This is the most important question to have a passionate answer to. You must have the answer to this question memorized and the answer must come natural, passionate, and showing a high degree of customer service commitment to your clients. It could mean the difference for a CPA, Financial Planner, Realtor, Borrower and other clients on whether they do business with you or not.
How are you different?
When a borrower calls you and is shopping interest rate for a new loan, how are you different from the other calls that they made to other lenders? When you’re prospecting and following up on leads, how are you different from the sea of loan originators out there in the marketplace? Seeking out new ways to separate your self from the competition is the first step. Seek and you will find.
The differences I’m talking about don’t have to be huge differences. Many times they are very small differences that cause someone to do business with you verses someone else. Or they might do business with someone else and not you. Let’s look at some strategies for you to use immediately.
1. Knowledge is power. You must know your loan programs like you know the palm of your hand. You must know how each program fits with the many different borrowers on the market today. Get knowledgeable. Read all the underwriting guidelines of the mortgage loan programs that you’re offering and invest in tools that help you present your knowledge.
2. Write out scripts or obtain scripts from top producers. It’s both what you say and how you say it that will influence your clients one way or the other.
3. Be ready with tools that most average loan officers are not using. “The Mortgage Coach” for example, has specific reports that you can generate while the borrower is on the phone with you. They offer a report for refinances, purchases, PMI analysis and a past client report to name a few. For example, if you can show a client who is rate-shopping how the different loan programs and points paid can make a huge difference in their equity and future costs, you will be viewed as a “trusted advisor” by showing them customized information that the competition isn’t. You can e-mail these to the borrower while you have them on the phone. This will “WOW” them.
4. When you’re marketing yourself to Realtors, builders, financial planners and CPA’s differentiate yourself by consistently sending them information that will help them grow their businesses. For example, when you have successes in your business through books you’ve read, seminars you’ve attended, tough loans you’ve closed, or the like, share this information with potential referral based clients. If you find a book that helps you in your business, send several copies to Realtors and other clients that you think will benefit from reading it. This has an obligation effect and 8 times out of 10, you’ll get a call from them.
5. If you’re using specialized reports such as what “The Mortgage Coach” offers, share this with your referral clients. Realtors and others want to know how you run your business. If you go the extra mile for your borrowers, let the Realtors and CPA’s now how much you care about educating and informing your borrowers so that they can make informed decisions on the biggest investment of their lives. By doing this, you separate yourself from the competition again because most “loan officers” are NOT doing this.
More ways to differentiate you from the competition are:
6. Start your own leads group.
7. Host an event for local real estate professionals.
8. Join a committee for Realtors, CPA’s and financial planners.
9. Teach a class or conduct a seminar.
10. Don’t just send a newsletter that they probably won’t read. Send your past clients information on their personal mortgage loan. (See Rate Watch Report at http://www.mortgagecoach.com/).
11. Keep records so that you can follow up with people who don’t qualify now, but will in the future.
12. Create a high touch campaign with past clients and be creative on what you send them.
13. Prepare a cd or video with information on the mortgage process, pre-qualification, mortgage options, documentation, etc. Make sure all the real estate offices, builder’s, CPA’s and others have your tapes ready to give out.
14. Ask for referral letters from your borrowers, Realtors, and builders. Start a notebook to show potential new clients proof that you do a great job.
15. Set up a hot-line or blog for question and answers for pre-qualifying and other loan questions. If you do set up a hot-line or blog, make sure that you promote it well to let people know it’s available.
16. Develop a website. This is a must. This is an inexpensive way to let many people know who you are and what you do. (http://www.blogger.com/ is a great way to create an attractive FREE website and it's extremely easy) Viral networking is also an easy, cost-effective way to reach a large audience i.e. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Using Twitter's advanced search function is a great way to generate potential referral sources and leads.
17. Write out names of everyone you know. Most people know at least 250 people. Those 250 people know 250 people each. That’s 62,500 people that you are connected with right now. I promise you that out of all those people, you will find new mortgage loans as well as new sources for more referrals.
In summary, have the belief that there are a thousand ways to grow your business. Find
what works for you and then implement it. Commit and make it happen. Fate, destiny or luck: whatever you call it, hard work; the right strategy, the right tools, consistent desire and implementation must come first. They say the hardest workers are the luckiest. No matter what some speakers and trainers tell you, becoming a top performer comes with many challenges and if it was easy everybody would be doing it. Just being smart and having a “cutting edge” strategy is not enough. While it is great to have cutting edge strategies, the key is to work on and perfect those strategies until you get the results you are looking for.
Original article written by Mike Baker.
Blog published by Jesse Lopez, expert Sales and Marketing Professional and Owner of Performance Outdoor Nutrition. Visit http://www.performanceoutdoornutrition.com/
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