Loan Officer Sales Training 04/18/24: How to Use Texts Effectively as Loan Officers

Welcome to "Mastering Text Communication for Loan Officers," a pivotal addition to our Loan Officer Sales Training series. In today's digital age, text messaging has become a fundamental tool for loan officers to communicate with clients efficiently and effectively. This podcast is your guide to leveraging text communication to enhance client relationships and streamline the loan process.

Join us as we explore the dos and don'ts of texting in the lending industry. From initial outreach to ongoing updates and follow-ups, we'll uncover strategies for crafting impactful messages that engage clients and drive results. Our seasoned hosts will share their expertise, offering insights into tone, timing, and content to ensure your texts resonate with clients and foster trust.

Throughout each episode, we'll dissect real-life text exchanges, highlighting best practices and common pitfalls to avoid. Whether you're reaching out to prospects, providing status updates, or addressing concerns, this podcast equips you with the skills to navigate text communication with finesse and professionalism.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to harness the power of text messaging to strengthen client connections, increase responsiveness, and ultimately, close more deals. Tune in to "Mastering Text Communication for Loan Officers" and take your text game to the next level.

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

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

So welcome everyone. My name is Kyle Hiersche. I am the COO of the Mortgage Calculator. And this is our loan officer sales training that we do every weekday at 12 p. m. Eastern, where we go over the front end and the sales end of the mortgage business. Today, we're going to be talking about using text messages effectively. Last week, we had a training on emails and how to use emails effectively. And we'll be talking about how to use text message effectively today. So let me go ahead and get started. Get it started. So remember, just like we talked about with emails, the texts are to be used in conjunction with calls. It seems like a no brainer, but let me tell you, this is one of the biggest points here of my training today. You never just text someone, right? Never just text them. We always call them first. Remember the policy here, call everyone within the first minute always. Now, if they don't answer, that's when we'd send them a text and you know, and an email, right? Or we press the button in the CRM to send the text and the email automatically. But it's very important. Nowadays, a lot of people like texting, obviously, and we get a lot of responses via text, but it's so important to do the whole thing, right? You have to call first, then you text and you email so that they see that this is a real person. Right. This is an actual person. They did call me. It wasn't a robo call cause then they texted me afterwards. They emailed me, you know, they're obviously a real person that's trying to get a hold of me. So very important. The other important part about using it in conjunction with calls is that a lot of. Newer aged loan officers, right? The younger generation, we don't like to talk on the phone as much and we're much more comfortable with texting. So I see a lot of younger loan officers in particular, trying to just kind of get out of the call and just trying to text them and see if they'll answer the text and that they don't have to get on the phone, but that's not what we do. Right. We are a on the phone business. We're on the phone company. We always call them. Immediately. If they don't answer, then we'll text. Now, here's where this runs into here is matching the client's preferred communication. So if they don't answer, but you text them and they answer the text, then great. Keep communicating with them on text, right? Don't call them. They don't answer. And then you text them. They do answer the text. So you call them right away, right? They obviously are showing that they're preferring you. To communicate through text. So only communicating through text is perfectly fine, but that's going to be for the client to decide once we do get a hold of them, right? But we're going to call them first. Always. That's always the first thing we do. Instantly call them within the 1st 2nd that we get the lead. We're on the phone with them. Then if they don't answer, we start texting. And again, a lot of clients nowadays prefer to only text, which is great. That's usually easier for everybody, right? And you only get on a call if it's really something you need to work out. But again, that's going to be for the client to decide. Now, when it comes to text messages, what's great about text messages is that the Kind of the culture built around text messages allows you to be pretty casual now in this business. There's this fine line of being casual and building rapport and being, you know, quote unquote, like cool with people, right. And not seeming like a, Super square suit in an office, you know that's one of the beautiful things about us as independent loan officers. Right? You know, we, we are a real person that they're actually talking to and they have our cell phone number instead of an office number extension. Right? So there's a big part of what we do is that. And so notice the last bullet point here, it provide texting provides a chance to show personality. It looks like my video is cutting that one off, but provides a chance to show personality because you can be somewhat casual. So we, it's this fine line. We want to walk, right? We don't want to be too casual to where it's unprofessional, but we want to be casual enough that, you know, we're a real person texting back and forth with them. We're not some. You know, cog in a corporate wheel where they can't even get a hold of you and they have to call a number and then press an extension. And there's no way they could text you or even if they could, it would be all super short professional responses only. Right? So there's a line to walk, but we can walk that line and we can be a little bit more casual when we're texting way more casual, obviously, than like emails. Right? So text does. Provide this opportunity to kind of build more rapport than usual. You know, just make sure to stay professional, but you can, you know be a little less formal, I guess would be the word, right? So we want to we don't have to be so formal when we're texting, but we want to remain professional. So remain professional. But you can loosen up on the formality a little bit and text a little bit more casually. And what it does is it really brings out that, that comfortable feeling, right? If a client feels like they can text their loan officer. And they're talking about things or, you know, LOL this or whatever. I mean, it, it really makes people feel comfortable because that's what we're used to in our everyday life. Right. Anybody that is in our everyday life, most of us nowadays, you know, we're always texting with them and we're sending back emojis or LOL or whatever it is. And so. When, you know, and it's easy to reach out via text, right? You feel comfortable doing it. So if you, if your client feels comfortable reaching you out, reaching out to you via text and having good conversations back and forth, that's a great thing, right? And so that's a good place to be in with your clients of them. Like, Oh, let me text my loan officer and ask this or whatever, or, You know, I mean, if a client's like texting you funny things or something like that, I mean, then you really made it right. Then that's awesome. They feel really comfortable with you and texting you. And you've obviously built that great rapport. So let's talk about follow up text messages, right? Well, follow up texts are sent with a purpose, just like the follow up emails, just like the follow up calls. We want to always try to have a purpose and a reason to follow up with a text. Now, if we don't, that's fine. We can send a general follow up, but we always want to look. For a specific reason to follow up. And remember, we're never going to send just a bunch of mass messages, just copy and pasting something and sending it to a bunch of people. Again, we want to look at each individual situation. Is there a reason I could follow up? What could I follow up with about you know, et cetera, et cetera, and make sure they're sent at the appropriate times, right? So if you try to send messages outside of the hours, then the system will hold it. But just in general. You know, there's things like, for example if, you know, a client has a California phone number and it's, you know, 7 p. m. in California. And you send them the text, but you already knew that they live in Florida now and not California. Well, now you're sending them a text at 10 PM Florida time, right? And so just be careful because the system isn't foolproof. You know, it's only goes by, you know, their number and stuff. And so at the end of the day, you're the one that knows when the appropriate time would be to text the client, not too early, not too late, not while they're Told you that they're away on vacation for the weekend or whatever it may be. And then here's a one to only follow up once in a day, right? Do not be I don't know what the word for it would be thirsty, I guess, for deals, right? To where you're following up with people more than once in a day, a phone call, a text and an email is just fine, right? More than that in the same day is too much. Now. We never stop following up with a lead in general, right? Like we have multiple trainings called a lead is forever. You know, we always keep following up with leads, but we don't do it multiple times in a day. Right? So that also is what allows us to keep doing it because we're tasteful and respectful in how we follow up with people. We're just going to keep on trucking and keep on going forever, but we're not going to do it any type of distasteful way. Oh, whoops. There we go. Okay. So remember all leads should be on action plans, unless you're currently engaging with them and sending them quotes or whatever it is, right? So basically anything that doesn't have a reason to not be needs to be on an action plan because the system will send them text messages. On your behalf. Now this is, goes the same when we talked about the email training, be mindful when you're sending texts to people. Or sending any communication and make sure you look at everything that's been going on with that client. Right. Because you know, before you just start jumping in there, remember the system does things on your behalf, whether you have them on an action plan, or maybe you're working with them on a file then the system's going to automatically follow up and ask them for documents when they're missing documents and things like that. So the beautiful part about our system is that it does all kinds of stuff for you. But the other side to that coin is that you have to be very careful because you're not the only one talking to your client. The system is too, right? So whether the system is sending something from a drip campaign or action plan that you had set, or if it's sending something that's just an automated reminder for something. There could be many different reasons why, or even a loan officer assistant on that file also has the means to contact the client and it will be tracked right there in the CRM. So there's multiple ways and reasons why someone else or something else may be communicating with the client. And so before we just jump in there and start throwing things out, we need to always glance at that communication. That's why we have it all right there. In the CRM and a nice chronological timeline there for you. So you can see, okay, maybe I don't need to send them a reminder today to upload their documents because the system just sent one at 10 AM. Right? So maybe, maybe the system sent the email and then maybe you should send a text to let them know that the system sent an email, but there's no need to send another email, right? So look at all the communication. You don't know whether the system did something or loan officer assistant did something or whatever it may be. And so we always want to make sure that we, like, know what's going on. It looks really bad when you start sending clients you know, things that are duplicated or things where systems send something and you send something else. It just doesn't look organized. And then on that same note here. Take off an action plan when they respond. Our system does not automatically take them off of an action plan. Once they respond, unfortunately, we can't do that. I wish we could, but we can't. And so just make sure that you do right. When somebody responds to your action plan, If you're communicating and working with someone, they shouldn't be on an action plan, right? We say all leads should be on an action plan, meaning like leads, not clients, right? So like I said, unless they are currently working with you, you're actually doing things, you're quoting them, you're working on loans, then you don't want them on an action plan because it's going to start randomly emailing and texting them things, right? Like, like as if you weren't already working with them. So make sure everybody that should be is on an action plan and then make sure when they respond to take them off or. It's going to look bad because you're going to be sitting there working with your client. And then all of a sudden, three days later, they're going to get an email saying, Hey, were you still looking to do something? Cause the system's sending them that automated action plan email. Right. And so that's what you don't want to happen because again, it's going to look bad. It looks unorganized and more importantly, it's confusing. To the client and you know, they don't know what to do or what to make of it. So we want to make sure that we take everybody off action plans once they respond. And that is it here for today. Wanted to keep it short and sweet. But again, make sure you're doing the calls. Texting is not an excuse to not make calls. It's the biggest thing here. I see newer loan officers. I know younger generation. We don't like to. Talk on the phone much. We like to text more, but this, this business requires that. So don't ever think the texts are a replacement for the calls. Make sure you match their communication method. If they keep wanting to talk on the phone, then you keep talking on the phone. They want to keep texting. Then you keep texting, right? We're going to do. Whatever works best for them. It's not what we want to do most or what works best for us most. It's about what works best for the client and take advantage of the opportunity to be a little bit more casual and build some better rapport, but just make sure to remain professional at all time. All right. Let's see if we have any questions here. Let's see here. Jackie's asking, is only texting email okay if a client continues to hang up? Well, if they hang up like on, on accident or something, then yeah, but if they hang up because they don't want to talk and they don't want you to call them or want the information you're trying to give them, then you would just click phone unsubscribe, right. And move on. So I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but Yeah, I mean, you know, if the calls aren't working, calls drop, whatever, then, you know, absolutely text them. Hey, it looks like we got disconnected, you know, whatever the case may be, but yeah, if they're like, Oh, no, or whatever, just immediately hang up after you say, Hey, I'm calling about the mortgage you requested or whatever, and they just hang up on you. Then obviously we're not keep trying to pursue them. All right. I think we can go ahead and wrap it up then. I appreciate everybody tuning in. Remember we do this at 12 p. m. Eastern time every weekday where we go through the front 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 p. m. Eastern for the next episode of the Loan Officer Sales Training with the Mortgage Company.