Your Business By Design

Category: Real Estate Agent,

design your mortgage business

FOR MORTGAGE BROKERS & REALTORS

Are you counting how many referrals you get from current and past clients? 

We do!

Apart from the amazing realtors who support us, the bulk of our introductions are from current and past clients.

We also consistently get 5-star reviews from our clients, and we now have over 150 5-star reviews.

I’m not writing this to brag (although I do have a slight ego – my friends may tell you that)… I am saying it to convey that I think we’re doing something right.

So what does Pinsky Mortgages do right?

Well, for starters, we’ve figured out that we’re not special. Pls don’t tell mom…

We are very good at what we do, but so are many other mortgage processionals in our industry. And yes, we can get some mortgages approved when others fail, but so can other expert mortgage professionals.

The question very early on for us was: if we’re not special, how do we differentiate ourselves from other amazing mortgage professionals?

Design Your Business

As an aside, the following only applies once you have the basics down. If you can’t write a loan if you’re a mortgage broker, or do a CMA (etc.) if you’re a realtor, you’re missing Step 1. Become an expert in your field before doing anything else..!

To me, designing your business is a way of approaching your customer experience to meet the needs of your clients. 

Business design is about creating a process that leaves nothing to chance. It means being able to look at all of the angles of the customer experience from your client’s point of view.

Now, on any given transaction, you may get lucky. You may hit it out of the park by connecting very well with your client… but, the key to business design is to provide the same amazing service, the same wow factor, every time and to every client!

Pinsky Mortgages Designed Customer Experience

Our customer experience can be defined as the sum of all the interactions our clients have with our company.

It’s not just that we get our mortgages approved and funded, but it’s much more than that. Our customer experience is how we greet people at the door, how we talk on the phone, the fact that we meet our clients in person twice, the way we are initially introduced and even the way we write our emails.

Our goal is to cultivate feelings around our service because our customer experience is built to resonate emotionally. Our customer experience is empathetic and rooted in an understanding and identification of our clients’ feelings, thoughts, and attitudes. We are focussed on understanding problems our clients may face and solve them before they are even aware they exist.

The next four topics outline the initial stages of our mortgage process to show how it was designed to deliver a “wow” to our clients.

Client Introduction and Setting an Appointment

Whenever we get an introduction to a new lead, the most important thing we do is follow-up right away. 

I can’t stress enough how important speed is when it comes to follow-up. Psychologically, answering the introduction email within 20 minutes means you’re on the ball and ready to take on new clients. If you wait until you “have time” later on in the day, it’s possible you may get off on the wrong foot with your client.

Managing expectations is extremely important in everything we do. However, at this stage, there are no expectations to manage – you have not talked to your client and they know very little about you. Set the bar high – answer right away!

OK, so now we have the lead and we respond. The response we crafted is always the same and it answers the following question: “who are you and how can I benefit?” Or: “why should I give you my time when there’s so much competition out there?”

The initial email also extends our availability.

Our initial email looks like this:

Good Evening/Morning/Afternoon XXXXXX,

BBBBBBB, thank you for introducing me!

XXXX, I’m looking forward to providing you with the mortgage advice and service all of my clients and referrals have come to expect.

A little about me and my brokerage: We’re a full-service mortgage broker, specializing in getting you the best rate and most suitable mortgage for your needs, while making sure you understand the mortgage process as well as your actual mortgage. We do this so you can feel comfortable with your home financing. We also go over how to take advantage of mortgage options for you to pay less interest and become mortgage free sooner.

Do you have time for a chat or a meeting this week? I’m generally available with a day or two notice. I work evenings and weekends as well – I know how important that is for people who work 9-5.

I’m free ASLDKFJALSKDFJ evening and ALSDJFH evening. Do any of those times work for you?

Looking forward to meeting you!

Warm Regards,

Eitan

We get very good responses from this well-crafted email introduction response.

Pre-Meeting Email or Call

Once the client has responded back, we will either call to schedule a meeting or schedule it over email. If the meeting was fully scheduled by email, we also send our home buyers guide out so that it can answer any pre-meeting questions. If the meeting was scheduled by phone, we follow-up with our home buyers guide.

The call and email is meant to manage clients’ expectations. We introduce ourselves and we explain exactly what we’re going to do in the first meeting, how long it’s going to be, what documentation may be needed, and what they will learn. 

We tell the client that the meeting will go over 5 things: 

  1. What four items are required for a mortgage in Canada,
  2. What a pre-approval is (and what it’s not), 
  3. We’ll do a small application together so that,
  4. We can pull credit and teach the client how to read their own credit bureau.
  5. Explain affordability and educate the clients on their specific options for qualifying.

We explain that at the end of the meeting, the client will know exactly how much they will be approved for and what documentation will be required for the pre-approval or full approval. 

Secondly, the initial phone call is to provide love to the person who referred us. Since we have been referred by someone, most likely a current or past client or realtor, we know that we have been trusted to do a good job. We reciprocate the favour by making sure the client knows how awesome it is to have the referrer as a friend, acquaintance, or realtor.

If the referrer is a realtor, we explain how good that realtor is and how lucky the client is to be working with them. Yes, we can always find something to say about a realtor that makes the realtor look good (and true). Lucky for us, the vast majority of the realtors who refer us business are top notch!

There’s a lot of psychology in place here about providing love for the referrer; please don’t hesitate to ask me specifically about this item. And yes, we have scripted all of this.

Meeting our Clients at our Office

We try to meet all of our clients at our office. 

Before clients arrive, we put some coffee on, boil some water for tea, and make sure that our snack bowl is full. For our snack bowl, we have an assortment of Kind Bars, chips and trail mix. 

Giving someone food and/or a beverage serves two important purposes. 

First, when you give someone anything, again, psychologically that person now likes you more and feels like they have to reciprocate. We do like to share and it’s human nature! Reciprocation can be a smile or a good feeling and it may mean that you’ll build better rapport.

Second, we are trying to fight off our clients being “hangry.” When hungry, humans may be less agreeable, less willing to learn, and less able to build rapport. When our blood sugar is managed, our moods change for the better, helping us focus on what’s important. 

Now, when the clients come in, we greet them at the door with a smile and a handshake.

We always ask if the client wants snacks, coffee or tea, and water. Experience has taught us that most clients will take one of the three (snacks, coffee/tea, or water) but if we ask again in 10 minutes, they do ask for something else. We’re generous with our snacks!

The moral here is always ask if the client wants something to eat/drink at least twice. Make your clients’ happy through their tummies 🙂

Build Rapport

Remember that at this time your client still doesn’t know much about you. They know you answer emails and phones quickly, they know you are professional due to the emails you write and the documentation you’ve provided so far, but they don’t know YOU!

Ask some open ended questions. Ask how their trip in to see you was. Ask them if they usually like tea or coffee and if so, what kinds. Ask questions about them!

“No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care!”

I know it sounds cliche but our initial consultations, and every interaction after, is about building a friendship. 

We have two assumptions when we meet our clients with the first being that they will be our clients and that they will work with us (called an assumed close) and that we will become friends. It’s kind of like dating – put your best foot forward and learn about your client.

The best book I can recommend for this is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Conclusion

To build a sustainable, scalable business, you need processes and systems in place. What better way to start than to “design” your process with the customer and the customer experience in mind.

Every thing we do is with the customer in mind. It’s not that we’re special, it’s that our clients are special, and we’re lucky that they are noticing.

If you have any questions about our process or about designing your own, please let me know and I’d be very happy to help out.

Warmest Regards,

Eitan

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