Published in ‘The NZ Mortgage Brokers Magazine’ November 2002

So they got their mortgage through you - they are unlikely to get another one for four years, so why keep in touch? I mean it only adds to your costs. Let me tell you why - and how.

Have you heard of Joe Gerard? He is widely regarded as the “world’s greatest salesman”. He is a legend in car selling circles, selling up to 10 cars a day in the oversupplied market of Chicago. This compares to the average of 5 per week for most car sales-people. So what did he do differently? Was his advertising better? Were his cars better? Were they cheaper? Was he better at closing the sale? Possibly ‘yes’ to the last one, but ‘no’ to the others.

He self-described his style as “building my empire one household at a time”. Once you bought a car from Joe, he reckoned that you had just destined yourself to buy all your cars from him. He did nice things like remembering their names and making them feel welcome on the lot, but the key was that he mailed them stuff! He mailed them lots and lots of stuff. Then he mailed them more stuff.

Once he knew who you were, you received a card from him EVERY MONTH for the rest of your life! (Apparently at one stage he was mailing nearly 22,000 pieces of mail a year!) The cards reminded clients that he was still thinking of them, that he had great cars and to tell friends about him. Most of his sales were to people that had already bought a car from him or referrals from customers.

Your clients use your services because of the relationship they have with you. They trust and respect your advice - so use this to advantage. It is considerably easier to sell to an existing client than to a brand new one. So accepting that this should be done, what is the best way to do so? Here are a few proven ideas.

Just before listing a few ideas, there is a ‘rule’ of client relationship management. It is to contact them every 90-days. This is a minimum. You can contact them as often as you like but never less than 90-days which is four times a year. Now on with the ideas.

Mail. As proven by Joe Gerard, MAIL WORKS! It works both as regular communication to encourage future sales and as a prospecting tool. And it’s excellent value. Apparently people change cars on average every four years (not unlike house ownership) so in Joe’s case a 10c letter and envelope with a 40c stamp every month means that it costs $24 to keep the client ‘warm’. If the average profit on a car is $1,200 (I have this on good authority) then this is an outstanding return on investment.

What do you mail? Do NOT mail criteria-ridden meal deals e.g. “A FREE meal to mark the anniversary of taking out your mortgage with us - so long as you go on a Tuesday between 7:00pm and 8:00pm and take a friend, both buy three course meals and of course the free bit is only one main dish so long as its fish or beef” You might smile, but this is not far from the truth for some.

Mail new year cards (remembered well ahead of Christmas cards); newsletters (a topic in its own right, but stick to two pages); free meals without any strict criteria; small gifts; invitations to seminars; plant seeds; copies of interesting magazine or Internet articles; postcards wishing them happy holidays; requests for referrals (this will be covered in a future article) or any of a number of other ideas. Keep them simple and constantly vary them to keep the interest level up.

Client seminars and functions can work well, particularly if you have a semi-qualified audience made up of the clients of other professionals such as lawyers, accountants, real estate agents or insurance brokers. (That way you can share costs as well)

Gifts for referrals or to say thank you should be small in dollar cost, but high in perceived value. Gifts that work well right now (gifts follow trends just like any other product) include small key ring pocketknives, less usual alcohol such as schnapps and small palm-sized binoculars.

The point here of course is to gain repeat business and have clients see you as the one that they have the relationship with rather than the lender. Equally important are referrals and encouraging a constant stream of them. So if you do nothing else to enhance these, double or even triple your current mail based contact with clients. Even if you mail every month, that is still only a $24 investment over four years. That’s got to be worth the very low risk for $1,000+ fee.

In future editions…
Proven ways to get clients to refer friends
6 reasons advertising (radio, press and Yellow Pages) fails and how to avoid them.