The 40-Second Audit: How Professor Barry Jenkins Automates Accountability
The "Compulsion" for Control
What motivated Professor Barry to want to use automation?
He was worried that there was a deal slipping through the cracks somewhere in his CRM, whether it was a call that an agent failed to return or an opportunity that sat unattended for three days. In other words, he felt a persistent anxiety whenever he logged into Follow Up Boss, fearing that a critical task had been overlooked.
Barry focused on the nuances of his business. His goal wasn't to micromanage every interaction, but to identify exactly where value was being lost without spending hours manually scrubbing his CRM daily to find those needles in the haystack.
MaverickRE created an automated version of all the manual checks that Barry had previously completed to identify the potential gaps in his follow-up activities. He describes it as "lead operations and lead management in a box."
Turning Data into Direction
Automated systems are only valuable if the correct items are automated. Barry began working backwards from the closed deals and utilized the reporting functionality to create the reports that would allow him to determine what actually closed and what were the trends that existed. Identifying what happened is only half the battle. Creating a data-driven plan to capture future opportunities is the other.
The ISA Reporting and Lead Router built upon this theme. Each time an ISA converted a lead and booked an appointment the system looked at the historical closing data by neighborhood versus sending a random assignment or rotating assignments. Which agent has closed the most deals in a specific area? That agent receives the lead. The idea is simple, but the process of identifying this information manually when dealing with large volumes of leads is virtually impossible.
Smart routing ensures leads go to the agent who has historically closed the most deals in that specific zip code. These decisions maximize conversion likelihood rather than relying on fairness or rotation. The system utilizes data, avoiding politics or emotions.
The Daily Workflow
The strategic layer is making sure the correct leads go to the correct people. However, the day-to-day task of ensuring that those leads are being worked is the operational layer. This is where the majority of Professor Barry's time is spent today.
Each morning, Professor Barry typically reviews two types of leads:
1. Missed Callback Leads
Leads represent individuals who called his agents directly after receiving a contact request. This is a far cry from a cold lead that may have filled out a contact form three months prior or a lead that is simply a name on a list, but rather someone who has made an effort to contact the agent.
"You heard that right, the leads are calling my agents and we haven't responded... Right now I've got nine that have called back and we haven't gotten back to them."
There are nine people who wanted to communicate with someone from his team, but nobody answered the phone. This represents money walking away.
2. Stalled Active Leads
Stalled active leads refer to individuals who were designated as "active" or "showing" (representing the fact that the individual was viewing homes with an agent). However, no further communication has occurred between the agent and the lead for several days or weeks.
"We were actively showing them homes and something happened... sometimes people go hot to cold. If the agents aren't working those people, they're going to lose them and that's a lot of money."
Clients generally don't go from viewing homes to radio silence because they bought another property. Usually, they fade away because the agent stopped following up, they grew frustrated, they forgot, or life interrupted their plans. Regardless of the reason, if the lead is no longer being contacted, they are gone.
The "Nudge" Button
Barry's ability to identify these issues was a positive step. However, finding solutions to the issues once they have been identified presents a greater challenge. Prior to MaverickRE, addressing the issue required Barry to locate the individual agents, retrieve their lead lists, review the lead history, and send reminders to the agents via email or message. Completing these tasks could take hours.
Honestly, this manual audit rarely happened because it was simply too time-consuming.
Now, Barry clicks "Nudge Assigned Agent."
With one click, Professor Barry retrieved 54 leads requiring follow-up and 9 missed calls. All eighteen agents received immediate notifications.
Summary of Results
Over the course of several months of utilizing this system to audit his team's performance, several results became apparent.
| Metric | Impact |
|---|---|
| Time Spent Auditing | Reduced from hours to approx. 40 seconds. |
| Missed Opportunities | Instantly identified 9 missed calls and 54 stalled active leads in one session. |
| Financial Impact | "Saved my team tons of money" by preventing lead leakage. |