The sales process in a brokerage is unique, in that you’re essentially selling prospects a beneficial service at no cost to them. But, at the same time, it’s also essentially identical to the sales process in every other industry. Brokers need to find leads, qualify them, make contact and sell the service while handling prospect objections, and then close the deal. While no sales process is perfect, there are some ideal steps – outlined below – those good mortgage brokers can follow to try to ensure the highest possible success rates in turning prospects into clients.

 

1) Qualify All New Leads

New leads come in all the time, from a variety of sources, and it’s important to be able to identify which deserve the highest prioritization. Just because a prospect makes contact or fills out a form on your site doesn’t mean they’re actually ready to engage your services, and chasing the wrong leads can eat up time, effort, and money extremely quickly.

One excellent way to organize leads is to employ a customer resource management platform, like CRMDialer, that offers advanced lead management. With a good CRM, you can automatically log all contacts with leads to their respective accounts, easily add notes on in-person interactions, and access all that data in a matter of a few clicks. As a result, you’ll be able to easily generate a high-level of clarity on the quality of your various leads and to prioritize them accordingly. 

 

2) Perform an Initial Consultation with Ready Prospects

Once you’ve identified the leads that are the most likely to turn into signed clients, your job is to try to get them in for an initial consultation. To be clear, that doesn’t mean you should just cast-off colder leads. Cool leads can warm over time, so you should keep in touch. But only the leads most ready now should be brought in for an initial consultation. 

The initial consultation is all about listening. This is where you’ll learn about your prospective new clients, what their goals are, what their financial situation is like, and how much they’re looking to take on with their new mortgage. The initial consultation is also the time for you to begin building up the prospect’s trust in you as a broker. One great way to foster a good relationship is to record all of the information from the meeting in the prospect’s file in your CRM, ensuring the next time you speak to them, you’ll remember every detail. 

 

3) Outline Your Strategy for the Prospect’s Loan

Once you’ve taken all of the client’s information and have a clear understanding of where they want to be and how their financial situation will impact the bank’s decision, you can get to work building out and documenting your plan for getting them the best mortgage possible. This plan exists for the benefit of both you and the lead, but it’s a particularly useful tool for closing the deal and turning the prospect into a signed client, so include everything your prospects could possibly want to know. 

The report should include an outline of the prospect’s goals and financial positions, lender options and loan types available, information on terms, rate types, and repayment options, pre-approval information, and more. It’s also a good idea to include any documents you’ll need the client to sign in an appendix. 

 

4) Close the Deal

If you’ve prepared a good report and you’ve successfully dealt with any of the prospect’s objections, now is the time to close the deal by getting client approval for you to begin negotiating with lenders on their behalf. This will involve the client signing some paperwork, and the easier you make that process for them, the quicker it’ll get done, and the faster you can get to work for your new client. 

Some CRM tools offer electronic signature functionality, enabling you to build e-signature right into your documents so your new clients can sign them digitally at home without the need to print, scan, or transport them to you. A great option is to include an e-signature enabled authorization form right in the planning document you sent to the client in step 3. That way, if they’re happy with it, they can sign off on the authorization right away. 

 

CRMDialer is an industry-leading customer resource management platform ideal for brokerage teams, as it automates and streamlines almost all aspects of the sales process, from cold calling to managing leads to scheduling appointments to document transfer and beyond. If you’d like to learn more about how CRMDialer can change the way your brokerage operates click here to schedule a demo of the software.