Take the lead

IT’S A startling statistic, but the average mortgage broker in Australia writes two loans per month and settles less than $8 million per annum.

Even allowing for new entrants and brokers making the transition to retirement (and assuming that these averages doubled), it does not send a ‘competent and professional’ image to consumers about one in two brokers.

Knowing about credit policy, products and compliance does not help business revenue if lead generation is your weakness. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that in small business, we are selling ourselves and client relationships first and products and debt advice second.

To be a top producer or to simply improve on current results, we need to develop a strategic approach to lead generation. That means developing lead generation goals and implementing specific actions every week – if not every day – in an effort to generate more business.

Lead generation is not a sporadic initiative to implement when your business starts to run out of money; it is the lifeblood of business. It is the highest paying activity of any business.

If you do not have new prospects in the pipeline, you cannot grow.

Therefore, the activities leading to the generation of leads need to be constantly implemented and perfected.

Start with a plan: half the battle with lead generation is knowing what to do. Seek advice from top performers in our industry and from elsewhere on what they do to build their business.

Top performers are almost always happy to help others. Listen to the advice and adapt their strategies to suit your own personality and style.

In the long run, and in the case of most businesses, your clients should provide you with a majority of your leads – purely because of population.

Make sure that you provide a service level that guarantees their repeat and referral business now and in the future. It’s completely inefficient being great at generating leads and not retaining your clients’ business.

Try to get 15 per cent of your total client database to recommend your services every year.

Having relationships with like-minded professionals is an obvious next step in the plan. The key is to find people that you can work with. They should share the same business values, goals and service ethics.

It is also preferable for client referrals to flow both ways. These relationships will often take time to pay dividends, so be patient. As long as you know that the potential referrer wants a relationship, you just need to focus on creating enough trust and being visible regularly.

Your goal is to have each referrer provide you with three leads per month.

When you have a steady flow of leads from your client database and professional partners, you can then search for other avenues from which to source new leads.

Local area marketing, search engine optimisation strategies, advertising or joining business networking groups might be the right moves for your business.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure that your core lead generation initiatives are attended to first – and constantly.

Trying to implement too many lead generation activities can be just as futile as not attempting enough.

Your lead generation plan has to be dynamic. Look for ways to improve each initiative and stop implementing activities that don’t work.

This is the most important activity for your business to be successful, so make sure it is your number one priority.