Loan Officer Sales Training 06/03/24: Lead Stats

Are you ready to elevate your loan officer career with the power of data? Welcome to "Lead Stats," the ultimate podcast designed to transform how you understand and utilize sales statistics. As part of the acclaimed "Loan Officer Sales Training" series, "Lead Stats" offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of the numbers that drive success in the loan industry.

In each episode, we delve deep into the metrics that matter most, unraveling complex data to provide you with clear, actionable insights. Discover how to interpret lead conversion rates, optimize your sales funnel, and leverage data to predict trends and enhance your performance. We bring you expert interviews, real-world case studies, and cutting-edge strategies that will empower you to convert more leads into closed deals and boost your sales like never before.

But this isn't just about numbers—it's about understanding the story they tell and how you can use that narrative to your advantage. Whether you're a seasoned professional looking to refine your skills or a newcomer eager to learn the ropes, "Lead Stats" is your go-to resource for data-driven success. Our episodes are packed with tips, tools, and techniques that will help you make informed decisions, set achievable goals, and stay ahead of the competition.

Join us on "Lead Stats" and take the first step towards mastering the art and science of loan officer sales. Subscribe now and get ready to unlock the full potential of your sales data, transforming the way you work and setting you on a path to unparalleled success. Your journey to becoming a top-performing loan officer starts here!

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 soft

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

Restream recording Jun 03, 2024 • 04:01:32 PM: 0:03

All right, welcome everyone to the loan officer sales training with the mortgage calculator. Today we're going to be talking about just some lead info in general, some lead stats, but also how we work leads as loan officers and also how we work leads specifically at the mortgage calculator. So I got the chat up on the screen there. Feel free to put a comment in there. As we go through the presentation, feel free to also drop any questions you have there in the chat. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions. But with that being said, let me go ahead and get into it here. All right. Let's see. Get my screen set up properly here. Okay. Perfect. All right. So let's get it going. Okay. So lead statistics now, obviously sales training. We're very heavy, excuse me. We're very heavy on leads here at the mortgage calculator. So it's always good to talk about leads, the statistics, how they work and you know, how we work at the mortgage calculator. So let's start off by some statistics. Remember we are 391 percent more likely to convert. A lead when it's called in the first minute. This is absolutely a real stat for those of you who think it's some kind of exaggeration. It absolutely is not 391 percent more likely to convert a lead when you call them in the first minute. It's just a fact after five minutes. The conversion rate drops by 80%. So a lot of people may say, Oh, you know, I got this lead you know, call them in just a minute or a couple of minutes, or you'll think, Oh, I just got it five minutes ago and I called them. I did my job, right? I called them right away. Well, no, you didn't. You only have a 20 percent chance of converting them compared to if you called them five minutes ago. That's how important the speed to lead is. You're five times more likely to convert it. When you call it in the first minute, right? So do not wait one minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes. You see right here by the stats, you're going to have to do five times the amount of work and make five times the amount of calls if you just wait a couple of minutes instead of calling them in the first minute, right? So it's just a no brainer. So please, I think one of the biggest things, especially for newer loan officers is. You know, thinking one minute and five minutes are basically the same, right? Pick up the lead and like, yeah, I'm going to call them in a second, in a minute. I got to get to here. I got to, you know, put this away or I got to, you know, whatever it is, it's imperative that you call them within the first minute. Now, if you're taking one of our company leads, you must call them within the first minute, or you will receive a violation and you will be taken away from you. So it's not an option when you're taking any of our leads, but even with your own leads, Waiting five minutes makes a huge difference compared to one minute. Now another great statistic here, 35 to 50 percent of sales go to the company that responds first. So again, speed to lead, make sure we're first, make sure we're the first loan officers talking to them. Right. And here's a good little nugget here. 55 percent increase when you start saying our, instead of mine. Now this study was based on cold calls. Now we don't, you know, we have so many leads here. We don't do too many cold calls, but there's unlimited cold calls in the dialer. So for those of you, if you've already called all the leads. That you can. We always have unlimited cold calls in there. And obviously, you know, this study was done with cold calls, but it just shows that there's obviously an increase when you're talking to clients and you position things as saying our and we Instead of me and my right now, a great kind of way to look at this that Nick always talks about is that we are with the client. It is us in the client verse everyone else, right? Us in the client verse the underwriter verse the funder verse the everyone right? It's, it's Us, we're in it with the client. So if our, we want our vocabulary to match that, right, it is us, we are trying to get this loan done. Right. And so, you know, just kind of taking that to heart will definitely position you correctly with your clients. And a lot of other stuff falls into place when you start to position it. Like me and my client are in the trenches together doing whatever it takes. To push back on the underwriter or whatever it is until we can get our loan closed, right? So changing up your vocabulary a little bit can definitely make a difference. And they've shown that in actual studies. And then here's another good nugget. If you may have been doing this before success drops by 40%. When you say, did I catch you at a bad time? Some people may think that's like being polite to say that, but the proof is in the pudding right there. The success rates going to drop. It's too salesy, right? It's an immediate sales trigger. We want to stay away from you know, mentioning things that are those, those sales triggers, the, did I catch you at a bad time? Do you have a moment for me to go over blah, blah, blah, whatever. Well, these are things where when we hear them as humans, we automatically click into sales mode. I'm being sold something. I don't have time to deal with this. I don't want to deal with this. So, you know, talk like a normal human being and refrain from saying things like that. Did I catch you at a bad time? Do you have a moment for me to go over? X, Y, Z with you you know, just any other of those kinds of salesy terms where they immediately disengage because they, you know, they look at you as not a genuine person calling them about something genuine anymore. They look at you as somebody on the other end of the phone, trying to sell them something right away. So they immediately turn off in their mind and they immediately just. You know, we're not listening or got to go or, you know, hang up or the case may be. So definitely take those to heart. Some good nuggets there, especially actionable items there of making sure you change your vocabulary to are and my, or are and we, instead of me and my, right? Now here's some statistics on lead follow ups here. 80 percent of sales require five follow up calls. Now that's even that is a general sales statistic there. That's not a mortgage statistic. That first one. And so remember in mortgages, it's even crazier, right? I mean, it's much more calls, like even five follow up calls, maybe to make quote unquote, make the sale of getting someone to actually commit to the loan, but we're going to be following up dozens of times throughout the loan process. Right. So our business is a little bit unique in that fact, and our business is unique because we are in sales, but then we have this whole other part on the backend. Anything can fall through and fall apart. So we are in a tough business because we are in a sales business, but at the same time, we're not, and on the back, there's so much that happens on the back end so we can be the best sales people in the world on the front end and everything can still fall apart on the back end. So it's a, it's a difficult industry, but that's also why it's one of the highest paying industries out there. 60 percent of customers say no four times before saying yes. Again, that. Kind of falls right in line with this, right? If it takes five follow up calls, they say no four times, hopefully on the fifth call, we actually get 48 percent of salespeople never make a single follow up. That's another great statistic to think about. Now I want that to hopefully encourage some of you, especially newer loan officers out there. Remember that 40 percent of loan officers left the business last year. 40 percent of your competition left the business because it was a difficult year, right? So 40 percent of your competition was wiped out just by stepping down. 48 percent of your competition Doesn't even make a single follow up call. So 40 percent is gone. 48 percent of them don't even follow up. So just by you staying and sticking in the business and making calls every day, and then doing at least one follow up. You're beating out a huge majority of other loan officers out there. That's how simple it is to do more than your competition. Now we're going to do way more than that at the mortgage calculator, because we're going to follow all of our steps and the trainings that we have on how we follow up in the follow up process. We're also going to use action plans to follow up automatically and stuff, but that is just something that should really motivate you as a loan officer knowing, Hey. From 2022 to now, 40% of the people that I was competing with are gone. They gave up, right? Or got out of the business. Now, 48% of people aren't even making a single follow up. Now I see the question in the chat. 40% of loan officers left the business. How many new came? There's more new ones coming now because people think a rate drop. Is coming, but the 40 percent is that's how many people that did not renew their license to 2023, right? In 2023, there's 40 percent less loan officers than 2022. And the reason for that is because. It's tough. People don't want to renew their licenses, right? Or excuse me, 2024, excuse me. They didn't renew their license for 2024. So, you know, very tough year and a lot of people don't renew their license. A lot of people quit the business or get other jobs or. You know, whatever it is where they just fail and they, they leave. Right. And so the fact that you're here, especially for those of you who've been here for the last few years, you're sticking it out, we just got to keep 42 percent less growth when not doing cold calls. This is actually a statistic for companies that do that don't do cold calls, have 42 percent less growth, but same thing's going to apply, right? If you're not making cold calls. Then you're not going to grow as much. Now, again, we have so many leads here that usually if you pull up the dialer on any given day, you're going to have plenty of leads to call that aren't cold calls that are some type of warm lead you know, a real actual lead or a recycled lead or, you know, whatever the case may be. Right. So we don't do too many cold calls, but they're there. And the fact is. Whatever it is in the dialer, whether it's a cold call or a recycled lead or a realtor call, whatever it is, we always need to be growing and we're not going to grow as much unless we're hitting the phones to make new calls. And then the last stat here, six contacts to make sale once connected with the client right there along the lines of what we were talking about with the takes usually five followups, right? So the first time you contact them plus five that kind of all equals out. They say no four times fifth time. Yes. Right. And so that's just kind of the way that it typically goes again, just kind of a general stat, but it's even, it's even more you know, we do even more in this business because after we make the sale, quote unquote, we still have a lot to do. Now let's talk about just kind of some, some lead I guess, philosophy here, right? Okay. Follow the lead. A lead is forever, right? We always talk about that. That's the first chapter of mine and Nick's book, our book called follow the lead. A lead is forever. We never stop following up. We don't ever take a lead for granted. No lead should be taken for granted, especially leads that you're not paying for. If you're taking company leads and you have, you know, the opportunity for, to get leads that you're not paying for. That is a huge opportunity, especially. In this business, in this climate that we're in right now, no other companies are giving out leads for free to their loan officers. Definitely not new loan officers either, right? So this is something very unique that we do here at the Mortgage Calculator. Please do not take it for granted. Every single lead must be followed up with exactly according to the training and we never stop following up with them. Now, if we do this correctly, Third bullet point here are these remain assets. So think about it like that of building your assets. Every time you make a call, every time you hit the dial or every time you pick up a lead, you're building your asset here, which is your leads. And as long as you're staying on top of them and following up, they are an actual asset. So every day, even if you don't make a sale that day, even if you think things went bad, if you made more calls. Put more contacts into your CRM, then you're growing that asset, which is going to pay, right? If you don't put more leads in, if you're not making more calls, picking up more leads, it's going to go stale, right? We want to build always. And just keep that in mind that don't get distracted on the day to day. Didn't make a sale today. Haven't closed a loan yet this month, whatever it is, just know that every second you're spending calling leads, Dealing with clients. You're building that asset base up. And over time, it's going to pay serious dividends, of course, no brainer be consistent and persistent here that goes without saying That way we can stay top of mind Now, last bullet point here is a big one show professionalism, not just when you're making the call, not just to get the loan done, not just to the people who are responsive and who you're actually working with. Show professionalism to everyone. People who are rude, we're still professional. People who are not interested, we're still professional. People who have no money and no credit. We're still professional. We're still going to follow up with them. We're still going to call them every couple of months, as it says in the training to check in with them and see if there's anything that we could do for them, see if maybe they know someone else that we could help. And so, you know, I've talked about this on other trainings here. This show professionalism is key and that's why it's at the end here because. It's going to make all of your efforts, all the stuff we just talked about, all the efforts that you're going to put in the calling, all that stuff, the following up, it's going to make it worth it. Because as long as we are professional, courteous, nice, To everyone. And as long as we are a professional loan consultant, not a professional salesperson that if they don't have the money or the credit or whatever, right now we're moving. Oh, I don't care. I need to make a sale. I'm moving on. Right? No, we treat everybody with kindness, respect, show professionalism. And if for some reason somebody is not ready right then, or not even in the ballpark of being able to do it. That's no problem. We're then going to consult them. Look, this is what you should do. In the meantime, I'll follow up with you. I'm going to set a reminder to call you in two months. You know, try to do this, this and that with, you know, your credit, try to save up this, you know, we are a consultant, right? So don't throw people away. We don't weed people out. We don't use a sales funnel here, right? We don't throw people away and funnel them down to only the people Who are going to be ready to buy right? Then we do the opposite. We use the flywheel, right? We're going to always keep following up with everyone. Everyone is either a potential client or a potential referral partner, right? We've talked about this so many times. Every human you've ever met is a potential client, right? We have people like Jose has done loans for generations of families. Somebody that wasn't, you know, even born yet when he did a loan for the parent or whatever. So you know, every human we meet is a potential client now or later. Everybody lives somewhere. If they're a leaser or I mean, a renter, they can turn into a homeowner, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So not only is everyone a client. So we want to be professional courteous, nice and a consultant to everyone. But also everyone is a potential referral source. Even people not doing business with you. We talk about this a lot as well with the flywheel, the fact that when you're nice, courteous, professional giving valuable information to people, even when they're not ready, willing, and able to do something with you right then, that then allows them to refer you deals. Jose's had a bunch of them. Christina's had a bunch of them. Evan's had a bunch of them. We get examples all the time of people getting referrals from people they never did a loan with. Never did a loan with this person, but since they were a professional, courteous loan consultant, the person said, Oh, when somebody asked them about, you know, talk to them about doing a loan or whatever it was, they said, Hey, I actually talked to this person. It was really great. They helped me out. You should give them a call. So again, it's not just about them doing a loan with you, not about them doing a loan with you right then everyone needs to be shown that professionalism and that you know, being a loan consultant, because again, now every call you do, not just the calls that lead to a quote, right? But every call you do, you're not wasting your time. There's no time wasted. If you're being a professional loan consultant, showing everyone, you know, the courtesy that they deserve day in and day out, I'm telling you, it's going to lead to referrals from people who aren't. Even clients, but it's not going to happen if you're burning through people and either just ignoring people or disrespecting people or being annoyed by people that aren't ready, willing, and able. That is not your job. Your job isn't to just find people Who are ready, willing, and able to buy or refinance your job is to find clients to consult them through their loan process for the rest of their lives. Whether that means buying their 1st home, buying their 100th investment property, refining their 100 investment properties, whatever their 1st fix and flip, whatever it is, our goal is to become a loan consultant for life. For as many people as possible, and that's never going to happen if we're burning through everyone that's not ready, willing, and able to do something right then. So show professionalism you know, kindness, courtesy, treat people well, and it will all build up and you will not be wasting your time at all because you'll be seeing the full benefits of the work that you do. And then. Last slide here. Let's go over how we work leads specifically at the mortgage calculator. Remember, we always call the lead immediately within one minute. If there's no answer, we send the text, we send the email, we set the follow up task for the next day, next day, we call them, text them. Set the follow up task for the text them, email them, set the follow up task for the next day. Next day, call them, text them, email them, set the follow up task for the next day. And then at that point, we're going to put them on an action plan, and we're going to set a follow up task for the future. Now this last bullet point is the one that the most people miss out on, so I want to take a second to talk about this here. Pretty self explanatory. We're going to call them, text them and email them three days in a row. And then at that point, if we're not engaged or we're not moving forward to, you know, a deal, we're going to put them on an action plan, but a lot of people forget to set that follow up task for the future. Remember every lead you have. It needs a follow up task set for the future, no lead left behind a lead is forever. So everything, something has to be pushing every single lead into the future or else it's just going to be lost in the past and you're never going to pull it up again, right? So yes, they're on an action plan. Yes. The system's going to do that part for you, but the system, all it can do is text and email them for it. Can't actually call them. So we're always going to have a follow up task set for the future. As I say on the training, you know, usually this is if they haven't responded at, at this point, when we're putting them on an action plan, typically we'll set it for you know, a month out, right. And say, okay, well, tried to, tried to reach out to them three times and all three through all three communication methods. Then I put them on action plan. I'll let the system follow up with emails and texts from now on, but I'm still going to give them a call in a month to see you know, check in with them. Maybe something's changed. Maybe they're available then whatever the situation is, you never know. So again, This goes back to making sure that you're following the correct processes to make sure that the work you're putting in to these leads. Is not wasted, right? Because again, you know, the professionalism, making sure that everything you know that you do is going to eventually lead to something and is not being wasted. Same thing for setting the follow up task. If you forget to set that follow up task, you're not maximizing everything you're doing because I'm telling you, okay, There are so many times when people call the month later, and it's a whole new conversation, all of a sudden, the person had time to answer, or all of a sudden, the person has a deal to do right then, or all of a sudden, the person said that they were, you know, they asked for a quote from you, but then they got another quote from somebody else. So they went with them, but then that deal fell through. You never know. I mean, we talk about the story of Mike all the time, making those millions of dollars in production. When he called the gentleman back the seventh time, that was probably two months later after he got the lead, something like that, right? A month, two months later. And then the gentleman answered the phone and said, Hey, somebody just fell through today. Another lender just fell through. I'll give you the shot. Mike ended up making what 50, 000 commission in his pocket or something, because he made that seventh call that was already a month or two out. Right. And the gentleman hadn't answered the phone yet. So are you doing that? Ask yourself, are you doing that? Right. Because perfect example of it happening in real life and the difference between 0 commission in his pocket and 50, 000 commission in his pocket. The difference was. Making that eighth call that he made and the fact that it was later. And because it was later, the other deal had fell through again. You never know what's going on. And so it was the perfect time to call. So make sure to set those follow up tasks for the future. If he hadn't set a follow up task to call him, mind you, he had him on the drip campaign. But if he hadn't set the follow up task to call him, he'd be 50 grand lighter in his pocket. Right. So keep that in mind. So that's all I wanted to go over here today. Hopefully get you a little bit motivated with the statistics. And then also just a reminder of what we need to do here at the mortgage calculator. We need to follow up according to the training. We always need to be kind and courteous and professional and consult people. Even if they're years away from ever, maybe they have a. 500 credits for 50 credit score and 0 in the bank. But we're going to consult them and tell them what they would need to do to get to the point where we could help them. And then we're going to tell them, Hey, guess what? I'll keep in touch with you. And we'll just, you know, I'll, I'll remind you and keep helping you through the process. And I'll give you a call every couple of months and you know, we'll figure it out and see what we can do. Right. I mean, you don't ever. Know what's going on with people. Maybe they get a raise, maybe they get a new job. Maybe they just get motivated to buy their own home. Maybe they have a family now and they need to actually buy their home. So they get serious about their credit and saving up. I mean, you just don't know. So you always got to follow up with everyone and treat everyone with respect and be able to be a loan consultant. And the last thing I will leave you with. Again, our job is not to just make sales and do one off loans. Our job is not to just look for the people ready, willing, and able. Our number one goal is to be a loan consultant for life. For the rest of that person's life. We want to be their professional loan consultant. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to find as many people as we can to be a professional loan consultant to them for the rest of their lives. And if we focus on doing that and being genuine and helping people. Everything else will fall. So I don't see any questions, so I'll go ahead and wrap it up. I like to try to keep these short. Remember we do this on Mondays now at 12 PM Eastern. So we'll be back next week with a new topic. I appreciate everybody tuning in and we'll see you next Monday at 12 PM Eastern for the next episode of the loan officer sales training with them. Have a great day, everyone.