Summary:

Success comes from implementing preplanned strategies that are turned into action habits...

Successful strategies, such as offering personalized solutions like tailored loan packages or exceptional customer service, often involve going against the grain and doing what others don’t.

These action habits, which are consistent and deliberate actions that lead to desired outcomes, must be laced with tenacity... There will be successes, setbacks, frustrations, gained momentum, effective use of time to maximize productivity, and hopefully, many paychecks.

Introduction:

For loan salespeople, the strategies outlined here are not just concepts but crucial stepping stones to personal and financial growth.  They are the key to achieving our career and financial success goals, inspiring us to reach new heights and realize our full potential.

These strategies are not a one-time fix.  They demand unwavering commitment and consistency from you.  By establishing procedures to develop a marketing program, structuring daily action habits, and consistently executing the strategies, you can pave the path to success.  Committing to the plan is the key to achieving these goals.

Components of a new strategy:

Assess one’s attitude and willingness to change.

Recognize the need to develop entirely new behavior patterns.

Be willing to form and commit to new action habits.

Commit to constructing a unique marketing system.

Set up appropriate software and databases that help consistently market daily, weekly, and monthly programs.

Consistent follow-through is the key.

You should execute the strategy aggressively and demonstrate tenacity by sticking to the plan.

Commit and follow through.  Have a coach, friend, or loved one hold us accountable.  Report our progress and solicit feedback.

Time is not just a commodity; it’s a precious, limited resource that, once gone or wasted, is gone forever.  We have the choice of how to use it.  Effective or ineffective time utilization is always a choice and a design.  By mastering the art of time management, we can take control of our lives, feel empowered, and confidently work towards achieving our goals.  Effective time utilization can mean the difference between closing a deal and losing a potential client in the context of loan sales.

Effective time management applies almost universally, whether individuals organize their daily tasks, manage family activities, plan social events, prepare for special occasions, shop for a date or a spouse, or engage in a money-making enterprise.  For a loan salesperson, effective time management could mean prioritizing follow-ups with potential clients, conducting thorough market research, or attending networking events to expand their client base.  For instance, spending an hour daily on follow-ups, dedicating a week to market research, and attending at least one monthly networking event could be effective time management strategies for a loan salesperson.

Resources designed to enhance the value of time effectiveness have evolved into a combination of motivation and technology-driven solutions, including software programs, online databases, and sufficient hardware.  These resources serve as tools and support systems on the journey toward success.  They empower us to take control of our success and provide the support we need to navigate the complex world of loan sales.

Structured planning, which involves setting clear goals, creating a roadmap to achieve those goals, and consistently following through, fosters individualism, personal happiness, and autonomy, ultimately improving civil society for future generations.  Success also serves as an example for friends, associates, kids, and family.  It is a great motivator and the best revenge for those who doubt us.  It’s about achieving financial success and finding personal happiness and sovereignty in our journey, inspiring those around us, and contributing to a better future.  Structured planning helps us achieve our goals and instills a sense of discipline, control, and confidence in our lives.

A platform for change:

A written action plan is not just a piece of paper.  It’s a practical roadmap to our success.  It contains a daily list of activities, prioritizes their importance, and schedules each personal and professional goal.  For example, a loan agent who solicits prospective borrowers for financing, typically a loan secured by real property, should have a preplanned written daily action plan and an outbound call system with a weekly activity schedule.   Following this plan can bring a sense of accomplishment and keep you motivated.

The loan agent or other salesperson has multiple tasks:

Identify a qualified lead.

Pursue getting an appointment.

Make a sales presentation.

Explain the benefits.

Answer questions.

Handle the objections.

Ask for the order (closing)

Close the transaction.

Or repeat 2 through 6 again.

Motivation to produce many closed loan transactions to satisfy customers, employers, and oneself is necessary to earn commissions and sustain a decent standard of living for one’s family.   It’s essential to remember that while professional success is crucial, maintaining a healthy work-life balance is equally significant.  His balance ensures that we succeed in our careers and personal lives, providing a sense of reassurance and support.

Suggestions for creating an action plan:

Could you define your ‘universe of possibilities, ‘which is the total of all potential leads combined in your network and the other professionals, such as real estate agents, financial advisors, and attorneys, who correspondingly have their own networks?  His number represents the maximum potential leads you can tap into and is crucial for setting realistic sales targets.

How many prospects can I manage to contact daily and weekly?

How often do you think I should follow up with prospects?   Is the answer 30, 60, 90, or more days?

Do I have a written script for verbal conversation and email marketing?   The language script may be formal or informal based on your product, personality, and past relationship with the person.)

Ask questions and allow people to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences about themselves and their families.  He can go a long way toward establishing a lasting relationship.  He also helps you build a History.

Do I have a formalized written marketing plan?   This plan should outline your target audience, marketing channels, and specific strategies for each channel, helping you stay focused and organized in your marketing efforts.)

What action habits should be expected daily, weekly, and monthly?  If consistently practiced, these habits can lead to significant progress and success in your career.  For example, daily habits could include reviewing your active leads and planning your day, weekly habits could involve reaching out to a certain number of prospects, and monthly habits could consist of evaluating your overall performance and adjusting your strategies accordingly.

Would you like me to start each morning by organizing my day, reviewing my active leads, and focusing on transactions that are nearing completion?

Am I prioritizing the follow-up of my daily active leads?  The highest-quality leads get priority.   Active leads are those who have shown interest, such as those who have asked for more information or expressed a desire to move forward and are more likely to convert, so they should be given more attention in your follow-up strategy.)

Will I practice great tenacity in daily follow-ups of active leads (this concept is critical)?   Enactivity here means persistent and determined follow-ups, which are crucial for converting leads into sales.  It’s not just about making the initial contact but about consistently following up to keep your product or service in mind for the prospect.

Am I well-focused on being present or out there while communicating with others?  Will convey energy, focus, and determination.  I will execute my plans to the best of my abilities, ensuring that every interaction is meaningful and productive.

My responsibility is to assist customers in making informed decisions that meet their financial needs and objectives.

Completing transactions is our responsibility professionally.  Fiduciary duty, which is the legal obligation to act in your client’s best interests, is ever-present.

How many real estate loans or other tasks do I need to complete monthly to achieve my goals?

An envisioned and crystalized amount of gross revenue anticipated to be gained for a specified period, such as a month or a quarter, could prove extremely helpful.

Am I working with coworkers, superiors, subordinates, and independent contractor vendors, maintaining mutual respect and dignity, and understanding their objectives to close transactions?

Do I have the best office technology, phone, email, marketing systems, customer relations management system (CRM), network marketing, and industry-specific software to do the most professional job?

Do the people around me, including support staff and other like-minded individuals, share my values regarding business, loyalty, relationships, and customer follow-up?   Surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals who share your values can provide a sense of community and support, ultimately enhancing your journey towards success.

Do I associate with others with kindred values who share my desire for success, self-motivation, and tenacity?   Surrounding yourself with self-motivated and tenacious individuals can be inspiring and help fuel your determination to succeed.

A suggested action-filled daily work schedule:

Start time: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.- Monday through Friday.

Maximum performance may require additional hours, some evenings, and weekends.   R prolonged physical and mental effort requires breaks for physical and psychological sustainability.  One should also take occasional breaks away from everyday stresses.   Daily walks in the sunshine will work wonders for energy, focus, and stamina.  Alk a dog or call a friend while frolicking in the forest.

Many believe that input of effort and output of results create equal results.   In other words, input and output are in correspondence.  Many people commonly assume that they can expect the same results from each hour of active work.   Suppose you are an hourly wage earner at a fast-food establishment.  That’s how it works- but technology has changed that.  That is not how success works in most profit-making enterprises.   Input and output rarely correspond.  The results created through efforts can be leveraged by gaining additional knowledge and utilizing proper technical tools, resulting in geometrically higher creation and production.  Could you identify those tools?

Wow, this worked; I bet I can do better!   We cannot motivate individuals to achieve their goals.  Their goals: They must develop and internalize their own desire and motivation.   Sometimes, learning to improve becomes a passion through modified and leveraging processes.   Repeated successes always bring confidence.

Thousands of brilliant individuals could achieve more if they were motivated and their time management and daily action habits were changed.

The success of one’s action plan varies depending on one’s circumstances and stated goals.  A preacher, teacher, psychologist, company Manager, supervisor, clerk, bookkeeper, accountant, prisoner in a confined environment, or salesperson relying on commissions have different success priorities.  The hat is most valuable in a specific time segment for these folks, which will differ.  Each person should construct a platform and assess the importance of each minute, the time spent, and the results received.

Historical references in explaining why focusing on the most productive actions multiplies the results:

Economists and philosophers have written about the concept known as the 80/20 rule for centuries.

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) was a French economist who first coined the term “entrepreneur.”

The entrepreneur reallocates economic resources from lower-productivity areas to higher-productivity areas, resulting in greater yields.

In 1896, the Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto developed the 80/20 rule.

In any series of elements to be controlled, a selected small fraction of the number of elements always accounts for a significant fraction in terms of effect.

The Pareto Principle was born.

In 1949, George Zipf, a Philosophy professor at Harvard University, stated:

The input of resources (people, goods, time, and skills) tends to be allocated in a way that a small portion of resources (20% to 30%) accounts for a larger corresponding output (70% to 80%) of results.

In 1951, Joseph Moses Juran, a management consultant and significant contributor to the quality control revolution, wrote the Quality Control Handbook.   I renamed the Pareto Principle,

Rule of the Vital Few and the Rule of the Trivial Many.

In 1957, C. Northcote Parkinson wrote two books, Parkinson’s Law and The Law and the Profits.   The first Law was:

Work will expand to fill the time available for its completion.

His message focuses on the waste of time and the expansion of unnecessary bureaucracies in business organizations and governments.  When people and institutions spend other people’s money, they have a natural incentive to be inefficient and extend the time for completion.   Consuming assets rather than getting results is generally their motive.

An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.  Officials do work for each other.   The number of employees will expand by 5-7% per year, irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done.

To sum up, most of us misallocate our daily activities.  While 20% of our activities account for 80% of the results, 80% of our activities achieve only 20% of the intended results.

20%of loan salespeople produce 80% of the income.

Conversely, 80% of loan salespeople make 20% of the available income.

Twenty percent of the lending companies control eighty % of the market share.

Eighty percent of the lending companies control 20% of the market share.

Most companies and bureaucracies allocate 80% of the available resources to the least effective 20% of activities.   Bureaucracies, such as the government, are not motivated by performance or results, but by consuming assets, so next year’s budget is equal to or greater than this year’s.  They strive for more funding and accumulate more subordinates, regardless of how trivial the jobs may be.  Ake-work jobs, or otherwise, constantly grow.

Quality of loan leads:

Eighty % of the profits from our loan leads will result from 20% of our lead base.

Twenty % of the profits from our loan leads will result from eighty % of our lead base.

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are consistent with the 80% -20% rule.

Eighty % of our happiness comes from twenty % of our relationships, both in our business and personal lives.

Eighty % of our dissatisfaction stems from twenty % of our relationships, both in our business and personal lives.

Eliminate superficial relationships with negative attitudes and repeatedly expressing destructive opinions.

Mutual respect and dignity are necessary ingredients for long-term relationships.   That includes respecting the time value of others.

I love critical views from people who have no skin in the game and don’t care.  They believe that they are innately intelligent and informed!   Their opinions are often expressed without forethought or consideration for the views of others.   o other opinions matter: they are the messiahs, the anointed ones who possess it all.  Self-righteousness is their claim to moral superiority.   Security is their proper foundation.

Acquaintances who do not share our positive attitude about life and our value system are usually negative pains in our necks (a*s) and should be considered ex-friends.   The same goes for (online superficial friends) parasites we have never met but always express their unintelligent, emotional, and irrelevant opinions.   These parasites tend to express their ideological views and attempt to sway others to their way of thinking, which is always a 100% waste of time.

Of course, their knowledge is science-based, spoon-fed information, according to the propaganda machine on mainstream media news, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and FOX.  The same applies to coworkers and employees.   Does anyone care about their superficial opinions outside their self-subscribed microcosm?  Who cares?   ot Me!  It’s tiring to deal with the stupid.

Eliminating cluttered relationships from our personal and professional spheres will bring tranquility, dignity, and positive outcomes.

Suggestion for a time/value system of daily activities with variable time importance for each activity:

Leveraging time will create more free time.  Some of our daily activities can be eliminated, consolidated, or delegated to others.   We can use others and technology to leverage our time, talents, and skills.   There may be associates, employees, or independent contractors.

A, B, C, D, and Time Off are subsets of the time management systems.

Time effectiveness may vary depending on our motivation, regimen, objectives, tenacity, and the use of strategic leverage.   Value comes from delegating to others.

Time is the most valuable resource spent.   -Time is face-to-face or one-on-one communication with our targeted buyer or seller.   The communication may be in person, by phone, or by email.  Still, it must expressly reflect a request from the party or prospective buyer/seller to work with us or purchase our products, goods, or services.

I suggest that average salespersons do not apply 10% of their workday in an A-Time mode.  They should strive to spend 60% to 80% of their available time in an A-Time mode and delegate all other tasks.

B-Time refers to the time spent preparing (preparation time) to transition into A-Time—a phone call or email request from a PA is typically involved.   -Time may constitute 30% of one’s daily schedule.  Use our time wisely and delegate the B-Time to someone else.

Examples:

Preparation time.

Could you draft an email, text, phone call, or request a face-to-face meeting with the prospect?

A time does not begin until the customer or lead is in front of you or on the phone.

C-Time is for administrative activities with no specific defined results.   However, it does have value in driving our business forward.   -Time consumes 50% to 80% of our workday.   The key is to delegate C-Time to support staff employees or independent contractors, allowing them to shift our resources to the most effective use of our time.

Examples:

Once we consummate the transaction, all other follow-up activities to drive the process forward fall under C-Time.

Record keeping and regulatory compliance activities are C-Time.

Developing and maintaining marketing systems, including updating the database.

Office organization and administrative duties are active among coworkers.

Interface with third-party vendors such as escrow, title, appraisal, environmental engineers, and property-related insurance companies.

All general activities required to maintain our business enterprise, but not directly attached to closing a transaction, are C-Time.

Industry educational events.

D-time is the catch-all term for activities that produce no results and have little value; in other words, it is wasted time.   These activities may consume a large portion of our day.   -time differs from time off or away from our business or money-making activities.

Examples:

Reading the news and engaging in conversations with friends and family.   Some may argue that discussions with friends and family are not a waste of time. )

Maintain social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter.

Casual conversations with employees and staff not related to business.

The industry meets and greets with cocktails, accompanied by the boys or girls.

Time Off:

Time off is not D-Time but is time away from work-related emotional pressure and clutter.

Everyone should take the time to recharge their (mental, emotional, and physical) batteries.   Any semblance of work pressures should be avoided, including turning off the phone and computer.  Burnout can be avoided by scheduling focused blocks of time away from work-related activities, ideally full days, unencumbered, and removed from the business environment altogether.

Most people have developed a place to escape from their business life or activities that helps them transition from a frantic hustle and bustle into a peaceful, tranquil, serene, and resolved state.  Personal tune-up comes to mind.

The escapee can take a break from work and, regardless of how temporary, figure out how to spend free time away from societal pressures.    Refer to this location as my Mental Hobby Shop.

Why do people misallocate their time and resources?

One prominent reason is the fear of rejection!   Fear of rejection is the unconscious reason people move into B-C-D time’s safe space or comfort zone.  When we request that someone work with us, they may respond with ‘No’, ‘Yes’, ‘Not now’, or ‘Maybe later’.   Hey, they could also totally disregard us.

The most challenging learning curve in any salesperson’s career is understanding that a prospective buyer is not rejecting us personally but merely our request.   The salesperson must locate someone who needs their products, goods, or services.

Marketing Strategies:

Marketing strategies include face-to-face communications, direct calling, mass and email mailing, postal mailing, group networking, online presentations, Zoom calls, and attending industry-related trade shows and conferences.   Believe it or not, direct calling is beneficial for making repeat follow-up calls to maintain an ongoing relationship with active prospects.   If you have any unanswered calls, please leave a message.   A follow-up email as a reminder is also appropriate.   The named person at least hears our voice and receives a friendly reminder email.

The above activities involve strategies to convert prospects into active relationships, including establishing business relationships and friendships.   ctives involve a group communicating with us and expressing interest in our products, goods, or services.  Of course, active individuals can and should develop into business acquaintances.  Yes, friends do business with friends!

Developing an extensive network of active leads and personal relationships takes daily focused time and effort.   Locating and purchasing a list alone has no value.   The list is only the beginning.  Initial introductions and subsequent follow-ups are essential, as they will ultimately lead to success over time.   An outsourcing vendor can verify whether the email addresses are correct.  Active daily management of the list is essential to convert people from cold or warm leads into active ones.   Would you import the list into your customer relationship management (CRM) software?

Here is a suggested action that we could take for someone who regularly or habitually does not respond to our requests to communicate: send an email stating, ‘ Fred, I have tried to contact you a few times without success.’ Would you prefer that I not bother you?   If Fred wants to continue the relationship, he will respond.  Redd may respond politely and say’ no or not respond.   If Fred does not answer, you may demote him to cold and keep him in your email marketing system’s database.  Cold leads receive no personal follow-up, only marketing emails and email distribution.   If Fred is disrespectful or belligerent, delete his record entirely.  Subject him to the big Delete in the sky.

A daily action habit is to spend a significant portion of your day actively engaging in email. However, I call my friends more frequently than every 60 or 90 days.  Repeated calls can be bothersome.   Would you restart the process every 60 to 90 days?

People change jobs, and companies go out of business, often showing a lack of interest or disrespect.  They habitually fail to return phone calls, emails, or change their email addresses or business locations.  The information contained in the prospect list requires constant updates and expansion.   The active prospects in the network are the only ones we can reliably count on to determine the size of our network or lead base.  Additionally, even with a sizable active lead base, we may lose 20% to 30% of them annually for all the stated reasons.  Arm leads should become active.

Replacing dead leads with active leads is necessary.   We may remove the prospect from your active list and cease active follow-up after a reasonable period, such as 24 months of consistent follow-up.   The other option is to email them occasionally using our email blast.  Over time, they may become active leads again.

The quality of a prospect list may disintegrate overnight.   In 2006, my company primarily used direct email to send approximately 1,000,000 letter-form solicitations each month.   Then, by September 2007, the market crashed, and the quality of the lead-based list disintegrated overnight.  Thousands of institutional and private money lenders, real estate agents, loan agents, investors, and builders/developers left the industry.  The quality of my lead list immediately went up in smoke.  Oof!

Prepare for that event!   You will need to reconstruct a new list starting from day one.  If the quality of your lead base declines, consolidate the list to focus on your key activities.  Mail or call to verify that they are still active.

A poor strategy is repeatedly following up with the same prospects, even when they display disinterest or non-responsiveness.  The quality of all lists is fluid and constantly changing.

All the above is a recurring process throughout one’s career.   As the process becomes well-lubricated through practice and experience, you will expect increasing momentum in business until you have so much business that you need to stop marketing temporarily.  Would you allocate the incoming business and then get back on track?

You locate a buyer; you do not create a buyer.