Mortgage Marketing Animals

It wasn’t one of my proudest moments. I was in the 11^th grade.  

3 of my buddies were trying out for the school basketball team. Now understand that none of the 4 of us were “jocks” by anybody’s definition.

I knew there was little to no chance they would make the team.

After they did their team tryouts, the results were announced on who made the team and the new roster was put on a large white-board in the school main lobby for all to see.

When I found out they didn’t make the team, I caught up with them in-between classes and said in a snarky tone, “I see you guys didn’t make the team..”.

One of them looked me square in the eyes and said something that changed everything for me from that day forward…

“Yeah, well Carl, at least we tried!”

Wham!  There was that!

It was not normal for me to have said such a “jerky” thing in the first place, but the lesson I got back from him was invaluable. 

If we try and don’t get, well, we have nothing to lose.  

We didn’t have that “thing” we tried for in the first place, so by trying to get it, it doesn’t make it any worse if we don’t get it.

But if we try and do get “it”, well, we get the benefit without any of the risks (nothing to lose).

For instance, let’s say I call the listing agent on a deal I’m doing to see about them sending me their next buyer lead, if I don’t call I have ZERO chance of that happening. 

If I call that listing agent with the “Just Ask” script, well, some will start referring to us.

So the worst case scenario is you ask and they say “no thank you”, the best case scenario is you ask, and they refer to you, and you make yet another $3,000 (or whatever your typical closing check is).

So worse case scenario: you have what you already have (none of his / her deals).

Best case scenario: You start cashing $3,000 checks.

So when my buddy said “At least we tried…”, it flipped a switch in me to start swinging for the fences.  I never looked back and I’m so grateful for that day.

I’m reasonably sure he may not remember that day many years ago now, but I wish I could catch up with him these days and thank him for that moment.  It’s made all the difference.

So what’s the take home message today?
Point to the left field fence and let’s take a swing of that bat and give it all we have.

Afterall, we have nothing to lose.

Talk Soon!

“Ok, I screwed up and I think it’s going to delay the closing, what do I tell the borrowers and Realtors?”  

That was the question I asked my branch manager my 2^nd month in the business (over 2 decades ago). He gave me a formula that I’ll never forget.

This simple formula that I’m going to share with you today saved my bacon more than once over the years.

First of all, understand that things happen, and everybody makes mistakes.  We just don’t want to make the same mistake the 2^nd or 3^rd time.  We learn from it, make adjustments, and press on.

Also remember that successful agents, the one’s we get our referrals from, have several deals going on at any given time and as such, your “problem” or issue isn’t their first one and they also know that things happen sometimes. 

It’s the ‘struggle bunny’ agents that get all out of whack because they don’t have any other deals closing to make their own mortgage payment.  (who could blame them for panicking when it’s the only one that they’ve had for the last several months…)

So when something goes wrong that puts the closing in jeopardy of closing late, immediately call the agents and the borrower(s).

The important thing is to communicate, and here’s how you do it:

1. Here’s what happened.  Tell them exactly what happened.  Take responsibility. It’s what leaders do.

2. Here’s what we are doing about it / here’s where we are now.  Let them know what’s happening now and what action steps you are putting in place and your prediction of if and when it will solve the problem.

3. Here’s what we are doing to prevent it from happening again.  Tell them what action steps you are putting in place so this won’t happen on the next referral that they send over to you.

This formula helps to de escalate the emotions AND it helps you put together a better team / system for your ever growing business.

Trying to ignore the issue and / or hiding in the closet, well, that just never turns out well and it just adds to the stress that you may be experiencing.

It is seldom that I lose business relations when I follow this formula, and frankly, following this formula, my business is a well oiled machine because we continue to improve the systems and make sure the team are all “A” level players, all because of past issues.

Nobody likes it when things go wrong, but when it happens, do what leaders do… communicate.
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 will ruffle your feathers as there are soooo many of “them” and only 1 of you. ☺

To your success and coolness,

Carl White