business planning

Oct 31
0

Consumer Habits Have Changed So Too Must your Business Plan

By | Mortgage Business Tips, mortgage coaching | No Comments

Business is good, right? The phones are ringing, people are buying homes. You’ve got more refinances than you can shake a stick at and things don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. But like any great run, at some point, the sprint will turn into a jog and the jog will turn into a slow walk and the last thing you want to have happen is to allow your business to suddenly stall and cramp-up!

While Mortgage Professionals have been enjoying the influx of business, things have changed overnight that will affect HOW they go about earning new business from referral partners and direct consumers in the immediate future.

Here’s what’s changed:

  1. The number of people engaging in new technologies has sky-rocketed due to the simple fact that they were FORCED to in order to earn a living, remain healthy, learn and be educated and maintain relationships with loved ones.
  1. Consumer sensitivity and sensibility can be likened to a hairpin trigger and because of this, marketing, advertising, scripting, messaging is being scrutinized & scrubbed of any language and imagery that may offend.
  1. The amount of time people are spending on social media has doubled, if not tripled during the Pandemic, creating more opportunity than ever before to expand one’s brand and marketing footprint exponentially.

What was once a “go-to” business earner for you may now be null and void. Where you’ve been marketing yourself may no longer have as many visitors and viewers. What was once deemed, “an offer of value” to your consumers may now appear trite or worse yet, offensive.

 

“People shop and learn in a whole new way compared to just a few years ago, so marketers need to adapt or risk extinction.”

–Brian Halligan, founder & CEO of HubSpot

What does this all mean? OPPORTUNITY!

Keeping  these changes in consumer attitudes and habits in mind while developing your 2021 Business Plan, will put you well ahead of the curve, create huge separation between you and your competition and ensure you keep your pipelines percolating with new business throughout the new year.

First, I highly recommend reading the following article which is rich with statistics regarding social media, digital and Internet trends and can greatly aid you in determining how and where to market. Global Social Media Research Summary July 2020

Next, here’s a great list of various business growth methods & modes, as well as, marketing items you may want to revisit, revamp/re-tune, or re-imagine when building your 2021 Business Plan:

Learn to enjoy the discomfort of CHANGE!

Remember, your business is always changing, so being flexible, accepting change and tapping into your creative genius is simply part of being a successful entrepreneur. You’ve done it before and you can do it again!

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”-George Santayana

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.

 

Jan 05
0

What Does a Great Mortgage Business Plan LOOK Like, Anyway?

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

Every Loan Officer who reaches out to me for a complimentary business coaching session can expect to be asked the following question, “Do you have a business plan?” Nine out of ten times, the answer is, “No.” In the beginning of my career, this used to surprise me. Coming from a corporate background, strategic planning, business planning and goal setting were expected at least, annually. How else was a business going to meet their market growth and business growth goals? How else would they be able to track sales projects, Marketing R.O.I., customer service levels, employee training & retention, systems implementation, etc., etc., etc?

What I discovered was that most mortgage companies were not providing the tools or education, nor were there any expectations of their Loan Officers to develop and share their goals or full-fledged business plans. No doubt part of the reason for the extremely high turn-over of Loan Officers across mortgage companies. Heck, if you’re not investing in and tracking your sales force, how are you effectively hiring the right team members, forecasting sales growth and providing the right tools and education to ensure retention? Hmmm? I’ll step down from my soap box now.

Ten years later, I’m happy to report that this has seemed to change somewhat, in a more positive direction and more and more, I am told that some type of goals are being requested and some companies have even taken the leap to provide business plan templates to their Loan Officers to fill out each year.

Helping Loan Officers to develop detailed business plans that will get them excited about taking action and give them a greater sense of direction and purpose about their businesses is one of my favorite specialized services that I offer as parexamplepicofexamplebizplant of my particular coaching platform.  It is a value that has proven its worth 10-fold for those individuals I coach.

I’d like to share an example of a detailed, mortgage-specific business plan with anyone who is interested enough to request it. Please email me at bizcoachvictoria@gmail.com and I will be happy to send you a copy of one of my own client’s co-developed 2017 Business Plans, who has graciously agreed to allow me to offer it anonymously.

2017 is going to be a GREAT year for those of us who PLAN it that way! Cheers!

 

Be on the look-out next Thursday for Business Planning Season Part VI-The Do’s and Don’ts of Business Planning

 

Nov 18
0

Look Back So You Can Leap Ahead!

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

reviewtimeI can tell you from a Business Coach’s perspective that forecasting one’s sales numbers and setting clear income goals is an exercise most often overlooked by solo-entrepreneurs and is exactly WHY it is the 1st step in my business plan development process with my own clients.

If you don’t set your earnings goal, and you don’t break it down to numbers you can track on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, how are you holding yourself accountable to the grander visions of your business?

How do you gauge when you need to put the pedal to the metal, or when you can give yourself some deserved time off? You can’t! Hence, the feeling of overwhelm, and eventual burnout.

When determining your income goal this year, avoid being too conservative or getting mentally stuck in the here and now. Remember, you are embarking on a new adventure of building your business. Opportunities will spring from the goals in your business plan that you simply cannot predict right now. So go ahead, astonish yourself and set the bar a bit higher.

For example, if you made $82,500 last year and you’re thinking that there’s a good chance you can make $100,000 this year, push yourself a bit beyond what you think you know to be, “realistic.” Tack-on another 10% to cover all the unforeseen possibilities that your new business focus will generate. The number you choose should feel like a stretch but still motivate you.

Have you ever heard the saying, “The numbers never lie?” Well, there couldn’t be a truer statement when it comes to your mortgage business.

Knowing your numbers and tracking results is the ultimate way to treat your business like you mean business! So charge into 2017 like the C.F.O. you truly are and eliminate all excuses to attaining your grander visions of your life and career.

Get started now by downloading Coach Victoria’s Income Forecast Worksheet.

Be on the look-out next Thursday for Business Planning Season Part V-What Does a Great Mortgage Business Plan Look Like, Anyway?

Nov 16
0

No Time for Hibernating!

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

hibernatingDo your Realtors and Mortgage peers seem to curl up and go into some form of hibernation around the Holiday seasons?

Then that’s the perfect time for YOU to turn up the heat on your own business planning efforts.

Don’t just send out cards, make calls before the holiday rush is in full force.

Don’t just squirrel away cuz it’s chilly outside, grab your parka and make it to those holiday mixers, company parties, town festivities, etc.

Don’t just talk about what you’re going to do differently in 2017, gather up a couple of B2B professionals and write down your goals together, brainstorm, collaborate and become each other’s accountability partners through the winter season.

Don’t let your Realtors go it alone with their charity events, fundraisers, etc., Call ’em up and ask how you can lend your helping hands to their causes this holiday season.

And when the ice and snow simply get to a point where driving anywhere is just not an option, then that’s the perfect time to really delve into social media, blogging and videos.

Staying active, even when your Realtors may grow cold and house-bound, creates an enormous edge for you so that when everyone does finally come out of their hibernation haze, YOU will be the first one they immediately warm up to!

Nov 15
0

Three Tips to Consider for your 2017 Marketing Plan

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

marketingplanThere are literally hundreds of marketing ideas, plans, tools, and systems, all vying for your marketing budget dollars via email blasts, webinars, social media, and at every industry seminar you attend, from sales gurus, other mortgage professionals, and coaches on a daily basis, it seems. Oodles of time and money are wasted in the hot pursuit of the best of the, “shiny gems” of marketing.

But, here’s the dirty, little secret…

It ALL works!

It’s not whether one marketing plan is better than another. It’s about the marketing plan that’s right for you, the one you are excited about, that matches your style, that won’t break your bank, the one you have the capacity to implement from A to Z . That’s the best marketing plan or tool for YOU, that’s the one that will work!

T.I.P.S. to consider

1. Your marketing messages have to show up where the masses are searching for information. With 1.79 billion active monthly users on Facebook, can you really afford to leave it out of your marketing plan this year?

2. Have you embraced video? YouTube reports that we watch more than 4 billion hours of video through their site each month. We are a community of voyeurs, no doubt about it. If your email marketing campaigns aren’t getting a good, “open” rate, it may be time to change those messages into short YouTube vids! Again, where are the masses getting their information?

3. Buying into several marketing ideas but never fully implementing and following through on one consistently, will leave you frustrated, derailed, and broke!  Focus on just 1 or 2 marketing platforms this year. Commit to seeing them through and tracking your results on a monthly basis.

Nov 04
0

Business Planning Season Part II-Why Having a, “Why” Matters!

By | Mortgage Business Tips | No Comments

Will you make the commitment to see your 2017 business growth goals through to the end?

To determine the true answer to that question, you FIRST need to ask yourself, “WHY are my business goals so important for me to see through to completion, anyway?”

It could be that you no longer want to spend 60 hours a week stuck behind a desk in your office. Maybe, you’re sick of pounding the pavement, asking real estate agents for their referrals. Or perhaps, finding the fun and rekindling your passion for your chosen career is at the root of your goals for 2017.

If you are unclear about your Why, or if your Why is driven not by your needs and passions, but by someone else’s idea of how you should conduct your business (or your life), you’ll discover that you simply won’t have the will to enact the steps to see your goals through to the finish line.

No why-No will = No results!

Your, “Why” is the grander destination you envision for your life and business, which fuels your, “Will” to take the necessary, daily steps to get you there.

Remember when developing your goals for your 2017 business plan, to run your goal ideas past your, “why meter” first. Make sure you have an excited feeling in your gut about the project, system, marketing strategy, etc., that you plan on implementing.

If your, “why meter” runs hot and the goals are in alignment with your current capacity and business growth vision, then SUCCESS WILL BE YOURS!

To get you kick-started, download my Vision Exercise and gain more clarity about your personal, “Why”

Be on the look-out next Thursday for Business Planning Season Part III-Setting Goals…Bigger Isn’t Always Better