Mastering your “customer conversation”

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Doug Smith

Doug Smith, founder of Douglas Smith & Associates, is a 24-year industry veteran. His career spans the areas of loan origination, sales training, management development, marketing, personal coaching and corporate sales. Doug’s columns appear in Mortgage Originator, Mortgage Planner, The Mortgage Record and Mortgage Broker magazines. He publishes a monthly newsletter, Power Selling, and authored Climbing the Ladder of Success. For more information, visit http://www.dougsmithonline.com/

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Mastering your “customer conversation”

Written by Doug Smith

As professional mortgage lenders, we spend a lot of time trying to get in front of customers. All of our sales, marketing, advertising and prospecting serves to put us in a position to create a client, and eventually, a mortgage loan.

But once you get in front of that customer, are you able to make something happen? Many mortgage salespeople talk with dozens of prospects every week, only to register a loan or two. Many need help with their “customer conversation” but refuse to admit they have a problem converting leads into loans. While no one converts 100% of their leads, some fare better than others.

Why?
There are a lot of skills and practices that make up a great customer conversation. Knowing what those skills are and practicing them consistently will improve your conversion rate.

Here are 20 great pointers anyone can use, no matter how new or experienced he or she is…

1. Give the customer your full and complete attention.
2. Capture the customer’s name and use it often.
3. Take notes while the customer is talking.
4. Avoid the tendency to interrupt and pre-judge.
5. Restate, paraphrase or summarize key information the customer has shared with you to show you are listening.
6. Maintain open, positive body language.
7. To get at information, ask good questions like: “Tell me about your situation.” Or “How can I best help you?”
8. Provide information to the customer in a clear, concise manner. Speak slowly and distinctly.
9. Avoid mortgage jargon and industry slang like 1003, FICO, LTV, TIL, PMI and other terms most customers do not understand.
10. Be patient.
11. Offer tangible solutions directly tied to the customer’s needs.
12. Share your products features, but remember to sell the benefits to the customer of those features.
13. Don’t present too many loan product options at once. The rule is “two at a time.”
14. Keep your focus on the people involved in the transaction, not the paper.
15. Suggest next action steps to move the opportunity forward.
16. Don’t let objections and “let me think about it” comments stop you cold. Ask about concerns and deal with objections openly.
17. Stay on the customer’s side. It’s not about scoring a loan; it is all about helping a customer. Do that and the loan will follow.
18. Be confident, speak confident, portray confidence in your tone of voice and the words you use.
19. Let the client see you as a trusted advisor, a consultant ready to help him.
20. Make it a habit to follow up. Show the customer you really want his business.

During the next few weeks, be an observer of your own customer conversations and look for little ways you can improve. The result will be a stronger personal presentation and increased loan production. That’s what effective selling is all about!

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