EP 33: THE REALTOR KPI SCORECARD | KNOW WHAT TO FIX BEFORE YOU LOSE MORE CLOSINGS

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Inside this FREE resource you'll get:
 ✅ Realtor KPI Scorecard
 ✅ Business Systems Framework
 ✅ Data-Driven Decision Guide
 ✅ Lead Conversion Strategies
 ✅ Conversation & Script Tips

What separates top-producing Realtors from everyone else?

It's not luck.

It's not working longer hours.

It's having the discipline to track the right numbers, follow proven systems, and make business decisions based on data instead of emotion.

In this episode of The Buyer's Box Podcast, Ally Burnett sits down with entrepreneur and business owner Elizabeth Ferraro, who helped build one of the largest home inspection companies in her market by focusing on systems, communication, accountability, and measurable performance.

Whether you're an independent Realtor or leading a growing team, this conversation will help you create a more consistent and scalable business.

🎯 You'll Learn
✅ Why data beats emotion in every stage of your business
✅ The KPIs every Realtor should monitor weekly
✅ How to identify whether your problem is lead generation or sales skills
✅ Why scripts improve confidence and conversion
✅ How systems create consistency across a growing team
✅ Why successful businesses increase marketing during slower markets
✅ The importance of measuring what actually moves your business forward

⏰ TIMESTAMPS
00:02 – Meet Elizabeth Ferraro & Building Multiple Businesses
02:42 – The Book That Changed Their Business: Traction
04:20 – Why Data Beats Emotion in Business
04:36 – The KPIs Every Realtor Should Track
05:45 – Why Top Businesses Increase Marketing During Slow Markets
08:03 – The Numbers Behind Lead Conversion
09:25 – Why Scripts Create Better Conversations
10:21 – Adapting Your Communication to Different Clients
12:03 – Setting Expectations & Building Client Trust
14:04 – Staying Consistent When Life Gets Busy
16:03 – Focusing on the Activities That Actually Grow Your Business
18:06 – Hiring the Right People & Building a Strong Team Culture
20:00 – Why Realtors Should Stop Doing Everything Themselves
22:01 – Protecting Your Highest-Value Activity & Final Advice

🎯 WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR

 Realtors looking to scale their business 
 Buyer Agents 
 Listing Agents 
 Team Leaders 
 New Realtors building consistency 
 Real Estate Entrepreneurs 
 Anyone who wants to make smarter, data-driven business decisions 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hi everybody, this is Allie Burnett with the Buyers Box Podcast, and today we have a very special guest that's actually from Myrtle Beach. We have Elizabeth Ferrara. Well, good morning, everybody. Happy to be here. Thank you for coming. Can you tell everybody a little bit about um, because you and your husband have had several businesses, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

We have, yeah. Or what um, I didn't even know this term until I did have several businesses. We're called a serial entrepreneur. Um, so we currently own Rivertown property inspections. We founded that in 2013 after we actually had our own personal home inspection done. And my husband comes with lots of construction experience, and it really wasn't the best home inspection experience coming from years of um uh examples now. So he came home and said, Hey, I'm gonna open a home inspection company and be an entrepreneur. And coming from a very career-based life for me and my family, I said, You're gonna do a what and a how. Um, and now we have the largest home inspection company in all of Orion, Georgetown County. We've done over 15,000 home inspections underneath the Rivertown name. And this year alone, we're very honored and humbled to share that we're up 33% and we'll be hitting over 3,000 inspections this year if targets still keep going where they're supposed to. That's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. But to give a little background of who we are and where we come from, I think it helps kind of explain why my brain processes the way it does. We have owned and operated seven different businesses together, um, mostly in the marketing world, construction. We had a renovation company that we did 50 to 16 major renovations a year. Um, thankfully, we don't do that anymore. It was really hard to keep up with two growing businesses at the time. Um, but I also come with a trauma ICU background. Uh, that's what I did before I joined our company. I was a registered nurse. And so systems and processes are huge to us, um, especially because that's what I had to do as a nurse. So I've taken a lot of that and applied it to our business, uh, I believe for the better. And the numbers typically show for the better.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, yeah, I think you're really good at triaging. You must be.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Oh, yeah. Well, thankfully, um, for me, since I was in the ICU studying, um, I didn't have to do with like a lot of the triage components, but you are very good at like processing what's a priority, what's not a priority, um, and really expecting the unexpected because like the whole full moon components of a patient in the middle of the night is true. Things can like die real quick. Um, and they can in business too. So it helps us uh critically think and really issue process fast and get to the priority, uh, the priorities for our clients and you know our agents' needs.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Absolutely. And I think one way that you and I really aligned pretty quickly was just on like how we're operating our businesses, having systems in place, making sure that we have the alignment. And you're gonna have to remind me of the name of the book that you had suggested to me. What was that?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, so I I love this book. Um, I will tell you it's not the funnest audible read, um, but it's called Traction by Gina Wickman. And it was a game changer for us in our business because we are sort of like you and Andrew. Um, we're a little unique. We're a husband-wife team, which is amazing once you figure out the science of the married part of that. Um, but it's also then how, especially when you're growing a team or anything like that, you've got to be really careful about your communication, essentially with any partnership. But I do feel like because the husband and wife spend so much time together, um, it really helped us clear up what we were sharing with our team clearly, what we were not sharing clearly. Um, even some of the vision of where our company was going five, 10 years down the road that we constantly talk about, but were the main key management resource in our company, just similar to you guys, I would say. Um, and so then it really helped us change like how we were sharing that with the team and making sure that they knew where our PI was also going. Uh, because sometimes, especially as you're growing and we actually really grow the most in slower markets. We really market the hardest. And sometimes for our team, um, that can make them very nervous. And so we got a lot better about sharing those, also really realizing what systems were broken, where was our communication not clear for our agents, for our team members, for our clientele. So it was a game changer.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

That's awesome. One of the topics I want to talk about, which I'm like so excited about, is the data over the emotion. And you kind of touched on it a little bit. So, can you talk about, you know, through your business, what were some ways that you guys found some of those KPIs, that data, and kind of working through that to improve your business? I love that.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

You just said one of my favorite words. So KPI actually means key performance indicator. And this book does talk a lot about it. A lot of your other um business entrepreneurial, the OS system, you know, any of those. Um, this is the one that connected for us, and we were in a coaching group that we all implemented it at the same time. So we could troubleshoot scorecards and all of that. But here's one of the things that you have to learn when you're in business, whether it's just you as one agent or you're trying to grow a team of 30, 40 people, maybe your goals are even to have a team of 50, you know, um, is that data helps change the emotions of what you're seeing in your business. It also helps you drive the needle because we know this in a uh in a very high sales marketed, there's always cycles, right? There's times that the market's up, there's times that the market's down, there are times that there are things that we can control, like how we're choosing to market to you know our clients and so forth. Then there's things that we can't control, like an election, um a pandemic, a hurricane. Um, those are things that, you know, especially hurricanes impact us. Right. Um, and so when you're looking at the numbers of what's moving your business, that helps you know what's working and what's not working. And also what you need to do, like one of the things I just said is that we actually market the hardest when the market is slowing down. That's because we know it's a cyclical factor, right? We're gonna have shifts in the market. Again, some things we can control and some things we can, but what I can control is the intensity at which we're pursuing certain things. So when I'm looking at key performance indicators, they look a little different based on who's sitting in what seat. So for us, we kind of have three lanes in our company. We have a management lane, we have a home inspector lane, and then we have an office lane. And when I'm looking at those three different lanes, the numbers that I'm picking to track and look at regularly, sometimes that's weekly, sometimes it's monthly. I'm looking at what's actually driving the needle. So for example, for my office staff, what's driving the needle of my business? How many inspections did we cancel last week? How many inspections did we book? The way that we then look at that as a KPI is what's our close rate. So if I was an agent, one of the things that I would be looking at is okay, I called 10 clients from those 10 clients, I got two hot leads. So at minimum, every single day, or you guys get these parameters from lots of different coaching. And I'm sure Ali and Andrew give out tons of these. Um, every single day I'm looking at, or even on a weekly basis, of where did we hit those numbers? Because those tell the driving factor, not typically the next week. This is where people get a little um unromanticized, maybe for a word, with numbers, is typically when you're looking at numbers, it takes about 12 weeks, especially on a marketing initiative, to see a shift. Um, even in the real estate world, especially with working with clients, as you guys know, sometimes you found a client for two, three years before you see a conversion, but it's some of that consistency of looking at those numbers, driving that needle that make the difference. Um, another like KPI, just to give an example of where you can get some of these numbers from, like for us, it's home inspectors. You know, home inspectors give us so many inspections available. We book them for so many inspections, and we actually report back to them on an annual basis on their capacity rate. And typically we're overbooking, which we look at for schedule optimization. How are we using what we have available for the highest and best use for the company?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Okay. Um, a couple of thoughts that just like come to mind as you're saying those things. So for us, the numbers that we typically see for every 100 people that you dial, 10% will answer the phone. Um, so you're at 10. Out of those 10, you should keep 80% um on the phone for at least two minutes. Out of those, two or three will be dying in the next year. So out of every 100 people that you call, two to three will kind of be in your bucket. And so you're probably seeing some similar things with you. And so can you talk about um like for us, like I know, like if I see an agent is dialing 100, getting 10, okay, it's not a connection issue, right? Like the the it's happening, like we have the business, the business is answering. And then if we notice that out of the 10 that they're only keeping five on the phone, then it's a it's a skill issue. Are you seeing a similar sort of thing in your business as well?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah. And then what we do, so yes, I I do see that. And most of the time, people tend to procrastinate or to not have a stronger skill set on what they're most intimidated by. And so this is something in the world of agents that I feel like they kind of push back on, but I will tell you from true experience of high sales from anything to um selling timeshare, doing vacation sales. I even was a realtor for a little bit. Um, thankfully, Rivertown grew enough where I could just support my realtors in a great setting because that was not really what I was passionate about, is um scripts. Scripts truly train and it's training yourself. Um, so one of the greatest ways that I've ever taught this, because I do a lot of speaking engagements, is number one, record yourself, figure out those gaps, figure out your filler words, figure out where you paused, where you didn't pause, where you maybe over talk to your client because we get excited about what we do. This is still one of my biggest pain points. Um, because I love what I do and I love sharing what I've done because I've learned a lot from other people. But scripts help not only just um take out the nervousness for yourself when you have a variety of different personalities that you may be calling a hundred phone calls in a day, they help you get back to the information you need to know. Um, so scripts, even for us as a team, because we could be talking from anyone to an investor who buys 30 different deals a year to a first-time home buyer who has never purchased a home. Or, for example, like right now, I'm helping my Nana who hasn't bought a house by herself ever in her life because she's now a widow. Those conversations do look different. And so having a script sometimes, um, or not sometimes, I would say every single time, still help you navigate that caring component, but also get to the information that you need to know to convert them into that five to 10. Um, the more you use a script, the better you get at it as well. And you don't have to sound like a robot. Um, and even if you started to, honesty for me is one of the biggest things that we ever use for our clients. So I'll share up front, you know, hey, I'm using a script because I want to make sure I'm using your time wisely and getting the information I need to know to see if I can help you. There's nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, I I agree totally. And I think one other thing that you also touched on with was with your inspectors, you are tracking to see um who can pick up I guess I don't know, it's more like the payroll, almost like I don't know, maybe you explain it a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Like so when we're looking at capacity for us as business owners, it's very important to us that when we tell you something in an interview process and our team goes through a minimum three interview process to join the company. Um, because as you guys know, home inspections are crucial to the deal, and we're very selective, even when we have to turn away work. Um, because if they're not a good fit for us, and traction talks a lot about this, the right person in the right seat is way more worth any kind of quick inspector I could put out in the field for six months. The reputation impacts on that don't convert the way that we need to for that short period of time that they could potentially work with us. Um, so when we're looking at capacity, it's very important to us that what we promised you is what we delivered. So, even for me, if I was a realtor working with my client, if I tell my client, like, hey, you're gonna hear from me by 6 p.m. on Tuesday night, you're gonna hear from me by 6 p.m. on Tuesday night. I'm going to over-promise or sorry, underpromise and over-deliver is always our goal. So we even look at that from a team standpoint. When inspectors want to come and talk to us, um, maybe in a slower market season, like seasonality, we can't control that. We know it's coming. We market pretty hard for that for some different programs that we offer during that time. So we're creative. But when an inspector comes to us and maybe starts having some payroll questions, we then can pull the numbers. So we're not talking about, well, you feel like you only did eight inspections last week. No, no, we can pull the numbers and we can say, no, you did 14. And here's what your 14 was, and here's where your average, even like payroll amount was. Um, some of those numbers really help even on a personal standpoint. When I start to feel like, I don't feel like I've seen this agency as much. I don't feel like I've seen, you know, business from Allie or Andrew as much. We go pull the numbers before we allow that to dictate because if you're if you're just not looking at your numbers, you're going off of emotions. And as much as I think emotions are crucial to living in life, they can also ruin your business and add stress that's not needed, um, especially for other team members. Um, so that's that's huge to me.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

I totally agree. And one thing that I've noticed with agents, you know, we talk to a lot of single agents out there in the world, and they're always like, Oh, I feel like I did so many appointments last week, and I'm not getting any any checks, and nobody's closing, and nobody wants to buy a house for me. And so I ask them, okay, how many appointments did you have? Oh, three three or four or five. No, how many appointments did you have? Because it's it's obvious, you know, like look back on your calendar. Okay, we had four appointments out of those four, how many bought a house? One. Yeah, okay, 25%, you know, or maybe it's a zero. So I do think it's an is it it is important to do that, especially like I'm sure you've even noticed whenever you have family things going on, or maybe it's back to school time, like that's a hard time in our house. I know that, you know, second, third week of August, it's crazy. It always feels like there's more going on. But when you can go back and you can look at all the data and say, okay, I consistently had 20 appointments a month and I had 10 last week and I only had five this week and I have five next week, well, you still hit your 20. And so I think that that is very important to look at because there are going to be ebbs and flows.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I agree. And I think during, I love that you just brought up the back to school season, um, because we see this especially a lot during Christmas. And in my opinion, during the winter seasons is when the agents should be busting their tail, getting deals because we know, especially like for our market, right? We tend to see a pickup around March, like a really big pickup. Well, if you're not talking to those people in the winter, and we know clientele with all the advertising and the attention span, the technology has changed, they might be finding another realtor during that time who is touching base with them. Um, and the more you know what number numbers you need to drive your business on those weeks or those seasons, you get better at executing those. Another really good book that can help with that is the 12 hour or no, the 12-week work year. I'll get that accurate one to you, Ali. I'm not saying it right. Um, it's the 12-week work year, but essentially it literally shows you how to take your highest and best use of what is driving the needle of your business and get it done in a more efficient time. When I know we have to make this many phone calls to be able to get, like our target time is to be on the phone with the client for less than seven minutes. And that's because we've got a lot of information to get from them. But if we keep them on the phone unless they need to ask us questions longer than that, especially a realtor who's doing over 50 deals a year, they don't have time for that. Um, so it also really helps us hold to those parameters of, you know, if you have any more questions, we're more than welcome to answer them. But we want to be considerate of your time. When you know what's driving the needle of your business on those weeks, those seasons, the health components that you may see coming, you may not see coming. It helps you get it done more efficiently because you know this is what's driving the needle of my business, like the hundred phone calls. Um, it changes even the tenacity at which you pursue them mentally in your own brain, which I think is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, absolutely. And I think one last thing I want to kind of touch on is you mentioned the right people in the right seats. And what we've noticed in our business is sometimes our passions don't always align with revenue generating opportunities. So talk to me about, you know, what you and Justin have done in your business or what you have noticed or seen just through your coaching of, you know, like having a business and noticing, am I the right person to be in the right seat and how that could potentially push your revenue, push all of your KPIs.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, I love that. So the number one thing I'm gonna recommend, and this comes from traction, is even if you're just an agent by yourself, get core values. Core values are and not like we kind of throw this down the wayside, I think, from like the business model plan days. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with business models. Like I think you have to have a plan, you have to have a purpose for your business, but really getting to why am I doing what am I doing and what makes me function even as a single operated realtor. So if anybody wants to check them out, our website has them. But our company core values is an acronym because it's actually really good for your brain to memorize, and it's impact. And everything that we do as a company is because we want to make an impact in our community on a greater, on a greater platform than anyone had ever even done historically in our market area. And that's because we really wanted to raise the standards, even for how other home inspectors that aren't a part of our team were functioning in this area. And I can successfully say that we have been able to achieve that. By having those core values, we don't make a single decision for our company on a person, on any initiative, whether it's be a new service, anything we're changing to, if they do not align with every single core value. And in by having those, we then even change like our interview questions. Um, so the I for us stands for integrity. And of course, you know, you can ask in an interview, well, what is integrity to you? I'm not looking for people to give definitions. We ask more, um, you know, tell us a situation at your previous job that went wrong, that even you were the person who caused it. And how did you make the difference? How did you handle that? Because people make mistakes, right? We don't mean to, we don't want to, um, but it happens because we're human. And what we care about is extreme ownership once that happens. I made a mistake, I'm giving it to the right person, and then we just find a solution of what works the best for everyone. Having those core values will help you align to those people. Um, also, I think doing some really personal um interview for yourself. Like, what do you what do you least like doing in your business? And then the question becomes how quickly can I outsource that that won't impact my business in a negative? So, for example, one of my least favorite things to do is bookkeeping. But for years, I had to do it because it's not what we had in our budget. And I also did not have any experience running any kind of budget of this size. So I needed to learn it. But as soon as we could afford it and we found the right person that was going to fit what we needed, I outsourced it. And I will tell you, I even had no idea how much emotionally it was draining my energy, like for just the cognitive, like, because it's not my wheelhouse. Um, it's not my strong suit. Math is not my strong suit. Um, so I was really grateful that I did it for a season. But then as soon, and we've talked about this before, Ali, as soon as I could get out of that seat, which was not my highest and best use, it's like one of my favorite words. Um, I got out of it and then quickly delegated it to somebody else who could do a much better job than I can and really did watch our numbers even increase because of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

That's awesome. And you know, what I hear a lot from single agents is that they are trying to do everything. So they're doing the prospecting, they're doing the showings, they're writing all the contracts, and they're doing all the paperwork. When you start talking about a single agent out there in the world, for the most part, you're gonna do one, two, one, two, and three. But TC, like transaction coordination, that's one area that like I love our TC, I respect our TC. I know that that is an hourly job, right? The highest and best use of a real estate agent's a professional licensed real estate agent's time is always gonna be prospecting and selling homes. And so a lot of agents get stuck in that control factor of like, oh my God, it's someone else gonna mess up the paperwork. I can never let someone do the paperwork because what if they mess it up? And so I think just coming up with those systems and processes and procedures, which I think we could do a whole podcast just on that.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, on how to build them. They're not as hard. And I agree, if if you have something that you don't like doing or it's not your highest and best use, and this will be the last tip I'll give you, um, is because a lot of realtors don't even know what that is. And so the best way to figure out what is your highest and best use and what is your hourly rate is to take what your annual goal is, divide that into how many hours you're working a week. So if that was 40 hours, right, a week, I think that ends up being what's 40 times 50. I told you guys I was not good at the simple math. Um, hang on. We're gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I don't want to say wrong.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

I don't want to say wrong either. So um 40 times 52 weeks in a year is about 2,000 hours. I thought it was right around there, but I'm not a simple mather, so I know my weaknesses. Um, that'll help you get to what your hourly rate is worth. And if you are doing $15 hours or 20, like, okay, let me get more realistic, right? Nobody's making $15 an hour these days. Um, but even if you're doing more $20 hours, figure out how you can get that into your budget as quickly as possible because it's not just the money that you're wasting, it's the emotional energy that you're wasting on something that isn't your highest and best use. Ali just said it, prospecting is your highest and best use. And so it's, and then you get more protective about it when people start asking you for things. And uh especially, you know, I love that about our realtor community here locally, you know, we get volunteered a lot and do a lot to impact our community, even on a volunteer basis, but that cannot take the priority of still the prospecting and the work that we have to do to keep growing our area. And that helps me even like hone in on that because people are my passion. So I just volunteer my time all the time, but that's not fair to my team or to the agents that have trusted us with their clients. Um, as much as I want to give to everyone, I only have so much available, even in my volunteer time. And that's because I know uh what my weekly hours really need to look like for the highest and best use for Rivertown.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Absolutely. And I appreciate you so much for using your time to come on our podcast and share with our audience. And do you have anything else you want to add?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

I don't think so. Keep on changing the world. I tell my team we're changing the world one home inspection at a time, and I do believe it. And we appreciate the opportunity to get on here and share what works and what doesn't work and um love what you guys are doing as well. Respect all the growth that we've seen in you guys. So keep on.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Thank you. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

You too.