What is the #1 Mistake Loan Officers Make?

I was talking with a colleague this afternoon and he asked me a very interesting question: What is the #1 mistake loan officers make?

I answered in 2 parts:

1. Failure to have a Personal Development Program (PDP)

2. Failure to go out and get the business even if they work for a company that provides them leads (in short, networking).

Let’s look at these 2 for a minute. In terms of #1, lack of a personal development program (PDP), I find that many LOs don’t have one and don’t even know what one is. Simply put it’s a program that you develop yourself or buy from someone else. It consists of books, tapes or CDs, and seminars and I’ll boldy include Blogs in that as well. Blogging, I think, is a huge new resource for people who want to develop themselves further. In this PDP there are daily steps.

• One might be to read 15-20 minutes a day from an uplifting, positive book.
• Another step might be to listen to one CD or tape a day.
• As a third step, you could go to a seminar once a month or at the very least once a quarter. Seminars can also include teleseminars which are a relatively new way of communicating that’s very effective - there’s no travel involved, you just pick up the phone and they are significantly less expensive than a live event. With that said, I think the chemistry at live events can trigger big emotional decisions so I’d caution you not to leave them out.
• Another important step is a daily regimen of listening to professionally recorded self-talk.

The main reason I recommend this is because if you really want to become excellent at what you do, you need to be doing a lot of activities where your self esteem is a factor. So you should constantly be building and reinforcing your self esteem. For example, if you want to begin a new marketing campaign where you’re going out to talk to realtors but you haven’t done that type of prospecting before, you’ll need some support. The type of PDP I describe above will do that.

The other piece to a PDP is that it will also build other areas of your life, not just your business. As you learn what it takes to succeed, your attitude will improve and it will overflow into the other areas of your life. It’s really hard to succeed at one area and fail at another. The results go hand in hand.

In terms of #2, Networking and going out to get business, I think that most LOs aren’t doing everything they can be. Now, I was guilty of this as well when I was an LO too. We tend to get backed up with the “office crap” and all the “he said, she said” stuff and we sail through the day accomplishing very little if anything.

I read a great quote the other day by writer A. Lou Vikery that said,  “Four short words sum up what has lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: a little bit more. They did all that was expected of them and a little bit more.” It doesn’t mean that you have to do everything possible and kill yourself in the process, it just means that the difference between success and not is a little bit more. That’s a real easy motto to adapt and run with. Og Mandino in his classic book “The Greatest Salesman in the World” said, “If asked to go one mile with a friend, I will go two. I will go the extra mile.”

Even if you work for a company that provides you with leads, (most of which are class B or C leads) you should still be developing your own business if you’re allowed to. I hosted a tele-seminar a couple of weeks ago with one of the top producing LOs in the state of Georgia and his networking process is brilliant but simple: When you’re talking to people, and we meet people everyday through our normal activities, ask enough questions so you can discover their pain. Then, team them up with someone in your network that can heal that pain. When they’re eventually looking for a mortgage or know someone who is, you’ll get the referral. 

So it’s not like you’re going to dress up in a suit, go to the local mall and start handing out business cards….no, you’re going to have normal everyday conversations with people and in the course of those conversations, their pain will come up - it always does - and you’ll have the opportunity to help them ease that pain. Remember, sales is simply solving someone’s problem with a product or service or in this case, a referral who can solve their problem. That’s how you network.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough which usually happens once I get going. But I think what’s important here is that these ideas work in any kind of economy. It’s your attitude that counts. One shoe salesman goes to a country where they don’t wear shoes and calls his boss and says, “There’s no business here. No body wears shoes.” Another shoe salesman goes to the same country and excitedly calls his boss saying, ”You’re not going to believe the opportunity here! Nobody wears shoes!!” It’s all in how you look at it.

I know you can do it and I definitely believe in you!

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