FROM THE GROUND UP - Selling your expertise

Don’t sell yourself short, writes Doug Mathlin – ensure that all your sales presentations are professional and high quality

FOR MOST mortgage brokers, their sales presentation to prospects, clients and referrers is the marketing initiative that can have the most impact.

Unfortunately, most brokers either ‘wing it’ or do just enough to complete the application.

At a recent forum, I asked my audience the following question: ‘If you were asked to present to a group of prospective clients for one hour on the benefits of choosing you as a broker, would you prepare a structured presentation, use slides and provide handouts?’

Not surprisingly, every attendee agreed that they would.

My follow up question was rhetorical: ‘So, why wouldn’t you do this for just one client?’

The relationship you form with your client starts with a presentation, first on the phone and then face to face. Customer care initiatives and post-settlement marketing are designed to remind the client of the professionalism and competence displayed during the loan origination period.

If the presentation is not designed to meet your clients’ needs, it is unlikely to be very memorable or valuable to them.

A good way to improve the professionalism and quality of your sales presentations is to create an agenda. If you hold board meetings for your own business or have attended formal meetings in any professional organisation, you will undoubtedly have received an agenda.

The agenda should include key details such as attendees, date and time, venue address, topics for discussion, etc. Why wouldn’t you provide this level of detail to your future client before meeting them? It will demonstrate you are a highly professional broker – who can be trusted to look after a client’s needs.

Primarily, the agenda is there to help a meeting organiser stay on track and to ensure they don’t forget any key points.

For example, almost every broker I know relies on repeat and referral business from existing clients; however, only a minority of brokers point this out during the client appointment.

The agenda could be sent out as a reminder prior to the meeting, along with a ‘required documents’ form. That way, attendees will be better prepared for the meeting and any concerns can be addressed at the outset.

For example, if the client has concerns about completing an application during the first meeting they are more likely to mention this early in the discussion if they know it’s on your agenda.

Conversely, if the client says ‘I only have an hour’, you can immediately ask ‘What would you like to achieve in the time we have today?’

I hope that by providing an agenda, you will feel accountable to introduce your referral program as well as any other products and services that you provide and may want to cross sell.

You’ll notice that I didn’t say, ‘Ask for referrals’: the referral program is about doing a great job for your clients so they will feel compelled to recommend you to people they know.

So, whether you are presenting to just one or to 100 clients, prepare a professional client (and referrer) presentation; create an agenda template to send to every client prior to meeting with them; and develop scripts for each component so you can move through each agenda item seamlessly.

By Doug Mathlin, Director, FrontRunner Consulting