Among the headlines from the recent Mortgage Bankers Association National Secondary Market Conference in New York is that economists from the trade group have declared that the refinance boom is dead.
My colleague Lew Sichelman quotes Michael Fratantoni, the MBA's director of research and economics, as saying "We've lost borrowers who have the ability (to refinance) and those who have the ability no longer have the incentive."
Now if that doesn't convince you that you need to start building a purchase business through the development of a referral network, nothing will. So how does one get started; it needs to be more effective than handing out your business card to everyone you see.
Tom Fleming, executive director of Business Networking International West Central Florida, said professions that operate as sole proprietorships and rely on referrals could expand their business with word of mouth marketing.
Ivan Misner, chairman and founder of BNI, said there is no quick fix for developing a word of mouth business and you must meet people in a planned and structured way. Business networking groups help businesses achieve this while saving time and reducing the costs of advertising.
Businesses can grow their client base through word of mouth marketing by doing such things as:
• Providing quality customer service. Customers are the best advocate for a business. Providing great customer service compels customers to want to tell their friends when they have a positive experience which increases the referral base for any business.
• Obtaining endorsements from well established and respected experts, which helps to build customer referral and confidence.
• By public speaking, which is a great way to build consumer confidence and word of mouth advertising through actual face-to-face contact. There are many different types of organizations looking for public speakers on a wide variety of topics. Offer quality information and it will get people buzzing about the presentation and the business product.
• Providing case studies. These help businesses to get the consumer to think the way they want them to think. Case studies help potential customers to identify with the success stories of others that relate to their specific needs. This makes it easier to communicate value for specific business products. Customer case studies also relate to the basic human instinct to want to share information with others.
