LEADCRITICStop Cold Calling Your Leads!
Filed Under: Lead Buying 101, featured, Zipsearch!, consumer experience, LendingTree, Lead Providers, Mortgage & Real Estate, LEAD Management
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This is one of the biggest mistakes I see lead buyers making with their leads. An Internet leads, if generated with any level of integrity, is not a cold call. It is an initiated, hand waver!
Think about what a quality Internet consumer lead implies:
- There was a need
- They have done some level of research (i.e., did a search, read an email, had a discussion)
- They provided private contact information
They are asking to be called so don’t treat them like strangers–complete the experience.If you have not already read my ebook, What are Internet Leads? you may want to grab that to reinforce some of the concepts in this post.
Stop looking at a lead–that name, email, and phone number–as a complete and discrete item in and of itself. To be consistently successful, very successful, with Internet leads you need to think of a lead as one step in a complete customer experience. And if you do things correctly you, as sales, can be the very quick fulfillment of that process.
When you receive a new lead it is important that you have some knowledge of where the consumer has been and how they got to you. I am firmly in the camp that sales people show know the source of the lead. They should also be armed with a logical transition script. That transition should very simply link the sales call to the online experience the consumer just completed.
- “Hi Mary, this is Joe Banker from AAA Mortgage and I am following up on your rate inquiry from Bankrate,” or
- “Mr Thompson I understand you a looking to put your home to work for you in retirement? Did you find the information about reverse mortgages informative on the ZipSearch website?”
- “Ben, I see you found us through our partnership with LendingTree. Did you know we are one of their 5 star lenders? Can I transfer you to one of our LendingTree certified bankers?”
A quick, responsive, personalized experience will ensure that your Internet leads don’t turn into cold calls. This approach and personal attitude should extend to your voice mails and emails. Here are a few tips:
- Take sufficient notes on each attempt to leave a unique and logical follow-up voice mail
- When you leave multiple voice mails reference the number of times you have attempted and the time of your last and next attempt
- Emails must be contextual. Do not set-up mindless time-based emails that are disconnect from your call campaign
Here are a few common, but dangerous practices that will turn those warm Internet leads into instant cold calls:
- Starting your conversation off by pitching your bread and butter product when the lead tells you what they want
- Being the second or third to contact them
- Predictive/auto dialers–save these blenders for debt collectors and triggers
They leads have spent their time being anonymous and researching their needs in private on the Web. Now, they have raised their hands and said I have a question. Treat them like a person–complete the experience.
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Noel Collins | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I would have to disagree on the knowing the source of the lead. I’ve found in multiple test with many lead providers including the largest and most clients could not remember where they filled out the application. Whether it was Nextag, LMB, Lending Tree, Get Smart it seemed to confuse the matter. In email communications I did brand the lead but that communication was never seen by the loan officer. Secondly loan officers if provided a bad lead source will determine even with a pull distribution system that the source sucks. If they know ABC leads suck, this is a waste of my time, they will select any status in any LMS system to get the lead out of their hands. When you mask a lead source it provides what every company is looking for…equal urgency on every lead regardless of the company it came from. You can always weed out the bad loan officers but it becomes a management oversight scenario when it doesn’t need to be. I routinely found a source of leads proving to be subpar and would assign one of my better codes to mask the quality issue and in every instance ran through a successful campaign where every lead was worked thouroughly and efficiently. I know for a fact you do not get the same results when they know who the lead company is and question the quality. Otherwise I like the post and as always find Bills’ information insightful.
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Having started my career in this industry selling leads, not a week went by where I didn’t have an angry client on the phone talking about how my leads sucked. Only after diving into their operation, understanding how they worked, and making suggestions did things change. One of the constants was the loan officers ability to know what leads came from what source. My advice was to always mask sources, and my clients who masked the sources always saw better conversions. It is human nature to associate and become prejudice, and look for reasons to complain about something. I think most lead companies would agree that they would want their names hidden.
On the floor here, for example, we have different sources that drive leads to our database, and my guys were just as prejudice regarding one source in particular. We’ve taken the correct steps to alleviate that issue.
Lead Critic | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Yep I agree Noel and Morelli
I just posted on this last week here.
http://www.zipsearch.com/blog/2008/01/31/showing-your-lead-sources/
(yes, I can spam my own blog. lol)
Bill Rice | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I agree given a one process fits all, dial and smile, scan a list of leads approach to sales obscuring the source may give you better results. However, all of the sales teams I have set up are designed to, as I said “complete the experience.”
Different marketing channels and campaigns have different experiences and consumers come out of them with different expectations. If you simply pump in leads and don’t equip the sales force with unique scripting or processes then your masking strategy may be the best approach.
That is why I advocate the playbook strategy to sales, versus straight scripting. To extend the analogy–if I see this defense (source) I run this play (process), but if the consumer starts acting like another I can audible. However, the source gives me a starting point and it makes me approach the consumer like I know where they came from and what they may be looking for.
Besides if you have a capable lead management system you should be able to automate the optimization of those flows. I have seen different personalities and approaches do better on particular channels.
As these patterns emerge hopefully those sales people are touching more of the leads they are best at. In fact, at my last mortgage shop we had different scripts for different campaigns and channels and even went so far as to create a LendingTree team because the effect was so great on the conversion rate.
So, my recommendation is not try to trick human behavior and perception, but rather analyze it and leverage it.
My experience, my two cents. At the end of the day try and measure both and then optimize your shop to whichever works best–show/hide channels is typically the flip of a switch in a good lead management system.
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I am definitely a proponent of optimizing which can only be done by testing. However, based on my experience as a lead vendor, a loan officer myself, and now an LMS provider…most consumers are looking for that experience as you mentioned but they don’t know where they went to fill out the lead, aside from LendingTree probably.
The number of consumers who actually go to LoanWeb.com, LowerMyBills.com, ZipSearch.com, or any other lead providers website itself, is very small. Most of them come from an advertisement somewhere, and go directly into the capture form. At least this was how it was in 2006 when I stopped selling leads.
With that said, most consumers are unaware of the company they filled out a lead with, and a big chunk of them also filled out more than one lead. So taking the approach of “responding in regards to your mortgage inquiry on Low.com” probably isn’t going to put a loan officer at an advantage over another loan officer who doesn’t drop the name of the lead company. Even if it did, I would argue that the advantage would be slight enough that the overwhelming ease by which loan officers as people absolutely will start to discriminate against certain campaigns would negate any positives there may be.
Now I could see this approach working for a LendingTree campaign, or the campaign of a lead provider whose model is so radically different than others that it stands out, and the consumer will immediately identify with it. At the same time, LT leads are a hot commodity and I haven’t really come across loan officers who don’t like them. So that could work. But for the huge majority of them, personally, I would mask the campaigns and constantly maneuver them around.
This is my opinion based on working as a lead provider, a lead consumer, and a lead management provider.
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Oh and to clarify, I am in agreement about completing the consumers experience. I’m onboard here, I just think you can do just as good of a job as you are expecting, without dropping the name of the lead vendor, and you won’t run the risk of a loan officer lead mutiny.
Noel Collins | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I would jump at the opportunity to discuss “Optimzed Lead Management Solutions” in a heartbeat. I don’t think anyone spoke of a one fits all script, dial and smile strategy and tricking LO’s, LOL oh well. All feedback is good feedback.
Keith Burwell | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Here is my opinion based on someone who has read the above comments.
Does anyone else see a problem here? 1) Lead buyers are buying a product that is so universally bad that they have to cover up the label like it was Schlitz beer just so their loan officers will drink it. Or, better yet, 2)we allow our sales team to dictate to us the work THEY are going to do.
This falls directly in line with the paradigm of the old days–make the LO happy at all costs. Give them free leads, from the source of their choosing, give them Aero chairs, and nerf hoops at their desk, and then send them as many leads a day that they want. And don’t hold them accountable to anything except closed deals.
I am all for making a great environment for people to succeed–anything else is silly and in the end, wrong. But to be held captive by human behavior because they have a “feeling” about certain lead sources, is corrected very quickly. Work the leads and meet the expectations. Period. Thank you for your evaluation of the lead sources and we will compare it with the rest of the organization. If you are not performing at the same level as everyone else, the problem is not the lead source. The problem is the loan officer. (Trust me–part of human behavior is getting OVER feelings and reaching down deep to what is important-like succeeding)
If the problem is the lead source, obviously address the problem and find a new source. However, masking a lead source (Full Disclosure–our clients are able to do it and they do it frequently) is putting a band-aid on a bigger problem. Based on the posts above, one thing is clear, loan officers would LOVE to have LendingTree leads all day long–”we won’t mask that”. Shoot–most shops would advertise it and call it a value add. Is this not an indictment of the lead industry? Is this not saying that masking’s purpose is not to make the loan officer feel cozy but, in fact, to hide “problematic” lead sources?
Part and parcel to making this entire value chain, or ecosystem, as Paul Knag talked about at Leads2007, better so that it survives is to address problems and failures at the various points. Masking sources, “maneuvering”, and not holding sales people accountable to quantifiable results are some of the things that got this industry into trouble in the first place.
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
But is conquering human behavior the job of a broker whose only goal is to close more loans? You are correct in saying that part of human behavior is getting over feelings. But those are life lessons, and who in this marketplace wants to contend with that when they simply do not have to if they mask the source?
One can still hold to a value chain and address problems and failures without exposing lead sources to loan officers. Why add one more layer of complexity to the process that will become a challenge? Keep a low stress work environment. A lead is a lead is a lead, and they all need to be treated the same by those who call on them. Masking a lead source to a loan officer is not trying to hide a problematic lead source. To the contrary, the broker will still have a full view into the performance of the campaign assuming he is using an LMS. In fact this will provide for a true evaluation of a lead source, not a “dude, lead company x sucks man, have any of them worked for you, all I get is people who don’t want to talk to me”…and then that spreads like wildfire across the floor. So one loan officer has a bad day and now his feelings about a lead source permeate the floor, and production suffers, and the broker cannot get a true feeling for the quality of the lead source.
I am with Bill’s message about making it a complete experience for the consumer…but you can do that just as easily without mentioning the source to them.
Noel Collins | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I’m not sure on that Keith, LO’s are LO’s. Any one who has worked with them like we all have understands that. I think you and Bill are discussing ideal work environments and rah-rah chats that work with GREAT teams but not the average loan officer. The average loan officer is NOT going to work each source equally when at the end of the day they want a paycheck and are in a 100% commission environment. When a LO doesn’t even know “Masking” is taking place or where the lead comes from it is a moot point! They dial, talk with, assist customers and close loans. THERE IS NO ISSUE. When you tell them where the lead comes from and they experience a negative call, pattern, rude borrower, claims of hundreds of people calling me…THEY PAY ATTENTION and focus on that pattern. You are advocating a weakness-leave the door open for a loan officer to challenge lead quality and bring it up to management. Again I say why leave a door open for discussion when the topic should not be for a loan officer to discuss to begin with. If as you say the departments are well run, sales management is supportive, solid teams are not having leads pushed around, we rock environment then management should be focused on closed loans and not countering negative opinions (heck how fast do rumors spread on the sales floor), I continue to disagree with your premise. Practiced and perfected at many shops I work with.
Raj Parekh | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Keith,
Your comments are spot on. Though lead management systems, like ours and everyone else’s, it seems, handles the masking issue. This is a band aid to a much bigger issue this industry faces. The first issue is lead quality and the integrity of the lead aggregator, which I will not address in this post. The other is the culture of the company that purchases internet leads. We see both kinds of companies in our system. Those that mask sources and those that do not. The ones that do not are typically those that have better conversion metrics and a more mature / sophisticated loan officer working the leads. We also see that technology, though relevant to increasing efficiency, is not a substitute for good ‘top down’ management. If your loan officers are reacting to lead sources based on prior experiences, and are ignoring those leads that management is spending money on and sending to them from a particular lead source, then a good lead management system should show those production metrics clearly. The combination of conversion metrics, which is the insight into the performance of the leads/sources and production metrics, which is the performance of your human resources is the combined data set that should constantly be evaluated by the management team, with swift action being taken on those lead sources that aren’t performing and those human resources that aren’t performing. Bottom line. Bill, Jeff, and I can create modules and features all day long, but if the management of an organization is sleeping at the wheel, they will crash.
We can tackle lead generation practices and lead aggregator integrity later.
You want better conversions. Work on your corporate culture first.
Best,
Raj Parekh
Raj Parekh | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Noel,
The Average Loan Officer of the Refi Boom is what you’re talking about. This industry has more history than just the recent boom market. If your average loan officer is of the mentality of 2004-2006. Get rid of them. They are the cancer in your organization. Hire smart, savvy, sophisticated financial consultant minded professionals who build relationships with the borrowers and advise them on the right product to buy. Don’t hire Option Arm jockeys.
Raj Parekh
Lead Critic | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Keith,
Still laughing, for some reason, about your beer reference and seeing if they will drink it. I guess its the kid in me.
Anyway, I am still in agreement with Noel and Morelli. No one is hiding or making an excuse for poor sources so they can keep them. LO’s will not treat lead source the same no matter how good or bad they are. I could give you a peppermint tic tac and tell you that it will cure your headache and your headache may go away. Does that mean the tic tac cured your head ache? of course not. Maybe thats a bad example, but you get my point. I have seen it happen many times where hiding the source had improved conversions for LO’s that had predetermined judgments already in place. Why would even allow that happen?
For most call centers all they are doing is watching the which lead source is good and which is bad and basing their efforts towards the lead that will give them the biggest paycheck and ignoring the ones that don’t.
Noel Collins | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
oh yeah, doesn’t anyone like schlitz malt liquor? LOL
Noel Collins | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I would bet the Lending Tree division did better then any Juicy Lead division all day long. Would the Juicy Lead division want to be on the Lending Tree division - or vice versa? The logic doesn’t hold. Any solid management team can develop solid performers but you don’t need to tell them your marketing sources (Boom or pre/post) boom to get a team to work the leads. Opening up a door is simply that - Opening up a door. Raj, Its nice to hear from you, Glad you participated on this. Most companies holding onto LO’s that cannot perform would fail even if you disclosed the lead source, probably more, cause they wouldn’t know what the lead source meant. Off base - dunno - but still my opinion
Bill Rice | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Okay, at the risk of shouting into the echo chamber of 3 lead management providers–here is my last word on this topic:
This is why sales people, like me and Keith (yes, believe it or not Noel and Morelli are not the only ones that have been in the mortgage business, bought leads, and originated loans), get so frustrated at marketing types! You think we are a bunch of dumb monkeys wearing headsets. You probably would like to hook us up to dialers too so we don’t take too many pee breaks.
Obviously, there is humor in my prose here, but a thread of truth when you start making some of these arguments. Some will run their operations like beer money, boys clubs, but professionals looking to build a business don’t need these gimmicks to get performance from sales.
Owen Raun talks about it best–so I will quote:
“a step we had to overcome to change from a small Realtor focused broker to what I will call a “mid sized multi state” lender.
That step is one that centers on culture. We used to be owned and made up of loan officers that would source our own production, pay ourselves a good commission on our production and hopefully at the end of the year be able to split what was left in the checking account.”
If you haven’t read it yet you should (http://tinyurl.com/25d6an) it is about moving from a small-time broker to a business owner. It is about culture! Something great ones in the mortgage business, like Dan Gilbert and Bill Emerson, preached from the day you walked through the door at Quicken Loans.
I am with Raj on this. Give us a little professional respect. Hopefully, I can adjust my process to maximize a JuicyLeads lead as much as a LendingTree one. I may not get the same conversion rate, but I will maximize the value out of the channel and make the consumer feel like I care about their success/needs in the transaction regardless of the source.
Great discussion!
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Yeah I have to stick with the masking. Raj, Bill, and Keith…I know what you’re saying and it makes sense, however, I don’t think it is grounded in reality when the rubber meets the road. Stellar management in human and technology resources is an absolute must, but no matter how good those are, people will still discriminate. They absolutely will associate Good or Bad with every campaign that they see. It is written into their DNA. It has nothing to do with the market, the caliber of financial professional…it’s just our nature.
As stated, I agree with giving the consumer the total experience and closing the loop…I love it. But source disclosure is a no-no, and in my experience it always has been, and should be. You can give the consumer that great experience and be just effective, without having your loan officer know the source of the lead. Period. You’re asking for trouble if you do that, and you will not get the best bang for your buck the moment the discrimination kicks in, and it will.
If Noel cares to explain his method when he was at Equity Direct I will let him, but in my opinion it is the optimal method for masking sources.
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Bill to your last point which came to the page after my last post.
Optimization. That is a marketing types favorite word, but it should be all of ours no matter who we are. The one time I can see exposing vendors as campaigns would be separate teams. I can name mortgage companies with dedicated Low.com teams, dedicated LendingTree teams, etc. Although I am not a huge fan of the concept, they do see good results and if a client of mine were to expose the source I would recommend it in this fashion.
It is obvious nobody’s opinion is going to change on the matter, and so long as we give our clients options and provide them with the pros and cons based on experience, then more power to us.
And, most importantly overall…there is nothing wrong with beer money. Nothing at all.
Morelli | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Actually I digress a bit on my last comment. One client in particular who had their teams set up like that constantly had to battle with loan officers who wanted to be on the LendingTree team and were jealous of that team.
HEY LENDINGTREE, ARE YOU READING THIS? I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE THE FREE ADVERTISING! =)
Lead Critic | Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I don’t think you are a monkey! Ok, maybe Keith. lol
Now while you were both running sales teams for a mortgage company, which I don’t know if matters, but I assume people know you both worked for Quicken Loans, they were not, I am assuming masking the source? However, I am fairly sure they are doing this now. I should wait to confirm this, but I am fairly certain they do this.
I think both strategies can be used wisely and I think everyone respects everyone else opinions here.
I really think this is a very tough decision that lead buyers need to make and if they can they should test both strategies out and make their own decision.
I agree with you Bill that culture may affect these points of views to an extent. It is extremely important to grow a professional sales team that is focused on giving the customer the experience they deserve every time, no matter what the lead source.
In my past role as a lead buyer we showed the source and there were long time LO’s that new their stuff and were excellent LO’s, but they would come to me and complain about specific sources and many times the source was good overall, but they struggled with them. Usually the conversation would include comments like “there leads never qualify” or “I can never close their leads”. I would go back and analyze the data and there were times when they were right and I was over looking certain data points and other times it was only the LO’s perception and the lead source was actually phenomenal.
So, I know from my experience, masking works, but I don’t know that adding the lead source into your phone introduction makes a difference for the consumer. Any surveys to prove this?
I would guess that 7 out 10 sources that come into Kaleidico or leads360 or LeadROI come in from companies that have different landing page names. I know Morelli made this point already, but..
Example: Adchemy uses RateMarketPlace. Do these leads come into your system as Adchemy or RateMarketPlace. I know you will say that the Account Holder should know this and replace the web page name with the company name, but that is not happening. That example is simple but we use multiple landing pages, this would be a little more difficult for unproven benefits.
Very good discussion though.
Noel Collins | Feb 14, 2008 | Reply
I thought I was clear in expressing “We’ve all worked with LO’s”. I also didn’t think I was being professionally discourteous to you Bill/Keith. Raj - You just plain suck! LOL
Raj Parekh | Feb 14, 2008 | Reply
Man.. the competitive nature in Noel is coming out.. Please stop drinking the schlitz Mr. Collins. May I suggest pabst blue ribbon.
Noel Collins | Feb 14, 2008 | Reply
I’m a pirate and as such only drink Rum. ummmm Rum
Morelli | Feb 14, 2008 | Reply
For the record, I will drink anything.