Last week, I surveyed the top 50 mortgage sales executives on how effective their originators were at marketing to realtors and expanding their referral base. The results were eye-opening. The majority of survey participants rated their originators less than 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest). I simultaneously surveyed […]
Last week, a mortgage executive exclaimed, “It’s a dog fight in mortgage origination!” as he described the current lending environment. Indeed, fierce competition, crazy pricing and non-existent housing inventory have created additional challenges in an already volatile marketplace. To compound these issues, Zillow recently noted that almost 50% of sellers are receiving contracts for […]
In 2020, many originators pushed prospecting to the backburner. Thanks to the record-breaking refinance boom, originators were able to hit volume and income goals without much effort in the prospecting department. This year, a very different story is playing out. While interest rates are still low, marketplace volatility has complicated the financial outlook. A recent […]
Every salesperson knows that transactional selling is no longer relevant in today’s marketplace. With unlimited access to information online, prospects and customers conduct research on their own and don’t need someone to explain product features and benefits. However, this creates another issue for consumers that originators are uniquely positioned to solve. With so much […]
Every originator knows that selling is not easy. Competition is intense with thousands of originators basically offering the same products. This is the mortgage landscape in 2021 — a commodity business. When originators are asked to distinguish themselves from their competitors, is it any wonder that their reaction is disbelief when the products and […]
Last week, Jeff Bezos released his final shareholder letter as CEO of Amazon. His yearly shareholder letters are always worth reading because Bezos often provides important business insights that are meaningful for other companies and their employees. In the most recent letter, he reflected, “If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), […]
In mortgage banking, it is commonplace for originators to adopt the practices of successful producers. If one salesperson rises at 4:00 a.m., everyone else feels they must follow suit. If a top producer is active on LinkedIn, other originators will incorporate the platform into their own marketing strategies. Likewise, lenders are copycats too. If a […]
During a recent industry webinar, a discussion about reducing time to close a loan boiled down to a single question: What would it take to have a 3-day close? One attendee asked, “Can mortgage bankers even conceptualize a 3-day close?” The event speaker weighed in, adding, “some practices are so ingrained in mortgage banking that […]
Last year was especially challenging for sales professionals after in-person sales calls ground to a halt due to the pandemic. Many originators were forced to adapt to the new world of virtual selling — and fast! For producers used to doing business face to face, lack of virtual selling skills didn’t matter as much […]
During my recent conversations with sales leaders, managers across the board expressed concern about their originators adapting to the new environment of rising interest rates and the shift to purchase money. The decline in refinance business is a reality with mortgage applications dropping 43% in the last week, according to the MBA. This raises […]