Rich Loan Officer - Helping Loan Officers Succeed

Recently I met with a childhood friend of mine that works for a large mortgage company in the Northeast. As with many loan officers in this market, he was struggling to close a decent amount of business. Being that I work as a marketing consultant for loan officers, I offered to review his business and see if I could see any areas that he could improve in order to generate more business.

After a few minutes of reviewing is marketing strategies, I saw right away what his problem was. He was relying too heavily on passive marketing, and it was draining his business.

Do you know what the difference of “proactive” and “passive” marketing?

Let’s briefly see how Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines the two words:

Proactive: acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes

Passive: existing or occurring without being active, open, or direct

It basically boils down to the amount of control you have in the situation. Proactive
marketing strategies force you to find the prospects that you are looking for.

Passive marketing strategies allows you to sit back and wait for the prospects to come to
you.

From my personal experience, it seems that far too many loan officers and originators are
relying on passive methods for generating business. And they are struggling.

Examples of passive marketing campaigns:

-putting a vanity classified ad in the paper
-your company provided website
-sending a mailing campaign to your database without asking for a call to action
-buying a Yellow Pages ad

Now there is nothing wrong with these methods. You will get a trickle of business from
people who need your services right now. But these methods should be the first step and not the last one. By being proactive, you squeeze many more prospects for the same amount of dollars.

If you are on a tight budget, you must be using proactive marketing strategies. Yes, they are a little more complicated to set up, but you get much more bang for your marketing bucks.

Here is an example to crystallize my point:

You are in desperate need of some new business. So you follow your manager’s advice and place an ad in the real estate section of the newspaper. It costs you $100 of your
marketing budget and it results in one new loan. Sounds great, right? With the commissions you earned on this transaction you probably made five to ten times your investment back.

Now let’s see what a mortgage professional using proactive marketing strategies handles the same situation.

This loan officer also places a classified ad in the paper and also invests the $100. But here is where the proactive and passive strategies differ. In his ad, he lets readers know that if they are interested in purchasing their own home, they can go to this website to download a free report on the best ways to make it happen.

The loan officers also gets one new loan from someone that is looking to purchase a home this month, but he also got 50 people to download the free report. Here is why this is important.

Those fifty prospects are automatically placed in his email follow-up system. Without him lifting a single finger, he is going to send those prospects emails a few days later, two weeks later, a month later and so forth. He is going to build rapport with them and provide them with the information they need. And by doing so, this next year he will turn 5 of those prospects into new clients.

So which is the better way? Turning $100 of your marketing dollars into one closing, or
turning that same $100 into six new loans this year plus fifty people into your marketing
pipeline who may do business with you in the future or who may recommend you to their
friends, family and co-workers?

Yes, proactive marketing strategies are a bit more complicated and do take more time to set up. But look at the results!

So if you are like many mortgage professionals and are in need of increasing your commission checks without increasing your marketing budget, then you need to be looking at proactive marketing methods to make it happen.

How long has it been since you started your mortgage career? There is no question that every mortgage professional needs to be in touch with past and potential client on a regular basis. Because of its many benefits, there is no legitimate reason why every mortgage professional shouldn’t be using an e-mail newsletter as a marketing strategy. You can go back and keep bringing those clients back to your business again and again and again if you continue to keep in touch with them and keep sending them news, articles and helpful tips on a regular basis. Here are three main reasons why creating and maintaining an e-mail newsletter can help you generate extra mortgage leads and more referrals each month.

The first and the main reason in this money-driven profession why you should have an e-mail newsletter is the extremely low cost needed to deliver your marketing message. For example, how much do you think it will cost you to send your request for referrals to 1000 former customers via direct mail, as opposed to e-mail? Just the postage in the direct-mail method will cost you almost four hundred dollars, not to mention the expenses for letterhead, envelopes, ink, etc. Using the same numbers, if you did this each month, you would save $4680 in postage fees alone! Besides the time and labor you yourself put in, the only real fees associated with e-mail newsletter marketing is the list-manager service or autoresponder service, which handles your list management and e-mail broadcasting. This should not cost you more than $15 - $20 a month.

Secondly, do you know how tedious it can get if you had to stuff all the envelopes for direct mail yourself, stamp them, and mail them? However, when you focus on email-newsletter marketing, you save a lot of time through automation. How long would it take you to prepare 1000 mail pieces? This includes printing, folding and stuffing them into the envelope, sealing the envelope, printing or writing the address on the envelope, applying the appropriate amount of postage, etc. It would take several hours to several days before those thousand mail pieces were ready to mail out. Now compare that to the time it takes to write and send an e-mail out to a thousand individuals. Think about the time you would save over the course of a year. Moreover, the list manager automatically handles and manages your subscriber list, opt-ins and other legal issues that you need to keep in mind when sending lists out.

The third reason why e-mail newsletters are an effective form of marketing for loan officers is that it allows you to contact your customers on a regular basis. Simply using direct mail, connecting with your customers more than once a month is not only not realistic but also very costly in terms of time and money. Research has shown that that the ideal amount of marketing contact is once a week. So what can you do? You create and run an e-mail newsletter. It helps you create a stronger bond with your customers by allowing you the opportunity to contact them on a weekly basis ( or more frequently if you choose to).

If you are looking for an effective and low-cost way of keeping in contact with your former customers, there is no better way than by using an e-mail newsletter. The amount of time that is saved because of automation will allow you more time to focus on selling your loans, and your weekly contact will help solidify yourself in the minds of your customers. Focus on building business. Let an autoresponder service be your loyal salesman!

I’ve seen many loan officers waste their time, money and energy on ineffective marketing campaigns. The ultimate goal of a marketing campaign is to generate immediate sales and/or potential leads. If your marketing campaign is not generating leads or sales, you need to reevaluate your strategies and if the need be, get educated.

Running a successful marketing campaign is a really a rather simple process if you know the three most important elements of every effective campaign.

Element #1: Must be Specific and Targeted.

A good campaign is targeted to a very specific potential customer. Your marketing efforts should not be directed to a broad audience all over the place. If you do not strategize, do not do your research properly and focus who you are selling to and what, your response rate is going to be horrible because you’re not able to connect deep enough with your prospects. Think outside of the box and try to be different than other “loser” marketers. So, for example, instead of merely trying to target “people that need to refinance”, you are going to target “people that need to refinance that are over 55 years of age, who own a second home and are self-employed.” Being specific is powerful because you are able to tailor your marketing piece in a way that best connects with a larger percent of your target group.

Element #2: Must Be Measurable.

Three keys that are the essential building blocks of any marketing campaign – track, track, track. You need to track and measure everything. A good campaign keeps track of all the important details, including response rate, sales conversion rate, number of leads generated, expenses associated with running the campaign, etc. You can’t possibly tell how successful a marketing campaign is without going over the numbers. How much did it cost to run the ad? How much did you pay in postage to send out the 1000 mail pieces? How many emails bounced when you sent out your newsletter? How many people responded? Not only is being measurable going to help you in determining whether or not a campaign is successful, it also guides you in improving your future marketing campaigns. You can make adjustments in your marketing piece and see whether or not it helps or hurts your response rate. You keep what helps your response rate and drop what hurts it.

Element #3: Must Have Strong Call to Action.

A good campaign tells the prospect exactly what you want him or her to do next. Not having a strong call to action can destroy what would have been an awesome campaign. You need to be straight to the point and do not assume anything. Don’t assume the prospect will call your number if they would like your free consultation for mortgage services. You need to tell them directly, “Call me today for a free mortgage consultation for the first time homebuyers!” You’d be absolutely amazed at how just adding that one phrase can totally change the response rate of your campaign. Make sure that every one of your marketing campaigns has a strong call to action.

Keeping these three elements in mind will give you a strong foundation for your future marketing campaigns. It also saves you thousands of dollars in marketing expenses because you will discontinue running campaigns that cost you money. To ensure that you have successful and profitable marketing campaigns, just remember to make sure that each campaign is specific, it is measurable, and that it has a strong call to action. This is critical to you and your campaigns’ success.

Goodluck starting a Profitable Loan Officer Career!

If you could improve on one aspect of your business, what would you choose?
Most loan officers would want to make their marketing efforts have better responses. And while marketing is critical to business success, there are other aspects of your business that are overlooked and could have much more immediate results.

This article is going to show you how improving your closing ratio just a little bit can have massive effects on your earnings for the year.

We are going to talk in hypotheticals for a second, so bear with me.

We have two loan officers working in the same office. Their businesses are identical in every way. They have the same processors, underwriters, marketing tools, etc.

The only thing that is different is that Loan Officer A has a slightly better closing percentage than Loan Officer B, and let’s see how this will affect their commissions in the long run.

Both loan officers, through their marketing and prospecting efforts, meet face to face with 25 potential customers each week. They both also average about $800 per closing.

Now Loan Officer A is a better closer than Loan Officer B, but only slightly better.

So out of those prospects, Loan Officer A closes 3 of them, and Loan Officer B closes just 2. That one loan difference means that Loan Officer A is 4% better at closing than Loan Officer B.

Did you see what I just told you? Loan Officer A didn’t close twice as much, or even 25% better. It was just 4%.

Now 4% doesn’t seem like much, right? However, that 4% allowed Loan Officer A to close one more loan that Loan Officer B, and at an average transaction commission of $800, that 4% will cause a difference in gross income of….get this:

Over $50,000! ($52,900 to be exact).

Becoming a better closer is like any other skill that can be studied and mastered through education and practice. Pick any book by Brian Tracy or Todd Duncan, and you are well on your way. Also, take the time to practice scripts and/or role-play. It’s not just knowing what to say, it’s also knowing how to say it and it will only sound natural through repetition.

So the next time you are brainstorming ways to improve your business, remember how changing your closing ratio (by just a little bit) can generate incredible financial rewards. Just a 4% change caused a difference in over forty grand in income.
Don’t be the average loan officer. Be different and be remembered.

Many analysts are predicting a very gloomy forecast for loan officers and real estate agents for 2008.

So what are you going to when interest rates rise and the real estate market falls?

If you follow my seven strategies, you will have a fantastic 2008!

1. Goals and planning.

This seems obvious, but I would say that 95% of loan originators don’t have written goals and plans to attain those goals. This one step is the most critical step in this area. How do you expect to succeed if you don’t know where to go and how you will get there?

Take a sheet of paper, and at the top of it write “In the next 12 months, I want to earn $XXX, XXX in commissions.”

Next, break down that number into months. Then you divide the desired monthly commission amount by the average you make per transaction. This will tell you how many transactions a month you need to aim for.

The next part is to list at least 10 actions that will help you reach that number, and you do this for every month. Taking this one step of goal setting and action planning will put you ahead of 95% of the otherloan officers out there, so go do it.

2. Use technology effectively.

The true power of technology is its ability to automate your business, thus allowing you to focus on other business building activities.

Do you know what an  auto-responder is? It is a simple email program managed by a third party company like GetResponse and Aweber that will automatically respond with a message of your choice whenever an email is sent to it.

Here is one way you can use it to get more leads automatically. You place a classified ad in the newspaper promoting a free report called “7 Mistakes First Time Home Buyers Make When Choosing a Lender.” All you ask is that the prospect sends a blank email to freereport@abcmortgage.com.

Here is where the magic happens. When the prospect the email, the  auto-responder automatically sends them the report. You can then set up the  auto-responder to send them a series of follow up emails a day later, 5 days later, 2 weeks later, heck, even a year later.

And this is all done automatically, whether you received two responses or two thousand responses.

With an  auto-responder, it will automatically contact them, and keep you fresh in their mind. With the low cost of  auto-responder services, it is a true wonder to me why more loan officers don’t use them.

Along with  auto-responders, there are websites, automatic greeting card mailings, 1-800 hotlines, virtual tours, business card CD-ROMs, etc.

3. Maximizing the potential of your database.

It is amazing to me to see how much time the average loan officer spends in getting new business, and how little attention he gives his database of past customers.

What most of them fail to realize is that their database of past customers is their goose that lays golden eggs. It has been proven over and over again that it takes more time, effort and money to get business from a new prospect than it does to get business from a previous customer.

Successful loan officers see their databases as an asset. Sure, they too are actively marketing to find new prospects, but they spend a much greater time tending to their databases then the average loan officer.

Using quality contact management software like Act! (www.Act.com) can make caring for your database a breeze.

4. Develop two new referral sources each month.

Loan officers have enjoyed the amount of refinance business in recent years. However, the steady rise in rates has shifted the focus back to finding purchase and new construction business.

All you need to do is find two quality referral sources a month. At the end of twelve months, you will have 24 referral sources, and that should provide you with a decent amount of new business leads.

The best referral sources I have found for originators are: real estate agents, builders and contractors, attorneys, financial planners, insurance agents, and human resource managers.

Each month, research and pick out 10 potential referral sources. Send each one a letter of introduction, and let them know that you will give them a call to follow up. Whatever you do, don’t ask for referrals. Not yet.

Tell them you are looking for professionals to send your referrals to.

If you do all of this, out of your original ten potential referral sources, you should end up with 2-4 to choose from. Repeat this process each month and you will have a steady stream of business coming from these referral sources.

5. Perform three direct mail marketing campaigns.

With the advent of email and websites, fewer and fewer mortgage professionals are doing any sort of mail campaigns. I recommend doing 3 campaigns, two focused at your previous customers and one at farming for new prospects.

You should be connecting with your database throughout the year, but these two mail campaigns should be directly focused at asking for new business from them.

The previous customer campaigns usually consist of a letter thanking them for their past support and asking them to help grow my business with referrals.

Sometimes I include a survey or referral form and self-addressed prepaid return envelope. Usually as an incentive, I offer a gift certificate as my way of saying thank you.

The response rate is higher than normal, and results in leads and immediate business.

I referred to the third letter as “farming for new prospects.” I don’t mean a geographical farm which most salespeople direct theirmarketing campaigns at.

You can purchase a mailing list for any type of potential customer that you want. Let say that you want your ideal customer to be between the ages of 35-50 years old, have a household annual income above $100,000, have a loan-to-value on their current residence less than 70% and have a credit score over 675.

Did you know that there are mailing companies that can get you a list of names and addresses that fit the criteria of your ideal customer? It’s unbelievable.

This allows you to tailor your mail piece to that exact prospect. So much so that you would be able to relate to him at a deeper level them the average business letter getting to him.

6. Start or join a business network.

A business network is a group of professionals in related but non-competing industries that meet regularly to exchange ideas and referrals. The most famous business network organization in the world is Business Network International (www.BNI.com).

So I recommend that you either find a local chapter of BNI in your city, or start a business network group yourself.

Most groups contain a real estate agent, an insurance agent, a loan officer, a financial planner, an attorney, a home inspector, an appraiser, etc.

This group is a perfect environment to share ideas and leads because of the crossover of needs and services.

For example, a couple comes in to talk to their financial planner. Their youngest child just moved out of the home, and they are looking to sell their house and move into a smaller condominium.

At the next business network meeting, the financial planner brings up his customers’ situation. This results in a lead for the real estate agent (to sell their home and help purchase the condo), theloan officer (who can help with the financial of their condo purchase), the home inspector and the appraiser.

All these leads from this one couple. Do you now see the power of being involved with business network groups?

7. Create publicity once a year.

Local newspapers, radio and television stations love reporting about what I call “feel-good” news stories.

As a loan officer, you have the fortune of helping people who need it on a daily basis. And if you do happen to get some media exposure, you will get instant but temporary fame that will give you an immediate increase in business.

Finding a way to help and getting the local media to notice it and report it is challenge, but the possible upside would be remarkable. Some things you can do: help poor credit customers, volunteer at Habitat for Humanity, help those who don’t speak English, give out free pumpkins at Halloween, give out free turkeys at Thanksgiving, hold a fundraiser dinner to benefit the homeless, etc.

Before the event, be sure to tell every media outlet in your area so that they can plan to attend.

No matter what happens to the market, you can confidently predict your success by following the seven strategies that I have presented.

Ultimately, you have total control over the amount of business you can generate, even if the gloom and doom industry analysts are correct with their predictions.

Are you keeping up with technology, or are you just letting it pass you by? If you want to make more loan commissions in less time and with less effort, then I suggest you learn more about what I believe is the most importantloan officer marketing tool: the auto-responder.

What would you say if I told you that for under 20 bucks per month, you would have access to an amazing marketing tool that not only responds automatically to your prospects, but then also follows up with these prospects whenever you want, for as long as you want. And again, it does this automatically.

Auto-responders can do this and much, much more.

An auto-responder can effectively automate a large part of your marketing and follow-up process. When someone subscribes to your mailing list by submitting their name and email address, they are instantly sent a response from your auto-responder.

Not only that, but the auto-responder will now send a series of follow up messages to your prospects. You choose the message. You choose when you would like them to receive them (Day 1, Day 29, Day 365, etc). The auto-responder does the rest.

An auto-responder service basically serves two main functions: email database management and automatic email marketing.

We’ve all heard that money is in the email-list. The problem is that most loan officers don’t know how to add subscribers to their list effectively. And once they add customers, they don’t contact them nearly enough because of the cost and time in doing a mass mailing.

Using an auto-responder will cost you between $17-20 depending on which company you use. Compare that to the cost of mailing your message via the United States Post Service. Sending out a thousand letters is going to cost you $410 just in postage (not to mention letterhead, envelopes, ink - not to mention the time involved to prepare the mailing).

Can you now see how powerful auto-responders can be? It will save your hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in postage over the next twelve months. You can now use that money on other marketing strategies.

And the automation that auto-responders provide will also free up many hours of your time. You can use that time to work on your business, or maybe to spend a little more time with your loved ones.

Loan officers are always looking for an edge. If you are not making enough commissions or feel that you are working all of the time, then I suggest that you do more research on auto-responders and how to efficiently use them as a loan officer marketing tool.

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Sometimes success is all about being different, and truly standing apart from the crowd.

As loan officers, we tend to get the same advice from our managers, we read the same books and listen to the same audio programs.

We want to find new business, but we are all being told to find new business from the same sources (so the effectiveness of any marketing that we do is diminished to some degree).

I love watching salespeople take bold actions when it comes to marketing and prospecting for new business.

I knew of one loan officer who ordered 100 pumpkins a few weeks before Halloween. He had made an arrangement with a local supermarket to use a portion of their parking lot to give out the pumpkins.

He placed an ad in the paper, put a few flyers in nearby grocery stores, diners and laudromats, and was lucky enough to have the local newspaper cover the story the morning he gave out the pumpkins.

It was a huge success!

The turn out was overwhelming. He ran out of pumpkins with two hours of starting, but he met 100 people and couples that day, and he walked away with 8 good marketing leads for immediate business.

Was it hard work? Sure it was, but it all paid off many times over. And the reason why it paid off was because the average loan officer just wouldn’t have done it.

Another young and ambitious loan officer really pushed the envelope.

He had just started out and was looking for a way to break the ice when meeting new real estate agents. So this is what he did:

He went to the local discount shoe store, and purchased 5 pairs of plain black shoes (they were about $5 a pair).

He printed small labels to put on the shoelaces that read:

Hi. My name is Joe Smith and I am trying to “get my foot in the door.” I will be back to your office next Wednesday morning to meet with you.

He then went to a real estate office that he was going to focus on this month, and place one shoe in each of the mailboxes of the agents!

Was this a little much? Possibly. And I wish I could have seen the real estate agents’ faces when they pulled their shoes out of their mailboxes.

But the young loan officer did break the ice and he did get a very productive referral source from that office. And even till this day, whenever someone from that real estate office seems, they say “Hey, you’re the guy with the shoes.”

So think creatively with your marketing efforts. Stand apart from the average loan officer. Be different and be remembered.

It used to be that when you closed a loan with a customer, you “earned” that customer’s loyalty for life. That’s just the way it was. People didn’t really shop around looking for the best rates or lowest fees. They would ask family or friends who they used for financing assistance and used them as well. Loan officers were basically guaranteed to get all the future business from that customer. Forever.

But things have drastically changed.

Today’s customers are more financially intelligent then ever before, mainly because of the use of the internet. There is no more mystery of the whole mortgage process. More and more individuals are doing their mortgage research long before talking to a lending professional.

Because today’s customers are so well informed, they have a lower value on the mortgage knowledge you have. This view causes them to be less loyal to you.

Not only that, but your customers can hop online and find twenty other loan officers in a matter of minutes.

So what can you do?

First of all, you need to go beyond just adding customers to your database. Don’t laugh. I have seen too many mortgage professionals who either don’t have a formal database of previous customers or who do have a database but never contact their customers. Your database is your goose that lays golden eggs.

But I believe most loan officers are not contacting their database enough because they mistakenly believe that when the customer needs financing or knows someone who does, that that customer will automatically call them. But most won’t.

And how do I know this? When I was working as a marketing assistant for a high producing loan officer, we got a good percentage of business each month by telemarketing. The key phrase that we used that was so effective was this: “I won’t take much of your time. I just wanted to know if your loan officer has informed you that interest rates are at a 25 year low, but that the window to refinance and take advantage of these rock-bottom rates is quickly closing. Has your mortgage professional informed you of this?”

Of those prospects that had not refinanced yet, I’d say about 6 out of 10 of them could not recall who their loan officer was without having to go digging through the documents of their last settlement. Many of those prospects became our customers because it was simply easier to get the information from me right there then it was for them to go searching through boxes to find out who their loan officer was. There is no loyalty.

So what can you do about it?

1. Don’t end the sales process with the closing. Contact that customer the day after closing, seven days later, a month later, etc. Make sure that they are fully satisfied after leaving the closing table. Make yourself unforgettable. This would also be a good time to ask for referrals. Set up an auto-responder service that periodically sends out personalized messages to them.

2. Contact your past customers more frequently. If you want to be the first person your client thinks about when anyone mentions the term “loan officer” then you need to touch base with them more than once a year or even quarterly. I recommend, at the minimum, a follow-up system that contacts past customers on a monthly basis.

3. Become your customer’s friend. How loyal are you to your friends? I know that you want to portray an image of professionalism, but if you want to keep your customers loyal (i.e. earn more money on referrals and repeat loan transactions) then you are going to need to become a friend in their eyes.

Although loyalty is becoming a rare commodity these days, it is not impossible. Just don’t continue to believe that loyalty is earned because you closed a loan. You need to do much more than that. The good news is that if you follow my suggestions and actually do form a strong bond with your customers, you truly will have customers for life.

I know it goes against what the top mortgage marketing experts and even your manager is telling you, but I would like to make a case against marketing to real estate agents.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not implying that there is anything wrong with real estate agents. A competent agent can help many, many people in his or her career. I just don’t think that marketing to Realtors should be our only option when trying to find purchase business.

What I typically see happen is this: you beg and plead to get an appointment with this particular real estate agent that you would like to start getting referrals from. After five letters and six phone calls, he finally agrees to have a lunch appointment with you.

You get all ready and when you meet him for lunch, you give him your best performance. You go on about how great you and your company are, and how you can give him the best service around. You beg and plead for his business, but he gives you a “we’ll see” and you are happy with how the meeting turned out.

Six weeks later he sends you a referral. It is a very complicated lead. The referral just started a new job, he filed bankruptcy a couple of years ago, and has no reserves.

You bust your butt trying to close this loan because you want to look good to the Realtor that sent you the referral.

You do your best, but the loan falls through. You don’t get any more referrals from that agent and all the time and energy you put in to get him as a referral source is now wasted.

There has to be a better way to get purchase business, and here are seven ways to do it.

1. Market to For Sale By Owners.

The FSBO pool is always there and when marketed correctly, can generate many loans. You see, working with sellers directly creates a win-win situation for both of you. They need to sell their home, but don’t want to lose a bunch of hard-earned equity paying a real estate agents commission. You can help them with handling the buyers that are interested in the home. When you get an appointment with a seller, you explain to him that a majority of FSBO deals fall through because the buyers can’t get qualified. Convince him/her to let you pre-qualify all buyers, and you have a referral source for the next 30-60 days.

2. Market to financial planners.

I knew this loan officer that got all of his purchase leads from a very busy financial planner. And the great thing about those leads were that they tended to be with people that had their finances in good shape (they have a financial planner!). They also had larger assets and income, and were therefore looking to purchase investment properties, vacation homes, or bigger primary homes. Establishing a financial planner as a referral source will give much higher quality leads than you can get from a real estate agent.

3. Market to credit counselors.

This is going in the opposite direction of the financial planners  leads. You will be getting many more  leads, but you lose much of the quality. These will be complex and challenging loans that you can probably charge extra on. An option for many people who are going through financial difficulties is to sell their current home, and buy something smaller. I saw this a lot with women who were housewives and the got divorced. Now they have a home (and a mortgage) that they just can’t pay with their income alone. You can help them with the financing of a smaller residence. Keep in touch with them because when they become established again, they are going to want to buy a larger home, and will need your assistance again.

4. Market to human resource managers.

I read somewhere that employees that own their own homes have fewer instances of being late to work, work harder, and are much less likely to quit their jobs than their renting counterparts. And this is the selling point you are going to present to the HR Manager. You want to express that you can help their company and their employees by helping them all own their own home. Emphasize that you will be handling all the work, and that it won’t interfere with employees on the clock. Here is a great tip: if you can convince the HR Manager to allow you to put inserts along with their paychecks. The insert would be for a free consultation and $250 toward closing costs. All you would need is for 2-3 HR Managers to agree, and you would have a strong purchase referral source.

5. Market to renters.

Many renters that I have known were unaware that they could be living in their own home right now. For whatever reason, they were given a lot of mis-information about what it takes to qualify to purchase a home, or have never really looked into it. Here is another idea that worked well for me. You are going to do a postcard mailing to a targeted apartment complex near you. It will simply state, “For what you are paying in rent right now, you could be living in a $120,000 home. Call me today for a free consultation, and I will tell you the steps you need to take to own your own home.” Trust me, you will get a ton of calls. Many people won’t qualify at this point, but you can give them a plan on how to improve their finances and possibly qualify them later when they are ready. But you will get another group who can qualify, but never thought they could.

6. Market to your past customers.

In this instance, I would use a direct mail campaign with a checklist letter. Many of your customers may have thought about purchasing more real estate, but it wasn’t a strong enough concern to warrant calling you for advice. In this letter, you are going to ask them to call. You are going to say something like, “Right now is the perfect time for buying a home. If you have questions about any of the following topics, please give me a call this week.” You will then have a checklist including several reasons why someone might need financing such as: buying investment property, buying a vacation home, buying a second home, purchasing a smaller home because the kids have moved out, purchasing a bigger home because the family size is increasing, etc. And please make it as easy as possible for them to contact you to get the largest response.

7. Market to builders.

This is similar to marketing to FSBOs except that this would be on an ongoing basis. Most builders that I know don’t really like dealing with the selling and financing of their homes. They want to focus on what they do best, which is building more homes. Being able to partner up with a successful builder would provide you with many, many  leads. Not only will you be helping those who want to purchase the new construction home that the builder is selling, but you will be helping many MORE of the people who aren’t interested in that particular home, but are still want to purchase.

So do I think that you should never market to real estate agents? No. I just believe that it shouldn’t be the first or only option that mortgage professionals turn to. As you have seen above, there are so many other possibilities to find referral sources for purchase loans. And once you establish these referral sources and can develop working relationships with buyers before the Realtor does, than you will now have control of the situation and you will start to get real estate agents calling you for business.

If you ask the average mortgage professional what the most important aspect of a mail piece or advertisement is, they will tell you that it is the headline. And they are right. The headline can make or break amarketing campaign. Because of it’s obvious importance, loan officers do tend to spend time making sure that they have a effective headline.

What they don’t spend much time on is ensuring that they have the best call to action. The main goal in any marketing campaign is to get the prospect to take some sort of action (going to a seminar, setting up an appointment for a free consultation, getting them to request your special report, etc).

Most loan officers just stick a phone number at the bottom of their marketing piece with a quick little blurb to “call me for more information.” This in itself isn’t bad. But it can be greatly improved on.

You see, the goal in your “call to action” is to make it as easy as possible to for the prospect to take the action that you desire. You want to decrease the resistance to act as much as you can. By just stating “call me for more information” you are creating a certain level of resistance. There is only one option you are giving them, and you are asking the prospect to call you directly.

And you will lose a ton of  leads that you really shouldn’t. All the potential prospects who just aren’t ready to talk to a loan officer yet won’t respond. They have questions that you can definitely answer, but they aren’t serious enough yet to overcome the resistance to action that you have established.

But here is the key. In about 3 weeks, they may be serious enough to take action, but you will be the furthest thing on their mind. They will read amarketing piece by another loan officer and then go with him/her.

So your goal is to have the prospect take action at the earliest stage of the their thought process as they are considering getting a mortgage. You want to establish a relationship with them “before” they become serious, but the only way for this to happen is to have them respond to yourmarketing piece early in the game. And you do this by lowering the resistance to call to action.

One thing that you can do to lower resistance is to give them more ways to contact you. Give them your mailing address, cell phone number, email address, etc. Some people are more comfortable writing letters. Some prefer email or phone calls. And some like the face to face meeting. If you limit your choice to just one, you will exclude a large percentage of potential leads.

Another thing you can do is make it as easy as possible for them to take the call to action. For example, you send out a direct mail campaign to your former customer base. Your call to action in this campaign is for them to fill out a survey and mail it back to you. How do you make it easy for them? You provide them with a preaddressed envelope. You put a stamp on the return envelope. You make the survey a multiple choice form where they only have to circle the appropriate action. You perform all the steps that you can so that they are basically required to just circle a few answers on a form, and place it in the mail.

Also, give the prospect a little incentive to performing the desired call to action. In the example above, you can offer a gift certificate to everyone who completes and returns the survey. That will definitely increase your responses. Another idea is to give them a coupon ( for e.g.: $250 off closing costs) if they perform your call to action.

I believe that after the headline, the call to action is the most critical part of any marketing campaign. Be sure to remember that you want to get your prospect to raise his or her hand as early in the process as possible, and the only way to do that is by making the resistance to taking the call to action minimal. Give incentives. Give choices. Make it easy.