Front Paige News

As a former Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) implementer, special education teacher, and holder of two degrees in the fields of special education, Ringkamp knows that her approach — whether it’s a student plan or getting a mortgage — should be driven by data. “You look at data, you look at patterns, and make decisions accordingly,” she said. “Data refers to thinking backward: how many closings do you want each month, how many appointments do you need to get that number of referrals, and how many calls do you need to make or meetings do you need to have?”

Ringkamp says she’s not reinventing the wheel, claiming other top producers follow the same strategy. “I track my meetings, my calls, my referrals, and my prequalifications that come from those referrals. And then I track the ones that go under contract and the ones that close so that I can see a pattern. When I make X amount of contacts a month, I can depend on averaging this many closings,” she said. “I can then see my ratios and ask myself how I am converting those referrals, is it that my conversion rate is getting better and my business is growing, or is it that my referrals have gone up and my conversion has improved or hasn’t improved?”

So what’s the benefit? Ringkamp says that after gauging the ratios of your business, you can prioritize your workflow accordingly. “You can dive into what is the healthiness of those referrals, look at the ratios you have with referral partners, and think about how much time and money you bring into that relationship with them,” she said.

Adding Value

Ringkamp’s team is expected to know their numbers and act accordingly. As one of two producing branch managers for USA Mortgage, Ringkamp oversees other loan officers but everyone on the team has their own book of business. “I can look at other LOs I train and manage and I can look at their calendars and say ‘The data here shows that you’re only going on two real estate appointments a week, that’s why you’re only closing a deal a month,’” she said.

2023 was hard, Ringkamp admits candidly. But she led her staff the way she knew best: going back to the numbers and doubling down. “We made sure we focused on lead follow-up, I don’t know who told me this, but someone told me that 80% of all sales are made in follow-up,” she reasoned.

Ringkamp’s junior, Nick Franta, is a licensed loan officer who works under Ringkamp doing just that. Franta works without his own pipeline, doing the majority of Ringkamp’s upfront work like lead sheets, qualifications, and, of course, follow-ups. “I have been very lucky to work with Paige, she’s an incredibly hard worker and ultra-competitive,” Franta said. “She only strives to be the best and leads by example by providing that service to our team and clients. She continues to work like she has something to prove and continuously looks to improve/grow regardless of her accomplishments.”

Franta has worked by Ringkamp’s side for about five years and cited her “infectious energy” as a reason he enjoys working on her team. “She is a true leader, a leader is supposed to inspire the people around them, using motivation and a level of guidance for us to be as successful as possible,” he said. “She’s taught me the importance of focusing on the goal at hand, and keeping things organized/moving forward so we can help our clients as best and efficiently as possible.”

Moving forward into 2024, Ringkamp reflected on what she wants to do differently — both individually and with her team. “The biggest benefit that myself and my team have is that we’re purchase-driven and we make sure that we take care of our real estate agents … we were making sure we were helping them keep their businesses afloat and helping them with marketing and follow-ups, making sure they were staying in front of their sphere of influence,’ she explained. “We did events and all the things we know we need to be doing we never stopped doing. But going into this year, I will say I have been one of the last people to jump on the social media train. I don’t love it because it’s not me, but I’m realizing that it is something I need to be doing to stay afloat in the future.”

Ringkamp considers herself an old-fashioned originator in this regard. “By nature and according to the Myer-Briggs test, I’m off the charts extroverted, so I love to be face-to-face with people,” she said. “Social media isn’t enough one-on-one engagement … people can put whatever kind of life they want on social media, but nothing compares to knowing people in person and knowing their families.”

Upfront & Personal

Even though Ringkamp is in no rush to become an Instagram influencer, she has a concrete goal in mind to influence other women who want to step into the world of financial services. “When I got into this business, I came from the world of special education; I didn’t know how to build a business or anything about financing a home,” she said. “What I liked about the mortgage industry was that it’s up to me, it’s what I make of it and in my control. My future wasn’t dependent on anyone else. And that takes a lot of self-motivation.”

Acknowledging her past in special education also means accepting that she can still have two passions. “I didn’t wake up one day and think I wanted to do mortgages, but I knew I wanted to help people and influence other people to make their world bigger, Ringkamp said. “In high school, I thought I wanted to do special education forever. I went to college, played volleyball, and got my master’s degree. I still do some consulting and spend time with kids with behavioral needs on the side — not as much as I would like — but that’s still a part of my world.”

Being a woman in the infancy of her financial services career, Ringkamp is still thinking about what kind of impact/legacy/mark she wants to leave on the industry.

 “I think I’m still learning my purpose but one of my biggest things in life, like in terms of if I were to die tomorrow what I would want, is that I somehow influenced other women to feel confident enough to open their own business or try a new industry,” she said. “My biggest desire is to influence women who maybe don’t think that they can step out of their nine-to-five job to go try something that they might enjoy, or are scared to take that financial leap, or don’t think they have a spot in the financial world because it’s a male-dominated industry.”

Per Ringkamp’s branch managing partner, Dan Krummel, she’s already influencing. “She’s always bringing in new ideas to an industry that, in my opinion, is lacking new initiatives. As a leader in our industry, she strives to learn what her clients and employees truly need, then relentlessly problem-solves to achieve their end goal,” Krummel said. “She continues to bring value to everyone she encounters and she’s only scratching the surface of what she can accomplish in this ever-evolving industry.”