Mortgage Marketing- Discover What People Want

Mortgage Marketing and your Sphere-of-influence.

When it comes to mortgage marketing, many questions surround the concept of sphere-of-influence – what it is, why it’s important and what it’s worth? Many people think they have a grip on their sphere-of-influence because they’ve managed to keep their contact information in a list or in a CRM. However, few understand what it’s really worth. This particular teaching is going to cover in brief the sphere-of-influence and what it’s worth. While I would always suggest you keep an up-to-date and accurate list of your past clients, you should also include friends, family and those whom you do business with above and beyond your past clients. For example, if you get your haircut at the same place or have a particular store you shop at often, the individual that serves you or for that matter the owner(s) should naturally be in your sphere-of-influence. They should be someone who knows exactly what you do and why you do it. You exchange money with these folks regularly so it becomes a synergistic relationship that should NEVER be neglected. This person or persons have enormous value and here’s why.

To see the power of the concept of sphere-of-influence, grab a Yellow Pages, and go through alphabetically, all of the different industries in this enormous book of lists. Note the names of anyone you know, if even just casually from the industries listed as you go along. You’d quickly see that it starts to create decent sized list. Then take the White Pages, doing the same thing with first names, from A to Z. You’d realize that combining the list of people from various industries, close friends, family, past clients along with the people you do business with outside of work, the list comes to about 200 to 250 people. In many cases, it’s bigger than that!

Most anyone who performs this exercise comes to the same conclusion. Even with people that aren’t all that outgoing. This isn’t anything new; one could Google Joe Girard, otherwise known as The World’s Greatest Car Salesman! This is the main thing he looked at as he built one of the most successful sales careers in American history. Consider for a few moments how difficult it can be to gain the trust of someone you don’t know, yet how easy it is to work with someone whose trust you already have.

People do business with those they know like and trust, it’s axiomatic that you need to do a good job and therefore needless to point out. But looking back at the list, it’s true that not everyone on this list would be close enough to invite to your kid’s wedding or be invited to your 10th anniversary. These are people you know even in the most casual of ways; they’re acquaintances (and this is something we’re going to talk about changing in the next article). The thing to consider is that it’s not only you that this phenomenon exists for. It affects everyone YOU know! Put yourself in the middle of let’s say 200 people. What’s lost in this thought process is that each person has a sphere-of-influence of their own that equates to about 200 to 250 people. It’s true that there’s going to be some overlap between people and their individual spheres. However, when you consider the math it can become daunting which is a good thing. This is where the value of your sphere-of-influence really comes into play.

In this graphic below, you’ll see that you are in the middle, the connections to people that you know and their connections to people you don’t, move in any and all directions. That’s what makes your sphere so valuable. I felt it was important to point out that you may or may NOT have an impact on the people that you know, but they exist and they are real! The difference between someone you know, and someone who knows you, is the difference between 6 files per month vs. 8 or 72 files per year vs. 96. 24 files is a lot of files, unless you’re a superstar, then it might be something like 40 or 50 files per year.

Consider that any one of the thousands of people that span any connection in your sphere-of-influence should know you, what you do and who you are. And if they don’t, they should be able to ask a friend or family member, possibly someone who cuts hair and that person should recommend you…

Have you built strong relationships so that each of the people in your sphere have become ambassadors for you and your business? It’s a valid question and certainly worth thinking about.

When it comes to mortgage marketing, these things might seem obvious but in over 85% of the cases they’re neglected. When people sign up to do a monthly newsletter, they’ll sometimes ask if their list is safe and while that’s needless to respond to, consider this; if I handed you a list of names, addresses and phone numbers of people who’ve bought houses, would they do a loan or refi with you just because you have their name? Couldn’t you just walk out of your house and knock on the neighbor’s door and turn them into a file? They have house, they have a mortgage. The point is, the list in your sphere-of-influence is only that, a list. Once you see the potential value in your list, it’s value is directly proportionate to the relationships you have with the people in that list. This begs the question: “Why should someone do business with you, rather than any and all available options they may have?” Why not call Jay Farner from Quicken Loans, Greenlight or Lending Tree?

To create ambassadors for you and your business from your list, there’s no trick, no gimmick but more of a simple truth. In my next article, we’re going to talk about that directly.

If you want to find out sooner, no problem,  just  giving me a call or use the contact page here on the menu above.

Mortgage Marketing 101: Crafting Your Message

When crafting your personal mortgage marketing message each month, the approach that we have seen time and time again deliver the best results is a combination of content that…

1) Delivers an education-based value concerning the subjects of mortgage or real estate (i.e., tell your clients something they don’t know, educate them) and…

2) Shares something personal about yourself.

In language that your clients can easily understand, explain just one thing in your field of expertise that will deliver a real value to your client.  For example, explain how to improve their credit score, how to sell their house a little faster in a competitive market, what they can expect to occur while going through the closing process, etc.  Briefly explain ONE thing for each issue that your client will benefit from knowing.  Over time, your clients will come to see you as a knowledgeable person in your chosen area of expertise – an area that most of your clients don’t understand at all and a key pillar in mortgage marketing.

But most importantly, also share something about yourself – something OUTSIDE of the realm of real estate and mortgage. For example, what do you like to do when you are not helping people obtain a mortgage or sell their house?  It should not be too involved.  It should be brief.  If it’s not specifically about you, then maybe it can be about your kids or family.  You can also discuss or share the charities you are involved with or other community events.  The goal is to share yourself, share your knowledge, and become family.  For, once your clients perceive you as family, they really can’t go anywhere else.  They will be your clients for life.  To fully understand this crucial concept, feel free to ask to see some mortgage marketing newsletter samples or visit our website to learn more about this effective mortgage marketing approach.

Remember that mortgage marketing is effective when there’s something for the reader to relate to. We say it constantly, “share yourself, share your knowledge, become family” we only say it because it works, if you want your mortgage marketing to fail, don’t relate to your clients sense of humanity and talk about things that don’t relate to them as people but rather as numbers. In fact here’s an example of such a situation.

Mortgage Marketing Gurus

Mortgage Marketing Gurus or, for that matter, most kinds of Marketing Gurus have been around as long as business itself.  These Gurus claim to have the secret to marketing whatever it is you need to sell. They tell us that by purchasing a special program, we too will possess the secret to making lots of money using their system. With the one-size-fits-all, plug-in secret, you soon learn that you really don’t have all that you need to actually APPLY the secret. You may have learned PART of the secret, but now you need the Silver Package, then the Gold Package, so you’ll be ready for the Platinum Package. Like a carrot on a stick, they’ve convinced us to keep paying for yet another pamphlet, audio program, or video package to continually learn the REAL secret they claim to possess and desperately want to share. Entering in your name and email address here, answering questions there and of course putting in our credit card number. It’s a never ending purchase-until-attrition concept that isn’t really what you’re looking for at all. Depending on the patience and level of dependency of the buyer, sooner and in many cases much later, one realizes there really is no secret. The promise of the secret IS in itself the marketing strategy designed to keep you paying as long as the carrot looks appealing. No honest and credible business, education, or marketing institution promotes this practice.  It’s not marketing for you to apply, but a strategy to make you buy.

Mortgage training almost never comes with mortgage marketing education and while this is sad, it’s unfortunately all too common. The result: time and money spent in the activity of marketing which also results in many people mistaking activity for achievement.

I’ve been in mortgage and real estate direct marketing for many years. I can tell you without hesitation that there is no Guru Secret. You need to share yourself, share your knowledge, and become family. But realize that it’s as easy to do it wrong as it is to do it right. Rather than offer our clients a carrot on a stick, we freely teach them how to fish. (This is where your marketing guru would insert a call to action.)

If you were to search the web for “mortgage marketing tools” you’ll find all manner of items pertaining to set-it-and-forget-it marketing nonsense. Words like ULTIMATE, AUTOMATED, QUICK, SIMPLE, etc.

I’m here to tell you that if you want to market to your people without being involved with the process, you’ll never get from your marketing what it is you really want. If you have a sphere of influence (and I would imagine you do if you’ve been doing this for any length of time) then you need to communicate with that sphere! You need to share yourself as you would want others to share themselves with you. You need to share your knowledge as you’d want others to share their knowledge with you. THIS IS KEY! If you aren’t willing to do these two simple things, then your marketing will be just like everyone else’s. Nothing more than disingenuous phony “content” that transparently shows that all you want to do is sell them something.

At Exodus, we can’t be concerned with telling you what you want to hear at the expense of diverting from the truth. We’ve been doing this for a long time and those we help to share themselves, share their knowledge, and become family, do INFINITELY better than those who don’t. It’s that simple. There’s no secret, there’s no marketing guru. But there’s marketing experience and plenty of it! Our goal is to teach you how to fish, how to speak to your sphere using the best possible platform available. We’ll help you reach out to your client base and turn your sphere of influence into ambassadors for you and your business. These ambassadors are past clients and friends or family, who know you and are eager to refer you! Ambassadors will refer you and what YOU do as their way of being the hero to someone else. Your ambassadors bring you business you would never get otherwise. All you have to do is reach out to them in a way that’s genuine, honest, and relatable.

Not everyone knows how to do this and our experience isn’t for sale, we gladly give you that for free. Each individual is different and therefore it’s much easier to bring your individuality across in a way that relates to your sphere of influence. Use the contact link above to contact us, I can be reached at 800-315-1910 extension 1101 if you’d like to talk with me directly.

The next teaching will be on Sphere-Of-Influence. What it really is and what it really means.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

– Chinese Proverb