Unless what you say benefits the other person, don't say it.
If you attack another person's beliefs, you are making an enemy.
Listening without prejudice or distraction shows the greatest respect.
When you speak always try to ask a question.
Operating solely out of self interest will show and you will be tuned out.
And most importantly, remember that honor is a gift you give yourself that will be a magnet for others like nothing else.
In his Creed for Optimists, Christian Larsen tells us...
“The past is history.”
“It’s in the past so forget about it.”
“Let bygones be bygones.”
Old sayings about the past are never really very comforting when things from the past cause us pain in the present.
Everything in our past is either a learning experience to grow on, a great memory to reflect, or a motivator to act upon.
The great memories are the easy part of the past to embrace. The learning experiences are somewhat tougher to reflect upon but it is the motivators that require the action that will make or break a person and set the course for their future.
So don't lose your past because it holds your incentive for a better future!
investing your precious time into working smart will always lead to a more productive, fulfilled and wealthy you. And better yet, productivity breeds productivity. You will find that the more quality time you invest in mortgage loan origination the more your positive results will multiply exponentially so that your hours invested per closed loan god down with every quality hour you invest in your profession.
We human beings have a remarkable ability to get what we must have, but there is a huge difference between "must" and "want". If you know what you want, and you want it badly enough, you will always find a way to make it happen. That is if and only if you want it badly enough to make it a "must".
How many hours of work do you invest in per closed loan?
If you can't answer that question, you are not alone. Some loans take us very little time while others may take us cumulative days worth of work (and hopefully they close.)
We often think of ourselves in terms of how much we earn on an hourly basis because the calculation is so simple. We take what we produce for the month or the year and then divide it by how many hours we worked.
But where we tend to go wrong in that calculation is in the hours worked part.
Just because we showed up at 9:00 and left at 5:00 did we really work an eight hour day? Or did we socialize, read insignificant emails and surf the web while we were supposed to be making loans? In other words did we just squander eight hours at the officer or were they eight quality hours?
The temptation is easy and it exists in all of us. What is important is that you keep the distractions to a minimum and use your previous time wisely because that time you just spent on Yahoo! may have cost you a golden opportunity elsewhere!
Everyone makes mistakes and we humans all have a deep seeded need to help others avoid them which you are fully equipped to do. Your expertise and advice in order to help your customers avoid mistakes is extremely valuable.
Your customer's opportunities for mistakes will be multiplied by all of the "special offers" that every homeowner receives en masse as soon as they buy a home and their name and address is captured by the list marketing companies.
A brief explanation of public records to your home buying applicants is never a bad idea anyway. It is a nice forewarning of the onslaught of junk and sales pitches they are about to receive and also it let's your customers know it wasn't you who made their address and sales price known to the entire world.
Which a great segue to your offering to answer any future questions they may have about things like bi-weekly mortgage plans, mortgage life insurance and any number of those other "fabulous opportunities" that lurk to scoop up their dollars.
Being all things to all people is as impossible as is being the everything lender to all borrowers. Doing what you do best and referring the rest is a time tested strategy for success in our business and your team of referral partners should include bankers and other types of niche lenders that can help your customers with the loans that you either can not or should not be doing.
Your team should also include at least one tax, investment, insurance and legal professional which is yet another great service you have to offer your customers. Everyone likes doing business by referral and your customers will love the fact that you have access to several different proven service providers that are all endorsed by you.
Plus those people on your "referral team" can be your finest sources of business as their customers will trust them and their referrals typically far more than they will trust the referral that comes from a Realtor or builder.
So build your team and you will build your business and theirs too whilst taking great care of your customers. A win-win-win situation if ever there was one!
We've all known that the foundation for long term success in the mortgage business is having a consultative approach with your customers rather than being transaction oriented. However, some of your past customers and nearly all of your new customers don't view mortgage lending services that way at all.
Their opinion is that they need to call a handful of different lenders and go with the cheapest one as if they were buying a car or a refrigerator.
Do you think these same people would go to a free clinic instead of their family doctor? Would they seek the services of an attorney for the indigent or a public defender if they needed legal help? Of course not. Most of them wouldn't even get a discounted hair cut at the local beauty college!
They all understand the value of quality and expertise but not in the mortgage business because they view a mortgage as a one time transaction that should be awarded to the lowest bidder.
How unfortunate for them because going with the lowest bidder now can cost thousand of dollars in the future or even thousands now if that lowest bid wasn't ethical.
Bait and switch tactics, undisclosed fees and prepayment penalties are just a fraction of what the consumer must be careful to avoid and you must be careful to educate them on those and the benefits of our services which extend far beyond their closing.
We all lose business to price sometimes and often the best plan is to just let it go gracefully, but definitely not silently.
The most difficult of the shoppers will never fully appreciate you and what you can do for them anyway because their mindset is that they are in it for just the one transaction. This is not a long term proposition to them.
Your best bet is to call them and acknowledge their decision. Be kind, be gracious and offer your services and expertise for the next time they are in need.
And what ever you do, DO NOT disparage the competition because that always backfires. After all they just chose them over you, so why would they want to hear you criticize their devision? Do, however, offer to help them if things don't go as planned with the competitor which is a far more tactful approach to saying you made the wrong decision.
Then put them in your data base, market to them regularly and you will be amazed at how many of them will come back to you at a later date because they received sub-par service elsewhere.
“A bad salesman will automatically drop his price. Bad salesman make me sick.”
Price competition has been with us since... well since competition started hundreds of years ago in the lending business. And ever since some medieval banker accepted only five loaves of bread instead of the six that the other guy wanted, price competition in our business has been alive and well.
Price competition has gotten out of hand lately as come lenders are pricing loans so cheaply right now that they can only be doing them for the practice no the paycheck. But if selling by price alone ruled in our business, those who made all of the loans right now would not be making any profit whatsoever and our industry would be rendered fruitless.
Nothing stinks more than working with a customer for months, giving them all the advice and then having them go elsewhere to save 1/8%. It happens to all of us and it happens more now because we are in a slower market and a new era of mortgage advertising where the only consumers these days who don't have mortgage loan shopping constantly in their face are the ones who don't own a computer, TV, radio or mailbox; and people who live in caves rarely need mortgages!
Tomorrow we will look at what you can do to fight the "price wars" and keep more of the commission for which you have worked.
Just as we all need good service providers like appraisers and title companies, your referral sources need outstanding service providers (like you) as well.
If you ask any seasoned Realtor they will tell you that the most valuable tool in their belt of service providers is a skilled, reliable Loan Officer. We are more important to them than inspectors, title companies and attorneys put together because of the money we lend and the knowledge that accompanies those fundings.
Safe to say that most of us would prefer not be called a "tool". However, Realtors need "tools" like us. Please remember that whenever you speak to them. You have much to offer and every Realtor in the land needs one or more of us "tools" to assist them and help their business succeed!
Phone calls beget phone calls just as activity begets activity.
Why are the most successful Realtors usually the listing agents? Because their phones are ringing thanks to their listings. The activity brought about by the phone calls they receive eventually turns into dollars, which turn into even more dollars as their activity breeds productivity, which breeds success.
Is your phone ringing? The number one way to get your phone to ring with people looking for your services is to ring some phones yourself. Get on the phone and call some Realtors you haven't heard from in months, call some past clients and/or old friends that you haven't heard from in years, but most importantly, just all!
They will be happy to hear from you and the rare ones that aren't, you don't need to be concerned with anyway. You have much to offer (and to gain) by staying in touch with your previous customers and referral sources. So make some calls today and watch your phone ring a little more every day going forward!
There is an old proverb that says if you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. If you want to be happy for a week, kill and eat a pig. But if you want to be happy for a lifetime, love your work.
For some people, loving their work is challenging, which is true of any profession if one dwells on the negatives because every job in the world has its pluses and minuses.
You don't have to enjoy having loans declined; appraisal problems; being shopped against ten other lenders; or long market downturns, but if you let them get you down they will. On the other hand, we have unlimited income potential, a flexible schedule, creative freedom and best of all we get to help people and make others happy by improving their lives every day.
So love your work. Not only will you be happy for a lifetime, but if you love your work, your work will love you back!
Even though you want to move forward in life, your thoughts may have you with one foot on the gas and one on the brake. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Release the past by refusing to entertain your old pain.
Most of us don't even realize where our "bad seeds" of thought come from. It can be from a book, a speaker, or even a well-meaning friend or relative. It can be the result of bad philosophy, bad theology, bad parenting or just plain bad advice.
The energy it takes to hang onto the past can hold you back from a wonderful new life. So why not just let it go?
What is it that you would let go of today?
Whatever it is, let it go right now and have a fantastic day. And then let some more go tomorrow!
The common theory these days among psychologists is that the subconscious mind does not really exist in the form Freud theorized because there is not any part of your consciousness that is inaccessible to you.
Subconscious thought is, by definition, so subtle that it is beneath your awareness and if it's below your awareness, you're not aware of it! And if you're not aware of it, how can it affect you?
What passes for the subconscious mind are generally habitual patterns of thought and belief that are based upon your current emotional state. Kind of like a struck piano key in that the powerful vibration always swallows the weaker one, so decisions made in the present moment are always more powerful than past decisions.. Therefore, all thought which leads to action is conscious thought.
We are the sum total of our thoughts. Therefore, programming yourself for the better is achieved only one way... by reprogramming your thoughts.
For the next few days we will look at some ways to reprogram for the better!
That much you beautiful, intelligent, loyal LO insights readers already know, but what about our subconscious thoughts?
Subconscious is defined by Wester's as "That portion of mental activity of which the individual has little or no conscious perception."
The subconscious mind was popularized by Sigmund Freud who, in order to explain irrational behavior, developed the idea that consciousness is layered into unconscious, preconscious, and conscious.
Because neurotic behavior had no rational explanation, it made sense to Freud that some psychic events must infiltrate the surface of the mind; then explode into conscious awareness.
In our culture, the subconscious mind has been given terrific powers over the consciousness of the individual; it has been said that from within our subconscious can come horrible emotions and impulses, forcing you to do things that you don't want to do.
Defense lawyers have been argued (usually unsuccessfully) that it was the subconscious mind of their client who committed the crime!
To be continued...
Blame rhymes with shame and it is no coincidence.
Whenever we blame our circumstances or worse yet other people, all it does is keep us from facing our own worst enemy and best friend... ourselves.
The first step in any type of recovery is to be willing to admit that you have a problem and to accept responsibility for it. The first step must happen before any sort of cure can occur. Too often people fall into the trap of looking to blame other conditions or other people, when accepting responsibility themselves is the only real way out.
Accepting responsibility and blame for who you are and what you have done in the past is not damaging. In fact, it will liberate you and free your mind for far better things as you move forward in life and on to bigger and better things. This is often a difficult paradox to understand but truly an axiom of life itself.
How many relationships of a personal or business nature fail unnecessarily because someone has the attitude that if you won't agree that it is not my fault, I quit?
Regardless of how hard we may try to change others, the only person we can really change is ourselves. So no matter what happens to you today - blame someone, just make sure that someone you blame is you!
Credit Bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union) are the source of all credit information available to us or any other creditor.
Credit Reporting Agencies, on the other hand are the companies that provide credit reports supplying credit bureau information to those of us who need it in order to determine the creditworthiness of a potential borrower. There are several of these companies including Fiserv/Credstar and First American Credco plus thousands of smaller local companies. These companies report information from the bureaus and provide credit supplements to fix credit issues that may be incorrect or not found on the bureau report.
But just because a credit reporting agency gave you a supplement showing a collection account is paid off or late payment was incorrect does not mean the account will suddenly appear differently on the borrower's bureau reports, because it won't. The issue is that the bureaus don't rely on what the reporting agencies provide because there is no guarantee of accuracy and therefore, they insist on doing it themselves for quality control reasons.
A borrower who has an inaccuracy fixed with a credit supplement should always be advised to follow up with the bureaus using the procedure outlined in yesterday's LO insights in order to avoid having the same issue rear it's ugly head the next time they apply for credit.
The second way to fix erroneous credit bureau information is for people to take matters into their own hands. This option is more time intensive, but the results will generally be better. The customer must contact all three bureaus directly and work through them to correct the information reflected within their credit report. the entire process usually takes 45-60 days.
First, the consumer must order their reports directly from the bureaus. Once they recieve the reports, the consumer must check them for accuracy and then send letters and/or documentation to each of the three bureaus disputing the information. The credit bureaus then have thirty days from receipt of the written information to update the individual's credit profile.
Borrowers can contact the credit bureaus by phone or internet:
EFX-Equifax: 800-685-1111 or www.equifax.com
XPN-Experian: 800-583-4080 or www.experian.com
TU- Trans Union: 800-916-8800 or www.tuc.com
The reports are free of charge unless a consumer requests their report multiple times within the same year.
In order to fix incorrect credit information, a consumer has three choices...
The first and quickest choice is to deal with the creditor directly and rely on the them to update the credit information to all three bureaus, which sounds simple enough and it would be, in a perfect world.
However, like so many "quick fixes" this method works only sometimes. Unfortunately many creditors themselves are inconsistent and downright incompetent in correcting information with the credit bureaus. instances of customer service reps placating consumers and then failing to follow with the effort required to deal with the credit bureaus are as common as needles on a porcupine.
To make matters worse, to the consumer is in the dark as to whether or not the creditor has followed through on their promise to fix since the process can take months. We have all heard the laments of a borrower who thought a creditor had fixed an inaccuracy months or years ago only to find out that the negative information is still there.
Tomorrow... we'll look at putting the consumer back in charge.
