One of the things I enjoy most is reading books on sales and influence (also known as persuasion). It may sound strange to you at first. But stop and think about it. Isn’t everything we do everyday involved in persuasion and trying to convince someone to do what you want?
Think about how this relates to what you did today. With your spouse or partner, with your kids, at the grocery store and of course, at work. All we do all day is try to convince people to do what we want them to do.
Now that we have that out of the way, I don’t have to convince you that all you do all day is try to convince people. So let’s move on to the “how to."
This past weekend I was reading a book by Blair Warren, who is a persuasion expert. He was able to sum up years of research into one sentence and here it is:
"People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies."
I will be covering each of these in great detail in the next few articles and how they relate to helping you attract more clients. For right now though, think about that statement. Write it down and put it next to your desk. It may be the most important statement I have ever shared.
If you are able to know what motivates people to take certain actions you can integrate that into your marketing. Even more importantly you can (must) integrate it into how you speak with clients and referral partners.
This one change will dramatically change your business almost immediately. Too often we are only thinking about ourselves and what we want and need. You must switch to knowing what your clients want. What do they need? What truly motivates them to take action? What will make them do business with you and not the company across the street? Focus on their needs. The sentence I shared with you is their wants and needs. No, realize it’s not which program, or which product. What I am trying to get you to understand is that it‘s never ever about the product or even the rate.
Can you imagine someone getting up in the morning and saying, “Today I think I’ll go get a 15 year loan at 4.5%?”
They want a home; they want a lower payment; they need money for a specific purpose. Burn this into your mind and it will become a little clearer. No one wants a mortgage!
In fact in our space of the reverse mortgage market it is truly an education process. Yes, they almost always have the need but it still takes a lot of education. See we are providing a solution not a mortgage.
So stay tuned and over the next few weeks I will go into great detail on how to apply that one important sentence above. Have you written it down yet and put it next to your desk? Have I persuaded you how important that is?
Brian Sacks and Sue Haviland are the co-founders of Reverse Mortgage Success. They have been in the industry for over 25 years and have closed over 5,000 transactions. Sue and Brian originate reverse mortgages each and every day and share their real world experiences with you at
