When Olivia Cooley entered the real estate space, she knew that she didn’t want to just sell houses. She wanted to start a business, empower a team, and be the best. When she combined those goals with the right system, she created a team that reached over 400 follow-ups a day, ranked in the top 2% of Keller Williams worldwide, and doubled their volume in 2017.

Knowing When to Expand

At the start, Olivia was working 12-hour days and with most of her time consumed by paperwork, cold-calls, and follow-ups. Always playing catch-up, she’d put sticky notes on the wall with leads, and end up following up with them 3 or 4 weeks later. When she made a sale, that would mean 30-45 days of working on the contract to close, which prevented her from focusing on generating new leads.

Olivia recognized that when you are stretched too thin, opportunities for growth can slip through the cracks. When she hired her first assistant in March of 2016 she had $75 in her business bank account. It was a risk, but she knew that if she didn’t hire some help at that very moment that she would never have the time and resources to grow her bank account much further than that.

In their first year, the Olivia Cooley group closed 43 transactions and did $6 million in volume. Even with a solid first year under her belt, she still felt confined to her sphere, and totally consumed with hands-on lead nurturing and sales. It was a true ‘scale up or stay still’ moment.

Invest in more opportunity, or hang in the comfort zone.

Adding BoomTown to Her Tool Belt

With technology, lead generation and follow-up are kicked into high gear. You’ve essentially got an expert digital marketing team in your back pocket, allocating your resources strategically in order to generate leads with quality and volume in mind. With lead follow-up, most of the “grunt work” is automated. Leveraging this technology as an extra assistant gave Olivia the time she needed to focus on top-level business strategy that would open doors for long-term growth. Time for networking and brand promotion, improving internal operations, and strategizing new hires was suddenly possible.

Empowering a Team

Even while working around the clock, Olivia knew that there was a cap on how much volume was possible to do alone. To be the best, and to hit the numbers she wanted to hit, hiring additional team members was essential. So the new hurdle becomes – How can I provide value to an agent in a way that is mutually beneficial?

She wanted the freedom to approach a buyer’s agent and say, “Hey, I’m going to hand you 60 quality leads a month.” With BoomTown’s digital marketing services, she could anticipate her monthly lead volume and use it as a recruiting technique for top agents. Shifting into the team structure launched Olivia from “a realtor who sells houses in Columbia” to her dream of owning a company that is growing and expanding.

Being the team leader means there is a new mountain to climb: accountability and management. With effective lead management being a monumental task for a smaller real estate group, technology that allows Olivia to see the follow-ups and status between her agents and leads is invaluable. Additionally, built-in data means fewer briefings because team members have real-time, organized information on leads right at their fingertips.

Consistency, Constantly

“I’m a firm believer that consistency beats talent every time. I can call someone once, but it’s a waste of my time if I won’t call them ten times… The best thing about BoomTown for me right now is the accountability and the follow-up that it provides for myself and my team. That lead comes in, and we have the ability to follow up with them easily, with minimal effort on our end.”

Minimal effort are the key words here. Consistent and punctual calls, texts, emails, and e-Alerts, without scheduling 100 tasks in your Google Calendar. The consistency is automated.

If there is one thing every person in real estate will tell you, it’s that consistency is absolutely essential.

For the Olivia Cooley Group, what sealed the deal with BoomTown is that the platform works smarter and harder. Consumer engagement becomes instantaneous. Know if a lead is hot, or if they’ve viewed the same listing multiple times. Finding the right house means staying up-to-date on new listings, price reductions, sales, etc., and the software allows for targeted e-Alerts that keep the lead engaged at the exact right times, without having to lift a finger. All communication with leads is tracked and measured, and you are alerted when action is necessary. This sort of consumer engagement is what keeps opportunities from slipping away, without taking up personnel bandwidth.

Quality of Business, Quality of Life

In the big picture, with BoomTown, Olivia isn’t just capitalizing on potentially lost business opportunities, but personal ones as well. As an entrepreneur, the daily grind can be all-consuming. Minimizing the remedial tasks can mean that extra hour in the morning with family, taking that three day holiday weekend, or just catching up on some R&R. For Olivia, team is family, and she is in a position to empower them through growing her business in a way that wouldn’t be possible without the BoomTown technology.

“I want to be managing a company and helping people build careers. Watching my buyer’s agent Brett get married, buy a house, have his first kid. Those are the type of experiences that I want to create…”