to the MLS.
Along the way, they probably met another agent who didn’t close them either.
That’s fifteen months of noise before you ever pick up the phone to call them back.
They don’t remember which agent sent which search, and they definitely don’t remember you, even if this is your own list you built yourself.
Don’t assume otherwise when you dial. Assume you’re starting from zero.
Book a Call from a Call
The entire goal of call one is booking call two, a real second call on the calendar with somebody who’s actually engaged.
Here’s how the call runs:
#1. Open with an icebreaker.
“We spoke a while back about buying in X area. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
That invites a response instead of a brush off, and it earns you permission to keep talking.
#2. Acknowledge the time gap and disarm it.
The market’s moved, rates have moved, plans have shifted.
Something like:
“The market’s shifted numerous times this year, including rates. I’m circling back through everyone we helped last year to see who actually wants to own in this area and who decided to hit pause.”
#3. Ask the right A/B question.
Not “Have you seen anything.” Ask:
“Are you still looking to buy in X area, or did that kind of fall off the radar?”
It’s an easy yes or no, and it keeps the conversation moving without asking them to do any work.
#4. Run the timeline gut check.
Ask how serious this is on a scale, end of year or the next 12 months. Whatever number they give you, cut it in half. Anybody who tells you 12 months is probably closer to six.
#5. Make the promise that books call two.
Tell them exactly what they’re getting on the next 10-minute call, so it feels like a reality check instead of a pitch:
- What their budget actually buys today
- A couple of real homes that already fit that budget
- The smartest next move given where rates and prices sit right now
#6. Close with two specific times.
“I’ve got today at 12 or tomorrow at 11, which works better for you?”
You’re resetting the appointment, not asking them to commit to something vague.
If somebody spends five minutes or more on that first call, they usually show up for the second one. If they rush you off in under a minute just to get you off the phone, don’t expect them on the calendar tomorrow.
Tom Toole’s team has actually tracked this in their CRM, and seven to eight minutes is the sweet spot. That’s where you pull real intel out of the call, and that’s where the second appointment actually gets set.
That’s quality over quantity. You’re giving real, patient service to people who already raised their hand once, and that’s what gets the second call answered.
The Follow Up Protocol When They Don’t Pick Up
Not everyone answers, and that’s fine as long as you have a real sequence behind it. Two call attempts within a seven-day window, then move to voicemail and text.
Every voicemail you leave from here forward should reference a text, and every one of those texts should go out immediately after the voicemail.
Keep it short:
“Are you still thinking about buying in X?”
No pitch. Ask this one question, then give them the space to answer.
Pay attention to when conversion actually happens on these leads. Tom Toole’s data shows most conversion on a lead lands somewhere between 90 and 365 days after it first registers.
One call and done is how agents talk themselves out of leads that were never actually dead. They just needed the right sequence and enough patience to let it play out.
Stop Waiting on Leads to Do Your Job
Building a real system for your old buyer leads and running it every single day, call after call, is how you take market share right now.
If you don’t have an old buyer list right now, go get one. Somebody at your brokerage or on your team has a stack of old opted-in buyers sitting untouched, and most agents have no idea what to do with them once they get one.
Stop putting out slop. Start studying your market, run the two-call system on your next old lead list, and start booking second calls that actually convert.
