Category Archives: Mortgage Business Tips

Feb 13
1

Business Growth Opportunities You May be Ignoring

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

IgnoringIf we aren’t regularly evaluating our business growth efforts, our modes and methods, then there is a high likelihood that we are ignoring the obvious and have some pretty good lumps on our noggins from hitting that brick wall over and over again.

It’s natural to want instant results, an easy path, comfortable, daily routines and absence of confrontation, BUT growth isn’t experienced without some measure of strife and challenge and that goes for both our personal and professional lives.

What you are ignoring the most, in your business, is likely the place where you will find your best opportunities for growth.

Here is a list of things I have found mortgage professionals ignoring the most, regardless of age, tenure in the Industry, or personality type:

  • Speaking in public
  • Past Clients
  • Asking for referrals
  • Social media
  • Follow-up activities
  • Tracking Marketing R.O.I.
  • Building new referral relationships
  • Networking

If you find yourself having an instant gut-level response to any one of these items, a strange tingle of guilt or annoyance, it may be just the thing to start warming up to immediately.

When you uncover what it is that you are specifically ignoring, commit to taking one action, regardless of how small, every single day to fully embrace this new task.

Keep the task in front of you, write it on your white board, set a daily alarm on your iPhone, ask your Coach, mentor or a peer to email you daily to report on the task! After 30 consecutive days, assess your return. Look for the opportunities that sprang from your efforts.

I’ll make a bold prediction… Your daily commitment to this one thing that you’ve been ignoring the most in your business WILL bring you some aha moments, results and growth!

If I’m wrong, then just hit me up for a complimentary coaching session! I’m committed, are you?

 

Jan 23
3

Let’s Take a Closer Look at How BIG Change REALLY Happens…

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

takealookLooking for big change, a shift, a break, a “Hell Yeah” or a “Halleluja” to come your way this year?

It’s not unusual to launch into a New Year hoping for these things to occur in our business lives. A lot of us will spend a good amount of time researching new marketing spins, the latest trends in social media and systems that we hope will make the BIG difference.

Not that these endeavors aren’t worth the time, BUT the biggest change that must occur in your business this year in order to rise up from your current plateau, will stem from the inside, not from something you purchase or determine to implement.

You want big change in your business? You must change, first!

Here’s what you may be faced with changing:

Your attitude-Do people call you for advice? Do people share their good news, victories and celebrations with you? Do you share ideas openly? Do you listen more than you talk? Do people refer you? Do people smile at you? What type of people (other than your family) do you spend the majority of your time with…what’s their attitude?

Your excuses-Is it your lack of time that keeps you from getting things done? Is it the fact that you don’t have an Assistant that keeps you from doing more? Is lack of money the reason you’re not growing? Are you not the right shape, not from the right area, didn’t graduate from the right school or too old/too young to get more business? Are your kids, spouse, friends, co-workers, Management and the dog at the root of why you can’t work on your goals?

Your willingness-Do you stop short of stepping outside your comfort zone? Do you shy away from tackling new opportunities? Have you learned anything new lately? Do you give, first? Do you refrain from asking for referrals? When is the last time you did something that you were very afraid of trying?

Your expectations-Do people take advantage of your time? Are everyone else’s procrastinations taken on as your emergencies? Do you over promise and under deliver? Do you hold your team accountable? Do you regularly communicate your expectations to your team, customers, referral partners, vendors, etc.?

Your discipline-Do you squander time? Do you have a plan? Do you complete your tasks? Do you show up when you say you’re going to show up? Do you plan out your day ahead of time? Do you stick to your goals? Do your stick to routines? Do you stay up too late, eat poorly, drink too much, lack exercise or live in the past?

Each person’s interpretation of the questions above will no doubt be different. Take a moment to jot down your thoughts about yourself in relation to these 5 game changers then ask someone who you trust and knows you well to write down their observations of you and compare notes. (Critical tip: thank your willing participant, do not compare notes together, do not defend yourself or question their comments the next time you see them).

“Your Reality Is a Reflection of What You Believe You Deserve”-Tova Payne

Jan 01
1

Start the New Year Focused on One Thing…YOU!

By | Food for thought, Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

Happy New Year!2018newyear

It’s a fresh, New Year with all fresh new beginnings, which include: new habits, new attitudes, new risks, new hopes, new goals, new challenges, new focus, new passions, new possibilities, and THANK GOD, we’re here and able to experience it ALL!

Since everything we experience on the outside, starts with how we feel on the inside, here are 6 simple practices to maintaining a positive attitude in any situation all year long…

Break-up the Negative Stream –The moment you realize you are riding down that mental negative stream of frustration, anger or self-pity– shift your thoughts to a totally unrelated memory, to-do list or other thought. This breaks the negative pattern and keeps you from sinking into a downward spiral.

Find the Lesson – There is a lesson to be learned from every situation. No matter how unfortunate the situation may appear, recognize the beautiful lessons waiting to be discovered. Every problem is a learning and growth opportunity in disguise.

Focus on Daily Gratitude – You cannot be both angry and grateful at the same time. Start every day off by counting the blessings and miracles in your life, start looking for them and you shall find more.

Positive Affirmations & Visualization – Practice seeing yourself in a positive and confident light. Do this whenever you have a few minutes (while waiting for a friend, sitting on the bus, riding an elevator.) Keep a list of positive statements about yourself someplace where you will see them daily, like your bathroom mirror.

Inventory of Memories – Keep an inventory of memories that can immediately make you smile- Occasions where you felt happy, appreciative and cheerful and at peace with the world.

Criticizing Detox Diet – Change your approach and attitude. See if you can stop criticizing others and situations. Shift from fault-finding to appreciation-finding.

Nov 01
1

Six Pointers for Powerful Presentations

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

speakingpicBe Confident in your Content-Hot topics like Facebook for Business and Time Management are GREAT…IF, the content you plan on delivering is personalized to your skill, knowledge & experience level. There’s nothing more disengaging for listeners than when they sense someone dancing around the details or a lack of real-world experience.

Inspire ACTION-Write down what you want your audience to do differently or think differently as a result of your presentation. Every presentation whether it be a brief 15 minute Realtor office sales meeting or a ½ day C.E. presentation should be tied to specific goals.

Never, “wing it!”-Write down your presentation so that you are polished and prepared. Your audience knows when you’re speaking off the cuff. Main points and story lead-ins can be jotted down on 3×5 cards to help you stay on track. Never read your presentation or inundate your audience with an overabundance of PowerPoint slides.

First 60 Seconds of Story Time-The best of the best speakers engage us in the first 60 seconds with a story, a case study example, “a funny thing happened on the way to this event” opener, a little known fact, personal foible or victory statement, etc. This approach instantly relaxes the audience by kicking things off in a casual, personal voice, rather than a formal, instructional voice.

Eliminate “Uhms” and “Ahs”-The root of all such transitional, “thought hiccups” is uncertainly. The only way to combat this is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Get a friend of family member to allow you to give your presentation to them so you get used to having eyes on you while you are standing and speaking. If no one is available, then speak into a mirror, into your own eyes.

Examples Leave Impressions-Be sure to share as many examples and personal stories as possible with your audience. People connect with lessons learned, times of vulnerability, overcoming fears, and examples of victories achieved. Your audience will recall the feelings associated with your presentation even more-so than your words.

Oct 24
1

Managing Loan Officers on the Cusp of Greatness

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

accountabilityDo you have loan officers on your team that you were sure were going to knock it out of the park, but instead do a whole lotta bunting? Do you scratch your head because outwardly they exhibit the right attitude, confidence, knowledge and willingness to take action but their pipelines reflect something else?

Before you get too frustrated and head over to H.R. to discuss an exit strategy for these folks, put on your Coach hat instead and form a Power Production & Accountability Group!

Here’s an example of how to immediately kick-start a successful Power Production & Accountability Group:

  1. Invite your select loan officers-Send out a recurring meeting invite to meet twice a month for a period of 6 months. Express in your email invite that you feel they are on the cusp of greatness and you want to help push them over that edge and unearth solutions for what may be holding them back from hitting their goals.
  2. Communicate expectations- Each loan officer who agrees to participate in the Power Production & Accountability Group will NOT focus on excuses, frustrations & complaints, but rather they will focus on solutions, accountability, sharing, possibility and opportunity.
  3. Ask for commitment-Agree to become a part of this group  ONLY if you can commit to the meetings, leave your frustrations/excuses at the door and be open and willing to exchange ideas and try something new.
  4. Share your agenda-The agenda should include, but does not have to be limited to the following: brainstorming networking strategies, sales strategies, building referral relationships and marketing ideas, follow-up strategies & scripts, hands-on training for tools & technology, time management best practices and organizational tips, product & industry knowledge.

Important tips to ensure the success of your Power Production & Accountability Group:

  1. Everyone shares, everyone participates, including YOU.
  2. Prepare and send out your agenda 2 days prior to each meeting.
  3. Select a “scribe,” someone who is willing to capture all of the ideas shared and send them out to the group via email immediately after the meeting.
  4. ALWAYS have the participants state a goal out loud that they’d like to achieve prior to the next meeting.
  5. Encourage the group to encourage each other in between meetings.
  6. Keep the meeting to a max of 90 minutes!
  7. If your participants are remote, make sure to utilize a tool, like www.gotomeeting.com.

 

 

 

Oct 19
1

Three Success Ingredients Found in Top Producers’ Business Plans

By | Mortgage Business Tips, Uncategorized | No Comments

gettpclass4

How do Top Producers plan for managing lead and referral sources, customer experience plans, and automated marketing methods to stay in touch?

Top producing Loan Officers have learned that developing a Business Plan is NOT a, “someday maybe” but rather a critical component to ensuring their success year after year.

Sign up for Coach Victoria’s class to learn the three, “success ingredients” found in top producers’ business plans, PLUS the tools found in ACT software that can support and automatically activate these strategies.

If you are a mortgage professional, or manage a team of mortgage professionals, this webinar will provide you with the tools to immediately kick-start a winning business plan!

SIGN UP HERE for your free limited time access to the webinar.

 

Sep 06
0

Stay Connected, Stay Social, Stay Relevant with your Leads

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

buildingtrustNobody will refute that a lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into gaining leads from Realtors, past customers, your website, Zillow and other lead-generating sites.

At first, each lead is treated like a sudden jackpot and you pour plenty of excited energy into each one and this produces results. Then you get busy. Then you get choosy. Then you even get a little bit annoyed at those, “not-so-hot” leads…you know the ones with overly complicated financial scenarios, the ones you called once or twice and never heard back from, the ones you pre-qual who go totally M.I.A. These leads just hurt your brain and so you conveniently leave their contact info and some scribbled notes in a drawer or folder some place and they never hear or see your name again.

The key nowadays to converting more leads is to stay connected and to stay social. And, even if that lead never becomes ready to buy or refinance for whatever reasons, drawing these leads closer to you out of the gates will gain their referrals to their very-ready friends, family and co-workers and why will they do that?… because they will feel like they know, like and trust you.

P.S. you cannot achieve the, “know, like and trust you factor” just with an email drip campaign.

Here are three tools to easily stay connected and social (And, RELEVANT, by the way)with every lead you gain:

Let’s say all you’ve got is a cell number and a name, you can always take that info and upload it to SlyBroadcast.com, which is a great time savings tool, and then send out pre-recorded messages to that entire group of long lost leads so they can hear your voice. A quick tip about leaving messages and using SlyBroadcast type messaging-Always keep your messages brief, very upbeat and speak like you’re already well-acquainted. Again, you want to bridge that, “know, like and trust factor.”

Always immediately look for your leads on LinkedIn and Facebook and connect there so you become familiar to them on a regular basis through your own postings. Again, this draws them closer to you on a more personal and social level, helps to build-up the trust factor and creates no extra work for you.

Lastly, rather than emailing, try mass texting tools like Mighty Text for Androids (there are apps for iPhone, too!) where you can send one general message out to an entire group from your smart phone. The message will look like an individual, personal text to your receivers. Texting is an immediate communication avenue, much more so than email and absolutely will gain more response.

Voice broadcast tools like, SlyBroadcast.com, connecting via social media avenues and utilizing mass texting services are all superior time-savings tools to bringing the leads you’ve worked so hard to get, closer to you (with much less effort/time) and will absolutely increase referrals, as well as your lead to close conversion ratio.

Aug 23
1

Are you Behaving in Ways that Lead to Success?

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

successleaderI have been coaching mortgage professionals for over 10 years now and I can tell you there are 3 telltale signs of a person which indicate to me a very strong probability that they will hit their stated goals and then-some…

The most successful Mortgage Professionals tend to be:

1.   Self-disciplined

2.   Action-oriented

3.   Risk takers

Self-discipline is at the top of the list because without it, most sales folks will fall victim to inconsistent lead generation, revolving door relationships and wasting time constantly recreating the wheel so to speak.

Some characteristics of a self-disciplined mortgage professional:

  • Writes and reviews goals
  • Adheres to positive habits and when they fall off the wagon, they’re fast at getting back on it
  • Plans out their weeks ahead of time
  • Creates systems
  • Gets fueled-up by completing task lists

Some characteristics of action-oriented mortgage professionals:

  • Asks a lot of questions about how to get things done
  • Engages in a fair amount of networking
  • Doesn’t have a tendency to get caught up in details
  • Rallies others to help them implement tasks
  • Produces a variety of opportunities from week to week

Some characteristics of risk-taker mortgage professionals:

  • Significant income growth
  • Creates various streams of income
  • Involved in community/strong public identity
  • Speaker/Presentations
  • Manages a significant support staff
Aug 10
1

The Most Common Mistakes of Struggling, Producing Mortgage Managers

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

overwhelmedmanagerOk, for all you thick-skinned producing mortgage managers struggling to juggle it all and feeling like you’re the only one who can’t seem to handle the competing work load in front of you, such as:

  • Originating loans
  • Recruiting
  • Managing
  • Networking
  • Marketing
  • Trouble shooting
  • Training
  • Corporate meetings
  • Sales meetings
  • PNLs, Expense Reports, Tracking overhead and all other Corporate-related documentation, surveys and reports you are required to submit…

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

Reality is that when you opted to have your cake and eat it too, you knowingly or unknowingly accepted the fact that being an A+ Sales Professional and an A+ Manager at the same time, would be a near impossible feat to achieve.

Now of course everyone’s definition of what it means to be A+ at something is going to vary and at the end of the day what really matters is that you go home from work feeling accomplished, satisfied with your efforts, up for tackling tomorrow’s challenges and fully expecting victories.

But what do you do if you don’t feel that way much of the time and after some introspection and a thorough review of your business numbers you find that you’re not setting the world on fire in your origination and your team seems to be sucking wind, too?

First, read through the following most common mistakes of struggling, producing mortgage managers and jot down everything that you can honestly admit that you are guilty of and willing to change.

Next, set a goal to focus on 3 of the items for the remainder of the year and certainly feel free to reach out to me for a complimentary session as the solutions to each of these issues are abundant and I’m happy to share my insights on what would work best for YOU and your particular set of circumstances.

Top 3 Most Common Mistakes of Struggling, Producing Mortgage Managers:

Poor hiring practices: Does not cast a big enough net to locate candidates-Lacks a standard interviewing process-Does little to no background investigation of ability to produce/sell-Hires based on personality vs. sales abilities-Hires friends/family members- Hiring out of desperation to fill seats, rather than waiting for the, “right” team players to fill roles.

Poor management style: Acts as a crutch, a motherly/fatherly figure rather than empowering team players and teaching them how to find their own solutions-No set on-boarding & training schedule for new hires-No set scheduled time for employee concerns, questions, suggestions, loan challenges, etc.-Brings personal issues/shares personal issues at work-Leans towards wanting to be liked more than wanting to lead- Blames Corporate for challenges-Passes the buck-No accountability measures-No formal progress reviews-Does not walk their talk-No communication regarding goals & vision, expectations & boundaries.

Poor planning/poor time-management: Does not engage in daily planning-Does not review and reset goals on a weekly basis-Does not review business numbers consistently-Lacks a Business Plan-Lacks a proper project management system-Does not fully utilize/embrace tools & technology-Does not properly delegate-No set work hours-Allows too many personal/family interruptions.