Mortgage Loan Officer Blog | Loan Officer Freedom

The Script To Help Avoid Rate Shoppers

August 8, 2020

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?”

Schedule Your Appointment To
Go Over Even More Scripts

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.

Loan Officers, Get Rid Of The Poison!

July 11, 2020

July 11, 2020
From: The Desk of Carl White

Loan Officers Grow Your Business - Loan Officer Freedom - 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

A Personal Holiday Message From Carl White

December 24, 2019

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!

The Best Marketing Ideas For Mortgage Loan Officers

September 18, 2019

So often I hear people talking about how loan officers should market or advertise themselves. Typically, it’s half & half…half of ’em say to market strictly online using Facebook ads, Google, Zillow leads, etc. and the other half talk about marketing strictly offline using referral partners, teaching classes, in-person relationship marketing methods, etc. What do you think? Is it better to market online or offline?

The one thing I don’t hear loan officers talk too much about is marketing to their database. Let me ask you this if I told you, you could get an extra 2 – 3 loans per month from talking to people you’ve already done business with, would you believe me? I’ve found that one of the most effective ways to get more deals, like, right now is to market to your database using both online AND offline marketing methods!

In this video, I literally walk you step by step on how I personally market to my database in my branch and how we average 1 – 3 closings PER MONTH for every 100 people in our database. So if you have, let’s say, 300 people in your database you could potentially see 3 – 9 closings per month just from marketing to your past database. Click here or the image above to watch the video, and I’ll see you on the inside.

Should You Build a Team or Plug Into One?

July 17, 2019

As a loan officer, once you realize the power of leverage, you ‘get’ why it’s so important to have a team. But should you build a team or plug into an existing team? There are pros and cons to each approach – one has greater initial expense while the other is turn-key. I actually don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer to this question because I’ve experienced both and been very successful with each method. That said, it’s important to explore this topic for your business so here goes.

Here’s the first reality of being a loan officer – you have to be a good salesperson to succeed. As a general rule, you are great at what you do because you’re keeping food on the table. (If that’s not the case, we need to talk – please DM me immediately!).

However, just because you’re good at sales doesn’t mean you make a successful human resources (HR) officer — that’s an entirely different skill set. Just because I think I’m a darn good salesperson doesn’t mean I’d be good at knowing how to hire and fire people. Granted, some people have both skill sets, but that’s not typical.

One of the most common scenarios I find in this business is that people are hesitant about adding someone to their team. I’ve been asked, “Carl, what if they’re not the right person and I have to fire them?” People procrastinate on starting or expanding their team because they’re worried the new hire won’t be a good fit. So let’s just take care of this little myth right now – when you hire enough people, you will eventually hire someone who is going to be a wrong fit. It is statistically rare that every hire you make will turn out perfectly. You have to learn how to hire and do it fire fast, because delay can cost you a fortune.

The good news is we find every time someone is added to a team, as long as that team member pulls their weight, it frees up the loan officer or branch manager’s time to get more business. We’ve found the average person who adds someone to their team does an additional 5–7 loans monthly. For the example I’m about to share, we’ll use six loans as an approximate number (but that may vary in your real-world situation).

Let’s say every employee hired means an additional six loans to you and your business per month. Let’s go a little further with another general assumption and say you make $2,000 per loan. Ultimately, each time you hire a new employee, you’re adding an extra $12,000 of revenue per month, using these hypothetical numbers.

Of course, you need to pay your employee. To make it easy for our example, let’s say they get $5,000 a month. That’s $7,000 of net profit per month going into your business. Keep in mind that, while you’re bringing in this $7,000, you’re actually doing less of the work because the person you hired is helping you take applications, chase leads and put out fires. All you’re doing is making the phone ring, selling deals, and turning them over to your team to handle the rest.

Now, it might take someone six months before they hire their first team member. Of course, it’s not your fault if you’re not the best HR person. In my organization, someone else does the hiring and firing because that’s not my gift. However, if you force yourself into the HR position and there’s a six-month delay, you miss out on $7,000 of net profit revenue per month. That’s a total potential profit loss of $42,000 from not hiring that new person right off the bat.

You might think getting help is expensive, but not getting help costs you a lot more in money, time and potential opportunities. It’s okay to recognize that building a team isn’t one of your skill sets and that you need to find someone who has that talent for your business. Building a team is a major undertaking and I highly recommend it. Here’s the downside: every minute you spend building your team, you’re not out selling.

This leads into another viable alternative — plugging into a team that’s already in place. You don’t have to leave your company to take advantage of this method. Just find a group already in your company and join their team. I did this early in my loan officer career, and it helped me immensely.

You need to know when you plug into an existing team, they’re going to charge you some basis points. Let’s say that ‘cost’ runs about 25 basis points. If you’re used to making 100 basis points and you plug into that team, you’ll get 75 basis points, and the team will receive 25 points from you. The benefit is that, instead of worrying about the headache of hiring and firing people, you’ll be able to focus on closing more loans and getting revenue for you and the team.

The math will prove the point. Let’s say you’re doing $200,000 loans, closing five loans a month with 100 BPS, and you are earning $2,000 per loan. That’d be $10,000 of revenue as a one-(wo)man band. Now, when you plug into that established team, you’ll drop down to 75 basis points, but you’ll still be doing $200,000 loans — that doesn’t change. What does change is the number of loans you’re doing, which obviously affects your earnings. If you were doing five loans a month by yourself and adding six loans from being plugged into a team, you’d be doing 11 loans a month. So instead of making $10,000 a month, you’d be making $16,500 every month. Even though your basis points are lower, you’ll be closing more loans by having a team.

Again, both methods can bring success. Since they’re both effective, I don’t know which is right for you and your business – only you can make that decision. However, I’m happy for me and my team to be a sounding board for you to work out what’s best for your business. If you want a personal 1:1 strategy session, we’re standing by.

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

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