Marketing Your Difference

Essential knowledge

1. Reciprocity Be the first to give. Trigger the time-honored social principle of reciprocation by giving of your time, your talent and your knowledge with every contact. Never leave a prospecting or protecting meeting without leaving a well-written, personalized article, leaflet or booklet. Use personalized scratch pads as a giveaway. Business cards regularly get trashed. No one throws a scratch pad away. 2. Authority: Showing and knowing Establish yourself as the mortgage authority in your market, again, by providing timely, accurate information that is well-designed and personalized. I use The Loan Toolbox and Mortgage Market Weekly to disseminate information to the local media, as well as my network, and in so doing, brand myself, get published and called upon when the media needs accurate mortgage information. 3. Consistency: The starting point When we determine our course of action, commit to six months and stay on track. Set our calendar and fill the blank spots each day with prospecting and protecting. A regular routine of communication, visits, calls, etc. will become more and more noticed and appreciated once the recipients of our effort realize that we can be counted on. This is an uncertain time. We can become the certainty in the professional lives of our referral partners and prospects by being consistent. 4. Liking: Making friends to influence people I try not to court those who I would not want to invite to my dinner table. So, I do business with my friends and make friends of those I do business with. Like my buddy Tim Braheem always said, “The loan originator with the most friends, wins.” Life is too short to work and rely upon people that you don’t like enough to invite to your home.

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Copyright © 2009 Emigrant Mortgage Company, Incorporated (Emigrant). All rights reserved. Emigrant is a subsidiary of Emigrant Bank, Member FDIC and is an Equal Opportunity Lender. All product names, company names and logotypes are servicemarks or trademarks of Emigrant in the United States and other countries. The information, products and services contained in this advertisement are believed to be correct but may include inaccuracies, typographical errors and/or omissions. Emigrant does not guarantee the accuracy of the data contained herein. This information is intended for mortgage and/or real estate professional use only and should not be distributed or presented to consumers or any other third parties. This is not an offer or guarantee to extend consumer credit. Program guidelines, terms and/or conditions are subject to change by Emigrant without notice. All loans are subject to submission of a complete application, underwriting review and credit and property approval by Emigrant. Not all products and/or programs are available in all states and/or localities and/or for all loan amounts. Certain products / program are offered through third parties. Other restrictions and limitations may apply. New York Licensed Residential Mortgage Lender: Exempt. Emigrant is registered or licensed with the Banking Departments or Divisions in CT, DE, FL, MA, NH, NJ, NY and PA.

O JANUARY 2010

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MISSOURI MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE

We are all originating the same five or six loan programs. The days of a competitor finding a new, funky, no qualification program that you don’t have, and stealing your deal, are over. If we all have the same products, how are we going to differentiate ourselves in our market? Simple. We need to know more about Federal Housing Authority (FHA), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and conventional conforming products than anyone else. We need to know how to “tell the story” on a full doc loan with additional documentation and notes to the processer and the underwriter. We commit to always turn in our loan files with a memo to the underwriter. Remember, no one but you has had the time with the client to get the whole story. Relate the story to all concerned and get more loans approved. Thorough knowledge of agency underwriting guidelines and product descriptions is just the start. We also need to be

When You THINK Of...

these principles of ethical influence as taught by Dr. Robert Cialdini:

www.NationalMortgageProfessional.com O

2. Set a fixed time every morning to answer e-mails and then get on with our day Send them out during the day as we need to, but stay away from that e-mail time By Greg Frost alligator as much as possible. Keep our calendar up on our computer screen so During my 37 years in the mortgage well-versed on the additional overlay that we can continually see how few lending industry, I have seen many eco- underwriting criteria that most investors appointments we have and how much nomic swings that have stimulated are now adding to the basic agency regu- time is available for prospecting. both dramatic increases and decreases lations. We need to time block to read in mortgage lending volume. I live in industry information. Start every day 3. Never eat alone Albuquerque, N.M., and our volume of reading and use the information to The best way to work a referral partner purchase money lending opportunities become an authority in our market. This and prospect database is in person. The in 2008 were only 35 percent of what publication is one of the best and should best way to meet in person is at breakfast be on our “must read” list every month. they were at our peak in 2006. and lunch. There are 22 work days in a Fortunately, historic low mortgage month, with 44 opportunities to have interest rates have stimulated refinance Selling and presentation one-on-one personal, productive sales opportunities; however, we are chal- skills calls with our referral partners and lenged with credit and property value We must be sharper here than ever before. prospects. We should schedule half of our issues along with a continually shrinking Why? Because we are going to get in front appointments for protecting and half for of fewer people. If we have prospecting. I dare say that most of us do list of available loan profewer selling opportunities, not make 44 meaningful sales calls in a grams. Therefore, what we must close a much high- month. We will, if we schedule two each should have been a lander percentage of them if we day at the morning and afternoon meal. slide of opportunity has hope to earn as much this been tempered by the year as last, or to enjoy a 4. Get active in the local board of Realtors new realities of the mortraise. Practice selling scripts Join a committee. Scour their roster for gage industry. and dialogues. Make certain familiar names. Make a prospecting list So, many of us have rethat we have an “elevator” from this roster. Then take them to breakread Who Moved My response to the common- fast or lunch. Cheese?, and are reading of place mortgage questions other success stories as we that always ends in an offer 5. Stop in and visit our referral partners desperately try to re-invent of assistance and the setting and prospects ourselves and find a more “This is an uncertain of an appointment to proproductive approach to our Very few of our competitors are. The art of business. An old guy like time. We can become vide it. We need to take off the personal sales call was lost in favor of the certainty in the the headset, stop answering technology somewhere along the way. Call me suggests that you glance professional lives of every insipid e-mail that a referral partner or prospect and schedover your shoulder and comes our way and get out ule an office visit. If we make regular vistake a look back. What was our referral partners among them. Here are five its, we will run into a deal that someone old is once again new. Dust and prospects by things that I think we need else in the office needs help on. Go where off your old flyer from The being consistent.” to focus on in this level of your competitors are not. And there is no Loan Tool Box, illustrating the pyramid: the “Pyramid of a Complete one making office calls these days. Loan Originator,” and focus on the first three levels: Essential Knowledge, Selling 1. Start every day with 30 min. of read- Personal marketing and Presentation Skills, and Personal ing industry publications Branding yourself is more important Marketing. These three skill sets can be We need to be the source of accurate than ever. Mortgage companies have instrumental in helping you kick start your mortgage information to our professional come and gone. We each have an production. Remember, the Lord giveth network and our market. A daily regime opportunity to stand out in our market, and taketh away. These low interest rates of reading and gathering timely industry just by still being here. Let everyone can be gone in a flash, so take advantage of information will contribute to our becom- know you’re still here. Focus your marthe current refi revenue opportunities to ing an authority. keting efforts towards tapping into invest in rebuilding your referral network and mining your relationships.

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