Steve Tytler

There is a marketing principle called “reciprocity” … which means that when you give somebody something of value for free they feel like they owe you something in return. It’s like when you do a favor for a  friend.  There is an unspoken agreement that the friend now “owes” you a favor if you need help in the future. You don’t have to say, “remember that I time I helped you … “  They just naturally feel obligated to help you out because you helped them out. Now is the PERFECT time for mortgage professionals to start storing up “favors” from real estate agents by helping them grow their business, so that they in turn can help you grow yours. (more…)

Here’s an update you on our search for a new “Receptionist / Office Assistant”

We finally hired somebody! 

She has NO mortgage or real estate experience at all, but she has the right “friendly and outgoing” personality, and as I said in my previous posts, that is the most important quality we are looking for.

We can train somebody to do the job, but we can’t fix their personality!

It took more than a month and wading through more than 100 resumes to find the right person, but it’s always better to take your time to find the perfect person for the job rather than settle for “almost good enough.”

The bad economy makes this a great time to hire an assistant because there are very few good jobs out there.  The woman we hired is a college graduate with a degree in broadcast communications.  She had hoped to find a job in TV broadcasting or journalism, but she finally gave up and took the position we offered.  While that is not the way she had hoped her career would go, it works out great for us because we were able hire a very attractive and intelligent person for a relatively low entry-level salary.

In the long-term, she will probably develop into a loan originator where she can use her outgoing personality and sales skills (she was the ad sales manager at her college radio station) to make a lot more money, but for the next year or two she is a perfect addition to our admin staff.

Just a quick update on our current employee search.

In the last 2 weeks we have received almost 100 resumes in response to our Craigslist job ad looking for a “receptionist / office assistant.”

That’s an awesome response, right?

Well …

Of the job applicants, most of them did not send anything other than a generic resume and most did not even bother to include a cover letter — which we specifically requested in the ad.

So far, we have interviewed only one person out of all those job applicants, and while she had a good personality she was not quite what we are looking for.

So we will wait … and wait … and wait until we get the RIGHT person.

The point I am trying to make is that you should NOT be in a hurry to hire somebody.  Take your time to hire a GREAT employee, don’t compromise.

I have found that there are “no compensating factors” in hiring an employee.  If you find somebody who is “almost, but not quite” what you are looking for, you will probably be sorry you hired that person.

It has taken a long time for us to build a good staff at our small mortgage company (currently 7 people total) … we’ve made some mistakes along the way … and the most important lesson I have learned is that you must be patient and wait for the right employee to come along. 

Don’t just grab somebody off the street because you need somebody “now!”

Believe me, I wish we could have hired somebody yesterday … but I’m willing to wait a couple more weeks (or months) if that’s what it takes to find the right person for the job.

I strongly advise you to do the same thing.

Last week I said that the #1 tip I got from hanging out with a bunch of top producing loan originators at a mastermind retreat is that you must hire an assistant — regardless of how small your loan volume might be today.

So how do you go about hiring an assistant?

The first step is to place an ad on Craigslist. If you have not hired anyone for the past couple of years, Craigslist has easily become the number one place for “help wanted” ads. I run a small mortgage company in the Seattle area with my wife. We used to place ads in the newspaper and on Monster.com when we wanted to hire employees. But for the past few years, Craigslist has blown away those job ad sources — at a tiny fraction of the cost.

In Seattle, it costs $25 per category to run a “jobs” ad … in some areas of the country it is free. We typically place an ad in two job different categories to get more exposure.

For example, we are currently running an ad for a “receptionist / office assistant” because we are promoting the current person in that position to become an assistant to our 3 loan originators.

You see, I am following my own advice!

We have placed the job ad in the “office/admin” category and in the “real estate” job category to attract people who might have real estate and/or mortgage experience.

 Click here to see a copy of the actual ad we are running on Craigslist.

Notice that we go into great detail in our ad to be very specific about the kind of person we are looking for:

Busy Mortgage Broker in the Factoria area of Bellevue needs a FRIENDLY, energetic, detail-oriented receptionist/office assistant. You must have an awesome, outgoing personality that shines through on the phone!

We expect you to be competent and professional, and you MUST be a positive person who loves talking to people on the phone and MAKES FRIENDS with our clients and prospects.

This is done to weed out the people who “don’t get it.”

Surprisingly, of the scores of resumes that we received, only a handful bothered to say they are “friendly on the phone.”

But that’s fine. THOSE are the people we are looking for!

The job applicants who don’t even bother to include a cover letter with their resume, or send a form cover letter that is obviously being sent to multiple employers are not worth our time because if they are too lazy to try and make a good first impression on us, they won’t work very hard to make a good impression on the people who call our office.

Customer service is EXTREMELY important at our company, so we take our time to hire the RIGHT person. We have learned that it is more important to hire a person with a positive attitude and friendly personality who can be trained rather than somebody with a lot of experience who is an “energy vampire” sucking the positive vibes out of the office with their constant complaining and moodiness.

There’s an old saying: “hire slow and fire fast.”

Which means take your time to find a GREAT employee rather than setting for an “OK” employee … and if you accidentally screw up and hire the wrong person, don’t be afraid to quickly correct that mistake by firing them.

You can usually tell if an employee is going to work out with a couple weeks. In my experience, you are only hurting yourself (and the employee) if you continually give him/her “one more chance” to get their act together. If it’s not working out, fire them fast so they can go out and look for another job. You’re actually doing them a favor because if you keep them on for 3-4 months and then fire them, they have to explain that short employment period on their resume or the long gap if they choose to leave you off their resume. A two-week gap can easily be explained as “job hunting time,” they don’t even have to mention that they worked for you.

If you hire the right person, an assistant can be the best thing that ever happened to your loan origination business because he/she frees up your time to concentrate on high dollar value activities such as talking to your prospects and clients on the phone.

But if you hire the wrong person, an assistant can make your business worse by creating a poor impression with your clients and costing you money by screwing up details on your loan files.

Take your time.  Do it right.

Hire a GREAT assistant.

You’ll be glad you did!

I just got back from spending 3 days at a fabulous mortgage marketing retreat at a mountain lodge near Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

It was part of Carl White’s “Mortgage Marketing Animals” group, and unlike the seminars put on by the big name “mortgage marketing gurus” this was NOT a pitch fest! Nothing was sold.

We spent the whole time sharing mortgage marketing strategies that are working right now. Several of the people there are million dollar a year loan originators and they were not shy about sharing the secrets to their success.

Click here to see my video report on the marketing retreat.

The #1 tip that I got out of the retreat is that you MUST hire an assistant!

Even if you are struggling to make ends meet, an assistant can make all the difference in the world.

It is all too easy for loan originators to spend way too much of their time doing low-dollar-value administrative tasks rather than concentrating on the things that make money, i.e., making calls to your loan prospects.

All successful loan originators have an assistant, even if it’s just part-time, to free themselves up to work on the important stuff.

If you think you “can’t afford it,” listen to this:

There was one guy at the retreat who hired a woman to work 4 hours per week calling his old clients to get their email addresses and updating his database.

As a result of these calls, he was able to close 15 loans from his past clients — and he didn’t even make the calls!

And the funny thing is, that was not even the reason he was calling. He was literally just trying to update his database by adding in their emails.

But he was smart enough to let somebody else make the phone calls for him while he worked on generated other business. And the ended up getting more business than he ever dreamed possible.

So the moral of the story is if you don’t have an assistant now put an ad in Craigslist TODAY and get one!

You don’t have to hire somebody full-time. Many people are looking for part-time work these days to make ends meet, so you can find somebody who will help you grow your business while helping them pay their bills.

It’s a win-win situation.

Don’t “think about it” … do it!

Put an ad in Craigslist right now and start collecting resumes. There are LOTS of people looking for work these days.