In my recent travels to mortgage lenders across the country, I’ve been hearing a common refrain: Sales professionals continue to struggle with prospecting in the current purchase-money marketplace.
There is no doubt that superior prospecting skills are more critical than ever for success in the “new” world of mortgage origination. Producers are under the gun to create demand in an environment where the balance of power has shifted from the seller to the buyer.
As a result, managers need to be asking the question, “What do my sales professionals really know about prospecting?” For many companies, the answer may be “Not enough!”
We recently conducted a nationwide study on LOs’ consultative sales knowledge and found that even “experienced” producers scored poorly in the prospecting category. Of the six parts of the sales process we studied, scores for prospecting were the lowest, averaging 3.63 out of a possible 10.
The bottomline: It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable or skilled your sales force is regarding other parts of the sales process if they have not mastered the first step —prospecting.