Before you call, what do you know?
It appears that cold calling Realtors is back front and center with those mortgage people who never learned how to establish and build relationships. The ads and clips on social media hyping the possible rewards of making “100 calls a day” to agents in your market trying to establish a contact and a potential relationship are enough to give anyone pause to ask a few questions, like:
- Are there even 100 Realtors in your market worth talking too?
- Do you know who these people are and what their production is?
- Do they control any business you would be interested in?
- Are they more focused on listings or buyers?
- Do they have a team or are they part of a team?
- Does their company or branch already have a committed relationship?
- How many other lenders are doing the exact same thing?
- What are you possibly going to say in the first 10 seconds of that call that is going to provide instant value to that agent?
This is just the beginning. There are so many other issues beyond just these questions. For example,
- How long did it take for you to compile the list of targets?
- How long will it take to call?
- How many calls will you make to each agent and when will you make them?
- What is the total percentage of my business I expect to gain from cold calling Realtors?
- Is this the highest and best use of my time?
- What is my expected cost in time and treasure for this effort?
Realtors can be a solid source of loan opportunities. Unfortunately, there are not many solid sources out of the total number of agents in your market. You can check the stats yourself, about 10% of the agents do about 90% of the business. Those top flight people are already likely to have relationships they are happy with. So, before you go down the path, you should really get clear on what you are doing and why. Are making those 100 calls a day really worth it? Maybe, but not likely. As always, if you want help creating your plan, it’s [email protected]
