From starting the loan origination to completing the loan request, the process for a loan can be messy, especially without proper organization. Loan officers know this well, which is why ICE Mortgage Technology created Encompass, a Loan Origination System (LOS) capable of integrating with CRM software such as Shape’s Mortgage CRM, to help organize the process of applying for a loan.

What is a Loan Origination System (LOS)?

A Loan Origination System (LOS) is a software used by loan officers to manage the steps of a mortgage loan transaction, starting with the origination of the loan. Once the origination is completed, a typical LOS will also handle the pricing, fulfillment, eligibility, and document management of the loan. In general, a LOS will work in a step-by-step basis, guiding both the lender and borrower through the complete loan process.

What Is CRM Software?

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software refers to a cloud-based management system that connects all aspects of your business in one easy-to-use interface. Any member of your business can access real-time client data, allowing for seamless interaction between various sections of your company. CRM software can be downloaded from anywhere, so employees working from home can use the software and still access client data from the cloud. If you still have questions about CRM software, you can check out Shape CRM{link to informational page about Shape CRM} an in-depth look at what CRM software can do.

What is Encompass?

Encompass is a Loan Origination System (LOS) made by ICE Mortgage Technology, designed to assist loan officers through the loan application process. Through the use of artificial intelligence and next-generation data security, Encompass gives both lenders and borrowers a sense of security, while also streamlining the lending process to maximize efficiency. Encompass also provides GSE integration, which includes Freddie Mac’s Loan Product Advisor and Fannie Mae’s Day 1 Certainty initiatives.

Why use Encompass LOS for your lending business? 

According to the MBA, loan origination costs the lender an average of $8,000 per loan. This means that until the loan is finalized, the lending process is losing you money, and depending on the size of your clientele this amount may not be small. Encompass was designed with this in mind, speeding up the lending process to ensure faster ROI. To test this, MarketWise Advisors recently performed an independent study on Encompass LOS [https://www.icemortgagetechnology.com/roi/], which concluded that, on average, lenders using Encompass:

• Saw an annual ROI of 687%

• Saved $813 per loan

• Spent 23.5 less hours per loan

• Saw a payback period of 1.92 months

Overall, most of these benefits were attributed to the increased productivity Encompass provided its users. In the words of Jordan Brown, CEO of MarketWise Advisors, LLC, “this study provides clear evidence that Encompass’ compliance capabilities, process automation, third-party service integrations and interoperability of a single system have a marked impact on the cost of origination.” 

Ellie Mae president and CEO Jonathan Corr also had praise for Encompass, claiming that “by using technology to automate the complex mortgage process, study participants realized an annual return of 697 percent, that’s nearly seven dollars for every dollar invested. In many cases, that’s the difference between profit and loss for lenders.”

Encompass is URLA ready

With the recent changes to the Universal Residential Loan Application (URLA), some people might hesitate to spend money on Encompass. This stems from the fear that if Encompass struggles to adapt to the changes in the loan industry, the many benefits it brings your lending business will be irrelevant. 

Although this is a valid concern, you can rest assured with Encompass, as the support team at ICE Mortgage Technology strives to stay ahead of the curve—including the new URLA. Encompass is fully compatible with the new URLA, and ICE Mortgage Technology intends to constantly update its system and adapt to any upcoming changes in the loan industry.

Benefits of Encompass LOS + CRM Software

Speaking of compatible, Encompass allows for complete integration with third-party CRM software, including Shape CRM. Although a LOS can still improve loan management without CRM software, using the two together gives your lenders even more control over the loan process.

Encompass + Shape Software Mortgage CRM is Bidirectional

Arguably the biggest benefit of using these two services together is the bi-directionality of the pair. Although some work better than others, Encompass was designed to seamlessly integrate with any CRM software, allowing all information to be easily transferred between the two. For how this benefits you, consider the act of data entry. Anytime your business interacts with a lead, client, or business partner, a certain amount of data needs to be entered or updated within your system. Contact information, loan applications, loan status, business data, or anything else relevant to these people will need to be properly documented. Without integrating a CRM software with Encompass, all of this data must be recorded separately in both Encompass and your company’s management system. Not only will this take time out of your day, but it could also lead to:

• Duplicate data

• Missing data

• Errors in the data

Any of these mistakes could cost you both time and money, and CRM integration with Encompass is an easy way to fix this.

The bi-directionality of CRM software and Encompass can also benefit both your marketing and sales.

For any business, being proficient at lead generation and management is the first step in closing deals. This should be obvious, but if you don’t supply your sales team with quality leads, it can be challenging for them to sell your product or service. With CRM integration in Encompass, your marketing team will instantly receive a notification whenever someone submits a loan application, which will include the contact information of that person for outreach purposes. Applying for a loan is one of the best leads you can hope for in the lending business, so capitalizing on these leads is imperative. CRM integration can also automatically text or email the loan applier at specific points during the application process, further increasing the likelihood of a conversion. 

For a short example of how Encompass with CRM integration can be used, consider the journey a potential customer may take after applying for a loan.

First, the customer submits their loan application, alerting your marketing team of a high-quality new lead. With Encompass + CRM, your marketing team can easily track the progress of this lead through the origination process, supporting it as they see fit.  This could mean sending out automated texts and emails at certain points in the process, or even automatically responding to inbound calls to maintain a good relationship with the lead. Sending messages expresses to the lead that you care about them personally, which is often more successful than generic outreach. CRM software makes this process effortless. 

Once the lead passes through the marketing funnel and becomes fully qualified, it’s handed off to your sales team, where they attempt to close the deal. With CRM integration, not only will all of the information available on the lead be maintained, but the transfer happens instantaneously. This means that your sales team can immediately begin targeting this qualified lead—a surefire way to increase sales. 

If your sales team is able to capitalize on the lead and close the deal, the CRM software will then assist you in onboarding your new client. Depending on your needs and the specific software that you are using, this can be done through custom forms, proposals, or contracts. For payment, most CRM software support invoices, while also giving automated payment reminders.

For lenders, CRM software often goes hand-in-hand with a Loan Origination System. They both improve your company’s overall business, however CRM software focuses on the framework of your company (communication, client management, marketing), while a LOS focuses on the actual service your company provides (loan process). All-in-all, CRM and LOS software compliment each other well, and work best when paired.

Using Shape CRM with Encompass LOS

Encompass was designed to work with all types of CRM software, however some integrate better than others, such as Shape CRM. Unlike other CRM software, Shape CRM was developed with Loan Origination in mind, so it seamlessly integrates with LOS software, Encompass included. Because of this, your lenders can gain even more control of the loan origination process, saving your company both time and money.

The Benefits

Compared to other CRM software, Shape CRM integrates much smoother with Encompass. For example, a new Encompass loan file can be created within a Shape contact record instantly, either through a press of a button or an automated trigger from a status change. Creating a loan file this way saves more user information, while also allowing your marketing team to initiate follow-up drip campaigns immediately. 

Shape CRM also allows for milestone tracking in Encompass. In short, Shape CRM can synchronize with the loan status of anyone applying through Encompass, giving your team updates whenever a certain milestone is hit. Shape CRM comes with several preset milestones, including but not limited to:

• Started

• Processing

• Submittal 

• Approval

• Docs Requested

• Docs Signing

• Funding

• Post Closing

• Completed

Shape CRM is highly customizable, so if there is a milestone you would like to be tracked that is not provided by default, Shape CRM will work with you to have that created.

Article Source:-  https://setshape.com/blog/the-importance-of-crm-integration-with-encompass-los

For Megan Weil, a Marketing Manager of the independent Equity Home Mortgage in Tampa, ensuring her team can take advantage of the historic influx of buyers, and refinancers all came down to workflow. With so many new leads coming into her firm’s pipeline every week, it was critical to have a technology that could help keep everyone on her team organized and efficient without compromising client satisfaction.

Learn how Shape + leadPops is helping Megan’s team drive consistent results even in an unpredictable market.

New Year, More Volatility

Many thought that the wild ride of 2020 was well in the rearview mirror, but according to most lenders, the first quarter of 2021 has been just as challenging as ever.

“[The market now] is crazy...but good. There’s a lot of volatility with fluctuating rates, and so far, it’s been a learning experience to understand what interest rates are capable of in such a short amount of time,” says Megan. 

Due to this unpredictability, Equity’s leadership team looked at every way possible to educate and prepare borrowers for the challenges they may face ahead. The technology at their disposal with Shape + leadPops is doing a great job to help. 

“The market is scarce, and buyers don’t realize that they’re going to get into a bidding war,” says Megan. “We want our borrowers to be prepared and ready to take the plunge. So, we’re going to help them make the best decision for their situations. ‘Transparency, transparency, transparency’ is our motto.” 

Keeping Borrowers Connected

Equity is building a loyal customer base that helps them drive referrals and repeat business by ensuring borrowers leave the experience wiser. How do they do it? The power of their connected tech stack.

Megan is a fan of how Shape + leadPops work seamlessly to help her team jump right into new lead inquiries with automated tools. Still, she particularly loves the drip campaigns that help raise the water level on borrowers’ knowledge. 

“Speed to lead and nurture are key for us. Our refinance customers, for example, tend to be less informed about the process upfront and get more intimidated, so the more time that goes by, the less likely they end up being engaged.”

With Shape + leadPops, “we contact them quickly and can educate them, and that works to convert instead of them falling out the back end due to cold feet. From a borrower’s perspective, they don’t always know how rates are sourced and come in almost defensive. So, if you call them at odd hours, they can get a bad impression.” Instead, with Shape, you can create more consistency and professionalism with your approach. 

Megan says that the Equity team loves how they can tailor drip campaigns to send at any cadence and schedule, which gives their team a way to express their personality and reassure clients (while offloading manual outreach when they prefer to). 

Keeping Things Efficient

Borrower knowledge is only one part of the equation, but many lenders struggle to keep up with demand. New leads may pour in, but Equity didn’t want any potential borrowers to slip through the cracks, so they leveraged Shape + leadPops to create a powerhouse workflow that helped them close more deals than ever before. 

“leadPops helps with our tracking and storing all our campaign metrics all in one place, so we’re able to synthesize our various platforms into one central location,” which Megan says helps her be more effective with her marketing strategy and save time.  

“leadPops is crucial to all our demand campaigns, helping us in sourcing the right clients and finding opportunities. Shape is great for keeping us organized and understanding where clients are in the lending process. These tools are our backbone, and because Shape integrates with so many other tools like LendingPad, we can kick over all the client info seamlessly to remove the stress from our process. Clients love the experience,” she notes.

With her incoming lead flow sorted out, Megan says the team really gets into gear with the help of Shape and leadPops. 

“Once leads come in and are populated in Shape, they get assigned to the right loan officer, and then we can kick off the right email drip nurture campaign for the lead. Shape does a great job with lead distribution. I can break down leads by state or campaign, create ‘round robin’ leads to specific LOs, send my VA and construction loan expert borrowers, and more. It makes everything so much easier.”

Working together to help you close more deals

With Shape + leadPops working in harmony, lenders get more control over and build more efficient workflows without losing the personal connection that their clients love. 

“We’re a small local business and veteran-owned. As a close-knit community, we want to feel more like a friend that you’d refer and come back to — that we’re always easy to get a hold of,” she says of Equity. With Shape + leadPops in her corner, they’ve done that and a whole lot more. 

“We’re closing the most loans we ever have!”  

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/how-one-independent-mortgage-company-used-shape-leadpops-to-build-a-steady-pipeline-of-deals

Welcome back to “Building Up Better,” Shape’s blog series aimed to help brokers build up stronger, more profitable businesses in 2021 by harnessing the power of technology.

In this post, we’ll dive deeper into everyone’s favorite topic: money. The last 12+ months have been a wild ride for brokers everywhere, but not every lender has optimized their workflow or tech stack to capitalize on the historic influx of new and refinancing borrowers.  

If you haven’t taken the plunge and invested in a CRM to make your lending workflow more efficient, lower your processing costs, or increase your team’s productivity, you’re not too late. 

And even if you’ve already got a system in place but are hesitant to fine-tune it because it may require some upfront time investment, please read on, too, because we guarantee there’s a better way.

Let’s dive into the three ways a CRM can help you make more money for your mortgage business in 2021. 

Benefit 1: Attract More (and better) Borrowers

CRMs are more than just your digital client database—in fact, CRMs designed with lenders in mind are packed with powerful tools and integrations that make finding, qualifying, nurturing, and converting great borrowers easier than ever before.  

According to the PwC home lending report, 46% of purchase borrowers consider only one lender during their search, and the majority of borrowers won’t switch the lender they chose. Lenders must be leveraging high-performing marketing campaigns to attract the best leads possible.

Why a CRM: Mortgage CRMs give your team full control over your lead sources, so you’ll get up-the-second data to understand your top-converting marketing channels inside and out. These kinds of reporting tools help you invest more strategically in the marketing activities that give you the best results and drop the initiatives that aren’t driving ROI for your business.

Benefit 2: Lower Your Loan Processing (and other) Costs

If there’s an Achilles heel for lenders everywhere, it’s the rising costs of origination fees. If you’re looking to lower the amount you spend without passing on more costs to your clients or hiring additional team members, look no further than a mortgage CRM. 

Why a CRM: When you opt for a mortgage CRM + POS that integrates directly with your LOS, you’ll drastically reduce time spent on data entry but also minimize errors or typos with borrower data. Because CRMs reduce the need for human input, they help reduce the margin of error and lower the likelihood of unnecessary rework.

In addition, many CRMs with great UX minimize the need for costly system administrators. With all your documents in one structured and centralized system, there’s no need to spend time and money hiring and training an administrator to navigate all that paperwork.

Benefit 3: Boost Your Team’s Productivity by 29% and Sales by 34%

Most employees waste up to 55% of their time on administrative tasks, and loan officers are no exception. Preparing financial documents, qualifying borrowers, or reviewing loan agreements takes a lot of time, and generating new business only adds to an already full plate. Without some workflow automation process, there's simply not enough time left in the day for your team to focus on lead outreach or closing more deals.

Why a CRM: The numbers don’t lie: teams who use a CRM to offload those every day, unproductive manual tasks see a boost of 29% in their productivity and 34% in their closed deals, and boosted revenue of 41%. Consider how much a third more revenue would mean to your mortgage business in 2021?

Mortgage CRMs can help achieve these kinds of results by more than just automating frequent tasks. The best mortgage CRMs can integrate with your other systems, so you never have to waste time switching between screens or wondering where to find the data you need.

In addition, tools like team tools like calendar, email, document syncing, and productivity reports help ensure that your business is data-driven, and not chance-driven. Real-time performance reports can help you see which of your loan officers perform at 100% and who needs some coaching to get back on track.

Take Action Today

Want to get started making more money for your mortgage business in 2021 with a CRM? We’ve helped thousands of brokers build more efficient workflows that have helped them grow revenue and save time. It’s not a secret; it’s CRM science. 

Schedule a chat with us to learn how we can help grow your mortgage business

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/how-mortgage-brokers-can-make-more-money-in-2021

Welcome back to "Building Up Better," Shape's blog series aimed to help brokers build up stronger, more profitable businesses in 2021 by harnessing the power of technology.

In previous posts, we've discussed in more detail the best way to generate high-quality, qualified leads for your mortgage business. But how do you deliver a high-quality customer experience that breeds loyalty and drives referrals, especially in the “new normal” of COVID-19, where more and more consumers are looking online for lenders?

The home buying and mortgage process for most borrowers are deeply personal. Good relationships are forged on trust and developing a connection, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to build these in today's remote world. As a result, consumer confidence and satisfaction in mortgage brokers are plummeting—only 42% of borrowers say they are satisfied with the mortgage process.

Let's take a closer look at 3 key ways to leverage technology (yes, really) to build better client relationships and stand out from the crowd:

1. Know When to Automate

We cover efficiency a lot on this blog—it’s partly why we created Shape—to help lenders create more efficient workflows leveraging the power of automation. How do you measure the impact automation can have on your business? Mortgage teams that use CRMs and automation are 50% more productive, but more importantly, these tools help you retain 27% more clients than teams rooted in manual processes. All this automation adds up to one thing brokers need more of to build great relationships: time. 

Lenders know that one of the top drivers of new business is referrals from your existing client base since 92% of buyers trust referrals from people they know. If you’re automating the frequent daily manual tasks sucking up your time (like following up on contracts, booking appointments, and client data entry), you’ll have more bandwidth to develop and nurture your referral network, which ultimately means more revenue.  

2. Don’t Chase the Rate Chasers

Quality leads: that’s the top priority of any growing mortgage business. But in today’s wild rate rodeo, you’ll undoubtedly have “rate chasers” who will contact you only to get another quote as they do their rate shopping. They may have some intent to work with you, but likely they’re just another low-quality prospect you’ll waste valuable time on. 

Just how much can these low-quality leads negatively impact your mortgage business?

“On average, bad lead prospect data costs sales departments 550 hours and $32,000 per representative. Assuming the average cost of $60,000 per year for a sales representative, not including additional payroll-related expenses, this means individuals are spending over 50% of their time and payroll working with low-interest customers.” Ouch. 

Instead of wasting time on the chasers who won’t help your business or drive more referrals, opt for a CRM with built-in lead generation tools and lead scoring, which can help teams convert 30% more of their prospects. By leveraging AI lead-qualifying, your reps can focus on only top-quality prospects who are a great fit for your business, ensuring you’re building great client relationships from the very first touchpoint. 

3. Break Through the Noise

In today’s digital mortgage environment, how do you compete for a legitimate lead’s attention? With endless pleas for our attention online, brokers need to get personal to help them stand out from the crowd. 

Sending a welcome email to a new prospect isn’t always the best way to show who you are and why they should work with you: text lacks emotion, personality, and tone, which can leave your message ignored or misunderstood.

Instead, you can accelerate your sales cycle and rehumanize the digital mortgage experience by sending personalized video messages. Clearer communication with quick, digestible videos means less time emailing back and forth, which progresses your deals forward. Personal videos before appointments help put a face to your name, making it harder for them to no-show you.

By leveraging videos as a part of your client and prospect outreach or drip campaigns, you can infuse much needed personality and build trust at every touchpoint. 

Looking for more proven ways to build great client relationships for your mortgage business?

Join Shape Mortgage and BombBomb on Thursday, April 13 at 10:00 am MDT for an in-depth 45-minute webinar where we’ll share industry-leading tips and tricks proven to boost your client relationships and help you generate more referrals and revenue. Save your seat today!

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/how-to-build-great-client-relationships-in-the-new-normal

Welcome back to “Building Up Better,” Shape’s blog series aimed to help brokers build up stronger, more profitable businesses in 2021 by harnessing the power of technology.

In this post, we’ll dive deeper into everyone’s favorite topic: money. The last 12+ months have been a wild ride for brokers everywhere, but not every lender has optimized their workflow or tech stack to capitalize on the historic influx of new and refinancing borrowers.  

If you haven’t taken the plunge and invested in a CRM to make your lending workflow more efficient, lower your processing costs, or increase your team’s productivity, you’re not too late. 

And even if you’ve already got a system in place but are hesitant to fine-tune it because it may require some upfront time investment, please read on, too, because we guarantee there’s a better way.

Let’s dive into the three ways a CRM can help you make more money for your mortgage business in 2021. 

Benefit 1: Attract More (and better) Borrowers

CRMs are more than just your digital client database—in fact, CRMs designed with lenders in mind are packed with powerful tools and integrations that make finding, qualifying, nurturing, and converting great borrowers easier than ever before.  

According to the PwC home lending report, 46% of purchase borrowers consider only one lender during their search, and the majority of borrowers won’t switch the lender they chose. Lenders must be leveraging high-performing marketing campaigns to attract the best leads possible.

Why a CRM: Mortgage CRMs give your team full control over your lead sources, so you’ll get up-the-second data to understand your top-converting marketing channels inside and out. These kinds of reporting tools help you invest more strategically in the marketing activities that give you the best results and drop the initiatives that aren’t driving ROI for your business.

Benefit 2: Lower Your Loan Processing (and other) Costs

If there’s an Achilles heel for lenders everywhere, it’s the rising costs of origination fees. If you’re looking to lower the amount you spend without passing on more costs to your clients or hiring additional team members, look no further than a mortgage CRM. 

Why a CRM: When you opt for a mortgage CRM + POS that integrates directly with your LOS, you’ll drastically reduce time spent on data entry but also minimize errors or typos with borrower data. Because CRMs reduce the need for human input, they help reduce the margin of error and lower the likelihood of unnecessary rework.

In addition, many CRMs with great UX minimize the need for costly system administrators. With all your documents in one structured and centralized system, there’s no need to spend time and money hiring and training an administrator to navigate all that paperwork.

Benefit 3: Boost Your Team’s Productivity by 29% and Sales by 34%

Most employees waste up to 55% of their time on administrative tasks, and loan officers are no exception. Preparing financial documents, qualifying borrowers, or reviewing loan agreements takes a lot of time, and generating new business only adds to an already full plate. Without some workflow automation process, there's simply not enough time left in the day for your team to focus on lead outreach or closing more deals.

Why a CRM: The numbers don’t lie: teams who use a CRM to offload those every day, unproductive manual tasks see a boost of 29% in their productivity and 34% in their closed deals, and boosted revenue of 41%. Consider how much a third more revenue would mean to your mortgage business in 2021?

Mortgage CRMs can help achieve these kinds of results by more than just automating frequent tasks. The best mortgage CRMs can integrate with your other systems, so you never have to waste time switching between screens or wondering where to find the data you need.

In addition, tools like team tools like calendar, email, document syncing, and productivity reports help ensure that your business is data-driven, and not chance-driven. Real-time performance reports can help you see which of your loan officers perform at 100% and who needs some coaching to get back on track.

Take Action Today

Want to get started making more money for your mortgage business in 2021 with a CRM? We’ve helped thousands of brokers build more efficient workflows that have helped them grow revenue and save time. It’s not a secret; it’s CRM science. 

Schedule a chat with us to learn how we can help grow your mortgage business

Article Source:-  https://setshape.com/blog/how-mortgage-brokers-can-make-more-money-in-2021

Welcome to “Build Up Better,” a new blog series from the mortgage experts at Shape, which will help you emerge from 2020’s unpredictability with the essential tips, tricks, and best practices needed to make 2021 the best year ever for your business. 

Although we’re making our way through the first quarter of another record-breaking mortgage market, it’s never too late to invest the time to set your business up for success. Whether your goals for 2021 are growth, saving more time, or just cashing in on the influx of new and refinancing borrowers, much of your focus needs to point toward making your lending workflow more efficient.

In this post, we’re going to cover 3 easy ways to automate the frequent, everyday lending tasks you waste countless hours a day on with a customer relationship manager (CRM). But first, why does this even matter?

The benefits of automation for mortgage brokers:

• CRMs provide brokers with $8.71 ROI for every $1 they invest in one 

• Mortgage teams that use CRMs and automation tools are 50% more productive

• CRM automation boosts individual sales rep revenue by 41%

• CRMs help brokers retain 27% more clients 

When used correctly, software automation can unlock new growth opportunities for your mortgage business, allowing you and your team to focus on building the human connections you need to compete in today’s market!

Tip 1: Stop Wasting Time on Your Calendar

Studies show it can take up to 52 touchpoints to convert a mortgage prospect, and on average, it may take as many as 4 separate attempts (think back and forth emailing to land on a scheduled time to meet) just to book a meeting with them. If you’re not using a CRM or other calendar automation tool, this is wasting you over 8 hours a month per teammate!
Instead, when you use a calendar automation tool, you can provide prospects with your real-time availability and automatically sync your appointments with your calendar. 

The benefits of calendar automation for mortgage brokers:

1. Keep availability real-time for prospects and clients 

2. Always be up-to-the-second on your meeting schedule at the office, or on-the-go

3. Reduce manual email scheduling time to zero 

4. Shorten the lead sales cycle and boost client satisfaction 

Tip 2: Clean Up Your Database

The cost of dirty data for brokers isn’t just disorganization: bad data has led to 12% of businesses losing revenue, 28% suffering email deliverability issues (rendering their marketing dollars useless), and 21% experiencing reputational damage. In a business where reputation is extremely important, you can’t afford to have a sloppy Excel database or lose track of important client details because you rely on manually updating your database. 

Collecting and maintaining a quality database is a business best practice, and for mortgage brokers, the power of a CRM that can help organize and automate the collection and syncing of prospect and client records to other systems (like your LOS), can’t be overstated enough. 

Think about how beneficial it becomes when a lead enters information on your website, and that data automatically syncs to your database, creates a client record, can fire off a welcome email, and kickstart the relationship all within seconds. 

The benefits of an efficient client database for mortgage brokers

1. Have “one source of truth” where client data is always up to date for your team 

2. Drastically reduce time spent on manual data entry into multiple systems

3. Ensure marketing emails and other communications will always be delivered

4. See higher customer loyalty and referrals

5. Automate your marketing campaigns and drive more revenue 

Tip 3: Automate Your Email Outreach and Marketing

If you’re still sending manual emails because you think it shows clients that you’re a real human: stop! Research shows that not only do most consumers not recognize when a seemingly well-written email is automated, but the cost is too great for manual sends: Automated email marketing generates $38 for every $1 spent!

We get it, the mortgage business must provide soft touches, and you need to form a personal connection as you’re building new client relationships. New buyers want to be reassured you’re providing them with the best rates and best service because there's no shortage of competition out there. But you can’t focus on building a relationship when you’re knee-deep in your inbox!

The benefits of email marketing automation for mortgage brokers

1. Using a tool with tokens can make your automated messages look human, genuine, and personal: the latter leads to a 50% boost in open rates

2. Meet your clients and prospects where they want to communicate: 72% of consumers say that email is their preferred method of communication 

3. Cuts down dramatically on time you spend responding to every email in your inbox: automated drip campaigns for your FAQs save your team tons of time while simultaneously educating the buyer and building their trust, which is great for your brand!

Take Action Today

Want to get started with calendar, email, or database automation for your mortgage business? We’ve helped thousands of brokers build more efficient workflows that have helped them grow revenue and save time. It’s not a secret; it’s CRM science. 

Schedule a chat with us to learn how we can help grow your mortgage business

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/3-proven-ways-to-make-your-mortgage-business-more-efficient

Finding it difficult to look ahead to 2021 with clear eyes? We get it. Most brokers we speak to express that it’s been challenging to plan a business growth strategy with a pandemic going on, even despite an influx of new client inquiries and record-breaking low rates. With so much changing about how we do business daily, how do you future proof your mortgage business for success in the coming year?

After working with thousands of mortgage businesses, we’ve learned two ways mortgage businesses can grow their businesses in 2021: 

1. Leveraging the right technology stack 

2. Breaking bad lead habits

Don’t worry; we’re here to help!

Daniel Kimm, VP of Sales at Shape CRM Software recently sat down on a free webinar with Daniel Cross of lead management platform Verse.io to talk about the lead habits that are crippling your sales and marketing teams the most—and how you can use technology to fix them. 

While many brokers understand the effectiveness and importance of tech, Cross and Kimm break down why specific tech stacks and adjustments in your sales funnel may bring more ROI and more significant revenue streams than others. 

Bad Habit #1: Stop calling first.

Solution: Text first, then offer to call.

Can you remember the last time you answered a phone call (you weren’t expecting) from an unknown number? 

You’re not alone–automated calls have changed the game with outbound marketing—and the downstream impact is wreaking havoc for brokers, too. There was a noticeable uptick of automated calls to consumers beginning in 2018 when “robocallers” took over, leading to more agitation and a massive increase in missed calls. Despite potential legitimate interest in your business from a mortgage lead, the rise of robocalls means that if you’re still outbound calling as the first contact, your success rates are going to plummet. 

Daniel Kimm points to the new “disruption” phone calls have on consumers; schedules, which is why Shape also leverages outbound SMS for engaging with prospects. With 90% of consumers preferring text communication over phone calls, it’s a no-brainer that sales reps should leverage SMS more often to get the convo started at the lead’s convenience. An added benefit is that text messages receive a response 7.5x more than a traditional phone call, so leveraging a CRM with these capabilities is a foolproof way to boost your lead response rate.  

While many prefer to text, not everyone desires to have a full conversation that way, which is why Verse texts a lead first to confirm it’s their preferred method of communication. Getting this consent allows the consumer to alert you of when they’re free to talk, but it also makes you seem more flexible and willing to work with their schedule while building a baseline of trust for the new client relationship.

CALL OUT: [39% of Marketing and Sales Directors said connecting with leads is the greatest challenge to lead conversion]

Bad Habit #2: Letting your leads sit idle. 

Solution: Respond to leads quickly, and with automation when needed.

Customer referrals are less time-sensitive when it comes to speed-to-lead because they’re much warmer leads. But for any leads who come inbound from your ad campaigns, Google searches, or other organic or paid marketing strategies have instant gratification needs and require having their questions answered immediately. Your silence or inaction about their inquiry is their first impression of your customer service skills—and that seldom goes unnoticed. 

Consider the fact that inbound leads are not only ones you’re paying good money for but also prospects that have an immediate problem and seek your services as a solution. If you’re not quick to respond or even connect with an automated message letting them know you’ll follow up soon, the likelihood of you losing that business grows exponentially by the minute. 

Consider this: if you can respond to a lead within the first hour, your chances of winning that business grow by 7X! 

On the other hand, while an influx of new leads sounds like a great problem to have, without a system in place to sort, qualify, assign, and automatically respond to inquiries may put your business at a disadvantage. Automating a speed-to-lead strategy with technology like Shape + Verse will help keep leads focused on your product or service–and less on your competition. 

Bad Habit #3: Ignoring your database.

Solution: Don’t let money languish in your database. 

Your database isn’t just your clearinghouse for all your leads and contacts—it can be a source of unearthed gold, provided you’re using the proper tools to mine. 

When you house your contact database in a tool like Shape, you can quickly run advanced queries to organize and group lead opportunities with smart AI to give your sales team an easier way to focus on leads with the highest conversion likelihood. 

Automating this type of lead engagement and qualification from your database will maximize your conversion rates and ensure no lead generation efforts (or dollars) go to waste. Not every lead will be ready to buy right away, but using proven techniques like email drip marketing or SMS campaigns, as we mentioned in tip #1, will help keep you, not your competition, top-of-mind.

Bad Habit #4: Take on work/life imbalance.

Solution: Have systems in place for after-hours to maintain team productivity. 

Time is precious but also strange in fluid in these pandemic times. While your leads and customers may keep irregular hours, that doesn’t mean you and your team should be working nights and weekends to make your leads and prospects happy. Working weekends doesn’t help home life for your reps, nor does it make them more productive. 

Instead, your business needs to leverage technology to automate manual processes, along with the check-ins reps might be conducting after hours and on weekends—like an inbound lead auto-responsder, or providing your leads with a client portal where they can self-service.

As your business grows, keeping your team energized and engaged, especially during an influx of low rates, is key to increasing a scalable and successful business. 

Bad Habit #5: Your lead flows aren’t organized.

Solution: Use a CRM to keep all your data clean and efficient. 

Leads are one of the most targeted audiences you can obtain—they’re interested people who raised their hand and showed some intent to buy. Having a manual process for responding to these leads is extremely inefficient and will prevent you from growing a profitable business entirely. 

Instead, with the right CRM like Shape in place, you can design a workflow that prioritizes the right leads for your team, automatically assigns inbound them to the right sales rep, and prime them for a conversation with a bit of automated marketing before ever taking a sales call. 

By prioritizing leads, you’ll also help sort and organize leads by which are the warmest, allowing your team to focus on those worth investing time into. Gone are the days of wasting endless time and productivity on prospects who aren’t a good fit for your business. Instead, using technology to organize your lead flow helps you better track engagement and conversion rates, helping your marketers leverage real data to spend their advertising dollars to generate higher-quality leads. 

This entire lead optimization process ensures less lead waste and more ROI on all parts of the sales funnel.

Take Action

Curious to dive deeper into the entire panel discussion and learn the lead habits to break in 2021? Watch the webinar on-demand now.  

Looking for a technology suite built to help take you close and convert more clients than ever before? 

Schedule some time to talk with our team about how Shape + Verse.io can take your mortgage business to the next level!

Article Source:-  https://setshape.com/blog/free-on-demand-webinar-5-lead-habits-to-break-in-2021

The mortgage industry is not for lazy performers. In fact, loan originators often work harder than anyone else to achieve their goals. 

But to become successful in this industry, working harder isn’t always enough. It’s about working in the right direction. 

And who knows better about helping you achieve your goals than mortgage coaches, who’ve been there and done it all? 

The mortgage industry boasts dozens of experienced coaches and trainers. The problem is, how do you pick a good coach? When there are more mortgage coaches in the market than ever before, how do you find the one that can really help you bring your mortgage business to the next level? 

In this article, we’ve curated a well-vetted list of premier mortgage coaches who don’t simply preach success to others—they actually did the work themselves first. 

We’ll dive deep into the unique strengths of their coaching programs, so you can decide who will bring you the most value for your business.

Here are the best mortgage coaching programs worth your time and commitment.

#1. Mortgage Champions with Dale Vermillion

Mortgage Champions was founded by Dale Vermillion, a leading mortgage industry trainer, speaker, and consultant. Over the course of 25 years, Dale and his company have trained more than 1 million loan originators and consulted more than 600 organizations.

Mortgage Champions currently provides three distinct training solutions to address the specific needs of teams of different sizes.

Saleslyft is a sales-focused fast-track program for small companies with up to 12 members that equips teams with a proven and systematic approach to sales in just under 4 hours. The program costs $249 and contains a library of tips, techniques and strategies that you can instantly start using to enhance your sales process. 

Saleslyft is available online and can be accessed from any device on-demand within 30 days of purchase. Plus, the program actively uses gamification to make the learning experience engaging and increase your knowledge retention.

MC Onlineis a training solution for bigger teams that want to improve their performance across several dimensions and includes modules for sales training, new hires onboarding, process-based management, operational performance, and service. 

The program aims at systematic improvement of team performance by establishing effective processes and workflows that will grow your business for years. 

Enterpriseconsulting addresses the particular challenges of enterprise clients and largely involves Dave's personal consulting and experience as both an ex-C-suite level mortgage manager and trusted consultant for several hundreds enterprises.   

Pros:

• Variety of online, on-premise, and hybrid programs

• Strong focus on sales and crisis management

• Vast C-level consulting experience

• Specific role-based training modules for new hires, service workers, and management

Pricing: 

• $249 per learner for Saleslyft

• $899 for Mortgage Champions Online™ 6-week program

• Individual pricing for enterprise consulting

#2. CORE Training by Rick Ruby

Rick Ruby, Reeta Casey, and Todd Scrima founded CORE Training back in 2001. Since then, their program has become one of the most referred training programs for loan originators.

The program focuses primarily on keeping mortgage professionals accountable for their success and provides trainees with a plan, accountability partner, community, and competitive environment.

CORE Training has three levels of loan officer coaching. 

Level 1, or entry level, is a 12-month commitment program that includes an elaborate plan and access to group coaching sessions. The program also pairs trainees with accountability partners from CORE’s wide network of experienced mortgage professionals who guide Level 1 participants through instructional videos and audios.

The Level 1 program promises to double your mortgage business and contains a 12-step approach aimed at elevating agent’s performance:

• Step 1. Initial Contact

• Step 2. Tracking and Knowing Your Numbers

• Step 3. Basic Lists and Target Marketing

• Step 4. Building Rapport

• Step 5. Basic Organization

• Step 6. Basic Time Blocking

• Step 7. Mastering the Close  

• Step 8. Reading and Mastering Guidelines

• Step 9. Basic Setting Up and Turning in a Great File

• Step 10. Basic Follow Up

• Step 11. Psychology & Emotion of the Business

• Step 12. Goal Setting and Business Planning

To access Level 2 and Level 3 coaching tiers you need to meet income requirements and visit the Summit event that is regularly held by CORE. At these levels you get access to top producing mortgage and real estate coaches, greater accountability plans, and devoted Facebook groups.

Pros:

• Strong “DO IT” mentality

• Individual performance boost

• Community events for networking opportunities

Pricing: 

• Level 1 coaching costs $500 per month

#3. High Trust Coaching with Todd Duncan 

High Trust Coaching was founded by Todd Duncan, an award-winning trainer and consultant with almost three decades of experience in the mortgage industry. Todd Duncan is also the author behind the New York Times bestseller High Trust Selling: Make More Money In Less Time with Less Stress.

The coaching features three different levels:

Producer Level Coaching focuses on elevating productivity for loan officers through business discipline and measurable results. It includes bi-weekly coaching calls, a performance dashboard tracking system and also grants discounts to High Trust events. 

Master Level Coaching is designed for accomplished loan originators, branch managers, and team leaders and focuses on strategies to build long-term scalable business. The coaching level also grants access to quarterly master classes from Todd Duncan.

Elite Level Coaching is a one-year membership for a small selection of qualified candidates. The coaching is designed and curated by Todd Duncan and covers high-end areas of business development such as market share growth, self-leadership, management of high performance sales teams, and brand development. 

Pros:

• A selection of programs for both entry-level LO’s and established mortgage professionals

• Strong focus on measurable results and self-accountability

• Custom enterprise solutions

Pricing:

• Flexible pricing model: several hundred dollars for entry programs and thousands of dollars for elite coaching

#4. Building Champions with Daniel Harkavy

Building Champions coaching has a sharp focus on leadership training and mentorship. The case studies mostly revolve around helping companies establish highly performing teams, strengthen their cultures, and overcome particular enterprise-level challenges. 

The coaching has a wide roster of executive-level mentors and coaches with unique skills, and you’re free to select any coach to address the specific needs of your company -- from crisis management and professional growth to effective communication and mission development. 

Currently, there are six coaching options available with Building Champions:

• Leadership coaching

• Small business coaching

• Executive coaching

• CEO mentor

• Focused 360 coaching

• Mortgage leadership coaching

Mortgage leadership coaching programs include customized team experiences for better team alignment and on-site workshops for bringing the training to your team.

Pros:

• Sharp focus on building leadership skills and strengthening high-performance company culture

• A wide selection of C-level coaches

Pricing:

• Customized proposal for every organization

#5. Performance Experts with Tim Braheem

Tim Braheem entered the mortgage industry in 1992 and since then has been recognized several times as one of the top fifty producing loan originators in the US. 

His coaching company, Performance Experts, offers coaching programs for both loan originators and team leaders. 

Performance Excelerator is a 12-month program that pairs trainees with an experienced coach, providing tips and best practices from top industry producers while granting quarterly access to Tim Braheem. 

Leadership 360 is a one year long business and life coaching program that provides accountability and support for building both sustainable business and transforming life experience. The program is exclusive to only 9 members a year. 

Referral Partner Success is a fully online step-by-step program offering insight and advice on building deep relationships with partners and growing your business through referrals. 

Team Workshop Mastery is a two-day workshop aimed at training high performing teams by unveiling team dysfunctions, facilitating effective team communications, and aligning team members around shared goals. 

Pros:

• Cohesive approach to transforming both business and life experiences

• One of the top producing loan originators in the states as a head coach

Pricing:

• $899 for online Referral Partner Success program

• $3,495 for Team Workshop Mastery

#6. 20/20 Vision For Success with Christine Beckwith

Christine Beckwith is an award-winning coach with a long history of success in the mortgage industry as both a top producing loan officer and experienced executive manager of a national fintech platform. 

She’s a wealth of practical knowledge on all types of topics ranging from mortgage marketing to the future of disruptive tech in this industry.

Christine’s company, 20/20 Vision for Success Coaching, offers sales-accelerating coaching programs designed to help participants develop successful strategies for increased sales, expanded networking, and superior execution. 

Currently, Vision for Success has three distinct coaching programs:

Gold Sales Accelerator is a 12-month coaching program that includes a full virtual training curriculum, one-hour coaching session per month, live support training and advanced quarterly sales classes. 

The Elite Platinum Sales program includes everything from Gold Sales Accelerator as well as at least one hour long coaching session monthly, accountability checks with Christine, virtual training for up to five, and access to a Mastermind group with peer participants.20/20 Vision Elite Division provides top industry leaders with coaching on business scaling expertise, leadership, sales, and marketing. The program also includes custom events for participants.

Pros:

• Sharp focus on sales excellence from both an individual and technological perspective

• Christine is deeply involved in all coaching programs to ensure a successful outcome

Pricing:

• Available upon request

#7. Mortgage Marketing Coach with Doran Aldana

Doran Aldana is the lead coach and founder of Mortgage Marketing Coach, a personalized mentor-style coaching program that aims to help mortgage professionals close more deals regardless of market conditions.

What sets Doran’s program apart from many other training programs is his strong focus on marketing techniques and measurable outcomes. 

His coaching revolves around high-impact modern marketing solutions developed specifically for the mortgage industry-- and for three consecutive years he’s been awarded the “Best Service Provider” title by Canadian Mortgage Awards. 

To achieve best results, Doran partners with his clients as a mentor and aims to achieve measurable results in income growth or market share growth for every partner.

Pros:

• Highly-impactful individual mentorship for mortgage professionals

• Focus on modern marketing solutions and strategies

• Strong focus on the revenue growth outcome

#8. AMPLIFII by Rene Rodriguez

Rene Rodriguez is a keynote speaker and a world-class sales expert with a history of advising leadership teams at Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Bank of America. Additionally, he’s been named in the 40 under 40 list for 7 years straight.

Over the years, Rene and his company, Volentum, have trained over 100,000 people in behavioral psychology to tackle some of the toughest challenges in leadership, sales, and change. 

Yet AMPLIFII, Rene’s workshop, is not your typical mortgage training program and Rene Rodriguez won’t be teaching you how to prospect or follow up on your leads. 

Throughout a three-day masterclass, Rene teaches small groups of professionals how to become more powerful presenters, communicators, and influencers. 

The masterclass helps mortgage professionals easily present their ideas in public, strike a chord with their clients from the get-go, and become inspiring leaders for their teams. 

Pros:

• A fast-track to becoming a powerful presented and negotiator

• An extremely personal approach with a small group of participants

• Acquired ability to present ideas under huge stress

Pricing: 

• $4,995 for a three-day event

#9. Personal Coaching with Dan Trinidad 

Dan Trinidad is a 30-year mortgage industry veteran and a CEO of a highly successful company in Partners Mortgage.

A large part of Dan’s coaching strategy involves sharing his personal triumphs in turning around bad luck and establishing several successful businesses in the highly competitive mortgage industry. 

He offers personal coaching and consulting services to mortgage professionals, helping them get unstuck, recover from loss, and achieve lasting success through growing profitable and meaningful business. 

Pros:

• A one-on-one mentorship with one of the most successful industry practitioners

• Great fit for agents recovering from personal and professional losses

#10. XINNIX System with Casey Cunningham 

Simply put, there are very few things that Casey Cunningham didn’t do throughout her 30-year-long career in retail mortgage banking.

Casey has served as Executive Vice President of a $4 billion mortgage company, was named one of the Top Female Entrepreneurs by Atlanta Woman Magazine, and won yearly awards with the National Association of Women in Real Estate Business.

She’s also a national keynote speaker and the founder of one of America’s most acclaimed mortgage sales and leadership training academies in XINNIX.

The XINNIX coaching program features two training options:

The Performance Training Option includes multi-week performance programs with business development strategies, program specific accountability, and access to dedicated performance specialists throughout the program.

The Performance Coaching Option is a 6-month or 12-month coaching, training, and accountability program aimed at helping you find the unique strengths of your business and scale them to grow your success.

Pros:

• Unique training methodology to unveil your strengths and play on them in achieving successful results

• A wide array of supporting leadership, conversion, and performance-boosting modules for all-around training experience

Choose The Right Mortgage Coaching Program For Your Mortgage Business

There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all training program. Having choices is crucial when it comes to deciding on the best mortgage coaching program for your business. Take time to think deeply about what you really want to happen in your business and find the coach and program that’s a genuine fit for your team.

Once you’ve gotten the coaching, our platform makes it easy to do the rest. Shape CRM will help your agents consistently follow up on their leads, automate routine, non-revenue generating tasks, and address compliance issues before they start affecting your bottom line.If you want to see what a well-optimized mortgage CRM can do for your business, sign up for our 14-day free trial today!

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/mortgage-coaching

Loan officers and mortgage teams looking to simplify and supercharge their end-to-end workflows in this new digital mortgage era have a powerful combo in their toolkit—Shape Software (CRM) with it’s digital Point of Sale (POS)!

Now, more than ever, lending teams need adaptive and efficient tech that improves their workflow and simplifies the day-to-day admin. Borrowers are wading through historic changes in both the economy and market, and you need tools that can help you nurture prospects on the fence and keep relationships going with existing clients. 

Shape CRM + Customer Portal does this and so much more. 

With this powerful combo in your tech stack you can eliminate countless other costly software tools and instead rely on an industry leader to simplify your origination and mortgage processes in this new landscape where speed and building relationships is key!

Meet Your New Workflow…

With the Shape Software Customer Portal addition, you’ll get access to the ultimate mortgage POS and CRM automation workflow all in one solution. Using this best-in-class combo, loan originators can now seamlessly offer a secure document management system directly within Shape to maintain all important borrower documentation and correspondence in a single location.

No more tabbing between systems, no more manual data entry and exporting—just a simple, compliant, and easy process every single time. In a world where everyday seems unpredictable, rely on Shape to consistently deliver an amazing experience for you and your clients.

Other Benefits Include:

• Secure Customer Portal

• Document Hub

• File Request and Task Management

•  Milestone and Status Updates

• Marketing Automation Tools

• Appointment Manager

• In-App Chat and Instant Messaging 

• Click-to-Call Dialing 

• Text Messaging 

• Task Scheduling, Automation and Activity Logs

• Analytic Reporting

• Customizations and API

• E-signature

   

  Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/adapt-attract-convert-with-shape-floify

Loan officers and mortgage teams looking to simplify and supercharge their end-to-end workflows have a new combo in their toolkit—Shape Software now offers a digital Point of Sale (POS) and mortgage automation solution.

With the Shape Customer Portal, loan originators can automate their mortgage processes and manage their lead & customer database while offering a secure document management system directly within Shape to maintain all important borrower documentation and correspondence in a single location. 

Benefits of Shape’s Customer Portal

• Create new leads from loan applications

• Get online 1003 applications

• Provide a secure customer portal to borrowers

• Synchronize uploaded documentation

• View all communication

• Trigger Shape notifications when loan milestones are reached

No more tabbing between systems, no more manual data entry and exporting - the Shape Portal is going to be a game changer for not just your clients but your lending teams, too! 

Ready to add the Shape Portal to your Shape account?

About Shape Software

Shape Software is the only sales, marketing, and CRM automation tool designed for lenders as an end-to-end solution to take your team from pre-loan through post-close. Close more deals than ever before with Shape's intelligent lead distribution and scoring features, build and send secure online documents in a click, manage and assign tasks to your team, get a complete suite of sales pipeline and marketing automation features like drip emails, newsletters, and SMS, generate custom reporting on any metric imaginable, and so much more. Try Shape free for 14 days and experience the difference!

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/shape-software-floify

Automation has changed the mortgage industry for good. But is it for the better?

As a mortgage originator actively closing business in 2020, you know there are some things on the backend you could probably be handling better—but who really has time to plan, execute and update their existing workflows?

For better or worse, automation does take time… at least, in the beginning. But there is good news, with the right systems in place, you can multiply the number of clients you serve, raise the quality of your services, and close loans faster without hiring additional staff. 

And the best part? Setting up just one effective automation process today, will continue to help grow your business for years to come. 

But there is a catch: the mortgage business is a zero-sum game. If someone closes more loans with automation, someone else closes less.

That’s why it’s paramount to invest in the mortgage automation workflows that are truly the best fit for your business—and it’s critical to do it now, before the competition catches on.

In this article, we’ll cover the main benefits of automating your mortgage processes, as well as the specific workflows you can use to 10X your mortgage business.

Table of Contents

• What Is Mortgage Automation?

• Top 5 Benefits Of Mortgage Automation You Actually Use

• The A to Z of Mortgage Automation: Grow Your Lending Business With A Scalable System

• The Power Of Smart Automation

What Is Mortgage Automation?

In a nutshell, mortgage automation allows you to run parts of your mortgage business on autopilot. Using the right combination of automated tools, workflows and software, you can process more loans in less time.

But the real power of automation is that it can be applied to many different aspects of your mortgage business. 

• Are you struggling to consistently follow up on your clients? Set up automated campaigns so that no lead in your database is left unnurtured. 

• Recipients not opening emails? Automated drip campaigns can boost your open rates by up to 80%

• Loan officers spending too much time on non-selling activities? Automate routine tasks and save up to 55% of the time employers spend on non-selling activities. 

And that’s just the beginning. Let’s take a closer look at some of the core benefits of automating your mortgage business, piece by piece.

Top 5 Benefits Of Mortgage Automation You Actually Use

Benefit #1. Reduce Speed to Lead to Seconds

According to the Harvard Business Review, chances of qualifying a lead when responding within the first five minutes are 21 times higherthan when responding within 30 minutes. Yet only 26% of companies manage to respond within 5 minutes. 

You can easily outpace the competition by setting up simple automated onboarding emails and texts to instantly greet every new lead as soon as they share their contact details. 

If you have a team, automation will also help you distribute incoming leads between your agents so that the ones that are the most qualified are aligned with the right prospects.

Benefit #2. Consistently Nurture Your Leads

The money is in the follow up. In fact, some studies suggest that 80% of sales occur after at least five follow-ups with a prospect.

The good news is, almost every follow-up can be automated. For example, you can send highly-personalized email and text drips to your leads with a predefined cadence. This allows you to nurture relationships and build trust with prospects, even before they decide to do business with you.

Automation helps you easily segment leads based on their location, last action, or areas of interest so with the right system you can follow up with the best offer for a particular client.

Benefit #3. Boost Your Loan Processing Speed

Automation lets you process loans faster. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, lenders reduced loan processing time by around 10 days with a little help from technology. And with the rise of online loan applications, borrowers expect loan processing times to decrease even more.

To supercharge your loan processing speed, you can integrate your CRM system with loan origination software and automatically trigger actions and notifications whenever loan status updates.

Additionally, automation allows you to reduce room for error when processing loans and potentially save thousands of dollars in compliance fines and penalties. 

Benefit #4. Increase Your Amount Of Referrals

Ramping up referrals is one of the most powerful lead generation tactics you can employ.

But when you focus on closing as many loans as you can in the moment, keeping in touch with past clients often becomes an afterthought.

And yet 60% of customer referrals happen within the first six months after the loan is closed. 

Automated referral campaigns allow you to stay in touch with your past clients and increase your referrals, without lifting a finger. After a loan is closed, simply set up an automated series of post-loan emails designed to keep the client relationship strong and help you stay top of mind. 

Benefit #5. Easily Scale Your Mortgage Business

It’s pretty difficult to scale a mortgage business that has many manual workflows—and the last thing you want to do is scale your messy and chaotic systems. People make mistakes, and unfortunately, without the right system in place these mistakes will only multiply as your lead count grows. 

In other words, when there are cracks in your systems, you can expect at least some of your leads to slip through them.

On the flip side, when critical aspects of your business are automated, there’s really no limit to how many leads you can work with at the same time. 

Even if you decide to invest in new marketing channels or lead databases, you can rest easy knowing that smart automation has your back. If you want to turn your lead flow on full blast, you can easily and automatically qualify and nurture every lead.

The A to Z of Mortgage Automation: Grow Your Lending Business With A Scalable System

Automated Dialer: Get Your LOs On The Phone With The Right Prospects

Ever thought about how much time you spend punching a dial pad? 

With an automated dialer, you and your loan officers can automatically run through a large database of leads in much less time, increasing productivity by 200% to 300% compared to manual dialling. 

But how can an automated system possibly know who to call when?

Glad you asked. Some sales platforms (Shape included) offer a smart lead prioritization system, which ensures that every call the system makes for you will be targeted to the most promising lead, at the most optimal time.

At Shape, we use a lead prioritization algorithm that analyzes each lead in your database based on a list of 27 key criteria to instantly connect loan officers with the leads most likely to convert. 

Here are just some of the benefits of an automated dialer for your mortgage business: 

• Contact more leads in less time. Save hours by making sure your reps aren’t wasting time manually dialing every lead in your database.

• Convert leads faster. Consistently follow up on your hottest leads at exactly the right time.

• Distribute the right leads to the right people. Automatically distribute via Round Robin or your own custom rules to ensure optimal performance across the team.

• Instantly plug in new lead sources. Quickly work through large databases of potential clients and easily scale lead gen and prospecting up or down as needed.

SMS + MMS: Skyrocket Your Opening Rates

According to a Gartner survey, SMS open rates can be as high as 98%, compared to a mere 20% for emails. Additionally, the majority of people respond to SMS within just 90 seconds.  

Here’s how you can use automated SMS texts to boost lead conversion rates:

• Improve customer experience. Automatically notify clients with texts whenever their loan status changes by integrating your CRM with your LOS.

• Increase engagement with new offers. Send your best offers via text or MMS to maximize engagement.

• Use top-performing automated sequences. Combine emails and SMS texts into powerful marketing sequences to keep your leads engaged over time.

• Personalize your texts. Customize your SMS texts by directly using contact details pulled directly from your central CRM or sales system

• Stay compliant. Use a fully compliant platform to make sure your messages aren’t being flagged as spam. In Shape, we queue your messages to send just one text every 4 seconds to mimic human texting behavior for maximum engagement.

Automated Email Marketing: Send Emails That Generate Real Business

When it comes to ROI, not many marketing channels beat email. In fact, research shows that every dollar spent on email marketing can yield as much as $42 in return.

But achieving the highest possible ROI is only doable if you send the right email to the right person at the right time. Thankfully, this is something automation can help you achieve. 

Here are just some of the benefits of automated email marketing: 

• Higher open rates. Set up automated emails triggered by specific user actions and get up to 141.6% higher open rates than your standard business-as-usual emails.

• Boost revenue with automated lead segmentation. The right mortgage CRM will help you segment your leads based on your own custom criteria and send highly-personalized emails that drive 18X more revenue. 

• Create powerful email drip campaigns. According to KissMetrics, marketing automation paired with sequenced email campaigns leads to up to 20% more sales.

• Convert more leads by personalizing your emails. Personalized emails deliver 6X higher transactional rates. Use your CRM system to automatically personalize relevant emails for every lead.

Call Recording: The Power Of Tracking From A Central System

According to Hubspot, the majority of businesses use call recording mainly as a way to increase customer quality service or dispute controversial events. But there are other benefits that call recording provides for mortgage businesses.

Here’s why it’s important to have an automated call recording system for your mortgage business:

• Focused sales. Allows your sales reps to focus on the prospects and actively engage with their pain points rather than taking notes during conversations. 

• Advanced training. Your CRM gives you a full history of conversations with every lead across all channels so that new agents have the full context for every recorded call.

• Protect your business. Stay compliant and avoid potentially paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in regulatory fines by monitoring all marketing and sales activities from one central, compliant platform.

eSignature: Make Document Management As Seamless As Possible

According to Fannie Mae, 66% of homebuyers would prefer to handle their mortgages entirely online. 

No wonder the number of eSignature transactions has increased tenfold within just five years. 

Integrate e-signatures directly into your loan management process to gain the following benefits:

• Save time on paperwork for you and your clients. Add and edit eSignature documents directly from within your CRM

• Process loans faster. Automatically change lead status in your systems as soon as your lead signs, automatically schedule follow up actions in your calendar.

• Improve customer satisfaction rates. Trigger emails and follow-ups based on a change in eSignature status to keep the transaction pipeline moving.

The Power Of Smart Automation

The mortgage industry is changing fast. Loan officers are no longer competing based on who has the best offers or personalities. 

These days, it’s all about the system and service. 

Clearly, the role of automation in separating the best from the rest will be crucial. And yes, automation does take time and effort upfront. But after you set your processes in place, it’s only a matter of making small adjustments that make a very big impact for your clients and your business as an expert loan originator.

Ready to see for yourself? Find out how an automated mortgage marketing and sales platform can remove the bottlenecks from your transaction pipeline and help you consistently generate more leads.

Sign up for your free trial of Shape today!

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/mortgage-automation

Mortgage podcasts are a great way to get personal access to the most relevant expert advice in the industry.

But how do you pick the best, most engaging mortgage podcasts with so many options to choose from? 

Explore our line-up of 11 incredibly actionable and value-packed mortgage podcasts, hosted by some of the most successful and ambitious leaders of our industry!

#1. Mortgage Marketing Radio with Geoff Zimpfer

With over 300,000 downloads, Mortgage Marketing Institute is one of the top rated podcasts in the mortgage industry. Its host, Geoff Zimpfer, is a National Sales Trainer and Coach with Movement Mortgage who regularly interviews top industry performers. What sets Geoff apart as a host is his unique ability to get to the bottom of the processes of every elite performer and glean actionable advice on generating leads and expanding operations. 

Geoff and guests like Todd Duncan, Tim Braheem, and Dave Savage share with their audience blueprint-like recipes for success in loan origination and mortgage leadership.

Geoff also regularly provides insights on advanced strategies for teaching agent classes and getting more real estate referrals in less time. 

Here are just some of the topics regularly covered on the Mortgage Marketing Institute podcast:

• Advanced strategies for mortgage lead generation

• Digital and social media mortgage marketing 

• Productivity and operation excellence

• Mortgage industry trends

Best episode: How to Close 212 Loans with Agent Teams and Client Events

#2. Mortgage Marketing Expert with Phil Treadwell

The Mortgage Marketing Expert (MME) podcast is a founding member of Industry Syndicate, a podcast network that includes a total of 28 podcast shows for the mortgage and real estate industries. 

MME is hosted by Phil Treadwell, a mortgage industry veteran with over 16 years of experience who’s currently serving as VP of Development and Regional Manager for Mason-McDuffie Mortgage.

Named one of the “40 Most Influential Mortgage Professionals Under 40” by National Mortgage Professional Magazine, Phil knows top industry talent when he sees it, and every week he invites the most ambitious mortgage and marketing leaders to his podcast.

Some of the guests that have sat down with Phil include Gary Vaynerchuk, Barry Habib, and Dale Vermillion.

Here are the themes Phil covers with his star guests:

• Mortgage systems for sustainable business

• Latest digital content strategies for mortgage professionals

• Strategies to boost market share

• Reputation and brand management

Best episode: Video & Branding with The Mortgage Nerd

#3. Mortgage X Podcast with Christine Beckwith and Jason Frazier

Mortgage X Podcast is hosted by two amazing mortgage industry leaders: an award-winning mortgage marketer in Jason Frazier, and brilliant coach and founder of 20/20 Vision for Success training, Christine Beckwith.

Both co-hosts are well-versed in the most up-to-date and disruptive strategies in mortgage marketing and offer a refreshing, no-holds-barred approach and practical insights into what works in the industry. 

What makes the Mortgage X podcast stand out is its vivid focus on the future of the mortgage market. Additionally, the strategies discussed on the podcast help mortgage professionals stay afloat in a rapidly changing digital environment. 

Christine and Jason interview a wide roster of guests, including top performing loan originators, mortgage thought leaders, and professionals from other industries that offer unique out-of-the-box insights on staying competitive both today and tomorrow. 

Here are some of the topics covered in-depth on the Mortgage X Podcast:

• Out-of-the-box thinking in growing your mortgage business

• Tactics to engage the modern mortgage customer

• Neuroscience and psychology behind mortgage relationships

• Mortgage career advice

Best episode: Let’s get REAL about becoming a Top Producer

#4. Lykken on Lending by David Lykken

David Lykken is one of the moguls of the mortgage industry. After 43 years in the industry, he easily separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to what works in the mortgage industry and what doesn’t. 

For the past 14 years David has been helping companies, C-level leaders, and business owners step up their game and create effective workflows in communication and marketing  that result in market advantages. Listening to “Lykken on Lending”, you can get an inside glimpse into David's winning process and philosophy. 

Each episode of “Lykken on Lending” is a 60-minute show that contains several segments from industry experts providing weekly market updates, legislative updates, tech updates, and tips on financial management. 

Here are some other topics you can learn more about through the podcast:

• Growing a mortgage company

• Data intelligence in mortgage management

• The future of the housing market

• Risk management

Best episode: Improve Your Mortgage Business Processes Utilizing the Theory of Constraints

#5. Mortgage Matters with Guy Rivera

Consider Guy Rivera your inside agent in the mortgage industry. Listening to his Mortgage Matters podcast can make it seem like you’re sitting in a room of friends and colleagues and listening to their best kept real estate secrets.

Guy has been a top producing mortgage professional since 2002. In every podcast episode he openly shares his insights with listeners and encourages his colleagues and friends to do exactly the same during the interviews. 

Here are some of the topics covered by Guy on the Mortgage Matters podcast: 

• Mortgage market updates and trends

• How to build valuable referral partnerships with real estate agents

• Refinance transactions

Best episode: Mortgage Matters from 1st July on Reverse Mortgage

#6. Art of Mortgage Marketing by Doren Aldana

Doren Aldana’s Art of Mortgage Marketing podcast will help mortgage professionals expand their mortgage business through clever digital marketing and boost personal productivity through specific advice, straight from a top performer. 

Doran has helped thousands of mortgage specialists become top performing agents in their market through his Mortgage Marketing Coach training program, gaining a prestigious “Best Industry Service Provider” award from Canadian Mortgage Awards three years in a row. 

On each episode of the podcast, Doran covers a specific workflow or tool that can help loan officers overcome some challenging situations with a client, expand their circle of influence, or increase personal productivity. 

Here are some of the topics recently covered on the Art of Mortgage Marketing podcast:

• Busting common client objections

• Building stability in the mortgage business

• Attracting powerful agent partnerships

• Market share expansion

Best episode: How to EXPAND Your Market Share While Everyone Else is CONTRACTING

#7. Million Dollar Mortgage Experience with Jon Maddox

Million Dollar Mortgage Experience is a podcast hosted by Jon Maddox, CEO and co-founder of FundLoans, a wholesale mortgage lender that specializes in non-QM lending. Jon is one of the top industry experts in jumbo loans and shares in-depth knowledge, tricks and secrets that help mortgage professionals originate more loans. 

Although Jon’s niche expertise makes this podcast a great resource for non-QM originators, other agents can also enjoy great insights, as he regularly invites million-dollar industry performers and marketing experts to analyze market trends and share their personal workflows. 

Here are some of the topics covered on the Million Dollar Mortgage Experience podcast: 

• Crisis management

• Mortgage top performer mentality and productivity hacks

• Risk management

• Technology disruption in mortgage industry

Best episode: The Making of a Million Dollar Mentality 

#8. Beyond Mortgage by Dan Trinidad

Dan Trinidad, the host of the Beyond Mortgage podcast, is a seasoned mortgage industry leader who founded his company, Partners Mortgage back in 1988.Since then, he has experienced every imaginable up and down of growing a successful mortgage business. 

In his podcast he regularly interviews mortgage leaders, digging deeper into what it takes to create powerful and fulfilling mortgage businesses.

Instead of focusing on certain loan origination workflows and local tips for closing more loans, Dan dives deep into the power of effective leadership, exploring how mortgage leaders can change their businesses and lives in big ways. 

Here are some of the topics that Dan dives into with his guests:

• Effective mortgage leadership

• Work-life balance

• Customer relationships

• Mortgage team culture and alignment

Best episode: How to Effectively Drive Culture & Work Efficiently From Home w/Debbie Marcoux

#9. The SCL Mortgage Show with Larry Jaeger

The SCL Mortgage Show is a weekly podcast hosted by industry veteran Larry Jaeger. Jaeger is a founder of SCL Mortgage and the successful entrepreneur behind several multi-million dollar mortgage businesses.

In his weekly show, Larry discusses the most recent mortgage market updates and shares advice that you can instantly apply to your mortgage business in the current landscape. 

Larry provides deeps insights on the following topics:

• Loan origination best practices

• Market updates

• Mortgage partnerships

Best episode: The SCL Mortgage Show from 4th July 2020: Loan Score and Prequalification

#10. The Mortgage Brothers Show with Eddie and Tom Knoell

The Mortgage Brothers Show podcast is hosted by brothers Eddie and Tom Knoell. Combined, they have 30 years of experience in the mortgage and real estate industry. 

Both brothers share their insights on the process of getting loans and loan origination information in Arizona.  

Although Tom and Eddie mostly educate loan borrowers, mortgage professionals can also learn how to explain mortgage concepts to clients from their podcast.

Here are some of the topics they’ve recently covered,

• Questions about down payments

• The difference between a home mortgage and an investment

• Home value appreciation

• Dealing with debt collectors

Best episode: 15 Year Mortgage vs 30 Year Mortgage

#11. Housing News by Clayton Collins

The Housing News podcast is one of the best ways to catch up on recent mortgage market news, trends, and opinions. 

The podcast, hosted by Clayton Collins, covers a lot of ground, with guests spanning industries that include mortgage, real estate, and fintech spaces. 

Some of the most recent topics featured on the Housing News podcast are:

• Technology trends in real estate & mortgage

• The state of the mortgage industry

• Real estate job market statistics

• Updates on mortgage compliance and regulations 

Best episode: MBS Highway’s Barry Habib on Calabria, Forbearance and the Job Market

Many of us don't get the chance to hang out with top performers on a daily basis—after all, there’s a lot of work to be done and not nearly enough time. But podcasts give us the unique ability to listen to our favorite experts when and where we want to.

We hope you've enjoyed our lineup of the most engaging and knowledge-packed podcasts. Check out the episodes we’ve picked for you, and we’re confident you’ll hear something that truly resonates with your business needs.

If you’re ready to make your mortgage business more successful and want smart lead gen technology that will help fuel your growth for years, Shape is your answer. 

Leverage Shape and the strategies you learn from our podcast recommendations to take your mortgage business to the next level, starting now.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/the-top-11-mortgage-podcasts-for-practical-advice-in-2020

Don’t pour thousands of dollars into student recruitment staff training. Check out these five simple steps to take your higher ed admissions team to the next level.

For some higher ed institutions, problems with inexperienced staff have plagued recruitment efforts for years. Now, as students become more and more selective about where they attend school, a lack of experience in student recruitment is a problem that must be solved.

While many higher education businesses can afford to pour tens of thousands of dollars into training their 8, most universities simply lack the resources and knowledge to do the same.

And the cycle of want can be vicious.

In an equation? Less resources to train sales staff equals less trained staff, less students recruited, and, consequently less resources to train sales staff. 

(After all, a mere 37% of colleges met their recruitment goals in 2019.)

As they battle shrinking budgets and declining enrollment rates, many private colleges and universities simply don’t know how to break this cycle.

So, if you’re the Head of Enrollment at a higher ed organization, how can you establish an effective sales training strategy and transform an inexperienced admissions workforce into top-level sales agents, without going bankrupt along the way?

There are many wrong answers, but fortunately, there’s also a right one:

Stop wasting money on training sales staff, and create a repeatable system that produces top performing recruiters out of new hires on autopilot.

It’s not an easy ride, but with the right tools and consistent approach, you can methodically build

A student recruitment system that works.

Here’s how to do it.

How to recruit more students in 2020:

1. Create a Student Recruitment Plan

2. Train Your Staff The Right Way

3. Upgrade Your Student Recruitment Outreach Templates

4. Automate Your Recruitment Bottlenecks

5. Merge All The Student Recruitment Workflows into a Cohesive System

Step 1: Create a Student Recruitment Plan

If you want a high-performing student recruitment team, first get clear on what you really need from them.

This is where a student recruitment plan comes in. This can be a simple 1-5 page document that includes your enrollment goals and ideally, a set of specific actions that help you achieve these goals.

A good plan helps you understand in detail what currently works for you and your staff, and where your resources are best spent. In fact, just the mere act of preparing this plan might reveal enrollment opportunities you didn’t notice before. Let’s dive in.

Here’s what you need to know to prepare a successful student recruitment plan:

• What already works. Who are your best students? Where do they live, what are their demographics, and how did you recruit them? It’s important to learn what works for you now so that you can scale these strategies later.

• Enrollment trends. Has the 2020 crisis affected student demography? What’s the latest app every student is using? Any information that impacts your current student profile goes here.

• Your goals. Is sheer number of applicants your top priority? Would you like to recruit a certain demographic? This information will help your recruiters focus their efforts.

After covering these questions, you can form two very specific documents that will become a part of your student recruitment plan and greatly increase the efficiency of your sales personnel:

1. Target student persona. A target student persona is a highly-specific description of your perfect students. If your university or trade school generally attracts men in their 30’s, you’ll have more success if your recruiters focus on this specific demographic.

2. Recruiter goals. Recruiters are much more efficient when they know there’s a particular objective they need to achieve. Sales quotas have been a driving force for businesses for years, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t use them as well.

Pro Tip: Regularly update your student recruitment plan based on the data your recruiters gather about engaged prospects and profitable lead sources so that you can adapt your recruitment policies and tactics based on the latest market changes. 

Step 2: Train Your Staff The Right Way

With a plan in place, it’s time to start training your recruiters. Of course, there is a small problem with the traditional way of doing this: professional sales training can cost thousands of dollars. While some institutions provide their staff with superficial training and others neglect training altogether (usually due to the cost barrier), there are ways to effectively and affordably train your college recruiting team.

Here’s how you can train your recruiters without spending a fortune:

• eLearning. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on inviting the latest sales superstars to educate your workforce. With the current advancement of online learning platforms, you can get access to top industry minds at an affordable price.

• Re-use critical information. If you end up inviting consultants or participating in expensive masterclasses, make sure to share the knowledge with your sales agents: record webinars, create guides and ebooks. Strive to create an inner knowledge platform that can continue to serve your staff for years to come.

• Create a strategic onboarding policy. It’s important to set the right expectations between your institution and recruiters from the start, and to detail each team member’s goals and clear expectations about the ways in which they achieve them. The onboarding period is also a great time to educate people in your sales processes.

Remember, you are not training sales stars on your team, so don’t pour thousands of dollars into training individual salespeople. As business often goes, your stars are usually the ones that will be off to new positions before you know it anyway.

Instead, focus on proper onboarding and creating inner knowledge systems. This way,  even newly hired recruiters will get instant access to your most efficient workflows and be able to operate on a high level shortly after their start.

Step 3: Upgrade Your Student Recruitment Outreach Templates

There’s a good reason the sales industry has been using templates and scripts for decades: they work.

Highly-converting templates and scripts are a direct continuation of your inner knowledge system. They let your new hires quickly get on par with more experienced colleagues. Plus, there’s no better way of transforming inexperienced recruiters into top industry performers than by leveraging templated strategies that already work.

But let’s face it: not every script or template will do. You’ll find plenty of sales scripts for real estate agents and talent recruiters, but those just aren’t relevant to the kinds of conversations your staff needs to be having with future students.

Here’s how to ensure your templates will work wonders for your higher ed recruitment process:

• Make sure they are specifically developed for education. Simply taking the usual sales scripts and replacing every “client” with “student” won’t work. The best templates should be those extensively tested in the education recruitment field.

• Make sure there are templates for every channel of communication. Although the sales process is similar everywhere, the most effective words for every channel (email, SMS, phone) will be different. Make sure you have templates for each.

• Improve your templates regularly. There’s no template that works forever, so you’ll need to adjust what your recruiters say based on current enrollment trends, your programs, and changes in student demographics. Schedule an automated reminder to adjust your templates and scripts on a regular basis.

Having relevant and up-to-date templates will help keep your recruiters ahead of the competition, but how do you make sure they are actually using them?

Here’s where CRM software can play a crucial role.The right higher ed CRM ensures every member of your staff always has the appropriate script or template in front of them, exactly when they need it. Of course, there are also several other advantages of using a CRM:

• Get the right template for the right medium. Whenever recruiters contact their prospects using a CRM, the most relevant templates can pop up automatically depending on the medium of communication and stage of the recruiting process.

• Centrally manage your templates and scripts. Updating sales scripts is a tough task, and eventually all recruiters might be using different templates or worse, some random combination. A CRM allows you to easily update all your templates at once or add new ones.

• Access the best student recruitment templates. Shape is the only CRM that partners with leading education organizations like Woz U and SCI to offer institutions the best-performing templates for engaging prospects and converting them into students.

Step 4: Automate Your Recruitment Bottlenecks

No matter how well you train your recruitment staff, there’s always a chance that things won’t go as intended. A missed email, a misspelled name, an unwelcome phone call—sometimes even the smallest mistakes can lead to lost prospects and ruin weeks of marketing efforts.

That’s why one of the most powerful ways to prevent potential students from slipping through the cracks is to automate specific parts of your sales process.

Here are some of the ways you can automate your student recruitment process and keep prospects from slipping through the cracks:

• Automated email campaigns. The goal of email marketing is to send the right message at the right time. A timely automated email with information about your programs or school culture will effectively keep prospects engaged.

• Personalized messages. A well-designed CRM system will allow you to easily send personalized marketing messages to your prospects by automatically inserting their data into designated templates.

• Triggers and events. The right message is half the win, but sending the right message at the right time is the perfect combo. Send important information to your prospects right after they perform certain actions on your website or campaigns.

• Prioritize your leads. One of the main areas that both experienced and new recruiters struggle with is how to prioritize their leads. Shape is the only higher ed CRM that provides recruiters with sorted lists of leads based on a comprehensive 28-rule algorithm.

Step 5: Merge All Student Recruitment Workflows into a Cohesive System

Investing in training a team of student recruiters will boost your enrollment rates for one semester, but investing in recruitment processes and systems is a surefire way to improve recruitment rates for the long term.

An airtight student recruitment plan makes sure that no matter how many people leave or join your team, your staff always knows exactly which steps to follow to boost student enrollment.

A well thought-out enrollment plan, proper onboarding policy, proven industry templates and smart, natural automation can allow you to quickly transform inexperienced recruiters into top performers.

Additionally, these steps and systems help you quickly adjust your enrollment goals however you’d like, and consistently fulfill admissions quota while staying ahead of your competition.

If you’re looking for a system that will supply your recruiters with the most effective sales workflows to date, try Shape.

With our best-of-breed templates, easy-to-use automation, and full customization, you’ll start to see improvements in your student recruitment process within the first two weeks.

We’re ready to back up this claim by giving you a free 14-day trial so you can experience the power of our platform for yourself.

Ready to recruit more students and finally hit your student enrollment goals? Try Shape today! 

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/sales-training-for-student-recruitment-5-simple-steps-to-boost-your-college-admission-teams-productivity-starting-now

They say nothing in life is free, but when it comes to software for your mortgage business, we’ve gotta disagree. Whether you’re a seasoned LO or just starting your own shop, the number one tool or “hack” that is going to save you tons of time and money is CRM software to make you more efficient.

In fact, a recent study from Nucleus Research shows that for companies that use a CRM, the average return on their technology investment is $8.71 for each dollar spent. 

Not yet using a CRM? That kind of return on investment is like printing money for your business. 

Whether you’re a seasoned mortgage pro or just starting your own shop, this how-to guide will dive deep on the automation essentials for mortgage business, how a mortgage software will pay for itself, and what the ideal features you need in your next CRM.

CRM Automation is Your Mortgage Business’s Secret Weapon

Whether it’s streamlining your lending workflow, integrating all the tools you use into one central place, automating client follow-up and marketing, or anything in between, the benefits of automation software for lenders are simply staggering.

Consider a recent study by Instapage around the various benefits of automating different areas of your business with software:

Closing Deals

• Automation is proven to boost sales productivity by 14.5% and reduce marketing overheads by 12.2%

• CRMs can lead to a 30% increase in deal closures, an 18% reduction in sales cycle, and a 14% reduction in sales administration time

Marketing

• 90% higher customer retention rates can come from marketing automation

• 80% of marketing automation users see increased leads, and 77% see increased conversions

• 60% of users say marketing automation has increased the quantity and quality of the leads that get passed to sales

Productivity

• 40% of productivity is lost to multitasking and task-switching

• Lost productivity and poorly managed leads cost companies over $1 trillion annually, some of which could be saved with automation software

Customer communication

• Automated emails have a 70.5% higher open rate and 152% higher click-through rate than generic email newsletter

• Companies using marketing automation software are 2x more effective in lead generation than those using only blast email software

• Automating lead nurturing with well-timed emails and offers has been proven to generate a 10% or greater increase in revenue

How a CRM Will Transform Your Mortgage Business

We’ve already established that smart LOs and teams know that to stay competitive you’ve got to keep up with the latest trends and technology. We’ve evaluated dozens of mortgage software tools on the market and collected the top 6 reasons why you need to be using a CRM right now to transform your mortgage business into a money making machine:

1 – Save hours on administrative work every day.

Loan officers are responsible for a variety of paperwork, tasks, and client interactions at any given moment. These procedures are often both complex and dynamic. A paper and pencil system no longer makes sense.

Not only does it make sense to adopt a modern, upgraded business management system - it’s what your mortgage clients have come to expect. Use a CRM to automate your daily to-do list and spend more time helping your clients.

2 – Strengthen relationships with prospects and clients.

Relationship building used to require a lot of time and energy. Thanks to marketing automation software included in CRMs like Shape, creating or improving relationships can be automated, authentic, and successful. 

3 – Automate follow ups.

Fact: Following up with prospects helps you win more business. About 80% of sales require five follow up touch points. For busy mortgage professionals, following up with every lead that many times isn’t sustainable.

At least not without the right software. A proper mortgage software system can send perfectly timed follow-ups at any stage of the sales lifecycle. Customizable templates and automated email delivery triggers make those five follow ups a snap.

4 – Calculate amortization payments with ease.

Accurate and real-time payment data is critical for your business. After all, it’s what’s used to make some of your most important decisions. Plus, your customers have come to expect quick results so having a handy system for crunching these numbers is a necessity.

5 – Improve your intake process.

The hope most people have when they first adopt mortgage software is that the program will cut down the time they spend on everyday tasks. The intake process can be time consuming when done manually. But it’s one of your most powerful customer service tools. Automate the process with e-Signature capabilities, reminders, and status updates sent for you.

Mortgage businesses who automate parts of their onboarding see turnaround times shrink from weeks to hours.

6 – Score your leads by quality.

What if you could have a system that seamlessly reviewed every new prospect, assess their needs, and generate a score based on their interest and urgency?

The right mortgage CRM will automatically score your leads based on data from your company as well as any specific parameters you can set and manage at any time. Once your leads are scored you can concentrate your efforts on reaching out to those with the highest ROIs first or even automatically assign them to marketing campaigns.  

The Top Mortgage CRM Features You Need (and how they help you)

Everyone wants the biggest, baddest, most robust software that money can buy. But when considering a mortgage CRM, it’s most important to understand how essential certain software features are to your daily business. 

Do you get a lot of inbound leads and have trouble keeping up with inquiries? Do you use other software tools that you need to integrate with? Are you wanting to score and assign your leads to your team quickly and automatically? 

Depending on how you answer, you can start to get a fuller picture of your needs and which software systems will be the best bang for your buck. We’ve reviewed dozens of mortgage CRMs on the market and spoken to top firms about the most essential features you need on a day-to-day basis.

Mortgage CRM Feature: Lead Prioritization and Lead Distribution

Why you want it: An automated feature that allows your mortgage CRM to accept inbound client leads, score and prioritize them based on your criteria, and intelligently route them to your team. It also reduces manual work and wasted time reviewing and assigning leads to your team. Instead, stay connected with interested clients in an instant and drive more business instead of losing out to your competition. 

Mortgage CRM Feature: Duplicate Lead Management

Why you want it: Helps filter out multiple inquiries from the same leads and keeps your pipeline clean and organized. The right system will also alert you when previous leads re-engage with you or your marketing.Duplicate lead management is more than just organization. When your CRM leverages smart sorting and filtering, you can make closing deals from interested prospects much more likely. 

Mortgage CRM Feature: LOS Syncing

Why you want it: With a CRM that has seamless LOS syncing, you can streamline the entire loan process from start to finish by exporting your files. Look for systems compatible with the popular Fannie Mae 3.2 File, Encompass, and LendingPad.

Mortgage CRM Feature: Marketing Portal

Why you want it: You ideally want a tool that allows you to easily customize flyers, draft emails, and post-closing cards with the correct branding in place you will elevate your mortgage business to the next level. Look for a CRM that has all these tools incorporated so you don’t need to pay for costly marketing automation software - it’s usually overpriced and too niche for most LO’s.

Mortgage CRM Feature: Integrated Dialer with Texting

Why you want it: With click to dial, inbound & outbound calling, call recording, local presence, SMS messages, and more, the right integrated dialer will give your team professional, enterprise-level sales features they need to close every deal. Being able to contact prospects via text - when they are at home or on the go - is so critical in today’s fast-moving society where people are often not in front of a computer.

Mortgage CRM Feature: Lead Status Automation 

Why you want it: Backlogged when new leads pour in? Your CRM should intelligently automate overflow prospects into a shared lead pool based on status or timeframe. This prevents leads from “window shopping” with other firms in your follow-up window!

Mortgage CRM Feature: Team Collaboration Tools

Why you want it: You 100% need a CRM that allows leads to have multiple owners which means your team gets complete visibility and transparency into all activities for every prospect. Having these types of tools is essential for growing mortgage teams as they allow for quick collaboration and attribution when putting deals over the finish line. 

Mortgage CRM Feature: Email and Calendar Sync

Why you want it: This one’s a no-brainer, but so many CRMs on the market exclude both. Having syncing for your calendar and email keep your team up to speed and on the same page and allow you to schedule follow up appointments in a click and keep you organized. Nothing worse for closing a deal than missing a meeting you forgot you had!

Mortgage CRM Feature: Reporting

Why you want it: We’ve known way too many LO’s who do zero to analyze where their prospects come from, how much their marketing ROI is, how well they’re team converts, and so on. Not having data is a huge liability to your business. Your CRM must 100% include reporting and analytics tools to help you make more informed business decisions.

In addition to data, Maintain compliance with reporting as well. You should track cost allocations, distributions and payments.

Mortgage CRM Feature: Integrations

Why you want it: You might not be ready to give up your legacy tools, or some are just too different from what a CRM has to offer. No worries - make sure whatever CRM you pick for your mortgage business integrates well with some popular tools like Twilio, SendGrid, MailChimp, Zapier, Ytel, and tons more.

Mortgage CRM Feature: Email Automation 

Why you want it: Still manually sending every email? Get out of the 1990’s and join the wave of LOs saving tons of time using email automation. Send perfectly timed follow ups, build nurturing drip campaigns, automate status updates, and more. Email automation does more than just free up valuable time - it keeps your process consistent and compliant!

Mortgage CRM Feature: Payment Calculator

Why you want it: A CRM with a payment amortization calculator is a must - it will easily help you provide accurate and real-time payment data your prospects need to make decisions. Cut down turnaround times and boost client satisfaction in one simple tool. 

Mortgage CRM Feature: Prospect Intake

Why you want it: You must, must, must have a pipeline tool that helps youmanage your entire intake workflow in one place. A great CRM will let you build robust intake forms, manage leads, and send online contracts and important documents securely with a built-in eSignature. Only a few CRMs on the market offer this robust combination, but it’s worth seeking out!

Mortgage CRM Feature: Team Chat

Why you want it: As great as email can be for communicating with clients, it’s terrible for your team. Trying to push a deal over the finish line and need quick info? A CRM with team chat is the way to go. When your LO can get in touch with a processor in seconds, deals are done more efficiently and clients needs are exceeded.