As a sales consultant, trainer, and author Im particularly interested in assessing the differences in selling abilities among various industries.

To my knowledge, this has never been determined, systematically. I havent come across an individual study that pits one type of industry against the next with respect to its persuasive abilities.

One thing that I do in my consulting practice is mystery shopping where Ill call numerous companies in a given sector. Recently, Ive been assessing the inbound call handling capabilities of mortgage brokers.

There are some general tendencies that are apparent across industries, but there are others that seem specific to certain types of companies.

I can say, categorically, that mortgage brokers cannot sell well.

Ive called lots of them, rating them on various characteristics, and here are a few of my findings.

(1) Loan Officers (salespeople) fail to close deals, to proactively ask for the business. This is, arguably, the worst sin of all.

(2) They dont even ask for my name and phone number, to customize the call or to track and to follow-up.

(3) They act as if theyre selling a commodity and not a value-added service that is unique.

(4) They allow callers to control conversations, deciding when they begin, end, the topics covered, and other vital matters.

(5) They sound as if theyre thinking, There are more of you where you came from!

And it is this last point, the assumption that demand for mortgages is always going to be robust that is informing every other weakness on this list.

Though I dont have statistics on this, my guess is that the majority of firms came into existence during the last four years when interest rates were at bargain-basement levels.

In lush times, selling skills take a back seat to order taking and paper processing. Mere clerks can clean-up by having little more going for them than a pulse.

Its like being a stockbroker when the Dow is soaring. As they say, Everyones a genius in a bull market!

A bear market is hitting the mortgage industry, Real estate values are bloated and shrinking fast, the inventory of unsold homes is increasing, interest rates are much higher than they were, and inflation might make them spike even more.

In light of what seems to be looming as a perfect storm of obstacles, will this industry wake up and learn some selling skills and disciplines?

Not before a number of firms shut down, especially the ones that have been effortlessly riding a wave of success during the past few years.