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This time of year is always one that I cherish and while 2020 has certainly been one for the books, I believe it’s important that we keep in mind what is truly important…love, friendship, and support. Everyone’s journey is different, but I want you to know that I am here for you and I sincerely thank you for continuing to be here for me too.

Happy holidays, my friend! 

– Carl White

So I was on a group page on Facebook and an LO was telling a story of how a prospect said he was being quoted some super low rate at another mortgage company.

This LO was looking for scripts to reel the borrower back in because the LO was seeing this as a disaster in the making.

I had a question and a thought.

Question:  “How’s it going with the other 39 people that you have pre-approved this month?”

Thought:  “This is too late in the process for a script to work, we need to address this on our first conversation with them.” (I’ll give you a script for this in just a minute)

First let’s cover the question.

I have found that as a general rule, for every 4 leads, I have one closing. (my team and I have closed 10’s of thousands of loans…. literally).

How that works is approximately half of the referred leads we get are “approvable” and we close about 50% of those.  So if we get 100 referred leads, 50 of them are approvable, and we close 25 of those.

The other half of those either…

1. End up not buying or refinancing
2. End up shopping us

We understand that matrix and instead of focusing on trying to change an industry wide matrix (that is very likely not to be changed on any large scale)…

…. we focus on getting more referred leads…

You see, shoppers are going to shop. 

So instead of spending a ton of time chasing those shoppers, which is like herding cats, we focus on Getting More High Quality REFERRED LEADS.

How do we do that?

We have 4 different strategies that we strategically implement that does just that.

Zero cold calling, and not a bunch of magical fairy dust widgets that promise the moon and deliver only a “money sucking noise out of your wallet”. 

We can show you the 4 strategies here on a quick zoom meeting…. For free ☺

Now, we do have a script that we use on the shoppers, but we use it BEFORE THEY START SHOPPING US.

It’s called the “If I can <insert in blank> will you commit to me being your lender on this purchase / refinance?”

It sounds like this…

“Ok Bob and Sue, so based on our conversation and preliminary information, it looks like your monthly payment is going to be <insert in number> with a down payment of <insert in number>, and funds to bring to closing will be <insert in number>. 

So if I can have <insert in number> as your monthly payment with you bringing <insert in number> to the closing table, will you commit to me to be your lender so that I can commit myself and my team to start working on it so that we can close on time?”

Once somebody verbally commits, it’s against human nature to go against that.

And if somebody says that they won’t give that commitment, well then, you have identified this person as a shopper and it will likely not be a good use of your time.

I get it, there are some scripts and spreadsheets, things like mortgage coach, and other great products that do help.  We use all those things too, but if somebody won’t commit on that initial call, then we know what to expect… and are not disappointed when they do what we know they are likely to do.  Shoppers are going to shop…

The true key to all of this is, GET MORE REFERRED LEADS!!

It’s way more likely that you’ll close more loans when that is your focus.

How do you do that?

We’ll show you how to get more referred leads here on a quick zoom call.

Once you have more high quality referred leads, no 1 individual deal going sideways won’t ruffle your feathers as there are soooo many of “them” and only 1 of you ☺

To your success and coolness,

Carl White

PS.  This is the link where we’ll show you how to get referred leads without buying leads or paying for online ads.

July 11, 2020
From: The Desk of Carl White

Are You Too Busy?

To all of my loan officers, remember busy is the poison of growth. Let me say that again, “busy is the poison of growth!” 

If you’re “too busy right” now, I’ve got news for you…you need to hire help. You need to hire help because you simply can’t do it all yourself.  

So many in our industry are nearly drowning in business right now, which on the surface sounds like a good thing, but the comments and conversations I continue to have with loan officers is that they are just too busy to go out and get even more business. 

As the loan originator, it’s your job to do the “loan getting” activities, like meeting with referral partners and generating leads. You focus on bringing in the business. From there, you have a team in place who chase conditions, put out fires, etc. Without you, nothing else comes through the pipeline. So if you’re not sourcing and generating leads right now, what are you focusing on? If you’re “too busy” to source new business right now, what will your pipeline look like 30 days, 60 days, even 90 days from now?  

To get off the loan officer roller coaster, that is one month you’ve got all the closing in the world and the next month you’ve got none, you have to have help. 

“But Carl, how do I hire someone, and who do I hire to come on to my team? And can I even afford to hire someone right now?” 

Finding The Right Solution To, “Too Busy”

First things first, you can’t afford NOT to have someone on your team if you’re too busy. The cost of inactivity is always greater than the cost of taking action. The first step is knowing what needs to be done. When you know what needs to be done in your mortgage business, you can assign certain tasks to certain people. After that you can begin to hire the right person (or people) to help you carry out those tasks. In my branch, we use an assessment test called, The DiSC Profile. It helps us understand what someone’s strong suit is. Because we understand that, our branch runs like a well oiled machine because everyone knows what they’re good at and they are operating in their highest and best use. 

We have our Loan Officer Assistants and Loan Partners, Processors, Assistants, and others on our team take the DiSC Profile. Incorporating this assessment into our hiring process has been the catalyst for hiring what we like to call our “A” team!  

Want more information about understanding and implementing the DiSC Profile in your hiring process? [Click here to schedule your complimentary walkthrough session], we’ll show you exactly where you can get even more information about hiring and building your A team.

See ya on the inside,
Carl

During the season of cheerfulness and giving, it’s important that we support one another. I wanted to share this message of gratitude and encouragement and let you know that I support you the way you’ve supported me over the years. Thank you & happy holidays, my friend!