Whether you know it or not, you’ve got an inner sales fanatic that’s dying to show off. Truth be told, having strong sales skills doesn’t require you to have a knack for persuasion. Creating consistent sales is much more about knowing the right actions to take and having meaningful conversations.
Winning opportunities
If you want a victory, you have to create winning opportunities. That means you need to learn how to set yourself up for success. To do this, focus on your three types of traffic: long term, short term and layup.
Long-term traffic is colder business leads or slow buyers. This will be the majority of your traffic at any given time. That’s why it’s important to consistently create content for your audience. Your content will take long-term traffic and convert it into clients over time. These people need to be nurtured through your content so that you consistently have cold traffic that’s warming up to convert into sales.
Short-term traffic is warmer leads or speedy buyers. These are the people who have been around for a while and trust you, or they’re the people who know soon after first meeting you that you’re the person they want to work with. These prospects rely on their gut reaction to you, so it’s important that your messaging is on point to serve them. Yet another reason why your content is vital.
Layup traffic consists of unexpected leads and referrals. Most often, these are your easiest and fastest sales, but you can’t plan for them because you don’t know when they’re coming. To keep a steady stream of layup leads, you have to nurture your referral partners. The more you pour value into your referral partners, keep in touch with them and regularly ask what referrals they have for you, the more layup traffic you’ll have.
By creating consistent content that shows leads who you are and how you can help them, on top of nurturing your referral partners, you keep these three lead sources healthy so that you’re consistently creating three ways to score. There are so many ways to attract and keep your clients that it can be a little overwhelming to hone in on what’s going to work for you. That’s why you only need to focus on specific ways of attracting and retaining your clients.
Attracting business
When you’re focusing on attracting clients, it’s all about the connection. How are you creating ways for people to understand who you are, connect with your message and convert into clients? You don’t have to use every tactic under the sun. That would be exhausting. What methods are you going to choose?
One of the most powerful ways to attract clients is video content, because prospects can decide quickly if they jive with you or not. This is where you can leverage your personality and expertise to provide great value to your audience. Video content is a great way to naturally stand out because even if you were to say the exact same things as your competitor, your personality and how you communicate can make you stand out. That’s serious power.
Written content is another communication method that continues to be a great way to attract leads and land clients. Written content can be social media posts, newsletters, blogs, articles and even such things as thank-you letters. This content allows your audience to digest your words in a different way. Seeing your words is different than hearing your words. Your audience will bring their own tone, meaning and perception to what you write, so you have to be clear about what you’re writing, the meaning and the perception that the majority of your audience will have.
Also consider livestreaming. Think of livestreams and videos as cousins, not twins. Livestreams have their own strengths and requirements. For example, if you get tongue-tied in front of the camera and need some time to warm up before filming, livestreams may be a little too much right away. Livestreams require you to trust your ability to talk to your audience without editing the footage.
This is great if you’re used to speaking, teaching or holding powerful conversations. If you’re not, then you may want to practice livestreaming first with prerecorded video. What makes livestreams so powerful is their authenticity. Your audience is aware that there’s no redo. They get to see what makes you human. If you put your foot in your mouth, they see it. If you have a brilliant teaching moment, they see it. There’s no hiding with livestreams, which is why they build goodwill and trust so quickly.
Networking is another way of connecting with clients. Whether you need to network virtually or in person, the same rules apply. Meeting new people and having meaningful conversations will consistently yield new leads and relationships.
The trick here is going into conversations with the intention to get to know the other person. That’s it. You’re not trying to make a sale or convince someone you’re the bee’s knees. You’re simply getting to know them to see if there’s a connection and what that connection is. Many of these conversations end up in sales opportunities, but that’s not the goal.
This is a good way to meet referral partners and other people who can make a big difference in your sales. A few ways you can network include meetup groups, online groups (e.g., Facebook or LinkedIn groups), online courses, virtual or in-person events, and even matchmaking (e.g., introductions from friends or colleagues who can put you in touch with potential clients or referral partners). If you have the ability to communicate, you have the opportunity to network.
Onboarding systems take the heavy lifting off your shoulders by creating a cohesive, repeatable and automatable process your clients can go through without requiring your hands-on attention.
Retaining clients
Once you pick your connection methods, it’s time to look at your retention tactics. These are important because they extend the lifetime value of your existing clients and lower your client-acquisition costs, since happy clients are referring clients.
Build an onboarding system. Making everything customizable for each client generally means that you don’t know how to build a system, not to mention that constant customization makes you lose precious time.
An onboarding process is created to do two things. First, onboarding makes it clear and easy for your client to work with you by setting expectations, assimilating them to the systems they’ll experience with you, and helping them to understand how to navigate any miscommunication that could happen while working together. Second, onboarding systems take the heavy lifting off your shoulders by creating a cohesive, repeatable and automatable process your clients can go through without requiring your hands-on attention. This creates a more seamless experience for both of you and starts the working relationship off right.
It makes a difference to check in and see how they’re enjoying the process of working with you. Think of this process like you’re a host and your clients are your party guests. You want to make sure your guests are having a good time at your shindig, and the only way to do that is to touch base with everyone multiple times throughout the night. If you offer a service, how do your clients feel about the journey?
Overall, being a sales triple threat is about being clear on your three main modes for client attraction and client retention. Once you have that foundation in place, growing your mortgage business is easier and tends to flow better. ●
