Let’s face it, almost every mortgage loan originator (MLO) in the country hates cold calling. I too am not a big fan of it, as there are so many other ways to grow your referral business, and many of them are much faster.
I am a big believer in using resources that are already available to you, rather than trying to start from scratch. Oftentimes, MLOs have tremendous business building resources in the palm of their hand, yet they don’t use them to their fullest extent. Some originators believe they need to focus their energy on learning what they believe to be the latest and greatest marketing technology, instead of using resources that are staring them right in the face.
Take this three question test:
►1. Do you have any strong relationships with real estate agents? Even one relationship is good.
►2. Have you ever actively asked your real estate referral agent partner(s) if they would introduce you to other agents in their office? “Actively” means that you consistently ask, versus just waiting for your agent to offer to introduce you to other agents.
►3. Have you ever actively asked your real estate referral partner(s) if they would introduce you to an agent in another real estate office?
Having trained and surveyed more than 100,000 LOs in the past five years, here are the statistics of the answers to these questions.
Survey results
►97 percent of LOs stated they have at least one strong real estate agent relationship.
►Less than 40 percent of LOs have actively asked for introductions to agents in the same office.
►Only two percent of LOs have asked their existing real estate agent relationships for a referral to agents in another office.
►When originators are asked “why” they don’t ask for referrals to another office, 98 percent of them respond, “They never thought of it.”
One simple strategy you can implement immediately is to start “actively” asking your existing real estate agent partners for introductions to agents both inside and outside of their offices. If you have a strong relationship with the agent, they will have no problem referring you.
The final key to implementing this success strategy is to know how to ask your real estate agent referral partner(s) for the referrals. To make implementation of this strategy easy for you, please feel free to visit WarriorSalesAcademy.com/agentreferral to watch a video that explains exactly how to execute this strategy.
In the event that you do not have even one single real estate agent relationship, simply start asking everyone in your sphere of influence if they know any agents. You can ask, friends, family members, accountants, attorneys, even your dry cleaners, etc. … and I guarantee you, someone will know an agent and introduce you.
Ron Vaimberg is president of The Warrior Sales Academy and a leading national trainer and coach to MLOs. He may be reached by phone at (866) 360-6645, e-mail
[email protected] or visit WarriorSalesAcademy.com.
