Two records at the same price can carry completely different intent. The signals that predict whether an enquiry converts, and how to sort your day by them.
Figures in this article describe the wider market and are drawn from the third-party sources listed at the end. They are not Lead Foundry results, and nothing here is a projection of what any individual broker will achieve.
A lead record flattens two very different people into the same row. One had a bank letter on the table when they filled in the form. The other was reading an article and clicked. Both arrive at the same price.
| Signal | Weak version | Strong version |
|---|---|---|
| What they asked for | A product category | A described situation in their own words |
| Timing | Absent | A date, a rate roll, or a settlement |
| Trigger | Absent | A named life or financial event |
| Specificity of detail | Minimum required fields | They volunteered extra context |
| Effort spent | A one-click form | They completed a verification step |
The last row is the one brokers overlook. A consumer who completed an SMS code to finish a form spent effort, and effort is evidence. It is a by-product of verification rather than its purpose, and it is genuinely informative.
What to do with the sorting: Use it to decide the order of calls within a day and how hard to push for a near appointment. Do not use it to decide who receives the full cadence. Intent inferred from a record is a guess, and a guess should not cost a person five of their six attempts.
Fields the consumer typed and fields the supplier appended look the same on the screen and mean different things. A typed answer is a statement of intent. An appended field is a probability produced by a model, and by the time it reaches a CRM it has usually lost its confidence interval.
Ask any supplier which fields are consumer-entered and which are inferred or enriched. It is a question most cannot answer vaguely, which makes it a good one.
It does not tell you the person is right for you. A consumer with a clear trigger and an urgent timeline who sits outside what you are competent to advise on is a strong signal pointing at somebody else, and the professional answer is to say so. Under the Code of Professional Conduct, competence is a standard rather than a preference.
The details that indicate how close a consumer is to acting: how specifically they described their situation, whether they gave a date or a trigger event, how much detail they volunteered beyond the required fields, and how much effort they spent completing the enquiry.
A named trigger event with a date attached, such as a fixed rate rolling, an imminent settlement, a new mortgage, or a new child. A trigger converts an abstract intention into a dated obligation, which is what moves an enquiry from something a person is thinking about to something they have to resolve.
No. Use intent to sequence your day and to decide how hard to push for a near appointment, not to decide who receives follow-up. Intent read off a record is an inference, and research shows 93% of converted leads are reached by the sixth attempt, so under-working an apparently weak record is how good ones get lost.
It depends whether the consumer typed them or the supplier appended them. Typed fields carry intent; appended fields carry a probability that has usually lost its confidence interval by the time it reaches your CRM. Ask any supplier which of their fields are consumer-entered.