We’ve all seen successful credit repair businesses and wondered if they had discovered the secret to sales or if they were just supremely lucky. It’s true that sometimes there is an element of luck – being in the right place at the right time to close a deal – but more often their success can be attributed to having solid marketing and sales strategy.
Identifying the Problem
It is not a secret that there is a huge credit problem in the United States. More than 25% of Americans have a credit score below 599 and almost two-thirds of Americans identify as “always or usually” living paycheck-to-paycheck. Because of this, home-ownership is declining, and Americans are unable to access the financing they need to make large purchases. Whether this crisis is due to consumer irresponsibility or predatory lenders ultimately doesn’t matter. What does matter to you and your clients is finding a solution to their individual problems. As a credit repair business, your role is to counsel customers and provide the advice, education, and resources to access credit that they wouldn’t normally be approved for.
Asking the Right Questions
Clients can sense fairly quickly whether you are approaching them to make money and close a deal or if you are sincerely interested in helping them. If you want to have the right relationship with your clients you have to be in it for the right reasons. Think of yourself as a trusted advisor and focus on building trust. Make sure you are asking the right questions: What happened? How did it happen? How long has it been going on? What are your goals?
Trust goes both ways, so it is also important to tell your clients about yourself. People don’t buy what you do, they buy how and why you do it. Explain to them why you got into the credit repair business. Sell people on your passion and authenticity and they will trust you to help them with their problems. People with credit problems are often taken advantage of, so offer them not only your credit repair services, but also educational materials and resources to help them help themselves.
Creating Your Marketing Strategy
By focusing on building trust and asking the right questions, you can build a simple, targeted marketing and sales strategy. People often know what their problem is but need to be educated on the solution. Do you need help getting back on track? Need a new car? Tired of renting? Have you been denied? Bad credit? We can help. Remember your “why,” who you target depends on your passion and purpose. Remember the standard sales and marketing funnel (Attract, engage, nurture, sell, deliver) but also remember that every business is different. Your funnel may be different based on your personal philosophy, and that’s okay.
Taking Advantage of your Credit Repair Software
Credit repair software, like Credit Repair Cloud, can take a lot of the heavy lifting out of engaging and building trust with potential clients through automation features. If you automate your system the right way, customers will already know about your personal beliefs and passions, how you may be able to help them, and have some level of trust with you before you even have an initial conversation. Successful automation
- A landing page: When a potential client clicks on an ad, they should be taken to the web lead form on your site where they can enter their contact information, and you receive a lead in your Credit Repair Cloud for your sales team to follow up.
- An introductory email: Once a client requests more information through your landing page, they should receive a welcome email from you. This should inform them about credit repair in general, but more specifically about why you got into credit repair and why you feel passionate about helping people. This will set you apart from others in the industry and begin building trust.
- An educational email: After a day or two, follow up with an email that includes educational resources. Clients will feel that you are not just trying to sell to them, but sincerely want to help them with their situation. Even if they don’t sign up with you, you still want to provide the resources to help them help themselves.
Closing the Deal
Continue to follow up with occasional emails or phone calls to build trust. Even if that particular client does not sign up for your services, you will be at the top of mind if they or someone in their network needs credit repair in the future.
Ultimately, the goal is to invite the client to a free consultation where you will explain the credit repair process, how the the bureaus work, give them a general timeline, help them to order a credit report and encourage them to start services. Be honest and realistic, be affordable and never promise things you cannot deliver.
Being Transparent
Remember that credit repair is a “people business”. You’re not doing anything that they cannot do for themselves, but you’re doing it in a more organized manner because you have software to save you time and keep you organized. You also have a better sense of the law and how things work. This makes you the trusted expert.
Each time you work in Credit Repair Cloud, your client will be notified of changes and updates. They can log in to their portal to see your progress, and it makes the entire process transparent, with no secrets. Transparency builds trust.
Educate your clients
Credit Repair is 10% document processing and 90% credit education. The actual “work” per client is minimal; a few mouse clicks and the cost of a stamp. Your more important task is to educate your client to change their credit habits, to pay bills down to below 25% of the credit line and to stop applying for credit. Those 3 things alone will increase the score, and that’s only the beginning.
