The 3 Best Ways to Double Your Mortgage Business
I’m going to be completely honest and tell you that the title of this post doesn’t give the whole truth. If you implement these loan officer strategies I’m getting ready to share, you aren’t going to double your mortgage business. You’re going to triple your mortgage business. Maybe even quadruple your mortgage business. Now, that’s some serious math.
Our Real Life Success Story
Speaking of math, are you ready for some big numbers? Last year my team closed a little over $1.6 billion in funded loans. That’s billion with a B. Does that blow your mind? It blows mine. Last month we closed 743 loans. In one month. And, just like everybody else, we started at zero.
We’re one of the top branches in the nation, and I’m going to walk you through the exact process my team uses to produce these truly record-breaking numbers.
Here they are in their simplest form:
- A daily success plan
- The Power Hour
- Weekends off
Let’s take a closer look at each of these, one by one.
Create a Very Specific Daily Success Plan
There are shiny objects everywhere. There are hundreds of things you could do to grow your mortgage business. One huge mistake loan officers make is showing up to work and thinking, “Ah, what should I do today?” A recent study found that executives at the office spend 74% of their day doing nothing but asking, “What should I do next?”
At our office we’ve put together a Daily Success Plan. It’s a list of very specific activities we do at very specific times. We’ve found that the time at work and the amount of loans you’re closing are independent of each other. There is no correlation. It’s the activities you’re doing that make the difference. These primary activities move the needle for loan officers more than any other activity they could do (or shiny whistle they could run after).
On Mondays, the simple activity is to talk to current agents we’re working with. We’re asking for more business from referral partners and prospecting new real estate agents.
On Tuesdays, we’re giving updates to people regarding the deals currently in our pipeline. This includes the listing agent, the buying agent, the borrower, the co-borrower, and the title company, and in some cases, a closing attorney. It’s a simple scripting thing where you call everyone with an update with what’s going on in the file, then you ask them for more business. A lot of us have “call reluctance,” but these people want to hear from us, and they are more than happy to help us. Just ask for referrals in a cool way that’s not salesy or fake.
On Wednesdays, we market to our past database. We do this in four different ways:
- We call them with a simple script.
- We snail mail them a simple mailer.
- We email them.
- We run Facebook ads just to our past database.
On Thursdays, we call our pre-approved and lookings. So often, we pre-approve someone, then get so busy trying to pre-approve other people, and we don’t follow up, and we lose them.
On Fridays, we relax. When we do these planned activities Monday through Thursday, we have so much business coming in, we can take Fridays off. We’ll talk about that in a minute.
Utilize The Power Hour
You would be amazed to see how much work I get accomplished in just two hours a day. And it’s because I make sure those hours are Power Hours. You set the time aside on your calendar. You sit down at your desk. There’s no time wasted by wondering, “So what should I do now?” Your brain would love to give you 10,000 things to do, but you’re going to ignore that. You have your Daily Success Plan tracking form in front of you, and you start the clock.
Our tracking forms list our specific activities with little check boxes next to them. When you first sit down, it feels hard. But you get over that hurdle, you make those calls, and you get on a roll. And checking off boxes as you complete activities is a very powerful thing. I do very focused work (no interruptions allowed) for 50 minutes, take a break. Repeat. Then I’m done for the day. Loan officer hours complete. Check.
How do I spend the rest of my workday? My favorite way is to get more realtor referral partners and build relationships with them. If you’re looking to build your team, you can spend time doing that, one person at a time. Building a team can be intimidating, but you can’t grow your business without it. My first assistant, Jeanette, started with me four hours a week. That’s all I had. But during that four hours a week, I started doing more proactive activities (making connections, having conversations), because she was handling the stuff that got in my way. It’s hard to delegate and give up control at first. Do it anyway.
Take Weekends Off
Now we get to everyone’s favorite part—taking weekends off. If you’ve been around here for long, you know that, not only do I take every weekend off, I enjoy a THREE day weekend every single week. All of my loan officers do. Why? Because we’ve found that, if you take that extra day off to recharge your batteries, you will actually close more loans.
Did you know that Chick-fil-A has doubled the revenue of the average McDonald’s? Sunday is McDonald’s busiest day, and Chick-Fil-A is famously closed every Sunday. Because of the beliefs of their founder, the company lets the machine—and the employees—rest one day a week. Yet, they’re still outperforming McDonald’s.
My friend Roger was closing around 18 loans a month when we met. Last week he closed over 170, and he’s working less hours than ever before. Pre-pandemic I attended an event, and he and his lovely wife, Lacey, were there. They saw me from across the room and headed my way. Lacey started trotting faster, hugged me around the neck, and said, “Thank you thank you thank you for giving me my husband back.” Robert wasn’t working all those hours for selfish reasons. He was trying to do right by his family. He figured out how to close more loans and spend more time with his family by doing focused work Monday through Thursday.
When I first met my friend, Paul, he was closing seven loans a month. Now, Paul, his wife, and their three lovely children are traveling the country in their big motor home, six months out of the year. He’s doing 41 loans a month, and he’s not working out of his motor home all day long. His team does 90% of the lifting, and he spends a couple hours a day doing proactive stuff.
You can do this too. From nine to five on Monday through Thursday, use the right loan officer scripts, and do your very specific outbound activities at specific times of the day. Two hours a day will absolutely blow up your business. Don’t wear the golden handcuffs, where you’re making a ton of money but you’re chained to your desk. And don’t wait for retirement to have fun. Have fun NOW.
Need help making a plan to have more fun? It sounds silly, but believe me, you’re not alone. Most loan officers don’t know how to have fun when they’re first getting started. Give me a call today, and I’d love to help you map out a strategy for taking your life back. It’s absolutely FREE. I can’t wait to hear from you!
