5 Hot Takes From 5 Top Coaches

Stepping into an uncertain market like that expected in 2024 means trying to gauge the “what-ifs” of the market and the “how-tos” of winning market share. Last year was a toughie for originators and beyond; A long list of layoffs, mergers & acquisitions, and closures looms over the industry like A Christmas Carol’s ghosts of Past, Present, and Yet To Come.

When in doubt, great minds in the financial services industry swap ideas and try to emulate the ideas of industry top dogs. But one person’s yuck is another’s yum. In other words, not all advice transcends from LO to LO.

To combat this, NMP talked to five top industry coaches about their one piece of advice for LOs going forward in 2024. Here’s what they had to say.

Watch it on The Interest: Coach Knows Best

Carl White: Embrace Tradition

For Carl White, founder and CEO of Mortgage Marketing Animals, there’s a reason that the “old-timers” of the industry are the top producers: they stick to tradition. New LOs, White says, blame the current market as the sole reason for their career or income woes. “The market isn’t responsible for our success or our failure,” he said. “Our activities are. And to say it was a tough year, well, it wasn’t for all of us.”

To White, blaming the market is a crutch for originators and hinders their ability to be successful. White says that the beginning of 2024 presents the perfect opportunity to stop blaming and step up to the plate. “We need to be held accountable for our activities or lack thereof. I think what happened was when things were going so well a couple of years ago, we stopped our prospecting and marketing,” White mused, and offered an analogy: “We got too lazy and forgot to learn how to pedal a bike. And when there wasn’t that tailwind to send us and we actually had to pedal the bike to move, well a lot of us forgot how to pedal and our muscles weren’t used to it.”

White says that everyone in the industry is looking for what he calls “magic beans,” meaning immediate recipes for success. “These LOs think they need to have the latest and greatest ways to market and always need a new way to draw in customers, but I have a saying that goes ‘stop buying more cows until you milk the cows you have,’  ” he said.

What White means is that originators he speaks to across the country know what they need to do to accomplish their business goals, but a small fraction of them execute a plan and take inventory of who and what they can utilize.

So what’s White’s recipe for success? Research what works before investing time and money into new marketing or social media strategies. He cited NextGen’s 2021 homebuyer study that asked consumers where they found their loan officer; only 3.2% of the 1,000 surveyed said they found an LO through social media. “There’s no need to run to TikTok or preach social media. Because it doesn’t actually work. What you should do is figure out the number one thing — the number one single activity — that made you the most money within the last six months. Something had to have happened to get people to contact you for a deal,” he said. “What did you do that brought in those leads or loans? And then simply do more of that and less of everything else.”

Cindy Ertman: Casting a Wider Net

For other coaches, the market is a viable blame for poor business. “I’ve been through many tough markets over the couple of decades I originated and I’ve seen all sides of mortgage, but this was the toughest market I’ve ever seen in terms of actually getting traction,” Cindy Ertman, the CEO and founder of The Defining Difference, says bluntly. “My coaching business revolves around doing things with intention. So now is the time to make new, bolder, intentional decisions … we need to cast a wider net, create partnerships with new realtor partners and financial planners and divorce attorneys. Now’s the time to get into other states where the market isn’t as compressed as the state they live in.”

As much as the market presents conundrums to originators, Ertman says that it’s time to get as educated as possible about the current market — don’t just assume it’s going away. “Where are you getting your news and how are you communicating that to your client base?” Ertman prods. “Because some of my top clients spend an hour every morning getting themselves educated about the market, and they’re conveying it with such confidence that they’re getting their clients to say yes in a challenging market. There’s a trust element that develops.”

For Ertman, casting a wider net doesn’t just mean basic outreach and education: it’s separating your struggles from others and offering yourself as a resource. Her advice? Hosting “lunch and learn” events with real estate agents and making it a point to coach and support others besides yourself. “Everybody needs help, whether it’s a talk about how to do social media in a better way or bring in a local appraiser to talk about the local market,” she said. “Set yourself apart as the expert, and it gets you in front of your audience in a big way.”

Sean Zalmanoff: Actions That Matter

Sean Zalmanoff is a big proponent of acknowledging weaknesses. The Next Level LO coach co-founder says his best advice for the unsure LO heading into 2024 is to identify their “ATM,” or “actions that matter.”

So what is an ATM? Zalmanoff says that ATMs are strengths that help you move the needle in your career and activities that drive income. And not one size fits all. “Know your strengths: do you crush it in big groups, one-on-one interactions, marketing, or social presence? And then after identifying those income-driving activities, you make an effort to proactively plan your calendar around those activities,” he said. “Some people do not know what their ATM is, so we advise them to track what they do every day in 15-minute increments and see which activities brought them the most success.”

Zalmanoff says that proactively planning around ATMs helps LOs to stay on the grind. “It’s so easy to start work on Monday and clock out on Friday and feel like you do so much and at the same time you did nothing at all,” he explained. “I know that my ATMs are social media and communication, so I follow a monthly plan where I keep track of what to post, I hold realtor masterminds monthly, I strategically communicate with my very large database of realtors and past clients and send things of value to them every week.”

Zalmanoff explained that communicating value for him means facilitating information to his referral partners. “I send a rate email and market commentary on Mondays, and on Friday they get something about a new program or something that can help their business, [as well as] market data to use in conversations, talk about how they can effectively communicate wrong data from talking heads,” he shared. “[The commentary] helps realtors to put things into perspective for buyers, and as a result, you become a sort of talking head they trust.”

Ron Vaimberg: Take Notes From Basketball

Ron Vaimberg says that between 2010 and early 2022, originators just had to simply answer their phones, point blank. “You didn’t have to be a good marketer,” Vaimberg said. “Today, the only way you succeed is by knowing how to market and knowing how to sell. Very few people are looking to put in the effort to learn.”

Vaimberg says that his top advice stems from basketball, and he referenced a quote from the late, theatrical, zero-tolerance coach Bob Knight: “Everybody wants to be on a championship team, but nobody wants to come to practice.” For Vaimberg, the same goes for loans. “Everybody wants loans, but not everyone will work hard enough or develop the skills needed in today’s market to succeed, and that leaves a large door open for those who are willing to do it,” he said. “You have to look at game film of your opponents: what are they doing to eke out success?”

The first steps to looking at the game film, Vaimberg advised, is to change your mindset. “Everybody should be thinking ‘How do I let more people know what I do for a living and if they have any questions or need help that they should reach out to me?’ If you think about expanding your network, business will come,” he said. “It’s already proven that the individuals with the biggest network in our business are the most successful.”

And when you expand your network, Vaimberg says, stop pleading for business. “If you want to win relationships, you have to do 1 of 2 things for a referral partner: solve a problem for them or create an opportunity. Put the spotlight on them, not on yourself,” he advised. “And then, do homework on your real estate referral partners. What are their listings? Any open houses planned?”

During that phone call, Vaimberg recommends a psychological approach. “Take complete control: don’t ask ‘How are you?’ immediately on the phone call, it interrupts the flow of conversation,” he instructed. “Offer what you can bring to the table: suggest a neighbor’s only open house … it’s a psychological shift, neighbors will actually talk to prospective buyers [about the neighborhood] if they are included.”

Khai McBride: Play the Long Game

Khai McBride, CEO and head coach of KM Performance Coaching, is challenging the status quo of short-term solutions by shifting focus from immediate sales to a more holistic, long-term approach. Breaking away from conventional methods that rely heavily on scripts and quick appointments, McBride advocates for evaluating business systems and emphasizing brand-building and marketing. “I think the reason why we’re in trouble is because all we ever do is sell so we’re dependent on the market to give us our business,” he said. “Nobody’s done a good job of establishing their brand or good marketing, all we ever do is go after the next appointment.”

McBride says to scale your business, marketing is the solution because it’s a one-to-many approach. “It’s branding, content, creating loyalty and brand recognition, as well as leadership,” McBride explained. “In the long term that allows you to create further exposure and further connection. And if you wanting to originate on a wider scale, part of that is recognizing that you can’t perform one-on-ones with realtors. You have to learn how to market to different regions and make connections without being in-person.”

Acknowledging the need for immediate results, McBride introduces the concept of “engagement” as the middle ground between marketing and sales. “Engagement means having conversations with the people you market to without the conversation being too sales-y,” McBride said. “For instance, if you do a marketing video, that period of engagement is reaching out to your network to ask what they liked about the video and what you can do to help them. It shouldn’t be all about you and why they should send you business.”