Written By: Tom Ninness, Vice President/Regional Production Manager for Cherry Creek Mortgage and speaker for www.MortgageSpeakersBureau.com. Email Tom at tninness@ccmc-net.com. Go to www.SummitChampions.com to learn more.
You finally got the opportunity to meet with a top Realtor.
You share all of the different loan programs you have available, the great staff you have, and that you provide great customer service.
You mention that you are available to do pre-qualifications over the weekends and you’ll do finance flyers for the agent’s open house.
You pull out some of the open house flyers that you’ve done for some of the other agents and the agent is impressed.
The meeting goes well.
You leave some of the flyers and your card and promise to follow up with the agent the next week.
The next week you leave a message, then another message a couple of days later, then one on Friday to remind the agent that you are available that weekend if any needs come up. After attempting another couple of times to get a hold of the agent, the agent finally calls you and says that they are happy with the current lender that they are working with and if anything changes, they will call you.
What went wrong?
Three's a Crowd
There are three people involved when it comes to a sales call: the prospect, yourself and their current lending provider (yes, your competitor). The power is with the current provider as he/she is already on the pedestal and no two objects can occupy the same space.
When we make a sales call, we can compete against price, product and service. Service has the greatest potential to differentiate yourself from your competition.
The fact is: The one currently in the top position tends to just sit on his pedestal with little reason to be proactive in doing more for their clients.
However, most prospects are being underserved and the ultimate goal is to find out what their weakness might be, subtly point it out, and create a game plan so you become the person on the pedestal.
Where is the pain?
Are people motivated by either pain or pleasure? Believe it: Most people are motivated by pain. A successful sales call’s mission is to get the prospect to feel dissatisfied with their current provider and want to work with you.
By asking the right questions, I have agents admitting to me: “ I never see my loan officer”, “It takes awhile to get my calls returned”, “I’ve had issues with the good faith estimate being higher and that’s embarrassing”, “They get me the closing figures at the last minute”, and “They never give me ideas that would help my business”. These are areas of service where you can stand out.
Finding Your Winning Differences
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