I’ve signed up for a free 2 month “we’ll help you with marketing your mortgage business” company. I’m thinking of doing a pre-(this post) and post (later post if that makes sense) of what has changed and how my closing ratios have changed. I’ll assume they will as my marketing effort so far has been a little lacking.

So mark your calendars. Let’s say Halloween time frame for an update.

The price was right, except they like all other marketing and sales companies always want to up-sell you on the next level (or two or ultimate super duper package). The understand the game. Give stuff away and the law of reciprocity says you’ll give back by buying something later.

Now it’s a two month program. Of course the first thing I get in the mail is the “we’ll double your income and double your time off…. in 90 days” CD/DVD package. Does this mean in only 60 days I’ll only get 66% increase and not a full doubling? Or they are just assuming I will like the program enough to pay for the extra 30 days?

Ok, I’ll have to admit I’m (we, my wife & I) a little skeptical, leery, doubting Thomas, really don’t trust the whole ball of wax. Why? Well, let’s just say once bitten (hard I might add), twice shy. At the outset all I can see is everything that made the previous experiences really bad.

It seems to always start with the pressured pitch. “You need to act now in order to <insert item of potential critical nature>”. Either it’s days to something starts, limit time offer, only so many seats available, special extension that wont last forever… you’ve heard it all before. It used to be operators are standing by now it’s “click here” or we’ll put you in touch with one of our “certified” trainers/mentors. “Don’t you know, professionals use mentors. Amateurs think they can do it themselves.”

Yep. Yawn. Can we just get to the guts of the program. Oh, wait there is no guts? Just little tidbits to wet our appetite for more? All we have to do is sign up for (yet) another course?

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but marketing will let you fool all of them at least once.

Should I name names of companies who I’ve either dealt with or have spoken to others about who have the same experience? How about last names to avoid slander. Allen, Whitney, Hansen… Generic enough names, right?

Why do I have at least some glimmer of hope for this “new” marketer? Let’s just say, he appears to be walking the walk. His first thing is he says we need to specialize. OK, what’s he doing? Hm. Really tight market focus. Mortgage brokers/agents/originators. No one else. Just us. Next, offer some information to clients for free and at the same time capture their information. Hm. Let’s see, he’s been emailing me for about 3 months now and made an offer to give me 2 months coaching free.

He’s all about client retention. The best way I’ve found to do this is by creating some kind of forum where people can provide feedback/suggestions/ideas to move forward. He has an online forum of (he boasts) 1800 mortgage professionals. The theory is the experienced folk are there to help answer questions from the newer generation. Some good discussions on the group, however if that many really are “signed up” I would think there would be a whole lot more Q&A. Brokers tend to be a private bunch as if you give too much info, some one could potentially poach your deal. Banks are notorious for doing just that.

From the book, “what would google do?” The main concept is to provide a platform on which you allow others to build new and exciting things. The ones that get it understand it is a collaborative effort (together everyone achieves more) and they work with their customers to improve products in ways which help improve their lives.

I guess if he believed in the power of Google, he would offer this services and website creation/content for free (all of it) and use Google to fund everything through advertising. I think the bigger challenge is to find a community of potential buyers and find out what they want out of a mortgage lending company and work towards becoming that company. If the service is there, then the clients will pay more to get what suits them best.

If there isn’t such a community, then how would one go about creating and attracting people to such a group? Our services (for the most part) are already free. We try to do our best to match your needs to what the lenders are offering. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot of variety amongst the lenders (except maybe FirstLine, see post a couple weeks back).

So that’s my slightly tainted view, from past experience, to the start of this new venture. I have a “coaching” call next week, where “my personal 1 on 1 coach, will reveal to me exactly where my current problems are, fix these issues with some generic tool.” I’ll be so impressed that I’ll want to sign up for the weekly coaching sessions as I’ll see the immediate value from the first 30 minutes.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t avoid being sarcastic when I talk about marketing. It’s the engineer in me rebelling. I’m the logical A to B guy. Start at A. Do the following. You get to B. With marketing, it always seems to be we’ll get you there better/faster/shorter all you have to do is believe, we’ll take care of the rest… for only $xxx/mo.

I’m willing to try. They seem to have specific knowledge of the business. I’ve really got nothing to lose for the next 60 days. Something will likely spark my own creativity. If I manage to even close 1 extra deal a month it’s paid for itself.

Wish me luck and feel free to share your marketing experiences.