Please join us on December 9th at 11AM Pacific / 2PM Eastern for a brand new webinar about how to understand and leverage the unique characteristics of your sales process.  You can register here, for free, in about 5 seconds.

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What Planet Are You On? Leverage the Differences between B2C and B2B Sales and Marketing

Applying the 7 universal ground rules of sales and marketing and the 3 keys to lead conversion

Knowing what factors are critical to success in your business is not as obvious as you may think. The most successful sales and marketing organizations understand which planet they are on, and they know which sales and marketing approaches align with their needs.

Understanding the characteristics of your sales and marketing efforts are essential to achieving higher lead conversion and sales success.

Sign up for this free webinar to learn how the 7 universal ground rules of sales and marketing apply differently to B2C and B2B sales. Find out what the unique characteristics of your sales efforts are, and see how to leverage the 3 keys to lead conversion using powerful lead management software from Leads360.

From this webinar, you will learn:
•    Questions for better understanding the rules of your target marketplace and sales process
•    The 7 universal ground rules of sales and marketing
•    The 3 key drivers of sales lead conversion
•    How lead management software can boost your sales and increase ROI
•    Why implementing the wrong technology solution can cripple your business

We’ll see you there.

Here’s what our own Nisheeth Singh had to say about the study:

As you may have read on Lead Critic today, we released our newest research regarding the impact of call frequency on sales lead conversion.

To misquote a famous author: “Elementary, my dear Watson”. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s written works never actually saw this phrase although the first and second parts of the phrase were seen in close association during conversations. But I digress.

As many of you opined above and is the central premise of the paper (found here), sometimes the most obvious and logical actions are never taken by lead buyers. I don’t necessarily understand why they don’t but I do revel in the fact that it means significant upside for those that choose to engage with their leads smartly.

We conducted the study based on several million leads that our clients tried contacting over a period of many months to have as diverse a data set as possible. We studied the effects of multiple call attempts all the way to 20 and I’ve published the entire results of our study below just to whet your intellectual curiosity. Some explanation is in order:

* Column 1 denotes the call attempt

* Column 2 denotes the percentage of ‘Contactable leads’ contacted – this is key to understanding the study and is NOT the same as Contact Rate. This means that the data set excludes any leads that were never contacted. This metric is a percent of the remaining leads in our study which we define as ‘contactable leads’

* Column 3 denotes the percent improvement in the ‘% of Contactable leads contacted’ metric for each successive attempt over the very 1^st call attempt

* Column 4 denotes the percent improvement in the ‘% of Contactable leads contacted’ metric for each successive attempt over the preceding call attempt

Contact    % of Contactable   Improvement       Improvement over

Attempt   leads contacted    over 1st attempt    preceding attempt

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1                              39%

2                              72%                        87%                        87%

3                              83%                        114%                     15%

4                              88%                        128%                     6.5%

5                              91%                        136%                     3.4%

6                              93%                        141%                     2.1%

7                              95%                        145%                     1.5%

8                              96%                        148%                     1.1%

9                              96%                        150%                     0.8%

10                           97%                        151%                     0.6%

11                           97%                        152%                     0.5%

12                           98%                        153%                     0.3%

13                           98%                        154%                     0.3%

14                           98%                        154%                     0.3%

15                           98%                        155%                     0.2%

16                           99%                        155%                     0.2%

17                           99%                        156%                     0.2%

18                           99%                        156%                     0.1%

19                           99%                        156%                     0.1%

20                           99%                        157%                     0.1%

As you can see, the benefits of calling start trailing off pretty steeply after the 5^th or 6^th attempt, we chose to prescribe 6 attempts as the cut-off. I beg to defer with LeadCritic in that this is a very statistically relevant study with a data set this size and of this heterogeneity, at least at a high level. I do agree though that to get maximum benefit from a study like this, one should conduct the same study but specifically for their own sales team to understand the effect of call attempts on their contact rate.

Cheers!

Nisheeth Singh

Director of Strategic Intelligence, Leads360

We just completed our 9th whitepaper called Mortgage 2.0: Eight Post-Recession Sales and Marketing Best Practices for Mortgage Professionals. So much has changed in the last 18 months for mortgage professionals and B2C sales organizations in general. This whitepaper looks at what will be needed to succeed in the transforming mortgage broker landscape from a lead generation and lead management perspective.

We did quite a bit of research through interviews thousands of clients and partners as well as industry experts and have compiled many of the best practices that have worked in this very tough time, as well as providing some ideas about what is likely to come. We encourage you download it free and let us know what you think.

President Bush has dropped his threat to veto the housing rescue bill. His threatened veto was based mostly on $4 Billion to be given to states to enable them to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed properties. Questions were raised by Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., after learning that one of the bills architects, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., received a mortgage deal through a VIP program at Countrywide. Unsure how much Countrywide and other retail mortgage lenders stand to profit from that $4 Billion, DeMint and Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., attempted to send the bill back to committee but were defeated, 70-11. Other attempts to send back the bill to be rewritten were similarly defeated. This bill which offers some relief to homeowners on the brink of foreclosing, have broad bipartisan support in this election year, indicating there may be enough votes to override a veto. Eager to avoid a protracted veto fight, President Bush dropped his threat, indicating that restoring confidence and stability to the financial markets was a goal that was better tended to sooner than later.

A price has been put on the potential Fannie and Freddie bailout. The price tag could be as much as $25 billion. It is not a fait accompli, however. Peter R. Orszag, Director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put the odds at better than half that Fannie and Freddie will not use need any cash. Critics of the bailout maintain that homeowners should be the first to benefit from any taxpayer help. But if it is approved by congress, restoring confidence to investors in the U.S. and internationally is the bailout’s aim.  We will continue to closely watch the developments at Fannie and Freddie along with our mortgage broker and mortgage banker clients.

“Home prices in 20 major U.S. cities have dropped a record 15.3% in the past year. We are back to where we were in 2004, according to the Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s.” Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article started a firestorm of opinion and thoughts amongst my friends and colleagues and I wanted to share it with you. While home prices are at their lowest in the last five years, market saturation is at its highest; no one is buying or selling homes.

I started reaching out people in the industry to chat about the implications of a market where low home prices were not selling and it spawned quite a few responses. Even the guy sitting next to me on the airplane had something to say about it. This seems to be a topic on the tip of every American’s tongue. See what just a few of them had to say: (Note these are not necessarily my opinions but opinions of my peers and past clients in and out of the mortgage industry.)

“Home buyers are irrational – 2 years ago subprime & prime buyers bought second and third homes. Now even prime buyers are not buying in sufficient numbers. Why not? Are they crazy?! Irrational enough to buy in a market driven by a trifecta of poor lending, brokering and buying decisions but now when it makes the most sense to buy, not buying. Just crazy.”

–Anonymous Real Estate Client

“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In a restricted liquidity market, the middle to lower class almost always suffers. Credit costs soar for lower FICO holders, while limited purchases and lending leads to incentives for those with ‘prime’ credit. Go to any car dealership this weekend and ‘Prime’ credit holders can buy a car with no money down, $2.99 gas for two years and a $5000 rebate; got bad credit, don’t waste your time.”

–Noel Collins (Myself)

“Banks caused the problem. Bad lending practices caused ancillary markets to collapse. If banks had not lent to borrowers with lower FICO scores or offered brokers the ability to borrow money for 0% down payments we would not be in trouble. In the past, the average down payment needed for a home purchase qualification was at least 10%. Because of the lack of liquidity time shares, rental cars, hotel reservation rates, food costs, restaurants and tourist attractions are failing.”

–Passenger on flight from LA to Phoenix

“The home buyer is at fault. Even subprime buyers obtained a good loan, paid off credit cards and inserted a positive cash flow in their banks. What happened? They spent the money, got new credit cards, bought a new car or home and paid their mortgages late. If they had followed our financial advice they would be able refinance at prime rates even in today’s market.” –

Chris Stone – EDMC – California

“It is the President’s fault. If George W. Bush had lowered interest rates sooner and not hedged his bet on big oil and the Iraq war, the financial industry would not have collapsed.” —

Anonymous Human Resource Director – Mortgage Industry

“Hedge funds and overreaction compounded the problem. If people had not focused on making money during this crisis we would be better off”.

–David Staral – The Staral Group

“Inexperienced loan originators. Many loan officers – I use the word loosely were inexperienced and only learned how to take orders. One bank/broker I talked with said it was fine when lending was like “Clubbing baby seals” but in today’s market a loan originator/agent needs to b a financial EXPERT! – Period! Inexperienced loan originators looking for a quick buck didn’t point our customers in the right direction; they pointed them into their bank account. I cannot reach my agent any longer; he went back to selling cars.”

– Subprime Customer stuck in an ARM

“My agent went bankrupt and is now facing felony charges in Georgia.”

–Failed Mortgage Banker/Broker

How far will the downturn in our economy take us? Some of my more outspoken colleagues say this will only lead to more money making by the richest of the richest and that more needs to be done for the middle and lower classes. Didn’t we take the financial decision making out of the hands of the wealthy and extend it to our poorer peers? Where did that put us? Banks, buyers, Bush—whose fault is it?

This post was inspired by a great article written by Sean Hannon this week. In his article, which is focused on understanding investment results, he used this simple chart to illustrate the possible results of an investment (I have reproduced this chart with my own color-coding):

Sean’s point is that you should only feel truly successful about when you have a good outcome that is produced by a good process. If you invest in a stock on a whim and it happens to produce a great return, you should not consider yourself a great investor–you should think of yourself as a lucky gambler. Similarly, if you are using a proven system that works, and you get a bad outcome sometimes, you shouldn’t feel too bad. Over time the right process will produce good outcomes more often then the bad process.

This idea is common across many endeavors where the process to achieving results has a strong “luck” factor. Poker is a great example. If you have the best hand, correctly estimate your odds of winning, and bet big, you will still lose a significant portion of the time. Even a good process can produce bad results, in the same way that a bad process can produce good results.

Building your business to perform requires understanding how process and outcome are correlated in the long term and yet can produce totally inverse results in the short term. During the housing boom, the problem that many mortgage brokers, banks, and direct lenders ran into, was that they used a simplified lens to measure their success. They looked at the world like this:

It’s counter intuitive but the outcome is not sufficient to measure success. Plenty of banks, brokers, and lenders made a killing and subsequently lost their shirts because they were only measuring outcome, not process. Building a good process builds a framework to produce more good outcomes in the future. Building a business around good outcomes often produces a process that will produce fewer good outcomes in the future; it’s self defeating in the long run.

As a company that builds lead management software (LMS), we understand that helping our clients by providing best practices goes a long way towards making them successful in the long run. But beyond that we know we can help our clients by getting them to place an equal or higher value on their process over their immediate outcomes.

Lastly here’s the way that we see the world. :

We see four kinds of businesses. We try to push our clients towards a good process and good outcomes. Yet, we are never satisfied. Every company, across the board, can always be more successful.

The mortgage industry will get better.  In fact, almost everyone agrees that the mortgage industry will improve.  We have heard our President and economists claim our country’s financial health is stable but isn’t that kind of like saying “It can’t get any worse”.   Surely it can’t get worse, could it?  Are we somehow missing the signs of economic improvement?  Are we deaf and blind to the signals and signs of a recovering mortgage industry? 

Maybe we are missing signs of life from the mortgage industry.  For years those of us working in the industry knew the boom would come to an end, but we enjoyed the record revenues while they lasted. Overall there seemed to be little preparation for tough times.  Brokers, lenders, loan officers and everyone else involved accrued little savings and neglected long-term financial preparation.   The rapidity and severity of the meltdown has overwhelmed most institutions within the financial sector.  Wall Street is reeling and bad news it seems is reported almost daily. 

Today, the Saudi government decided hold off increasing oil production.  This will surely drive up the costs of oil.  With gasoline hovering ominously near $4 a gallon and food costs higher than the previous 15 years, recession is on the lips of most financial analysts.   I’ve even heard Jordan Sparks might have a debilitating vocal injury.  How do we keep our chins up when even our American Idol is in dire straits? 

I received my quarterly 401k statement and for the first time since the dot.com bust, lost money in every single category.  The relevance of the mortgage meltdown is finally hitting home.  Ok maybe I’m painting a darker picture then what it really is.  The coming presidential election could change the landscape overnight and save us all from the world wide meltdown, Right?  Well this time I am going to pay attention to the signs and signals. 

It’s time for us to reduce expenses, sell the extra car, put a little bit of money into the savings account and eat out less.  It’s time we all pitched in and started saving more, that might be the only thing that saves our big brothers in the financial industry.  If we all pitch in and save our money we can bail out the credit card companies, credit unions and Wall Street lenders.  Like an errant child who dropped out of college and just needs a parents hug of acceptance and forgiveness, it’s time to hug your Congressman. 

You really don’t need President Bush’s rebate check; send it back to Congress with a note offering thanks for a job well done.  Thanks for leaving us to our own devices.  We got ourselves into this mess; we might be the only ones who can do something about it.