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It’s clear you need a team to close more loans – that’s just how it works. Think of yourself as the rainmaker who circulates in your community and gets loans in the door. From there, your team needs to handle the details. There are two primary operating models for such teams; I like to call them the Assembly Line Model and the Pod Model.

The Assembly Line Model means that, when a lead comes into your team, someone takes the application – usually you, the loan officer. From there, that file gets handed off to a team member who orders out the file, then hands it over to another team member to print the documents, which the client

signs. Then these signed documents are passed on to another person, and someone after that, until the loan is closed.

In other words, it’s borrowing the concept of efficiency from manufacturing – think Henry Ford assembly line. There are a lot of different people doing individual things. Each does what they do and passes it down the line to the next ‘specialist’. Now, I have to say I’ve never cared for this model. Why? Well, first, because it’s based on a product assembly model which is very different than what it takes to serve people well. It’s incredibly inefficient for a services-based business, and it costs more than it’s worth agonizing over. It’s also hard to scale when each team member is a specialist (what if that person is out and something happens on that file?).

Top all that off with the fact that, if a loan doesn’t close on time, we don’t know who to look at for what potential oversight or problem affected the file because there are too many hands on it. You don’t know what part of your system is compromised or broken. The picture in my mind is the file becomes a ‘hot potato’ where each person wants to get their part done and passed down the line. There aren’t any checks on quality at each step, and nobody is responsible for overseeing the whole file.

However, with the Pod Model, you know exactly where to look for issues because one person shoulders a lot of the responsibility. The loan officer takes the application, sells the deal, and then hands it off to someone who becomes the ‘crew chief’ of that file. That person oversees the details, even if they are delegated, so there is consistency and clarity about the status of that file. So the ‘pod’ within the Pod Model is that the file has its own ecosystem (think of an egg, where everything is self-contained). This pod / file is monitored, maintained and accounted for by one loan officer assistant, regardless of how many hands touch that file.

There are two methods by which the Pod Model can function: Lead to Closing and Contract to Closing.

You, the loan officer, are in charge of making the phone ring and bringing in new business. Once that phone call comes in, your receptionist answers it and directs your client to your loan officer assistant (LOA), who is now in charge of that client and file. Your assistant (LOA) will take that application and get that information back to you so you can call that client back and sell the deal. This is the Lead to Closing method and, on average, we’ve found that LOAs can handle about eight files monthly this way.

In the Contract to Closing method, you – the loan officer – takes your clients’ applications, meets with your clients and sells the deals, then hands the deals off to your assistant. Using this method, we’ve found that LOAs can handle about 12 files per month. Once you get anything higher than that, it’s a good idea to hire a second (or third) LOA to keep up with the new clients coming in your business door.

The good news is that it’s much easier to spot a problem within the Pod Model than it is with the Assembly Line Model. For example, if you have three LOAs, and each of them receives a lead as they come in (the first goes to LOA1, the second to LOA2, the third to LOA3, the fourth to LOA1, and so on), they’ll have the same amount of leads and closings. In my company, we close about 25% of all our leads, so if each of our LOAs has about 40 leads, they should have around 10 closings per month. If one LOA has 40 leads and has only closed four loans, we have a problem we can see and fix quickly.

In my opinion, I believe the Pod Model is a much better way to form a team. It’s far easier to spot a mistake and correct it than when using the Assembly Line Model and allows everyone in your team to learn the ropes of each step. If someone goes on vacation, there is coverage within the team to pick up the slack because they’ve been trained in multiple areas – unlike the Assembly Model, where people are only tasked and trained in one area.

If you have experience with either model, I’d love to read about it in a comment below. Does your experience echo mine or have you learned how to do something cool with the Assembly Model? Share your tips on managing a team so we can all learn from you because that’s how we roll here. Thanks in advance.

Carl White, Chief Officer of Coolness
Article Originally Posted on LinkedIn

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#LoanOfficer #MortgageMarketing #MortgageExpert #LoanOfficers #LoanOriginators #Lenders #MortgagePro #MortgageBroker #FreedomSeeker #Branding #Mortgage #MortgageLoanOfficer #MortgageAdvisor #MortgageBanker #TheMortgageMarketingAnimals #CarlWhite #FreedomClub #LoanOfficerFreedom #MortgageLife #MortgageLifestyle #HomeLoans #LoanOfficerLife #LoanOfficerLifestyle #MortgageBoss #Entrepreneur #MortgageFinanceAdvisor #MortgageAdvisor

Jack Roush is a multi-millionaire and renowned race car engine builder. He is most famous for building NASCAR engines for his race team. He’s so well-known for building the best engines that Jack’s competitors buy them to race against him. They walk into his store, buy his engines, and then use their cars to race him — he’s that good! I was listening to an interview when the interviewer asked, “Jack, what is it that makes you so great? What makes you a world-class engine builder?”

“It’s really quite simple,” he said. “Here’s what we do: we get an engine and put it on the engine block in the shop. We start up the engine, let it warm up until we can get it to full throttle — like putting a brick on the gas pedal — and then my team and I go get a cup of coffee. We don’t come back until that engine has blown up. Then we tear it apart and see what broke. Let’s say it’s a piston ring. I will build a better, stronger, and faster piston ring.” Jack and his team then put the engine back together again and repeat the whole process. “While all my competitors are afraid of breaking, here at Roush Industries, we embrace breakage. We encourage it because I’ll build a better, faster, and stronger machine.”

How does this relate to you? Well, I know you’re afraid sometimes to turn things over to your team. What if something goes wrong? What if it breaks? Well, it’s got to do that. Until you know what breaks, you don’t know what or where the weak link is in your system.

When something fragments, you naturally build a better, faster, stronger system, or hire a better, faster, stronger person to take on that role. The key to taking that action is you’ve got to let your current system fail – you’ve got to run your engine hard to see what happens.

Quite often, you will discover that your engine does not break; in fact, it might run just fine. That’s ok. You’re testing the edges so you can fine-tune as you go. And when it does break, celebrate because now you can make your system even better.

So what could break in your mortgage business system? It might be your call-back process, a team member who isn’t trained to recognize the signs of a deal going sideways, a referral partner who changes lanes on you. Whatever breaks, and whenever it breaks, of course it doesn’t feel good. You may lose a deal or a referral partner. That’s going to happen. You certainly don’t want it to happen… but, really, you do.

By losing that one deal or referral partner, you will gain the next 20 by figuring out what broke. You have to be okay with breaking your engine, or at least testing it to see if it will break, and when it does, find out where it broke so you can build a better, faster, stronger system for that particular piece or situation in your loan advising process.

In fact, just for fun, humor me and do a mental exercise right now. Imagine your business is 10X what it is now – meaning, everything is ten times more than it was yesterday. You have 10 times the pre-quals, the referral partners, the leads, the calls to make, the meetings to have, the networking to do. You have 10 times the marketing initiatives, the number of team members, the number of mortgages you and your team are processing. Literally take one process from start to end – then imagine that ten times all at once. Blow the doors off your business in your mind.

After the beads of sweat have dried from your palms, think about what happened in that mental picture. If it caused your heart to race in a not-good way, great! Stress-testing your engine mentally is a lot better than doing it in the real world. What happened? What did you see break in your mind’s eye? Do you need to document processes? Do you need to train your team members better? Do you need to hire new team members? Is it time to invest in better technology to streamline the process? Do you need to start taking more apps online? Do you need different office space? Do you need to become a better delegator? How did your leadership skills handle the 10X version of your business?

If you can find something to make better, faster, smoother, stronger in your mortgage business as a result of that mental exercise, great! Fix what you found. Then do it again – this time with your team members. Everybody needs to do that same exercise in a group, where you can write down what everyone sees as a potential problem. This is about team-building as much as it is about business-building. Whatever comes up, take those things on to make them better before they impact your business.

Now you’re ready for the real-world engine test. Amp up your activity to see how your business system works. Hopefully you won’t see any breakage but, when you do, give thanks because that situation will help you grow your business faster than just about anything else you could do.

When’s the last time you tested your business engine? What did you fix?

Carl White, Chief Officer of Coolness
Article Originally Posted on LinkedIn

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#LoanOfficer #MortgageMarketing #MortgageExpert #LoanOfficers #LoanOriginators #Lenders #MortgagePro #MortgageBroker #FreedomSeeker #Branding #Mortgage #MortgageLoanOfficer #MortgageAdvisor #MortgageBanker #TheMortgageMarketingAnimals #CarlWhite #FreedomClub #LoanOfficerFreedom #MortgageLife #MortgageLifestyle #HomeLoans #LoanOfficerLife #LoanOfficerLifestyle #MortgageBoss #Entrepreneur #MortgageFinanceAdvisor #MortgageAdvisor

Is the time you spend in meetings an investment or an expense of time and resources? This is a serious topic so I’m going to be more ‘business-y’ than I usually am… why? Because business runs on information, decisions and action; meetings only help with one of those three things. But do you know which one? If not, it’s costing your business.

Mark Cuban, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos all avoid meetings as productivity-killers. If Jeff Bezos needs to have a mentally challenging meeting, he schedules it for between 10 am and noon. We’ll run through some meeting strategies in a minute but, first, let’s think about what meetings are not.

Meetings are not a place for taking action because the focus is on meeting, not doing. If your team is getting together to take action, that’s a collaboration or project work – not a meeting.

Meetings should not be about sharing information – that’s what email, chat, phone calls, memos, reports, online discussion forums and snail mail handle in advance of meetings. The only exception to this is when you are meeting with a referral partner, customer or prospective customer to build relationship. What I’m really talking about here is team meetings BUT, even in the case of relationship-building meetings, you do want to create business value as a takeaway.

Make sure people are prepared in advance to meet with you for (minimal) informed conversations to make real-time decisions. One of Jeff Bezos’ meeting strategies is to require attendees to read a 6-minute memo in silence at the beginning of every meeting because he says it’s impossible to not be informed in that scenario. If you’re meeting with a referral partner or customer, make sure you share whatever information they need to make the most of your time together – your website, any agreements, articles you’ve written, etc.

Topics for productive team meetings include planning, mapping a plan, decoding a customer issue for quick resolution, brainstorming and post-mortem analysis of projects or results. A project status update or general information sharing are not good reasons to meet. In terms of relationship-building, make sure your referral partner or customers knows in advance that you are going to be asking for their business or support as a result of this meeting.

Now, you might need to meet with an individual team member to talk about performance. Occasionally, you might hold an all-hands meeting for a company-wide announcement or status update. However, meetings are expensive when you factor in the total time for people to attend; a 60-minute meeting for eight people is eight hours of company time – a full workday! Check out this online calculator to see how your meetings are racking up time.

The bottom line is your meetings need to be both effective and efficient. An efficient meeting starts on time, stays on track, and achieves a goal. An effective meeting means quality in terms of the right people gathered for a specific purpose to generate business value. Business value means delivering clear results – a decision, a plan, a list of opportunities to pursue and/or confirmation of working together.

One way to know whether a meeting is delivering value is to monitor engagement. If you’re bored with your own meetings, that’s a problem. If your team isn’t responsive and actively listening and participating, why are you having the meeting? If your referral partner or customer keeps checking their phone, I say end it and put everyone out of misery. Your time is better-spent where it’s appreciated and delivers value.

How Meetings Can Be Efficient

I can’t say I do all these things every time. But my team makes sure these are the things that happen for our most efficient meetings. (Hey – that’s not cheating – it’s smart delegation!)

– Have an agenda to guide proceedings. If anything outside that agenda comes up, get them handled later or start a ‘parking lot’ list.

– Invite the right people. If the meeting progresses to specifics where not everyone needs to be involved, release those who don’t need to be there.

– Prepare with advance information. Make sure attendees have what’s needed to make informed contributions and decisions during the meeting.

– Start and end on time. Open-ended meetings often degenerate in quality.

– Hold stand-up or “two-pizza meetings” (like Jeff Bezos) to keep it short.

– End with a tangible result and an action plan. If follow-up is needed, make sure assignments are clear.  

– Take notes as a reference for what happened. Distribute afterward to catch any ‘loose-end’ thinking.

These might sound basic but it’s always good to have a refresher on what works for meeting efficiency.

Effective Meeting Tips

When it comes to being effective, here are a few more pointers my team offers up.

– Focus. Make sure everyone can be and is 100% present. No multi-tasking – if someone is distracted, excuse them to get their priorities handled.

– Schedule problem-solving meetings first. Early in the day means less distraction and more creative energy.

– Invite deeper thinking with ‘psychological safety’. Create an environment where people can share openly with controversial ideas, off-the-wall suggestions or out-of-the-box thoughts. Use open-ended questions to invite contributions. (This is one of my personal favorites – the best stuff comes out of blue when you let it happen.)

– Involve all attendees, regardless of role, rank or time with the company. If one person starts to dominate the meeting, handle it – give them a task, like taking notes, to transition them into listening mode or call on others to share their thoughts.

– If the goal is a decision, make sure you get it before you end the meeting.

– End prematurely if business value isn’t being achieved.

– Ask for 5-minute feedback from attendees to see how your meetings can be improved.

– Was this meeting helpful? Did the meeting result in business value?

– Was the agenda and purpose clear?

– Was it easy for you to contribute?

– Was there anything you would change to make this a better meeting?

The Big Takeaway

Your time is your most precious asset. When you need to have a meeting, it has to count – it has to build your business in some tangible way. Consider where you are investing your time in meetings wisely.

And if you have any questions on this, let’s have a meeting – NOT! But do share them below… let’s get them handled so you are investing your time (vs. spending it) when you do need to have meetings.

Carl White, Chief Officer of Coolness
Article Originally Posted on LinkedIn

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#LoanOfficer #MortgageMarketing #MortgageExpert #LoanOfficers #LoanOriginators #Lenders #MortgagePro #MortgageBroker #FreedomSeeker #Branding #Mortgage #LoanOfficerCoach #LoanOfficerMarketing #MortgageLoanOfficer #MortgageAdvisor #MortgageBanker #TheMortgageMarketingAnimals #CarlWhite #FreedomClub #LoanOfficerFreedom #MortgageLife #MortgageLifestyle #HomeLoans #LoanOfficerLife #LoanOfficerLifestyle #MortgageBoss #Entrepreneur #BusinessOwner #Success

It would make sense that loan officers should answer their phone to ensure personally their customers and referral partners are happy, right? Wrong.

I’m here to tell you that it creates problems when loan officers have their cell numbers listed on their business cards. It’s not a big deal when you’re closing 0–5 loans a month but when you use the systems we teach in the Mortgage Marketing Animals and Freedom Club, you’re going to close a lot more loans and it’s going to happen fast. We like to think your results will increase ten-fold quickly, so imagine trying to handle 5 – 25 loans a month via your cell phone while growing your business. You just can’t do it.

For example, let’s say you’re meeting with a real estate agent and your phone rings during the meeting. What do you do – take the call or disrespect the person who is helping you feed your family with referrals? By not answering the phone, you disrespect the person who is calling by forcing them to go to your voicemail – that’s never a good thing. Even more, that caller could be one of the real estate clients you’ve been working with or cultivating as a relationship. Ignoring their call is also disrespectful to the real estate agent in front of you too because nobody likes to play second-fiddle to a phone call.

Another issue with using your cellphone is your day is (or should be) filled with calls. But calls coming in every few minutes means you never get into your zone where you can concentrate. That’s a high price to pay to answer a general question. One of your goals is to reduce anything that can cause you to lose time, whether that’s distractions, un-productivity or ‘bumps’ in process. For me, personally, I’m running a multimillion-dollar business – my team and I help thousands of loan officers across the country. It’s literally impossible for me to help each of these people by me answering their calls on my cell phone. While I would love to be able to have all those conversations – you know me, I like a good connection with somebody! – it’s just completely impractical.

The good news is there is a simple solution: get a second number for your cellphone.

Whut? You need another number? Yes. We’ve done this, and I highly recommend it. Just call your current mobile carrier and tell them, “I need a new phone number attached to my current cell number.” They’ll handle it, no problem.

Now, it’s very important never to give that new phone number to anyone other than your close family and best friends. I get you might think, “Well, my Realtors are my friends.” And while that might be true, restrain yourself. This is about helping them have better service, remember? So it’s crucial you NOT give them your new number.

Instead, once you have your new second number, forward your cell phone with the old number to an assistant — or several — in your office. Then, ask your assistant(s) to answer all incoming phone calls.

The beauty of this is many of the people calling have questions regarding appraisals, surveys, or are inquiring if the borrowers sent their documents. Most of my (your) time is spent out in the field getting new business, and I (you) simply don’t have the answers they’re looking for in the moment – but your assistant does. That’s why it’s so critical to have an assistant to keep track what’s happening throughout your business deals and relationships. So now when a client calls your old phone number, they’re directed to the office, and your assistant can attend to them while you’re out in the field generating more business.

One more potential problem – if you’ve only got one old number on one phone, that’s now your new business number, you still can have the issue of people going to voicemail. If you are feeling like you don’t want to risk that, you can also forward your ‘old’ cell number, which is now your ‘new’ business number, through Google Voice to ring your in-office phones. That way you assure there is always somebody live answering calls, even when they’re coming in hot and heavy.

There is a potential hazard that comes from this method that needs to be considered. It happens when someone calls my cell expecting to speak with me directly. So it might be surprising when someone other than you answers your phone. The caller may think, “Wait a minute — I’ve just been pawned off.” To avoid making anyone feel unimportant or neglected, you need to let your agents know what’s going on when you make this switch.

When I upgraded to this more effective way of handling phone calls, I spoke with all my real estate referral partners personally, ideally face-to-face, to let them know what I was doing before they experienced it. It’s okay to do it over the phone, but I recommend an in-person meeting. Plus, touching base from time to time can help you gain referrals.

For me, I was comfortable using a script we like to call the “Radar script.” I’m a fan of the old tv show, M.A.S.H., where Radar was a memorable character with the striking ability to predict future events. The commander would start yelling for something and, within the first three words, Radar would pop up with it already done. That’s the idea here… you want to handle questions and potential objections before they happen by telling upfront what you’re doing.

“I wanted to meet with you and let you know how much I appreciate you and what an honor it is to work with you. You’re helping my kids go through college, and I’m forever grateful to you. I find myself thinking every day, ‘How can I help you even more?’ and answering that question gave me a new way to be even more efficient. I just hired someone in the office named Melissa. She’s a new team member who is nothing short of amazing. She’s always in the office, 9–5 every day, and has an uncanny knack for knowing about issues or problems on a file before it happens. Melissa can identify complications that, in the past, could delay a closing or lead to an unhappy client. She can ‘sense’ these potential issues way before closing, giving us plenty of time to work on them so they never become a problem. Now everyone is happier, and we’re converting more of those leads to closing, which makes you more money. She really is nothing short of amazing. She will be who answers my cell phone now when you or your customers call to ensure faster service.

Why did I do this? Basically, I felt bad. I used to have a quandary when in meetings just like this and get a phone call from one of your clients who’s ready to make an application. The last thing I wanted to do was disrespect you by making that person leave a voicemail and wait for a callback. You and I both know that will only decrease our conversion rate and reduce your income, and I would never, ever do that. You help me, and I want to help you. I want to move all your people to the front of the line. While we’re having coffee, when you have a referral who calls the office, Melissa is going to field that call and move them to the front of the line to get that ball rolling. That way, maybe even before we’ve finished our Danish here, that preapproval letter is sitting in your inbox. That’s how I want to help you because of how much you’re doing for me.”

The agent (and their clients) is going to be willing to work with your “Radar”, because it only benefits them, but you better make darn sure you have that person in your office. You can’t say you have someone to answer important calls and then not have them there. If you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t have anyone in the office to help,” I have a solution for that too. Stay tuned.

For now, think about getting a second number for your business so you can win at the telephone game every time. Any questions on how to make this work for you? Shout out below – let’s get those handled so you can get on with growing your business.

Carl White, Chief Officer of Coolness
Article Originally Posted on LinkedIn

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#LoanOfficer #MortgageMarketing #MortgageExpert #LoanOfficers #LoanOriginators #Lenders #MortgagePro #MortgageBroker #FreedomSeeker #Branding #Mortgage #LoanOfficerCoach #LoanOfficerMarketing #MortgageLoanOfficer #MortgageAdvisor #MortgageBanker #TheMortgageMarketingAnimals #CarlWhite #FreedomClub #LoanOfficerFreedom #MortgageLife #MortgageLifestyle #HomeLoans #LoanOfficerLife #LoanOfficerLifestyle #MortgageBoss #Entrepreneur #BusinessOwner #Success

Strategy is how to get desired results with the least amount of resistance in making them happen. Strategy also ensures you use your resources most effectively. And strategy is what positions you with your customers but distinct from your competitors.

On the one hand, competition is so ‘last year’ because, when you’re marketing properly, you have no competition. On the other hand, anything your customer sees that diverts their attention from your services is competition. Competition includes everything from other online solutions to their work day, from their grocery store run to their dog needs a walk. Strategy is the key to unlocking their attention so it’s on you as a resource.

Now strategy is NOT a marketing plan! The marketing plan is what executes on the strategy. The common challenge in determining strategy is avoiding the trap of what’s urgent today vs. taking the time to stop and think strategically.

For example, how does what you do differ from online mortgage services? You know who they are… I don’t need to spell that out. They are getting the attention of your customers – and they’re starting to advertise everywhere – tv, radio and online ads. So what do you do about that strategically?

How do you get attention from your customers who are searching online anyway? Is it still possible to be seen by your customers in a sea of online noise? What’s the strategy for online visibility without stalking somebody?

How can you reach out and ‘touch’ every one of your current and past customers every three months without spending hours doing it? What is the strategy behind making that kind of contact personal and relevant?

The good news is that I have answers to all those questions, and you’ll be seeing that soon in much greater detail than I can share here.

The point is that you need to think strategically, then apply that strategy, to grow your business with the least amount of effort.

How I Started Thinking Strategically

Strategy results from considering several factors, like analyzing your market audience, knowing your unique differentiators, seeing opportunities, having the right infrastructure and business model in place, and envisioning the future. Once you get the right strategy in place, it looks effortless because it’s so natural and obvious. But when you’re working through it, it takes original thinking which doesn’t feel so effortless.

Way back when, before I knew mortgage had a ‘t’ in it, I first began my venture into the mortgage business as a loan officer. As I learned the business, I streamlined the traditional methods everyone was using – including me – into what I call a ‘paint by numbers’ approach. As a result, I became the top-producing branch out of approximately 336 branches nationwide. My technique helped loan officers retain more closings while working less hours each week. And I still use it today, along with a lot of other things I’ve learned along the way, to help loan officers be more successful in less time.

How did I do it? I looked for the hidden value in leveraging my abilities. What was I really good at? And what was I NOT so good at? I have always recognized the value of hanging with people who are smarter than me – and my team today proves that. I figured out that I needed to be building relationships vs. handling the paperwork. And that meant figuring out how to build the best team infrastructure, which went against the grain of every good traditional loan officer in the business back then.

I also realized that I wasn’t in the mortgage loan business – I was in the ‘helping people achieve their dreams’ business. It’s about relationships. How could I build relationships if I was stuck in paperwork? Now, I have the greatest respect for people who are good at that kind of detail – especially because that’s not me. But I also realized that there are people who only want to do that kind of work and don’t want to go beat the streets and connect with people. The marriage of those two kinds of people makes it rain only good things for everybody in business. Today, I would call that ‘lateral thinking’ – where a problem in one environment creates a solution for someone else.

How You Can Start Thinking Strategically

Good strategy makes business frictionless; great strategy adds more value to your customers’ experience in solving their problems. So start by thinking about what your customers are dealing with daily because their problems are your opportunities. What are the conversations they’re having? What do they think the trends are in buying a home? What do they think is a problem when thinking about buying a home?

For example, one woman wanted to buy her first home but thought she had to be completely debt-free, with a large down payment, to do it. Her credit score was 760, she had verifiable six-figure income, a small down payment, and was living on a month-to-month lease. But she thought she could never qualify – until a creative realtor put her in touch ‘just to see’. Within four hours, she had a pre-approval in hand; within six hours, she had an offer on a house.

There are many lessons in that story. First, your realtor partner referrals are a big key to success, and your relationships are the key to those spontaneous referrals. Second, that customer was working off the information her parents gave her from their experience from decades ago. Third, what she thought was a problem – less than $20k in debt and ‘only’ a 760 score – was a signal of her fiscal responsibility. But she didn’t know those things… so she didn’t even try to qualify. And she’s not alone. How many customers are working off old, bad, incorrect information or beliefs that are preventing them from even trying to get a loan? THAT is your opportunity.

Here are five things – beyond knowing your audience – you need to consider in putting together a cohesive business growth strategy.

1. Unique Differentiators

What you do uniquely is based on your core competencies. What do you do well AND are really good at doing? Your answer will determine the best use of your time, money and resources. It will also play into your positioning through marketing messages that show your distinction from any other solution.

2. Opportunities

When the market is ‘zigging’, you need to zag. If your market is talking about how easy it is to get pre-quals online, you make sure you’re dialed in on that – and then amp up the personal touch that an online system can’t replicate. When your referral partners mention they are buying leads instead of working the ones they already have, let them know you can help. Find a way to be of more service and add greater value to your relationships to create or leverage new business opportunities.

3. Business Infrastructure

Your business infrastructure is what allows you to do more with less effort. Your infrastructure means the right people, in the right roles, with the right tools and technology, with the right processes and the right authority to get things done. Get your infrastructure right for greater agility in implementing your strategies.

4. Envisioning the Future

See where your business, your market and the industry are going to determine how you will position to take advantage of emerging trends and opportunities. This also ensures you will remain relevant with your customers, despite changing market conditions.

By taking the time to identify your business strategy(s), combined with knowing your business capabilities inside and out, you create big potential for growing your business faster, easier, with less effort and resources. You don’t waste time doing what won’t, ultimately, serve your business. And your business will no longer be ‘vanilla’; instead, you will get the attention of the people you want to serve.

After all, that’s what this is all about anyway, right?

Strategy can be learned from many places, including history and other industries. What strategies have you learned about or admire? For example, Netflix revolutionized the personal entertainment industry, AirBnB up-ended the accommodations industry, and Duluth Trading Company is defining a new level of comfort for men’s clothing.

Carl White, Chief Officer of Coolness
Article Originally Posted on LinkedIn

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