As a mortgage loan officer with a lead generation strategy in place, chances are you receive many applications each and every month. Thinking about those applications, how many have you received this month from borrowers who do not qualify due to bad credit? How do you handle these prospective clients? While many loan officers simply refer them to credit repair and hope they return when their credit improves, the fact is this method is likely to lose you these potential clients. Instead of sending them on their way, your business and lead generation can receive a substantial boost with credit repair lead generation and the creation of a credit repair sales funnel.
Key Takeaways
- A credit repair sales funnel is a way to help potential borrowers with poor credit to work towards improving their credit score and eventually qualify for a mortgage.
- By partnering with a credit repair company, you can refer potential clients for credit repair and follow their progress through a portal provided by the credit repair company.
- Regular follow-up with credit repair clients is important to check on their progress and eventually convert them into closing clients.
- Creating a credit repair sales funnel can help you convert leads that don’t currently qualify for a mortgage into sales in the future.
- By taking the time to help potential clients repair their credit, you can create a positive relationship and build trust that can lead to repeat and referral business in the future.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a visual representation of the journey potential borrowers follow through the buying process. This sales funnel helps you understand every stage of the buying process and what your customers are thinking at every stage. This allows you to see where clients fall out of your sales funnel and what marketing actions you can take to help them continue through the funnel and reach closing.
How to handle prospects with bad credit
In the mortgage industry, many borrowers fall through a sales funnel during the application process because of poor credit. If a borrower does not qualify for a mortgage because of poor credit history, many loan officers simply inform them that their credit needs work in order to qualify and send them on their way. Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity and can cost you many potential buyers in the long run. When a borrower fails qualification due to poor credit, it is time for you, as a loan officer, to shift them into a credit repair sales funnel and make them aware that you want to work with them to help them achieve home ownership. In order to do this effectively, there are some additional steps you need to have in place.
Creating a credit repair sales funnel
Similar to a traditional sales funnel, a credit repair sales funnel follows clients with credit challenges through the steps of credit repair. In many cases, borrowers know they need to improve their credit but are overwhelmed or unsure of how to fix their credit report, and, in this case, many just give up. When this happens, you lose a potential client. Even if they do repair their credit eventually, they likely won’t remember your name and will move on to a new loan officer.
But that doesn’t have to happen. Creating a credit repair sales funnel allows you to monitor the actions of your potential client and walk them through the steps necessary to take them through the standard sales funnel. Instead of simply informing those that do not qualify that they need to repair their credit, you create a credit repair sales funnel that moves them through credit repair with your help. When a client is denied a loan for poor credit, there are some immediate steps you can take:
- Review the credit report together: Take the time to go over the client’s credit report with them, highlighting what needs to improve. Provide education on how your client can do this.
- Highlight late debts and old debts: Inform potential clients to start paying off old debts and ensure that all current debts are brought and remain current.
- Evaluate credit card debt: Credit card utilization makes a big impact on credit scores. Advise clients to pay down credit card debt, ideally bringing utilization to under 10%.
- Remove late payment reports: Explain how clients can call creditors and ask for a “goodwill deletion” when it comes to late payment reports.
- Refer to a credit repair company: If your clients are overwhelmed, consider referring them to a partnered credit repair company. Learn more about this below.
Tips to boost your lead generation and income with credit repair sales funnel
In many cases, despite going over a borrower’s credit report and offering tips to repair it, many borrowers are still lost. If this is the case, the next step in your credit repair sales funnel is to point them to a credit repair company that specializes in repairing negative credit. However, it is still important that you play an active role in order to continue following their progress.
1. Partner with a credit repair company that supports you
Chances are you don’t have the time or the experience to walk every potential client through credit repair. However, partnering with a credit repair agency that will work with your potential clients toward the goal of qualifying and closing on a mortgage is the perfect solution. By working together, you can refer ALL your potential clients for credit repair that provides cobranded customer communications with the explicit goal of qualifying for a home loan. In many cases, the credit repair company can also provide you with a portal that allows you to follow the progress of your potential clients. This partnership not only boosts the sales for the credit repair company but will enable you to help and move potential clients through the funnel, eventually leading to a sale down the road.
2. Follow up with credit repair clients
If your clients sign up with your credit repair company, place them into your credit repair sales funnel. Once in place, it is important that you stay in touch with these clients on a regular basis. As your clients are actively working to repair their credit, it is important that you reach out to them personally to check on their progress. As long as they actively continue to repair their credit, they will eventually become a closing client for your business at some point.
Credit repair leads can be beneficial
In order to understand the importance of creating a credit repair sales funnel, take a look at your average lead generation each month through sources such as your website. How many of those leads don’t credit qualify for a mortgage? Imagine if you had a successful credit repair sales funnel in place that, on the conservative side, converted even half of those leads into sales within a year. How much of a boost would those additional sales add to your production rate? Instead of losing these potential sales, take the steps to ensure you have future sales down the road.
We can help boost overall lead generation
Whether you have a credit repair sales funnel in place or are working to start one, steady lead generation is necessary for the success of any loan officer. At Good Vibe Squad, we understand that many loan officers need help with creating a steady stream of leads. Our Unfair Advantage™ program is designed to help you boost your lead generation and create a steady stream of leads for both your general sales funnel as well as a credit repair sales funnel. To learn more about how we can help boost your monthly lead generation, book a strategy call today.
