Are Dials Dead?

Nate: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the Structurely and Hatch Coaching webinar. My name is Nate. I am the CEO of Structurely. We're going to be talking about our Dial's dead. I'm really excited about this one today. I know Robby myself and Erik are about to nerd out and it's going to be on 45 minutes to an hour. So Erik let's get this thing started off. What do you got for us.

Erik: [00:00:41] Hey good to be here with you all we have people from all over the country and in North America. And then some folks may be watching that webinars too or the podcast later. So great to have you here. Let me give you a little bit of perspective is I started real estate team in 2012. We implemented the same model in 2013 and we were married to the idea that I ISAs hit the phones and when ISAs hit the phones they were continually receiving incoming business and then they were sending out and chasing down all sorts of nurturers and relationships whether it be expired listings or anybody who signs up on our website and we dialed until we were dead. We hit the phones and we hammered the phones and then some then recently has started to shift. When I talked to Robby our ISA team and we said what in the world is going on. And I asked the question and I made the proclamation to say are Dial's dead. And it really framed up an interesting conversation that we had and we can't be the only ones experiencing it. So we want to do our best to try to keep people in the loop of understanding are Dial's dead or not. And so the guy who I know to pitch to is Robby t he builds our ISA company in the apartment. When he was in the game he was the top ISA in the country and now coaches the top ISAs in the country. And so no one better to answer the question then Robby are Dial's debt. Whether you're an ISA or an agent if you don't have an ISA you are the ISA and the question is this is has your game changed and can you reach anybody on the phone anymore. I'm done here.

Robby: [00:02:28] So I want to start here by telling you guys the story. When I started this game about five years ago because I think it's going to give a really great framework for the rest of this call when I got the game that it was all smiles the method to convert Leads Online leads wherever it may be. The story was I was calling and calling and call it and what happens is that game is changing and it is changing drastically and we're now entering a phase where there is so many appointments that we're booking. That the initial contact isn't happening because it is happening because of it and the framework. All that five years ago there really was no to use automatic or mass messaging. It was in development. People were starting to allow it. It really wasn't. Yeah. And what we're seeing. Erik you refer to it as a massive shift the balance shift over. I'm now really feeling it and I felt it Robby.

Erik: [00:03:52] It's like yes I've been out of production now for four plus years. So running our team coaching. I've been out of production. And here's what happened. Is this thing right here was my lifeline. As a realtor I would wait if a number called me that I didn't recognize. I thought it was a sign call. I thought it was a referral. I thought it was that next piece of business that was going to have me crush the industry. That's what I thought. You know in the 12 months and especially through the last political season and especially through all the robo dialers that have happened now. I don't answer my phone when it's not a number that I don't know if one of you calls me and I don't have your number saved that's going to voicemail. And if you leave me a voicemail I'm just going to see the text from it anyways and not even listen to the voicemail. That thinking changed. I even think back Robby and this is maybe before your time but when I got caller ID at my house for the night. Yes. Caller ID need all of a sudden your life changed because you knew who was calling and it would tell you. Well now we don't all in it we don't answer again. Right. And that's that's the crux of the pain that we're experiencing.

Robby: [00:05:12] That is because what is happening is let's be real. Phone calls are a method that somebody answers that call. The thing that they're afraid of is how am I going out to talk to this person or am I going to have to get off the phone with us political advertiser or this sleazy salesperson. You're exactly right. It's the consumer now has more control at their fingertips than they ever did before. It's when they're receiving that call and that even if I call you I don't know where you're not going answer it sometimes.

Robby: [00:05:47] Rather what we're seeing is bring this full circle. What we're seeing is the power of an outbound call is diminishing and we'll get to some numbers later but it's dying. There's no doubt about it. And the reason that is is there is a better way. Now that better way is somebody you can have a texting conversation with the first. And this is what we're seeing. It's really a this that the initial idea is this is a random non pre arranged phone call that used to be dominant a conversion is dying and what's happening is we're having to pre arranged phone calls. We had extended texting conversations will we ever get the opportunity to have a phone conversation with somebody five years ago. That wasn't the case now. And here's the numbers for you. When I got this game it was nearly all phone calls last year as of 2017. About 50 percent of all of our appointments the initial contact didn't come from a phone call that came through a text message. So that conversation started that's this year we're trending towards 65 to 70 percent. And here's what I can tell you is I have zero doubt in my mind that that number is 85 percent in the future if not higher. Why. Because people don't want to commit to a halt to somebody they don't know because we live in a world where consumers have more control and more with that and don't want to sit there and could commit themselves to a random conversation that they don't really want to have. Yes but they will have a texting conversation with you. We'll get to that in a little bit.

Erik: [00:07:37] Robby you used to talk that. I know you're ready to jump in here but I just want to highlight one point. You said that Dial's are dying. You're not declaring that dials are dead is that right. You said dials are dying.

Robby: [00:07:51] Dying and really what it looks like is this a shooter. Maybe some numbers on it was when I was making calls five years ago five four years ago. If I made a hundred calls of usually contact about 10 people so I'd call 10 people or I call them to people or contact them when I ran the numbers this morning I looked at all our ISA on the calls that were doing.

Robby: [00:08:18] And that number is what we call a hundred people were contacting three-ish. That's a major drop in efficiency and in fact, thank God for auto-dialers by the way because it makes certainly not with my son but literally a phone call is 33 percent as likely to lead to a conversation as it was five years ago. And again that is going to continue that trend downwards. So it's not dead but you bet. No doubt it is dying.

Nate: [00:08:56] That's a pretty amazing stat. And I know you know I know we kind of talked about this internally amongst ourselves to that. You know I think myself i...