Value-Based Selling for Mortgage Professionals
By Steve McCann
Open any newspaper or listen to any news report and you can’t help but hear negativity and pessimism about the state of the current mortgage industry. Mortgage company layoffs, company bankruptcies, and record high foreclosure rates are front page headlines. As a result, many mortgage professionals are either leaving the business (some by choice and some by circumstance), or they’re staying in the business but struggling to survive.
From 2000 through 2005, interest rates were down, property values were rising and many homeowners wanted to refinance or purchase new properties. Today the reality is much different. While people are still buying homes and many do need to refinance to get out of an adjustable rate mortgage, the prospect pool is not as plentiful. Mortgage professionals have to prospect more than ever just to stay afloat.
To prospect successfully, one of the things that can set you apart from the other mortgage professionals is your level of excitement and enthusiasm about your company or product. Having a demeanor of “The mortgage industry may not be great right now, but my company is and here’s why…” will make your prospecting efforts easier because people will react to your positive energy. Realize that when you lack belief or excitement about your offerings, prospects can sense it.
That’s when they choose to do business with someone else. But when you exude excitement and passion for what you’re doing, prospects take notice and want to do business with you.
What’s Your Value?
Many salespeople (and, yes, mortgage professionals are in fact salespeople) believe that the way to effectively sell their products is to talk about benefits, not features. For example, instead of saying, “We have in-house underwriting,” which is a feature-based statement, they translate it into a benefit-based statement such as, “Because of our in-house underwriting, we can talk face-to-face with the loan decision maker and explain why you’re credit-worthy, which gives us a better chance of getting your loan approved quickly and easily.”
While selling benefits is far better than selling features, the best method to sell a prospect is to talk about clear and compelling value. With value-based selling, you set the stage for a successful sale. First, you establish trust with your prospects.
They see that you not only understand their needs, but that you grasp how the value of your mortgage products could positively impact their lives. The prospecting meeting and sales cycle then become a natural progression of conversation. The process looks something like this:
- You initiate the contact and offer compelling value.
- The prospect perceives you as a trust-worthy source who has a genuine interest in solving problems or creating more opportunities.
- Because the prospect understands the value you bring, he or she is more willing to open up and share needs and wants.
- You are able to offer a solution that you know matches your prospect’s needs.
- Your prospect wants to know more about your solution, so you go on to share feature and benefit statements.
So how exactly do you determine the value you’re selling? It’s actually quite simple: Determine what value you get excited about and that would make you buy your mortgage products. When you can do that one simple thing, prospecting will be easier than you ever thought possible. To help you uncover and convey the true value you sell, consider the following points:
- Understand all the reasons why people do business with you.
Start by answering the question, “Why do people buy our product?” Get expert input from the wise people in your organization if you can’t come up with some solid answers on your own. Some common reasons to get you started may include:
- You can offer a certain program that is ideal for your niche.
- You have in-house underwriting.
- You have access to hundreds of loan programs.
- You have the ability to lend to various types of credit worthy borrowers.
- You offer quick turnaround/closing time.
These are just examples of possible reasons. Create your own list of 10 to 15 reasons. This step may take some time, but it’s time well spent.
- Personalize the top three reasons.
From all the reasons you come up with, create a short list of the 3 to 5 most compelling reasons that would make you buy your products. In other words, as a potential customer of your mortgage products, what would make you buy it? Identify which specific value statements excite you. What would you need to hear to compel you to do business with yourself? Then, personalize the value statements as individual stories experienced by you or others from your life and share this real-life enthusiasm. Remember that prospects like stories. They like to hear how others have fared by using your products and doing business with you. Stories speak to people’s emotions, which is really how they make a buying decision. In fact, when most people decide to buy, they do so with their emotions and then they back it up with logic. Therefore, lead with the emotions.
- Develop metrics.
To speak to your prospects’ logical side, develop metrics that you can use in your true stories and that coincide with the compelling reason or value statement. Using these compelling reasons and metrics paints pictures in the prospects’ minds of them living with the “sweet spot” value they most desire. Examples of metrics you can use in your stories include:
- “From application to final approval, our company’s turnaround time is 5 days or less.” This metric is valuable for someone who needs a quick closing.
- “We’re able to find the top 5 lowest rated lenders for each particular loan program.” This metric helps prospects realize that you’ll be saving them money and making sure they get the best loan program available.
- “We are currently converting our clients’ adjustable rate mortgages to fixed rate products and saving them an average of $125 per month on their mortgage payment.” This metric speaks for itself. Who doesn’t want to save money on their monthly mortgage payment?
A New Era of Mortgage Sales Success
One of the common reasons for mortgage professionals to fail is their inability to convey the value of their company or products and how that value would help the prospective customer. Remember that forced enthusiasm comes across and is the sure-fire sign of an inexperienced salesperson. The successful salesperson has a belief in his or her product that comes across as a natural enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, you do not magically receive this knowledge of value when you start working for a company. Rather, you have to work for it. Therefore, use the steps discussed to develop the skill of “selling the value you would buy” and you will possess that rare attribute of natural enthusiasm. As a result, you’ll close more loans and enjoy a successful mortgage career, regardless of the current industry happenings.
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Steve McCann is a dynamic sales speaker and consultant committed to redefining the link between prospecting and profitability. He teaches sales groups how to develop and perfect two skills critical for top performance in the selling profession. These skills are sales prospecting and sales goal achievement. Steve is author of the new book, “Client-Conscious Prospecting” How to Overcome Call Reluctance and Reach Your Full Sales Potential. To receive the free tips booklet titled, “5 steps to Creating a High-Payoff Prospecting System”, send an email to info@SteveMcCannPro.com