Whether you’re well seasoned or fresh to the mortgage business, you’re probably looking to increase your production.
We are, after all, salespeople right? And salespeople have a reputation for having an insatiable appetite for growth.
Unfortunately, for many loan officers, despite their appetite for increased production, they find themselves slipping into “maintaining” instead of “thriving” like we all know is so possible in this industry.
So how do you break out of this cycle?
Well, the answer may be simple, but it’s not easy.
It can pretty much be summed up in the following sentence:
Get in front of as many prospects as possible, close loans efficiently and effectively, and master your short, medium, and long term follow up games.
Sounds easier said than done, right?
That’s why we’ve put together these three easy steps to help you do exactly that.
Step 1: Get in Front of as Many Prospects as Possible
Getting business in the door is something every loan officer faces at some point in their career. Lucky for us, getting your name out there is not as difficult as it once was.
The question is, where do we start?
Making connections with other professionals is a great way to grow your mortgage business.
Who are these professionals and what do they bring to the table?
- Accountants: Clients who are buying or selling homes and can offer referrals.
- Appraisers: Knowledge of which real estate agents are selling the most.
- Real Estate Attorneys & Relocation Specialists: Direct prospects your way.
- Listing Agents: Cross-sell services through referrals.
Building a referral network with these connections can certainly help your growth, but there may be an easier approach.
Taking control of generating your own exclusive leads instead of relying on handoffs is another great way to grow your mortgage business.
The first and most obvious benefit of generating your own leads is your ability to leverage them in your realtor relationships. We generate thousands of leads per month for our clients. Of those leads that close, we see about 50% with no realtor representation. This provides you with more ammunition for your realtor referrals.
Additionally, this means no more time “kissing the feet” of your referral network. When you own the lead from the get-go, you control the entire process. You save yourself the time and headache of pleasing others in order to get what you want.
In fact, the control aspect of our lead generation service is what receives the highest praise amongst our clients.
Step 2: Handle Your Mortgage Business Efficiently & Effectively
Now that you have deals coming in the door, it all comes down to providing a positive loan experience, while also ensuring you have the time to scale. You have to provide a high level of service while remaining efficient, and most importantly close the loan. However, nobody ever said you had to do it alone.
Who will assist the process, and how?
The willingness to delegate some of the tedious tasks associated with your mortgage business is where we see our clients set themselves apart and truly maximize their production.
If able or allowed, hiring helping hands to balance workload is the obvious solution. Having an assistant and/or processor in-house frees up your hands to focus on the deals that need more TLC. This also increases the sheer number of deals you’re able to balance at once. An in-house support team is a game-changer when it comes to your ability to truly explode your production.
This allows you to focus on selling and your team to focus on completing nagging tasks.
As an added bonus, you can make use of drip campaigns in order to save even more of your valuable time.
What is a drip campaign?
This is a marketing communication strategy that sends, or drips, a pre-written set of messages, or media, to prospects over time.
Using this strategy can advance your clients to the next stage of the process, without much effort at all.
Step 3: Master Short, Medium & Long Term Follow Up
You have deals in the door and the team to support you, now it is time to work them. However, organizing and storing prospect information can be a nightmare. Staying relevant in the prospects’ eyes can prove to be just as difficult. As a result, you may struggle to add the personalized service many customers seek.
How do you counter this?
Fortunately, we live in a world where cutting edge software development is abundant. In this case, we are even seeing fresh CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) that cater to the mortgage industry and professionals.
With general knowledge of basic CRMs, you know they allow you to organize a prospect’s personal information like name, phone, email, address, date of birth and etc.
Others may even go as far as storing loan number, social security number, current income, and employment information. All of which provides you with more ability to assist the customer, adding value in their eyes and advancing efficiently through the loan process.
However, your CRM can be so much more. For example, the CRM we offer as part of our service to our clients, stores relevant information that can be used and incorporated into personalized marketing campaigns and passed through a MAS (Marketing Automation System).
For more on CRM and MAS, check out this blog: CRM vs. MAS.
Taking it a step further, the right CRM helps you organize clients based on specific factors such as the type of loan. In most cases, this means the split between purchase or refinance.
Another key feature we hold in high regard is the ability to stage clients based on where they are in the loan process.
For instance, you may opt to use the following as a basis for staging:
- Pre Application
- Applied: Not Qualified
- Applied: Qualified
To put it bluntly, your CRM should make it easy to identify the individuals that need constant attention, versus those you need to check in with about at least once a quarter. Use tools like CRMs to work smarter, not harder. Yet again, freeing up your time, increasing production, and allowing you to shift your focus to closing more deals.
The only barrier between maintaining and thriving in today’s mortgage industry is the willingness and ability to implement these three steps. With this we’ve seen mortgage businesses transformed, getting MORE new clients in the door, providing high-level service from START TO FINISH, and closing MORE deals.
As always, thanks for reading and we’ll see you at the top!
Empower University
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