they give you referrals, they put money in your pocket, what do you do in return? i'd like to share this with my fellow loan officers. i always put in a lot of effort in acquiring my own customers so that way i can feed leads to realtors that have recommended me to their past customers. however, there are times when my workload is pretty heavy, which results in not having much time to market to the general public. so what i do is volunteer to sit at one of their open houses on sundays or during the week. but i do more then just sit at the open house...i help set up; for example: put yard signs out, put Wells Fargo ballons on the yard signs so that way the yard signs can stand out from the rest. and trust me the ballons help. i always provide ice cold bottles of water to visitors, cuz here in hawaii it can get pretty hot. but before the open house starts, i ask my realtor to take me for a tour of the house. i want to know about the house so that way when we get multiple visitors i can show them around and provide info on the home while my realtor is working with other visitors. this makes other visitors feel important because they are being attended to. if i wasn't around to do that, my realtor can miss out on a visitor that's in need of a realtor to work with. and when i have interested vistor/visitors i always cross sell my realtor. by doing this my realtors have picked up new customers to assist. when its slow, i take my realtor's open house flyers and visit other open house and let the agents know that we're having open house till 6:30 so they should come check it out. i also pass out the flyers to visitors coming in and coming out of other open houses. but the best advise i've given to my realtors is to extend their open house from 2-6:30pm. here in hawaii a lot of the realtors have their open houses from 2-5. when the clock hits 5pm..they wrap up and go home. this is really, really bad becuz there are still customers that are still interested in looking at homes, but since every one closes up at 5pm..they just go home. by having a late open house my realtors have the opportunity to pick up visitors that are still looking. another great opportunity for both the realtor and i. and throughout the whole open house, not once do i have to market myself and my programs; WHY? becuz my realtor is already doing that for me ;)
on monday afternoon...my realtor calls me and says "remember this person and that person from the open house?, well they want me to help them find a house, but they need to be prequalifed first. can you help them?". :) now imagine getting these calls from your realtors on a daily basis?
focus more on building relationships with strategic partners and not just on crunching numbers. ADD VALUE to your realtors.
Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best!!!
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Good one Jay! Keep up the good work and make sure you're posting to Localism and hawaii!
Feed leads to Realtors? What a concept!! Much different than the normal lendor who brings business cards and empty promises. Assuming you also follow up and keep your Realtors informed, you aren't long for the world of lendor reps, your company will have to promote you. Keep it up.
I agree with you 100%. The more you help give back to your Realtors the more they will appreciate what you do and how you do it. It is great to see this kind of advice to us LO's. Thanks for the post!
Great post Jay. I have been involved with Mortgage Financing for a few years, and the Real Estate side of the business as well. If you are in an environment that produces good realtionships between the LO's and the Realtors, that is great. That isnt always the case, for some LO's. I have seen new LO's spend countless weekends sitting on Open Houses for realtors that promise to send business there way, but never do. Usually because they already have a LO in their back pocket. I have also seen LOs that promise to send leads to realtors, but never end up with anything to send. Or, that sit on open houses and are less than enthusiastic or professional, which hurts the Listing Agent's prospects for finding a buyer. Congrats to you, if you have established a good raport with your realtor partners. I think as a whole, most of us want to be the best we possibly can, and take care of our clients as best as we can. Your advice is good for the new agents that need direction and hopefully will take your example to heart.
you really have to be passionate about what you do in order to be successful. you can't always think $$$ signs.
i can't stress enough about the importance of a business plan. without it, you have no directions.
Providing a good relationship is the bottom line.
Deliver on what you say you can and dont string anyone along.
Realtors that i deal with know what i say is 100% accurate and that is why i consistantly get business from them.
At 1st it was about gaining trust and showing them what i can do. Once i got that 1st deal and preformed it was gravey.
I am always available for them and as i said i dont waste their time, the clients time or my time with deals that will go no where.
yes or no answers....no half assed maybes
I have gained realtors in my areas trust and respet.....thats all i can ask for
DOMINICK GACCINO
Branch Manager
First Suffolk Mortgage Corp
Excellant post Jay! Great ideas. To your success!
Relationships make the world go 'round. I always try to deliver more to my Realtors than they deliver to me. It keeps the relationship honest and lets them know I truly value their referrals.
Jay, you should give classes to loan officers in my area. Actually, I do have a few that are good, and one that in particular is just terrific. Agents and loan officers need each other in this business. The best way to assist our clients is through co-operation. Good comments - keep them coming.
Jay nice work my friend. Hey I wanted to ask you if you would please join my AR Group. I would be honored to have you blogging there. It is called:
http://activerain.com/groups/KentuckyProfessionals
Thanks so much and have a great day
Ben