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:

1. Start building Realtor relationships the right way.

When I first started working with realtors, I was a machine. Nearly 40 realtors in 90 days is a heck of a lot of agents to have. But would I choose to go that route a second time around? Yes and no. Yes I would still use the same techniques to market, and yes I would still want as many agents as I could handle. The no comes into place when we look at why there were so many realtors.

See, as I got started, I was not aware of that all important figure that can be found at NAR: “Around 70% of real estate agents close fewer than 4 transactions per year.” I learned this the hard way! By the time I reached the 6 month mark, I had taken that group of 40 agents and filtered it down to 25. I reduced the number further still as time went on.

I took my lumps and learned from them. Real estate referral business was my primary source of business, but I had to learn how to be picky. If I had an opportunity to start over, I would be much more selective and target my efforts to market to agents who were closing at least 3 – 5 million per year in production. If I’m going to work my rear off to add value to the relationship, I want to know without a doubt that they have something to reciprocate with.

1. Build a database from the start

I laugh when I look at how much business was wasted in my early career. They’re not laughs of joy though. More like chuckles of the near deranged as I contemplate just how oblivious I was to the large number of loans just slipping through the cracks as my antiquated hand written records laughably served as my follow up system.

It’s not that I was unaware of what a database was, or how valuable it could be. It’s that I was “too busy” to investigate which system I should buy, and how best to follow up with my prospects and past clients. It wasn’t until my 3^rd year in the business that I got serious about follow up, and I’m still angry with myself!

I don’t care how busy you are, you cannot afford to keep ignoring a good follow up system! There are 139 excuses not to setup a follow up system, and only 1 reason to set it up: Because it will make you more money. There… Is that a good enough reason for you?

I’m bombarded with all these question and reasons for not proceeding with a follow up system. “But I don’t know what my follow up emails should say” is the most common.

Something is better than nothing as long as the email does not say “I’m just checking up on you,” (Shudders) that’s a quick way to get people to stop reading your emails. Put pen to paper imaging what you would want to hear from a service provider… That’s a start.

3. Learn how to market online

What Loan Officer Training issue would be complete without at least 3 “Here’s what Chad regrets” examples? I didn’t pick up on using the web as a marketing tool until 2003 – 2004. Even then, I did not take the time to learn how to use my website properly.

I fell smack into the middle of the “build it and they will come” category. After paying over $1,500 for a website, and $150 per month for nearly 6 months without a single peep from the site, I decided that I needed to find out what was wrong. (Notice how I didn’t scrap it because it wasn’t working? I decided to troubleshoot!)

I read everything I could get my hands on, and started tweaking the site. My biggest revelation came from reading how important it was to get good search engine rankings. I thought “Wait a minute… I’m already on the front page of the search engines!” I went to Google, Yahoo, etc, and typed in the name of my site, and poof! There I was!

It took a phone call to my “SEO Guy” to learn what now seems an embarrassingly simple concept. If I could go back in time, I’d shake myself while saying “Hey Chad! People don’t already know who you are! They’re typing in keywords such as st louis mortgage, st louis loan officer, and st louis real estate! Those are the words you want to be on the front page with!”

If I could push that restart button, I’d have my website up and running at least 1 year sooner, and have it optimized for search engine marketing right from day 1. I would then use it as a tool to funnel in dozens of extra leads each week, and show off those leads (I would target home buyers, not just refi leads) to my local real estate community to attract the heavy hitters earlier.

Ahhhh… What if, what if… Would you like to know what the real great part of this article is? You can learn from my mistakes and take action right here and right now.

We may not be able to jump back in time, or restart the cycle, but we can sure as heck make certain that we’re not looking back a year or 2 from now frustrated that we wasted a bunch of time not doing things the smart way!

This issue of Loan Officer Training is officially over with! I hope you learned something. If not. Well, if only I could click the restart button and rewrite thi….. Naaaah…

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