Although any business can benefit from lead management, it is vital for the mortgage industry. If you are relying on antiquated methods to manage your leads and increase your sales, you may find that you simply cannot keep up in today’s fast paced online world. However, by using a mortgage CRM program, you can quickly take advantage of all of the benefits that this technology has to offer.

CRM Features

Mortgage CRM software makes it easy to keep all of your leads in one place, allowing for easy prioritizing and management. Instead of using a database, which does not afford you additional options, many of today’s lead management programs feature streamlined interfaces. This allows you to easily add, manage and track new leads.

Managing Sales Leads

When it comes to leads, you really cannot have too much management. You need to properly age them, find out which leads are panning out and which ones are merely a waste of your time. Although you can do this the hard way, utilizing software that takes care of this is a tremendous time saver. If you can easily sort, find and add new leads, think about how much time you can save.

Scaled to Fit Companies Needs

Although the mortgage industry is a pretty cut and dried industry, different businesses will have different needs when it comes to handling their leads. Luckily, mortgage CRM software comes in many versions and allows you to pick the one that is most suited to your individual business. If you have a small company with only a few members on your sales team, you can use a scaled down version that is easy to manage. Larger companies can benefit from robust systems that take care of nearly every facet of managing leads.

Cost

This software is relatively low cost and easily pays for itself over time. Most versions can be purchased for less than $200, although the most robust packages will cost more. There are also free trials to help you find the right application, as well as some freeware that can serve its purpose for a smaller company.

Sales Lead Tracking

Sales is a vital part of a mortgage company and your leads will make up 95% of that equation. You simply cannot wait for customers to come to you in this competitive industry. Utilizing the right application will help you get out there and find the leads that are going to pay off, but the benefits don’t stop there. By keeping track of your leads, aging them properly and finding new ways to connect with your customers, your business will automatically improve.

CRM Success

Even small companies can realize big success when they operate like a well oiled machine. Don’t start off by thinking small. If you want to make a profit in today’s economy, getting the right leads and handling them properly is the key. CRM applications hold the answer for streamlining the entire process from start to finish.

With the current state of the housing market, those in the mortgage business are understandably worried. There is a lot of confusion and misinformation out there and consumers are desperate for some answers. Even though the economy may be in a downturn, this is an ideal time for a mortgage business owner to make their mark.

Mortgage Business Opportunity

When you have a situation where consumers are desperate for assistance, you have a gold mine of opportunity for those that have the answer. Whether you run a loan business or you are a mortgage broker, right now is the best time to start thinking about lead generation. The markets won’t stay in this shape for ever, and by building a strong foundation of leads right now, the future will be promising.
One of the best ways for a loan office or a mortgage broker to begin building that foundation is through the use of social media. This is a slippery slope, but when navigated correctly, the rewards are tremendous.

Social Media Advantage

Let’s take a look at three ways to utilize social media for your advantage in this industry.
1.    Directly connecting with your target base. You can use services such as Twitter to get into direct contact with potential leads. While outright selling is frowned upon, this service is a remarkable way to network when used correctly. Just keep in mind that you need to offer something useful to your followers and they’ll keep interacting with you.

In the mortgage industry, this can range from helpful links that will make their search for loans easier, news updates, your opinion on the housing crisis and tips on how to get out of debt. Value equals loyalty in social media and this is your chance to build a strong customer base.

2.    Becoming an authority. When it comes to trust, consumers naturally gravitate towards those that appear to have authority status. Even if your mortgage business is in Podunk America, it doesn’t mean that you can’t rise to superstar status online. The key is utilizing social networking to your advantage and offering your visitors something they cannot find anywhere else.
Above all, taking the time to interact with and assist your visitors will create a situation where they turn to you for advice. It takes an investment of time, but your ROI will be tremendous.
3.    Instant lead generation. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of social networking for those in the mortgage business is the ability to instantly find quality leads without having to pay for them. This medium is not only affordable, but it’s easy to master.

Audience Development

Start by watching how experts in your field as well as other experts interact with their audiences. You’ll be able to see what is working and what is not and this will help you avoid common pitfalls such as offering too much information, not enough, or simply abusing the medium and driving off potential customers.
Don’t let the current state of the economy drag your loan office or mortgage company down. Take the time to build your foundation and you’ll find that your business will stay strong, and weather this storm without any problems.

Mortgage Lead System: Creating a Lead Generation System

Are you working your mortgage business backwards? Are you
reading your daily rate sheets, qualification matrices, and mortgage
news in dismay? Are you waiting (praying) someone that meets those
qualifications stumbles through your door or accidentally calls your
phone number? Ever thought about creating a mortgage lead system?

What is a System?

What is a system, a lead system? This is really the first question.
A system is fundamentally an organizing and integrating of various
things or entities into a coherent whole. A mortgage lead system is
really no different. This concept, of creating a coherent whole, is
often lost in our mortgage business.

We have a few leads Realtors, a few leads from your CPA, a couple
referrals from Mom’s bridge club, all the guys a Rotary Club come to
you, there is an ad in the yellow pages (who knows if that gets you
anything), you have a website (oops, I wonder if my phone number is on
there?), and from time to time I buy some Internet leads, triggers, or
a list.

What a mess. The sentence was even painful to write. But, that is
the average mortgage brokers marketing program. No wonder we run
through fits of panics, destitution, and jubilation. We have
constructed a lead lottery, not a lead system. Who knows when or if we
will ever win the jackpot.

Mortgage Business Inventory

In building any viable system you need to know what you have to work
with. In the mortgage business that means: What are my products? Who
are my loan officers? What is our unique selling proposition?

There is a lot of discussion about lead quality. Good leads and bad
leads. However, in my experience, bad leads are often the result of
attracting, generating, or buying leads that don’t fit. Don’t fit your
product matrix, don’t it your personality, don’t fit the culture of
your business. Don’t buy Internet leads if you are not good on the
phone. Don’t plan to get referrals from Realtors and the Rotary club is
you don’t know how to slap backs, do drinks, and show up to a few of
the Mayor’s kid’s baseball games. Don’t advertise “no credit, no
problem,” if you don’t know how to work hard money deals.

Create a lead system that fits you.

Defining Your Key Differentiators

What Niche Market are You Going to Dominate?

This is my favorite exercise when I build a marketing plan with a new client.

What market are you going to own? This is my leading question.

Invariably I get one of two responses: (1) I am going to be the
mortgage experts and satisfy every customer, or (2) I am too small to
own any market. To the first response, unless you are Quicken Loans,
have 20 years worth of extensive full spectrum lending, and are
licensed in 50 States it is going to be very difficult to make the
“mortgage experts” tag line stick. Yet, the second response is equally
selling yourself short.

There is some aspect of your business, your location, or your
products that makes you important and unique to a customer. Own that!
That is your market to create 100% market share. You may not be the
mortgage experts, but you could be: Flat Rock, MI home town mortgage
advisor; Fort Hood, TX (or better 1st Cav’s) VA mortgage expert; or
Palmdale, CA FHA loan limit mortgage refinance consultant; or
Cleveland, OH foreclosure and short-sell real estate investment advisor.

Think about it. What market can you own?

Create the Value System

Now that you know what you are and what you market you are going to
dominate it is time to build the value system. A system that starts
from how they find you to how they grow to love you for life. Here is a
frame work to build your mortgage lead system on–it is your unique
value system. It will, with a little work, and some tweaking bring your
leads for life:

• Who am I? How do I simply describe my business, myself, and my value to you? Make it a sentence and break it into keywords
• Define your ideal client
• Put yourself in your ideal client’s shoes. Where do they hang out and how/where do they buy?
• Make sure your message is there. Make sure the message is easy to find and simple to identify with
• Build your initial interactions on education. Give value first
• Start your first contact with needs listening, not with your pitch
• Ensure understanding with every interaction. “Do you understand? Does this make sense before we more forward?”
• Follow-up after closing, especially after closing
• Continue to education and present value on a regular basis

Building a strong foundation of understanding your business,
understanding who you can help, and how you deliver that better than
anyone is a mortgage lead system. Follow these steps and design a value
system that grows.

Deploy the Campaign

Now that you know what you have to offer and how to provide it with
value first let’s build and deploy the campaign. Any campaign is based
on attracting attention and then constantly building trust and
credibility. There are a multitude of techniques in creating a lead
producing campaign, but the critical components include:

• Compelling Offer
• Lead Capture
• Lead Management
• Building Value and Trust to a Sale

The compelling offer, even if free, is the crucial first step. You
must give the customer some reason to see the solution to their
problem(s) in the offer.

Once you have their attention, make sure you capture them so you can
actually deliver the content or education that sought. This usually
requires capturing an email or encouraging a phone call.

Though critically important a list of emails, phone numbers, or even
calls does not make a sale. You need to structure a series of lead
nurturing campaigns and content that drives them through the sales
funnel. Lead management software or process are fundamental tools to
campaigns and increase success.

Finally, don’t forget to pack each step of the process with value.
And, even more important–enforce trust. This means making and
fulfilling little promises all along the way. Meeting expectations is
always the quickest route to a sale.

Enjoy Your Lead System

A campaign well developed, careful deployed, and occasionally tuned
is a timeless lead generation system. A lead system that will have you
setting comfortable adding people to answer the phones.

Leads 360°: Using Lead Management for a Total View of Marketing&Sales

Lead management software is a great way to get a complete view
of your entire marketing and sales process. From the moment you
generate or buy a lead all the way through to closing a deal lead
management lets you see marketing strategies and sales processes that
should be quickly scaled and ones that should be immediately cut. Good
lead management software gives you a 360 degree view of your leads.

Lead Generation

Whether you are generating your own leads or buying from a lead
provider it is important to monitor what is working and what isn’t.
This means tracking every lead as it enters into your lead management
software and monitoring its performance throughout its life cycle.

Typically, this means a system of capturing the source of the lead,
tracking identifiers, and some means of annotating lead actions and
statuses as it moves through the sales process. Combining this data
architecture with lead reporting will give you simple insight into the
performance of all of your lead sources.

Lead Management

Your lead management software is your command center for both your
marketing and sales processes. The key to leveraging this type of
unique software is its:

• Seamless integration to lead generation sources
• Simplicity of use for sales agents
• Robust lead tracking mechanisms
• Standardized reporting of lead life cycles

A lead management system is an integrated blend of marketing
automation, sales CRM or contact management, and business intelligence
software. Your lead management process should leverage these concepts
and package them into a simple package that helps you increase lead
conversion.

Lead Reporting

Of course, getting your marketing and sales processes right can only
happen if you can see the good from the bad. These opportunities for
optimization are captured in the lead reporting.

Your lead reporting is where you are alerted to opportunities and
concerns. Looking for slowing and heaping in your lead management
system is your goal. Metrics that show leads slowing down in various
statuses or queues can point out weak sales processes or agent
performance issues. Likewise, heaping points out specific bottlenecks
and capacity issues. Meanwhile, smooth flows and alignment with
benchmarks can highlight process points you have perfected.

Getting A 360 Degree View

Everyone wants to see and react to changes and opportunities within
their marketing and sales. Lead management can give you that
opportunity. Focus on simplicity and standardization and your lead
management software can be that competitive advantage.

Political Campaign Management Software

Build your campaign on a solid management platform that will keep
your operations efficient, smooth, and coordinated. Maximizing
volunteer support and candidate awareness activites in the shortest
amount of time is the margin of victory in most campaigns. Kaleidico’s
simplicity and effectiveness can be your election advantage.

Let our software help you organize volunteers, call banks, and
fundraising–Freeing you and your candidate to talk to the people!

Raising Candidate Awareness

The heart and soul of any campaign is connecting directly with
people. Seeding your ideas and message is engaging in a variety of
ways. Your campaign management software should enable these personal
connections. Kaleidico gives you the benefits of:

• Simple, no training required, user interface (critical for volunteers)
• Effective list management and segmentation
• Automated call management
• Dynamic email follow-up and awareness campaigns
• Simple and secure fundraising management

Kaleidico’s political campaign manager implements in moments and will have you raising awareness the same day.

Activating Voters and Volunteers

Campaigns are powered by the energy and passion of volunteers.
Kaleidico helps you harness and maximize these important people. The
Kaleidico campaign software will allow you to organize call teams,
manage get out to vote campaigns, and track new volunteers.

Likewise, voter lists can be exported into walk-sheets, fundraising mail-merges, and targeted event planners./p>

Accelerating Fundraising

No campaign competes without the flow of civic-minded donations. Kaleidico’s campaign manager makes this simple and compliant.

Using a variety of payment systems Kaleidico can enable your
volunteers to securely take donations or even capture online
contributions.

In addition, as a volunteer call bank software Kaleidico can help
you effectively organize your telephone fundraising
campaigns–segmenting, scripting, capturing contributions, documenting
giving history.

Connecting to the Web Community

More and more political campaigns are being driven to the Web by
voter behavior and preference for this emerging media. Kaleidico will
give you the advantage on this leading edge as well.

Using our unique “Get My Next Voter” technology we can help you
generate new lists, capture donations, and even syndicate call
campaigns all from your candidate’s campaign website.

Get Kaleidico’s Political Campaign Management System

Activating your community of volunteers, increasing awareness, and campaign fundraising has never been so easy.

Call us today at 866-667-5253 and start accelerating your campaign to victory before the day is over.

Lead Capture, Did You Get the Lead?

Ah, the exuberance–a client, or relationship, or Web form
submit produces a hot lead. Beware! This is probably the most dangerous
moment in that lead’s life. Does you sales process effectively capture
leads? Most leads are lost or misplaced. They fade away without even an
initial call. This is why thinking about your lead capture process is
crucial to sales success.

Getting the Lead

Start with a base line, how do you capture leads today? If it is
like most it is a messy stack of business cards and sticky notes. If
you are lucky they are still in some usable form. Unfortunately, they
probably have long since been shuffled into some arbitrary drawer or
worse the waste basket.

Can you see why lead capture is so important. It is not that hard and it pays big dividends.

There are only a few basic communication channels that produce a
lead–word of mouth, telephone, email, Web. This makes organizing your
lead capture method a snap.

Here are some simple lead capture methods:

• Word of mouth: Have a dedicated index card in your wallet or purse
• Telephone: Have a stack of index cards or a dedicated notepad next to your phone
• Email: Set-up filters, tags, or star incoming email identified as a lead
• Web: Have these inquiries feed directly into your lead management software

The ultimate goal is to get all of these captures into your
centralized lead management software, but these effect immediate
capture techniques will make sure you have each lead. The next step is
to quickly validate the lead information and get it into your lead
database.

Validate the Data

Maintaining accurate data is always a challenge. Clients’ telephone
numbers, addresses, and emails are always changing. Making this task
more efficient takes away a lot of sales contact frustration.

Using a service like Jigsaw, CardScan, Plaxo, or LinkedIN can help
automate much of the processes of keeping your clients and business
relationships contact information current. These services sync with
most lead management software and alert you to changes.

Score and Prioritize

As you assemble a sizable lead management database rules for
managing and contacting leads becomes important. The best approach is a
simple system. One effective system is to prioritize like you would
your tasks list: A, B, C, D for urgency and 1, 2, 3 ,4 for priority.

Analysis of your leads and their outcomes will help you continue to
tune your scores and priorities. Initially you might prioritize leads
by relationship, source, or perceived urgency to close. With more data
and lead reporting you may find other more valid indicators.

Do It Fast!

Lead capture success and the deals that come from it boil down to
one concept–a sense of urgency. Make sure you get that new lead into
your lead management software as soon as possible. And don’t delay
contact. Make sure you make that first follow-up on the same day.

Nothing impresses more than a sense of urgency. It immediately sends the message that they are an important.

Lead ROI: The Amazing Effects of Lead Nurturing

You may have thought you couldn’t afford to buy leads. However, I
am going to show you a Lead ROI secret that is going to prove you can’t
afford NOT to. So often we go into marketing focused on the initial
investment with no consideration of the return or the alternative–0
sales! It is time to uncover the secret of Internet Lead ROI…

Reviewing Your Small Business

Let’s go through a mini marketing planning session for your small business.

Let’s set the perspective of the average small to medium home-based
business. Let’s assume you are a mortgage broker, realtor, or perhaps a
network marketer. You have 10 agents. What do you do today to generate
prospects?

If you are the average entrepreneurial small business owner your marketing budget looks something like this:

• $200 for a yellow pages ad
• $200 for a newspaper ad
• $50 here and $50 there for little ad square on the local diner’s placement
• $5000 to mail a cheap flyer to anonymous households

These expenditures go out–no trackable results, no phones ringing, and constant panic where the next prospect will come from.

Stop the madness! Build an opt-in database of customers. This
strategy will steady your business, in good and bad times. You can
create your own opt-in list or jump start the process by purchasing
opt-in, real-time, Internet generated customer inquiries.

Select a Quality Lead Provider

If you are going to buy leads these terms are important:

Opt-in: You are simulating a referral. You want to
make sure the customer raised their hand and asked for your call.
Otherwise, you are in for frustration and potential fines.

Real-time: This is probably your best hedge against
Do Not Call and CAN-SPAM violations. Generally, your violating or black
hat lead generators are peddling cheap lists.

Internet generated: Again, most lead scams are
perpetrated by individuals selling data, lists, and other untraceable
sets of customer names and phone number. Direct, real-time, posts from
Internet lead generation typically avoids the unscrupulous.

Stop Buying Leads and Start Investing in Clients

If you want to be a success a lead buying you need to commit to two critical shifts in perspective:

• Leads are referrals
• Leads are investments

The first shift will ensure that you follow-up and consider each
inquiry with the same respect that you would a referral from your Mom.
These are folks are referred to you from the Internet, not your golf
buddy, but a referral all the same.

The second shift is from buying leads as a short-term fix to an
investment that returns indefinitely. This is the key commonly missed,
but let me illustrate this simple principle. The Effects of Lead
Nurturing, as I like to call it, is fundamental component of the larger
concept of lead management.

Let’s review this simple Lead ROI calculator:

With very conservative estimates the return is astounding. Here we
use an example of a mortgage broker, but even on smaller margin
products the exponential revenue effect holds true. Our starting point
has been a small purchase of leads, worked for 14 days, and converting
at 2% during that 14 day period. Not bad, nearly doubled your
investment with clear profit.

Now let’s assume that you continue to work this same set of leads
within a lead management system. Your automated processes nurture each
lead with a dynamic value-based, education, and benefits campaign for
another 3 months. Do you think you might get another 1% of customers
saying, “Yes!”?

This is pretty powerful. That little extra automated nudge just doubled your income again!

Now let’s watch your investment grow again. Working your customer database for a total of 6 months, and only 1% more…

Nearly $60,000 in profit with only a $12,000 initial investment.
This is only the effect of one month, one lead buy–imagine this result
layered with a steady monthly lead buys. Then achieving even wilder
profits by adding CRM industry studies showing 3% of any client
database will, on average, buy each year.

The conclusion is obvious and the math is compelling–Don’t Buy Leads, Invest in Building a Client Database!

Pay Per Lead, Is it Right for Your Business?

Marketing is expensive and in a lot of ways mystical. What works
and what doesn’t is often a subtle tweak in an image or value message.
What can this mean to sales professionals trying to manage a marketing
campaign–frustration. Aggressive, top producers thrive on
conversations and building personal connections. These types quickly
grow frustrated chasing the ghosts that create an effective and
sustainable marketing program.

Luckily, there are individuals that specialize in this challenging
art and can efficiently bring new potential relationships to you. Lead
providers generate hundreds of thousands of leads per day and can
filter and target these customer inquiries specifically to your
products and services. The best news is that generally they only charge
you on a pay per lead basis. Meaning you only pay when a customer
raises their hand for you to call.

As easy as it sounds, pay per lead marketing requires your understanding and tuning of your sales process for real success.

Creating a Pay Per Lead Sales Process

Pay per leads, or Internet customer inquiries, are more like coveted
in-bound calls–they are ready to go. They are at a stage where they
expect immediate response, diligent follow-up, detailed information,
and minimal hassle, and interaction to get the deal done.

Your sales process today is more than likely focused on prospecting
and methodically building relationships. Moving folks through the sales
funnel. In a lot of regards Internet leads, and pay per lead programs
in particular, short circuit that process.

You need a system, a lead management system. Typically, this is best
accomplished with lead management software, but can be constructed with
a disciplined combination of email and spreadsheet lead tracking.

A lead management system will help you create efficiency at key
points of pay per lead success: immediate lead capture and lead receipt
from point of inquiry, real time lead distribution, enforced contact
management, and lead analysis. Without these key ingredients you will
be wondering why you can’t get promised conversions and ROI out of the
leads you purchased.

Understanding Pay Per Lead Marketing

The majority of pay per lead providers use one of two techniques:
email marketing or paid search (pay per click). Both require scale and
efficiency. Generally speaking these marketing methods are based on the
theory of large numbers and are hugely successful or (most often) a
light dribble of leads based on the slightest nuance.

However, understanding how this process works and leveraging it in
your sales process can be a competitive advantage. Tune your sales
process to the customer you are most likely getting through lead
generation.

These techniques produce leads in a similar fashion. The idea is to
engage a large number of targeted email addresses or Web traffic with a
compelling offer or value. This offer or value results in a response of
some limited personal contact information and a request.

The primary objective is to generate a well targeted prospect. But,
keep in mind (and in your sales process), that the simplicity of the
offer and low risk to commit will result in only a small percentage of
immediate buyers. That is why a sales process and a lead management
system to actively follow-up is a big success factor.

Evaluating Lead Providers

Understanding the basic elements of the marketing will help you pick a good partner. Ask a lot of questions.

• How long have you been in business?
• How are the leads I will be buying generated?
• What industries do you generate leads for? What is your expertise?
• What is your return policy?
• What are some of the best practices in working your leads?

Also, do your business research. Validate their business
location(s), contact information, and business licenses. Check the
better business bureau. Google their company and principles’ names. Ask
your colleagues and friends for opinions and perceptions.

Optimizing Your Lead Buying

Once you are ready to begin buying leads, optimize that lead buy.
Matching your lead requests (lead filters) to your specific business’
products and services is probably one of the biggest hidden secrets of
pay per lead buying.

Although information provided by the customer, on a 10-20 data point
lead, is limited it can still be very effective in targeting your ideal
client. Leverage each of those lead attributes to buy leads. Make sure
at a minimum you filter for customers you can help (i.e., matching
geography, product attributes, and lead quantity).

As you receive and work leads you will quickly see your investment
in lead management pay off. Trends and opportunities you observe will
allow you to optimize your targeting and buying. You will be able to go
beyond matching your business and begin matching leads to specific
sales people.

Tracking Leads and Sales

Getting to that ideal sales state–matching the perfect lead to the
right sales person is linked directly to great sales lead tracking.
What works and what doesn’t is critical to process improvement. By
tracking your leads and the sales processes that work them you can see
opportunities to improve both.

Maximize your lead tracking by defining and consistently tagging
your leads with time, date, and action taken. This simple methodology
will show you bottlenecks in your sales pipelines and weaknesses in
your marketing campaigns.

Pay Per Lead Needs a Lead Management Process

Pay for performance lead generation is an efficient and value-based
way of paying for marketing. However, to create consistent and
predictable success you need to create a trackable, repeatable process.
Evaluate this marketing approach for your business, but ensure it is a
fit: partner, leads, and sales culture. Then set in place these simple
processes and watch your success grow.

Kaleidico lead management and mortgage CRM helps you build a sense of urgency into your sales process.

If you have been an avid reader of Lenderama, like myself, you know Todd believes that being a great loan officer means serving the client. Since 2005, Todd has been teaching mortgage originators how to effectively connect with clients and deliver incredible customer experiences–with service.

Experience Counts

This is where Kaleidico can help. I came out of the loan origination business. Having built one of the first 100% online mortgage originating banks, DeepGreen Bank, back in 2000 and later running National Home Equity at Quicken Loans until 2005–I have been in your position.

I have called clients, built folders, organized processors, and battled underwriters. I know what it takes to get a mortgage closed. That is why I founded Kaleidico back in 2003–I knew there was a better way to organize and drive results from my sales pipeline.

Kaleidico, Because Your Clients are Waiting

I needed every new prospect, past client, referral, or purchased lead to feel the same sense of urgency. I wanted each client to feel like they were the only mortgage I was working on. This idea created icoSales–a truly unique mortgage CRM built with an internal sense of urgency.

Our unique “Get My Next Lead” technology uses proprietary pull-based sales management to give you the next best lead, when you are ready to serve the next client.

We Have the Other Stuff Too

Of course, you will need the regular stuff too. We give you the CRM and lead management features you expect:

• Import/export contacts
• Add and track tasks
• Schedule appointments
• Send and track emails
• Create email campaigns
• Manage lead distribution
• Customize lead distribution
• Robust sales reporting

Take a Closer Look

Our brief online demo can take you through the nuances of the bringing a sense of urgency to your clients–or you can just sign-up and close more loans for 30 days on us (FREE!).