How Many Deals Can Your Loan Processor Handle?
One of my partners, Mr. Scott Hudspeth, and I are in a Facebook group called The Loan Officer Deal Desk. It’s a fantastic group of thousands of loan officers across the nation helping each other out, asking questions, sharing loan officer tips and strategies. It’s an honor to be a part of it, and it’s absolutely free.
We asked this question in the group recently: how many deals can your loan processor handle? People kept answering higher and higher numbers, as if whoever had the most was winning.
In reality? Whoever’s loan processor is doing the most deals is likely losing. Let me tell you why.
What You Want from a Loan Processor
If you think your loan processor’s only job—or even their most important job—is processing loans, you need to rethink things. In our office, we used to measure a successful closing by whether or not it was closed on time. Our new metric of a successful transaction is: did we ask for—and receive—a referral during the time we worked with a client?
If your loan processor is handling too many loans in a month to ask for referrals, they’re too busy. This person is on the front lines updating clients, communicating, engaging, creating an amazing experience for your borrower and your realtors and everybody involved in the transaction. They’re in the perfect position to ask for referrals.
We used to wait until the closing to ask for a referral. But now we do it during the process, while people are still amazed and excited and engaged in the loan process, not after they’ve already moved on and are busy with life in their new home. Once they close, you’re old news to both the buyer and the real estate agent.
Your loan processor can take advantage of that exciting “you’re approved!” moment and ask, “Who else in your network can I help out?” If your processor is juggling too many loans, how will they have time to ask the buyer, co-borrower, listing agent, buying agent, and title company for referrals? You’re missing out on a ton of money.
Your Loan Processor Doesn’t Cost You Money; They Make You Money
I’ve seen loan officers squeezing every nickel out of this one hire instead of hiring someone else. They just don’t realize how much money they’ll make off the referrals this person can get as they go about their daily tasks.
I like running my team at a 70-80% capacity. I don’t know how to measure it exactly, but that’s what I aim for. I used to try to get everything I could out of them, but then they got overworked, and then they were unhappy. Parents were away from kids, partners away from each other. We were robbing people of their time with friends and family, and nothing good comes from that. If your processor is closing 50 loans a month, they’re going to burn out. And there’s no way they have time to get more referrals.
If they’re doing 20 loans a month, they’re talking to 100 different people a month. In our Freedom Club, the number one source of all new loans is getting loans from those 100 people. It’s our number one answer to the question: “How can I close more loans?” If you’re not getting one referral for every five in process or approved and looking, you’re dropping the ball. A typical loan partner can handle 8-10 a month if you utilize them correctly.
Let’s say your loan processor is getting paid $75k. If you charge a $500 processing fee, they only need to close 13 loans a month to pay their salary. That’s not even including the money you make from all those loans. Why would you want to overload a free employee so they don’t have time to ask for more business on your behalf?
If you’ve got 10 loans, your processor should get 2 more deals from referrals. Then your loan partner is going to end up being free for you too. Now you have all these people putting out the fires and chasing conditions. So you get more loans—for free free free. If you do it right, this person won’t cost you a thing. They’ll only make you money.
What If My Loan Processor Isn’t a Salesperson?
So your loan processor isn’t a salesperson? No problem. Can they read? At the end of each conversation they have, can they read a little script? We have the perfect script we’d love to give you for free. It’s basic and easy, and it works. Schedule a free call with Scotty to get the script (and other loan officer scripts) and much more.
At the beginning of the call, they’re just giving the normal updates. It’s the last 30 seconds of the call where they read the script. It’s a different script for the borrower, co-borrower, listing agent, buying agent, title company. Ask for business enough times, and you’re going to get it. If you don’t ask, the answer is zero. Ask enough times, and the number will be much higher than zero.
Listing agents never get called, but our people get some of the best results from them. Why does nobody call them? Because we think they don’t have much to do with the transaction. But we’re wrong. They know people just like everybody else does.
Take some time to evaluate your loan processor’s workload. Are they calling everyone, asking for referrals, and getting one out of five? Or do they not have time because they’re overworked? If your loan processor is a hard worker and does their job well, but you’re not getting referrals, they have too much on their plate. It’s time to hire more help so you can close more loans.