22 Sep Get Through The Noise
There’s so much noise out there in the mortgage space today. In light of this noise, how do you engage with a prospect and develop an active dialogue. What do I mean by noise? Technology vendors are throwing features and functions at people. They say their product can do this or that. In the end, everyone says that they do everything. They are throwing out the what to their multitude of prospects but not the why. Why as a prospect do I care about that feature or function? How is it going to improve my business?
What’s really happening is that people are getting inundated with buzzwords and sales pitches. There’s so much information out there in the market today that it just creates noise. When there’s so much noise there is no meaningful impact. So, let’s talk for a bit about how to make that meaningful impact.
Think for a second: How do you change the reliance on hype? How do you engage the prospect in a meaningful way? The problem is the message can get diluted if all you’re giving is a sales pitch all the time. Sure, you’ve got this new feature, but so what?
Now let’s talk about some solutions. One of the ways to get that meaningful contact is to know your prospect. Don’t just memorize your brochure, do some research. Think about what’s important to that customer. Also, think about what’s important to their borrowers. In order to get this information you should send out surveys to get information on their buying habits.
You also need to look at their website. What are they talking about? What news do they have on their site? That research gives you an understanding of what’s important to them. For example, Flagstar Bank, on its website, says, “From its earliest days, Flagstar has looked for fresh ways to put technology to work for its customers and today is recognized as a pioneer in paperless mortgage processing. In fact, for six consecutive years Mortgage Technology magazine has named Flagstar one of the Top 25 Tech-Savvy Lenders.”
We can see that Flagstar prides itself on being a “pioneer.” Flagstar was the first bank to sell e-mortgages to both GSEs. This should give you an insight into this bank. They are using technology as a differentiator. They want to be ahead of the market in their use of technology. Surely, a pitch on features alone is not going to work with a bank like this.
If you know about that prospect, you can do something much more targeted. Don’t contribute to the noise. Do something that is meaningful to that prospect.
Another tactic is to step outside of your company sales pitch for a second. It’s very important that as you are looking to differentiate and stand out, that you share ideas and thought leadership. Don’t be too salesy, latching on to every buzz word, look at ways that you can genuinely improve the mortgage process while adding value to your potential client.