mortgage marketing
The fact is that the customers of today are a much different breed than those of yester-years.
For example:
- Email is too clumsy, they want to be texted.
- Information is abundant and at their fingertips, they want you to give them an, “experience” instead.
- If they can’t meet you face to face, they’ll expect you to send them a Zoom or GoToMeeting invite.
- If you don’t have a webpage with an on-line application, educational videos, multiple links to other pertinent sites, free downloads, video testimonials and a blog…well, they’re going to notice and they will make comparisons.
It’s not too difficult to get to know your new customers, either. Their opinions, interests, experiences and family photos can all be found on Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.
Question of the day: “Are you showing up where your clients are showing up AND are you communicating in ways that are most comfortable and familiar to them?”
How do Top Producers plan for managing lead and referral sources, customer experience plans, and automated marketing methods to stay in touch?
Top producing Loan Officers have learned that developing a Business Plan is NOT a, “someday maybe” but rather a critical component to ensuring their success year after year.
Sign up for Coach Victoria’s class to learn the three, “success ingredients” found in top producers’ business plans, PLUS the tools found in ACT software that can support and automatically activate these strategies.
If you are a mortgage professional, or manage a team of mortgage professionals, this webinar will provide you with the tools to immediately kick-start a winning business plan!
SIGN UP HERE for your free limited time access to the webinar.
Mortgage Professionals must keep a keen focus on their customers at all times. If they don’t, the outcome has a direct and immediate effect on their pocket books.
The assurance of a regularly generated paycheck, is simply not part of the Loan Officer package. Every dollar derived is in direct correlation to the Loan Officer’s individual efforts with their customers.
Your answers to the following, highly-specific, customer related questions may be a tough pill to swallow if you’re not ready to tell yourself the 100% truth. However, I believe, if you’re up for the challenge, your answers to these questions will lead you to take actions that will surely have a positive impact on your pocket book in 2017 and beyond.
If you happen to be a Manager, this is a GREAT list of questions to share with your sales team and ask them to submit their answers anonymously (encourages more real, candid answers). The answers will help you to pin-point training, tools and other resource needs you can develop to help your team to improve their performance.
For example if you discover that the majority of your team could not adequately answer question #24, you could conduct a sales call or meeting on how to write a Unique Value Proposition.
- Do you do what you say your going to do BEFORE you say you are going to do it?
- Do you take a complete application, ask your clients the right questions and get the appropriate information/documentation up front?
- Do you know your program underwriting guidelines?
- Do your underwriters think you know your underwriting guidelines?
- Do your processors respect you?
- Do the processors in your office refer their family and friends to YOU?
- Do the title/escrow reps think highly of you?
- Do you go ahead and do a loan for a client even though you know it is not the best thing for them?
- Do you return ALL your phone calls?
- Do you return all your emails?
- Do you do the things you least want to do first?
- Do you complete your “things-to-do” list for the next day before going to sleep?
- Do you prioritize your tasks and work on them in their order of importance?
- Do you surf the web when you still have calls or tasks to complete?
- Do you complain about not having enough business?
- Do you keep in contact with all your clients?
- Do you have all your clients, prospects and referral partners in a database (ACT, etc…)?
- Do you make customer acquisition a priority?
- Do you have systems in place to optimize your clients’ mortgage experience?
- Do your clients always know where they stand and what they need to close their loan?
- Do you withhold information from your clients and let them know “the real story” towards the end of the transaction?
- Do you read at least one book a quarter on business development, communication, ethics or the mortgage industry?
- Do your clients refer people to you?
- Do you have a compelling reason for someone to do business with you?
- Do your referral partners and clients think of you as an expert?
Every Loan Officer who reaches out to me for a complimentary business coaching session can expect to be asked the following question, “Do you have a business plan?” Nine out of ten times, the answer is, “No.” In the beginning of my career, this used to surprise me. Coming from a corporate background, strategic planning, business planning and goal setting were expected at least, annually. How else was a business going to meet their market growth and business growth goals? How else would they be able to track sales projects, Marketing R.O.I., customer service levels, employee training & retention, systems implementation, etc., etc., etc?
What I discovered was that most mortgage companies were not providing the tools or education, nor were there any expectations of their Loan Officers to develop and share their goals or full-fledged business plans. No doubt part of the reason for the extremely high turn-over of Loan Officers across mortgage companies. Heck, if you’re not investing in and tracking your sales force, how are you effectively hiring the right team members, forecasting sales growth and providing the right tools and education to ensure retention? Hmmm? I’ll step down from my soap box now.
Ten years later, I’m happy to report that this has seemed to change somewhat, in a more positive direction and more and more, I am told that some type of goals are being requested and some companies have even taken the leap to provide business plan templates to their Loan Officers to fill out each year.
Helping Loan Officers to develop detailed business plans that will get them excited about taking action and give them a greater sense of direction and purpose about their businesses is one of my favorite specialized services that I offer as par
t of my particular coaching platform. It is a value that has proven its worth 10-fold for those individuals I coach.
I’d like to share an example of a detailed, mortgage-specific business plan with anyone who is interested enough to request it. Please email me at bizcoachvictoria@gmail.com and I will be happy to send you a copy of one of my own client’s co-developed 2017 Business Plans, who has graciously agreed to allow me to offer it anonymously.
2017 is going to be a GREAT year for those of us who PLAN it that way! Cheers!
Be on the look-out next Thursday for Business Planning Season Part VI-The Do’s and Don’ts of Business Planning
One of the toughest things to do as a solo-entrepreneur is to tell yourself the big, bold and sometimes, ugly TRUTH 100% of the time. The second toughest thing to do is to ask yourself questions, that telling yourself the truth about, will create real and positive change.
As sales folks, Mortgage Professionals must keep a keen focus on their customers at all times. If they don’t, the outcome has a direct and immediate effect on their pocket books. A regularly generated paycheck, regardless of effort, focus or customer satisfaction, simply is not part of the Loan Officer package. Every dollar derived is in direct correlation to the Loan Officer’s individual efforts with their customers.
The following, highly-specific, customer related questions may be tough to swallow if you’re not ready to tell yourself the 100% truth. However, I believe, if you’re up for the challenge, your answers to these questions will lead you to take actions that will surely have a positive impact on your pocket book in 2017.
This exercise is also an excellent one to share with your team of Loan Officers if you happen to be a Branch Manager.
- Do you do what you say your going to do BEFORE you say you are going to do it?
- Do you take a complete application, ask your clients the right questions and get the appropriate information/documentation up front?
- Do you know your program underwriting guidelines?
- Do your underwriters think you know your underwriting guidelines?
- Do your processors respect you?
- Do the processors in your office refer their family and friends to YOU?
- Do the title/escrow reps think highly of you?
- Do you go ahead and do a loan for a client even though you know it is not the best thing for them?
- Do you return ALL your phone calls?
- Do you return all your emails?
- Do you do the things you least want to do first?
- Do you complete your, “things-to-do” list for the next day before going to sleep?
- Do you prioritize your tasks and work on them in their order of importance?
- Do you surf the web when you still have calls or tasks to complete?
- Do you AVERAGE more than 30 minutes of television a day?
- Do you complain about not having enough business?
- Do you keep in contact with all your clients?
- Do you have all your clients, prospects and referral partners in a database (ACT, etc…)?
- Do you mine your customer database?
- Do you have systems in place to optimize your clients’ mortgage experience?
- Do your clients always know where they stand and what they need to close their loan?
- Do you withhold information from your clients and let them know “the real story” towards the end of the transaction?
- Do you read at least one book a quarter on business development, communication, ethics or the mortgage industry?
- Do your clients want do business with you again?
- Do your clients refer people to you?
- Do you have a compelling reason for someone to do business with you?
- Do your referral partners and clients think of you as an expert?
Do your Realtors and Mortgage peers seem to curl up and go into some form of hibernation around the Holiday seasons?
Then that’s the perfect time for YOU to turn up the heat on your own business planning efforts.
Don’t just send out cards, make calls before the holiday rush is in full force.
Don’t just squirrel away cuz it’s chilly outside, grab your parka and make it to those holiday mixers, company parties, town festivities, etc.
Don’t just talk about what you’re going to do differently in 2017, gather up a couple of B2B professionals and write down your goals together, brainstorm, collaborate and become each other’s accountability partners through the winter season.
Don’t let your Realtors go it alone with their charity events, fundraisers, etc., Call ’em up and ask how you can lend your helping hands to their causes this holiday season.
And when the ice and snow simply get to a point where driving anywhere is just not an option, then that’s the perfect time to really delve into social media, blogging and videos.
Staying active, even when your Realtors may grow cold and house-bound, creates an enormous edge for you so that when everyone does finally come out of their hibernation haze, YOU will be the first one they immediately warm up to!
There are literally hundreds of marketing ideas, plans, tools, and systems, all vying for your marketing budget dollars via email blasts, webinars, social media, and at every industry seminar you attend, from sales gurus, other mortgage professionals, and coaches on a daily basis, it seems. Oodles of time and money are wasted in the hot pursuit of the best of the, “shiny gems” of marketing.
But, here’s the dirty, little secret…
It ALL works!
It’s not whether one marketing plan is better than another. It’s about the marketing plan that’s right for you, the one you are excited about, that matches your style, that won’t break your bank, the one you have the capacity to implement from A to Z . That’s the best marketing plan or tool for YOU, that’s the one that will work!
T.I.P.S. to consider
1. Your marketing messages have to show up where the masses are searching for information. With 1.79 billion active monthly users on Facebook, can you really afford to leave it out of your marketing plan this year?
2. Have you embraced video? YouTube reports that we watch more than 4 billion hours of video through their site each month. We are a community of voyeurs, no doubt about it. If your email marketing campaigns aren’t getting a good, “open” rate, it may be time to change those messages into short YouTube vids! Again, where are the masses getting their information?
3. Buying into several marketing ideas but never fully implementing and following through on one consistently, will leave you frustrated, derailed, and broke! Focus on just 1 or 2 marketing platforms this year. Commit to seeing them through and tracking your results on a monthly basis.
Recent Comments