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Reblogger
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Sonja Babic/PRIME Realty NC, LLC 228835

Original content by Craig Bland NMLS# 201361 GA MLO#37196

I was talking to a Realtor that works for Keller Williams a while back.  She was super excited to be with them because of how innovative they are.  One of the things she pointed out was that they offer coaching.  Their coaching is a little different with respect to how they get paid - the coach gets 10% of every closing.  Personally I think that’s pretty cool seeing how the coach’s pay is directly connected to the results of the person being coached.

So I asked her what the coach did for her.  I’ll make it short and sweet for you – even with all the technical innovations that are out there, the coach hammered her on “making her calls”.  It’s so interesting to me to make note of how sales has really never changed over the ages.  I read sales books almost every day, and I can tell you, it’s all about relationships and personal contact – that’s it.  The other thing that’s interesting to me is that in my 7 years in the mortgage sales industry and sales carreers prior to that, I’ve found that “personal contact” through “making calls” is the number one thing that salespeople don’t want to do – weird.

So all the sales greats say that we should make our calls and most of the salespeople in the world don’t do it.  Why?  This doesn’t make any sense.  Are all the sales teachers and coaches in the world wrong and all of the salespeople right?  Nope.  Based on my personal experience all of the coaches and teachers are 100% correct.  I remember back in 2005 I decided to employ the services of a coach.  

My coach had one thing in mind for me – make my calls (go figure).  The difference between me and most others is that I did it.  I wanted to see if there would actually be an increase in my business, so no matter how uncomfortable I felt about it, I picked up that phone and dialed.  I was making at least five calls a day for several months and tracking it.  The first thing I discovered is that literally everyone that I spoke to was very happy to hear from me – everyone.  No one was mad or irritated, they were genuinely glad to speak with me – weird.

The next thing I discovered was heartbreaking to me.  Within my first 50 calls or so, I realized that I had LOST about six deals within about a four month period from the people in my database.  These are my past clients, family and friends here.  Keep in mind, that although I wasn’t a “phone caller” I was very consistent with monthly mailers to stay in touch, and yet I still lost deals to my competitors.  Another startling discovery was the consistent responses from the people that “left me for someone else”.  I asked every one of them “why didn’t you give me a call? Have you been receiving my mailers?”  Their response was always something like “yeah, wow, I’m sorry.  I should have called you but “I was TALKING to this guy” and one thing led to another”.  Hmmm..  “Talking” to this guy?  Newsflash people – if you think for a second that your past clients, family and friends are 100% loyal to you even if you don’t make your calls – you’re simply being foolish.

The results were staggering.  During one of the most difficult times to generate business in our industry, I was originating and closing about six deals consistently every single month.  Now I know these numbers may not seem like much to some, but at that time in that market I was one of the top producers in my office and I was managing it.  I was watching good loan officer’s drop like flies around me as the market caved in around us and I was closing deals.  I did my best to coach them by encouraging them to make their calls.  I would show them my results as well, but mostly to no avail.  Only a few took heed to what I was doing, and guess what?  They are still in the business to this day.  All of the others fell away to leave the industry completely, why?  Because they didn’t have the guts to pick up the phone and simply “talk” to their past clients, family and friends and ask them for a referral – how sad is that?

Make your calls and have an awesome day.

 

Craig Bland

Brand Mortgage

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