Many Loan Officers were paralyzed with fear and didn’t know how to grow their market share, while others were fearless.

In late 2008 and especially early 2009, there were some pretty freaked-out loan officers. We all know that many came to the industry because of its promise of easy hours, lax regulations, and most notably, quick cash.

During that time of uncertainty, we experienced two types of loan officers that remained:

1. Those who were paralyzed with fear and…
2. Those who were determined to succeed despite the slow-down.

In many cases, those who were determined to succeed didn’t realize that they’d already set themselves apart from the scared folks, because they were either busy reinventing their vision for success in the new norm and “pounding the pavement,” or they were the ones who saw future growth in what seemed like a dying industry with the economy barely limping along.

We saw this day after day from late 2008 until the middle of 2012. We also saw a fair share of attrition during that period. We analyzed the data and what we found was pretty clear:

Exodus clients who continued to personalize their newsletters regularly saw growth month after month, while the Exodus clients who had canceled their subscriptions had two glaring things in common:

1. They hadn’t updated their mailing list with their new clients at all, even from the beginning, much less during the collapse.
2. They hadn’t personalized their newsletters on a regular basis either, and they seemed unconcerned about the relationships they had started.

This glaring discrepancy was what inspired us to create the “Content Help Service.” Not everyone has the “killer” instinct to reach out to their client base via the written word or the ability to write creatively or express various topics in writing in a way that works. Being a great loan officer doesn’t always equate to being a great marketer or communicator.

This is our focus because those individuals who share themselves, share their knowledge, and become family do infinitely better than those who don’t! This is exactly what the data suggested. It was overwhelmingly clear. One way to say it is, “Those who didn’t communicate with their clients in a real way saw a decline in growth.” Another and I think the more accurate way to say it: “Those who took a few minutes a month to be themselves and actually take advantage of the newsletter platform saw consistent growth, even through tough times.”

The personal relationship created during the home buying and finance/refinance process is real, and if you capitalize on that in a real way your referrals from your past clients will be far greater!; especially in comparison to social media marketing and email campaigns. Referrals from past clients through emails and Facebook don’t even come close.

Let’s face it, email is a recreational endeavor and no one comes home from a hard day’s work to read emails from their Loan Officer or Real Estate Avent unless they’re in the throws of a file. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. If you do an email marketing campaign, look at the analytics and you’ll see the open rates are very low. This is regardless of the content, personal or otherwise.

If you look at a multi-channel marketing strategy consisting of email, social media, and direct mail marketing, email and direct mail marketing are going to be the best choices. Direct mail marketing has a far greater ROI than email, but email is so inexpensive it makes little sense to not be doing it. You will find that your direct mail marketing brings far more referrals than email for the reasons mentioned previously.

The best bet is to do an assessment of what you’ve been doing, what you’ve done in the past, and view it through the reality of human consumer behavior with high ticket items like home purchases and loans.

Remember, loans are not small ticket purchases and people don’t get the urge to jump in the car and rush to get another mortgage because they were influenced by a great marketing gimmick to do so. Your relationship with your client is the most valuable asset you have. This is what makes someone refer you to others and those they care about.