This week I want to talk about a vital step in the sales process: relationship!
You’re probably thinking that I misspelled the word. Actually, I wanted to do that. To be successful you need more than a relationship, you need real-nations. What are relationships? Relationships that are based on the two most important criteria for selling: trust and loyalty.
How are your relationships with your borrowers? I’ve asked hundreds of thousands of mortgage professionals that question and the answer is always the same: “good, great, fantastic!” Strangely, no one ever says “I’m a real loser…my clients hate me!” Yet if you survey borrowers or read the newspaper today, you’ll find that mortgage professionals are among the most unpleasant salespeople in any industry. The fact is that our relationships are not as good as we think. Because? Because we miss out on the most important and critical feature for building relationships: TIME.
Time is the key to all relationships. Without spending time with your client, there is simply no way to In fact know them. The average loan officer spends 7 to 20 minutes with their borrowers on the first call or meeting. How is it possible to qualify a borrower, complete their application, identify their short-term financial needs and long-term goals, build trust and establish loyalty in 20 minutes or less? It’s not! All this takes time. Let me give you four benefits of passing the time:
Time increases knowledge: The more time passes, the more you know the borrower and understand their needs. Without this, you cannot provide meaningful or life-changing solutions.
Time builds trust and loyalty: The more time passes, the more the borrower knows you and trusts you. This builds loyalty. Ultimately, loyalty is more important than trust, because you can trust someone without being loyal, but you can’t be loyal without trusting. Trust is a must – loyalty is a higher level of trust.
Time ensures complete applications: We realize that we don’t have time to spend with our borrowers because we are too “busy.” Busy doing what? Probably reselling, canceling and selling deals we’ve already “sold” or chasing down documentation or answers we didn’t get the first time around. Because? Because we don’t spend enough time the first time completing the application, commitment, and documentation.
time is offensive and Defensive: The more time you spend with your borrower, the less time your competition gets. If the borrower spends an hour with you, not only does he not want to do it again, but he showed you, through his actions, that he was interested in you and committed to the purchase. These are key buy signals that he is likely to get the sale.
Starting today, slow down and spend more time with your qualified borrowers. Employ the “a bird in the hand is worth a cent in the bush” philosophy instead of the “sales is a numbers game” philosophy. The former points to quality while the latter points to quantity. Quality always wins!
