Countless brokers and loan officers invest significant time and cost in looking at how to get mortgage leads, only to find that when they follow up on leads they have paid for, they never get through or are rejected immediately.
Part of the challenge is that contacting a lead as a ‘cold caller’ is considered a nuisance or unwelcome intrusion. Instead, loan officers and brokers need to approach their leads with a personalized, professional approach, with certainty that the lead is anticipating their call.
Let’s look at how to find mortgage leads who are genuinely interested in moving forward with a mortgage product and how to nurture each lead in the right way to boost your conversions–and commissions–without unnecessary expense.
Common Reasons for First Contact With Mortgage Leads to Fail
We’ll start by summing up the primary factors that mean a lead never develops into an authentic prospect, regardless of whether you have paid for the lead or had a reasonable level of assurance that they had strong intent.
- The prospective mortgage applicant dislikes cold calls. If they aren’t waiting to hear from you, as many as 90% of people will ignore a call from an unknown number.
- You haven’t quickly established how you can add value. By demonstrating that you are a reliable, credible, and experienced professional, you can position yourself as a broker or loan officer worth talking to.
- There isn’t enough information about the lead to personalize your communications. Using the wrong name or mentioning a mortgage product irrelevant to their plans gives the impression that your services will not be useful.
Loan officers and mortgage brokers frequently experience further issues due to focusing on high-volume calls to thousands of leads who have no proven intent or, even inadvertently, contradicting customer contact regulations–something you should always avoid.
Tips on Introducing Yourself to a New Mortgage Lead
The first step is always to introduce yourself and begin with clarity about the business, brand, lender, or mortgage provider you represent, ensuring the lead knows the purpose of the call and how you have received their contact details. Indicating that you can potentially help the lead save money on their mortgage borrowing or real estate purchase transaction is a positive starting point, as is checking whether now is a convenient time to talk.
Every lead may have different priorities, but being professional, showing that you are here to help solve a problem, and steering clear of putting the lead under pressure will ensure they are more likely to feel at ease and be comfortable asking questions. This can equally be valuable to your sales approach and define the specific products or services that would be beneficial.
Concentrating on transparency and building rapport allows you to showcase what you have to offer without appearing overly pushy–something that often means a lead will automatically look elsewhere.
How to Improve Your Communications When Calling a Mortgage Lead
As an insurance specialist with a hugely successful referral partnership program, we’ve developed a comprehensive lead nurture system we share with all our partners. This system helps eliminate these common issues and ensures you not only know your leads are excellent prospects but also have the tools to foster a positive client relationship.
All partners across the Insurance Pro Agencies network receive:
- Support to enhance efficiency and minimize extended admin time, giving you more capacity to concentrate on communications and speaking directly with quality leads with an established intent
- Access to our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database, which provides resources to trace the history of every lead or integrate the information and insights about each lead into your own software
- Swift notifications, which are sent directly to you when a new lead becomes available before the prospect stagnates, eliminating the risk of another mortgage broker or loan officer making contact before you
Exclusivity, superb quality, and lead nurture resources provide all our partners with a proven, effective, and highly successful approach, with up to three cost-free leads per week in exchange for mutually beneficial homeowner’s insurance referrals.
The system works because it overcomes the most prevalent challenges. A lead will expect to hear from you and have a verified need for a mortgage or loan product, with which you can indicate you are ready and able to help!
