I thought I might take a shot at a couple key best practices that I feel are worth mentioning in response to the inquiry Lead Critic received about successful lead buyers.

I know I touched on this a little bit in one of my previous posts, but I feel it is worth its own submission. If I were to try to think of one single component that all best-of-breed shops have, that would be an effective front-line.

Every shop has their “killers.” These are the loan officers that you know, as soon as they get on the phone with a consumer, they are going to be able to match that consumer with a loan product that helps them. They are the ones that originate 15+ loans per month, every month. It is exceptionally rare, however, when this person is also good at, “smiling and dialing.” Do you really want that person wasting their time, (and yours!) banging the phones anyway? No, you want them on the phone, helping consumers at every opportunity.

Invariably, the shops with the best conversion numbers are those that have a call center or telemarketing reps that receive the real-time leads and immediately call the leads. Upon reaching a consumer, they will typically ask a few qualifying questions and then have the capability to transfer the consumer to a live loan officer. This is effective for a number of reasons.

As detailed above, your loan officers are spending their time in the most productive way possible, speaking to consumers and hopefully successfully matching them with loans that fit their needs.

The loan officer loves this because they no longer have to deal with the frustration of the “smiling and dialing,” process. This increases morale on the floor which can lead to: increased fundings, increased profits (both theirs and yours), and greater retention of your top producers.

The down side is that it provides an additional layer of costs to your total cost per funded loan, but the math typically works out in your favor. Telemarketers aren’t cheap. You could probably go through a temp agency and get someone for the equivalent of $15-$16 per hour (including payroll takes, FICA, etc.). So at a full time rate, this will be an additional $2100 per month in expenses. But how many loans do you need to fund to make that up, about 2-3? If you are buying enough leads to be able to keep a telemarketer or two busy, squeezing 2-3 more loans out of your LO’s production, especially since they should now have far less down-time, should not be a stretch.

It is merely a matter of specialization. You keep your employees doing what it is that they do best, you keep morale up and your bottom line should reap the benefits.

.

.

.

Popularity: 11% [?]