7 ways to improve your sales techniques as a mortgage broker

In addition to providing clients with useful information on mortgage products and helping with mortgage applications, your role as a mortgage broker includes selling. Being an effective salesperson is about knowing your customers, understanding the industry and applying effective communication skills. Here are seven ways to improve your sales techniques, whether you’re an established mortgage broker or just starting out.

Know that sales is about service.

Selling your mortgage broking services in not quite the same as selling a tangible product like an air conditioner or a jar of pickles. Selling your services as a mortgage broker means engaging with your customer and convincing them that your services will be invaluable in helping them to get what they want and achieve their financial goals.

As a mortgage broker, the key to understanding and succeeding with your sales process is to view it as an opportunity to demonstrate your capacity to provide excellent service. As a mortgage broker, servicing your clients means guiding them and solving their problems. If you unconsciously have a negative view of the sales component of your role, you will find it more difficult to generate confidence in your capacity to provide the right products and competent professional financial services that your customer can rely on.

Helping your customers sometimes requires transparent persuasion, such as demonstrating that they need a specific product and how they can benefit from it. The capacity to use persuasion effectively is important because oftentimes clients don’t fully understand the benefits of different products and their features and you may need to persuade your client to choose the one that is right for their personal financial situation and goals.

The same is true of your professional services. To persuade a customer of your abilities, always demonstrate how you are benefitting them with the service you provide. Tell them what you’re doing to find them the right products and to save them money whenever you can.

Solve your customer’s problems

Possibly the most satisfying part of every mortgage broker’s role is the opportunity to match your customer with the right financial products for their needs. This is particularly true when the customer has an unusual situation or cannot imagine how to resolve their situation themselves. However, any difficult scenario should be viewed as an opportunity.

By committing to go the extra mile to find a solution to your customer’s problems, you can establish yourself as a reputable broker and the go-to person for credit assistance. As a result, you will be able to build a strong reputation founded on trust and reliability, as your clients will be impressed by your dedication to working in their best interests. This is a particularly important technique for mortgage brokers, who largely depend on client referrals to grow their business.

Some of the most successful mortgage brokers view their role as one of problem resolution rather than hitting sales targets. Indeed, every customer you meet has a problem – a need to find the right finance for a home or property investment. If you are focused on solving problems rather than hitting sales targets, you can look for ways to deliver real value and more benefits, which in turn will generate more referrals and more repeat business.

Appeal to the customer’s emotions

Major decisions such as choosing a home loan often require guidance, reassurance, not to mention plenty of effective and timely communication. When a customer chooses a particular home loan, they are making a decision that will affect their lives and their family situation. An effective sales technique at this stage involves appealing to your client’s emotions and becoming personally involved with their excitement.

As their broker, you must be able to relate to their vision, or if they don’t have one, create a vision that will engage them in an emotive way. Set up the context by outlining their current problem and what could happen if they fail to resolve it. Then, to help build excitement, remind your customer of how their world will change for the better and what it will feel like when they take out a home loan and complete the purchase of their new home or investment property.

The hardest part of this process is to sell your own services to the client rather than the product. Prospective customers usually have their vision, what they need is to know that you share their vision and that you want to share in their triumph. What separates a great broker from the rest of the pack is their ability to relate and empathise. This is the most effective way to sell your services as you show that their goals are yours and you’ll commit your skills wholeheartedly to achieving them.

If you offer asset finance, the technique of appealing to your customer’s emotions is a great way to upsell them to financing a new car as well as their home. But always bear in mind your responsible lending obligations and never suggest further debt if your customer cannot afford to service it without difficulty or hardship.

Communicate how your services benefit the customer

In addition to building a strong, emotive vision for prospects, you can support the sales process with factual reminders about how your services will benefit them. Outline the advantages and provide frequent reminders about these advantages whenever you can. Successful salespeople find that factual advantages tend to help the product sell itself, and so it’s the frequency and timeliness of reminders that is most important here. Having deep and broad industry, market, and product knowledge will support your role in this regard

Build personalised connections

Personal connections are integral to successful sales in the mortgage and finance industry. Personal connections help you build trust and credibility quickly and effectively. By making every point of contact – whether it’s email, phone, or an in-person meeting – personalised, clients are much more likely to trust your advice.

As mentioned earlier, client referrals are a major contributor to your business growth as a mortgage and finance broker. Building personal connections with your clients means they will be more likely to recommend your services to their family, friends and business colleagues. Once you have established this personal relationship, don’t be shy about asking your customers to recommend you to others as this is an important part of the sales process too.

Use technology to support your sales

Technology should be used to support your sales processes, to help you ensure you can communicate with your customers in a way that proves your professionalism, reliability and high standards of service. There are many things you can automate in the customer engagement process and doing so can save you time. However, it’s vital to strike the right balance so you don’t end up neglecting personalisation and old-fashioned service standards.

Vet your customer interactions from start to finish by considering them from the customer’s point of view. Ask yourself questions about each stage of the process, whether it’s the initial prospecting by email, SMS updates, or a quick phone call about a product that’s right for them. Ask yourself whether the customer might be better served with phone calls rather than email updates or text messages at each stage of the process.

As a Connective member, you can enjoy access to an award winning IT Platform, Mercury included with your flat monthly fee. With an outstanding CRM that has been designed by mortgage brokers for mortgage brokers, you can use Mercury to create automated communications and add the personal touch by composing your communications yourself. Mercury also allows you to create process effective task templates, so you can be sure you can always communicate with your customers at the right time and in the right way. To find out more about Mercury, just click here.

Ask questions

Questions are a powerful tool for mortgage and finance brokers when it comes to selling. You can lead the conversation by asking questions that will reveal to you the customer or prospect’s state of mind. Without fully understanding their specific issues and what kind of responsibilities they have, you cannot identify their real needs and find the right products for them.

Prepare for each client meeting by having a list of questions to ask. The more specific the questions, the better you will be at contextualising the customer’s problems and sourcing the right loan product for them. Great questions will also assist you when it comes to helping them prepare their loan application and completing your other post-sales processes. Ask them questions that are specific to their situation right now, but also ask questions which lead them to reveal their ambitions for the future. Always end your session with a question like: “Is there anything else you’d like to talk about today? Can I help you with anything else?”

Connective provides its members with an industry leading training and development program to help you constantly improve your sales, business management and broking skills. Included with your monthly flat fee, Connective Learning provides easily accessible educational opportunities which you can attend in person or online.