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i'm really excited to follow up marcus with dale vermillion ceo of vermilion consulting dale is a 30 plus year industry veteran of the mortgage industry he goes around now and spends his time training people in the mortgage industry on how to close their sales he is mr optimization and he's here to help you optimize your business he literally wrote the book on the consumer mortgage experience he's been on fox business and other media outlets sharing his story and what he does he really can help you get to better conversions please help me welcome dale vermillion thank you good morning come on good morning how are you good good glad to be here um let me start out this morning i want to tell you what the next 35 minutes is going to be about marcus just did a great job of really hammering the whole idea of content marketing i'm going to take the other side of that equation i'm going to talk about sales this morning and i'll tell you what because to build a top-notch profitable operation you have to combine those two you have to have first-rate marketing tied with first-rate sales in order to do that in fact i work with lots of lenders around the country i've worked with hundreds of companies i've worked with tens of thousands of consumers i'm going to try to bring you both of those perspectives brought together today because i do a lot of radio programs and those kind of things and here's what i get a lot as i talk to executives about their marketing i ask them this question how much are you spending on your marketing budget i hear hundreds of thousands millions of dollars many times and then i ask this question all right so how much are you investing in your sales force and the answer is very different and i always remind ceos of this thing if you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing to give those leads to salespeople that can't convert them then you're missing the boat on the opportunity for your business you've got to merge both of those and i want to talk about that today so i'm going to go through a lot of practical tips this morning help you really understand keys and techniques you can do to get to that and let's go ahead and just jump into it right now and get started if i were to ask you this question what is the key to success for your organization what is the center to success in organization we've got a lot of pieces to organizations from marketing to operations to all the different things we do what is the center of that i believe the center is sales i believe in order for your marketing to work you have to have an effective sales force that can convert those leads into profitable dollars for you and that's where our focus is going to be this morning ron jensen had a great quote he said to succeed we must focus on the root not the fruit what i want to talk about is root behaviors that drive fruit results because here's what i see as a common mistake we make in the business realm and it's simply this our focus many times is on the end result what is our profits going to be what is our production going to be what are we going to do from the standpoint of how much we're going to produce where really the focus needs to be on what are we doing what are the behaviors the strategies and the methodologies that will get us there now let me say something important this morning and tell me if you agree with this i believe that business has never been more commoditized in life than it is right now primarily due to technology and the internet now let me define that for you let's think about the mortgage business where i work in all the time if you go back to 1983 when i started the mortgage arena there was about a 10 percent gap between the highest rate lender and the lowest rate lender today there's about a half a percent gap and if you look at most competitors in the mortgage arena then here's what you find we're competing on an eighth of a point which is about seven dollars per hundred thousand dollars in transaction it's nothing here's what i know today in all the businesses whether you're in education whether you're in financial services whether you're an insurance or mortgage here's what i know your industry has been commoditized because of technology price and product are all over the place so here's what i know in order to succeed what must you do here's what you must do you must create a great customer experience marcus alluded to this and i couldn't agree with it more and that is for us to build successful businesses the customer experience has to be phenomenal now let me give you two quick truths that i want you to understand about customer experience here's truth number one every new lead that you ever get and you're going to hear a lot about how to generate leads over the conference but here's what i know every new lead that you get that is not a referral or a renewal it is a stranger talking to a stranger about a very important decision in their life and here's the second truth they have never ever had a great experience let me give you an example it's a story to kind of bring this home so got this marketer who dies and goes to heaven he's looking around saying man this is great i made those mistakes during life i committed some sins and i'm forgiven and with that saint peter says wait a minute don't get too excited yet we've changed things because what do you mean you've changed things he said let me explain how it works now what we do is we don't any longer judge you to determine if you go to heaven or hell we do is we let you peek at heaven peek at hell and determine where you want to spend eternity he's like well you're kidding he's like no he goes well of course i want to be in heaven he was okay guys but seeing i can look at both and i'm not committed do you mind if i at least check out hell just to see i'm going to miss before i come to heaven he says sure so he puts him there but he sends him down to hell now of course he steps out expecting to see satan in fire and brimstone and he walks out on this beautiful sandy beach there's the biggest party going on you've ever seen there's food cooking there's music playing there's volleyball and he's thinking this cannot be right so he grabs the first person running by says excuse me is this hell he says yeah he goes is it always like this because usually it's better than this he goes usually the sun's brighter usually the food's tastier but yeah this is pretty much what it's like all the time we thought he looks and goes wow this is fantastic this is the eternity he wants he goes back up looks at st peter says you know in all my living days i never thought i'd say this but i want to go to hell he said you sure about that he goes oh man you ought to see he goes okay that's your choice so beat he puts him in the other hand he sends it back down gate's opening gets ready to step on the beach and there is satan and it's fire and brimstone he's like whoa what's going on he goes welcome to hell he goes no no no i was just here like 10 seconds ago when there was sand and beaches and with that statement was oh you see that was the marketing department this is operations and service who can relate to that one right there raise your hand okay see this is what happens in business all the time we build this marketing campaign so that we make things look heavenly and all of a sudden the borrower has this or the customer has this terrible experience it's like hell we don't want that to happen understand when you get a new lead they've talked to other companies but they didn't choose those companies they came to you through your marketing efforts you've got to get in front of a sales person who can knock it out of the park i do a lot of work with lendingtree they've been partners with me for a long time great great marketing company and we've mastered this one thing and that is you've got to build sales experience that backs up your marketing so here's the number one mistake that most sales people and most sales organizations make we are transactional versus relational what i mean by that is we're about closing the transaction instead of building the long-term relationship marcus said the key word earlier trust you have to build trust everybody say trust say that well it's not just trust you've got to build you've actually got to go beyond that so here's what i believe and i believe in a sales approach it simply goes like this everybody say i am second say that come on say it loud i am second the louder you are the better i am it's i am second mentality now what does that mean here's what it means we put our customers before ourselves the apostle paul had a great quote in his letter to the philippians he said do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but rather in humility value others above yourself not looking out for your own interest but the interest of the others now think about that if we built a business model around making our customers first would our commissions be good absolutely would our profit be huge absolutely that's the focus we want to have it's an i am second mentality so let me start with i'm going to give you five sales and service tips five lead management tips five conversion tips and five management tips i'm gonna cover those for you next let's start with first your sales and service you got to define your philosophy i want you to write this down in your notes what is your sales philosophy today what do you build your business around i want to show you the philosophy that i teach the lenders every day it's called the triangle for success now what is the triangle for success it's simply this it's taking three key components and putting them together what are those three value relationship and differentiation and how do you define those three values defined by benefits notice what i didn't define it by i did not define it by price i did not define it by cost i define it by value what are the benefits that your product provides to your customers they can tangibly use and intangibly understand i'll cover that in a minute number two loyalty loyalty is building true loyalty with your customers so that what happens is you don't just get the initial transaction but you get all the repeat and the referral business in the mortgage business i call this the 910 rule the 910 rule simply means that the average homeowner will buy nine mortgages in their lifetime you want to get all nine and they have access over 10 other people if you build that you build a monster empire and then finally advocacy we want to be advocates to our clients now what does that mean that means that what we want to do is we want to advocate we want to give advice and protect our customers jeff bezos said this we see our customers as invited guests to a party and we're the hosts it's our job to make the customer experience better than anybody else now i have a client that i work with for years that they have a banking operation and they have this thing called the granny principle the granting principle basically says if you don't treat as an employee your customers like your grandmother we're going to have to let you go they've taken this to the point that when you go in their branches they literally have the front entrance set up like a living room with antique furnishings with doilies on the tables with tea going all the time coffee brewing and apple pie and they are a wildly successful organization number two define your product what's your product now peter drucker said this quality in a service or product is not what you put into it it's what the customer gets out of it you're probably familiar with maslow's heart theory of hierarchy and it talks about the needs of human beings and what i've learned is from a product standpoint we want to make sure that we are providing the very best product that we can but here's the key to it defining it from the intangible standpoint from the need standpoint so let me give an example how many of you are in education raise your hand okay all you educators what are you really offering you're offering opportunity you're offering future that's what your product becomes if you're in the mortgage business your product is money if you're in the financial services business your product is wealth building if you're in the insurance business your product is security everybody has a different product source and what you want to focus on is making sure that your product source is really matching up to what your customers are looking for number three to find your positioning now here's what i know there's two kinds of position you can have price or value and i know this price is what you pay values what you get and those two things are separate in fact we know this to be true how many consumers in the room raise your hand here's what we know as consumers we can buy things and pay more for them and get more value we can buy things pay more for them and get less value we can buy things to pay more for them and get the same value in other words what you pay does not dictate what you get because what you pay is the cost and what you get is the value and those two things are separate as a provider what i want to build is an operation where i'm providing value for the price it's not your price that matters near as much your customers as the value they receive from the price so if your cost is higher but your value is greater your cost is higher but your warranties are better your cost is higher but your service is better all of those things will turn for you into profits at the end of the day you got to focus on value and service not price and product if you really want to knock it out of the park brian tracy has a great quote he says this people sell them by logically instead they buy emotionally and then defend it with logic now let me bring this into light with a quick story so years ago my wife and i are looking for a new tv who never bought a new tv in your life okay we got this tv blows up we go down to circuit city at the time you probably remember that company not anymore they're not around but they were and we start to look for a tv we find this great sale on a 26 inch tv it's 350 bucks steal at a century so i go down ready to buy got the checkbook ready i walk up to the sales person and say okay that's a tv i want i want to buy it and as i'm standing there getting ready to write the check i feel this kind of draw this kind of ominous feeling behind me and as i turn around here's what i see i see a screen that size everybody say now that's a tv now as i see this big screen obviously it draws me in and i walk over the tv and the sales person walks up and goes you like that tv i go i love that tv he said we'd like to own that tv i said i love doing that tv there's only one problem that tv's 4 thousand dollars i have a 350 budget let me tell you there was two things going on here number one this was october it was football season any football fans in the room besides me number two this thing had a clicker this big okay this is the kind of tv i want to own but there was a real problem with price here's what he said to me he's let me ask you a question if i could take that tv have it delivered to your house today have it set up by game time at 2 30 and put in a budget you afford would you buy it i only had one answer to give me here's my answer yes if you can convince my wife of this because she's the one you got to sell not me end of the story we bought the tv i got a really nice wife end of the story what happened we took it home he set it up and at game time i invited six of my buddies what did six of my buddies all do within three weeks to four weeks of the time of buying that tv they bought from dan the tv man at circuit city why because when you build value around price what happens you end up making more sales so to find your product to find your philosophy build out your services and build out your value and then define your process are you a quantity versus quality approach are you a reactive or proactive proactive sales force here's what i know if your sales is not systematic it's problematic you have to have a sales system now let me give you an example of a sales system robert ringer said this success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific simple habits that always lead to success here's a six step sales system that i teach all the time to give you an idea of what it'll look like number one you've got to start with a value presentation what is the value you're providing to your consumers number two you've got to qualify to make sure whoever you're spending time with is actually valuable to your client number three you've got to build personal connection to build relationship for that long-term opportunity number four identify their goals beyond just that product why because if you sell other products you want them to buy everything you have and then provide multi-solution presentations don't just give them one answer to their problem give them multi answers and get their commitment at the end and then lastly to find your purpose let me ask this question what is the purpose of your organization is it people and principle or profit i love this quote it says in the endings must be judged by our standard of living not our our standard of life not our standard of living by our measure of giving not our measure of wealth and by our simple goodness not our seeming greatness let me answer this question what is your organization doing beyond just the organization where are your profits going what kind of causes are you lined up with let me give an example of this years ago we started a not-for-profit called mortgage professionals providing hope at my company vermillion consulting why because i had had a chance to travel to india work with kids in orphanages and had had a chance to see the difference we could make in the lives of those kids the question to me is this that's what our cause is what's your india what's your cost in your corporation what can you do to define your company outside of just your products your services your warranty and your process if you define all of these things your philosophy your positioning your everything that you do then what's going to happen is you're going to build a more successful organization so let's talk about five quick lead management tips that will help you on a lead management standpoint number one it starts with prioritization you got to prioritize your leads now velocify has this information one of the white papers it says that if you use activity prioritization 12 more leads will be touched 37 percent more actions will happen 49 more contacts will happen you'll increase your talk times by 88 and most importantly have a 178 percent greater average conversion rate can ask you a question is prioritization important to the success of your lead management there's no question about it philosophy quoted this a truly effective prioritization strategy should be governed by a well-defined sales process and contact strategy it ties to the things that both marcus and i have been talking about so here's your keys live lead management number one prioritize your leads then make sure you optimize your call times when is the best time that your clients are available for your services identify those figure them out build call blocks around that and then here's a key thing impose time limits don't let your people have leads for more time than make sense if you want to impose a 24-hour time limit on leads do it and if they're not converted in 24 hours take those leads back recycle them redistribute them to other sales people in your force so you're maximizing every lead you possibly can and then remember develop future opportunities anybody you can't help today it doesn't mean you can't help them in the future always take your leads and look at future optimization if i'm optimizing today but they don't qualify today how can i build an opportunity for the future so i'm always getting the best out of every lead buy that i make then let's talk for a minute about telesales tips let me give you five quick tele sales tips for telemarketing or tele selling to your leads number one understand this that communication is key the morabian formula which was professor moravian market university found this out when he did a study on communication seven percent of communication is words 38 is tone 55 is body language so when you're managing your sales forces to really convert your leads you've got to make sure their tone is outstanding the key to that is making sure their body language is proper i've been around over a million loan officers in the mortgage business here's what i found top producers always look the same when you walk in their office they're of they're standing many times they're walking they're creating energy they're excited they're smiling they're enthusiastic makes a huge difference in your conversion rates then number two be prepared have your sales people practice write that down that is so critical because if you fail to prepare you prepare to fail have them practice in the morning have them take some cuts if you do that you're going to win in a big way i want to tell you a quick story i'm going to come down i can see why marcus did this i hate being this far away from you guys so i'm gonna come down here by ya everybody pee off me say slava murphy say that come on say slava murphy say that they go what the heck is slava murphy let me tell you i was a baseball coach marcus mentioned this i coached little league baseball when i was my kids were growing up and we used to have this thing we used to do during the drafts okay we're drafting eight and nine year olds and we used to you know get through the first three rounds was all the good players and all the rest were just kids so we came up with interesting names that we'd pick when we looked at ways we wanted to bring kids on our teams so i'm looking at the roles one day and i see this name slava murphy and i'm thinking to myself okay that's a ukrainian irishman hello bruce and i'm thinking i gotta get this kid so i bring slob on he comes to the first practice i sit down i go slava tell me about your name he said well i'm from the ukraine i got adopted by the murphys so now i'm a ukrainian irishman i said great what do you know about baseball he said nothing i said okay have you ever seen a baseball he said no server held a baseball i said no i said so why are you on the baseball team here was his answer he said because i just want to play coach who can work with a kid like that raise your hand okay i'm with you on that so i said okay i'm gonna make this kid a baseball player so for seven games in a row slava went oh for seven games never hit a ball never touched the ball never even came close to a ball no matter how much we practiced him i finally made the decision this is it we're going to make slava baseball player if there's one thing i can teach i can teach hitting so i took saliva one night after practice i said we're going to stay here to hit baseballs and i started throwing them pitches after pitches after pitches after pitches and he was practicing he kept missing kept missing finally i did what any good coach would do i threw one right at his forehead and all you moms don't get nervous it was a soft one i wasn't gonna hurt him but here's what i knew he literally hit the ball the ball hit him and sure enough out of self-preservation what happened he did a tomahawk he hit that thing about 300 feet and his eyeballs got about this big i said slava that's what you got to do imagine the balls coming at you the next day at the game we let him lead off we gave him the honor position first swing he missed by this much second swing he missed by this much i walked over called timeouts it's lava next one's coming at your head hit it the next ball came in his head sure enough he hit it it went all the way to the fence there was only one problem he just stood there and looked at it we forgot to tell him he was supposed to run this is a true story slava murphy got three votes for the all-star team at the end of the season you know why he went on a tear after that once he hit the ball and he realized that just enough practice will get you there he practiced become the best he could be and he became a very good player here's my question how much does your sales force practice how prepared are they for those calls that come in how much are they spending time to convert your leads to make them work you're spending all this money on marketing don't give it to people who can't handle it make sure you're given those leads of people that can convert them for you so make sure you prepare then make sure you're quick on your response velocify gives a great statistic on this three and a half million leads here's what they found if you call them in the first minute you got a 391 percent better chance of getting a hold of them than if you call the second minute that's huge and then call attempts most conversions don't happen until the sixth call attempt the problem is most sales people only call three times so keep calling and then build a value-based presentation i want you to write this down this is a very important point don't miss this one it's called the rule of fives write down the rule of fives what's the rule of fives you have to give your customers five reasons to buy in a value format if you want them to buy it's been proven nobody will buy unless they're given five reasons to do so give them to them up front if you do that you convert more leads all right let's talk about presentation tips for just a minute let me give you some stuff here i love this quote from john emery says innovation's creative creativity with a job to do if we're not innovating then we're imitating and i want to ask you this question do you sell marcus mentioned this early and i agree with them totally on this most people sell and market like others in their industry sell in market don't do that be innovative don't be imitative make sure that you're establishing a value proposition that's different a sales approach that's different a marketing approach is different and be innovative now let me give you the tips on doing this first off you have to understand what's called aristotle's rhetorical triangle aristotle built over 3000 years ago the three keys to communication those three keys are credibility logic and empathy if you don't have credibility your audience don't listen to you if you don't speak logically about your product they won't buy it and if you don't empathize then you don't build relationship so here's what you want to do in your telesales calls open with a differentiating statement let me give you two great tips when you call somebody on a telesales call start with an apology and then ask them for 30 seconds it'll change the whole game because nobody ever apologized to them for calm we just call them up we intrude and we take time out of their day apologize ask for 30 seconds then establish credibility tell them about your company what makes you credible and then once you do that establish a value statement with those five benefits ask for commitment and build their confidence if you do this you'll convert a lot more finally let's talk about management how many managers in the room raise your hand all right i'll tell you a great story so these two guys go hunting every year up to northern minnesota and they go because there's this great hunting dog called salesmen seal's been so good he not only goes and retrieves the birds but he actually cooks the birds serves the birds greatest hunting dog in history they come for their ninth year in a row they come to the owner so we're here to go hunt we need salesman he goes you know what guy's got to pick a different dog like oh my gosh i'm sorry did he die he was no he didn't die he's in the kennel over there he was waiting if he was in the kennel why can't we take him like well here's what happened yesterday there was a couple of guys hunting with salesmen they knocked down a bird salesman to pick it up they accidentally called him sales manager and all he does is sit on his button bark and we relate to that one it's funny how we only have a manager like that but we've never been that guy here's what i want you to understand if we want to be good managers there's five things we want to do in the lead world john maxwell said this a leader is one who knows the way goes the way and shows the way so here's five keys number one have a sales focus not a marketing focus now that sounds weird at a marketing conference but here's what i mean by that of course marketing is your key you got to get leads in for your sales force but what i want you to focus on is sales conversion because your leads are of no value till they convert so make a sales focus then build an energetic environment have an open sales floor with lots of energy build teams build logos build colors run contests do incentives make it motivational make it fun i have turned around hundreds of mortgage companies i have literally in 20 years of working over 300 lenders we have a track record where every company i've worked with their numbers have gone up 38 on average in the first 90 days most companies over 100 in the first year they've doubled their numbers and here's one of the ways we've done it it's not just teaching sales process and marketing process and all that stuff but i come in and i change their environment i build energy in their organization so that what happens is they have an energetic sales force then have daily meetings and checkpoints write this down if you're a manager you've got to inspect what you expect that's very important so have a morning meeting with your sales people set checkpoints during the day make sure they're converting your leads and then build call blocks that they can really work to if you do that and you use contests and incentives you're going to win big jim rohn said this discipline is a bridge between goals and achievement luhl said this coaching is nothing more than mistakes before you get fired i've always loved that quote so here's what i want you to take from today okay i want you to focus on a couple of things and i hope this has been helpful to you number one build your sales philosophies number two take your sales force and make sure you're maximizing opportunity and number three build the greatest organization you can by building it around sales and primary management let me close with the story about the greatest salesperson in the mortgage industry ever live everybody say bruce thompson let me try again say bruce thompson come on really loud say bruce thompson now let me tell you the bruce thompson story so my wife and i many years ago were looking to buy a lake house in wisconsin we looked for two years we finally found a place we fell in love with here was the problem we made an offer somebody else made an offer the same day the offers were the same so the realtor said whoever closes first gets it the race was on so i go to call my bank i call a guy named tim perry the president of the bank i said tim i need a great loan officer i need to close fast he goes dale hang tight you're going to be getting a call from bruce thompson now it's kind of one of these kind of feelings i knew this guy was going to be fantastic so here's what i did i said okay and i hung by my phone well that was nine o'clock in the morning 10 o'clock past 11 o'clock past 12 o'clock past 1 o'clock past 3 o'clock pass no call i'm getting frustrated finally i get a call 3 30 from a guy named bruce thompson i pick a phone and go hello it was mr veronica yes it was this is bruce thompson i said i was expecting your call he says i know he said mr william i have one question for you i said what's that question bruce he said are you available at noon to meet with me on friday now what did i think he was asking me i thought he was asking me to meet at noon to take an application well i unloaded on the poor guy i said bruce maybe you don't understand i need to close quick if we don't close quick we're going to lose this house we love this house if i meet with your friday with applications it's going to take months here's what he said to me he said mr vermillion you don't understand i said understand what he said i'm bruce thompson i said so he said let me explain it what happened he said i gotta call at nine o'clock this morning for the bank president tim perry here's what he said he said the vermilions are looking for a home they gotta close fast i knew you were a customer bar so here's what i did i went ahead and i pulled out your file i looked at your information i got you pre-approved right away i pulled your credit got it all done you're good i filled out your application because you're a busy guy you travel and speak i knew you wouldn't be able to do it and then i went and called the appraiser they're gonna do the appraisal on wednesday call the title company they're gonna set up for thursday i'm gonna ask you one more time you see friday i'm ready to close at noon are you going to be there or not what was the only answer i could say absolutely i was so excited i called my wife i said laurel you're not going to believe it she said what i said bruce thompson she said what are you talking about to go the lake house we're closing friday she said impossible i said no no no bruce thompson you know my wife had the nerve to ask me what's the rate i had no idea i was so excited i forgot to ask myself i don't know i'll call him back i called bruce as a bruce question he said what i said what's the rate he said dale not sure yet it depends i sit on what he goes on what the final thing is he goes here's the bottom line our rates are competitive our rates are good and here's the more important thing you're closing on friday at noon you're going to get your house so you don't really care because i'm bruce thompson god bless you guys thanks for being here you