I worked for years as a mortgage loan officer. During this time I worked with two very successful loan officers, however, their styles were polar opposite. These two guys were opposites to the point where they basically didn't like each other, and spent most of the day avoiding one another.
Here are their stories.
The first loan officer whose work habits I am going to tell you about is Mike. Mike was a creature of habit. He was always the first one in the office every morning, where he would drink his cup of coffee and read his newspaper cover to cover.
Mike never left the office, he never did cold calling at night like the rest of us, he never sent out mailers, in fact, Mike never did any thing except deliver excellent customer service, and work his tale off for his customers.
Mike was also a student of the mortgage industry. He learned everything there was to know about it. He read countless magazines, and numerous articles. He attended seminars at night, and he knew all the niche programs of every lender our company dealt with.
Mikes excellent customer service along with his excellent knowledge of the industry put him in a position to help people in all kinds of financial situations.
A lot of these people were in desperate need of financial help. Mike was always capable of finding them a lender and a program to fit their financial needs, while being compassionate the entire time.
Mike treated these people with such kindness and dignity that he not only made their holiday card list, they talked him up to anyone that would listen.
Mikes inflow of referrals came from at least one hundred of his previous customers that he had helped in a time where the largest financial decision they would ever make was at stake.
These people referred family and friends to Mike because of the way he treated them, and the hard work he did for them. The bottom line is, they trusted him, and they liked him, so they referred to him.
The other guy . . .
The other guy I worked with was a guy named Joe. As I stated earlier, Joe and Mike were polar opposites.
Joe would come hustling into the office every morning approximately five minutes after the office opened. He made a grand entrance and said good morning to everyone in the office.
Joe was usually coming from breakfast with a client, or coming in from one of his many networking events.
You see, that was Joe's angle, he networked. Joe attended every networking event under the sun. The chambers, the lions clubs, the rotary clubs, you name it and he was there.
Joe had really put his time in at these organizations, and he had really paid his dues. He took the time to get to know the other members of the business community. He not only got to know them, he got to know about their business as well. This way he could refer business to them.
From these groups alone, Joe continued to receive his own steady flow of referrals.
These two scenarios are only two of the many ways you can keep referrals coming in. And, as you can see, different people use different techniques. In these two cases, the loan officers used what worked best for them.
Find out what works best for you, and stick with it! Good luck! |
