For Diane Clark, her relationship with her clients comes down to one statement: “I want to be their trusted advisor. I always want to be thought of as somebody that has integrity, is honest and is somebody they can trust.
“The honesty, the integrity and the trust is what help sets me apart in the industry,” Clark said. She has been with the same company, in the Dallas office of PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital company, since 1987 and has been consistently one of their top producers and those three things are the reason.
In the Origination News Top 150 producer survey for 2009, she ranked 40th.
In the current environment consumers are coming back to the people they know, that have always been there for them and did not lead them astray.
Clark has been in the mortgage business since 1985. She looked at a number of different options, but key was that mortgage originating “was your own business and the ability to make the amount of money that you were willing to work for.
“The world was yours as long as you were willing to go out there and get it. It left room for creativity and flexibility and to be paid accordingly.”
When Clark started in the mortgage business, she was “a lady with a plan,” looking for a niche in an area she could be the best at.
She found that in 1989, when she started working with corporate relocation clients.
Her background before coming into this business was in counseling. “I’m best at listening to people and what their needs are. And when people are relocating, there are so many needs.
“They need someone to listen to them and help figure out what is the best product and the best scenario for them. In other words, you need to give them options. And I liked that,” Clark explained.
She had picked up one or two relocation clients through the real estate community and found there was a real need for these consumers to deal with someone who specialized in this area.
So she started calling on big corporations and their human resources departments. “It evolved into a fabulous business for me.”
Back then, there weren’t third-party companies with relocation work for companies, Clark noted, and most was handled directly by human resources.
“I went and met with the human resources department and got on their lists. I built that trusted relationship, and that is what it is all about—trust and perseverance,” she said.
Her market is nationwide, because of the nature of her niche. Everything in her process is “high touch and systematic. I make sure everybody is well informed through the entire process.”
As part of that high-touch service, Clark herself takes 90% of the applications that she closes. She prefers to take applications over the phone, as opposed to online, because by talking directly to the customer is where she connects with them and is able to build a relationship.
Clark does have an online portal where the client can fill out an application, but even then she calls the customer afterwards to build the connection, as well as go over everything that was filled in and to answer any questions that they might have. She also asks the client questions in order to further build the connection.
Some of these transactions are not simple. People are moving from state-to-state and city-to-city and they have a lot of needs that might not be seen in other real estate transactions.
For example, the people relocating might have their parents moving with them. Their children are changing schools and there are questions associated with that.
Plus, these relocations could be for a set period of time. “There are just so many questions to ask and sometimes they haven’t even thought about those questions,” Clark said. “It just helps me to get a better perspective of where they are coming from and what their needs are and where they’ve been and where they want to go.
“You have to look at the whole picture, you can’t just take bits and pieces of them and sell them a loan.
“And I’ve always tried to stay in touch with my customer, before and during and after the transaction.” The vast majority of her clients are people who have to move over and over again, and they return to Clark for their next transaction. Even when they leave their jobs and retire, they come back to her for their children’s mortgage.
This attention to detail is important when dealing with the relocation niche.
“You’re held accountable when you’re going through a relocation company. You have so many people out the streets that don’t understand relocation and don’t understand the needs of the customer, and their fees will be extremely high.
“My relationship is with my relocation companies as well as their employees. So I’m accountable to that company to take care of their employees that they’re relocating,” Clark said.
But it is that relationship with the employee that helps get reputation spread, especially in the interoffice gossip.
“I’m that 'water cooler’ girl that everybody talks about. 'She made it easy, she made simple, she made it seamless. When everybody else told me I couldn’t make it happen, she made it happen.’ And it gets me into company after company. It gets me referrals from the people that are not relocating,” she said, adding that she was not boasting, but rather she is proud of the group of people she has chosen to work with.
Her clients range from the first-time homebuyer to the company executive who is a super jumbo borrower. Many of the executives work with financial advisors for their retirement accounts, and these financial advisors become referral sources for her. “It is only because I’ve proven myself over and over again that I can be trusted and I am knowledgeable about what I do.”
Both ends of the spectrum, the first-timer buyer and the executive, are equally easy to work with, Clark said. They are both high touch but for different reasons. The first-time buyer is in need of education about the process. “You want to help them grow and be prepared for transaction after transaction. You want them to walk away and say, 'Oh my gosh, this is such a wonderful experience.’”
On the other hand, an executive has very little time to devote to the details of getting a loan. The latter group wants it “stress-free and seamless.”
Clark keeps in contact with her past clients through mail and e-mail, including sending birthday greetings each year. She has a full staff; once she takes the application and the product is decided, it is turned over to her system. She has two processors, a full-time assistant and two supporting loan officers that help her take care of her leads.
The people she has worked with over and over again, and the ones that call her directly she does not hand off but takes care of them herself, Clark said.
“You have to be passionate and you have to continue to grow your knowledge as our industry is constantly changing. If you’re not passionate about it, you’re not going to continue to grow and want more knowledge,” she declared.
“I’ve never felt like success just happens,” but it happens over time and through perseverance, Clark said. “You can’t be looking at the number of loans you are doing, you need to be looking at the quality of work you are doing for your customer.
“Success comes if you keep your eyes on what’s really important and that’s the customer.”
