Patricia Sherlock

“Don’t hire a person for what they can’t do; hire them for what they can do.”— Peter Drucker Anyone who has been in financial sales for any length of time has heard the term “call reluctance.” While there are entire training programs, books and videos devoted to correcting this “problem,” I believe call reluctance is […]

“The most important thing is that the person and the assignment fit each other.”— Peter Drucker While our industry has undergone sweeping changes in recent years such as the demise of the refi boom and the drop in housing values, what it takes to succeed in the long run remains the same: hiring top quality

“Continuous improvements in any area eventually transform an operation.”— Peter Drucker What is the secret to sales success in origination? For one of our clients, a top 15 national player, a three-pronged strategy helped the company boost production per loan officer by 33 percent over its peers while reducing turnover by 41 percent over the

“Opportunity is where you find it, not where it finds you.” — Peter Drucker Generation Y is the next consumer population entering their “home-buying” years and industry reports predict that this group will account for 30% of homeowners by 2015. The most ethnically diverse and technologically savvy of our time, Gen Y prospects will need

“Core competencies meld customer value with a special ability of the producer.” — Peter Drucker One of the biggest issues facing lenders right now is the need to bring new sales professionals into the business. Because of recent industry reconfigurations, many firms find that they have a gap between seasoned sales professionals who have already

“The focus of the organization must be on opportunities rather than on problems.” — Peter Drucker We recently surveyed 1,000 loan officers for a panel I moderated on “The Secrets of Top Producers and Their Use of Social Media.” What we found is that social media use in originators is less a function of age

“Major changes always start outside of an organization.” — Peter Drucker In our industry, there has been much discussion about the use of social media as part of the origination process. What we’ve found is that social media is really a tool used by the top sales people, primarily for prospecting. In our experience, below-average

“Knowledge workers must have continuous learning built into their tasks.” — Peter Drucker A key component of a successful coaching program is training sales professionals on the right pre-sales, sales and post-sales activities. Sales activity training topics encompass six essential areas. They are: Prospecting/Pre-qualifying; First Meeting/First Impression; Probing/Presenting; Overcoming Objectives; Influencing/Convincing; and Closing. In order

“Look at people as resources to be developed.” — Peter Drucker One of the keys to an effective coaching program is for managers to invest time with those sales professionals who will yield the greatest ROI. There are four primary categories of employees: star performers who are high performance, high potential; new hires who are

“Keep your eye on the task, not on yourself. The task matters and you are a servant.” — Peter Drucker It’s a common scenario: a top producer is moved into a management position so he or she can help others achieve the same level of high performance. After all, the producer should know how to