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Article: You Can Earn $1,000 Per Hour -- Profiting from Homebuyer Workshops
Homebuyer education workshops are an underutilized and under-appreciated source of income for mortgage professionals. Well planned and coordinated workshops can pay off to the tune of $1,000 per hour.
Where did the $1,000 an hour figure come from? Let’s do the math. Let’s assume you close one loan from a homebuyer education workshop.
Loan Amount $150,000
3% of $150,000 $4,500
50% of proceeds $2,250
2 hour workshop $1,125 per hour
We coordinate several workshops a month for our clients, and have found there are steps you take before, during and after a homebuyer workshop to maximize your profits.
Tip 1 - Don’t Skimp on Marketing and Promotion
Four groups of people will pay attention to your workshop promotion efforts, and three of these groups represent an opportunity for you to profit:
- Group 1: People who are interested in getting a mortgage, but won’t be able to attend. Don’t be surprised if people show up at your office months later waving the flyer and saying “I couldn’t attend your workshop, but I kept this.”
- Group 2: People who register for your workshop but don’t attend. We help our clients create easy follow-up systems so that they are “top of mind” when the people in this group are ready to buy.
- Group 3: People who register for your workshop and show up. Make sure their experience with your company is positive.
- Group 4: Your competition. This is just a fact of life -- when you offer public workshops, there's a good chance your competition will show up masquerading as potential homebuyers. We offer our client proven strategies for lowering the chances of their competition showing up.
Tip 2 - Handle the Details Well
Marketing your mortgage business starts long before the workshop. Every single interaction between your business and each prospect leaves an impression. In order to profit from the workshop, you must make sure all details are handled well.
A few details include:
- Is the registration process easy, effortless and thorough?
- Is the location convenient?
- Are the logistics worked out?
- Is your on-site staff friendly and professional?
- How do your handouts rate?
Make no mistake -- your workshop may be free, but the attendees will have high expectations. A wrong note may cost you a sale.
Tip 3 - Create a Catchy Title
Look in the homebuyer’s section of your paper. How many “Free Homebuyer Workshops” do you see -- 10, 12, more? To attract an audience, stay away from the ho-hum titles and come up with a hook.
Tip 4- Provide Great Content
Make your workshop informative and interesting. Although it takes time to develop workshop content, once it is developed you can use it over and over again. If you don't have the time to develop your own workshop content, it is always possible to outsource this function to a qualified professional.
Tip 5 - The Fortune is in the Follow Up
While some of the people attending your workshop will lead to immediate business, the real profit is in the follow up.
Create a follow up system and reap the rewards of referral business from friends and relatives of attendees,
people who registered but didn’t attend, their friends and relatives.
Tip 6 - Assess, Tweak, Repeat
Assess the success of each workshop, fine tune your system and do it again.
Resource Box: Copyright 2004 close-more-loans.com All rights reserved. Close-more-loans.com provides mortgage marketing, technology and administrative services to help busy mortgage professionals close more loans with less stress. Visit their site to get a no-cost copy of their report, "6 Steps to More Referrals."
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