What separates the great agents from the rest of the pack? Is it fancy training, an incredible manager or the latest tech tools? Why does the top 25% of the business earn an average of $200,000 in commissions, while the next 25% segment only earn $46,000 each year? Never mind the bottom half: They’d do better as Starbucks Baristas. Ask agents and they’ll tell you it’s luck, being in the right place at the right time, or even the power of statues buried upside down in the corner of the yard.

We think, however, that it only takes six words to make a huge difference in agent productivity.

What are these magic words - and why do they account for such a big difference in success-levels for agents (and their companies?) We think they are these:

“The customer never called me back.”

Take it from us - nobody has worked with more companies’ leads management systems worldwide than our consultants, trainers and help desk. We have literally written the book on the technology and management practices that will define the next generation of real estate sales and marketing. And while we have continuously maintained that most leads management suffers from Five Myths common to the companies who struggle to see better results, we have also discovered that these six words appear to be the most common denominator in agents whose productivity never improves.

Look at it another way. Most internet market actually works. Even the most awful presentation of listings - with horrible photos, or none at all - still hasn’t stopped REALTOR.COM and some of the larger real estate portals from driving thousands of buyer inquiries each month to their agents. Smarter sites - with photo minimums and a smattering of video tours - drive dozens of leads a day to agents. Despite the fact that almost 70% of agents still won’t buy a Smartphone to check email on the go, companies continue to get by with a paltry 4 or 5% of business driven from online.

Not all business comes from online, we know. There are still some traditional phone calls and walk-ins, depending upon the marketplace. No matter: offering them to agents doesn’t guarantee much better results. While the gripe is that “online” leads are bad, there’s little proof that most “offline” leads get better attention from agents. Sales figures still show the vast majority of all prospects are soundly ignored by agents.

And it’s all because of the six words.

No matter how a customer reaches an agent - phone, email or social networking (what’s that?) - low productivity dominates more than 75% of the agent population because the six words keeps them from turning customer interest into sales.

Because they’re all waiting for the customer to do their job for them.

Companies that track their leads will find that the six words are the number one reason potentially viable sales go down the drain. Take a look at some of the leads that agents throw away and you’ll see these words scrawled in the margins. The customer inquires on a property, the agent provides some information. Maybe the agent tries to follow up - once, maybe twice.

Then: nothing. The agent just “figures” that the customer isn’t interested any more (but they don’t know, because you’ll also find that most of the time they haven’t had a follow up conversation with the customers). And that’s where the six words come into play. If the customer doesn’t call the agent back, the business is abandoned.

Whose should be chasing whom? That’s the heart of the issue: Agents simply give up on business. Somehow their expectation is that the customer is supposed to come to them - like they are a lawyer or a banker, and not a sales person. It’s partly a by-product of the boom years (since 50% of agents today entered the business during a time when they didn’t have to prospect). But it’s also the by-product of bad recruiting practices with virtually no sales skills requirements, no mandated training, poor standards of performance and minimal oversight by management.

But let’s not blame it all on management, shall we? Students of Drucker know that all performance problems are ultimately the responsibility of management (who will likely be out of a job themselves if it persists). Yet agents are usually the first ones to blame someone else - the company’s lack of training, the manager’s lack of attention, even the customer’s lack of loyalty - before they consider the six words that they repeatedly cite for their lack of performance.

Is it really that simple? Could agents turn more leads into business if they simply did more follow up? Yes, it is that simple. Ask any productive agent their secret to success and they will say just do what they were trained to do in sales class. Prospect, follow up, follow up, follow up. Their “secret” is that they have more stamina than non-productive agents. And that stamina comes from avoiding the six words that keep agents from being more productive.

Top performing agents realize that it’s their job to pursue the customer. That 50% of customers may start the process “early” - reaching out to an agent for help, information, guidance - but not ready to pull the trigger for months. They also realize that, simply put: That’s the life of a sales person. Not every customer who inquires from your website (or by phone) is ready to buy today, or even next week. Residential sales agents actually have it “easy.” Even if it takes them a few months to incubate a prospect into a sale, the amount of stamina required pales in comparison to what’s needed by commercial real estate agents. Or pharmaceutical sales. Or computer sales.

In the end, it comes down to the six words. The biggest difference between top agents and the bottom 75% of non-producers isn’t a silver-bullet technology or super-savvy scripts. It’s a recognition that their job is to chase the consumer - to sell - and that they will never build a successful career if they sit around “waiting for the customer to call them back.”

- M