Loan Officer Sales Training 04/12/24: The Art of Closing Loans

In this episode of "Loan Officer Sales Training," we explore the dynamic landscape of the mortgage industry and the importance of embracing change. Hosted by Kyle Hiersche, this episode offers valuable insights and practical strategies for loan officers seeking to adapt and thrive in an ever-evolving market.

Join us as we discuss the key drivers of change in the mortgage industry, including technological advancements, regulatory updates, and shifting consumer preferences. Our expert guests share their perspectives on how to leverage change as an opportunity for growth, innovation, and success in the lending business.

Tune in to "Loan Officer Sales Training" and discover how to embrace change as a catalyst for professional development and business advancement. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or new to the industry, this episode will empower you to navigate change with confidence and achieve your goals in the mortgage market.

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 only a phone call or zoom meeting away and always available to assist borrowers throug

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

0:00

But welcome everyone. My name is Kyle Hiersche. I am the CEO of the Mortgage Calculator, and this is our loan officer sales training that we do at 12 p. m. Eastern every weekday, where we go through the front end and the sales end of mortgages today. We're going to be talking about the art of closing loans. So just some different tips here and stuff to go through not the most specific theme ever, but some good information here. So we'll go through it here today. So first off, one thing we've got to keep in mind about mortgages is, is this is not a high pressure sales job, right? The high pressure sales people are, you know, like the call center trying to pull your credit as fast as possible so that you're kind of locked into doing something since they pulled your credit, that type of high pressure sales. You know, it is not what, what normal loan officers do. And it's definitely not what we do here at the mortgage calculator, right? Remember, this is the largest transaction of people's lives, right? 90 percent of the people you deal with, this will be the largest transaction. of their life. And we don't want to be pushy. We don't want to be high pressure. And it's also not something that's going to happen immediately. So I do you know, always like to give tips on here for new loan officers, for newer loan officers. One of my tips would be to make sure that you have you know, enough cushion to make sure that you're not desperate for deals because that will turn into high pressure, right? This is an industry where it's going to take a little bit of time to build up your pipeline. And at the end of the day, you know, you can't it takes it, you know, the, the, the work you're doing now is going to pay off in the months to come. Right. And so if you're at the point where you're saying, Hey, I can't pay my mortgage next month, unless I make a sale, you're going to start acting differently on the phone and it's going to show, and you're going to be so much more high pressure. And this is not a high pressure sales job. So that would be my recommendation to new. Loan officers is just make sure that you're not you know, depending on getting a check right away or something to pay your mortgage or else you're, it's going to show through in your activity. Right. We're going to properly interview, excuse me. We're going to properly interview every client. Now, the reason why this is here on this training, right? What the training is the art of closings, right? So why are we talking about interviewing a client when we're talking about the art of closing? It all starts with the interview. It all starts with doing the proper interview and taking the proper notes as well as doing the more in depth interview. You know, the 2nd time you talk to him, right? Once you're getting things going, you're going way more into depth after you're sending quotes and then, especially if you're narrowing in on some quote, and they are talking to you about 1 of the different types of quotes. That you sent these conversations become a lot more in depth, but the a good closing starts with a good interview. Right? And more importantly, a seamless closing. Starts with a detailed interview, right? Because the things that come up in this interview up front. Can literally save a deal from not closing when they're sitting at the closing table. Right. There's all kinds of times that things like that happen, where there's just something that wasn't communicated and they go, Oh no, you can't, you know, they're like, Oh no, I just bought it two months ago. Like, okay, well, all of this is all, we just did an entire loan for no reason because there's, you know, six months seasoning required or whatever. Right. So, you know, it's very important to do a detailed, proper interview. And like I said, it's not just the first one, right. It's, it's. the follow up interviews with them as well. And that's where it all starts to go from start to finish. So if you do proper thorough interviews with clients in the beginning, it will absolutely help you close the loans in the end with no issues, right? Now to close loans, first we have to get the opportunity to do loans. Right. And to do a loan, we're essentially solving a problem, right? Somebody needs money or they need to purchase some real estate. You know, either way we're solving a problem. We're fulfilling a need and they have a problem to solve. So we're going to structure the problem, right? We're going to quote multiple loan options. And of course, with our quoting system, we always quote multiple rate options. And so quoting multiple loan options is also going to help us close because it's going to give you know, the borrower the choice. Notice the next bullet point there, empower client with choices. I guess I can make the screen bigger here. Let me. Do that for you. There we go. All right. Because we want to empower our borrower with choices. So empowering the borrower with choices up front in the beginning of the process, when we're still in the quoting process, sending them multiple quotes to look at when we empower them on the front end. That's going to lead to an easier closing on the backend, right? And it's going to lead through an easier process the whole time. So from a you know, process standpoint, that's very important, but quoting multiple loan options from getting the deal standpoint is extremely important as well. Right? One thing that happens in your mind. Is when somebody sends you one thing, your decision is binary. Should I take this or not? Should I work with this person or not? Just the act of sending multiple options turns that binary choice into not necessarily should I do it or not, but which one should I do? This is a very powerful concept and this is a sales concept and this is a psychological concept and it's such a great thing at the Mortgage Calculator because we have the amazing quoting system where every quote you're sending them is giving them multiple rate options, but you're also sending every client multiple quote options as far as the different programs. Right? So, and in our system with the click of a button, boom, you can duplicate a quote, switch the loan program, pull the rates, send them that program and go, okay, pull the rates for a bank statement, send them the bank statement, copy that, change it to P and L, pull the rates for P and L, send them that, full dot, you know, copy that, click the button to turn it into full doc. I mean, this is like 3 minutes of work here to send them 3 different loan types. Okay. Once you have the LTV and address and you know, all this different stuff, or you might be sending different LTV loan options. That might be one of the things that you're changing when you're sending them these options. But within minutes, you can duplicate these quotes, change them to a different loan type and send them to them so that You know, again, within minutes, we can take advantage of that sales tactic and that psychological concept of them, you know, not only is it about them having actual choices in real life, but it literally is a psychological trigger to where, why are they talking to anyone else, right? We can offer them more than anyone else can at the mortgage calculator. We have every lender out there, imaginable, every investor out there for the most part, imaginable. That has every product, right? If there are other investors or lenders out there, they probably just have all the same products that ours already do. Anytime we find a new lender or investor with new products, we immediately sign up for them, right? So there's not people out there with more choices than us, right? So why let them think they should go with someone else? So if you don't quote. Multiple options. What if somebody else is talking to them? What if you just have blinders on and they say they want to do a conventional loan or a full doc loan or whatever it is, and you just quote them on full doc, but another loan officer told them, I have a cool program where you could qualify just bank statements. And they go, Whoa, this other loan officer said, I have to give tax returns and all this stuff. Well, that's because you didn't quote them on multiple options. They need to know that you can also do a bank statement program. You can also do a P and L program. You can also do an asset utilization program. So don't let anybody else come and take your client or show them that they have more programs than you because they don't. And you have everything that's out there imaginable. So we need to show that to the client. You don't want to send them 10 million quotes, but you want to send them the two. Between 2 and 4 quotes that make sense for their scenario. You know, obviously if they're not self employed, that's going to limit it, right? But if they are self employed, I mean, there's tons of different options. And they should, for the most part, all of the viable options for that client, depending on their scenario, should be explored and they should be quoted, right? So again, we're giving them one quote so they can say yes or no, we're giving them multiple quotes. Not only is that going to make that psychological difference, but also it's going to allow them again, here's that bullet point to empower themselves so that when any issues happen throughout the process. They chose this route right now. We're not going to go. Oh, that's your fault. You chose it right? But it is there, right? That they made that decision. We're there to empower them to make whatever decision they want to, you know, proceed with and explain that and and everything like that. But at the end of the day, when, when we, when they don't, you know, we don't want to push them into something. We want to let them make their own choice. Thanks. And then the great part about the quoting system is the actionable items. So to be able to close loans first, they have to start a loan, right? After you send them a quote, that's when they start the loan. The quote is the key to everything because that is when they hit the actionable item, which is to start a loan. The application, right? So the quote is key to actually getting the application. So again, the more quotes they have, as far as options, the more likely they are to go, I like that one, click and start the application. So what do we want to be doing then? We want to re quote clients, right? We talk about it on the quote training. We want to re quote people every three days. We want to follow up with them after we re quote them. That's going to keep them active, keep them engaged. We've talked about this on previous trainings too. You, you should use it as an opportunity to call them and follow up and say, Hey, you know, rates changed today. I just thought of you wanted to pull the new rates for you just so that you know, what's going on, right? These are amazing ways to engage with clients instead of just harassing them saying, Hey, I need a loan. Can you, can I do your loan for you? Can I do your loan for you? No, you're, you're genuine. You're providing value. And you're also having a perfect excuse to follow up by saying, Hey, I, you know, I thought of you. So I wanted to keep you updated on what's going. And then remember once the app is submitted, we want to prepare the client for what's about to happen. I see this so many times, especially with newer loan officers, That once the app is submitted, they kind of just start spinning their wheels. Or as Jose says, floundering about. And there's no clear instructions to their client either, right? So they don't, they're not clear on exactly what they're doing, but there's also no clear instructions for their client. And so we need to make sure that once the app is submitted, we communicate with the client about what's going to happen next. This is really big. The reason why it's on this art of closing training. Because we are at this point are still far away from the closing table. Right? But this is where a lot of loans go from somebody. agreeing to a quote and submitting an app and having intentions to move forward to this somewhat black hole sometimes of newer loan officers or maybe a loan officer newer to non QM or maybe a loan officer that's too busy or that just isn't doing things properly. Whatever the case may be, sometimes it can go into this black hole and doesn't move forward. And then the client doesn't end up moving forward. And sometimes it's the client that doesn't move forward. Sometimes they just. It gets lost. Sometimes it's the loan officer not pushing it forward on their end. And then the deal just kind of falls off. So remember when we get the app submitted, right now, once we're doing the loan, we want to make sure when we disclose the loan, we need to prepare the client for that. What's going to happen. What's it going to look like? Where's the email going to come from? Right. What does it mean when they sign disclosures? Does that mean they're locking in that rate? No, right? And so you need to make sure they're aware of what they're signing. I see tons of loan officers that'll just send out disclosures and the client has no idea what is going on, right? So you have to explain it to them. You have to prepare your client for trigger leads. Remember once you pull their credit, we had a training on this. Once you pull their credit, I mean, there's pretty much no way around it. You can try to opt them out in all kinds of different ways. But when you pull your client's credit, they're going to be turned into a trigger lead, you know, 99 percent of the time. And you should prepare your client for that. You should let them know, Hey, there's really no way around it. When we pull your credit, you're going to get a bunch of spam calls. Just don't answer the phone. These are things that they should know, and these are things where you might say, Hey, maybe you should put your phone on a, you know, there's a mode. I'm not sure exactly what's called, but there's the mode where it blocks numbers. You don't know. Right? So it only lets numbers that are in your contacts come through or something. The first, like, 2 days after pulling their credit, you might want to recommend that because then it'll just not ring to their phone at all. Right? It just denies the call because they're gonna, you know. You see, I'm sure some of you were in like Facebook groups and stuff like that. Loan officer, Facebook groups of their clients, sending them screenshots of 40 calls in a day or whatever, after they pulled their credit. So you might want to discuss that with your client as well and discuss the fact, you know, it's important to set expectations and manage expectations. Make sure they understand, Hey, people are going to call you. You know, a lot of them are going to try to say that they're going to undercut me or whatever the deal is. And just explain to them, you know, that you're there as a consultant. And if the, you know, if they have any questions about anything to let you know, but. Just prepare them for that so that they're not caught off guard and that nobody's kind of like I guess, maneuvering them into working with them. Right. Now, EPOs, this is another thing that we need to talk to our clients about because when it comes to the art of closing loans. It's only relevant and valuable if the loan stays closed, right? If there is no early payoff or early payment default EPO repeat D. So, you know, everybody has to give their commission back, right? When there's an EPO. So six to 12 months is standard for an early payoff. And if they pay it off in that amount of time, you know, and so it's important to prepare your client and say, Hey, these loans aren't meant to be paid off before six months. But it's even more important going back to the initial interview of asking what their plans are, right? And interviewing them thoroughly so that you know what's going on because you don't want to get all the way to, you know, signing disclosures and doing the loan when the entire time their intention was to sell it. In three months or they're thinking, well, I'll refi it now, but then, you know, I know rates are going to go down in two months or so. And so I'll do it again. Then, right. We can't have that. You don't want to even proceed down that path. So that starts in that initial interview. Then at the point where you get to this point, right, when you're, you know sending out disclosures and all that, we're moving forward. Definitely make sure to discuss with them that, Hey, these aren't meant to be paid off. In the first six months, most of them are six months, at least some are a year. They've been getting worse, well, longer, whatever, worse for us as loan officers and originators. You know, they, they were pretty standard six months and then reaching into the 12 months because of how the, the market has gone. So we have to be very careful. Nobody wants to give their commission back and nobody wants to work for free. Our company, their company. You know, the, the, whatever lender or investor that we're using, right? Nobody wants to go through all the motions. And remember, nobody gets back underwriting fees and stuff like that, right? There's a whole lot of stuff that just just disappears. If there's an EPO or EPD, so very important there. So this all just kind of comes together again, notice, like I said, there's not a super specific agenda here for today. Just kind of some general info that I wanted to put together to talk about here, just to help actually close loans. And I will say that after going through all the motions here, I still feel that the you know, biggest takeaway here is that. It's not a high sales, a high pressure sales job and that we need to properly interview the client. If we understand these 2 things, that is going to send us on the way to a lot of happy closings. And again, the properly interviewing the client, you might think it's. Something that's super on the front end, but let me tell you, it affects everything on the back end. And we literally have cases where people are at the closing table, or they, you know, have a clear to close or whatever the case is. And just something comes up that could have totally been avoided if they, if the borrower was, was thoroughly interviewed. All right. Well, that is it here for today. I'll make sure to wrap it up a little early here so that everybody can get out there. It's Friday. Again, loan officers, Saturday and Sunday, best times to make calls. Right? So you know, the weekends. Our time to work for sure. Cause the people couldn't answer their phone during the week can answer their phone during the weekend. So let's all get out there and make some calls. I appreciate everybody tuning in. Remember we do this 12 PM Eastern time every weekday, where we go through the front end and sales end of the mortgage business, we'll see you next week with some new topics, so 12 PM Eastern for the next episode of the loan officer sales training with mortgage calculator. Have a great weekend.