How You Can Use These Five Pillars of Technology to Create a Consistent Stream of Referrals From CPAs and Financial Planners
By Dave Savage
By now, we are all aware of the tremendous advantages of receiving referrals from CPA's, Financial Planners and other professional advisors. Not only can they create an annuity-like stream of referrals, but they can also act as a buffer against the onslaught of Internet competitors.
Yet, even with all those advantages not everyone has mastered a method for professionally approaching and creating long-term, strategic partnerships with these potential referral gold-mines.
In this article you'll discover a strategy I've used to create
$51,000,000 in loan volume in one year by leveraging technology to create a referral stream from CPA's and Financial Planners.
But, before you mail, fax, email or call you first need to have a clear understanding of the unique psychology that drives the mind of the professional advisor. You must understand the mindset of your prospective strategic partners if you want to be successful.
So, let's step inside the mind of your future referral sources…
First realize this: Both CPA's and Financial Planners get most of their business from referrals. It is not at all unusual to find a Financial Planner who has a cluster of family members as clients (parents and children and other relatives). And a CPA will have a group of CEO's and business owners that all golf together or belong to the same industry association.
Now add to that dynamic the fact that their business is relational - not transactional. That means they do business month in and month out with their clients for many years. And that long-term relationship is the core of their financial security and professional esteem.
You also need to factor in this psychology: These advisors get to know all of the nitty-gritty details and embarrassing bits of information in their client's financial lives. As the relationship builds over time, clients place more and more trust into the hands of their financial advisors. This trust often becomes a dependence -- a business owner won't make a major business decision until he has talked with his CPA, and clients won't move or invest their money until their Financial Planner has given them the go-ahead.
Once you blend all those elements together you can begin to see why both CPA's and Financial Planners closely guard and protect their client relationships.
They rightfully see themselves as the guardians of their client's financial health, wealth and future. They shoulder an incredible responsibility. In fact, in many cases they can be held financially liable if they give out bad advice that leads to financial loss.
Now you can also see why traditional approaches to creating strategic referral partnerships (like lead swapping and expensive lunches) may not be enough to capture their respect…
They have too much to lose by giving a referral.
Their professional reputation and image is on the line every single time they entrust a referral to anyone.
And what they stand to lose isn't just a single transaction. It's several years of future income - not only from the offended client, but from all of the friends and family members of that client as well.
So, before you can ever expect to get a steady stream of referrals from one of these professional advisors, they have to see you as an equal -- not as "just another lender". They must immediately perceive you as a financial professional who has the same authority, stature and professionalism that they demand from themselves. You need to be perceived as a professional who can help their clients make truly informed decisions... decisions that keep their clients long term financial future and best interest in mind.
Until that magic happens there will be no consistent stream of referrals.
Here is how you can use technology to make that magic happen…
I use five pillars of technology to create a professional and authoritative image in the mind of prospective referral partners:
1) Fax
2) Voice Broadcasting
3) E-mail
4) Internet
5) Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Fax
Ideally, you want to establish credibility before you are ever formally introduced to the professional advisor. That way he or she isn't thinking, "Who are you? What do you want? And why are you wasting my time?"
I begin by building name recognition and an image of being an expert with my "InfoFAX". It is a brief, executive summary that alerts my partners about changes in the market, ways to save their clients money on loan cost, important criteria besides rates and fees they should take in to consideration and more.
To be sure that these prospective advisors just didn't know my name, but also associated it with a professional image, I had the visual format for the InfoFAX created by a graphics art designer.
And then, for every InfoFAX that goes out to my potential referral sources, I always print the following at the top of the page…
"The purpose of this fax newsletter is to save you time and money by summarizing and interpreting economic news and trends that influence interest rates."
Unfortunately, there isn't space in this article to show you a sample InfoFAX. If you would like me to email you a sample fax, just email me at dsavage@mortgagecoach.com.
After several InfoFAX's the prospective advisor will know who you are when you call. During the first call I keep it low key. I don't ask for referrals immediately. I just want to establish a professional to professional connection. Depending on the advisors receptivity, I may schedule a time to meet and explain to him what sets me apart from other lenders or I'll just keep it purely introductory.
Once I've established personal contact, I now have this advisors email and other information.
Now I will begin using emails as well as the InfoFAX to keep in touch and continue to build my level of expertise in the eyes of this professional.
Email is the perfect carrier for urgent or fast changing news that will be out-of-date by the time you send it in a monthly InfoFAX. You should give the emails you send out a name that carries this tone of urgency with it. You could call it Mortgage-Alert, InfoNET or MarketWatch!
You get the idea… Be seen as the professional "loan consultant/ trusted advisor" who has his or her finger on the pulse of the market, not just another "loan officer/application taker".
Internet
Now that the financial advisor is beginning to perceive me as a fellow professional, it's time to step up the relationship. One of my goals is to become the first Loan Consultant these professional advisors call when they have a question about their clients' real estate financing needs.
And using my Internet site as a resource for the advisors and their clients is a tremendous, high-leverage way to accomplish that objective.
I've loaded my web site up with resources, tools, articles and perspectives that the advisor and his or her clients can use to make wise and informed decisions. As "information overload" continues to increasingly confuse consumers, you want to be the one place they know they can turn to for rock-solid advice that will always put their best interest first.
Either by letter or a personal call I'll let the professional advisor know that this resource is available to him and his clients. And a nice extra touch is to issue him a personal pass-code to access certain areas of your site.
Voice Broadcasting
Now, keeping up with a large database of potential referral partners can create a logistics nightmare for both you and your staff (I have over 700 strategic partners to cultivate).
True, if you could at least let them hear your voice on their voice mail updating them on a market trend or asking if there is any other way you can help them it would go a long way towards strengthening the relationship. But who has the time?
Now thanks to Voice Broadcasting (VB) you do. It is now possible for you to leave one personal message alerting your Strategic Partners to an eminent rate hike - or drop, wish them a Merry Christmas, remind them to send you referrals, ask if there is a way you can help serve them or their clients better -- and have hundreds of personal messages in your voice sent out over night.
Sometimes technology can leave us wishing for the "human touch". VB is the one technology you can use to really create and maintain high-touch, high-quality relationships with thousands of people at once.
CRM
Well, that is the heart of a system I've used to persuade over 700 Strategic Partners to send me $51,000,000 a year in referrals.
There is one slight problem though…
Maintaining and cultivating all of those different Partners at different stages in the relationship -- without hiring a huge, profit-eating staff.
And that is why you need the final technological pillar, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), to make this system run.
CRM is the thread that holds the entire tapestry of this marketing effort together. Fortunately, it is a technology that many of you are already using everyday. CRM includes software programs like ACT!, GoldMine, SalesLogix, Mortgage Quest and others.
In looking for a CRM that will allow you to automatically run a sophisticated marketing campaign you'll want to choose one that meets the following criteria…
A. The most important criteria is this: Ease of use for both you and your staff. Regardless of all the bells and whistles, if you don't find it easy to use it won't get used to its fullest extent.
B. Secondly, you need to make sure it has the features that you need to implement your marketing campaigns. Most of the notable programs have this covered.
C. Look for local support. This can be either the software VAR who sold you the system or loan officers within your company who use and understand the system. If you have ever owned a software program and couldn't get help, then you know how frustrating it is to be without support.
My personal recommendation is to go with either ACT, Goldmine or Mortgage Quest because….
1. I like ACT because in my opinion it is the easiest to use and has most of the bells and whistles.
2. Goldmine is a market leader because it has all the bells and whistles
3. Mortgage Quest has a strong presence because it is Mortgage Industry specific.
4. If you have a large sales force… My company uses SalesLogix because we have 20-plus loan officers and I like the unique sales management capabilities of this program.
In conclusion: While you need a more careful and professional strategy when approaching CPA's and other financial professionals, the extra effort can pay huge dividends. Just one year of putting this strategy in play can create a residual stream of referrals that lasts for years to come and gives you a buffer against internet competitors. Of course, if your competitors happen to approach and capture these financial professionals first, well, the choice is yours!
Contact Dave Savage at DSavage@wowtools.com
|
|||||||||||
.jpg)