How to Build an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) for Better Mortgage Leads
Chelsea Mize
Not all leads are created equal. Your business health depends on picking the right ones to nurture and eventually convert.
It is all too common to hear from loan officers that they spend too much time with paperwork and administrative minutiae, valuable time that would be better spent nurturing the relationships at the heart of the mortgage process.
When was the last time you played a round of golf with a referral partner or took the time to have lunch with your business networking group? With limited time to spare, every loan office needs to maximize what little time they spend with referral partners. That means honing in on the face facetime that creates deep relationships with partners who can deliver the type of customer you know you resonate well with. You need to ensure that their clients match your ideal borrower to ensure it is a fruitful relationship on both ends.
To start, think about your happiest, most fulfilled borrowers. What do those borrowers have in common? What are their demographics? What type of home did they purchase or refinance? Did they share a similar level of tech-savviness as you? What brands do they associate themselves with? What defines success to them? By aligning your ideal borrowers to referral partners that serve the same demographic, you can begin to align with partners that will not only deliver referrals but ones you can delight.
Here are a few tips to build your ideal customer profile so you can start chasing the right leads:
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Review your customer list
Look at your existing customer list and separate borrowers into buckets: successful and unsuccessful loans. Take some time to understand the demographics and behavioral attributes of each segment. Identify similarities and differences to determine what common characteristics your successful borrowers share.
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Aggregate the commonalities
Take the commonalities shared by your happiest borrowers into an ideal customer profile that your team can use and tangibly reference to find better agents and borrowers.
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Target the seller’s agent
Agents are always looking for relationships that help them provide a great borrower experience that is quick and transparent. During your next deal, go out of your way to show the seller’s agent that you can make their job easier. That could translate into them sending more buyers your way on their next buy-side deal.
For more on nurturing fruitful relationships with real estate agents, check out our popular eBook, “Winning Agent Business.”
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Join professional groups
Professional groups in your area can be a great source for building strong relationships not just with real estate agents but also with other service-based professionals likely to have ideal clients to refer to you.
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For more on creating ideal customer profiles (also commonly referred to as buyer personas) and building your professional network:
Step-by-step guide to creating buyer personas
Revenue Builder: How to build a buyer persona
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