Loan Officer

 

The #1 question that lower producing LOs are asking right now is….

“What do I do next?”

Yep, that’s the #1 question the vast majority of LO’s ask themselves multiple times per day.. or even per hour!

They walk into their office, “What should I do first?”

They finish checking their social media accounts, “What should I do next?”

They check to see what the rates are today, “Now what should I do next…”

… and on and on and on, until they leave their work desk (usually way later than they and their family / friends / pet wants them to…

…all while their monthly production continues to have them concerned (with good reason).

They spent almost no time on actual “getting loans” activities…

Ouch!

It’s not their fault though. 

Here’s the thing, most have no structure for their day, because nobody has ever shown them the activities that top producers do on an hour by hour basis.

And what ends up happening is, the LOs end up looking for new things to do instead of doing more of what we know already works, and scheduling their day AHEAD OF TIME.

Which keeps them right where they are currently at in their number of closed loans.

Look at what specific activity brought in your last 10 loans, and do that the first 2 hours of Monday – Thursday.

I always take Fridays off to reward myself for being focused on the 32 hours that I work Monday – Thursday.   It’s my carrot for doing things right.

And even with taking Friday’s off, my own personal mortgage team averaged 397 closed loans PER MONTH last year and we are expecting to beat that this year. 

(of course I have help, that’s part of “what’s working now” no matter where you are now)

It’s not about working more hours, it’s about structuring your day to do “what’s working now” FIRST, then all the “busy work” AFTER you do your lead generating activity.

If this message strikes home for you, I’ll map out what specific activity is bringing in the most amount of leads now (without buying anything), and how we structure our days around that activity.

Meet me here and I’ll totally hook you up <no charge>

 

Gentlemen, this is a football!”  That is one of the most famous and often used sports quotes in history.

However, most don’t know its real history or how to apply it to their mortgage businesses and lives… read on..

Vince Lombardi kicked off the first day of training camp for his Green Bay Packers football team.

The prior season had ended in a heartbreaking loss to the Philadelphia Eagles after blowing a lead in the 4th quarter of the NFL Championship Game.

When the players came in to start training camp, they expected to immediately begin where they left off and work on ways to advance their game and learn fancy new ways to win the championship in the new season.

But when they sat down and began, Vince Lombardi held up a football and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football!”

He then had everyone open up their playbooks and start on page one, where they began to learn the fundamentals – blocking, tackling, throwing, catching, etc.

That was clearly not what they expected as players who were at the top of their game, but had indeed lost a “sure win” Superbowl the year before.

This hyper-focus on fundamentals allowed them to win the NFL Championship that season 37-0 against the New York Giants.

Vince Lombardi went on to win five NFL Championships in seven years. He never coached a team with a losing season after that and never lost a playoff game again.

If focusing on fundamentals can elevate a great team to such heights, imagine what it can do for your mortgage business and life.

We are often putting time, energy, and money into looking for the next magic bullet, magic bean, quick fix, or business trick. Instead, we should focus on the fundamentals.

One of the greatest mistakes loan officers make is NOT focusing on the fundamentals. They often don’t even realize what their business fundamentals are.

If we have not identified the fundamentals – we cannot work on continual improvement of them!

“Magic tricks” mean nothing if the loan officer isn’t doing the work to make the phone ring.

Special “closing techniques” do no good without actually picking up the phone and talking with somebody.

Having great service and competitive rates is pointless if we don’t do what’s necessary to actually talk with clients. 

The most successful people you can think of in sports, music, acting, and other areas never stop working on the fundamentals. However, in business, we seem to think we already have it down. Seldom is that the case!

Like Vince Lombardi and his team, we need hyper-focus on the fundamentals to make us more successful and get to the next level.So, let me ask – how much time, energy, and money have you wasted looking for some magic fix that didn’t exist?

Do you even know the 4 most critical fundamentals you need to succeed in your mortgage business?

How much could focusing on them benefit your team, your business, and you? If you don’t know or don’t like the answers – we should chat.

The cost of not knowing the 4 critical fundamentals is likely costing you a fortune… without even knowing it.