The Myth of the Closing Gift
A woman in our Freedom Club asked for ideas for unique closing gifts recently. She wanted something universal so she didn’t have to come up with a new custom idea for each client. And she wanted something with her branding on it that would make a lasting impression. By “lasting impression,” I assume she meant getting more loans from that closing gift.
I told her that was a great question, but that we’ve found that we don’t need to leave a “lasting impression” because we’re going to be contacting them quarterly with a phone call using our past database scripts in the automated system we use. We also send out weekly emails and monthly handwritten notes.
Just like you don’t need to leave a lasting impression when you leave your friend’s house after playing cards for the night—because you’ll be back again next week—we’ll be “seeing” these people again on a regular basis.
Follow-Up Trumps a Closing Gift Every Time
Let me say it again: follow up trumps a closing gift every time. There’s nothing wrong with a closing gift. You can keep doing that if you want. But just know that it’s not going to get you a substantial amount of new loans. I’ve never gotten any loans because of a closing gift. You have to follow up to get those.
Now, it’s crucial that you do the follow-up the right way. We recommend a threefold approach:
- Call with a simple script four times a year.
- Send out a snail mail once a month.
- Send an email once a week.
Let’s break this down into its three parts.
First, call each client with a simple script four times a year. We call two letters of the alphabet every single Wednesday. So, this Wednesday you call the A’s and B’s, next Wednesday the C’s and D’s, etc.
The script goes like this: “Hey, this is Carl White. I’m over here at ABC mortgage. I helped you with your mortgage last time. The purpose of my call is that I just wanted to thank you for letting me help you and just to check in to see how you guys are doing. I just want to let you know that if you have any questions, you can reach me at 555-1212. If you’re buying or selling a house, I’d be happy to help you. And real quick before I go, I just want to know if I can count on you any time you have friends, family members, or coworkers looking to buy, sell, or refinance. Can I count on you to give me a call?”
That’s the whole script. And it’s wildly effective.
Second, send out snail mail once a month. This costs us about $1.30 per mailer, which includes a stamp and a handwritten envelope. We’ve gotten huge results from this. We’ve found that the trick is not to send a newsletter or a corporate-looking postcard. We do an actual letter or thank you card. People love this.
Third, send a weekly email. Our email gets the best response. And let me tell you something—our emails aren’t about mortgages. The last thing someone wants to talk about after they close on their house is a mortgage, right? Buying a house can be a stressful process, and they’re ready to move on with their lives. So we’ve found that sending a simple email about what’s going on this weekend around your area—like maybe an Arts Festival—gets a good response. We typically pick three things:
- something artsy-fartsy
- something adult-ish (but not controversial)
- something for the kids/family
You can send the email as text or video—either one is great. Here’s the key though. At the end of the email, there’s a simple call to action that we call the “super signature.” It’s proven to be our secret sauce, the reason we get such a high response rate to these emails. If you want to know what it is, let me know, and I’ll share it with you.
Give a Closing Gift in Addition to Following Up
Like I said, I’ve never gotten more loans because of a closing gift, no matter how good it was. It wasn’t until I added these follow-up strategies that I saw an absolute explosion in my measured results.
This follow-up approach gives us an average of one closing per hundred people in our database per month. So, if you’ve got 500 people in your past database, that’s 5 new closings each month, just from this simple strategy. And, trust me, that more than covers the cost of postage on those mailers (and the emails and calls are free).
If you really really want to do a closing gift, do it in addition to the follow-up, not as a replacement for it. It’s an act of coolness, and it will make someone smile, but it won’t get you any loans. One that has worked really well for me is sending pizzas on Moving Day. Or you can just send them a gift card to a local pizza place so they can order it themselves. It just feels like something a friend would do for a friend—take care of pizzas on Moving Day.
If you’d like to learn more about this follow-up—what to say on the calls, what to write in the notes and emails—we’d love to help you out with that. I’ll even share our super signature with you. You can schedule a completely FREE one-hour coaching session with us and we’ll give you a road map to success. Schedule your FREE call TODAY!