Seeing The Pillars Of Profit

LOs shouldn’t overlook the opportunities right in front of them

Insider

Contributing Writer

As a manager, one of your most important functions is to help your loan officers see the opportunities to develop relationships and garner referrals. It is a matter of opening their eyes so they can see the opportunities they are missing, many of which are right under their nose. As a matter of fact, in my thirty-plus years of hiring, training and coaching loan officers through my leadership positions, articles, books, training programs, and speeches, this has been one of my most important objectives. If they don’t see the opportunity, they can’t take advantage of the opportunity.

For those working inside or otherwise affiliated with a real estate office (inside the glass house), there is no place in which there are more opportunities, many of which the average loan officer does not see. As a matter of fact, there are so many potential opportunities that opening one’s eyes can be quite overwhelming. This is why I say that such situations are a gold mine, but also can be a curse if not balanced properly. Where are these opportunities? I have divided them up into four pillars:

The loan officer’s personal sphere. This opportunity is no different than any other loan officer’s situation. Only when a loan officer starts serving a real estate office, they tend to leave their personal sphere behind. Not without reason, as a real estate office can have so much activity, it is even tougher to multi-task. But to abandon one’s personal sphere is always a mistake, and more importantly, interactions with their personal sphere can put the loan officer in a position to add even more value to the real estate office.

The sphere of a real estate office. When I train on personal spheres, I can demonstrate to a loan officer or a real estate agent how their database can grow from 300 to 3,000 by opening their eyes wider and understanding the full extent of their sphere. If their personal sphere is that extensive, imagine how large the sphere of a real estate office is. Again, when you open your eyes, the opportunity is mind-boggling. No one person could possibly reach every segment of this sphere. In our course, we go deeper into this concept.

The sphere of a transaction. Like the personal sphere, the sphere of a transaction exists for every loan officer. But as a typical loan officer doesn’t fully take advantage of this extensive opportunity, once again the loan officer in a real estate office is more likely to be distracted further when dealing with their pipeline. Thus, it takes even more discipline in order to take advantage of what this opportunity brings to the table.

There are so many potential opportunities that opening one’s eyes can be quite overwhelming. This is why I say that such situations are a gold mine, but also can be a curse if not balanced properly.

The sales and listings of the office. I purposely listed this opportunity last because most loan officers and companies are overly fixated on these opportunities. Not that they are not important, but the goal here is for the sales and listings of the office to become a part of the overall opportunity, not the focus of 98% of the loan officer’s efforts.

As a matter of fact, when you look at the extent of these four opportunity segments, even a small real estate office with a few sales per month can support a loan officer. This is a very important concept because I believe a loan officer adding value to a real estate office can help that office grow, something we will delve into more deeply when we discuss the facets of value a loan officer can bring to the table “inside the glass house.”

It is imperative that the loan officer and company see the full extent of these opportunities. Often, we have loan officers vying for desk rentals or other affiliations with a real estate office or even a real estate team. But if they miss out on the wide range of opportunities available, the venture is much less likely to be successful. This is why we are focusing on this topic — to help both loan officers and real estate companies realize the real potential value of this amazing opportunity.