As a Mortgage Broker you are selling yourself.

What you are trying to get people to buy is trust in you.

As a Mortgage Broker you are trying to convince people that you are their best choice, out of the huge range of choices they have, including deciding not to get a home loan at all. They have already decided they are interested in a new home loan for a wide range of possible reasons. The decision they are now trying to make is whether or not you are the best person to do it for them.

When I was first doing appointments with clients, I went in with the mindset of working with this person to firstly try and understand their current situation and what they were trying to achieve. Then I would work through the relevant loan options available to them, explaining the pros and cons of each in a completely transparent manner so they would understand why I was recommending a particular loan or loans.

I assumed my clients felt the same way and wanted to really understand the different options available so they could make the right, informed decision.

But when I started comparing loan features and interest rates and fees, throwing numbers around about how much they would save and the different repayments and interest rates and fees that they might get, their eyes would quickly glaze over and they would nod along, not really absorbing any of the high level of detail I was giving them. Essentially it was a case of an overload of mathematical information which for the most part they didn’t really care to know.

What they did want to know was whether they could they trust me. Was I working in their best interests or my own, did I know what I was doing, did I genuinely understand their situation and what they really cared about as far as this loan is concerned.

Of course I knew I was going to try and get them the best loan I could, and I’m not saying it’s not important to work through the options with your client so they can clearly see how you are determining the cheapest option that suits them.

What I am saying, though, is that you need to understand and deal with what your client really wants, which is to feel that they trust you.

When you have that you are going to provide the best long term outcomes for your clients because they can be open and honest with you and you can be frank with them. They don’t want to deal with a salesperson, they want a Trusted Advisor who takes charge of their loans so they don’t have to think about them anymore.

Ideally, you want them to be strongly predisposed towards trusting you before you ever speak or meet with them — that is what your initial marketing should be doing for you. It should be laying the groundwork for trust so that there is little or no ‘sales’ involved.