Seven Simple Things

With a massive cold wave across the country and as some see record braking and life threatening temperatures, here are seven simple things you can do to stay connected with your business.

1. Keep yourself safe and warm.
2. Check on your friends and neighbors by phone.
3. Call your referral partners and see how they are doing.
4. Call all your clients with preapprovals to be sure they don’t lose the excitement of house hunting, use your tools!
5. Check on your database to be sure you have all your annual reviews and birthday calls scheduled.
6. Prepare for your Valentine’s Day or St Patrick’s Day event.
7. Work on your renter to homeowner plan and connecting with some Realtors, Accountants, Financial Planners, and especially your Insurance Professionals to talk about the tax refund strategy.

Being safe and sound inside your home is a smart thing to do. Connecting with those you care about to be sure they are safe is also something you shouldn’t take for granted. However, just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean you can be working and connecting; planning and executing! Being safe and productive are not exclusive!

There are plenty of excuses not to work. There are also plenty of reasons to use some of this time to plan, organize, prepare, and to CARE! Care about your people, care about your clients, care about your referral partners, and care that you reel back in any production that may have been delayed because of the weather!

For those of you not living in areas not impacted by these cold temperatures, don’t get lost in the news! Just do the work, execute your plan, and stay connected to your process!

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

 

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It Works if You Work

What a great time of year and what fantastic results we are seeing from those executing the end of year plan. For many, December will be a record breaking month; one entire branch following the plan is setting a sales record by closing 50% more units in December than they did in October! Who said you can’t do business after Thanksgiving? So why are some mortgage professionals setting sales records while others are convinced that there was no business to be had? The answer is simple, there is always business to be had and you just have to get out in front of it!

One of the best parts of this is that it isn’t coming from any one activity or effort, its coming from all areas. New closings from those who said they couldn’t close in time. Deals from those people who didn’t know they could even buy a home. Deals are closing for people who are trading up and trading down to get into their new homes for Christmas, others are buying because now is a great time to buy a home

From the “Black Friday Home Sale” to the countdown to year end; from working hard with open houses to getting in front of the preapprovals who haven’t bought yet. From working with builders to reduce completed inventory, to moving renters into home ownership and more, the final push of activity has resulted in significant loan opportunities to close in 2018, but more importantly, established and identified new relationships that will produce opportunities in 2019 and beyond!

Our efforts and activities don’t disappear at the end of any month or year. Our business is a constant flow of activities and opportunities, some of which are almost instant results; others are deals that will close well into the future. One of my people closed a deal this week that was a man he began working with in March of 2016. They both stuck to the plan and the deal, and that buyer’s life, got to a result created by actions over time!

There are going to be buyers and sellers engaged in the process this weekend! There will be open houses just days before Christmas for sellers that need to sell and there will be buyers looking that are trying to buy! Do you have a plan for this weekend and the days between Christmas and New Year’s? Unless you are going on vacation, working just a few hours each day could help you land some new opportunities that you would have never had a chance at if you hadn’t!

2019 is just a few more days away. What kind of momentum do you have going into January? Is your business plan complete, your preapproval file full, does your pipeline have deals ready to close on time or early; have you run through your new prospecting schedule and prepared your marketing calendar for 2018? If you have, you are ready to go!

Finish the year strong with solid momentum and energy! Have a safe and Merry Christmas! Share kindness with those you love and those in need! We will be back next week!

One Weekend Left

Most of us only have one weekend left to secure new business to close in 2018. Some of you may be able to stretch it out a bit further, but realistically we are looking at the last weekend this weekend. With that in mind, what are you plans? A few simple steps might help:

• Record a video about this being the last weekend to bring in files to close in 2018.
• Share the video on YouTube®, Facebook®, Twitter®, LinkedIn®, and with every real estate office and referral partner you have.
• Target every small bank and credit union either with the video or just a flier brought to each office on Friday.
• Locate every Open House this weekend and share the same information via video and flier with each agent and prospective buyer.
• Call every pre-approval you have currently, and go back and look at every pre-approval you lost touch with and share this information!

It won’t take that much energy and the rewards can be enormous. Besides, what else do you have to do? Even if you don’t find a loan, you will get practice at doing a video, sharing important information, and contacting people who need to hear from you because they might NEED you!

The next things I need to talk about this week are holiday parties. Holiday parties can make or maybe break your career. Holiday celebrations are important. Just be sure you do a good job of making good choices! Attend the ones important to you and your business, but avoid too much holiday cheer; and by that I mean don’t drink! Nothing can ruin you faster that a DUI or being drunk at a party. In fact, you might consider being the designated driver for those who drink too much and don’t have Uber yet!

On the success story side of things, some of you worked the “Black Friday Sale” and made a few people’s holiday by helping them into their first home. Others found new business by using the “Pie Giveaway”. Others remained committed to working Open Houses and found people in need of your help. And last but not least, we had one group already put together eight transactions to close this year for a builder’s inventory homes. All of this is very cool and I am sure there are a few new success stories still to come this holiday season!

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s the time of year we all need to pause and give thanks for what we have and be grateful for our blessings. This has been a very professionally successful year and I am grateful to those who have made that success possible. It was also personally a very challenging year for me personally as it was twenty years ago that my mother and son, Paul passed just a week apart, and then my son Eric passed at the age of 42. These are all things people have to deal with and a reminder that life can change quickly for both better and worse, so take the time to be grateful for what you have been blessed with.

It is also 55 years ago I sat in my class at Fern Place Elementary School in Plainview NY and saw the school day end early because John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. It was the first time I remember seeing grown people, both men and women, crying uncontrollably in public. Just 5 days away from my seventh birthday, I had to try and understand as a child some very adult circumstances.

In the mortgage and real estate communities, Thanksgiving also represents a series of choices and opportunities. Some make the choice to back off the process and enjoy the long series of parties and social events that the next six weeks will offer. For some, that is no choice at all, rather just a way of life. For many others, this time of year represents significant opportunities. While part of your competition removes itself from the business of closing transactions and creating new opportunities; some will take the time and benefit from engaging with the very people who NEED to get a transaction done!

Many Realtors® are just one or two transactions away from “leveling up” their commission tier. These one or two more transactions can represent thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in additional commissions! For originators, getting those last few deals closed in 2018 can also hold benefits for personal, team, branch, region, and even national honors! This also can be very important to many people and their incomes going forward.

Black Friday weekend is a huge opportunity to get in front of serious buyers and sellers. Some of you will be following my “Black Friday Plan” this week and I am looking forward to seeing how you all do, so please keep me posted! For those of you who have not prepared a Black Friday Sale, you still can find significant opportunities by getting out and visiting your real estate offices, open houses, builder models and let people know you are available to help, and when the last day you can accept completed contracts for units closing in 2018!

We have discussed this before, every company and market is different! You need to get really clear and specific about what you can do and what the obligations of all the players are to be sure you can get it done! Not everyone can close on 12/24 or 12/31! You need to know before you commit to closing!

It’s also not just your buyers agents that you need to get in front of. You bring special value to:

• Listing Agents
• Sellers
• Accountants
• Financial Planners
• Attorneys
• Small bands & Credit Unions

Any or all of these could be in need of your ability to get it done before 2019 comes! For some, 2018 is over! For others, there is much left to do! Pick your path and schedule your activities!

Happy Thanksgiving to all; I am always grateful to you for reading and responding to the things we discuss on this post!

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

“The Numbers Don’t Match Up?”

In a series of reports recently published, a series of numbers just don’t seem to add up. Year over year home purchases are up 2%. Home prices are up more than 6%. Then you hear that the average income for Realtors is down more than 10%. How does that work out?

I have been playing it through my mind over and over again and the only answers I seem to come up with are:

• Realtors are reducing commissions?
• Less people are using Realtors?
• Realtors are making more financial concessions?
• Realtors are spending more to find opportunities?

Maybe there are more answers than these, and I would like your thoughts on this because it seems like these things really don’t add up. It certainly makes for an interesting set of dialogs to drill down and find out what is the connection or reasons these numbers don’t seem to align.

In other news, Barry Habib of MBS Highway took Diana Olick to task on her report about now being the time to sell your house and rent. Barry does a masterful job of sharing FACTS on housing, not just isolating some pieces of information to make a case that suits Diana’s long standing negative view about home ownership. If you haven’t read or seen the video, you should really look at this piece and share the truth with your clients and referral partners.

Last piece of information, next Wednesday September the 12^th, I will be at the Embassy Suites in West Palm Beach Florida for the first “Crossroads Event”. I will spend the morning sharing my view of the changing housing and mortgage industry with local mortgage and real estate professionals. If you would like to attend, you can get more information and register at www.imtcoaching.com and reserve your seat. We are booking this event around the country, and we have just a few open dates left in mid-November and early December if you are interested in hosting this event in your area. For more information, email me mike@IMTcoaching.com for dates and details.

“Huge Weekend Opportunity”

Happy July 5^th! With a big holiday on a Wednesday, it isn’t uncommon for people to stretch it out into the weekend. That said, this opens the door for a great deal of real estate activity. Here are a few steps to take in order to maximize your opportunities this weekend!

• Get out and be visible!
• Leave documented material at offices!
• Tell those that are there that you are available to help them if their regular person is unavailable to serve your people!
• Call from the parking lots before you leave!
• Get to as many Open Houses as you can!

Many people are off or are taking off, that goes for realtors and mortgage people as well. Get out and get in front of your market, let them know you are working!

Have something in writing in an envelope with each agents name on it to leave at their office so there is something physical for you to direct them too! Talk about the back to school count down and how many days there are left for you to accept a loan application and close before the kids go back to school!

I expect that most of the agents you are trying to get in front of won’t be in the office; it doesn’t matter. It only matters that you were in the office, had some information about an opportunity strategy in an envelope, with their name on it, so you can leave it for them to pick up later! It’s also important that the few other people in the office see that you were there! Let them know you can help them too should they be ready to look or move to make an offer on a property!

Calling from the parking lot before you go to your next stop is critical! Making that call and talking to that person to let them know you were at their office is a really big deal. Even if you get voice mail, leave a nice message about missing them and that you are available should they need you.

Last but not least is to hit every open house you can find and follow through with the open house strategy! Talk to everyone! Pick a key feature of the house or the property so you can write a note to the seller applying for the job of being their next loan officer or to offer a second opinion on their next transaction!

This weekend is a huge opportunity to make new relationships, solidify old relationships, and to generate a few opportunities to do a few deals you never would have seen if you just sat home!

Get up, get out, and connect!

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

“Halfway Point”

It’s the middle of June and all of us should have a really solid view of our numbers for the halfway point of the year. It’s one of my biggest pressure points with my clients is to do, project, track, and follow the numbers in your business. Using our business plan from last October to project the work year 2018, we should be once again updating our information and really focusing on the adjustments we need to make to exceed our targets and projections.

The first point is to check our math. Has our basic formula held up? Are our ratios in line with projections?

• Contacts per day to opportunities?
• Opportunities to credit?
• Credit to pre-approval?
• Pre-approval to contract?
• Contract to closing?
• Weekly, monthly, and annual database growth?
• New referral partner additions?
• Actual referrals vs projected referrals per partner?

While we projected these numbers back in October, market conditions both nationally and locally may have put outside pressure on your projections and may require you to refocus your activities.

We discuss this now, because we all live in an industry that has a business flow to it and a gestation period attached to an outcome. We need to monitor that cycle because if that shifts, we could be doing everything we should be doing and all the other numbers align, yet your closed business isn’t what you thought. So the math is really important!

As we head full steam into the summer, our business shifts significantly as we deal with those in desperate need to move before school resumes; and those who may be absent from the market because of vacations! If you aren’t planning for is, you will certainly become a victim of it!

You also need to drill down on the fact that depending on your business cycle and your specific market, you may only have 120 days or less to meet the people who will become the client, who will close the transaction, who will get you paid, all by the end of the year! Yup, I said it; the middle of June begins the count down to the income you make by the end of the year!!!

So pick an evening and update your business plan and rerun your numbers. Get really clear and specific about where you are and what adjustments you may need to make. For some of you it will be a real eye opening event!

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

Don’t miss CrossRoads, my Mortgage Seminar event on Sept. 12, 2018 in West Palm Beach.  See below and register…First 100 to register will get in for FREE!

“Gestation Period of your Deal”

Happy birthday to my son David who is 40 today!

Loan officers are notoriously bad at knowing their real time numbers. Ask any originator how many deals they have and they will likely give you a number that is more than twice the number of loans they are closing in that given month. The perception of what is likely to close is distorted by the total number of people that particular originator is working with in all stages of their pipeline, not just those likely to close in that given month. These inaccuracies are a challenge for the originator and their managers to get a real handle on real time business. It also leads to the dreaded “roller coaster syndrome” where production peaks and valleys from month to month.

One of the ways I teach my clients to deal with this is to have a way to accurately measure their productivity and given them advanced warning of a poor production month on the horizon. You can do anything about a weak closing month you are currently in. It’s also difficult to resolve poor numbers over the next thirty days coming. But what if there was a way to see weak numbers that were two and three months out, far enough into the distance that you had a reasonable chance to engage in some activities to fill that future void? The good news is, by creating a simple set of measurable that you can track, you can set yourself up for success!

It’s called “The Gestation Period of your Deal”. The reason for “YOUR” is that all originators and markets are different. Each needs to be calculated and monitored because it can also change due to outside factors like time of the year, weather, and other market conditions. However, over time, you will find this will accurately become your “canary in the coal mine” to warn you about a pending slump in you productivity.

Here is how it works. We use some very simple math and easy information to track. First, we look at the last 25 or so loans you have closed and measure the time from pre-approval to closing. How many days was it? This number will vary, but it will give you an indication of your market and what the timeline looks like from start to finish. Again, full pre-approval to closing are the numbers you want. There will be outliers in the mix, but they are always likely to exist so don’t worry about them for now, they tend to average out.

Once you know the number of days, you have your Gestation Period for you in your market. Why is this important? Let me show you!

If you want to close EIGHT loans a month and your Gestation Period is 60 days, you will need SIXTEEN pre-approvals out looking at all times! If the period is 90 days you will need 24! Just plug in your targeted number of closings and calculate your time frame and you have a real way to forecast your productivity in advance!

So if you are looking for balance in your business, trying to avoid productivity peaks and valleys, or you are a manager that really wants to tune your projections and be able to assist your people before it log jams or production falls off, working with your team can really help!

Understanding the gestation period of your deals and tracking your pre-approvals is something you can do today that will help improve your tomorrow!

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

Visit us online at http://imtcoaching.com

“Power Preapprovals”

Everyone in our industry deals with preapprovals. We all know that all preapprovals are NOT the same! The range of tasks completed an information reviewed is vast, yet everybody uses the same words. So how do you create POWER in your preapproval? How does what you do make your borrower look better than any other borrower? What makes your borrower’s offer BETTER?

First, you must be able to articulate what you do and how you have done it. If you don’t, you haven’t created any differentiation. So explain your preapproval process clearly.

Second, once you are clear as to why your preapproval is better than your competition because of the work you have done, share with the BUYER’S Agent how by having your preapproval it makes this client’s offer stronger than other offers.

Third, create the tools to help the borrower and their agent share the POWER of that preapproval with the Listing Agent and their SELLER! If your message isn’t delivered, it doesn’t matter how good a job you have done!

So how do we do all of this and make sure the message is conveyed properly? USE VIDEO! Yes, a short video of 30 to 60 seconds explaining YOUR preapproval process and WHY this process is different from other preapprovals helps set you apart!

You know many online lenders don’t do what you do. Many out of state lenders don know the market like you do. Many call center lenders can’t close as quickly as you do. All of these are powerful tools that make your client a better buyer and their offer stronger than other buyers who haven’t gone through your process!

Also, think about doing an individual video for each pre-approval in support of that specific client! How much more committed can you get than that, personally standing up for your buyer and your process? This takes the standard preapproval and helps push it into a Power Preapproval”!

Sometimes it’s just one small thing that makes a big difference. Sometimes the details, the tiniest of details, can win the day for you, your referral partner, and most importantly, the client!

What makes you different?

What makes your process better?

What makes your client a stronger buyer?

When you give those answers in a different way, you create the space between you and everyone else. So why not make your preapproval more powerful by sharing all of these answers and using a format that will get you noticed!

“Power Preapprovals” something you can do today that will help improve your tomorrow!

For other strategies that will help grow your business, take advantage of our spring “Access” special that you can see on the website: www.IMTcoaching.com

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com

“Taxes may be taxing!”

Welcome to April and we all have an obligation to get our taxes filed this year by April 17^th. This will be the last year of filing taxes under the old tax code. The new tax code took effect on January 1^st 2018 and we will deal with that next year. Or should we?

You see, many of you who are reading or watching this are W-2 employees of companies and have a fairly significant number of unreimbursed business expenses you have deducted every year. Well, until now!

The new tax code takes away many deductions you used to have and replaces that deductibility with a higher standard deduction and lower rate tax brackets. For some, these will not be enough to offset what we once deducted.

You should really take some time and compare your 2017 tax return with what it would look like under the 2018 tax code. You might be very surprised! At the very least, spend a few minutes with your tax preparer if you haven’t already and learn what you might have to be doing differently, or if these changes may require you to make some changes.

Managers and employers, you really should sit with every commissioned sales person and talk about the new tax code and what you might be able to do in restructuring your compensation plans to assist your people. Remember, it isn’t how much you earn, but what you get to keep!

Take advantage of the spring special, get “ACCESS” for a special low monthly rate, and just go to the website a look for yourself. www.IMTcoaching.com

Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com