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Happy New Year welcome back to the mortgage IQ show where we talk everything sales and marketing in mortgage banking I'm Stephen James and I'm Chris King and at mortgage IQ we've been designing sales and marketing systems in the mortgage industry for over 30 years today we're gonna be talking all about what's in your 2020 marketing plan we're gonna be looking at new trends in the industry and taking a look at how we can keep up to date stay relevant and stay competitive in this increasingly competitive business so let's get right into it new year Chris what are you seeing in terms of I guess latest trends or changes things that are shaping the industry for the new year yeah so I think that as I look around in 2020 and look at the landscape of mortgage lending I really see three major things going on here so one is a lot of increased competition borrowers have many more options now for finding a loan transaction than they did in the past so it used to be kind of a whoo you know world referrals and whatnot nowadays of course it's a lot of online a lot of the Millennials are doing a lot more research and not to say that they're gonna go with those online lenders all the time it's still about relationship but it just creates noise and it creates potential competition so I see that going on I see with all of the regulations and compliance there's increased pressure for a profitability for a mortgage lender so there's greater pressure on proper execution watching your P&L watching the expenses the overhead all of that so that's a big concern and then lastly the you know goes with that is finding the right talent as I always say getting the right people on the bus and finding the right talent has been a challenge because you know over the years especially with the last economic meltdown the Great Recession of late 2000s a lot of people who were in mortgage have left the industry are not coming back due to the challenges there so it's often a tight labor market as relates to finding the right people gotcha yeah so there's obviously things are heating up they're getting you know faster pace in terms of tech like you mentioned with the Millennials you know everyone is is used to being reached and catered to and the digital online space so you really got to be present or you're you're gonna miss out in terms of I guess getting started you know but let's bliss back it up before we even get into you know the marketing materials content digital practices what have you it seems like you would need to have like a good I guess sales and marketing system or a CRM system in place to just kind of you know get your organization into the next you know the new era of creating a marketing system for your for your people can you touch on maybe you know what that would look like in terms of improving efficiencies and marketing yeah I think you really nailed that I really look at the word efficiency in terms of defining the way you're going to compete and the way you're going to be profitable you've got to be efficient and you have to really leverage your available resources in in in this marketplace so I think you know the big areas are increasing your efficiencies in your marketing efforts and how you go about tracking leads days like as they come in how are you tracking those leads and opportunities how are you tracking executing on the workflow for that lead follow-up and then that segues into your sales follow-up routine whether you're running a you know a a branch office with you know five or ten loan officers or maybe you're a national call center consumer direct or maybe you're running a wholesale brokerage or correspondent lender and you're managing you know many Account Executives so it's all about having that systemized flow for lead and sales follow-up and then I think lastly you really can't forget that like I said it's all about having the right people in the bus so you've got to make sure you're efficient at your recruiting effort as well yeah that makes sense I think I think even go step further it was the right people in the right seats on the bus absolutely so so it sounds like there's a need to really have control and visibility over your org and make sure that you know everyone is I guess working there full potential you're you're synchronized as a group and I think another word that or another concept is tracking as well and just an invisibility and staying sharp so that kind of brings me to the next thing you see mentioned compliance you know just kind of higher standards there how would a system like this help in that area yeah I think that's a great segue so when I use the term efficiency it's it's great to throw that term out but how do you how are you able to execute on efficiencies gained without having something tangible that you can utilize as your tool as your main core platform so to speak so we then use the word systemize so you've got to really systemize all of these processes to be more efficient you can't just talk about it you can't just wing it it's got to be in a system so we start talking about gaining efficiencies through standards greater execution for compliance your what I call your daily groove you mentioned you know awareness and what not visibility you know we live in a world of you know that you don't know what you don't know can if you systemize things you're gonna just be more aware a lot of a lot of different things whether that be opportunities that are going untapped or just awareness of issues or problems or even you know a lot of the systems ation can lead to greater abilities in sales coaching so just again some of those opportunities maybe some of those weaknesses that some of your sales team might have that you can you know analyze and it seems like - they would maybe cut down on some of the cost or the man-hours with some of your processes I've kind of seen that a lot in terms of you know with automation and just you know having you know having a smart system so to speak kind of you know check your check your boxes in terms of the you know the process for you and for for your customers as well yeah no doubt about it and I think that really ties in to the you know I mentioned the the challenges that people are having with you know hiring good talent so if you're not able to find enough people then the next best thing is like I said you've got to make sure you're exploiting those resources so if you're able to do more business with less people if that's the situation you're in then systemising and having that system and that platform place is gonna be all the more important sure that makes sense in terms of also like you know seizing opportunities data mining obviously you know data is crucial and you know can you touch a little bit about how like a system like this might hook in so to speak to other other systems other sources of data for our business and and kind of enable you to really milk those leads or really get the get the most out of those sources of info so to speak yeah that's a great point you you really need to be able to have access to the data that's going to help you to be more relevant in your marketing communications so it goes way beyond just hey I've got a person's name and phone number and address and email address and I'm just gonna start blasting them in today's world marketing communications has got to be more relevant because if it's not relevant it's not going to be looked at so you've got to have the data so that you can properly query that data filter it so that you can get to a more surgical type of marketing target in your audience with the content you're going to be yeah gotcha and it's in maybe this is you know throughout the cycle with with the customer and as things kind of progress in terms of knowing you know and using informational bits about the customer whether it's like a milestone and they're like you know in their situation a birthday personal information about them and and I guess maybe kind of bringing that into the actual marketing materials or strategies that you use yourself yeah absolutely so again it's got to be more surgical that the days of doing those just generic blast emails or you know we're doing you know text messaging and all that that's all well and good but it's gotta be more personalized so you've got to be able to get to that data what datum might that be a lot of it is loan transaction data loan transaction data from a borrower you've got access to a lot of information about a borrower from that loan application and boy you just really need to exploit that information sure so you mentioned texting and I guess you know those those new touch points of marketing and you know being able to use a database for that so let's let's dive into that a little more and kind of talk about how that how this kind of system can can help with those things specifically we talked about the Millennial you know a group taking over in the marketplace largest generation of buyers as I think we all can surmise 37% of the market in terms of the latest a National Association of Realtors report these guys you know from my from my marketing experience these guys are you know they're used to being reached in every touch point every situation they are also I think we could argue the least knowledgeable about the home buying process in terms of previous generations and they're also I've grown up with the magical Google or Internet content so they're like you said yeah they're they're used to having highly personalized content relevant content being educated with with marketing and not so much being quote unquote sold to how can a system like this help in those areas yeah those are all great points I think you really just need to be aware of the changes you need to be making it's very easy very inexpensive to just do an email blast we all know that email has been going out ten your marketing systems for the last you know two decades right sure so but now it's changing so with with the you know the next generation coming up I don't look at emails a lot and not to mention even the people who do look at emails they're getting so bombarded that they're just overwhelmed and so you really need to start mixing it up I'm not saying get rid of emails but you've got to start mixing that up that that communication with other types of messaging going out that are really just as efficient again if you have that system and that engine to do it they're just as efficient and you're gonna get you know a greater response by using tools like texting that's been a huge huge increase in response based on that whether you're texting to a borrower with a loan status or you're texting a real-estate partner on on again it could be a loan status or a milestone that's been reached on a loan transaction they just love getting information via text as opposed to email or even a phone call hate to say and then phone calls are taking on a new dynamic and that is you know we're all busy so making a phone call yes it's very personalized but chances are you're gonna get voicemail so hey why not just record something that is designed to go out automatically given a certain scenario and it's extremely efficient it's still personalized and so voice mail drops or recorded voicemails going out as part of a campaign can be a huge a huge win there sure so yeah so again tying this back to a system you know like a crm marketing system not only would you have access to using this technology for you know texting voicemail drops all that kind of stuff you know in addition to standard email and you know using the traditional methods but like we mentioned before maybe tying that all again all back to the data to a healthy robust organized a set up database that's connected with I guess multiple databases if you think about it you know bringing in information from various sources ello s all those kinds of areas and really being able to utilize that the bits of data about that customer that are that that deal and then also tracking history in the progress with that right so you know it's one thing to do the the footwork with the marketing whether that's contacting a person in a variety of formats but maybe also getting smarter about you know you're tracking your progress you know when's the last time you contact this person do they respond to the phone calls you know what has been the best successful method to get to this contact yeah absolutely you can't just keep doing the same thing and hope for a different result and not being able to track maybe your conversion results for those various efforts so you've got to really be in touch with that what's working what's not working you know hey maybe talk to a borrower or two or talk to a realtor or talk to one of your clients to say hey how would you like me to communicate with you sure and that sounds really like you know the thing you would do but you'd be surprised how many people don't do it they just assume that they need to do certain types of marketing and gosh that's just what everybody's doing so I'm just going to do that but I think you could do a little more research with it get feedback and just learn and partner with your client base to you know discover together what's gonna work sure that makes sense and again we're you know we're in we're in 2020 so it's it's the digital era it's the smart era terms of of tech especially you know financial tech or FinTech is really taking off and you know people have access to all you know all sorts of digital methods to to do services to carry out tasks and to track results so for for our bread and butter we are sour sales our business it totally makes sense to have a full fully comprehensive system that'll that'll help with the this task yeah no doubt just one thing to add is that you know I know a lot of these guys go to these conferences about you know how to improve your marketing and your sales efforts and everyone gets excited and they come back to their office and the first thing to do is they just start putting out fires and and they're just trying to get there and trying to you know get to that the new frontier of you know improved marketing and efficiency and all that but the bottom line is that unless you have a system and really most importantly unless that system is automated in terms of these touch points we're talking about it's probably not going to happen sure let's um let's talk about let's go the other way let's just say you know folks that you've seen who don't utilize the system like this what do you sweat are some major tangible pain points that you see them struggling in we talked about wasted time wasted resources obviously missing on opportunities can you dive a little more in terms of just things you know we're trying to get people out of things that you would hope a you know a business could avoid with you know yeah it's all about habits and it's mostly you know the it is what it is most people in the business whether you're in sales or marketing a lot of cases it's a reactionary kind of groove so you're reacting to the phone calls you're reacting to emails coming in and to get to that next level it really needs to turn into a proactive model and like I said the struggle with that is how do I become proactive when I when most people come into their offices they're there they instantly go into a reactive I'm responding to email some phone calls and putting out fires and they never get to the proactive either because they're just you know busy with being reactive or they just don't know how to do it they just don't have the ability to you know get out of that group and so if you can utilize the technology and systemize things once that gets configured being proactive is also being automated so if you can automate that proactiveness that really is the home run got it that makes sense okay so that sounds good I think we have a good you know some good touch points of overview of what you know how a system how a CRM marketing system leads me on lead management system can really you know bring your bring your business into the next decade so to speak what what do you see in terms of kind of leading the charge into into adopting a system like that or you know utilizing that kind of give us an overview of how you see things being put into place yeah it's kind of funny so the analogy I use is that our role as the implementer of the CRM would been this for a long time sure it's kind of like the couple that is gonna put on a wedding right and you know sometimes you'll have a wedding planner sometimes you don't sometimes it's the photographer but unless you have that person there at the wedding that's telling them when to do things when to take pictures when to cut the cake the first dance and all that if you don't have that person facilitating you couldn't you can end up with a disaster winning wedding reception right so cake in the face that's like kind of look at I look at us as the wedding planner but we can only go so far we've got to have someone on the client side so someone's got to be in that lending organization who is responsible for executing putting in that CRM sales and marketing system and then we can team with that person to run the show and then the other important thing is that really unlike a wedding reception this is never-ending so you're going to yeah you're gonna implement your system but it's ongoing you're always gonna have you know things that need changing or modifying you've got to motivate your team to embrace the technology and to change their grooves and their daily workflows you've got to have someone who's being proactive at bringing those people along and they'll they'll they'll come along there you can't rely on the sales team every single person to be a leader in this change sure that's not gonna happen it's gonna be maybe you might see maybe ten to twenty percent of your team that's going to do that they'll be more more proactive and disciplined but but think about it eighty percent are not going to do that and they want they're looking to be leisure to that promise land and so that's that's really needs to be that person's role and then the other thing is to kind of tie back to the the talent issue we're finding that clients that have a system like ours that that's mechanized and systemized greater efficiencies and you know bringing in more business and profitability today's top producing ello or salesperson is looking for a business that has those things in place so they they know that they are going to perform better just by you becoming a member of that organization that makes sense you know cuz you're bringing in nude you know just like what with your customers also in the business you're bringing in new new generations of you know people coming in used to this technology used to smart tools right and being empowered I think is the the key word there so that really makes sense that you know even just to like like like you said bringing it back to acquiring talent to really become like a key a key leader and a key business that'll attract that talent you need to provide the tools and the system in place to to really enable your people to do to do good business yeah no doubt and you just got to remember that when you're recruiting that talent you're competing with someone else that might have all these tools or so that maybe you don't have and they're gonna have a leg up on you sure that makes sense okay I think that's a great overview today again just kind of summing up you know for for I guess part a of our 2020 marketing plan let's just get a system let's get let's let's get into the smart the smart decade 20 you know the 2020s roaring 20s and let's roar so let's let's bring in a system let's automate let's track let's get visibility and let's stay competitive that way again if you have any questions you can reach a Chris or myself via this channel or our website which is listed below and feel free to stay tuned for the next edition