The Keys To Business Planning For 2025

How to help your team take the lead in the new year

Insider

Contributing Writer

The Mortgage Bankers Association has released its forecast for next year which includes a whopping 25% increase in originations. As a manager, you are expected to set up a plan for this growth with the absolute knowledge that any prediction of the future is no more than an educated guess. This increase in business may happen — but keep in mind that many thought 2024 would be a stronger “rebound” year. On the other hand, perhaps the rebound may be stronger than 25%. We just don’t know.

To make things even more challenging, as a manager it is your responsibility to help your loan officers with their planning for 2025. It is not enough for them to say that they want to increase their production and earn more money. They must have a plan, and you need to help them develop a plan. If you asked a hundred managers what should a business plan be comprised of, you would get a hundred different answers.

While I do have a business planning document that I have developed for the industry which accompanies my business planning seminars (feel free to email me for a copy) — instead of presenting the plan in this article we will be delivering concepts which should be part of the plan you develop. The format is not as important as the substance. Here are a few of these concepts:

The plan should be flexible. Because you can’t predict what type of year next year will be, I favor a plan that has three scenarios. If you can live with the results of all three of these, you have a winning plan:

The best-case scenario. What will your production be like if rates go down significantly and we have a combination of a refinance and purchase boom.

The medium-case scenario. What will your production be like if business becomes marginally better next year.

The worst-case scenario. What will your production be like if the bottom falls out of the market. In this case rates stay near the 7.0% range all year.

Goals should be a balancing act. Most everyone would like to increase their production, but the goals must be reasonable. It is close to impossible to go from $5 million in a year to $30 million. If you set out impossible goals, the act of goal planning will be worthless. On the other hand, one’s goals should help them reach for higher achievements. You should not be accepting of the status quo. That is where the balancing act comes in. You must reach, but the goals must be attainable.

Someone’s goals should help them achieve long-term objectives. If you are going to make more money — what is it for? Paying down your debts? Sending your children to college? Getting closer to retirement? These long-term goals should give you the motivation to reach higher for next year. In other words, you need to know the “why” of your goals. One of my favorite sayings is:

If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know when you get there?

Setting out monetary and production goals are not enough. What actions will help you achieve your goals? Here you are drilling down to the day-to-day and week-to-week. If you don’t increase your activities, it is not likely that you will produce more.

Setting out monetary and production goals are not enough. What actions will help you achieve your goals? Here you are drilling down to the day-to-day and week-to-week. If you don’t increase your activities, it is not likely that you will produce more. So, what actions are you going to add? Which ones do you need to modify or eliminate? What targets are you going to zero in on?

Don’t forget about this year. I typically use a special exercise to facilitate the planning process. I ask each participant within my seminars to imagine a “do-over” for the previous year — in this case 2024. I ask them, if you had this year over again, what would you DO differently? This will give you a great baseline for planning for next year. We are not planning in a vacuum — your experiences must influence your decisions.

Implement your plans immediately. Don’t wait until 2025. That is too late. You must implement your plans now to get a running start for next year. Starting by standing still will not propel you forward. You don’t want to start getting results in March.

I hope these tidbits will help you change your thinking while you are planning for 2025. Would love to hear whether these were helpful to you — especially in getting positive results for next year. Good luck!