Sometimes you may have just an address and name for a lead, sometimes you have an address and phone number but no name. Sometimes all you’ll have is a name and an e-mail address – but even one piece of valid information can be enough to contact the lead. Some agents will immediately scrap a lead as junk and not give it another thought if all the contact information isn’t there. Those agents are the ones that either already have more business than they know what to do with or they just don’t care about having the most successful real estate career possible.

As an agent you wear many hats: business owner, sales person, customer service rep, marketing and public relations director, tech person and even a mentor or teacher. We’ve got one more thing to add to the list: a detective. Sometimes you’ve got to do a little digging to get the information necessary to comprehensively follow up with a lead. That means having at LEAST their name, address and phone number and preferably their email address.

If you’ve got one piece of information: the name, the address or the phone number of a lead, then an online directory site can help you find additional information. Sites like WhitePages.com and 411.com have the following free services:

• Reverse name look up: type in the name of the person, get their address and phone # if available.
• Reverse address lookup: type in the address, get the name and phone # of the person living there if available.
• Reverse phone # look up: type in the phone #, get their name and address if available.

Now, if a person lists their information as private, you won’t find them. But many people are still available in both the traditional White Pages phone book and the online versions. You can also do more in-depth searches on people to get their information, but there is a cost involved. You can find out more about that Whitepages.com or 411.com.

You can also use tax records to get additional contact information, since every county tax assessors’ office should have it available online. Some information can even be accessed through local MLS systems, but that depends on the area. Your number one source of information on leads is probably going to be the online public directory sites.

Make sure you double check the Do Not Call Registry for each lead you get. But before you scrap the lead if they’re on the DNC list, did you know that when a lead submits their information (whether it’s 100% accurate, or only a few pieces are) to request information, that you can legally do anything in your power to get in touch with them and provide them with the info they wanted within 90 days of their request? Basically, if they’re contacting you with a question, even if they’re on the Do Not Call list, you can legally call them back.

Don’t feel comfortable even knowing that? Well, as we’re fond of saying, there’s no such thing as a Do Not Knock list! If you’re that worried about a phone call, then use home visits, email and regular mail to contact your lead. Phone numbers aren’t everything!