Loan Officer Sales Training 04/11/2024: How to do Follow Up Calls

In this episode, we dive into the art of follow-up calls and unveil proven strategies for loan officers to maximize their effectiveness. Hosted by Kyle Hiersche, this engaging discussion explores the importance of follow-up calls in nurturing client relationships and driving loan conversions.

Join us as we uncover the secrets to crafting compelling follow-up scripts, maintaining rapport with clients, and overcoming common challenges. Learn how to personalize your approach, establish trust, and address client concerns to move prospects closer to closing.

Our expert guests share their experiences and practical tips for mastering follow-up calls, from timing and frequency to communication techniques that yield results. Discover how to leverage follow-up calls as a powerful tool for building long-term client loyalty and driving business growth.

Tune in to gain invaluable insights and actionable strategies that will empower you to elevate your follow-up game and achieve greater success as a loan officer!

For more episodes visit:
https://themortgagecalculator.com/Page/Loan-Officer-Sales-Training-Podcast

About The Mortgage Calculator:

The Mortgage Calculator is a licensed Mortgage Lender (NMLS #2377459) that specializes in using technology to enable borrowers to access Conventional, FHA, VA, and USDA Programs, as well as over 5,000 Non-QM mortgage loan programs using alternative income documentation! 

Using The Mortgage Calculator proprietary technology, borrowers can instantly price and quote thousands of mortgage loan programs in just a few clicks. The Mortgage Calculator technology also enables borrowers to instantly complete a full loan application and upload documents to our AI powered software to get qualified in just minutes!

Our team of over 350 licensed Mortgage Loan Originators can assist our customers with Conventional, FHA, VA and USDA mortgages as well as access thousands of mortgage programs using Alternative Income Documentation such as Bank Statement Mortgages, P&L Mortgages, Asset Based Mortgage Programs, No Ratio CDFI Loan Programs, DSCR Investor Mortgages, Commercial Mortgages, Fix and Flip Mortgages and thousands more!

Our Mortgage Loan Originators are trained to be loan consultants to guide borrowers throughout the entire loan process. A licensed Loan Officer is on

The Mortgage Calculator is a licensed Mortgage Lender (NMLS #2377459) that specializes in using technology to enable borrowers to access Conventional, FHA, VA, and USDA Programs, as well as thousands of Non-QM mortgage loan program variations using alternative income documentation!

Using The Mortgage Calculator proprietary technology, borrowers can instantly price and quote thousands of mortgage loan programs in just a few clicks. The Mortgage Calculator technology also enables borrowers to instantly complete a full loan application and upload documents to our AI powered software to get qualified in just minutes!

Our team of licensed Mortgage Loan Originators can assist our customers with Conventional, FHA, VA and USDA mortgages as well as access thousands of mortgage programs using Alternative Income Documentation such as Bank Statement Mortgages...

Transcript

0:01

Okay, so welcome everyone. My name is Kyle Hiersche. I'm the COO of the Mortgage Calculator and this is our loan officer sales training that we do every week. Weekday at 12 p. m. Eastern where we go through the front end and sales end of the mortgage business today. We're going to be talking about how to make follow up calls. We all know it's something we need to do. Some people are kind of afraid of it. Some people just don't get around to it. So. We're going to talk about that today because it is the most crucial part of any sales business. And don't be confused. We are in sales just because you're a loan officer, you're a consultant, you're doing loans on the front. You know, we have to wear multiple hats as a loan officer because on the front end, at the end of the day, we're still safe people. So let's talk about it here. First off, the fortune is in the followup. I don't need to tell you that, right? Everybody knows that they know the same. And then, of course, the next bullet point here lead is forever. We never stop following up. Right? So you know, Nick and I have a book called follow the lead and the 1st chapter is called the lead is forever because a lead is an asset that we're never going to stop following up with. So the fortune is in the follow up, and our system is made so that you never stop following up with anyone. And so you know, that needs to be the motto there. Lead is forever. We don't ever just leave. Leave a lead to the side, right? Remember for those of us at the mortgage calculator, in the CRM training that we do, we talk about how every. Lead needs to be pushed forward. No lead left behind ever, right? Every lead has to have some kind of reminder to follow up with them in the future. So no lead is ever wasted. You know, here's the thing. You'll never know how many sales that you lose. From not following up. So it's not one of those things where it's like, you know, it, it, it affects your pockets right at that second. It's a thing where you'll never know how many deals that you would have closed. You know, you just don't know if you're not doing the followups. Right. And here's some, some statistics here. 80 percent of sales require five followup calls. Or more, right? That's, that's a lot. 80 percent of sales. Mind you, this is follow up calls, not, not counting the initial call, right? And 48 percent of salespeople never make a follow up. Keep this in mind in 2023, 40 percent of loan officers left the business. 40 percent of your competition left the business last year because it was a difficult year. 48 percent of them are not even following up with people. Now it's obviously not exact, right? It doesn't exactly translate. But the point here is that just by staying in the business this year, you beat out 40 percent of loan officers of the competition. If you just follow up with people, you're beating out 48 percent of the competition that is not even following up. So these are simple things here to be light years ahead of your competition by doing something very simple and very easy. Now, coming back to the, you'll never know how many sales you lost. The example, I'm sure you've all probably heard this, but I just can't talk about it enough. The example of Mike Vasquez making the 4 million in production from one lead that we gave him, but he called him eight times and it was only on the eighth time that the person answered and said another lender fell through today. I'm going to give you a shot. He ended up doing three loans for him. Multi million dollar loans. Amazing client, but it was the eighth follow up. So there's no better example I've ever heard of In in the industry or even in sales than that, right? Not just a no better example at our company There's no better example I don't think out there period of the fact that somebody took the time to follow up eight times And then boom happened to call them right on the exact day. And that's the thing. You don't know what's going on with people's circumstances. You don't know if people can't answer or don't answer. So think about this when Mike was calling this gentleman, he could have just said, Oh, like, obviously he doesn't want a mortgage. Cause I called him twice and he didn't answer. Right. Well, the gentleman was interested. What probably happened was that he was probably talking to multiple people, right? And we were one of them. And then he kind of started, you know, dealing with somebody else and then stopped answering Mike. But then once that fell through, Mike happened to call him at the right time. So again, circumstances change, things change. If he wouldn't have called him that eighth time, it wouldn't happen. And if he wouldn't have called him the eighth time on that, that day. Right. And so that's why you need to follow up constantly because you never know what day that day is going to be where their circumstances change or something falls out or or you know, there's something in the news that makes them want to do something or if they need cash, right? You never know. You call them and say, Hey, I know we talked about a cash out refinance a lot, you know, a while ago. And they go, you know what? I actually am in a cash crunch now, now that you call me, is this still something we can do? Right. So you just never know people's circumstances change, but eight follow up calls. Best example ever. It's, it's, it's, it's so important to understand that we're talking about like 60, 000 or something and commissions in his pocket that would not have existed if he called him seven times. Think about that. Seven calls is a lot. I know a lot of you are going seven calls. I've never called somebody seven times. Well, you need to, you need to call them eight times, 10 times, 20 times they, you know, the leads that we're talking about here at the mortgage calculator. Most of these leads, these are all opted in leads, right? They are the one who clicked on our ad. They are the one who double opted in. They have to click four different screens to opt in, to give us their information for us to call them about the product that they're inquiring about. So you are doing this for them. They requested you. To do this, right? And so you should be on top of it. It is your number one goal to get ahold of them, consult them in what we could offer, how we could help them. And it's just not going to happen with one phone call usually. And sometimes again, you know, don't, Don't stop following up. It just takes following up again and again and again. And if you're only calling somebody once, twice, three, four, five, six, seven times, just think about the fact that that eighth time could be 60 grand in your pocket, but you'll never know if you don't do it. Mike would have never known that about that 60, 000 that went into his pocket. He would have never known if he only made seven calls, he'd have no idea that that money was there that he could put into his pocket. Right. So it's, it's a big deal. Make sure you follow up. I, I really hope everybody here uses that example. I mean, like I said, it's not just a great example here. It's a great example in sales in general, but since, since you're here at the mortgage calculator and this happened right here at the mortgage calculator with our leads, the same leads, we're giving you same exact ad campaigns, same exact leads that we're giving you. That should be a lesson to, Oh, I want to, I want to be like Mike, right? I want to make sure that I'm following up eight times, 10 times, because I don't want to miss out on the 60, 000 in commission from dealing with one client. Right. And then the follow ups don't stop after the sale, right? We we know this follow ups don't stop. We're going to keep continuing to call them. We're going to check in with them. We're going to set follow up tasks for us to check in. We're going to check in with them. After the closing to make sure they got their closing gift. Right? Because remember we send them the little closing gift, you know, everybody who Does along with us, we send them an email and they answer the questions that curates a little gift box for them, a mortgage calculator gift box and sends it to them maybe you know, cutting board and wine opener, a little mini speaker, a water bottle or something, you know, it sends them a little box with some little stuff. So that's a perfect reason to follow up and say, Hey, did you get the email? Make sure to fill that out so we can send you your gift box. And then, Hey, did you get the gift box? Just wanted to make sure. And each time, what are we doing? We're asking for follow. We're asking for referrals. We're asking if there's anything else they can help us with. And even if there's Excuse me. Even if there's no referrals, even if there's nothing that we can help them with, we got another touch, right? We're staying relevant. They're knowing us more. They're communicating with us more, even after the sale, because what you don't want is for them to just be like, okay, it's done now. I don't ever need to talk to this person again, right? You want to just keep the relationship going. Easiest way to do that is to, To contact them right after closing, say, Hey, we're sending you an email for a closing gift, fill it out. And then, you know, later, Hey, did you get the closing gift and all that kind of stuff? Right? So follow ups don't stop after the sale. It's even almost more important to follow up with them, right? Because they were already your client. Chances of you getting a referral from a client or a repeat deal from a client is way higher than calling new people, right? So very important. Okay. So how does this apply to us specifically at the mortgage calculator? Well, we need to always have a follow up task set to call. Remember that we go through in our trainings, how to call them, what the process is for the first three days, how it works, always setting follow up tasks. So you just got to make sure that that's set. Also remember that if it is a company lead, at the mortgage calculator and you do not have a follow up task set, then the lead is recycled. Right. And there's no, nobody contacts you about it. There's no anything going on. You just know, you know, that's the policy. And and so the system automatically does it overnight, every night, anybody that failed to set a follow up task on a company lead, right? Your leads, your leads are your leads, but on a company lead, if you failed to set a follow up task for the future, the system will recycle it automatically. So it's very important to follow The exact procedures and policies laid out now, just like we talked about in the quote training, we want to re quote them every three days. We want to call them the next day after we re quote them and just keep this process going. Remember, the re quoting is keeping them updated on rates, and it's also following up with a purpose. Right. That's what's so great about our system too, is that the quotes give you a reason to follow up because you say, Hey, I re quoted. You just want to make sure you've got the current rates. Just want to make sure you see what's going on. You're keeping them updated. You're providing value to them. You're not harassing them. Some, some people just. Just call them and over and over again and say, Hey, can I pull your credit yet? Can I pull your credit? They're just trying to lock them in to pull their credit. Right with us. No, we're going to keep them informed. We have valuable information that we're giving them specific to their exact scenario. And so this is something where we're providing something to them. We're not harassing them. We're not being pushy. We are providing something of value to them. And that is the best way to follow up. Okay. And again, we're talking about follow up calls here today. And so the re quote leads to the follow up call, right? The re quote is the reason to make the follow up call and say, Hey, I sent you a new quote. Check it out. Updated rates. Let me know what's up. Other things to follow up with a purpose about here. Rates go up or down. A lot of people go, why would you contact people when rates go up? Well, some of you may notice that all of the lenders send out emails when rates are going. Right at the end of the day rates going up or down is going to affect things either way if rates are going up We want to tell the client. Hey rates are trending up. Let's get something locked in right now If rates are going down, we want to tell the client. Hey rates are going down. Let's finally do something, right? So we got to be in the place where we use The movement of rates, whether they're up or down to our advantage, right? And to the advantage of our clients, we're not trying to trick them into anything, but if rates are going up, rates are going up, let's get something done before they keep going up even more. There's one thing the last couple of years have taught us is that you'd never know, right? If LTV limits change, We've talked about this on a few trainings recently of reasons to reach out to people, right? If LTV limits change, you need to be constantly looking for reasons to follow up. If there's new programs, if we get an email from an investor or lender or somebody announces on our team meeting or something that now on this whatever 90 instead of 85. You should be searching all of your contacts. For people that you were talking to them about that program and using that as a reason to follow up with a purpose about, Hey, I know we were talking about this. You know, I found out that boom, they just raised it 5 percent LTV. Now we can do 90 percent LTV. I immediately thought of you and wanted to reach out so that we could do, you know, so that I could help you. Cause I know last time we talked about it, we were only at 85%, right? Remember at the mortgage calculator in your CRM on the contacts tab, you can search by notes. I think a lot of people don't take advantage of that enough. Remember you're talking about key locks, second mortgages you know, anything very specific, a fix and flip or something. It's so simple to just type that in, search by notes and all of your contacts that have notes that match that. is going to pull up. So that's an easy way for you to say, Hey, LTV limits changed on this thing. Let me go type that into my notes, pull up all the contacts. I was talking about that, by the way, another reason why it's very important to take great notes. When you're talking to the clients, take great notes in the CRM because you can search them. They're not just for You know, reminders for you and stuff. They're up there also for a whole lot of other stuff. So take great notes. But again, that, that news comes in, you search for the notes, the contacts that make sense to pull up and contact them, and those are the best kind of follow ups that you can make. And then also same thing when new programs are released, right? You get a new program, you think somebody might be a good fit for it. And this ha you know, this doesn't have to mean that they were talking to you. Right. So let's say some kind of DSCR cashout. This is never going to happen, but let's say an 85 percent cash out DSCR comes available. You know, you could hit up any investor. You don't have to talk to investors. You were talking to that. We're trying to get 75 percent cash out DSCR. And now you're saying, Hey, you can, any investor would be interested in the 85 percent cash out. So that's, that's a reason to follow up with anybody, not necessarily just somebody that, you know, was, was, that you were talking to that. And then again, just to cap it off here, ask for referrals on the follow up, you know, the closing gift, they get it, make sure to follow up with that and then set follow up tasks. Again, you should never have a contact without a follow up task, even somebody who you closed. I actually talked to a loan officer the other day. And they didn't have a task set for the future to follow up. And when I spoke to them about it, they said, Oh, I already closed a deal with that person. Okay, and What does that have to do with you following up with them and having a follow up task set? What's gonna happen if you don't have a follow up task set as a loan officer, especially at the mortgage calculator dealing with so many leads You're talking thousands of people hundreds of people thousands of people. They're gone. They're just out of they're out of sight out of mind You're never gonna go think to pull them back up again You have to set a task. Every client that you've closed, you should have a follow up task to set up for the set up to call them every two months. Sometimes every month, depending on if they're an investor that has multiple deals, multiple properties. Absolutely. Every month, bare minimum, you should be following up with them. If you've closed a deal with them, right. And, and somebody, maybe it's just a, a home buyer. Yeah. Maybe every couple of months just to check in, make sure they're good. See if there's anything you could help them with, ask them for any referrals, stay top of mind to, to saying, Hey, you know, just keep in mind if you hear anybody over here, anybody talking about buying a home or refinancing, I'd really appreciate it. If you. Gave them my info, right? So the, again, they don't stop the follow up calls. Don't stop. Those are even more important follow up calls, right? Those are follow up calls that will generate you more money in business than even the regular follow up calls on the front end, right? Because these people have already done business with you. Hopefully you've been a valuable loan consultant to them. And they want to not only use you again, but recommend you to people that they know. So again, let's recap here. Fortune is in the followup. You all know that a lead is forever. We never stopped following up. You'll never know if you don't follow up, you'll never know how many you lost. And again, that I just really want to brand it into your head. Eight follow ups. I don't know the exact number, but whatever, 40, 50, 60, 000 in commissions in his pocket. So think about that when you're dialing, do I want to call this eighth time and make 50, 000 in my pocket? Or am I just going to not call him the eighth time and let the lead be recycled and somebody else get it and somebody else calls them the eighth time. So think about that. So if Mike didn't have follow up tasks set for the future. After the seventh call, then if there wasn't a follow up task set, it would be recycled and somebody else would have called him the eighth time and made that money. Boom, mind blown, right? Let that also be a lesson to everyone here to call the recycled leads list because there's people like this in there, which by the way, the main office just got a phone call today or excuse me, from somebody who is ready to purchase something. And it's trying to get a hold of a loan officer. The person they were dealing with no longer works here. And so where were they? They were in the recycled leads list. So somebody you all, all of you just missed out on a sale because you didn't call the recycled leads list. That person was just sitting there in the list, waiting for somebody to call them and nobody called them. So they called our office. And said, Hey, you know, I'm trying to get ahold of my loan officer. I'm ready now. And you know, so they were assigned to somebody new. So let that be a lesson to everyone on here. The recycled leads are you know, amazing. They're real leads and you should be calling them. And that example here of, if Mike hadn't set the follow up, then the eighth call would have been done by another loan officer. And, and I don't think the gentleman would have cared because That other loan just fell through. I don't think he would have cared if it was Mike or if it was somebody else at that point. Right. And so that would have been a huge thing, but Mike would have never even known about it because he didn't follow up. And so again, you never know how many sales you lose. So make sure to always be setting follow up tasks and let that be a lesson to everybody to go in and call the recycled leads. I can't tell you how many times. We get an inquiry of people calling the office asking to be connected with somebody and we look and they're in the recycled leads and nobody's called them yet. Right. So hit up the recycled leads, make sure to do as much as you can with those. If you can see recycled leads in the dialer and you're not calling them, you're not doing everything you can to, you know, boost your production here. So you should definitely be doing that. All right. I don't see any questions. So I think we'll go ahead and. Wrap it up here. Then remember we do this at 12 PM Eastern time every weekday where we go through the front end and the sale end of the mortgage business. So we'll be back tomorrow with a new topic. Thank you everybody for tuning in. We'll see you tomorrow, 12 PM Eastern for the next episode of the loan officer sales training with the mortgage calculator. Have a great night, everyone, or a great day, I guess.