I remember my first day as an originator. The top producers in my office told me to go to my accounts and drop off rate sheets and occasionally bring in donuts. I felt like a mail man and saw no purpose in this approach. So, I sat back and reconsidered how to get business in the door.
I broke it into two categories:
- Long-Term Business Strategy
- Short-Term Business Strategy (After all, I was on 100% commission)
1st Long-Term Strategy:
Give away knowledge, position myself as a subject matter expert and offer training to the new real estate agents who are entering real estate. They are just as hungry as you are!
So, I developed 3 classes; Conventional Financing, FHA Financing and VA Financing. There is a lot more you can talk about today! Here are some ideas in addition to basic mortgage financing:
•QM and the differences between a GSE and CFPB
•New Regulations and how they affect business
•Credit profiles that produce a homebuyer
•The New mortgage process
A lot has changed in our industry! I’ll bet if you sat around and brainstormed you could come up with a lot more. Just think about the things that you struggled to understand.
I went to the office managers and showed them the training, offered to train their new agents in mortgage financing for free, as a value-added service. No Strings and no bugging them!
By the end of my first year, I was the top producer in a company that had many top producers. This is the power of taking a bit of your time and knowledge, and passing it on to others. As the new agents came on board, they were all excited about doing business so they were quite aggressive. They looked to me as the financing expert, because that is where they learned mortgage financing from.
In today’s world, you can do classes in person, start discussion groups or just send out “Did you Know” tips. The key is to make sure you are doing this in a way that conveys your passion for the subject matter instead of your desperation for business. There is a fine line between the two! Passion means that you want to pass on knowledge to the other individual because you know it will help their business grow. When you help their business grow you don’t have to hard sell, as the business migrates your way naturally.
