Top 10 Traits of a Successful Loan Officer!
1. Have a game plan!
Review your pipeline and know what you need to do today. Do I need 4 apps, 2 appraisals or 2 more closed loans by the end of the week? Plan out your day, week and month! Do not wing it! Pilots do not wing it when they fly, doctors do not wing it when they have surgery, why should you wing it? You have to be prepared and know what you need to do when you walk in that door.
2. Know your Products and Guidelines!
How can you sell a mortgage if you don’t even know our products? You should be able to know what your customers qualify for once you initially talk to them and pull their credit. Do not prescreen customers if you do not know your guidelines. That is the worst thing you could do! If you don’t know, continue to take the app and pull credit. You can not afford to play the guessing game, because by that time, it is too late and you have just wasted a lot of people’s time and money.
3. Raise Your Expectation Level and keep a larger pipeline than your peers!
Too many times Loan Officers fail due to not having a high enough expectation level. Why limit yourself? Great Leaders have great visions! If you don’t visualize yourself closing 10 loans, then how are you going to achieve it? If you’re aiming to close 5 loans and you close only 3 or 4, then you are SOL. Set your expectation level higher than everyone else!
4. Don’t be afraid to deliver bad news!
Unfortunately, the difficult part of our job is to deliver the bad news to our customers. Be selective on the times that you make these calls. Make that unwanted call and be decisive about your decisions! The sooner you do it, the sooner you can move on to new business and better deals.
5. Be Decisive!
Another big mistake Loan Officers make! Make a decision and move on! Too many times Loan Officers keep holding on to files and aren’t being decisive enough about the loan. This is the biggest mistake that you could possibly make because it creates a lot of unnecessary time when hanging on to these “problem files”. You might sneak one in from time to time but, you could have spent all of that time finding several “fast funding” loans!
6. Deliver Great Customer Service!
Oh, how important this is to do? Return your phone calls immediately! Constantly call your customer during the Loan Process just to inform them that you have a handle on things. Create multiple sales proposals for every customer. Even if they are an 800 fico!! Be consistent in what you do on a daily basis and deliver the customer service needed to get future referrals!
7. Be Accountable!
Be 100% accountable for your own Successes and Failures! Challenges and Problems are yours to overcome! They are not an excuse to fail! Have some resiliency! Do not blame processors, managers or underwriters for your failures!
8. Start Early in the Month! Do not procrastinate!
Never submit files late and if you do, make sure you are already in position to commission at that point and what you are submitting at month end is gravy! When the rest of the office is going crazy at month end, great Loan Officers are the ones staying focused and selling loans to prepare for the next month. Learn to multitask! If you can’t control the situation, then don’t worry about it and move on to another task, like selling!
9. Attitude, Drive and Goals!
Come to work with the right attitude every single day! Have the drive and desire to succeed in this business and most importantly, make sure you have your goals in place otherwise; you do not know what you need to accomplish each day, week or month! Visualize the big picture! Do you want to manage one day or do you want to make $100,000 this year or both? Find out what your goal is and work backwards to figure out what you need to do to get there.
10. Ask for Referrals
Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it! It is proven that each customer you talk to can lead to potentially 52% more prospects. That is right, 52! All it takes is the ability to ask that question of “Do you know of anyone else that needs cash out on their property, a lower rate or to get out of their adjustable rate mortgage? Do not be afraid to ask, but it starts with delivering great customer service as well!
~These are rules that I live by…and being in the financial services industry since 1999 and have come in contact with lots of others in the field, I also found most or all of these traits in the successful ones as well!