Ask the Expert: Selecting leads with great credit

By Dave Hershman

Last week you advised someone not to generate leads nationally. While I did not disagree with your point with regard to focusing upon referrals and staying local, you made a comment that leads may not have the best credit. Today you can select leads with great credit in several ways. Are you not aware of that?  
Yes, I am aware that you can select the quality of leads. A couple of points regarding my advice:
 

• The questioner was talking about a general marketing system that was generating leads. Not knowing the capability of the system, my assumption was that she was generating leads and she was not purchasing specific leads. What would my advice be regarding purchasing leads? I will leave that for another day.
• While even lead generation systems can focus upon one type of lead or another, I mentioned a dichotomy. If you advertise about your great rates, you will get hard-core rate shoppers which I call low-quality leads. If you advertise regarding your ability to get loans approved, then you will generate leads with poor credit. I did not say you will get rate shoppers with poor credit---and if you got that impression, I apologize.
   

That being said, my answer was obviously an over-simplification which is all that is allowed in the short space of this column. So I am glad you were able to ask further questions so I could clarify. I realize that there are other advertising "messages" besides these two—these are the most prevalent from the residential finance side.  I personally prefer a message that focuses upon added value, which is an additional topic for another day.   Dave Hershman
 
Do you have a reaction to this commentary or another question you would like answered? Email Dave at [email protected].
 
Dave Hershman has been the leading author and a top speaker in the industry for decades with six books authored and hundreds of articles published.   His website is www.originationpro.com.