In this episode, Aaron Brown of Box Home Loans talks about the importance of focusing on yu ideal customers and doing things differently and setting yourself apart from the pack if you TRULY want to achieve HUGE, TREMENDOUS SUCCESS.
Aaron has a dozen different ventures within the mortgage industry. Some successful, many weren’t. But he definitely learned from them all, took what he learned and applied it to Box Home Loans.
A dozen years as an entrepreneur in the mortgage industry, trying different ventures and learning from failures has gotten him into a position that launched the concept of Box Home Loans.
Here are the highlights of my conversation with Aaron:
Aaron’s first coolest sales experience with flying Kingfisher Airlines in India: Being treated first class
Quoting Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow:
“If you could create a competing business with your core business and that competing business could operate on thinner margins and charge less for the customer and still be profitable, then why don’t you do that?”
It took them two years to figure out how to do that, but what they achieved after trying things out and learning from their mistakes is 1,811% growth over 3 years
Keys to the tremendous success of Box Home Loans:
1. Focus on your ideal customer.
- Specializing and cutting away from the pack
- Only did loans for people with terrific credit (700 and above)
- Only lent on owner-occupied properties
- Only going after 1/3 of the market and giving them a really great deal
- They have perfected the Vanilla Ice Cream Loan model
2. Differentiate yourself within the industry.
- Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Concept: the principle of being able to do something and specialize at it and be better than anybody else who has it
- Tried an all Spanish mortgage company, didn’t work, that’s okay!
- The NEED to BE different
3. Create a process.
- Have a system to be able to duplicate the experience you provide to your customer
- Having the system is just half of the equation
- The other half: Getting your people to follow the system
4. Technology
- There’s no way to provide the product in and of itself
- Scaling it from 25 loans/month to 250 loans overnight
- Building technology that was specific for them
They automated everything they can not to eliminate people but for people to focus more on solving complex problems and interact with other people for greater experience
The Power of Referrals
Communication also plays a HUGE role
Explosive growth of Box Home Loans came from REFERRALS
- Having a BHAG – Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal
- Great Price + Great Service = Great Experience
- Your customers become your advocates
They got 75% conversion rate for having trusted third party referring your business.
Current projects Box Home Loans is working on:
- Working on the purchase market
- Capitalizing on both relationship business and the digital arena
- Working with technology, systems and processes – providing tools to real estate agents to help them differentiate and drive purchase for loans
Get connected with Aaron though emailing him at aaron@boxhomeloans.com
Receive an awesome gift from Aaron! Please visit www.boxhomeloans.com/thesalesevangelist
Aaron’s Major Takeaway:
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