One mortgage loan officer can rarely be differentiated from another by interest rates and mortgage terms alone. In an increasingly competitive financial market and access to almost all of the same lenders and mortgage products, it really comes down to the MLO themselves, when determining who is a high performing mortgage loan officer.
With the lion’s share of the homebuyer population made up of Millennials and Gen Z, expectations are demanding when it comes to digital solutions. However, the need for high quality, customer-centric service is still greater than ever and is what will set you apart from the competition. Technology continues to evolve in the mortgage industry, but the human touch is what’s often missing and is certainly welcomed in the undeniably overwhelming experience of entering the property ladder – many of whom have spent years saving, just to be a small part of it.
In this post, we’re going to explore the kind of habits you need to incorporate into your routine (a good habit in itself) to beat out the competition, win more business, and create lasting relationships with your clients.
Establish consistent processes
MLOs have to juggle a lot of different plates in their day-to-day and this often leads even the most organized officer to miss opportunities or skip steps in processes, resulting in mistakes, lost business and additional time investments down the line.
Streamlining as many processes as possible for consistent and repeatable results is one of the key habits you can build to ensure success time and time again. Clear processes and sales funnels, teamed with smart automation, is one solid example of working smarter over working harder. It is also one way to increase the cost-efficiency of your mortgage business and when ROI is increased, you know you’re onto a winner.
Prioritize your partnerships
Attending a few snazzy events and shaking a few hands is just the beginning when it comes to networking and building relationships with relevant partners in the real estate industry.
Once you’ve got someone’s attention, you need to go above and beyond to nurture and maintain that relationship in order for them to pass you the best business, properties, clients, or deals.
Some of the best ways to build the habit of prioritizing your partnerships is to regularly attend networking events, get involved with your local community, show them what value you can offer, follow up, and top tip: send pre-qualified buyers to your realtor partners as often as possible!
How? Attend industry specific networking events for professionals in industries such as medical, engineering and IT. You’re likely to meet a wealth of prospects that are not only interested in property investments or buying a family home, but are likely to be successfully pre-qualified due to high status roles and salaries.
Make data-driven decisions and upgrades
Although you’re aiming for consistency, it’s a good idea to make reviewing your processes a part of your routine to ensure you always have the most efficient methods in place. However, don’t let assumptions or gut-feelings make these decisions for you, always use data!
Data-driven strategies and decision-making yields a five percent higher productivity rate and six percent higher profit margin than not using data, according to McKinsey & Company.
If you have a room with two groups of mortgage loan officers, one made up of top performers and one made up of average performers, you can be pretty confident that everyone in the top performing group knows their data. Solid knowledge of their own performance metrics is a common trait in high performers in the mortgage industry, while average performers may only be able to give you a ballpark figure.
How many leads did you have in August? Appointments? Pre-approvals? Applications? Closed contracts? If you don’t know, find out. Investigate your numbers and know your data inside and out. If you don’t know how you are performing and where things need to change, how can you ever improve?
This is by no means an exhaustive list of habits top performers in the industry follow every day. We could tell you that you should wake up at 5am every day, drink more water, and make sure you workout and meditate, but these are the three areas we believe will really help boost your performance if you implement them confidently and regularly.
What habits would you say are vital to your business success and performance as an MLO?