Turn Lemonade Into Mortgage Leads
You’re familiar with the expression “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, which suggests the theme of turning a negative into a positive. Well, while you don’t need to have a negative in your mortgage marketing efforts before you can gain a positive, so to speak, you can certainly turn lemonade into mortgage leads. Following is a simple, inexpensive idea for generating leads that any loan officer can do.
Have you tried sitting in at a Realtor’s open house, or perhaps the open house of a for sale by owner (FSBO), to be onsite for any buyers that need to get pre-qualified? If there is a good turn-out you can get several new borrowers in your pipeline in just an hour or two. However, it can be quite boring, especially if nobody shows up. Well, why not throw in your own twist by sitting outside at the next open house you attend instead of sitting inside.
I know what you’re thinking… it’s 100+ degrees out there - why would anyone sit outside instead of inside an air-conditioned home? The answer is because you want to give away free lemonade. That’s right, the reason to sit outside is so that you can set up a simple lemonade stand to offer free drinks to passersby.
In any given neighborhood, you can attract many people to your free lemonade stand that would not otherwise stop for the open house, and everyone that stops is a potential customer for you. Once you have them in front of you, you get to work your magic.
- Serve your lemonade in cups that have your contact information printed on the side.
- Have flyers and business cards at the ready on your table.
- Have a sign-up sheet for a small raffle or prize giveaway (which you can later use to follow-up).
- Have flyers of the home available on your table for those interested in the property (Realtors and FSBOs will love you for attracting more visitors).
- Most importantly, strike up friendly conversation with each visitor. Even if they don’t need your services at the moment, they may know someone who does.
One of the indirect benefits to this concept is that you’ll get people talking. It’s not everyday that an adult is outside working a lemonade stand, and the fact that you were out there serving deliciously cold refreshment for free in the neighborhood will make people tell others about the unusual thing they saw that day. Buzz like that is a great thing to have on your side. Another benefit is that the more you do this, the more opportunities for repeat lemonade business will present themselves.
The only thing you’ll have to be cognizant of is squashing the local competition. If there are any competing stands out that day, you may want to buy out their entire stock at a hefty profit to the younger competitors. It’ll make their day to sell all their lemonade whereas dealing with a grown-up down the street giving lemonade away for free could be heartbreaking.