Lendesk has asked mortgage professionals from across the country for their top tip – whether they’re just starting out in the industry or a long time pro. Partnering with RFA on a webinar entitled Crowdsourced Tips from Top Mortgage Professionals, Lendesk shared a collation of the top tips submitted. Some themes from the findings below.
RELATIONSHIPS ARE KING
Whether with clients, other agents, or lenders, a consistent theme was focusing on the relationships you have in the industry. Getting them, building them, and maintaining them.
Setting the right expectations with your clients is the best advice. Whether this be with a timeline of closing or follow ups, clients appreciate being in the loop. A simple email or phone call does wonders. In addition, make sure you nurture and maintain relationships with clients after closing. Sending quarterly updates on the market will keep you top of mind when comes to renewal time or giving referrals. There is lots of CRM software that can help you automate this.
Always ask the client where they found you. It gives you valuable insight and provides you with an option to reward referrals and teach partners if you’re getting low quality.
Maintain strong relationships with lenders by being consistent. Make sure you review their policies in Lender Spotlight before submitting, to ensure your deal is compliant. Underwriting a deal properly and verifying all documents before submitting will help you build a strong relationship with a lender, and help you move to closing faster.
Ask one or more of your best Realtor referral sources to join you in your new annual review strategy. As part of your offering to clients, provide an updated valuation of their property in a report branded by your Realtor.
EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY – IT WILL HELP YOU IN THE LONG RUN
Taking the time to set yourself up with the right tools was nearly every second tip that was sent thorough by mortgage brokers. Adopting a CRM was highlighted as something that would take a few hours but the results would be worth it. Some popular ones for mortgage brokers are Pipedrive and Bluroots BlueMortgage. Lendesk recommends Hubspot – depending on how many clients you store, Hubspot is relatively inexpensive and can allow you to keep notes from client calls, set up automated email workflows, and give yourself timely reminders to follow up with clients. It also has a similar sales funnel to Pipedrive, allowing you to set up stages for deals and tracking appropriately.
The best CRM is the one that you will use. Gauge your CRM needs based on where your business is at the moment. Don’t overwhelm yourself with learning a new system when better time might be spent building a team of referrers.
Lender Spotlight will cut hours out of your week and will showcase you as the rate and policy expert to your clients – something critical when competing with the banks. Updated daily, Spotlight is the most complete and accurate digital database of lender rates and policies. Find the best product for your client and be the hero, in less than 30 seconds. Lender Spotlight also recently released its Compare and Share feature, allowing brokers to compare selected products and associated policies side by side, and generate a professionally branded PDF for clients.
Finmo was recently integrated with Lender Spotlight and mortgage brokers can now enjoy both of these must-have products for only $49/month. Finmo is Canada’s smartest mortgage application software and is built to save you time. It enables you to deliver a truly modern mortgage experience you’ll be proud to share with your clients. Finmo benefits include personalized application links, intuitive document collection, SMS updates to clients, and ability to connect to thousands of popular tools or CRMs to create your perfect workflow.
BE THE EXPERT
Competing with banks was alluded above, when discussing the compare and share feature of Lender Spotlight, but this cannot be overstated. Mortgage brokers need to display themselves as the expert to ensure clients understand the value of working with them. There were many references to this sentiment in the tips provided to Lendesk, but one broker said it best with “a broker’s job is 50% marketing and 50% product knowledge.”
A tangible tip was to start or join a mastermind group with other brokers who you aspire to be (aka levelling up) and meet monthly to discuss business growth/industry challenges and ways to overcome them. Insider tip: check out Lendesk’s content library with resources for mortgage brokers or Mortgage Magnates which “seeks to take mortgage professionals from ground level to remarkable”. Membership to Mortgage Magnates is also free to any Finmo Pro user.
There are also an immeasurable number of nuances that pop up when dealing with clients and their mortgages. To be an expert, mortgage brokers need to be across some straight up product knowledge tips, such as knowing that portability cannot go from insured to uninsured mortgages. Or, understanding which lenders will pay additional compensation as protecting your margins is important in any business.
Check out Lender Spotlight guidelines section to see lender policies all in one place. Having quick access to this source of truth will ensure you are able to be the expert for your clients.
