Chad 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

Are you a consistent marketer, or do you just try something then give up on it right away?  Do you have a good email list to rely upon?

A good Internet marketer knows the value behind having a sound database to contact whenever they need more business.  It can’t just be any old database though, it has to be CLEAN and highly TARGETED!

What I mean, is that you will need an “opt-in” subsciber list so you don’t get a reputation as being a spammer.  In addition, you wnat the highest possible ROI and return on your time and effort.  And the only way to do that is to build a highly targeted, accurate list. Or it may be an offline list of postal mailing addresses, telephone, or fax numbers.  Just make sure that you gather any contact information, in an ethical manner

The first thing you should do is make up a list of….the people you know, who like and trust you.  Perhaps all those people you’ve already done business with over the years.  How about THEIR family and friends.  Think of a hot demographic that you can target.  It’s not that complicated.

As long as you KNOW your audience, you should be fine.  DO NOT EVER send mass emails to people you are trying to solicit for the first time.  That can get you black listed very fast!

Here are five benefits you get from developing a highly targeting email list:

1) It takes a lot of time and effort to build a huge, effective list. Customer acquisition is one of the greatest marketing expenses. Many marketers toss this investment out the window by selling one thing to a customer, one time, and forgetting about them forever. A good list, on the other hand, lets you advertise for virtually no cost whatsoever.

2) Additional sales to previous customers are often easier to make and more profitable than the initial sale. A relationship of trust has been built, provided the customer is satisfied with his/her purchase, and the service received.

3) You gain leverage. When you approach others to arrange joint ventures, for instance, ownership of a sizeable, properly targeted list is a powerful bargaining asset. It’s a great way to find business partners and such.

4) You can share your list with other marketers (for a price)  People will pay for solid information these days.  Just make sure that it is a clean list and that it has been scrubbed for misinformation.

5) Repeat business is crucial to the success of virtually all businesses. Good lists turn into longtime customers that will keep coming back for more

Chris Hallmark

About 2 years ago I became fascinated with tracking my sales and conversion metrics. We are all aware of the fact that the truly successful sales professionals track their numbers and watch them closely. It only makes sense right?

If you don’t watch your numbers closely, how can you tell what works, and what is a waste of your time and/or money? Moving on, I started out using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and entered not just my sales and prospecting efforts for the day, but I also included notes as to how many calls were first time prospecting efforts compared to follow ups.

A funny pattern emerged when I sat down at the end of the quarter to review my efforts. Nearly 89% of my sales required 9 or more follow-up calls to close. Now before you throw your hands in the air thinking “That’s it! This guy is the worst salesman on the planet!” let me explain.

Selling to loan officers, real estate agents, or any other business to business call efforts is often an uphill battle. Calling someone at work is naturally a hit or miss operation since the person will likely be busy. Tracking my numbers, I found that out of my 9 call average, 4 of them were listed as “no answer” or “got the voice-mail.”

But, (Now we’re about to get to the good stuff) the remaining 5 calls were littered with notes such as “wants me to call back tomorrow” or “too busy this week, call end of month.” At first glance, many of us would look at these statements as delay tactics, or put offs from a person who is too afraid to say no.

Yet, it’s amazing just how often I have not heard from someone for 3 or 4 weeks, who originally claimed they were itching to buy, then suddenly a phone call lands me on the phone with this prospect who is now telling me “Oh yea! I completely forgot about this! Let me go get my credit card…”

The point here is that I’ve seen so many loan officers and real estate agents get discouraged when someone they thought was a good prospect suddenly blows them off. Hey it’s human nature to be disappointed right?

But please, do yourself a favor and step back to view at the bigger picture. Life is so unpredictable, you can go from having the best week of your life on Monday and Tuesday, to a living nightmare on Wednesday and Thursday…. and back again! 

Your prospect may have just received bad news at work, or is smack in the middle of a family emergency.(I once was in the middle of taking an order when my client asked me to hold… He returned to tell me he had to go as he was just informed his son passed away…)

Life is hectic, and despite our thoughts to the contrary, more often than not we are not the first thing our customers think of when they wake up in the morning! As difficult as it often was for me to accept that all these prospects kept “forgetting” about our phone appointment, or that they promised to place an order this morning and didn’t, the bottom line is that they quite likely did get caught up in the rush – rush atmosphere of daily work.

How many times have you and I forgotten an appointment, a phone call, or to run an errand? Since these appointments mean the difference between a paycheck or not for us, it is definitely a level 10 priority for us. For a buyer, he/she will move forward at his own pace.

So what am I getting at with all these examples and analogies? Mainly this… Follow up, follow-up again, and follow-up some more! Of course you want to apply common sense as to who you spend time with, and who is a priority, but if you have built an automated follow-up mechanism for yourself (Auto-responders for example), then you can set your drip marketing campaigns in motion with very little time or effort on your part.

Chris Hallmark – http://www.loanofficermarketinglab.com/chrish