LAS VEGAS—Americans doing business in the Orient often use the backside of their business cards to print their information in the native tongue of the particular country where they are working. Japanese, perhaps, or maybe Mandarin.
In the United States, mortgage brokers sometimes use the other side of their cards to ask for business, such as, “The greatest compliment you could pay me is a referral.”
But Steve Richman of Genworth Mortgage Insurance suggests a better use of that space for mortgage brokers might be to list their Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System number, the states where they are licensed, the educational courses they have taken and the professional designations they have earned.
By flipping the card over and pointing to that information, mortgage brokers quickly set themselves apart from loan officers who work for banks, Richman, a nationally recognized sales trainer, said at the NAMB West conference here earlier this month.
He also suggested that if a mortgage broker is asked for help by a former client who is having difficulty making his or her monthly payments, the broker should find out if the borrower is paying for private mortgage insurance. If so, the mortgage broker should recommend that the borrower call his or her MI company.
Many mortgage insurance firms have loss mitigation departments that have been given the authority by servicers to work with troubled borrowers, said Richman, who also is a litigation attorney.
“It’s free help for servicers,” he said, noting that Genworth alone has helped more than 30,000 borrowers save $5 billion worth of mortgages. “I can create a whole package and they’ll approve it.”
