Posted by John Scott Smith on Thu, Mar 25, 2010 @ 02:11 PM
As part of my daily reading, yesterday I came across an excellent article on using social media in sales by Bill Rice that inspired this post.
I recently published a post asking is "Social Networking Overrated for Mortgage Professionals?" After some discussion in the comments and more on Twitter, I wanted to tackle how you *can* use social media more effectively for mortgage sales. It's not difficult once you understand a little bit about consumers' behavior, starting with your own. Let's do a quick walk-through.
First, take a quick look at how YOU are already using social media for your OWN consumer behavior. Whether you think about it in that context or not, you have probably already used social media to help you with a buying decision. How?
Do you ever read the reviews on Amazon? Do you ask your circle of friends on Facebook for their advice? Are you looking for their experience or for their recommendation on a product you're thinking about buying? Ever "tweet" questions like that? If so, you've been using social media to help in your buying decisions.
Personally, I've posted questions about pasta makers, minivans, and computer software on Facebook, on Twitter, on blogs, and over instant message to friends so that I could draw on the collective experience of my network to find out what they recommend. I ALWAYS read the product reviews on Amazon before I decide which product is going to meet my needs, especially since online shopping means that you can't get a close look at it before you pull the trigger.
These behaviors are the tip of the ice berg for using social media for your business and your personal brand. Let's talk about just using a couple to get started, and then we can grow it, together, from there.
- Google Alerts. Who is talking about you? Who is talking about your business? What are they saying? Google alerts are free, easy, and (mostly) instant, so get 'em going! This is another Google feature that allows you to use ANY Google account, like we mentioned in our recent blog entry. Just set up the alerts around the name of your business, your personal name, or any other word or phrase that you'd like to track. I use these to keep tabs of who's talking about me, my business, FHA mortgage leads, you name it. Very helpful.
- Advanced Twitter Search. Tres chic!! Using this application, you can keep track of ANYONE talking about your service anywhere, or within a certain mile radius of yourself. I use TweetDeck, myself, but that's because I'm constantly "plugged-in." Advanced twitter search allows you to look, at your leisure, OR you can even set up an RSS feed into your reader if you want to get more technical.
Once you find people talking, introduce yourself and answer their question(s) with an eye toward being helpful instead of toward selling.
Imagine tweeting a question about a product and hearing back with an answer from a representative of that company with an answer...It's happening out there, RIGHT NOW, and you can be a part of it fifteen minutes from now by getting set up and getting started.
What do you think? Are you already using techniques like these? Tell us about your experiences.
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Posted by John Scott Smith on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 @ 03:12 PM
There are three main ways to look at your mortgage web site.
- You can use it as a pamphlet, to let prospective customers know who you are and what you do. For this approach, all you need is to have your site on your business cards, in your print advertising, or recited in television and radio commercials. Like a pamphlet, it's a way to provide much more information to your prospects than you could fit, otherwise.
- Your site can be an aid to your existing customers. This method usually has a way for your customers to "log in" and check on the status of the mortgage application or see where it is in processing. This is a membership function.
- And, the third way to look at your page is as a way to produce your own FHA mortgage leads. For this, you need to drive traffic, either through Inbound marketing (which we'll cover in another post) or through advertising, or a combination of the two. This article is going to discuss how to get started in advertising through Google.
What is advertising with Google? Any time that you search on Google, it will show you two different types of results: organic and paid. Organic results are the ones that you see below the shaded box. These are the ones that Google "thinks" will be the most relevant to your search. The paid results, also called "pay per click" (PPC) will appear in a shaded box, directly below the search box, and also on the far, right-hand side of the screen. Every time that you "click" on one of those ads, the advertisers gets charged a fee. This is Google's main source of revenue.
In order to get started, you'll need to open your advertising account, called AdWords, with Google. Doing so is very easy and is a testament to both Google's success and its stock price.
First, head on over to AdWords. If you already use Gmail or iGoogle, it will allow you to add AdWords to your existing account. If not, enter a valid email address that you use and choose a password.
Set your timezone and currency. In my case, Eastern Time, US dollars.
Google will send a verification email to your account with a link that you have to click to validate. Once clicked, viola! You're ready to get started.
Select a budget. (And, keep it small on your first time around the block!)
Now comes the REAL work. (Or, put another way, Welcome to My World!). When focusing on paid advertising you'll want to look at a number of things, always keeping one mantra at the top of your mind: how are my customers using the Internet.
Choose the kinds of ads that you think will appeal to the kinds of customers that you'd like to attract. Customize your ads so that they will only appear in states in which you can originate FHA mortgages. Select the page(s) that you want your customers to land on when they click the ad. Note: your "home page" is NOT always the best place to direct the click. (Nor is your "application page," for that matter.) Instead, choose a landing page that makes the most sense for both the ad and the search term. For example, if they click on an ad that is specifically about a 203K mortgage after searching for the term "FHA 203K loan", you may want to have them "land" on a page within your site that is specifically about 203K mortgages.
You can, and should, do endless tweaking to this new advertising program. The overarching theme is that if your website is not on page one for a particular search term, like "FHA mortgage Boise, ID", you can run an ad to insure that those people searching for desired term will find you.
What questions do you have? Ask me, below, and I'll answer to the best of my ability.
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Posted by John Scott Smith on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 @ 03:32 PM
Remember The Waiter Rule? It says that you can learn a lot about my character by how I treat the waiter. The waiter rule exists for a very simple reason: I already know how you're going to treat me to my face. What I want to know is are you looking out for me. Are you concerned about my outcome? Or, are you just in this for yourself?
Particularly after the housing meltdown, customers are leery. They are suspicious of mortgage brokers. After all, they don't really want a mortgage: they just want a house. Our customers are looking for clues, any clues they can find, about who we are and how we'll treat them. Of course, the good news is that means that every single person on our team has the chance to turn the next prospect into a lifelong customer.
I'm a parent of young children which means that going out to dinner can sometimes be...challenging. Recently, when we were at a restaurant the boys were being very good, but it was getting a little late for them. I ordered my burger medium-rare. (Yes. I know. I live on the edge...) Sadly, when it came, it was way overcooked. No biggie. I'll just eat it so we can get the kids home.
The waitress made her routine rounds and asked me how everything was. I just said, "fine," and went back to eating. A moment later, she was back with the manager. The manager said, "Julie (our waitress) told me that she thought that your cheeseburger came out overdone."
"It did, but I hadn't even said anything."
"That's no problem. She noticed and asked me to come over and make it right for you. Would you like me to bring you another one? Or, can I bring you another beer, on us?"
Talk about "above and beyond!"
Julie has a thing or two to teach me about sales. She probably has a thing or two to teach all of us, really.
Look out for our customers. Even when they say that everything is okay, make sure they're taken care of. And, of course, they'll be back. With friends. Besides, after that experience, where else would I go next time? Where would you go?
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Posted by John Scott Smith on Mon, Mar 08, 2010 @ 12:59 PM
Are you a parent? I am. Of two young boys. My oldest is two and a half years old, and is no longer into Elmo, Big Bird, and "Sesame Street". He's moved on to "The Wiggles." Now, that's what we watch, right before bed, as part of his nighttime routine. When he shouts, "It's our SONG!" as "Rockabye Your Bear" comes on, it kind of melts your heart, no matter what my day was like.
Curious, I did a little research on "The Wiggles" and found out something that hadn't occurred to me: "The Wiggles" weren't always "The Wiggles". They had been aspiring musicians, each with a different level of success. After leaving music, three of them met while working on degrees in early childhood education. They had been studying to become teachers.
Money quote from the a New York Times article about them, Murray Cook (one of the founding members) "I'd played in rock bands and didn't get anywhere in the 80's."
For their school courses, they made a music project incorporating early childhood lessons with original music and dancing. And, it caught on. Caught on in a BIG way. (In 2005, they raked in forty-five MILLION dollars from their CD's, concerts, and merchandising.)
What does this have to do with mortgage sales? Pop music was a tough market. But, by discovering an unfilled demand in the marketplace for quality children's music, they got to perform for larger audiences in more venues making a LOT more money.
Right now, amidst this mortgage wreckage, there are still underutilized skills, and market demands that are not, yet, met.
Where can you specialize and make more money? Your unique patch of grass has its own answer, but foreclosures aren't going to end any time, soon. What if you learned everything there was to know about getting people financed to buy foreclosures? Do you know enough, yet, to give an informed presentation on FHA 203K mortgages to your local Realtors Association? On a more basic level, do you know everything there is to know about the changes taking place with regard to FHA mortgages beginning on April 5th?
For a living, I have to stay up on all changes to FHA, so I read several articles per day for my work, here. I am constantly amazed by how much information I find out there that is flat out wrong on ActiveRain and other real estate sites.
If you're still in the business, there are unexploited areas that offer less resistance for those who study and do their homework.
Right now, most of us are struggling pop musicians. Maybe it's time we became "Wiggles".
What do you think? What areas can expand into in your area?
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Posted by John Scott Smith on Thu, Mar 04, 2010 @ 02:08 PM
Whatever business we are in, whether our customers are verbalizing that question or not, THAT is the question that they are trying to answer. "Can I trust you?" In order to offer evidence is why we get licensed. Or, join the Better Business Bureau. Or, ask others to vouch for us.
In a weird, Zen-elusive kind of way, if you think too much about the question, you won't be able to convince anyone of your honesty or your integrity. You have to let it go, and be yourself. Allow yourself to connect. That connection is what builds trust.
In the mortgage industry, product knowledge is useful, so learn it. Availability is helpful, so answer the phone, reply to your emails, and return you messages. But, connection is what people crave and what will lead to higher success.
How do we build that connection? Be sincere. Share your experience. Learn about your customer's needs and keep their needs at the top of your mind.
Before I started in mortgage lead generation, I sold mortgages. Often, I was so focused on getting my customer the right product or pricing it correctly, that I forgot about their anxiety about whether or not they would be approved.
One of the biggest advances that I made in my selling career was when I helped them address their feelings on this. Now, I didn't use any "when you, I feel" statements or anything overly "touchy-feely". What I changed was one simple behavior. When I got a DU "refer/eligible" on a pre-approval, I made a commitment to my customer. "We'll have an answer for you within three days." (That was our timeline, back then.) "In the meantime, I am going to call you with an update, each day, even if that update is to say 'there is no update,' until we have an answer." Of course, once I laid down that bridge, I had to walk over it, each and every day. That daily effort was what built the trust. And, that was what got my customers to commit to working with me.
Someone else may have had an eighth better rate, or a quarter of a point less in closing costs, but I had already had several conversations with my customer. And, I had proven myself to good on my word.
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