Your Web site exists to get you leads, among other purposes. Many agents who get Web site inquires, however, mishandle the inquiry. They forget their basic sales techniques, and they lose business. By taking a look at the right way to handle an inquiry on a listing, for example, you can sharpen your touch....and make more money from your site. Here's what I'd recommend.

Step One: Get back to the prospect right away

Glen Gill of Landmark Properties, Sugarland/Houston, TX uses the phrase The Golden Hour to emphasize the fact that you have to respond to the inquiry quickly.

Whether it's within one hour, as Glen tries to do, or a little longer time frame, his point is well taken. You need to have a system for getting back to site leads within several hours: auto responders, someone who monitors your email during the day. Whatever you do, the phrase "time is of the essence" is never more true than it is with Web site leads.

Step Two: Use your reply to qualify the prospect

See the inquiry for what it is - the start of the qualifying process. Many agents go wrong here, as they see the initial inquiry only as a request for information. It is that, but it is also the start of the qualifying process, and focusing on basic sales techniques is important here.

Instead of just answering the prospect's questions, ask some of your own, such as:

• Have you been looking for property in our area for long?

• Do you have any special requests regarding your purchase?

• Are you familiar with our area?

• Are you planning a visit to our area in the near future?

• Is there any other information I can send you?

Step Three: Put contacts on a follow-up system

The answers to your questions (or the fact that the prospect doesn't reply) determine what type of prospect you have: a "Full Boil" or a "Slow Cooker." Each type of prospect has its own type of follow-up system, and the basis for each is your real estate database.

Create a system of contacts for each type of prospect using the "Action Plan" feature of your database. Such a system lets you put in different type of contacts (phone, e-mail, letter, postcard) at different intervals. When you attach it to a prospect, the events go into your calendar and you are automatically reminded of them.

The "Full Boil," obviously, has a large number of frequent contacts at frequent intervals and is designed to work the prospect in a timely manner since he or she is ready to buy soon. The "Slow Cooker," on the other hand, isn't in a hurry to buy today, so you have fewer contacts spaced over a longer period of time. In either case, putting a prospect on a particular contact plan, one where you're reminded of various tasks, is the secret to getting an eventual meeting with the prospect.

The other contact system is your e-mail newsletter. Whatever the type of prospect, he or she should hear from you via your newsletter on a monthly basis for the rest of your career unless they request to be taken off the list. Such a contact system costs you next to nothing and can be a tremendously effective method for building your business!

Does such a system work? You can determine if an Internet lead is "real" or not by asking a simple follow-up question.

Linda Norton of Coldwell Banker Residential Group, Ft. Collins, CO says, "I got an e-mail inquiry regarding one of my listings last week from a young couple headed here in August, and I replied right away and asked them if they were going to be making a buying trip before then. They said yes, came up this past weekend and put a condo under contract. It closes in less than two weeks.

"By the way, they mentioned to me that the other agents they contacted didn't even get back to them, and the one other that finally did just gave them the information, didn't ask them anything and didn't seem as 'friendly' because they didn't!"