The Challenge
As the #1 team in Los Angeles by units and #2 by volume, Chris Fordinal’s organization generates thousands of leads per month across 26 lead sources, including three Zillow Flex accounts and MVP programs with additional teams. The machine is running. The top of the funnel is wide open.
The problem is what happens after month five.
“We’re getting thousands of leads a month. And any good agent, even if they’re fantastic, is going to start losing track as they get to month five and six. They stop following up with the people they first got.”
At Rise’s scale (350 agents, 26 sources, three Flex accounts), the number of leads going dormant every quarter is massive. And these aren’t cold names from a purchased list. They’re people who raised their hand on Zillow, who clicked on a property, who started the journey. They paused, but they didn’t stop wanting to buy.
“So many people start and then pause for six months, but the agent doesn’t stay in touch, as we all know.”
Industry data puts the number in perspective: approximately 12% of internet leads transact within 24 months, but most close with a different agent than the one who originally captured them. At Rise’s volume, conservatively 2,000+ leads per month, that means roughly 1,440 people per year from the dormant pool alone will buy or sell a home with someone. The question is whether that someone is a Rise agent.
The leads aren’t dead. They’re unattended. And at Zillow Flex CPLs ranging from $139–$223 per lead in metro markets, every dormant lead represents real dollars already spent.
Watch: How LA’s Top Team Manages 26 Lead Sources with RealScout
The Solution
Chris didn’t stumble onto RealScout. The recommendation came from the top. Sharran Srivatsaa pulled him aside at a Real event, Tom Ferry had suggested it, and multiple top-producing teams across the country had already adopted it.
“We’d heard about RealScout from a bunch of different teams that we know. Tom Ferry had also suggested it to us. We’d heard about it from some of the top minds in real estate. At that point it was like, man, we got to check out what’s going on here.”
The fit was immediate. RealScout plugged into Follow Up Boss, auto-nurtured the database, and surfaced hand-raisers so agents could spend time closing instead of chasing.
“This gives us a way to provide a lot of value to our agents while making their jobs simpler.”
Reviving leads without agent effort
The core value proposition for Rise is simple: keep leads warm after the agent’s manual follow-up window closes. RealScout’s Auto Nurture runs in the background, sending personalized property alerts and home valuation updates to every contact in the database, without the agent having to think about it, configure it, or remember to do it.
“RealScout gives us a really good opportunity to revive those leads without the agent having to really do anything. It’s just automatically happening for them.”
For a 350-agent team where each agent is managing dozens of active leads at any time, that passive nurture layer is the difference between a lead that drifts to another agent and one that comes back when they’re ready.
Watch: Zillow Flex Teams Revive Cold Leads with Automated Nurture by RealScout
The agent value proposition: kill, don’t hunt
Chris framed the value in a way that resonates with every agent on his team:
“Every agent wants to kill, not hunt. They want a hand raiser to go up and say, ‘I’m in, let’s go, let me close the deal.’ RealScout allows us to do that at a higher percentage than we were before.”
Instead of spending hours chasing cold follow-ups, agents get the people who are actively engaging: clicking on listings, checking home values, opening emails. The phone rings with someone who’s ready to move.
A $50K investment that breaks even at two closings
Chris made the investment decision transparently:
“We chose to spend a little over $50,000 a year just to get our agents this incredible product and make sure they can use it in perpetuity.”
In the Los Angeles market (~$950K median home price), a single additional closing generates roughly $26,000 in GCI at 2.75% commission. The entire annual investment breaks even at two additional closings, across 350 agents processing thousands of leads per month.
Thousands of leads now in Auto Nurture
Every lead that enters Follow Up Boss from any of Rise’s 26 sources now flows into RealScout’s nurture system. The leads that previously went dormant after month five are now receiving personalized property alerts, home valuation updates, and engagement-driven touchpoints, automatically.
The scale of this is significant. At 2,000+ leads per month, Rise is adding roughly 24,000 leads per year to a system that nurtures without agent intervention. Even a small improvement in conversion rate across that volume translates to meaningful revenue.
The lead decay problem, solved at scale
What makes Rise’s story different from a solo agent or small team is the multiplier effect. At 350 agents, every incremental improvement in lead conversion compounds across the entire organization. A 1% improvement in conversion on 24,000 annual leads is 240 additional closings. At LA market pricing, that’s millions in additional GCI flowing through the team.
“It’s a win-win because they convert a new lead and we all get money. At the end of the day, we all get money is kind of the goal.”
The Revenue Translation
The WAV Group’s independent two-year study of 64,588 agents found that active RealScout users closed 48% more buyer-side transaction volume, verified at 99.1% statistical confidence.
Rise already ranks #1 in LA by units. That 48% lift widens the gap against every other team in the market.
The cost barely registers against it. In a market where one closing returns roughly $26,000 in GCI, the whole investment pays for itself at two deals, spread across 350 agents working thousands of leads a month. The more of them who actually use the platform, the more of that 48% the team keeps. There’s a quieter return, too. Once 350 agents run their nurture through one system that works, leaving means rebuilding it from scratch, and that stickiness matters as much as any conversion number.
The more agents who actively use the platform, the more of the 48% lift the organization captures. And with a $50K annual investment that pays for itself in two closings, the only question left is how much of that upside Rise captures across 350 agents.
The retention advantage
When 350 agents have their lead nurture running through a single platform, and it’s working, that platform becomes infrastructure, not a subscription. An agent who would have to rebuild their entire nurture system from scratch is an agent who thinks twice about leaving. Rise competes for top talent in the most competitive market in the country, and that stickiness matters as much as the lead conversion.
The Bottom Line
Chris Fordinal didn’t need to be sold on RealScout. Tom Ferry told him. Sharran Srivatsaa told him. The top teams in the country told him. When he finally looked at it, the problem was obvious: thousands of leads going dormant every month, agents losing track by month five, and a database full of people who are going to buy. The only question is with whom.
“Every agent wants to kill, not hunt. They want a hand raiser to go up and say, ‘I’m in, let’s go, let me close the deal.’ RealScout allows us to do that at a higher percentage than we were before.”
