Talk Less, Smile More For Better Reverse Mortgage Sales
In the smash Broadway musical, “Hamilton,” Aaron Burr sings these words to Alexander Hamilton, “Talk less. Smile more.” That message was channeled recently at the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) western regional meeting in Huntington Beach, Calif.
Craig Barnes, education leader at Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF), told attendees, according to a Reverse Mortgage Daily report, “I spoke with a trainer at RMF, and he found out that the more the loan officer speaks, the less the loans turn into sales. We did some investigation and anecdotal information gathering, and I found a survey that backed up everything we thought.”
One of the findings revealed that the client should be talking roughly 57 percent of the time to the loan originator’s 43 percent, emphasizing that LOs should not monopolize the conversations with potential borrowers. “In the average sales call, the salesperson speaks 75 percent of the time,” Barnes said.
He also observed one of the problems that some reverse mortgage loan officers run into is overloading their potential borrower with too much information at too quick a pace. This can lead to a number of difficulties that limit the ability to make a sales connection. “If you’re talking, the client isn’t,” Barnes said.
