- Ok, so no video recordings here… The tone of the post just reminded me of one of those “Caught On TAPE!” Series…
Blooper time people! Usually my posts are very serious in tone, and <gasp!> educational in nature. Looking for a light-hearted post today, so I began thinking back to some of my early days as a loan officer, and some of the more laughable (At least now they are) mistakes I made.
But fair is fair, so if I’m going to serve up some stories, I want you to share as well. Ok, now that we’ve agreed, here’s my worst of the worst story:
One of the most difficult transitions for me as a new loan officer was dealing with those clients who would never send in their stips, but yet would call multiple times per day demanding you “hurry up!”
So I had this client who became quite hostile when I told her the loan was not ready, as she still had not delivered proof of income, bank statements, etc. She called and left me a really nasty voicemail. Another loan officer was in the office with me as I listened to her angry message.
I decided it was best I call her back to diffuse the situation. I left her a voicemail once again reminding her that the loan would not make progress until she delivered the documents I had asked for multiple times now. I set down the phone on the carriage after I finished leaving my message, and proceeded to complain to the loan officer in my office.
He inquired about the situation, and I explained how ridiculous this woman was, and made some cracks about “She probably doesn’t want to give me her bank statements because she must not have the money she told me she does to qualify!”
The words and the back story had barely left my mouth when I realized in horror that there was another voice in the room… “What the?” I looked around for the disembodied voice but could not find it! Where is this sound coming from? My eyes finally settled on my phone!
In my frustration with the customer, I apparently set the phone down too quickly and the phone was not resting on the carriage properly – meaning that I never hung up! I reached down to snatch the phone up hoping the voicemail system would give me an option to cancel and re-record my message!
The pay-off for my speedy phone grab? “Thank You – Goodbye!” AHHHHHHHHHH! I was too late. The already angry and unreasonable customer was sure to blow her top! But what could I do? You know that sinking feeling you get in your stomach that comes with the realization of impending doom? That’s what I enjoyed for the next few hours waiting for the inevitable tongue lashing that was sure to come with every ring of my phone.
So what happened? I never heard back from her. I often wondered if it was because she found my comments insulting, or if she realized from my message that I was not going to approve her loan without proper proof of income and funds in the bank.
Either way, I learned an important lesson that day. But not the one you might expect. I learned to always manually press the button on the phone with your finger and listen for the dial tone before venting in frustration about a customer…Or a family member…Or anyone for that matter! (No high-horse soap box preaching today folks! We all have to vent sometime! It’s how we stay sane when things get tense)
So how about you? Any interesting stories to tell from the trenches? If this post gets enough interesting responses, I just might be able to be persuaded to share my story about the borrower who brought her father with her to the closing table… After he passed away! (Yea, think about what that one means for a moment!) Now share!
#1 – Our latest video is a great follow up to our keyword research and online marketing instruction. (Have you been following our latest calls and blog posts on Lenderama?) The video is posted here, and I strongly recommend you set aside the 7 minutes needed to watch. This can change your perception of online marketing…
#2 – On the same note, our next live tele-conference call: “Online Mortgage Marketing – What You Need To Know” has been scheduled for Tuesday May 5 at 1:30 CST. Follow the link below to get your call in details. Don’t get left behind!
It’s fun to imagine what you would do differently if you could just hit the restart button. I’ve often asked myself what I would do differently if I had to start my career over in today’s market.
While some things never change within a sales and marketing industry, some things have evolved quite a bit. If I were a loan officer training to get started ASAP, here’s what I would do: Read More→
Welcome to 2009! As I struggle to retrain my tiny brain to write 09 instead of 08, I eagerly look forward to what this year will bring! I hope all of you are putting together a solid marketing plan. I know it seems to be the same song and dance year after year, but what are you going to do differently this year?
I want you to take some time and examine your current situation and ask a tough question. That question is “Why?” Why am I in this situation? What behaviors, habits, and events have worked together to land me into my current situation – be it good or bad?
Straight answers work best here, even if it’s not what you want to hear or admit. I’ll give you a little peak into a few of these “self chats” I’ve had with myself. I put everything on paper or into files on my PC, so I can always go back and find my habits. Here’s one from a few years back:
I have a serious question for you.What are you doing about the internet? Hands down, one of the most powerful mortgage marketing tools around is the web, yet most loan officers aren’t sure even where to begin. Why is this a concern? Well have a look:
Estimated U.S. Population – 337,000,000
Estimated U.S. Internet Users – 248,000,000
In other words, 73.6% of the U.S. now use the web! Talk about the perfect advertising medium! How many mortgage marketing tools can you think of that have such reach? Not many, especially if you’re looking at the cost associated with such advertising.
So what’s stopping you from using this tool? For most, it’s the simple fact that they really don’t know what to do! How about we give you a tad bit of inspiration here…
Marry both online and offline efforts. With the web, you have a tool that can provide instant, and customized info. This makes it easy for your target market to get more info. Need an example? It’s no secret I am a huge fan of marketing to realtors. I primarily targeted the top producers in my market, who under normal circumstances wouldn’t give a loan officer the time of day – I’m sure you know what I mean…
My solution was to setup a miniature site that used the realtors name as part of the URL. Then I would use a combination of a quick mailer and/or phone call to give him/her the web address. Let me ask you a question. If you received a notice that there was a website with your name as the web address, would you check it out? For example: www.chadweber.com would definitely get my attention, especially if someone contacted me and informed made me aware that it was made specifically for me! You can’t resist.
Seem like a lot of work? (It requires maybe 20 – 30 minutes at the most to craft a personal site if you’re using the right tools) It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. A realtor listed in the top 100 – 250 within the state is usually closing over 10 – 15,000,000 in transactions each year, and far more if you’re in a high dollar area.
Just one of these agents giving you most of their business could easily add 6 figures to your bottom line. So my question to you, is this… What else do you have on your “to do” list that requires just 30 minutes of your time and can possibly add an extra $100,000 or more to your paycheck? My guess is not much, as most marketing efforts don’t carry the same potential as a top producing referral source.
This is just 1 tiny example of how powerful the web is. Need another? Well, I have a very powerful example for you. Simply click the link to get 3 days worth of instruction FREE. What you learn just may change your mind about how you approach marketing…
Great mortgage marketing ideas are worth their weight in gold. In fact, I think this topic is worth a nice little chat, don’t you?
I’d would like to touch on a few points – First point being that ‘rough times’ are also hidden opportunities. Here’s an email I received from an associate of mine about 30 days ago that illustrate this point nicely:
“Hey Chad, I know you used to bid on Google Adwords a while back quite a bit. I was checking some keywords this morning and thought you would find this interesting. Last year your top 2 keywords were about $4.15 per click to maintain the #2 and 3 spots. This morning I saw that the exact same keywords are just $1.85 per click! Too funny! Not much competition these days.” Read More→
So you want to get mortgage leads in 2009 huh? Is it just me, or do the years seem to be getting shorter? Are you ready to keep the promises made this year and build the business you’ve always wanted? (One that pays very well?)
But what happens here in the real world? All these great sounding plans rarely have the staying power to make a difference right? Most plans fall by the way side as we get caught up in the day to day activities of being a loan officer.
What can be done to prevent this from happening? What lead generating activities can help you realize a great income in 2009? The following recommendations are my own personal opinions. Ultimately only you can decide what is going to work for you. Here’s my thoughts:
The Web - Saw this one coming from a mile away! You already know that the web is a great way to get mortgage leads. The internet has become a primary source of information for most of us. Weather, news, investments, research and more are all readily available.
It’s a great tool right? Are you using this tool to generate mortgage leads? If not, you’re missing out on one of the best ways imaginable to bring in more business than you can handle! I strongly urge you to learn the basics of blogging, direct marketing, and proper website deployment. Seems complex, but it really isn’t with the proper tools in place. Even the most “techno-phobic” of us can have a blog, website, and lead generating combo in place without diving too deeply into the technical part of this.
Follow Up Plan – My motto is to put as much as, if not more effort into your follow up plan as you do in prospecting! What good is a flood of leads if you cannot convert them? With such a big decision in front of them, many home buyers prefer not to make a snap decision. Heck, I know how they feel, as I do the same thing! I tend to research a bit before making a large purchase.
Knowing that most people tend to buy in this manner, you need to have an effective follow up system in place. A plan that consists of something other than “I’m calling you to touch base.” Ugh… As soon as you begin “touching base” with your prospects, you’re headed down hill. You’re a professional, and as such I’m certain you have something more valuable to offer than ‘touching base.’
Never show up empty handed when following up! Great articles, useful information, hand written thank you cards, email updates on options and more are all great additions to a follow up plan that will blow the guys who are still ‘touching base’ out of the water.
Shrink your Target, but cast a wider net – Stop going after everyone! Stop claiming that “anyone who wants to do a loan” is your target market, because it’s not true! That market is far too broad and undefined and you’ll go broke trying to tap it unless you have a 5 figure monthly advertising budget. Well… Do you? No? Good, then let’s get back to being realistic! You need to define your target, but use a bigger net to capture them if you want to generate mortgage leads with that magical quality known as ‘reliability.’. What does this illustration mean?
It means that even though you shrink your target market to a group of people you can really target effectively, you’re going to need a wider range of tools or bait to capture them. This is what I like to call ‘Market Domination.’ If you had a few web marketing activities feeding a call capture line, followed up by scheduled phone calls and finished off with automated email follow-ups, do you think you might be able to add a few extra closings per month to your pipeline?
Well of course! In fact, with such a wide net scooping up a targeted group of prospects, you stand a great chance of far exceeding just a few extra closings per month! Listen, even though I am a vendor of marketing tools for loan officers, I want you to take this advice and take action, even if it doesn’t involve my solutions.
If nothing else, get serious with yourself and ask the tough questions. Ask yourself: “Is there any legit reason why I cannot close 30 extra loans this year?” Or maybe you want to make that number 36, or 48? Whatever your goal, I want to know if there is any LEGIT reason you cannot grow your business this year.
I can tell you, for most of us the answer is no. The only thingt hat is stopping you is the lack of narrow market coupled with a big ‘ol net! Add those to the picture and suddenly this business seems a bit more exciting! Want to learn the best methods to generate mortgage leads in 2009? Here they are:
I get this question an awful lot… “If you were me, what would you do to jump-start your paycheck?” It’s a fair question as I can see where many of these loan officers are coming from. Just look at how much the market has changed.
The inherent problem in answering a question such as this one though, is I am not you. I have no clue how hard you work, if you will stick with it, what you are, or are not willing to do etc… There’s many variables involved here.
HOWEVER, let’s make a few sweeping assumptions to better allow me to answer this question. I’m going to assume that you work hard, I’m going to assume that you are telling me the truth when you say “I’ve tried everything” and I’m going to assume you’re actually working when you’re in the office, instead of emailing, and surfing the web… (Haha – You knew I couldn’t resist ribbing ya a bit there)
Ok, so what’s a great way to jump-start your pipeline?
#1 – Think big, think fast
If you listen to all the people who tell you to not expect quick turnaround for your marketing efforts, you’ll only do small minded marketing, because you EXPECT failure. When you expect failure, you “play it safe.” Can any of us really name any business, or person who has just exploded their business by “playing it safe?”
I can see an interview on TV now: “Well Bob, see, we reigned in our marketing efforts, and stopped meeting prospects and waited for them to call us, and BAM!!! Next thing you know we’re going Fortune 500!”
No. You need to THINK big before your actions will reflect and mimic your dreams.
loan officer #1 – Is thinking big. Knows he’s valuable and has a lot to offer, and he plans on getting at least 3 loans this month just from his realtor partners
loan officer #2 – Has heard that it takes 4 – 6 months from the “guru’s” to get any business from realtors
Who’s going to win this? Even if these 2 loan officers are identical in every single way EXCEPT for their mindset, who’s going to win? When you play to win, you do things you normally wouldn’t. When you do things you normally wouldn’t, you stir things up, get people excited, and HAVE FUN!
When you’re getting great results, you’re having fun right? Who can’t help but smile and laugh a bit when the loans keep piling in? It’s a great feeling. If you expect to win, you will win.
So that’s my advice for today. Try changing your thought process a bit and see what happens. ASSUME that your efforts this week will pay off big time, and then act like it’s already a reality. You’ll pick up the phone more, you’ll meet more agents, you’ll touch base with past clients, you’ll ask for referrals etc.
We’ll continue this discussion in my next post. I want to talk about the actual marketing efforts now that we have your mindset on the right path…
Today I’d like to share a little tip with you that has helped me out a lot. This would fall into the mortgage lead generation category. We’re all busy right? No one would argue that point. But don’t you often find that sometimes you feel like you’re working a LOT, and very little is getting done?
I hate that feeling, so I did something about it. I created a little sheet for myself, Monday – Friday. At the beginning of each week I spent about 30 minutes writing down the most important money making activities I could participate in. These were labeled as PRIORITY 1.
Other activities that still needed to get done were labeled as PRIORITY 2. As I ran low on time, I’d pull out my sheet and make sure that all the priority 1 tasks were completed. Seems so simple, but having the tasks written down kept me from those forehead slapping moments of “DARN! I can’t believe I forgot….”
You know those moments well don’t you? We all do. So why not give this a shot? Organize your day so that you’re spending most of your time doing the things that get you paid.
A few weeks ago we discussed call capture systems, now we want to have a look at your email marketing. Email is a valuable tool of course, and one that all of us should be using to generate more business. Before we go any further though, I just have to get this out of my system:
- An estimated 183 billion emails are sent each day
- 2 million emails are sent around the world each second
- There are more than 1.3 billion unique email users around the world
- The first spam email was sent in 1978 to around 600 individuals
