Marketing consultant Paul Watkins sparked some significant changes at Mortgage Link when he spoke to their conference last month.
Watkins provoked a resounding and embarrassed silence when he asked the company’s broker licencees how they would describe what their company does, given 90 seconds to explain in an elevator speech.
Mortgage Link general manager Ross Butler says Watkins’ question and the nonplussed response "really wrenched a lot of hearts around the place."
After going through a formal consultation process, the company has come up with what he calls its "mission statement."
The people at Mortgage Link "act on behalf of our clients" as opposed to being agents of lenders.
"We provide them with mortgage advice that gives them a solution that best suits their needs and circumstances."
Butler says the company is abandoning claims to be able to give its customers the "best" home loans. While you could run a competition along Australian lines to discover the "best" home loans to suit a variety of home buyers such as first home buyers or investors, the winners won’t necessarily suit all customers in those categories, he says.
The interest rate charged, for example, might be reasonably low down on the list of a client’s priorities.
Butler says the company’s new idea of itself won’t mean that much change in practice because it articulates what its broker licencees were already doing anyway. "We just haven’t said it that clearly."
The process has led to Mortgage Link rebranding itself.
By the end of September, the newly articulated vision will be represented in revamped advertising, brochures and on the company’s web site, Butler says.
Paul Watkins writes writes the Sales and Marketing column in The NZ Mortgage Mag, which is produced by Tarawera Publishing Ltd - the publishers of Good Returns. Visit his website at www.paulwatkins.co.nz
