When you shouldn’t spend anything on mortgage leads

Five signs paid lead generation will burn your money, from an agency that turns that work away.

We turn work down fairly often, and it is nearly always the same conversation. A good broker, years of experience, ran the mortgage side of a decent firm, has just gone out on their own with an AR permission and a smart new website. They want to know how to get leads. Our honest answer is that they should not pay us, or anyone like us, yet.

That is not modesty. It is maths. So here are the five signs that paid lead generation will burn your money, and what we would do instead.

1. You have no reviews yet, so visitors have no reason to trust you

We can get the right people to your website. That part is solved. The problem is what happens when they arrive.

Someone choosing a mortgage adviser is not comparing your fee to the next broker's fee. They are deciding whether they are about to be looked after or taken advantage of. Most people do not understand what FCA regulation means for them, and they have no way of knowing you are a decent human being who wants to help. Reviews are how they find out.

So if we send the right people to a site with nothing to prove you are any good, they will not feel comfortable enough to enquire. It does not matter how much budget you have. The person on the other end still has to decide they are in safe hands.

2. You have no client bank to get those reviews from

This is the cruel part. Reviews come from clients. Clients come from leads. And if you have just left a firm, your back book usually belongs to them, not you.

When you need the leads most is the hardest time to get them. We wish that were not true. Anyone telling you they have solved it is selling you something.

3. Your growth plan depends on introducers who are already taken

Walking into local estate agents with a folder of material is a legitimate route, and it has built plenty of firms. It is also the first thing a lot of new brokers try, which is why almost every agent already has a broker in place. If your entire plan is introducers, expect a lot of doors that are politely closed before you have finished your sentence.

4. You are looking for a shortcut, and the market will happily sell you one

Almost every broker we have this conversation with has already paid someone several hundred pounds to set up paid social media for them. They were promised the world. Nothing happened.

That story is so common it is almost a rite of passage. There are no shortcuts here. Anyone who tells you there are is charging you for the lesson.

5. Nobody can see you as a person yet

A new brand is invisible in a way that is hard to appreciate from the inside. You know you are experienced. Nobody else does.

The good news is that the fix costs nothing. Get yourself out where people can see you, meet you and form a view. That works on consumers, and it works on the estate agents you are trying to win over too. You have to prove you are good, because at this stage nobody knows.

What we would do instead, before you pay anyone

Ask every single client for a Google review, at the right moment

Not an email at completion, when the job is done and the moment has passed. Do it on the phone when you deliver the offer, while they are thanking you, and send the link on WhatsApp while you are still talking. Almost everyone will do it. We know a one person firm who has built a serious business off the back of doing exactly that, every time, without exception.

Aim for around 50 to start with

One adviser we work with does very well on 56 reviews plus a niche he genuinely owns. Fifty is enough to stop being invisible. Once you are closer to 75 to 100 with recent reviews landing regularly, paid traffic starts to make sense, because people arriving have a reason to trust you.

Own a niche

The advisers who grow fastest from nothing are not generalists. They find the situation other brokers fumble, learn it properly, and become the obvious answer for it.

Be visible as a person

Video, LinkedIn, showing your face. It costs time, not money, and at this stage time is the resource you have.

Let your old clients find you

You usually cannot approach them. They can absolutely approach you. Being easy to find is the whole job.

Start a podcast about local businesses, not about mortgages

This is the one we would do first if we were starting again with no reviews and no client bank. Interview business owners in your town. Call it something like Business Heroes of [your town], host it yourself and sponsor it yourself.

It works on four levels at once. You get 30 or 40 minutes of face time with a local business owner, which is a meeting nobody would have given you cold. You are doing them a favour rather than asking for one, so the relationship starts with you owing them nothing and them feeling looked after. They share the episode with their own audience, so you borrow their reach for the price of one conversation. And you can open, break and close each episode with a piece of general mortgage information, so listeners also learn that you know your job.

It also solves the introducer problem from the other end. Those estate agents who already have a broker in place are far more receptive when you are offering to promote them than when you are asking for leads. Interview them, put them in front of your listeners, and you are the one doing the favour.

The kit and the cost are basically nothing now, which is the point. This is time, not budget, and time is what you have at this stage.

Why we say no

If we take your money and we already know we cannot make it profitable for you, we both lose. You pay for work that does not produce leads, and we have a client who is quietly disappointed in us. We would rather have the awkward conversation now and the good one in six months.

And for what it is worth, every firm we work with that has grown has been exactly where you are. It is possible. It is also hard, and there is no version where it is not.