How to Make a Million Dollars a Year as a Mortgage Broker
When people ask me how it feels to work just four days a week and bring in (way) more than a million dollars each year in personal income, I say, “It’s awesome, and I highly recommend it.”
My friend, Matt Vance, lives and works in a beautiful town called Bedford, New Hampshire. He was a lender for a long time and transitioned a little over two years ago to being a mortgage broker who works for himself. He has gotten his hours down to 30-35 a week, and now he’s an official member of the Two Comma Club. When I asked him how it feels, he said “liberating. It makes me feel lighter.”
Matt and I are both recovering workaholics who have discovered the secret to cutting down our work time while making more money. And you can do it too.
Where to Start When You Want to Cut Your Hours
Matt says he used to wake up at 6:00am and work until he went to bed at night. Five or six years ago, he really started focusing on cutting down his time and making that a higher priority than big numbers. The good news for Matt is that he was able to cut his time AND increase his numbers.
Matt’s recommendation is for people to go slowly when they make this transition. Don’t try to do it all at once, he says. It won’t work. You have to make a sacrifice one way or another. When Matt was working 60-65 hours a week, he sacrificed time with loved ones, and he sacrificed sleep.
He says that, if you want to reduce your hours, set a stop time and stick to it. So every day you’ve got to know what time your day ends. And if you want to start a little bit earlier, great. Get in a little bit earlier, but set your end time at 5:00 and honor that. You have to make the decision that, no matter what, my day has to end at this time. The best thing he did was setting end times for himself and slowly ratcheting back from that.
It’s like day-before-vacation mode every day. You have to be out by a certain time, because you have to get home to do something before you leave. Stick to it, and it gets easier. Another thing you can do is make a list of anything you don’t get finished by 5:00pm. That’s the job description of your next hire.
To Scale Down Your Hours, You Have to Hire Help
When Matt scaled down his hours, did he add someone to his team? Yes, he did. He says it has been a slow evolution over time where he’s tried to zero in on what he wants to do, what he’s best at, then delegating everything else. It took him a while to figure out how he could be most effective with his time and what’s most profitable to the business. Then he found people to do the busywork.
So, when Matt started having “Bob” do that busywork, now there are two people doing it. All Matt had to do was let go and let Bob handle it. How did that go? Matt says he fought it, and it took years and years of practice. It didn’t come easy. He’s a type A and a control freak by nature. He had to work hard to let go of control. He’s not alone.
So, when Matt hired Bob to do busywork, what activities did Matt start doing more of? He says he became obsessed with his daily calls and face-to-face meetings. He filled up his days with calling leads and potential realtor referral partners, setting meetings, trying to get in front of as many buyers and realtors as possible. He was doing 30 meetings a week. It has changed a bit since Covid, but that was his focus. He’s good at talking to people and earning business.
Focus On Those Money-Making Activities
Matt has learned the most important key to working less and making more money. You, as the loan officer or mortgage broker, spend all your time on money-making activities. That’s how you close more loans in less time. Matt’s focus is on calls and staying in touch with people and trying to be more impactful over the phone. He’s doing about a dozen meetings face-to-face, and the rest of his time is dedicated to calls.
His primary focus is getting more realtor referral partners. He sets a meeting with them by trying to find something or someone specifically in common with them, so he can kind of “triangle” to break down the wall of resistance.
Getting a list of qualified agents has been a game-changer for him. He’d take the list to someone he knew and say, “Hey, I want to hook up with a couple of these big agents. Is there anyone on this list who you know is nice, and I could shamelessly drop your name?”
Matt says that recently, per his coach’s advice, he has started focusing less on numbers and more on working with people who are like-minded, people he enjoys being around and working with. He spent too much time chasing people that he didn’t end up having a good working relationship with, so now he focuses specifically on people he knows he’ll get along with.
I asked Matt what he talks about in a meeting with a real estate agent he doesn’t know. He says he wants to try to learn as much as he can about them. He makes the meeting about the other person, not himself. He wants to solve problems for them. He wants to try to uncover what pain points they have in their business. If he can find out where their struggles are, and he can bring a creative solution to them to help fix it, hopefully that makes him stand out. Then he’s earned the right to ask for referrals.
The Number One Thing to Set You On the Path to a Million Dollars
Matt says that, if you want to make a million dollars, you absolutely have to get a coach. It’s a vital investment in your business where you hire somebody to look at what you’re going through at a higher level and help guide you through all of the chaos.
Outside of that, Matt’s advice is to get more disciplined with your list and your time. Every day you should have a list of who you need to be calling, following up with, and talking to. That should be your number one priority every day. He makes contact (via phone or face-to-face) with at least 25 people a day. He doesn’t feel like it every day, and it’s not easy. But starting his day with a gratitude call, just to thank someone for a referral, changes his attitude quickly.
Another thing Matt suggests is to make sure you run your day, not the other way around. If it goes on your calendar, you can’t remove it. It has to get done. Prioritize your calendar. Don’t start off your day just reacting to stuff, or you’ll never get to what’s important. Matt struggled with that for a long time. He’d wake up, check email, start responding, putting out fires. By the time he looked up, it was noon and he hadn’t called anyone.
I asked Matt his single favorite mortgage marketing strategy. He said he’s pretty good at dropping off cheesy gifts. That makes him stand out, and he’s gotten a lot of compliments on it. They do a lot of gifting throughout the process when they have a buyer under contract and the agent that referred them. They gift things like charger pads for phones or cake pops with their company’s logo on them. It helps you continuously stay in front of people, keeps you top of mind.
So, if you want to work 35 hours a week or less and make a million dollars or more in personal income, do that by having a team, talking with 25 people a day, having quality conversations with qualified referral partners, have an attitude of gratitude, save your money, and hang out with winners. Try to keep it simple. Don’t overthink it.
If you’d like some help getting on that path to making millions, we’d love to chat with you. The call is absolutely FREE and we promise it will be worth every minute of your time. Schedule it TODAY.
