This week I want to talk about an important step in the sales process: relationships,
You are probably thinking that I have misspelled the word. Actually, I wanted to do this. You need more than just a relationship to be successful, you need Real-actionships. What are relationships? Relationships based on the two most important criteria for sales – trust and loyalty,
How is your relationship with your borrowers? I’ve asked hundreds of thousands of mortgage professionals this question and the answer is always the same – “Well, great, great!” Interestingly enough, no one ever says “I’m a real loser…my clients hate me!” Yet if you survey borrowers or read today’s paper, you will find that mortgage professionals are the most hated salespeople in any industry. The truth is that our relationships are not as good as we think. Why? Because we miss out on the most important and crucial feature for building a relationship: TIME.
Timing is the key of all relationships. Without spending time with your client, there is no way 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? This All these require time. I give you four benefits of spending time:
Time Increases Knowledge: the more time you spend, the more you know the borrower and understand their needs. Without it, you can’t provide meaningful or life-changing solutions.
Time builds trust and loyalty: the more time you spend, the more The borrower knows and trusts you, It builds loyalty. Loyalty is ultimately more important than trust, because you can trust someone without being loyal, but you can’t be loyal without trust. Trust is a necessity – Loyalty is a high degree of trust.
Timed complete application ensures: We feel we don’t have time to spend with our borrowers because we are too “busy”. What are you busy doing? Perhaps we’ve already been “sold” to reselling, de-selling, and down-selling deals or are chasing down documentation or answers that didn’t get us the first time around. Why? Because we didn’t allow enough time to complete the application, commitment and documentation the first time around.
time is critical And Defensive: The more time you spend with your borrower, the less time your competitors get. If the borrower spends an hour with you, not only do they not want to do it again, but they have shown you through their actions that they are interested and committed to buying. These are important buy signals that will probably get you a sale.
Starting today, slow down and spend more time with your qualified borrowers. “Sales is a numbers game” rather than the “one bird in the hand is better than two in the bush” philosophy. The former refers to quality while the latter refers to quantity. Quality always wins!
