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 By: Bob Rutledge |
This blog post is a continuation of a previous post regarding my quest to reach a minimum of 500 leads for the month of August.
To Go Fishing You Need Bait
If you want to receive a lot of home buyer leads you need the bait that will attract what home buyers want, they want to buy a home. Your best bait is listings, and to be able to use listings as bait you have to have real estate agents who have listings.
The RSVP system was developed as a Joint Venture Lead Generation and Marketing Program to help my real estate agent partners generate a lot of leads, have a tool that creates a huge seperation gap, and market the agent and their listings. The RSVP system does the same for me, create seperation from the herd and provide me with a ton of leads. This isn’t a program that I want to provide to just any real estate agent, so I made the decision early to keep the number of participating real estate agents down to a small number in total with just a few coming from specific regions of town.
Not All Real Estate Agents are the Same
The number one criteria for initial consideration, the agent had to have at least 6 listings that were in the sweet spot of our buyer market, the First Time Home Buyer price range. If they had the number of listings then I checked out the days on market, if they had FTHB listings but the listings were on the market longer than the average DOM I assumed the agent had defienct skills or they had bad listings, either way I eliminated them.
Of course, I had my own stable of real estate agents, this is where I started, some were quickly eliminated because they did not meet the number of listings but a good solid base were placed on the list to be interviewed. Yes, I said interviewed, I developed a set of interview questions so I could better understand whether the RSVP system would be appropriate for the agent.
Not all agents want to grow, not all agents want to be a top producer, many real estate agents are happy right where they are, I wanted to know where they wanted to go professionally. Also, since I was offering a system that would generate large number of leads I needed to know if the agent agreed with me on what a lead is, did they have a lead generation system now, how well did it work for them, do they have the capability to manage a data base, would they be willing to work within a system, and would they allow a loan officer to hold them accountable. I also asked if they had read ‘The Millionaire Real Estate Agent’, the entire RSVP system is based on the principles from this book. Could they look long term to judge the value of the RSVP system, would they wait 3 to 6 months for it to happen.
After I determined who from my group of agents I wanted to work with I then hand picked 110 agents to recruit and spent a full day, Monday, hand delivering invitations to participate in RSVP. Actually, I didn’t hand deliver them I drove my teenage daughter to all the offices and she made the deliveries. I waited until the next week before I started a follow up call campaign, though I did get several calls right away to set up a meeting most who called me were from my existing base of agents. In total I had a 27 percent appointment ratio or 45 appointments, I am still in the process of interviewing some of these agents. The agents I did not reach were placed on a drip campaign for further simmering and stewing.
Landing the Whales
I did have one agent contact me which really suprised me. I had chosen this agent for the reasons above, he has a total of 43 listings currently, but also because I had noticed his marketing and lead generation system are very similar to RSVP. We met for breakfast on a Friday morning, the meeting was scheduled for 8:00 I arrived at 7:30 he arrived at 7:40, already I liked him. Long story to short, we found a mutual field of conversation that escalated to several e-mail conversations over the week-end while he and his partner were in Las Vegas.
Here is an excerpt from an email I received from him:
Look forward to continuing our conversations. I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on the following
Later this week I have another opportunity to speak with an agent who has 65 listings and knows of this other agent and has been wanting to do the same type of lead generation but just couldn’t figure it all out. By the end of this week I should have nearly all the agent interviews concluded, then I will have to begin the process of determining who is in and who is out.
* How would you see – from a mortgage perspective – handling 1000+ inquiries from Craigslist, websites, etc per month – and turning them into additional mortgage business regardless their interest of working with us for Real Estate
* Educational Opportunities. We have been teaching/coaching and training. Were doing a monthly event with up to 70 agents in attendance with ______, would like you to do this.
* Ordering Copies of Your Books for us as a recruiting Tool.
* Creating a win-win for you to meet with and recruit agents into our shop – a lead generation (sales oriented environment) from which they can receive top shelf support and thrive and grow.
Did I miss anything? We’ll reach out to you next week about scheduling for the week of the 27th.
Go Where the Home Buyers Congregate
IF you want to do lead generation to find potential future home buyers you need to go where the home buyers are, they are on the internet and they are in their cars. A NAR statistic that I recently read stated; 87% of all home buyers are on the internet looking for information and veiwing listings, 68% of those internet people will drive by the house they are interested in once they find it on the internet. If you can control a large number of worthwhile listings you can generate a lot of leads once they find you and you make a valued call to action.
| About the author: |
Bob Rutledge
I have been a professional mortgage consultant since 1995. My past employment and educational history has provided me the unique tools that I utilize to help me succeed. After graduating college for the first time I worked for the world's largest small business marketing and advertising sales consultancy. After 12 years in Marketing and Advertising I went to work as a Stock Broker/Analysis after graduating college a couple more times. Having degrees and experience in Marketing and Finance has aided me tremendously in developing skills and tools as a Mortgage Loan Officer. |
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By: Bob Rutledge |
BHAG, Big Hairy (Fill in the Blank) Goals! You gotta have some BHAG in your business plan because if you shoot for the Moon and miss you may just end up in the STARS. One of my BHAG is for the month of August 2009 and it is to generate 500 home buyer leads.
WHY?
Of course for the obvious reason, to close more loans, create a security blanket around my business, and because I can. For the life of me I can not remember who I heard this from so any help would be appreciated; ‘it is the person with the largest database that wins’. The more people who want to buy a home that knows me and listens to me the more business I will close.
I feel that to be truly successful as a loan officer and/or real estate agent you have to master two things and two things only, Lead Generation and Database Management. If you can generate and capture a relevant number of people who have raised their hands and told you that they are considering buying a new home in the foreseeable future and you communicate to them consistently providing worthwhile information and valuable call to actions you will have a steady stream of renewing business.
In his book; “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent’, Gary Keller goes into great depth regarding this subject, to paraphrase, he tells his audience, ‘if you don’t believe you are in the lead generation business….then today is a good day to quit’. I take some literary license in what I just quoted but that it is what I got out of it. He also talks about lead conversion ratios, for leads similar to what I am generating Mr. Keller states I should expect a 1 in 50 monthly conversion ratio. If I want to close 10 loans every month from my pool of leads I need to stay in touch with at least 500 people who will be buying a new home in the near future. These are people who contacted me, who asked for information, who asked I pre-qualify or pre-approve them for a loan, these are future home buyers who have invited me into their home buying process.
HOW?
I place myself where the greatest number of potential home buyers gather, on the Internet and at the homes they are interested in. I think we have all heard that 87% of all home buyers start and maintain their search for information and to view homes on the Internet. But, did you also know that 68% of all Internet home buyers once they find a house they like on the internet will drive by that house?
I put myself on the Internet in the most used Internet sites for listings and information, Realtor.com, Craigslist.com, ActiveRain, and many of the other most used listing web sites, blog sites, and social networking sites. I also put myself at about 100 to 150 listed homes, a small but significant portion of all listed homes in my area.
Through what I refer to as a joint venture lead generation and marketing program I maintain a decent number of real estate agents and their listings to create a synergy that produces significant volumes of leads for both of us. In fact, I have a title for my program, RSVP which stands for Reciprocal Success Valued Partnership.
Using listings as bait to draw out potential home buyers I offer a call to action that drives home buyers to contact me, contact the real estate agent, call into a message center to request additional information, or go to my web site to fill out a pre-qualification questionnaire.
For every 50 listings I have within the system I average about 4.5 leads every day, convert that to a monthly number and it is 135 leads per month for every 50 listings. I also do a few other lead generation programs that produce far lesser numbers, added all together about 1.3 per day, but its having the ability to partner with a real estate agent and utilize their listings that creates the most leads.
My List of Tools
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Real Estate Agents with Listings
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Valued Call to Actions
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Website, Landing Page, Squeeze Page
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Call Capture and a call back system
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Individual Listing Web Site creator
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Auto Responder and Contact Management System
In upcoming blog posts I will discuss each tool, how I use them, specifics and generalizations.
500 Leads in August!
To reach 500 leads in August using the ratios mention earlier I estimate I need about 186 listings, as I write this blog I have a current inventory of 112 listings that are using my individual listing web site program. I am also recruiting several new real estate agents, agents in certain areas of town where I want a better presence and who have a large portion of their listings in the sweet spot of our home buying market, the First Time Home Buyer price range. This week alone I have interviewed 10 real estate agents and next week I have 8 interviews set up, so far.
I want to carry an inventory of 2o0 to 250 listings which if statistics hold true will easily produce 500 leads in the month of August. If I can’t hit these numbers, at least I tried to reach the moon and at worse will need to settle for being among the stars. There’s always next month.
| About the author: |
|
Bob Rutledge
I have been a professional mortgage consultant since 1995. My past employment and educational history has provided me the unique tools that I utilize to help me succeed. After graduating college for the first time I worked for the world's largest small business marketing and advertising sales consultancy. After 12 years in Marketing and Advertising I went to work as a Stock Broker/Analysis after graduating college a couple more times. Having degrees and experience in Marketing and Finance has aided me tremendously in developing skills and tools as a Mortgage Loan Officer. |
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By: Bob Rutledge |
When joining with real estate agents to become mutual success partners it becomes apparent that it is a numbers game. I liken the process to a frog kissing contest, you need to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your princess and/or prince. You can avoid chapped lips from kissing too many frogs that never poof into something worthwhile if you apply the Pareto Principle to your efforts.
The Pareto Principle also known as the 80/20 rule, the ‘law of the vital few’ as well as ‘the principle of factor sparsity’ states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It is a very common rule of thumb in business that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. This principle certainly holds true in the real estate world.
A recent stat that I saw attributed to the National Association of Realtors was that 22% of the real estate agents do 90% of the business, now I’m not too sure about this stat because I really do not believe anything coming from NAR but in my town the 80/20 rule is very accurate. There are just over 10,000 real estate agents in what makes up the St. Louis area, of those it seems that about 20 percent of these agents close at least 6 transactions a year.
I have no idea where I picked up this next factoid but I always say that the average real estate agent has the ability to refer 6 transactions annually to a loan officer, the average real estate agent is NOT the 80 percenters! The lower end real estate agents are to be avoided at all costs, it is the upper 20 percent that is mine and should be your target.
I divide the 20 percent into two catagories, the upper 5% and the remaining 15 percent of the top producer. The upper 5% I refer to as Elephants and in another post I will discuss how to go Elephant Hunting, these heavy hitters are completely different than the majority not only in their production but how to attract them to you.
So why concentrate on the remaining 15 percenters? It is a simple numbers game, we have 10,000 real estate agents in my town, throw away the bottom 80% and you have 2,000 real estate agents who produce great to decent numbers. We are going to take and place to the side the top 5% of producing agents or 500 elephants, you are now left with 1500 frogs that need to be kissed.
If the average agent in this group can send you 6 transactions annually, which is extremely low but I use this number to build my business plan, then how many agents do you need to recruit to become your success partner? Say you want to close 100 mortgages via your real estate partners, that would translate into 16 real estate agent partners or in my case about 1% of the total frogs I am willing to kiss should be in my pond.
This is great news, only 1 percent of the total base of top real estate agents in your area can be sending you enough business to make a very comfortable living in our industry. Real estate agents can and do still control buyers, they have an influence within the transactions that can not be ignored. Best, is that every one of these top real estate agents recognizes that they need a solid lender partner in their business if they are to continue to be successful, it may as well be you.
Eventually, once you have built a reliable base of partners you will determine that these real estate agents will be able to refer directly and indirectly many more than 6 transactions per year to you, which means you will not need a large number of agents. Personally, I like having a large stable of good agents, the more I have the more I get. But, it is also reassuring that I have a small representative sampling of available producing real estate agents. Knowing that there is a large pool of frogs to replace a prince/princess that has reverted back to a frog allows me to work among my partners without fear. No fear is the key to your success in partnering with a real estate agent for mutual succss.
My advice is that you partner with with real estate agents who share your views, that you have commonalities with, that are willing to work your programs and systems, and who recognize your value. Remember you are looking to partner with a small number of available top producers, you must be selective in who you partner with. Find them, ask for the appointment and then interview them just as if they were a job applicant, because that is exactly what they are. You are looking to partner with a professional who will work with you and for you, does this not sound like a partner.
The mistake most loan officers make is that they want and go kiss all the frogs and think they will all turn into their needed prince/princess, huge mistake. This is your business; only partner with those that fit your business.
| About the author: |
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Bob Rutledge
I have been a professional mortgage consultant since 1995. My past employment and educational history has provided me the unique tools that I utilize to help me succeed. After graduating college for the first time I worked for the world's largest small business marketing and advertising sales consultancy. After 12 years in Marketing and Advertising I went to work as a Stock Broker/Analysis after graduating college a couple more times. Having degrees and experience in Marketing and Finance has aided me tremendously in developing skills and tools as a Mortgage Loan Officer. |
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By: Bob Rutledge |
So you want to have a stable full of great real estate agents referring you a steady flow of new business? Before you go out and start herding all those horses into your barn you have to ask this question: Why?
The question isn’t what you think it may be, the question really is; why would a real estate agent want to do business with you?
Are you just a three legged stool?
This is a question I ask a lot of mortgage professionals when they ask me for help in developing or expanding their real estate agent base. What about you will impress me? Even better: what do you have that will WOW that real estate agent. Great interest rates? Super customer service? All the mortgage programs needed? If that is all you got then you are bringing to the table what is already being served. You are nothing more than a common three legged stool. What you want to be is a four legged stool, providing more than what is considered the basics.
Granted you can get dumb lucky and find that real estate agent who just lost their average loan officer and needs a replacement. But that is a frog kissing contest and there are just too many frogs in the pond and your lips will be chapped, sore and bleeding well before you get that lucky.
Ask yourself this: If a real estate agent wants me when I am just like every other loan officer, do I want that real estate agent? More than likely they are just your average real estate agent. You want the upper crust, what I call the “upper ten percenters”, and these agents need to be impressed and awed before you can break them.
I recommend that you aspire to become the partner of these heavy hitters, and become their “reciprocal success partner”. Learn and have true knowledge of the real estate agent business. What does a top performing agent go through every day? How do they excel? What do they need? And most importantly, how can you provide to their business?
Those who learn more will earn more.
There are a lot of books out there that I would recommend, the first two that I consider must reads are both by Gary Keller; ‘The Millionaire Real Estate Agent’ and ‘Shift’. Become a provider, coach, resource for information, mentor, and hold them accountable.
Once you have the knowledge then build something that is unique, yours, and indispensable to most real estate agents. I have dozens of real estate agents who refer me business but I only have about 20 agents that are more afraid of losing me than I am of losing them. These 20 are all working a system/program that I developed for myself that combines several different systems/programs and I package and provide to my reciprocal success partners. This unique program provides the agents with a resource they can only get, as a whole, through me. When they use the system as designed they are securing on average 2 to 4 listings per month, and they are generating about 1 to 2 buyer leads per listing per month for themselves and me.
Yes, real estate agents can be a great resource for new and continuing new business, unless you’re in a market that is heavily REO (Las Vegas comes to mind).
Remember: givers gain and those who only take will eventually lose. If you are just that three legged stool, your relationship with your referral agents will constantly be unstable, firm up your stance by adding that fourth leg and you will never have to worry about another mortgage professional like me being in front of your partner.
| About the author: |
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Bob Rutledge
I have been a professional mortgage consultant since 1995. My past employment and educational history has provided me the unique tools that I utilize to help me succeed. After graduating college for the first time I worked for the world's largest small business marketing and advertising sales consultancy. After 12 years in Marketing and Advertising I went to work as a Stock Broker/Analysis after graduating college a couple more times. Having degrees and experience in Marketing and Finance has aided me tremendously in developing skills and tools as a Mortgage Loan Officer. |
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By: Bob Rutledge |
Last night I had a hard time staying asleep, I kept waking up and each time a different problem about a different mortgage I had in process would come to mind. Have you ever had that experience? It’s madding and annoying, and I consider it a symptom of being overly burdened or stressed.
I’m trying not to sound like I am complaining I, like many of us in the mortgage lending business, am having a very good year. I am closing loans at a pace that I have not experienced since the height of the ‘refinance boom’, and they just keep coming.
After my fitful night of sleep I was in the beginning stages of my morning routine, this is when I do some of my clearer thinking. In the morning I’m fresh and the course of the day has not started me sideways from clearing my list of things to accomplish for the day. This morning when I was exercising I started considering the deals that kept me awake and I came to a realization, they were all refinances.
This month’s closings and next months closings are mostly refinances, and as we all know it is getting more and more difficult to get loans through the pipeline to closing, especially refinances. Of the loans I am closing over the next two months 60% of them are refinances….. that hurts. I feel that to keep a solid business I want that ratio to be closer to 70% purchase and 30% refinances. I am finding that all these refinances are distracting me from the core function of my business, to gain referrals from my reciprocal real estate agent partners.
I know what you may be thinking, I’ve heard it already, ‘why are you complaining, why are you worried when you are making so much money now?’. Because I will be paying for this success in the very near future. This mini refinance boom that many of are experiencing will not last too much longer, it just can’t. Once the refis dry up where are you going to get new business?
I worked hard in the past to establish a very solid and very large group of real estate agent referral partners that I make a very solid living from. It took time to develop the relationship and to gain their referrals, together we have trained each other to become a reciprocal partner in each other’s business. But, lately I have not been doing the necessary actions to keep myself in front of them. It is very important that I touch these partners in a timely, consistent and relevant manner, if I don’t attrition starts to set in. If you have never read “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” by Gary Keller I highly suggest you do. In the book he talks about the 33 touches that are necessary to keep a data base yours, my real estate agents are a data base that needs to be touched 33 times a year. If not, a better, smarter loan officer will take my place simply because he/she was there to help.
Not too long ago I attended a Todd Duncan seminar in which part of his discussion wrapped around how much time a loan officer spends doing the actions necessary to secure new business. He mentioned a study that said the typical salesperson only spent about 15% of their time actively seeking and generating new business. Todd’s company conducted a survey of mortgage professionals, and we fare even worse… barely spending 10% of our time trying to get new business. How much time are you spending each day, each week, each month to strengthen your business for the eventual death of this refi boomlet?
I know that if I’m not out there today touching my referral base that tomorrow I will be hungry for new business. Today, it starts! I will spend the equal of just 1.6 hours each day touching current referral agents and developing new real estate partners. Why 1.6 hours? If you work a 40 hour week that would be 20% of your time spent on doing the necessary actions to secure your future income. It sure doesn’t sound like much, just 96 minutes a day. I challenge you and myself to double the time that the average loan officer spends in marketing for new business and I am sure you will find that you have placed yourself well ahead of the average loan officer.
| About the author: |
|
Bob Rutledge
I have been a professional mortgage consultant since 1995. My past employment and educational history has provided me the unique tools that I utilize to help me succeed. After graduating college for the first time I worked for the world's largest small business marketing and advertising sales consultancy. After 12 years in Marketing and Advertising I went to work as a Stock Broker/Analysis after graduating college a couple more times. Having degrees and experience in Marketing and Finance has aided me tremendously in developing skills and tools as a Mortgage Loan Officer. |
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