One of the questions that came up on our live Power Call: “Do you pay realtors for referrals, to which I immediately replied:

“I’ve never paid a realtor for a referral in my entire life”.

First of all, referral partners (whether a luxury realtor, financial advisor, lawyer, etc;) have 2 main priorities when working with mortgage brokers:

  1. Can you get the deal done quickly and professionally?
  2. Can you give my client an experience that will leave him in awe and reflect positively on me?

And that’s it. If you’re working with referral partners’ who are hinting at (or outright asking you for a commission split), my advice to you: dump em’. They aren’t worth spending your time on. If they are so money hungry it probably means they aren’t doing something right in their own business and in turn, they are going to attract the wrong types of clients, clients you do not want to work with.

 

4 Ways to Deter Vampire Referral Partners from Draining Your Commissions

 

  1. Make sure they know that you know what you’re doing. This boils down to your personal branding, how you hold yourself when meeting with them, your confidence and letting them know you have the infrastructure, your team, your underwriting hub, to get their deal done quickly and professionally. Even if you’re first starting out, get into the habit of talking in terms of “my team and I will get everything done quickly and professionally delivering white glove service to you and your clients”.

 

  1. Position yourself as a problem solver. You should work this into your elevator pitch, “I’m known in the mortgage industry as a problem solver. With access to unlimited private capital, specialized lenders including the big 6, credit unions, foreign institutions, when a client needs funds for whatever project, if I can’t get it done, nobody else in Canada can”. You solve people’s problems and are used to working with complex mortgage solutions.

 

  1. Make friends. Get to genuinely know some of your referral partners and avoid working with partners who want a “tit-for-tat” referral business. One you make friends with a referral partner the relationship changes in a way where you are both endorsing each other because you genuinely like each other. Good things happen this way.

 

  1. Get Endorsed. Aside from getting mortgage leads, you want referral partners to endorse, recommend and introduce you to their inner circle of clients and friends. When asking for an endorsement, make it as simple as possible. Bring out your phone “hey would you mind doing a quick non-professional video clip letting others know what a kick-ass job I did on this one?!”.

 

When you implement these 4 items into your referral partner strategy, you will never have to have a commission-split discussion again.