Sales funnel for mortgage

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hey it's the monitor-based team here we are here with myself I'm Lily the VP of Mrs relations here at monitor base William LeBaron I'm the VP of Business Development at monitor base and I'm Louise ziting I'm uh CEO and founder we're having this conversation that we find is really interesting about the mindset for how to manage all of the contacts from the beginning of how you might reach that contact an impression a conversation all the way down to a funded loan Louis what has been the consistent mindset or the way that you find loan officers think about this process or is it a pipeline yeah I think you know a lot of people think of it like a pipeline which is kind of a straight line from you've you know you get a referral and it goes hopefully through the process to a funded loan um but you know anywhere in in marketing you've got to think of the pipeline as more of a funnel that funnels down to that closed finished transaction because not every deal is going to close and in this market obviously there's other Market factors that are making it more difficult for things to go from one level of the pipeline down so we thought this was important to kind of bring it up share this as a little bit of value to our users um just for food for thought for you know what can you be doing in the different steps of the pipeline so that you have good quality output like you did when times weren't so slow this isn't a new idea by any means I'm sure we're all familiar with kind of that sales funnel idea or that or that process but it's something that especially seeing a visual it can change your mindset and perspective to help you be creative with how you're adding into that funnel or how those contacts are moving through that funnel and and turning into an actual funded loan I think the pipeline thing is an interesting thought because people generally like when a loan officer is describing their work they have a pipeline of deals in process and if you don't look farther far enough back um it's kind of like what you focus on improves and if you're focused only on the pipeline that pipeline starts at an application and that application is a referral from a real estate agent of someone who's already chosen a home and they're ready to buy right that's that's the common thing there's a lot more happening prior to that and not focusing on those earlier steps um really earlier in that funnel is neglecting opportunity and so I think a lot of it you mentioned visually optimizing a funnel at each step that kind of the usefulness is being able to break it into categories and then understand okay this is an area we can affect we can make an impact here in order to get more into our pipeline because that's all you know that's ultimately the goal but it it has to start with a thought process that goes earlier than we traditionally look at our pipeline taking a look at this first wide you know part or stage of our funnel we would we have coined it the impression stage what is encompassed in the impression stage well really this is you know how does anybody first see your face your brand just know your existence so you know up above the funnel you've got people out there in your Marketplace or the homebuyer universe that are interested at some point in buying a house or selling a house or even refinancing Works similar and so the first step is you know is that an impression as far as like one of your Realtors mentioning your name to somebody or somebody might see you know some advertising piece you're doing on Facebook or just you know see a post that you've done on Facebook or Instagram I guess a lot more people are on Instagram that's the the big wide top of the funnel and it's really just you know that connection with you even though there hasn't been a conversation yet one of the things I think is interesting to think about from an impression perspective is anytime you create a partner relationship that person is going to be the first impression for a whole set of people a connection to you and so being able to tap into that you know a network of Partners is going to give you that second degree connection but that first impression to a whole set of people that would otherwise never hear about you never know you existed and so from an Impressions perspective that's just top of your funnel is almost all just all those people in your network that might have some way to hear about you um and and it's not you know that we need to be standing on a roof and with a loudspeaker saying everyone we do mortgages um there's only a small percentage of people that need a loan every month and it's about being in the network and connected in that Network where your name has a chance of coming up you gotta get at the ball game that stage a lot of people want to skip because it doesn't seem really effective to go out and do social media posts because you're not instantly getting engagement or doing branding type marketing right or meeting with Realtors just to build the relationship but consumers got to go through that impression part before they get to engagements and so we don't want to overlook that and if you are building ways that people can get an impression on your brand up front there is eventually that's going to create more output and I know that the impression is kind of the word that specifically social media uses when that you know visual meets the eye of somebody on social media but you think about it and it really does make it an impression there's uh a company that's local to me where if I drive down the freeway they usually have three Billboards in a row in either direction and each billboard plays off of the next uh they'll use catchy song lyrics and kind of a play on words and even though they're a I think they're a mortgage company or real estate and even though I'm not in the Market at the moment it actually has a left an impression on me where I think about it and I think oh that's funny every single time I drive down the freeway yeah and there's there's plenty of stats that say you know people need to have this many impressions of you or your brand before they'll engage and so they're probably just trying to get that done all at once with three Billboards in a row and it's definitely unique but um so yeah so let's we'll kind of move on from that one and and move on to the next stage which is engagements so this is somebody's actually interacting with some of your content you know whether it's an advertisement of some sort or an email that you've sent or um you know maybe they're actually reaching out to you from the realtor that this that gave them your name right so what do you guys think we can do to help our users expand on the engagements part of the funnel it's always a question of um do you need more quantity coming into the funnel do you need to expand the network and the amount of Impressions occurring um because engagement to me is is consumption you know I can be scrolling through a social media feed or I can be walking past a a poster or a billboard or something and there's an impression where I see it and there's an engagement where I read it or I stop and I watch the video it's a question of where do you need to optimize because not everyone's going to be the same thing for some of you it's like no one's going to hear about you because you don't put any kind of information out there and that's often like a perfectionist uh issue it's like I don't want to put something out there that isn't perfect it doesn't perfectly represent me it's like well if you put something out there and it doesn't perfectly represent you it did get your name out there if you don't post something out there because you don't have something that perfectly represents what you want it to represent then you're guaranteed to have nobody see or hear about you right and so I think early in the funnel particularly that's where you have to prioritize quantity in some instances quality is important but not creating an ad or sending an email or putting a social media post is because you know you don't have the exact perfect thing to say or or put together so you don't do anything the end result is worse than doing something and having it flop with half of the people in some cases it's like the worst case they're going to just keep scrolling in a lot of you know really unless you make a big mistake right you can't go too crazy on social media but realistically chances are if you don't do a great job um most people will just scroll by they'll never engage but if you don't do anything then you got nothing out of it so to me engagement is still a quantity game uh more than optimizing messaging game that's I mean that's when you come into someone's conscious mind instead of just subconsciously scrolling through ads when they think okay this is interesting I'm gonna click on it maybe read something maybe a blog or whatever that might be that's that conscious part of the Mind and then if they're impressed enough or if they're in the right stage of their home buying cycle then I think that's when it goes next to the conversations part of the funnel you mentioned clicking on something I think it's worth mentioning that sometimes we forget to include a call to action in whatever visual we have so sometimes it's helpful like a YouTuber and you're like subscribe to my channel it might sound silly because the Subscribe button is right there but having that call to action might make them think about it and put it at the Forefront of their mind yeah it makes a huge difference we've done so much with advertising where we had something valuable and we didn't you know tell them hey Next Step do this and it just you know far few people do that they're like okay that was a good information I'm moving on so yeah call to actions are important and engagements always lead to well engagement should lead to conversations which is the next part of our funnel and where we kind of feel like the magic really starts to happen this win sales you know in the the sales culture comes in right if you if you get to the point of a conversation um you guys all know what to do right provide Great Value provide education and solve problems for them something that we would suggest is don't assume at this point that you're in the application stage this is just conversations you're trying to build some trust in a relationship and that means giving giving giving value so talk about them ask them what are they trying to do when are they trying to do it just get them if you can get them talking and opening up then you're far more likely to keep that person through the next few parts of the funnel I think the biggest thing is when you're considering conversations I don't know I go I think about myself like what kind of conversation do I want to have do I want to have a conversation about what is interesting to Louis or do I want to have a conversation about what is interesting to me and if you're talking about starting and engaging a conversation it's about them not about us and that's always kind of challenging because we get someone in there talking to us and it's like let me tell you about my favorite new hobby that you have no interest in and you know I might be really enthusiastic but that will only go so far um so you know how do you make the conversation about them how do you add value and you can do that by just asking them questions ask someone about their very favorite subject in the world themselves and and you'll find someone talks and talks and you create a connection um and those are the people that I find that I like the most when I meet someone new and they ask questions like this person really wants to understand me and that's where I feel like I connect with people yeah it's human nature we want you know we're interested when somebody's interested in us right so I mean just think of all of the marketing emails that you get or messages through Linkedin you can tell that you know these people aren't going to get much engagement when the first thing to talk about is the product that they offer right it's like if they start the first thing saying hi I work at this company and I want to tell you about this and so people are busy it's like I don't you're a stranger so I don't really want to know about your company and I don't have time for that so I'm moving on right um where you know just observe yourself looking at looking through your marketing emails that you get or any messages that you get on LinkedIn if somebody says hey I know you because of this or we talked together two years ago or hey you're part of that whatever group that we met at right so bring the attention to them and something about them and start it that way rather than trying to start the conversation talking about your product well and which of these people end up falling off of the funnel for a while I think sometimes it can be those people who feel really scared especially first-time homebuyers who have never done this before they might not even have anyone in their family who has done it before so they might feel very alone might feel really worried and sometimes when you're a mortgage professional that's your everyday job you're so used to the lingo you know exactly how every part of the process works but it makes such a big difference to slow down and really listen to their concerns and those people might be more hesitant they might require a little bit more explaining a little bit more conversation obviously you know all this you're the professional but it does make a huge difference to have those people feel like their needs are being understood and met yeah you know on that point if you start talking the lingo that you know and they don't that can create confusion and when people are confused then they pull away so you know they're not going to say wait I don't understand what you're talking about or please explain that more because they don't they don't want to look like they don't understand a concept so you know make sure you're being detailed and pause and say does that make sense right or can I can I expand right there but yeah this you know this conversation stage the point we want to make is this isn't the bottom of the funnel when somebody calls you the first time just consider you're they're entering your Universe you're trying to make friends and then we're gonna move through the next few stages of the funnel I always kind of think as we're talking about like moving through the stages I don't I like to view things through the lens of how I consume content because it's like I'll go out and I'll write a marketing email and I'll be like that's awesome that's perfect and then if I take a break and I come back throwing my water bottle if I take a break and I come back to that marketing email after I've written it and I think it it was such a good job um I can look at it from the perspective of if I'm the consumer of this I'm going to view that totally different if I if I just consciously change that perspective to me that conversation as it transitions to kind of nurturing it's about looking at it from the perspective of the person you're working with or you're having the conversation with and if that person is reaching out to you on social media because you made a post and they ask you a question about something you don't have to transition all those conversations over to mortgage right it you if you spend the time just connecting with people and engage with them where they're at what they're asking about because you may have posted your workout on something right or you may have hosted a vacation or a hobby that's I think where where I think we probably discount because that connection of shared interest is what makes someone like you and if you connect with them in that context um you have a huge Advantage you've created a relationship where you know if everything to you is is too quickly transitioned to like how do I help you with a mortgage or oh these people keep responding to my workout posts or my golf posts or my fishing post whatever that is and I get no engagement on my mortgage post so I'm gonna stop doing it's like that engagement is is great not a lot of people need a mortgage if you build a bunch of relationships and people like you and they engage with you there I think there's a patience part of that nurture that's just like you've got to talk to a lot of people what does Jeff say you've got to kiss a lot of frogs is the joke but but you have a lot of conversations going it's okay that they responded to something you said or you got off the topic of mortgages and you've never got back around to it I think that nurturing portion of a conversation allow it to naturally progress like a conversation will progress allow yourself to connect with people as people connect without the ulterior of how do I get this back to a topic of a mortgage if you do that eventually when they do need your product there's a much better chance they're going to come to you if you don't do that and you're always just pushing mortgage they will make sure that they never come to you when that time comes and that's maybe a little bit harsh but I think that's a lot of the reality I don't like to be pressured but if Louis keeps posting fly fishing pictures and I like them and I enjoy that content and I respond to them and then later when I do need a mortgage in a year and a half and Louie is someone I connect with on a regular basis it's a different yeah situation yeah it's easier to have a conversation that's easier to go into the nurture stage and and something I think a lot of people want to jump from one stage to the next you're you really want to think I'm just trying to get somebody from this stage to the next one and you could really improve your skills on just getting someone from Impressions to engagement and then focus on engagements to conversation and then conversation is to nurture and I think a lot of people think you go conversations to Applications but all you're trying to do in the conversation stage is that they will go into the nurture stage meaning you can call them back again in a month and they're going to answer and that's that's a whole big step in itself if you're doing cold calling and you're trying to build a pipeline unless you're building these conversations you're really unlikely to talk to those people again so yeah focus on getting that to the next stage so and I think a lot of people skip or the thought of the nurture stage but if you think about it the conversations that you have these people aren't ready to buy a home today and so there's going to be a there's gonna be a nurture stage and a lot of people in that nurture stage of the funnel and that's where I think there's a lot of improvement right now that can be made and I think that's a big part of the funnel that's growing for people or it should be because the minute the rates come down a little bit or there's a little more inventory in their area they can move into the application stage so I think successful loan officers right now are building the top of their funnel getting people into the nurture stage the best they can even if they're not 100 ready to go and what I love about the nurture stage is as William mentioned it's a bill about building a relationship but it's also where you get to flourish and be the expert because everybody has concerns and questions and things that they need to think through and you are the expert in your field in your industry and you can provide valuable educational content to these people who need your help my sister was she's along you know many years ago she was looking to get her first home and she connected with a lender who was really informative and educational and just spent a lot of time discussing you know every every detail that my sister had questions about um and she nurtured her so much that my sister bought that home refinance bought another home refinance bought another home so she's done like six loans with her uh and she comes to her with all these questions about her financial future and I mean obviously that started with this lender being a wonderful helpful you know nurturing um educator in the in the space and it turned into multiple loans where my sister is never going to go to anybody anyone anybody else ever again yeah and again in this stage it's not about getting getting them into the nurture stage and then calling him and saying hey are you ready to take an app there if you can get them in the nurture stage you can provide value they're going to tell you when it's time to do an application or we're gonna give you an alert that says hey we think they're close or they just applied somewhere else but you know build up that nurture stage and that's something that you can do every day is nurture people in that stage of the funnel say how are you doing can I tell you some more about what's going on in the market I know you know you can like even tell them hey I don't think this is a great time for you but I have you on my list and the second that things line up I'm going to give you a call and then it's more of a service than than a you know a hardcore sale it makes you feel like you're on the same team if if the person has already talked to and they've explained to you their concerns and maybe they're just worried about a rate then when you come to them without good news maybe they've improved their credit or the rate is at a really good point that day and you call them up and you say hey let's lock this today it really makes them feel like you're working for them specifically well and that's especially true for um refinance type transactions because there are people that would love to do debt consolidation do something and it's more rate dependent so there's quite a bit of pent-up demand because of rates from a current homeowner perspective but a lot of the Restriction in the market right now is really capped because of inventory you just can't find a home that fits what you need that that's largely what's slowing the mortgage Market down right now so in an environment where inventory is an issue that person might be shopping for a while and there's nothing no amount of pressure or anything you can do or really they can do that makes a difference we're just waiting for an offer to get accepted or the right house to come up that that's going to fit what they need and so in a scenario like that um being in touch being empathic understanding their situation and being helpful and then just maintaining some amount of contact again that's not like hey Louie just seeing if you're ready to do that house purchase yeah it's like no like hey how's the house shopping going or or you know this is some information that might be helpful that kind of connection I think and again the nurture sequence is where you're starting to get more into the actually talking about a loan scenario but even then I think you can actually you can do a lot of nurturing without ever talking about anything industry specific give them updates on the market you know if you listen to Barry Habib and do the MBS Highway thing that's where you can feed them those you know Market updates like here's what's going on still not allowed has changed but we're getting there and I'm gonna call you when time comes and really you know kind of what we've been talking about here from nurture to application it's not as much a decision by the consumer just to decide you know what now I'm ready to do it once they are in that funnel then they want to do it it's a it's about ability like when do the abilities line up like their credit their down payment um prices in their area or inventory in their area once all the stars aligned they're going to go to application mode and so you know don't feel like you need to do a hardcore sale from nurture to application you're just you're just you know keeping friendships with them and they'll tell you when the abilities have changed to where they can go to the application stage we've talked about well it's kind of a general experience for all loan officers let's talk a little bit more about how the monitor based alerts also work in this perspective of the funnel I think everybody you know understands our inquiry alerts and those are you're being alerted when somebody's you know down at the bottom of the funnel with somebody else but you still got the ability to engage because somebody might have given them a bad funnel experience to where they took him straight to application without any of that nurture or any or education and that's not a very strong relationship if you've done that nurturing it's very easy for you to pull them back as a customer if you think about our migration alerts that's really where people come from you know if somebody's had credit issues they're going from that nurture stage into application then we've got our predictive alerts that really we're we're going to feed you people that are likely to move through the funnel faster because the the ability part is there um it doesn't mean that you don't have to go through the steps but it just means far more of those are likely to move through the steps faster than just a random impression from social media of you have no clue of you know what their behavior is like what their credit's like so the predictive is really helping you put more in the funnel that's more likely to move down faster so partly it's like you think about it as Impressions you have your network your audience like those are your contacts all the people in your network um when you get some of the alerts that we deliver it's almost escalating it to say hey um you know when you're working on your regular just your regular funnel your network people are raising their hand they're engaging and they're reaching out to you and and they're starting conversations because they are self-identifying that they are interested in engaging with someone like you that might be because the information you put out was really interesting to them it might be because they're starting to think about a mortgage and they're beginning to warm up that conversation so a lot of the time when you get these predictive alerts or these other alerts we're saying this person is very likely to be ready for this conversation stage they're already inside of your network that you know you've already had Impressions on them either past client or Prospect or they're you know they're in your monitor-based account so they have some amount of relationship and we're trying to kind of escalate that because you know that's kind of I would say putting someone into that conversation stage where you're going to be able to reach out and engage um and then it becomes just a nurture game whereas you know if you're going with just without a software like monitor base just general population if you're guessing how many people in your network you should engage with you should try and start a conversation with you've got like a less than a one percent chance that person needs a mortgage right now whereas a lot of our alerts are there you know the credit trigger alert that's like a hundred percent chance that person is interested in a mortgage right now and predictive alerts you know it's a it's a basically a 10 to 20 chance that person is interested in a mortgage in the next couple of months so you've got a much different approach than just general Network population where you've got less than that one percent it's like hey these people are the ones you should be starting to have conversations with and trying to engage um and get into that nurture stage um that's how I look at this funnel as it pertains to monitor base monitor base is like you're doing an x-ray of all of the contacts in your funnel and it's showing you exactly who you should use your and then it's just nurture nurture nurture on those contacts yeah which ones can you pull to the next stage predictive it's putting people in the engagement stage you're getting those little notifications that they opened the offer and it's up to you to turn that into a conversation stage some of them will email you and say yeah I'm interested but if they've if they've engaged they've opened that email they've looked at your offer then those are some of the best ones to make a call to because then you can pull them into the conversation stage and that's really you know that's really the value of the predictive is get more people Upstream so that you're not talking to them when they're already down in the application stage with somebody else and so they have to do a little catch up but get them into your funnel earlier in the process so that they get to that application stage with you rather than with their their bank or credit union or some online lender and we even do things on our side that help increase you know the number of contacts that you can put into the funnel with our contact enrichment you don't need addresses you can put names and emails or names and phone numbers in to cast that net a little bit wider and create more Impressions at the top of the funnel and the wonderful thing about this is even with the monitor-based data the greatest asset is you and your relationship and the nurture that you give to that consumer that's really you know the P the piece of the puzzle that cannot be replaced thanks for participating in this conversation with us this has been really fun for us please comment share any ideas that you have for either adding volume to the funnel or converting better through any of the stages of the funnel what has worked for you let us know and be sure to subscribe to the monitor based blog for any other Market updates or shared ideas in the future