Debt is not a secret anymore. Nearly everyone in this world has some sort of debt thanks to home, car, and student loans and to credit cards and more. This is why credit repair services are now in high demand. With the help of financial experts and organizations, one can definitely chip away at debt until it finally disappears. However, this will take time and dedication as well as honesty. The following are some of the many things that credit repair groups and experts can offer a person.

When a person walks into a credit repair group’s office, he or she should be ready to demonstrate their income, fixed expenses – those that do not change each month – and expenses that can change. This is also the time to add up all of the debt to see where a person stands. Armed with such information, a financial expert can create a budget that will help an individual deal with his or her debt.

Credit card and debt repayment plans are fairly easy to work out. Here, one pledges to pay a certain amount each month to help pay down debts. However, the amount to be paid is negotiated between the company or group that is owed the money and the individual. Credit repair groups will look at a person’s finances to see what he or she can really afford to pay.

Repair groups will also explain what settlement options look like. Here, one agrees to pay a lump sum in exchange for the debt being erased. Of course, this means that an individual has to be able to save up such a sum of money. This is a solid way to pay off something like 75% of a debt without having to deal with it again. For people trying to pay down debt and get bill collectors off their back, this is an invaluable tool. A credit repair specialist will be able to figure out whether or not a settlement is worth a person’s time.

Thus, it is important for a person to approach credit repair in a smart manner. If a person is honest with him or herself as well as with the financial professional, debt can be dealt with. Everything from creating a budget to creating a repayment plan or pursuing a settlement can help with this matter. Really, one needs to reach out to see all of the possibilities.

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The debt and mortgage leads market is a highly evolved one with plenty of Internet lead providers vying with each other to give lenders a ready database of prospects to pursue. These leads are marketed at exorbitant rates with the price of each fresh lead varying from $20-60 or even higher. This means you have to be a financial giant or wizard to get a reasonable return out of your lead buy. Why do I make this claim? Because no matter how good a sales person you are you are not going to close all of these leads. So, you have to ask yourself after you have burned through thousands of dollars purchasing debt and mortgage leads–can you close enough leads at this price?

If you are Tired of Paying too much for Debt and Mortgage Leads, it is time to learn to get them cheaper:

1. Source from a credible company – Your debt and mortgage leads need to be bought from an Internet leads provider who has been in the business of leads generation or aggregation for a few years. Look at the lead provider’s track record, their conversion rate, debt lead return policies and the sales support they can provide you with if a lead turns out fake. Chances are that your debt and mortgage lead conversion ratio will be high and you will save marketing dollars. The end result will be a higher ROI in relation to your investment in turn reducing your overall marketing costs.

2. Classify leads according to your budget and sales ability – If you classify your debt leads based on the type of products and services you offer, you will be able to narrow down and purchase only those debt leads that matter to you. Good debt lead management skills are called for to shrewdly purchase debt leads whose credit history you can handle. If your budget permits you can purchase in bulk and be eligible for super discounts. Try to get the discount in the form of extra genuine leads instead of dollar savings.

3. Purchase quality aged debt and aged mortgage leads – The best way to get cheap debt and mortgage leads is to purchase aged debt leads and mortgage leads. These leads are available for as low as a couple of cents to a dollar. Extremely cheap means, you can buy plenty of these valuable leads. Though a couple of weeks or months old, they are a mine of untapped information. They may contain debt leads of persons who have not yet reached a financial solution and need your assistance. Purchasing aged mortgage leads is especially a great idea as a lot of homeowners do take time to take refinance decisions on their homes and that’s why end up in the aged leads list.

4. Obtain data from a provider who sources data directly – The subprime crisis has thrown up thousands of homeowners who need better mortgages and lower interest rates. The cheapest way to get to them can be buying debt leads from an Internet leads provider who has firsthand data on these clients.

5. Go for SEO services – If you are an enterprising sales person or company and have your own website or blog, use it to attract additional leads to offset lead buying. Using good content and some basic SEO strategies you can target a smaller or more local mortgage and debt customer niche.

There is no golden rule to get the cheapest leads. Being prudent and knowing how to maximize ROI is important. The cheapest leads in the end are the ones which get you the most ROI and not based on the price at which you bought them.

There are few things harder to do than service people that are in trouble with their debt. They are confused, scared, and stressed. They have been harassed, badgered, and intimidated. They are suspicious, timid, and unresponsive.

Building trust and educating these consumer are key to your success as a debt settlement counselor. Here are some helpful resources for scripting your debt settlement sales calls:

1. My own Aged Lead Strategy Debt Relief Sales Scripts advocate using empathy, listening, and executing on promises as key ingredients to building good debt settlement sales scripts.

2. Lead Closer gives some basic elements in his debt sales scripts emphasizing Caller ID, pleasantness, and speed to pitch.

3. I really like the scripts from Debt Skinny. They are voicemail scripts, which are the lion share of what you will be doing in debt settlement calling.

4. Finally, MSTARS might be a solution if you want to hire someone to write custom scripts for your debt settlement organization.

I suggest that as you approach your debt settlement sales training you emphasize slowing down the sales process. This seems counter-intuitive, but unlike most other sales environments these consumers are already fatigued. They are likely to abruptly enter into a defensive mode with any pressure.

Empathy, listening, and less selling is going to get you to the solution faster than pounding home all of the help and relief you can provide. Trust first.

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CALL 949-861-3122

Have you ever tried to get someone to talk to you by pelting them with endless statements about you–how great you are, how much you are better than others, or how successful you are going to make them? No, of course not.

Ironically, that is precisely the technique we use to sell people on developing a business relationship with us. Instead we should be asking questions and gathering data. Let the customer tell us what it takes to sell them on our product or service.

That is the power of the open-ended question.

People love to talk about themselves–their successes and their challenges. And that is precisely the information you would love to have to guide your sales pitch. So, let it happen.

Let’s take a look at some good open-ended questions:

• When did you feel like your debt was first getting out of control?
• What is the most stressful part about your current debt?
• What led you to consider refinancing your mortgage?
• What made you select this house (neighborhood, city, state)?
• Is this your first mortgage?
• Are you working now?
• What is most important to you in a mortgage or debt solution?
• Have you talked to others about a mortgage or debt solution?
• What is your biggest concern?

Do you have some good open-ended questions you use in the sales process? Add them to the comments below.

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CALL 949-861-3122

If you are in the debt management or settlement business I urge you to take a look at an interesting source for debt ideas. There is a growing population of bloggers that are blogging about how they are or did get out of debt.

I think this presents a few interesting opportunities for someone in the debt business:

1. Creative debt strategies - These are generally do-it-yourself debt survivors. They are learning by trial and error and documenting every success and failure online. I have seen everything from genius to idiotic–both are important extremes to have in your debt expert tool bag.

2. Inspirational stories for debt customers - Some of these make great inspiration for you own clients. Think of creative ways you can package (no plagiarism or copyright violations please) these experiences and present them to your clients. Using with proper attribution short clips, quotes, or even inquiring with the blogger to re-print an article can make for great marketing material.

3. Smart way to enhance your own Web strategy - Ever thought about maintaining your own blog or Web articles cataloging and chronicling your debt settlement case studies. Generalizing scenarios and work-outs that you do on a daily basis can make more great marketing material.

Remember debt customer are looking for hope before anything else. These great blogs and bloggers can help seed that inspiration for your help to be better received.

Here are a few bloggers I follow:

• Debt Kid
• Get Rich Slowly
• How I got out of $26,000 of debt before getting married?
• ZenHabits

1. Start at the subject line. It all starts at the beginning-the subject line. Studies show that most read nothing else before trashing a large percentage of their emails. You need to prevent that early demise for your email. A few simple tricks can help get that brief pause at your email and open.

• Use their name
• Avoid finance and deal words (mortgage, debt, rates, payment)
• Forward or reply to past email (Fwd: and Re: subject lines get opened)

2. Keep it short. Everyone, even your grandmother’s, email box is overflowing. If you want action you need to keep your email to only a couple of lines. This also makes it look less like marketing and more like a personal note. Maybe something like this…

“I am sure I can help you with your debt. Give me a call.”

You will probably be shocked at how that simple one line email converts

3. Get right to the point. This sort of goes with number 2. Don’t waste time introducing yourself and telling them how trustworthy you are…most don’t care and the rest won’t read it.

So, tell them what you can offer and how it will advantage them. That’s all. Really, that’s it. Everything else is simply reducing your chance for success.

4. Tell them why it is important to respond. I see way to many emails that are all about the sender and nothing about the recipient. Why then would they respond. You need to start and end every email about the client. Why they may need your debt settlement help and maybe an examples of how you have already helped someone.

5. Add the name of a friend. This is a biggie. If you have helped one of their friends or this was a referral, don’t leave that out. A simple, “Susan suggested I drop you an email.” Guaranteed open and read–probably a reply. This can be a little sensitive in matters of debt counseling, but kept short and sweet it is a confidence builder for the client to reply.

6. Tell them what to do. This should be number 1. You can write a great subject line, brief and to the point email, but if you forget to tell them what you want them to do next you will lose them.

This is a human behavior thing. The first reaction is to scan and discard. However, if you close with a simple clear instruction–”Call me at 555-1212.”–it is very likely to happen. However, if you end with “hope to hear from you” or leave your contact information in the email signature box you have created just enough resistance to lose.

Are you looking for free debt settlement leads? If you find any let me know, but aged debt settlement leads are pretty close. At pennies on the dollar you can get high quality Internet generated debt inquiries.

That’s right, instead of buying arbitrary names and addresses for direct mail you can get leads that asked to be called. Do you want to learn a little more about the aged debt leads business?

Internet Leads

Most aged debt leads are originally sourced through the Internet. They are real people making inquiries, via web forms to various online marketing offers. This simple fact already makes them a very valuable sales leads because at some point they were motivated to provide their personal data–name, phone number, and email.

Obviously conditions can change for the customer and they may get the debt relief they need. However, in most cases (as statistics continue to show) over 65% of Internet leads never get contacted. That means there is a pretty good chance those cheap aged debt leads are still waiting for a call-back.

Scrubbed for Data Integrity

The other nice thing about aged debt leads is they are typically quality controlled. A good aged debt lead provider will carefully scrub aged leads they acquire for good phone numbers and email addresses. Unlike your average real-time lead an aged lead has time to be reviewed for obvious fake data.

Proven Effective

Most importantly these aged debt leads have been proven effective. Maybe just as effective as real-time Internet leads. After all the difference between 3% and 1% (or even less) conversion is quickly wiped out by the savings you get buying aged data.

What’s even more amazing about the aged debt settlement lead opportunities is that nurtured over time many will eventually convert. Debt clients are notoriously cautious and nervous about debt relief offers. Given the time to build trust and provide valuable email education you will see many come to you for help.

So, they are not quite free, but given your conversion profits and the cheap debt lead price–they are very likely to be free debt leads in the end!

I know from my clients that loan modifications are still a booming business. And one of the most critical components is understanding a borrowers debt-to-income ratio. More simply how much “qualifying” debt are they paying every month compared to their monthly income?

This apparently simple calculation can get very complex.

Are we talking about front-end DTI or back-end DTI? Does alimony and child support count? How is it calculated if you are self-employed? How does home equity loans or credit line impact this ratio?

These are just a few of the important questions that are plaguing your loan modification clients. To help you build a good loan modification sales script and tools for this customer base went looking into my archives and on other smart websites and this is what I found:

• My own authoritative post on loan modification DTI calculations
• A great article by the author of Loan Modification for Dummies, Ralph Roberts
• A really good video on how to calculate DTI for a loan modification

I hope this helps you and your loan modification customers. This is the centerpiece of qualifying most of your loan modification clients.

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Phone skills and sales scripts can be a huge advantage in any sales discipline. However, there are few industries that I can think of where these skills and scripts are AS IMPORTANT as they are in the debt business. Breaking through the threshold of resistance for a customer response is no great than in a debt client. These consumers are beaten, bruised, and battered by fast talking scams, crooks, and collectors. The ring of the phone makes them shrink and cringe with anxiety.

That means you need to keep your skills sharp and continually look for opportunities to change up you game. Review other techniques. Here are some resources to review for new ideas:

• DebtSkinny.com – This is a great site with lots of Debt Relief resources and guides. In particular, I like these simple and straightforward voicemail scripts.
• MSTARS Debt Settlement Training – I have never personally tried these guys, but they seem to be one of only a few that specialize in debt settlement specific sales training.
• LeadCloser.com – This is a relatively new lead related blog, but has some good advice on debt sales scripts.
• Aged Lead Strategies – Yours truly has some ideas on some effective approaches to creating debt settlement sales scripts.

Whether you use these or find some sales scripts resources of your own, you should always be looking to freshen up your sales approach. Scripts can help you test new approaches in a disciplined and consistent way. Making it clearer to see what is and isn’t working in your sales process.

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Aged debt leads can be one of the most profitable and productive parts of your debt settlement business. Maximizing your prospective sales opportunities is half the battle in the debt business. The very nature of debt settlement implies that it is going to be difficult to help many of the people you contact.

This is why it is so critical to find a consistent flow of debt leads. Aged debt leads can be that steady flow without breaking tight marketing budgets.

But don’t they require a lot more effort? Not really. Here are 5 secrets to getting more with less from your aged debt leads.

1. Start with email. The best way to be efficient with your time and money is to spend less money and less time. Since aged debt leads are so affordable it is easy to buy a lot more for less. With less invested you can be a little less aggressive in turning every lead into a sale. That means that starting with email and not power dialing can be a very effective way to quickly flush out bright spots in your latest aged debt lead buy.

2. Give it a second try. Chances are your aged debt leads are already 30+ days from the initial inquiry so no need to jump on the phone just yet. Give it a day and hit them with a second email, referencing your first. This will quickly sort out bad email addresses and rattle the cages of those that are still actively seeking debt relief.

3. Call once. Now put on your headset and start calling. You emails have helped you sort the list and warm up the prospects. When you call and say your name and business you will get an, “ah ha!” response. Without those initial emails most of these customers are going to have a tendency to give strange voices the immediate hang-up. Remember they are probably being hounded by debt collectors.

4. Put them on ice. Okay, you have emailed and called. If you aren’t getting any response it is time to put them back on ice. Chances are, once you have removed all your disconnects and email bounces, you have a good clean list that has found some temporary relief. Unfortunately, that is often all it is. So, give the list a rest and move them into a lead nurturing phase.

5. Get them on a steady drip. Have ready a steady stream of non-sales, education emails at the ready. This is the best way to (with little or no effort) strengthen the trust and credibility you have with this new list of prospective debt settlement customers. Get them queued up and continually pass new aged debt leads into this growing list. In no time you will be kicking out a good number of your own leads from this steady in-house email marketing campaign.
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