Advantages of Diversifying Lead Providers

Supply chain managers understand that multiple sourcing is necessary to maintain a steady supply of raw materials. In your mortgage business, leads are the raw materials that your staff turns into profit.

Do you need multiple mortgage lead providers to maintain that critical pipeline? Consider the advantages of diversifying your lead sources among several providers.

Risk Management

With a single mortgage lead provider, you’re at that provider’s mercy. If that supply is threatened, how do you respond?

You can immediately switch to another lead provider and hope for better results, or you can take the time to research provider options and experiment. You could develop internal lead-generation methods, but that also takes time. Can your mortgage business afford a temporary drought in leads?

By developing multiple sources, you’ve bought insurance against provider problems such as a decline in quality, unreasonable price increases, or the outright loss of a lead source. All you have to do is divide up your purchases appropriately to keep all of your lead suppliers interested and viable. Like investments, it’s foolhardy to put all of your eggs in one basket.

Optimize Your Leads

If you’ve only eaten steak at one place, how can you say it’s the best steakhouse? Similarly, if you only have one mortgage lead provider, you don’t know if another provider can serve you better.

With multiple providers, you have a frame of reference to judge value. A lead provider that consistently produces higher value leads with higher closing rates deserves a greater share of your business. Conversely, a declining share of your business puts poor performers on notice.

Over time, you’ll find the optimum purchasing strategy to take advantage of pricing structures while maintaining a suitably diverse supply of leads. Keep testing and optimizing, and never assume that all leads are the same type of “steak”.

The Effects of Scale

Multiple lead sources are an asset regardless of the size of your mortgage business, but they become even more important as your business grows.

Larger firms with larger sales forces require a large supply of leads by definition. A small mortgage business has a few idle people when leads run dry – but a large mortgage business that finds itself suddenly without new leads could leave dozens of people fighting over scraps.

When a single pipeline dries up, you run the risk of losing your top earners. Don’t let that happen.

Leverage is Yours

You may be able to extract a better pricing structure by putting all your business into one mortgage lead source – but unless you constitute a huge portion of that lead provider’s business, you’ve given excess leverage to the provider.

In the end, you need them more than they need you.

Why give your supplier an advantage? Diversification of your lead sources can increase your total leverage and place your mortgage business in an improved negotiating position.

Your needs could change over time, whether through your success (or lack thereof) or market forces. Not all lead providers can meet all your needs in any given moment. Ensure you have a diversity of lead sources that collectively can always keep you stable.

Protect Your Lead Supply

Mortgage leads are the lifeblood of your business. Diversify your mortgage lead providers to maintain your critical supply of leads and reduce the risk of overdependence on a single source. You owe it to your business, your staff, your customers – and yourself.