Phil Whitehouse: Blog

Tuesday 10th January 2012

Any new year appears to be a time when many of us are kick-started into action. While I’m sure the most common resolutions are to get fitter and lose excess pounds put on over Christmas, there are others who use the New Year as a time to get their finances in order, to remortgage or to move house.

So, how can you make the most of these business opportunities?

This is the time of year when lead generators are usually flooded with borrowers looking for advice, and so it stands to reason, for most of us in the mortgage market, that January and February should be one of our busiest times of the year.

However, it’s not always necessary to go and buy leads to drum up more business. Many brokers already have a database with hundreds of current and lapsed clients, many of whom may well be going through the process of getting either house or finances in order. 

The question is, is it you they are coming to for advice at this time, or are they the ones who are turning to the internet, searching for someone else to advise them?

This is therefore the perfect time to get in contact with all your clients, both past and present. It always costs less to deal with your existing clients than acquire new ones, so this is the time to work your database harder than ever.  

In fact, keeping in touch with your clients and working your database is not just a task for the start of the year, but something that can help ensure your success throughout the year.

It may be that there are also a few steps you can take to help you in this process. If you haven’t already, embrace your client management system or invest in a new one to drive improvements to your customer sales journey and help with your compliance.

The beginning of the year is always a good time to take a long hard look at your processes and see if they are working as well as they could be for you, or is it time to change a few areas? 

Is technology working for you? Have you got as many things automated as you could do while still focusing on the customer experience? Is your website up to date and does it represent you and your business as well as you would like it to?

It’s always a good idea to put yourself in the shoes of a client – either yours or someone else’s – who is browsing the internet and comes across your website. Would they want to do business with you? If it doesn’t look or feel as you’d want it to, maybe take advantage of links to a mortgage club that could help you get a new website for little cost.

When you’ve got all this in place, monitor whatever you can in your business: look at what proportion you get from phone call to appointment and then from appointment to business. If you already do this, track whether these ratios have increased or fallen over the last year and look at what you can do to increase them.

Also look at your cross sales ratios and set targets to improve each business line. Do you know how your results compare with other similar intermediaries? Again, if you’re in a mortgage club or a network, see what they can do to help you with this.

Finally, look at what influences you’re taking on board. There can be so much negativity in the national press and even from other people in the industry, and it can have a very real impact on how you feel about your business and how you perform, so surround yourself with positive people and uplifting experiences, plus people or organisations that can help you achieve what you want to. 

Take a long, hard look at your mortgage club, and if it’s not serving you, or is only OK, then change it. There are others who can serve you better!

Phil Whitehouse is head of TMA