Recently I've been forced to face a number of realities, and some of them have been eye opening. Often in any industry complacency can take hold after years of doing the same thing over and over again. I've witnessed this myself in my own practice. For months my partner and I have watched our pipeline dwindle and though I know why it's happening, you still find other factors or reasons not to change. The past seven years have been fantastic, and heck why change? Perhaps it's human nature, or perhaps it's just poor planning, but often I witness this in other facets of life as well. So a big event comes along, and after some discomfort we finally change. Some of us need more then discomfort to change, and if you wait to long it becomes real life PAIN!
One particular point I noticed is how I've used the excuse that referral relationship building should simply be enough to maintain a successful mortgage practice! Well sometimes it's good to have these, "what the hell" moments. Because if you were doing such a great job in previous years, wouldn't your past clients be beating down your door to refer their friends? There are probably some out there who have done REMARKABLE jobs in developing these referral relationships, but even in these cases demand is still driven by the market, and if you just drift with the market then your income can suffer.
Lesson learned, but what should you do now if your phone isn't ringing anymore? Well it's something most of us old timers understand but dislike with a passion. It's called, "SELLING"......Sorry I used the evil "S" word, but it's true. The rubber hits the road when you talk to perspective clients! End of story! But Karl, what about meeting with real estate agents and other referral sources? Let me cue you in on a little secret.......THERE GOING THROUGH THE SAME PAIN THEMSELVES...and they don't know how to sell any better then we do.
Let me describe the typical day that my 60 year old father puts in as a wholesale/manufacturing sales associate. He wakes up at 5:30 every morning. He doesn't go jogging. He doesn't run off to the Gym. He gets a quick bite to eat, heads over to his home office, and then begins calling the east coast ( he lives in Idaho), and doesn't stop making sales calls until three or four in the afternoon! He probably log's real phone time of over 7 to 8 hours a day. He doesn't spend 2 hours at lunch with potential referral agents. He doesn't spend hours on-line visiting interesting industry sites.( he does sharpen the ax, but after prime calling time), and he usually spends his time in the late afternoon dealing with non-productive issues like meetings or planning. In his industry the prime times are in the morning and he never misses them. Not all of his calls are cold calls, but let's be honest folks, this business and every business requires you to do things your not always FUN! Sometimes they can be downright intimidating or boring, like calling on FSBO listings. I didn't write this particular article to just praise my father, but his results speak volumes. He's been able to create sales markets where there's been nothing, by simply TALKING to potential clients.
It's nice to have a good mentor or relative that is familiar with sales. Just when you figure you have it down, you realize someone older is much wiser then yourself. So the other day my partner and I had a short but productive meeting. We determined that it wasn't a "Market" problem, but more of a "Us" problem. We also came to the realization that this last 7 years have done more to make us great Order Takers, and in some ways the good times were actually a negative in terms of our "SALES" or new business skills.
I hope this blog helps in a small way if your encountering any of the problem's I've mentioned in this post. If your feeling like a loser, well don't! It can happen to the best of us, and the key is just being able to look in the mirror occasionally, like RIGHT NOW and have the COURAGE to change.
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