Mortgage Marketing Animals

 

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.

 

I just heard two crazy stats.

Crazy stat #1:  1 out of every 6 loan officers didn’t renew their license this past quarter.

Crazy stat #2:  2023 is projected to be the 3^rd best purchase market ever for loan officers when measured in volume (how many dollars were loaned out).

So how is it that so many LOs are struggling, yet it’s the 3^rd best purchase market (measured in volume) ever?

I’ll tell you what I came up with…  read on..

I have found that the issue is, they aren’t focusing on their marketing.

You see, they may know about what to do once a loan comes in, but that’s not where the money is.

Think about McDonalds. The person making the fries is likely at minimum wage. 

The person that makes all the money is the one that gets the customer to drive up to the window… the marketer.

Another way to look at it is, there is no award for the “Best Written Book”.

All the awards are for getting on the “Best Seller” list… the marketer…

So while certainly knowing the guidelines are important, whoever masters the marketing will be the king / queen of all the lands.

And while we are on that subject, stay focused on what has worked for years and years and years…

I see soooo many “experts” trying to sell magic beans.

Breaking news:  There are no magic beans.

There’s a reason why my branch is one of the largest ones in the nation…

We spend more time doing what most others avoid doing… prospecting.

While others spend an enormous amount of time and money trying to grow magic beans, we spend 2 hours each day actually prospecting <gasp>.

It literally pains my heart when I see LOs leave this amazing career, and 98% of the time it’s not their fault, it’s because they simply haven’t been shown how to effectively prospect for business.

Almost always, they fall prey to some “trainer” selling them “magic beans”, you know, the ol “this will have agents begging to work with you” sales pitch.

Let me share some breaking news with you, my team and I have literally closed 10’s of thousands of loans over the years.  We bring in those leads in dozens of ways.  

In my decades of being a top producing LO and now branch manager with thousands upon thousands of transactions under my belt, I’ve never seen anybody ever “beg for business” or have people begging to work with them.

People have fallen for that ol’ snake oil pitch since the beginning of time.
Any time someone uses that line, hold on to your wallet.  Some shady character is looking to benefit themselves at your expense.

If you are looking at a plan, and want a 2^nd opinion on how to maximize it, start it, or tweak it, or want to see my proven plan, reach out to me and I’ll hook you up… no charge.

Schedule Here

 

I have a rule in my office that I would highly recommend you put in yours.

“If you come to my office with a monkey (problem), you have to leave my office with that monkey.”

What I mean by that is, when someone comes to me with a problem at work, I’ll give them help on the solution, but they have to leave my office with that suggested solution and either do my suggestion, or do what they already thought they needed to do before they come in to my office in the first place.

Otherwise, if people bring in a monkey (problem) to your desk, and don’t take ownership of it (the problem / monkey), they then leave you with that problem (monkey), and then you have a bunch of monkeys (problems) running around on your desk all day and there is no way you can think, prospect, or do anything with all that turmoil.

So if a loan officer assistant or a processor comes to me with an issue, my response has always been “Thanks for sharing, now go fix it.”  (Don’t leave your monkey in my office).

While this may seem cruel at first, but you see, it’s actually an action on my part to make sure I don’t have to lay off any staff.

You see, as long as your team keeps issues off of your desk, you can spend even more time prospecting.  When you spend more time prospecting, well, you will close more loans. 

When you close more loans, your team has job security.

Otherwise if you / I try to solve all the problems (feed the monkeys), then we aren’t prospecting, and that means that our job and all of our support team is in jeopardy of having to learn how to mow yards for a living… (I’ve done that in the past… not fun).

So while trying to be helpful in the past by putting on my superman cape and taking care of all the monkeys, looking all knowing and all important.. I was actually hurting my team and stunting our growth.  Totally uncool!

If you need some help with “who does what” in a top producing office, or how to have somebody else pay for your help for you, or perhaps, what are the exact action items that results in the best prospecting and most leads that actually close, just hit me up and I’ll hook you up… for free ☺

In the meantime, keep those monkeys out of your office and go prospect!