LeadCritic’s recent post on Marketing Fundamentals inspired me to make a post on something that I have been thinking about writing on for a while. In my career I have read countless sales books and most of them are absolute crap. Typically what you find in a sales book is some sales whiz-kid telling you how and why he was so successful. It is typically a, “Hey! Look how awesome I am!” book that most likely won’t apply to you or most of your sales people. We all have different personality types (typically 4 distinctive types or a blend thereof, but that’s another post). So, the likelihood that you will be entirely comfortable with the strategies extolled in the book are slim because you are likely to have a different style.

The single-most important resource for me in my career is a book called, SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. The reason why this book is so effective is because it is a quantifiable, 10 year marketing study where researches went on tens of thousands of sales calls noting what on those calls made the most successful sales people great. It boiled down to the types of questions that were asked on sales calls.

The reason why I want to touch on this is because everyday I am approached by lead buyers about filters. They want a minimum interest rate filter, they want a maximum of 65% LTV ratios, they want someone requesting a minimum of $20,000 in cash out, etc. They don’t want a lead, they want a gently tossed, softball pitch that they can Barry Bonds out of the park. Obviously I understand the rationale behind the approach and if there were a way to economically generate leads of nothing but these “softballs,” then I would love to come work for you. But the fact is, these are a small portion of the overall inquiries. Anyone can fund loans to these people, the shops that are going to be successful in this market are the ones that can also sell to the other 80% of the inquiries out there. How do you do that? You identify and solve a problem for a consumer and that is where the book comes in.

SPIN Selling is about how you ask questions. Questions identify and solve problems and that is selling. SPIN is an acronym that stands for: Situation, Problem, Implication and Need Pay-off. These are the types of questions that your LO’s need to be asking in every conversation if they plan to close loans in today’s market.

Situation

“So, tell me Mr. Johnson, what is the reason for your mortgage inquiry today?” Sometimes, it will simply be to try to lower their interest rates, or lower their payment, but then you need to ask why they want to lower their interest rate or their monthly payment. You are trying to identify the Problem.

Problem

“Well, we need to send our daughter to college next year,” or, “I have about $35,000 in credit card debt to pay off,” or, “We are in an area where values are declining rapidly and I’m afraid that if I don’t refinance now I will go upside down.”

Granted, many of your LO’s probably are doing a lot of this, certainly your better ones are. But the great ones know how to ask the next question-type, the Implication question. This is what gets at the pain, the genuine need that the consumer has that you and your loan products can help them solve. The Implication questions is the most difficult to ask, but is the difference between you and the other 3-4 companies sharing that lead, that I can assure you.

Implication

“So, how long have you been planning on sending your daughter to college? How would it feel if you couldn’t see that through?” Or, “How long have you been in the house and how would it feel to lose it?” The key with the Implication question is you genuinely need to care. This isn’t a tool for manipulation, this is empathy. This is you genuinely understanding and feeling the pain of the borrower so that you can help be a part of the solution.

Need Pay-off

The need pay-off questions is nothing more than the traditional close. “So, if I could help structure a program that would allow you to save the home you love so much, even if it maybe means a slightly higher monthly payment for right now, do you think you would be willing to work with me?”

I completely realize that this is a much bigger issue than what can adequately be handled in a brief blog post. But the point I wanted to communicate is, you can’t expect the lead company to do all the work for you. Don’t cherry-pick leads based on filters that produce a consumer that any robot on the phone could close. There aren’t enough of those around to try and base your entire business model off of and even if there were, the price for such tightly filtered leads would likely be cost-prohibitive.

Learn how to sell to the other 80% of the inquiries. Naturally, you will still get those cherries. What is more, with your LO’s refined sales skills, you will close a far higher percentage of the cherries, too, while also capturing more market from the others that most companies feel they can’t service. I know it’s not easy, but that is what is going to differentiate you from everyone else.

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