What do fishing and getting clients have in common?

As anyone in the reverse mortgage industry can attest, some days are so busy you hardly have time to catch your breath, while other days you tap you fingers waiting for the phone to ring.

Fishing (one of my favortie pastimes) is the same. I’ve had days where you couldn’t turn around without getting another bite, while other days have been spent wondering why on earth I picked such a boring hobby.

 Much like getting clients, there are many ways to fish. If you have no money, you go to the fishing pier. In California, you don’t even have to have $35 for a fishing license (or $12 for the day) – so that’s the cheapest option. And, of course, this “cheap” option sucks. In fact, it is such a drag that when anyone actually catches a fish every other penniless schmuck on the pier gathers around to ogle it!

Being at the fishing pier is like schlepping to all the senior centers handing out fliers. It takes up time, so you tell yourself you’re doing something (“being productive”) but you can’t really build much of a business out of it.

For those who have had enough of the fishing pier, one option available out here is the “cattle boat”. That’s where you cram onto the boat with 50-75 other people and hope you catch something. It’s an OK way to spend the day. It’s cheap ($45-85 depending on how long you’re out) and you’re likely to catch a few fish. Of course, you usually won’t catch any trophies, and you have to worry that the tourist next to you who has never held a fishing pole doesn’t get his hook in your eye and send you to the hospital. Still, it’s not as bad as the pier.

This is like buying “leads” that are sold to a bunch of other people. You can do OK by it. Most people won’t do “great”, but it’s not really horrible. And, if you live your life to be just “not really horrible” that might be an ok way to go.

Of course, for those who like to grab life by the ears, there is a better way. Not so long ago, I chartered a boat. It wasn’t cheap. But my goal was to have a great day (as opposed to “not really horrible”) and catch a bunch of fish. The best way to do that is have someone who knows how to get you to the fish! Here are a couple of shots of what happened when we went fishing the “right” way –

While we were out on the high seas, picking up enough dinner to last a whole year, a bunch of guys on the pier ended the day with a shrug, and the lame excuse, “well, I guess they weren’t biting today.”

 

 

Now, fishing like this is like buying a “real” marketing campaign. And, maybe it seems like a lot of money. However, your choice of how you decide to market your product doesn’t determine how you spend your Saturday. It determines how you’ll spend your career. And, it it were me, I’d try to be one of the guys hauling in a few hundred pounds of tuna instead of one of the schmucks at the pier who might have gotten an anchovie or two and threw back some baby bass that was too small.

A Bucket of What??

In 1993 the United States Government passed the “Bucket Drowning Prevention Act” which requires bucket makers to warn consumers that babies can drown if they fall into a bucket full of water.  Only around 1 in 100,000 infant deaths resulted from kids falling into buckets, but from a political standpoint this bill was very hard not to back. Who would be against saving babies?

While most people who examined the facts would conclude that such legislation is a complete waste of time, at least it doesn’t actually harm anybody. However, recently HUD has been in the process of enacting its own version of a “bucket law” – only instead of proposing to save babies, HUD is proposing to “save” people over the age of 62 by treating them like babies.

HUD proposes to save these folks by requiring people applying for a reverse mortgage to prove to the reverse mortgage counselor that they “need” the product. Talk about a Pandora’s Box! Scattered about the Country are “counselors” with various degrees of training – and various opinions as to what does and does not constitute a “need”. The notion of “need” is extremely subjective. Many things that are considered “basic” needs today – such as cellular phones or internet access, didn’t exist for the general population just 25 years ago! The level of difficulty inherent in relying on an ad-hoc network of “non-profit” organizations to assay a person’s level of need in a fair and uniform manner throughout the Country is staggering. Moreover, most reverse mortgage counselors’ training on the product consists of a two-day training course – hardly sufficient to provide the level of acuity needed to truly assess  a person’s financial needs.

Aside from the questions of fairness come the questions of the product’s mission in the first place. Like Social Security and Medicare, the Government put in place the reverse mortgage program to help senior citizens live out their remaining years in some level of comfort and dignity. Yet, in the interest of “saving” seniors, HUD wants to take away that dignity by having them essentially grovel over the phone to some (potentially poorly trained) counselor they’ve never met to prove that they are “worthy” of accessing the equity in THEIR home.

Traditionally, in times of economic strain, there is a public outcry for regulators to protect the public from potential abuses. However, there is most certainly a line between measures that are protective and measures that are simply draconian. Many seniors who didn’t need the reverse mortgage in the past, after seeing their retirement portfolios in tatters, have turned to the product as a “lifeline” to buttress their “safety nets.” It seems that HUD should be doing everything it can to make the product more accessible instead of erecting more barriers.  

Sticking warning labels on buckets isn’t likely to stop a baby from drowning, and adding obstacles to the counseling process isn’t likely to keep thieves from defrauding retirees. Having “counselors” with in some instances two days of training classes stand in the way between a senior and the reverse mortgage seems rather Orwellian at worst and a total waste of time at best.

Welcome to the Reverse Mortgage Lead Blog

Thanks for visiting my blog on reverse mortgage leads. I’ve been helping companies do direct mail campaigns for reverse mortgage leads since 2003.

My goal with this blog is to provide content that people in the industry will find interesting. Some posts will cover marketing while some will discuss topics of interest to the industry in general. I invite comments, questions, suggestions, etc.

Again, thanks for visiting and I hope you find my future posts of interest.

-Rob Misheloff