In today’s age of text messaging and social media marketing, cold calling to generate leads may seem old-school. It’s important to remember that leads are still human beings and not resources. Direct interaction allows you to build immediate rapport and establish a relationship upfront.
This article will help you understand the process of cold calling and how to implement cold calling into your mortgage business to generate leads.
Key Takeaways
- Cold calling is still an effective way to generate leads in the mortgage industry, as it allows you to build rapport and establish a relationship with potential clients.
- According to studies, cold calling is effective in getting appointments, with one out of every 59 cold calls leading to a meeting or referral.
- Before making a cold call, it’s important to have a script in place that focuses on the lead’s needs and interests.
- You can optimize your loan acquisition process with an automated marketing funnel system like the Unfair Advantage, which pre-qualifies leads and guides them through a personalized homebuyer journey.
- When making a cold call, establish trust with a personalized greeting and introduction, describe your services, and ask direct questions to identify the lead’s needs.
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What is a cold calling?
Cold calling is defined as making a sales call to an unknown lead or lead. Typically, the loan officer obtains leads through third-party lead acquisition methods such as a lead generation provider.
In the case of the mortgage industry, a cold lead may be someone who submitted an opt-in inquiry on a house listing website. Since you’ve never had any interaction, you don’t know if they are interested in buying or just browsing. Cold calling is beneficial in this instance because you can call the lead to determine their interest.
Benefits of cold calling
Is cold calling effective? According to studies conducted by RAIN Group, 82% of buyers agreed to meet with salespeople who contacted them by cold calling. One out of every 59 cold calls ends with a meeting or a referral.
Cold calling works to generate leads
Once you master the art of cold calling, you can convert cold leads into warm leads and send them through the right sales funnel based on their interest. You can optimize your loan acquisition process with our proprietary automated marketing funnel system called Unfair Advantage. The Unfair Advantage system is made to simplify the mortgage loan qualification process by taking your clients through a personalized homebuyer journey while pre-qualifying them.
Cold calling structure
Once you have access to contact information for a cold lead, it’s best to make the call immediately or as soon as reasonably possible.
Before you begin cold calling, you need to have a script in place. You want to make sure you know what you’re going to say before getting on the phone with a cold lead. Consumers are always on the defense when it comes to getting calls from salespeople. Therefore it helps to have a cold calling script in place.
Another thing that can help you before the call is made is doing a little research on the lead. We are in a digital era, and social media is a great way to know your lead before making a cold call.
Greeting
The first ten seconds are the most important time you must convince a cold lead not to hang up on you. The best way to do this is to have a greeting in place that establishes trust by making the call all about the lead instead of you.
Introduction of yourself
Don’t rush the greeting, and don’t rush into introducing yourself. Otherwise, you will sound like a salesperson. Your introduction should be friendly and allow the lead to engage with you. Your introduction needs to communicate:
- Who you are
- Your business
- The reason you called concerning the client’s needs
Description of your service
After you introduce yourself and explain why you called, you can elaborate by providing the lead with a description of your services. When you describe your service, you need to phrase it so that it tells what problem you can help them solve.
This is the opportunity to ask more questions of the lead to identify their exact interest. You can ask questions like:
- Are you looking to purchase a home or refinance your current home?
- What is the timeframe you are interested in purchasing your home?
- Have you already started speaking to other real estate professionals?
- Have you already been pre-qualified for a loan
Asking for appointments
Once you establish the specific interest of your lead, you can move to the next step. Suppose they are not interested in buying now, or they’ve confessed that they are not qualified for a loan due to their current credit or income situation. In that case, you offer to send them an informative email with information that will benefit them. This allows you to send them through the correct sales funnel.
If the lead meets all your criteria for an immediate opportunity, you can ask for an appointment.
Answer for the objection
Although a cold lead may be interested in moving forward with buying a home, some of them may be hesitant to schedule an appointment.
Don’t be intimidated. Ask them when they think they’ll be ready to move forward with the next step. Your response is always to get them to opt into your funnel so that you can guide them through the automated process. With the Unfair Advantage, even if they are not ready for an appointment yet, you can still send them through the funnel to qualify the borrower on their own schedule.
The Unfair Advantage will take your lead through an automated homebuyer’s journey to educate them and build trust so that they can gain the confidence to move to the next step.
Once you qualify the lead through our automated system, the qualified lead can schedule an appointment on your calendar.
Cold calling scripts
Now that you know the outline of an effective cold calling script, let’s check out an example. In this instance, the cold lead John Smith submitted a form online at Zillow while looking at a home.
Greeting
“Hello John, this is [your name]. My associate partner from Zillow sent me your contact information to see if I can help answer any questions. I see you were looking at [specify based on information available] on Zillow. Tell me more about what kind of home you’re looking at buying.”
Introduction
“You [goals] sound exciting! I’m a Loan Officer from [company], and I help homebuyers with a key part of the buying process. I wanted to see how I can help answer any questions you have.”
Description of your service
You describe your services here, but you also want to ask your preliminary qualification questions here as well to personalize your offer.
“I help homebuyers get qualified for mortgage financing while ensuring they get the best rates. Have you completed the loan prequalification steps yet?”
Asking for appointments
Be assumptive when scheduling an appointment.
“I’d like to send you an email with some vital information that will prepare you for the loan approval process and get you prequalified. I can send that over to you after our call. When is a good time for us to schedule a follow up meeting to see how to get you qualified for the best rate?”
Answer for the objection
If the lead rejects your appointment, you can still send them through your sales funnel and turn them into a warm lead that you can follow up with later.
“No worries, I understand you have a busy schedule. I will just send you an email after our call so that you can have access to valuable information that can help you prepare for your upcoming home purchase. You can also schedule an appointment with me once you’ve cleared up some time on your calendar.”
Is cold calling effective?
When you have an automated marketing process to support your pipeline workflows, a cold lead can always become a warm lead that is led through the qualification and client onboarding processes. If you need help analyzing your current marketing process, schedule your free Fastrack marketing growth strategy session with us.
Cold calling gets appointments
Cold calling is effective because you are connecting directly with your target client on a personalized platform- verbally. Cold calling allows you to introduce yourself as a warm human and establish a relationship with a cold lead. You can ask direct questions that can allow you to adjust your offer to meet a specific need. Establishing trust is the first step to converting leads into clients.
