Finding A Unique Referral Partner

Originators who have a niche can focus on developing expansive networks of referral sources that don’t involve real estate agents. Instead, they can focus on nontraditional sources such as divorce attorneys, immigration attorneys, wedding planners, or even high school guidance counselors. The potential for sources within each niche is limitless.

Now, here is how to win them over.

Divorce Attorneys & Financial Consultants

Divorce financial consultant Olivia Summerhill is constantly being bombarded with cold calls from loan originators, bankers, and wealth managers. But originators can avoid the cold shoulder by showing these divorce attorneys and consultants that they have specific designations or certifications in divorce lending.

For example, it couldn’t hurt originators to put “certified divorce lending professional” under the current position field in their LinkedIn profiles. Then, when they go to connect with divorce attorneys or financial consultants, they won’t have to do as much convincing.

“Niching down and actually specifically working with one type of clientele that’s gonna most likely get them in the door,” Summerhill said. “If someone on LinkedIn reaches out to me and they actually have a certification and divorce as a lending professional, I’m more likely to have a conversation with them.”

Summerhill works primarily with high-net-worth women going through divorces — a fascinating niche. The words “high net worth” can bring a smile to a loan officer’s face because of potentially bigger commissions. However, to be deemed trustworthy by attorneys or divorce financial consultants, the originator must be patient and emotionally intelligent.

Divorce is an intensely emotional process, even for the person who chooses to leave the marriage. It’s common for divorcees to feel overwhelmed and confused — most don’t have a clear roadmap for how to process the loss of a spouse, the building of a new life, and creating an identity separate from the marriage.

“The emotions that go into it are probably the most complicated part of it,” Summerhill said. Even in best-case scenarios where the divorce is amicable and collaborative, she said, “The emotions going into that house are going to be more elevated — let’s just use the word extreme — than selling the house because the kids are out and we want to go buy a vacation home and then travel the world.”

Summerhill takes on celebrity clients from time to time. Due to confidentiality laws and agreements, she cannot disclose who these celebrities are, but she can explain her decision-making process in picking a loan officer to take on those particular clients. The number one rule is don’t swoon too hard.

“They have to be extremely confidential and they absolutely have to be discreet,” Summerhill said. “For that trust to work, you can’t be impressed with names. … You have to be able to say no to these people who have most of their world say yes to them. They have the managers, they have the staff, they have all of these assistants saying ‘yes, absolutely.’ So you can’t be intimidated by them.”

Immigration Attorneys

Renata Castro of the Castro Legal Group has been an immigration attorney for nearly a decade, but her career in immigration law spans longer than that. Castro used to raise EB-5 capital for foreign investors looking to move to the United States through U.S.-based investments. She has a team of about 10 loan officers she refers clients to — all certified and experienced in working with immigrants.

Castro previously worked as a loan officer on the wholesale side for the now-defunct Green Point Mortgage and World Savings Bank, so she understands the complexities of working with this demographic.

“The main problem with financing or working with immigrant clients is that a lot of loan officers don’t take the time to understand the different tiers of immigration status,” Castro said. “They don’t ask the lenders the hard questions from the get-go. So they will just submit a pre-approval, get some kind of rate quote, and not delve into the different layers of that deal.”

Without asking lenders the hard questions, originators can’t gather all the proper documents and will see their deals implode at the closing table. Then they need to call back the attorney asking for a copy of a green card or a letter from a lawyer. Castro says she sees this happen time and time again, typically from loan officers who haven’t taken the time to learn the different requirements.

“It is essential to understand all the limitations imposed by temporary immigrant status, such as work visas — which are limited in scope of time and authorization,” Castro said. “The best way to do that is to meet with an immigration attorney who will likely become your referral partner, and ask to be educated in the different visas.”

Any originator out there who is fluent in a foreign language should consider working with immigrants and connecting with their attorneys. Language fluency is important, but not essential, Castro said. Alternatively, a mortgage broker can have team members who are fluent in the language of the target market. She advises that it’s easier to focus on one market at a time.

Business Consultants For Immigrants

The American Dream isn’t necessarily about buying a house; It’s about building generational wealth. While homeownership is a primary catalyst for building wealth, immigrants also can accomplish this by starting a family business. According to the Small Business Administration, immigrants account for 18% of business owners with employees and nearly 23% of business owners without employees. Additionally, 37% of employer businesses involving accommodation and food services and 46% of transportation and warehouse nonemployer businesses are owned by immigrants.

The data clearly demonstrates that many immigrants love to pursue the entrepreneurial path, but getting a business loan from a bank is notoriously difficult, especially for those who have poor credit or no credit at all. For example, Japan has no formal nationwide credit system. In many other countries, a borrower’s creditworthiness is calculated differently than in the U.S., so immigrants’ credit scores may transfer over poorly.

James Chittenden, a business consultant and co-founder of OneClickAdvisors.com, works with immigrants who need alternative sources of funding for their business. Oftentimes he recommends that his clients pull equity from their homes to access the funds they need. In his case, the roles are reversed where he’s calling up loan officers to get these transactions completed.

“A lot of people, immigrants included, are more inclined to take a risk when necessary,” Chittenden said. “If you don’t wanna risk your home for a business, then maybe that’s an indication of somewhere in your plan you need to look at and figure out where your lack of confidence is.”

According to Chittenden, if a client is not willing to invest their kids’ college fund into this business or mortgage their mother’s house, then perhaps the business is not worth pursuing.

Chittenden has built a network of originators he can contact when clients need a cash out-refi, a home equity loan, or a HELOC to fund their startup or small business.

“The best ones are responsive and know all the possible ways to obtain credit given the client’s unique situation,” Chittenden said. “If it cannot be done, they are ready with answers to help the client turn today’s ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ in the future, or alternative financing. My clients tell me which lenders handle them well.”

Wedding Planners

Smith, of Just The Tips Coaching, is an expert in finding nontraditional referral sources to fit a particular niche. Nontraditional in this sense means outside the realm of typical referral sources such as realtors, real estate agents, certified public accountants, and divorce lawyers. For example, wedding planners can be great sources for generating leads.

How did Smith come up with this genius idea of going to wedding planners for referrals? It’s simple. He thought about when a consumer typically thinks of buying or refinancing a home and who is around when that happens. In a divorce, one spouse usually keeps the house while the other refinances or they both need to buy a new house. The divorce attorney will know what the decision is and have their client’s financial information, making them a great referral source. Wedding planners are not all that different.

“Getting married is a psychological trigger that leads to the buying, selling, refinancing of homes,” Smith said. “What people are involved when that psychological trigger occurs? Wedding planners, florists, calligraphers, DJs, whatever. … These are people that don’t get the kind of love real estate agents get from mortgage originators.”

The wedding planner is likely in close contact with the soon-to-be married couple or at least the bride who is most often the primary decision-maker. The planner will likely overhear or flat-out ask the couple about their plans for moving in together and whether that involves buying property or refinancing a mortgage. If they are, the wedding planner could then hand over the originator’s business card.

However, originators can take it one step further by offering wedding planners the idea of setting up a private Facebook group. Smith demonstrates how this pitch could work:

“I am going to start a private Facebook group for you, your vendors, and your customers. I’ll make you an admin even though I’ll do all the work for you. You go ahead and add all of your vendors, your calligrapher, your caterer, your florist, your DJ, so on and so forth. And then you can start adding your clients to that Facebook group,” Smith said. “If they have questions about the flowers, your florist is gonna be able to pipe up. I’ll keep my nose out of it. I don’t want to influence anybody unless it becomes a question. Somebody’s asking for information on housing or mortgages, I’ll certainly pipe up.”

High School Guidance Counselors

This may sound quite random, but originators with a niche in financing boomers looking to downsize, high school guidance counselors could be a great referral source.

Guidance counselors typically meet with students to prepare them for college, and they might even know if the student’s siblings have also left for college. Therefore, they should know which parents are going to be empty-nesters this spring.

“I want to form relationships with the high school guidance counselors because they have their finger on the pulse,” Smith said. “The older sibling already went through, the younger siblings are about to graduate.”

When the last kid in the house prepares to get sent off to college, that’s typically when the parents begin to think of downsizing. Or, in some cases, the parents may want to take out a HELOC or home equity loan to contribute more to their kid’s college education fund. In other words, this is another life event that leads to the buying, selling, and refinancing of homes.

So, for any originators out there who have kids either in high school, out of high school, or soon to be entering high school, they can easily build a relationship with one or more guidance counselors at the local school.

Just a reminder, this introduction will work with a simple phone call. In today’s day and age, randomly showing up to a school is not the proper thing to do.

“I would probably use an icebreaker and say, ‘Hey, my child is in your school,” Smith said. “‘I don’t know if you’re their exact guidance counselor or if you will be, but I thought I would at least have a conversation with you about what you think kids are doing after high school. What do you recommend they should do? By the way, here’s my situation. I’m a loan officer for company XYZ, and this is my education level.’”

Notice that this is not a sales pitch, but a regular conversation. The key to building an authentic and long-lasting relationship is being friendly, personal, and helpful to people. In this example, the originator casually mentioned what they do for a living without offering their services. It’s better to avoid making a sales pitch in the first conversation.

If the originator’s child already graduated from high school, they could call up the guidance counselor and say, “I think you were my son John’s guidance counselor when he was in high school two years ago. He’s in college, but doesn’t love it. Could I just share my concerns with you and see if you have any feedback?”