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Teaching to a group of prospects, large or small, can be a quick way to establish credibility and differentiate from competitors. Besides, teaching, next to writing, is a powerful method that promotes you as being a specialist.

Teaching Makes You Memorable

Being memorable is one of the toughest aspects to marketing. For example, if you mailed fliers to your prospects last week, how many do you think still remember it? Can you recall the billboard or the ad on the city bus you saw coming to work today? Here today, gone tomorrow is often the results of our marketing tactics.

Teaching, on the other hand, is different. Remember when you were in school? Who was your favorite teacher? I’ll bet that one or two names and faces come to mind. Teaching is memorable and one of the few marketing strategies that can have a long-term impact.

The way to get noticed and stand out is to do the things that many loan officers won’t do. Teaching is one of them. Many perceive it to be too much work or that they don’t have the confidence. Yet, teaching is a strategy that makes your services most visible and memorable.

Take one of my clients for example; he used teaching as his promotional strategy for attracting agents. What’s most fascinating is that he hasn’t taught his class for over 10 months, and he still gets a call every week from a different agent who attended and now needs his help. Not only do agents perceive him as a teacher, but also view him as an expert.

Be a Subject Matter Expert

One of your marketing objectives is to be recognized as a subject matter expert, someone perceived as being an expert on a particular subject. I believe that everyone, including you, has an area of interest that can be developed into a curriculum and taught to others.

Course Outline

If you already know your subject matter, than you’re ready to write a course outline. Whenever I write a course I use these four questions that always help me come up with the outline and cuts my time in half.

1. Who is your targeted audience?

   Are you teaching new or experienced agents? Are you teaching agents who solely focus on listings or buyers? Do you only want to target agents who farm a certain geographic area or demographic?

2. What are your learning objectives?

   At the end of the training, what are the one, two or three concepts each participant should have learned? Do these concepts support your subject matter?

3. What do you want to accomplish?

   Is this your way of introducing your services? Do you expect to walk away with loan applications? Do you want permission for each agent to market your services in the future to them?

4. What is the next step for the agent?

   Do you want them to participate in future classes? Do you want them to meet with you and discuss how to form a working relationship?

After writing your outline using these questions, you’re ready to begin filling in the gaps. You’ll find it easier to do than skipping the outline process altogether. I suggest you keep your information limited to 30 minutes, which means you’re only teaching about 20 minutes worth of material – just enough to teach one solid concept.

Retention of information is much easier when you cover less material, besides if you’re class is helpful, they’ll want you to return to teach it again. Aha! - Your hidden agenda.

Soon thereafter, you can approach brokers and solicit invitations to begin teaching your class to agents. Brokers, particularly independent agencies unaffiliated with a national franchise, are most likely to accept your invitation to teach since their training resources are limited.