There are a number of reasons for this:

  • It sets that stage for you to become their Trusted Advisor

“Revolve your world around the customer and more customers will revolve around you.” – Heather Williams

It’s up to you to define the relationship from the outset. When your client has come to you through an educational marketing process you have already laid the groundwork for them to see you as a lot more than another salesperson, or the next Mortgage Broker.

If you try and rush them through to a sale this will conflict with your approach to date. From their perspective they have learnt a lot about you already and the benefits you can provide them. You need to build on that by starting the conversation with the goal of finding out all about them, moving you closer to the longer term, higher value relationship that is best for both of you.

  • We want to be as prepared as possible for any appointment we do.

You don’t want to be going to an appointment to find out their situation is substantially different to what you initially thought. If you get there and find out there are major credit file problems that you don’t have a solution for off the top of your head, it’s going to be a wasted effort. Instead, if you knew that beforehand, you could have properly researched their situation before the meeting.

  • We don’t want to waste our time going out to see someone just to find out there is no possibility of us helping them, now or in the future.

In the rare situation where you don’t think there is any possibility of helping someone and there isn’t a path you can put them on to get them ready for a different lending solution, then there isn’t much value in going out to see them, for you or them. The best thing you can do is be frank with them and if possible refer them on to someone else who can help them, if anyone.

Similarly, if the client is simply planning on taking what they hear from us and going straight to the bank, we want to try and get a sense of how they see Brokers and Banks. Have they ever used a Broker before or always just their bank, are they happy to move lenders, what will they do if their current bank matches the best loan you can offer?