Author Archive
SEO For Loan Officers!
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Today we begin a 2 day exploration of using SEO as a mortgage marketing tool. Many loan officers find this topic intriguing, but few know how, or where to get started. Today and tomorrow we’ll spend 1 hour each day showing you everything you need to know to start marekting your business online, and slef generating leads for your pipeline.
Join us by registering here:
Final Loan Officer Unleashed
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Marketing to realtors is one of those strategies that nearly every loan officer dreams about doing, but few ever truly master. There always seems to be something standing in your way, keeping you from enjoying the ongoing flow of excited referrals ready to use you as their loan officer.
Frustrating isn’t it?
That’s where Loan Officer Unleashed steps in… We’ve been hosting 4 – 5 day webinar series this year teaching loan officers how to quickly, and efficiently turn this frustrating “roller coaster ride” into a reliable source of referrals. Next week we end the series for 2010. In other words, if you want to benefit from this free step by step online workshop, then this is your last chance for 2010.
Here’s how to register:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/346619458
See you there! We’re prepared to teach you some of the most effective mortgage marketing strategies available to you… You won’t have to spend a penny to begin implementing what you learn.
Mortgage Marketing Works? Look At This!
Posted by: | CommentsI am called on to help provide marketing plans, strategies, techniques etc. Nothing wrong with this at all – In fact, it’s a great way to shortcut the learning process… Learning from others who have already made all the mistakes and fine tuned a particular marketing strategy. But there’s one part of the process that absolutely cannot be short-cut. And that’s the part where you get your own hands dirty with the taking of action.
I bring this up because of what happened on yesterdays Loan Officer Unleashed webinar. I don’t mean to over-do my praise of the two gentlemen on the call, but right as I was discussing the scripts and approach methods to reach your target Realtors, one of the loan officers spoke up by telling me: “Chad, I called my local title company and asked if they could access the list you told us about. They said of course and gave it to me.”
So I stopped the webinar and inquired further. His name was Michael, and it appears he took action almost immediately, and secured a list of the top 250 Realtors in his area based on performance in a matter of minutes. I get excited every time I hear live success stories, as they are a testament to what happens when you make a determination to just “get it done” and stop worrying about all the “what ifs”.
Once Michael spoke up, Roy then chimed in and mentioned something similar. He also landed a list as described from a Realtor friend of his who was only too happy to help. He then added that he “cheated” a bit and had skipped ahead to day #2 and read the phone scripts, picked up the phone, and spent nearly 1 and a half hours calling the agents on his new list.
This intrigued me enough to where I violated my own rule of never putting a listener on the spot, and I asked Roy if I could un-mute his handset and ask him some questions live. He agreed thankfully, as it would have been mighty embarrassing had he said “no”. The results? 20 – 25 phone calls fired off in an hour and a half, and he managed to speak with about 12 agents. Out of those 12, 7 gave him permission to continue marketing to them, and 1 actually wanted to schedule an in person meeting right away.
The reason I’m making such a big deal out of this? Because Roy now has a lead generation tool at his disposal whenever needed! Let’s say that he wanted to completely transform his pipeline in 30 days. Could he do it? Well, using his first day of results as a baseline (Normally your results improve as you get more familiar with the approach) and imagine 20 days of dedicating 1 and a half hours to making those calls. That would mean:
- 240 agents spoken to
- 140 agents who have given permission to continue marketing to them
- 20 agents who have asked to meet in person (When was the last time a high producer asked you for an appointment?)
All of that in just 1 month? This is even more amazing when you consider that Roy is calling on high producers. Do you think that out of 140 high producers who have agreed to continue listening to Roy, and 20 who are eager enough to ask for an appointment, that he might be able to land several of these agents as a regular source of referrals?
I’d say the odds are extremely good that the answer is a loud “yes!” To think, all of this is possible primarily because Roy took the time to learn a new approach, but then made that determination that “theory time is over, and the time for action is here.” See, Roy could have easily decided to wait a few more days until he added more Realtor names to his list, or until he asked my opinion on this approach, or that objection, etc.
But there’s no better teacher than experience is there? So hats off to both Michael and Roy for taking that action. I’m excited to see who else will take action before Day #5 of Loan Officer Unleashed gets here! Keep the momentum going!
Loan Officer Unleashed Round 2
Posted by: | CommentsSo we wrapped up our first round of Loan Officer Unleashed last week Friday. We had more than 600 loan officer participate. We spent 5 days going through the proper steps to generate more referrals from Realtors. I had a blast, and we had loan officers telling us about their results before we even finished up with day 5!
Exciting to be sure, but we did have 1 small problem… Nearly 2,000 loan officers registered! No matter how badly I’d like to help everyone at the same time, it’s just not realistic to pack that many on 1 webinar and expect that your questions will be answered.
So what does that mean? It means that we’re hosting a second round of Loan Officer Unleashed! If you missed round 1, and want to join us for Round 2, then you need to register now before I send out the email invitation to the 1,400 that registered for our waiting list. Here’s the link:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/666206915
Come see an effective mortgage marketing strategy laid out for you step by step in just 1 short week. See you there!
Free Mortgage Marketing Tools
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Stick around my site long enough and you’ll quickly learn something about me… I like to share free stuff! Since we’re talking about mortgage marketing today, I figured we’d kick it off with some excellent tools that you will likely find quite useful.
Today we’re going to merge using the web, and traditional marketing. You already know how I feel about traditional vs. online mortgage marketing. The web offers a huge advantage over traditional methods, as more and more people are using the internet to research, and even select their homes, real estate agents, and loan officers.
However, this does not mean that I am recommending you abandon your offline marketing efforts. Dar from it! I have often found that most of my efforts are enhanced when I marry both online and offline strategies.
So what I’m providing you today is a link to a website (online) where you can find plenty of mortgage marketing tools to help with your traditional marketing. (Offline)See how everything can play nicely together?
Here’s the link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/default.aspx
The link above will bring you to Microsoft’s website. On this site is a particular page where you can perform a search for graphics, and templates. What sort of templates? Sales letters, brochures, fliers, even Power-Point slides. Have a look:
I found this tool to come in especially handy when I was working with real estate agents. My approach was to be a constant source of useful new tools that I would bring to the table. Slides, fliers, sales letter templates, just listed cards and more. You’ll find all of the above on this site available to download for free.
Check back every month, as the site updates on an ongoing basis. I hope you find this link as useful as I did! Free mortgage marketing tools are always welcome right? See you on the next post.
These Statistics Are Proof…
Posted by: | CommentsChad Weber here from the Loan Officer Marketing Lab. Thought I’d share something exciting I read online today. The 2009 National Association Of Realtors Profile Of Buyers And Sellers report was released in December 2009. This is a yearly compilation that the NAR sells on their site for real estate professionals to get a good idea of how the industry is doing, and what has changed in the past year.
Well, I found a great blog post that summarized some of the more important statistics found in this 125.00 report. (See? Reading my emails just saved you 125 dollars! – haha) I found 3 of those statistics useful for loan officers:
In 2009:
- 90% of home buyers used the Internet to help find their home
- 78% of buyers purchased through a real estate agents
- 85% of sellers used an agent to sell
What’s the big deal about these stats? Well first of all, we can go back to previous year profiles released by the NAR to see the growth of the web and how it plays an ever increasing role in how buyers shop. Last year the statistic for those using the web to find a home was 87%. Prior to that it was 84%, and it shrinks little by little the further back you go. (This figure was 2% in 1995, 74% in 2004, 77% in 2005 and so forth)
In other words each year, more people are using the web to shop for a home. This also means that your opportunity to capture home buyers (Who will obviously need a loan soon right?) has gone up year after year, so long as you know how to effective use the web to market yourself. Think about it. You have 90% of all home buyers last year who went online, identified themselves by using search engines, and ultimately spent time actively searching for a home. What if it was your name, or your website that showed up first when these buyers performed a search?
Even though you don’t sell homes, how difficult would it be to work hand in hand with local real estate agents to place homes, or links to homes for sale onto your site? Think about it for even a moment, and you’ll begin to see the opportunity that exists here for enterprising loan officers.
The statistics above also tell us that most buyers and sellers are also using agents to represent them. This means that there is still a huge opportunity to work with high producing real estate agents, and benefit from an avalanche of referrals. Imagine having just 3 or 4 high producers sending you their referrals… What impact would that have on your income?
See what I mean? This really is exciting! I have no real goal for today’s message other than to share this information with you. Perhaps it will get your creative juices flowing? Have a great one!
NOTE: This weeks online marketing webinar is scheduled for Friday: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/842465875
Mortgage Marketing Works? Prove it!
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Ok, this post is for Loan Officer Marketing Lab members. We have hundreds of members who are now spending time and effort on getting their websites to page #1 of Google. While I’ve spent plenty of time demonstrating live how to build a Google friendly website, I have not as of yet spent time publicly demonstrating the effectiveness of proper SEO.
Today I want to change that. If you’re a member of the Loan Officer Marketing Lab, here’s your chance to publicly call me out and force me to PROVE first hand, how to get front page of Google rankings. How does this work? Simple – There’s a form below you can enter your info, and the keyword you think I should target. As a Lab member, you should already know how to do proper keyword research right?
Find a keyword, or even 2 or 3 that you think I should rank my site for. We’ll count the requests, pick the most common keyword, and you’ll get to see us rank the site live! In other words, you get to follow every little step we take (Isn’t that a song?) in the SEO process. No, not just screenshots, you’ll get to see what we did and why, and then see the impact that each step had on our overall rankings.
Why am I doing this? Because while I believe that instructions and verbal steps are great, it’s 10 times better when you can see something in action. Wouldn’t you agree? No mystery, no hiding behind curtains, no smoke and mirrors – You call the shots on the keyword we should target.
My initial guesstimate is that we’ll be ready to kick this off in February, so please submit the keyword/keywords you’d like to see us target:
Remember – The keyword needs to be related to Mortgage Marketing topics, as this is what my site is about. Also, these training sessions will be displayed in the Members Only section of www.loanofficermarketinglab.com
Welcome to 2010
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Hello there! Chad Weber here to welcome you to 2010! All I can say is “WOW!” I distinctly remember sitting at this very same desk early in the morning as I typed out this post here: http://loanofficermarketinglab.com/blog/how-to-get-mortgage-leads-in-2009
It was still a few days before 2009, but I was scrambling looking for a great image to place on that post with “2009″ on it. I finally found the image using the photo Stock Xchange. Free images, and a great resource for anyone who blogs. Anyhow, I really am finding it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that 2009 is done and gone.
The holidays are over and it’s time for me to get to work on making 2010 better than 2009. Throughout 2009 I heard a lot of loan officers ask me if I”timed” my entry into the training industry because I knew things were going to get rough in the mortgage industry. That’s a thoughtful question, but there is one major point that is being missed: I’m still in the mortgage industry. That’s right,my entry into the training industry full time had absolutely nothing to do with me gazing into a crystal ball, and everything to do with me identifying my strengths and my passion.
See, if I were looking at the crystal ball with anything other than shades on, I’d have seen that logically speaking, jumping from originating to training originators would not be the wisest of career choices if I were trying to avoid being impacted by the changes in the market – seeing as how my primary clients – Loan Officers shrank dramatically in 2007 and 2008. Just to give you an example of how this impacted my business, I’m going to show you what my archives say I had in my database of loan officer leads at the beginning of 2008:
January 13 2008 – 13,641 loan officers (These are loan officers who had requested information from me, or to be on my newsletter)
December 4 2008 – Out of those 13,641 loan officers, I received 4,907 emails throughout the year telling me to stop sending the newsletter as they were leaving the industry. That’s more than 1/3 of my database just zapped and gone in less than a year do to loan officers leaving. That was not a fun turn of events for me at all. Especially if I viewed this as an ongoing trend. National statistics also showed that mortgage professionals exited the idustry that year at an incredible rate!
My point? That this turn of events allowed us to go back to the drawing board and refocus our marketing efforts. The result is that the Loan Officer Marketing Lab has continued to grow and each year has been better than the last. This isn’t some ego-maniacal horn trumpet blowing here. This is simply a real live example of using your know-how, brushing up on what gives you an edge, and doing a whole lot of ignoring of the media!
In 2009 my most successful marketing effort was the Loan Officer Project. Prior to launching this, I was advised by no less than 5 other trainers to avoid doing this, as “it would never work!” I was told that I was giving away too much, and people would take advantage of that. You’re darn right they took advantage of it! That was the whole point! I rebuilt my email database of loan officers to the largest it’s ever been, and I did not spend a single thin dime on advertising to do it. Worst market ever in recent history? Maybe, maybe not… Sure wouldn’t know it by looking at my email list!
So to all of you reading this, please take a look at yourself and the business you want. Let’s make this year count. Let’s get busy, and let’s get profitable. You can make it happen. There is absolutely no one who can stop you but yourself. I know the market changes, I know certain rules and regulations seem to make things harder than they need to be, and I know that interest rates will likely go up this year based on what we’ve heard so far.
But you know what? There will still be millions of loans closed this year as well. What marketing plan do you have in place to capture your piece of that pie? Let’s make it the best 2010 possible – Before it’s gone like 2009…
PS – Did you miss the free Loan Officer Project Marketing series? We resume this month – January 2010! Register HERE
Announcement – New Guest Posts
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Hello there!
Welcome to another week full of possibilities! I am very pleased to announce that we have a new guest author here on the Loan Officer Marketing Lab Blog: Chris Hallmark. Many of you may recognize Chris from his successes mentioned earlier last year… Well his successes have not slowed, and he has taken our latest Loan Officer 2.0 techniques and run with them!
Chris has graciously volunteered to post tips, articles and techniques that have served him well in revamping his mortgage business. So let’s welcome Chris Hallmark to the Loan Officer Marketing Lab Blog, and get ready to learn!
Halloween – I Just Couldn’t Resist
Posted by: | CommentsSo I just couldn’t resist… As you already know, each major holiday I feel the need to add at least one post that’s relevant. This year is no different, and I’d be hard pressed to find a more “unique” post than the video below. Sure it’s long, but if your sense of humor is anything like mine, you’ll laugh your butt off when it gets to the dancing portion of the clip… Whoever made this, must have spent days on this, and did a great job matching it up to the real video. Have a look:
So there you go! This is my contribution to Haloween this year. Haha. Oh yes, just a quick reminder: Our Loan Officer Project Pre-Training class begins tomorrow at 1:00 CST. Remember, the 5 days of free online mortgage marketing coaching is the final for the year – No 2nd chances to attend. Here’s the link to get registered:
