A buyer comes to you excited. They’ve been looking for six months with another agent. They’re pre-approved. They know what they want. They want to start fresh.
You show them 7 homes over three weekends. No offers. They go quiet. You follow up twice. Nothing.
If that scenario feels familiar, the problem is almost never the buyer’s indecisiveness. It’s usually what happened — or didn’t happen — at the initial consultation.
What the Buyer-Side Numbers Tell You
Your Showings/Offers Written ratio is one of the most revealing numbers in your buyer business. Motivated, qualified buyers with aligned expectations typically write offers within 5–8 showings. When that number climbs to 15, 20, or more, something wasn’t established clearly at the start: financing confidence, timeline, price range acceptance, or genuine motivation to move.
The consultation is where those things get established — or don’t. An 80/20 approach helps: 80% of your consultation should be listening and gathering information, 20% should be guiding and responding. The agents who understand this build commitment before they ever open a door.
Speed Is Also a Conversion Metric
On the lead side: making 6+ contact attempts in the first 24 hours reaches over 90% of buyer leads. Most agents make 1–2 attempts. That gap — between the attempts you’re making and the attempts that work — is where most buyer lead waste happens. It’s not a lead quality problem. It’s a follow-up volume problem.
The 1/3 Rule for timing: whatever timeline a buyer gives you, follow up in one-third of that time. Six-month buyer? Call in two months. Three-month buyer? Check in at one month. Stay relevant without being annoying. Lead with market updates, new listings, rate movements — not “are you still looking?”
Track It to Improve It
The buyer-side metrics worth tracking daily: Contacts, Appointments Set and Met, Buyer Reps Signed, Showings, Offers Written, Offers Accepted, Closed Sales. From those, Top Agent Tracker calculates all 11 buyer-side ratios automatically — including the Showings/Offers Written ratio that usually reveals the qualification problem first. About a minute of daily input. See the plans.
