I have personally consulted with over 60 mortgage broker's, from all over the country. My consulting has allowed me to dig deep into these companies, and I have found that many of them find that they need help with their "owner skills".
Many have great marketing skills, but the wherewithal to build an enterprise that will produce a consistent income stream, while not making them a slave to the business, and having systems in place to guide and assure their likely success alludes them.
Instead of building a great and worthy ship, with powerful diesels below deck to move them forward, and placing themselves confidently in the control room, with their hand on the rudder, watching carefully over their gages; many have set out to sea in a vessel that is barely sea worthy, and find themselves running from deck to deck to put out fires, running to the engine compartment to cool the engines, all while the ship is running through tumultuous seas, with no one at the helm!
As a mortgage broker owner/originator, you have a minimum of three hats to wear: Finance, Operations, & Marketing. Without mastery of all three, it is my opinion, you will find only frustration over the long term.
To help you with this, we offer the following services as a potential client of Mortgage Broker Coaching:
Accountability Modules: these modules are the centerpiece of our consulting practice. Here you will find one on one interaction, in a variety of business disciplines, complete with homework and accountability.
Modules will vary from 4 week (semi-monthly conference calls) up to 16 week (semi-monthly conference calls) all designed to learn new skills, implement them into your mortgage practice, with the expectation of an immediate return/result for your investment.
- Reaping profits from a living-breathing database system - this is likely the number one reason we were able to achieve the success that we achieved. We built relationships with our clients, and an internal system to take care of those clients, that produced remarkable results year in, and year out. This was achieved with what I call a "living-breathing" database, and the respective systems and procedures around it. If you have a list of your clients, we can teach you how to create new business right now, and help you build a system that will produce a consistent monthly stream of income!
- Building an Annual Review System - I created this system many years ago, in my business. The idea has started to find fashion over the last few years, but I have many years of consistent results to teach you, in this regard. The basic idea is simple, conduct an annual review of the liability side, of your client's lives each year. In "normal" times, this system alone created $25 - $40,000/month for my personal team. You may not have the same size client-base that I did, but with this system, I can teach you yet another consistent stream of monthly income.
- Team Building - once you have the ability to produce a consistent stream of income, around the $100K/year range, you may want to consider building a team. Building my team, is what gave me life! When we sold the company, I was spending only 45 minutes/day in my team. I taught my team to do many of the tasks that did not require my expertise. Having my team allowed my wife, and me to spend 10 days each month traveling this great country. If you are serious about building wealth, and having a life at the same time, you must learn to build a team around your personal practice.
- Time Management - this may sound somewhat trivial, as compared to the rest of our offerings, but don't be fooled! This is the silent killer that prevents many a mortgage practice from going from one level to the other. After the database module, this is my recommended second step! I spent years building a system to manage my time. I believe that I squeezed 15 more hours out of my 40 hour work week. In terms of efficiency, I would run circles around many of my peers. This is a reasonably short module, but a critical one!
- Business Money 101 - these business skills are rarely found in the mortgage broker industry. It seems that most are all about getting the next deal. With this mindset, many millions are left on the table over the years. Let me say that again, if you don't pay attention, and build a system that can reliably report to you your company's numbers, then you are leaving millions of dollars on the table! Let me share with you just one example. When I started tracking my profit/loan each month, and sought to find ways to improve it over time, my profit/loan more than doubled over a three year period of time. Inspect what you expect! I have many other examples, but hear me, this is a veritable gold mine to the business owner that will pay attention. I have helped companies create great wealth here.
- Lead Tracking Systems - here again is a HUGE hole in many mortgage brokers practices. Many mortgage brokers spend thousands of dollars to attract a lead. When the lead calls, they write the name on a sticky note, and at the end of the month have no idea how many leads they received, where the leads came from, what their closing effectiveness was, how profitable one lead channel was from another. I could go on and on. You know you suck at this! This is another huge opportunity to create immediate income. I will teach you to build a system where you will never, ever loose another lead again. Furthermore, if someone isn't ready today, you will get them six months later when they are. Most mortgage brokers, if they don't close them on the first call, they loose them! This system was easily another 2-3 loans a month for me!
- Starting a Blog for your business - the Internet is rapidly changing. If you have a stagnant website, then you are losing precious mind space with your clients. A Business Blog will be a must in the future. Be the first mortgage broker to embrace this technology in your marketplace. I built my first blog about 5 years ago. It was a wonderful tool to keep my clients informed of our industry, but it also gave me credibility. In just over a year, I had the #2 mortgage blog in the country and was being interviewed by NPR, Business Week, U.S. News and World Reports, and many local media outlets as well. How would you like to show your clients that you were interviewed on National Public Radio? Would that create some credibility?
- Vision/Mission/Values planning - where will your company be 5/10/20 years from now? If you don't know where you are going, you will likely wind up someplace else! When our company hit a large recession, in Michigan years ago, I didn't like the affect it had on my business. I decided, then and there, to purposefully chart my course and stick to it. We completely changed our business model and focused on two things: lifelong relationships with our clients, and our "product" became our advice, not our mortgages. This watershed moment forever changed our company. Over time, we became known for our good business advice, rather than givers of good deals on a mortgage.
- Sales Management - this area of your business can be a challenging proposition. A great percentage of the businesses, I have consulted with, were not profitable in this area. Furthermore, they didn't realize that their loan officer channel was actually costing them money each month. To add salt to the wound, this channel brings the greatest risk to your company from a liability standpoint. With this module, we will look at the vision you have for loan officers, look at where you are now, and build easy to manage reporting systems for you to keep your fingers on the pulse of this energetic group. This is an incredibly important module. This one, if you don't get it right, can land you in jail.
- Building "WOW" into your company - have you ever gone to a 5 star restaurant and completely been blown away by the food as well as the experience? To have an amazing company, you must have both a great product, and a great experience. If you do this, your clients will become your best advertisements. We will help you build reliable systems in your business designed to get your clients saying "WOW"...a lot!
- Business Planning in Tough Markets - a critical module for today's mortgage broker/originator. The smart mortgage broker, during slower times will take some time to think completely out of the box. I am seeing many mortgage brokers jumping into many different lines of business, simply looking for an additional revenue stream. The best of the best, in the whole of the service industry specialize. How can you, during these slower times, pick a few channels of revenue and become the absolute best of class? What markets are there? Don't allow your company to become a me too....many mortgage brokers are becoming Realtors, Financial Planners, and any thing else under the sun that might bring a few thousand dollars in the door. Folks, you will become the master of nothing with this path. Let us help you build a well thought out plan. It is very difficult to think clearly, when you are making decisions from fear.
- Operations Management - this involves the life of the loan in your system. Your clients should be greatly impressed with your closing system. Our reputation was first built in our marketplace from this vantage point. Our aim was to have every client raving about our loan process. The Real Estate community loved our company. With this module, we will help you sit down and contemplate each and every step in the loan application process to assure that it is very timely, that it involves quick and effective communication with your borrowers and Realtors/builders, that everyone in your company is excited about it, and that you have a lean, mean, closing loans machine that produces happy clients out the end ....every single time!
Site Visits: sometimes a business owner doesn't know what he, or she, doesn't know. Further still, quite often a new pair of eyes on your business will see things that are not apparent to you, as the owner.
The site visit is designed to provide an audit of your Sales, Operational, and Financial Management Systems.
This service is very akin to an annual checkup with your doctor. The purpose is to make a diagnosis and prescribe a clear and certain path to effectual change.
- Click here for more information.
Downloadable, Affordable Lessons on Sales, Operations, and Financial Management:
- Under construction and coming soon!
