For as long as I can remember in the mortgage industry, we've had a heavy focus on customer acquisition. Once we close a loan, we tend to drop that customer into a database, move onto the next one, and forget completely about the customer we've acquired. We've always been very outward facing—looking for someone new to sell a loan.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. New customers are new opportunities. We cannot exist solely on the customers we've acquired in the past. If we tried to do that, our growth would be severely limited. But I do think that we miss a great deal of opportunities by failing to search our existing pool of customers for new opportunities.
Of course, there are potentials for refinancing and second home purchases, but it goes beyond that. The most important aspect of paying greater attention to past customers is the opportunity they provide for referrals. Across all industries, businesses live and die on the reputations they generate from their existing customers. The mortgage industry is no different. If we ignore our past customers, we are failing to tap into our greatest source of all for new business development. Past customers aren't simply sources of past income; they can also be great resources for future income.
So, what about you? Have you been keeping in touch with the customers you've acquired? Or, do you forget about them and move on? In today's market, we've got to follow every lead. Revisit our past customers; they may just have more to offer than you think.
David Lykken, a 43-year veteran of the mortgage industry, is president of Transformational Mortgage Solutions (TMS), a management consulting firm that provides transformative business strategies to owners and “C-Level” executives via consulting, executive coaching and various communications strategies. He is a frequent guest on FOX Business News and hosts his own weekly podcast called “Lykken On Lending” heard Monday’s at 1:00 p.m. ET at LykkenOnLending.com. David’s phone number is (512) 759-0999 and his e-mail is [email protected].
