Loan Officer Training: No More Lies!
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I know what you’re thinking… “Hey Chad, what the heck are you doing posting on your blog at 4:37 am Monday morning!?” Well, something has been eating at me. I needed to get it out, so here we go.
When things go wrong, what do you do? When something isn’t working for you, how do you respond? I cannot count the number of times loan officers call me up begging for a solution to their lead generation problems, but in the same breath they tell me all the things they have tried that don’t work.
I hear things such as:
“That doesn’t work here”
“Realtors are different here – they won’t work with me”
“I tried marketing to fsbo’s – that doesn’t work”
See where this is headed? Me being the ever-curious individual that I am, I cannot help but dig a little further. It takes a little pressing, but usually I find that these same loan officers who are complaining that “nothing works” are usually trying something out for all of 2 or 3 weeks and then giving up!
This is not what I call commitment guys! Tossing something aside because it didn’t yield results in 2 or 3 weeks is a guaranteed way to fail. Even those who stick it out a bit longer are usually so convinced that they are doing everything right the first time around, that all the blame for the failure goes to the marketing plan, and not to themselves.
But let me ask you a pointed question. How many of us could pick up a guitar and hammer out an AC/DC solo the first time around with no practice? Not I! (I’ve got the earplugs to prove it!) Let’s try something simpler. When you first learned to drive a car with a manual transmission (Or even an automatic for that matter) – Did you hop in and head out for a cross country road-trip?
Of course not, it took a bit of practice to smooth things out and make it a habit. So how come so many originators assume that they’re doing everything right, and point their fingers at “realtors” “fsbo’s” “the market” “the marketing plan” etc?
When your lead generation efforts go a little “haywire” take a step back, look a little closer at what you are (and are not) doing, and apply some common sense. More often than not, you’ll find that there are several pieces of the puzzle missing, or in desperate need of tweaking.
If you’re really smart (Taking a cue from Stefan’s post last night and adding some “peer pressure”) you’ll invest some time into your career even before things get rough. Remember what they say about “an ounce of prevention?” (Whoever “they” are, they’re pretty smart!)
To make this task a no brainer for you, I’ve attached a useful document that can help you with this exercise. It’s name is nothing special (I simply call it my Accountability Form) but as you’ll soon see, the document is. It will help you zero in on what you’re doing right, and more importantly, what needs some attention.
