Patricia Sherlock

In my conversations with executives, a frequent topic is what to do with originators who are not succeeding in this market. Many managers have said they tried training in an effort to inspire better performance. Some have even introduced niche products that really should sell themselves. The trouble is that we aren’t talking about a […]

Watching the 2014 Winter Olympics, I have been amazed at the athletes’ performances. Especially impressive is the amount of practice these star performers put into their craft. Many USA team members spend six hours a day or more practicing for an event that might take just two minutes in performance time. Experts generally agree that

Today, I want to discuss the on-boarding of new originators. In my view, on-boarding is one of the most critical drivers of sales productivity. On-boarding is how long it takes new originators to ramp up their sales production. At many companies, this time frame can be 6 months or longer. I have even seen some

As we move into what promises to be a challenging year, sales managers are facing the age-old issue: How do I make my business revenue goals amid rising interest rates and tighter underwriting guidelines? A tough combo. For many sales managers, the answer is to add “more feet on the street.” While this strategy has

By 2017, Gen Y will be the largest generation. This fact, more than any other, will demand a new mindset for sales organizations who want to capture business from this critical population segment of potential home buyers. A number of recent surveys indicate that the new generation will impact the marketplace in the following ways:

One common complaint I hear from managers today is that their originators won’t visit referral sources to generate new business. While some originators claim that that they have tried in the past and can’t get into a real estate office because it is a closed shop, the truth is that they haven’t tried and managers

In a recent New York Times article, Carla Cooper, CEO of Daymon Worldwide, a private-brand development company, was asked what her playbook is for turning around a situation. Cooper said, “you have to get faster and faster at this. You have to quickly evaluate and assess the business and the people, and then figure out

I recently watched several documentaries marking the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. One report revealed that two-thirds of the population were not even born when it happened in 1963. Just think about this fact. The assassination was part of the DNA of a generation, many of whom are managers in mortgage banking today.

As we move into the last days of the year, I wanted to discuss a recent article published in National Mortgage News. I think the article raises a critical issue that senior managers can no longer ignore: the quality of first-line managers in their sales organizations. The article by Dave Gallegos, covers the economics of

“I don’t have time to be on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. I am making sales calls.” Have you ever heard this comment from your originators? Perhaps you’ve even thought this yourself. If so, that one statement says it all about your sales organization’s view of social media and represents a failure to grasp just how