Steve Tytler

I can tell you how to DOUBLE your income.

Seriously!

The secret:  ACCOUNTABILITY!

How many of us make make plans for the day with the best of intentions of making calls to Realtors, working on our marketing, or other productive money-making activities — but when the day is over we look back on what we accomplished and we did few, if any, of the things we planned to do.

Being “busy” all day is not the same thing as being productive.

Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.  My wife will tell you that I am the king of ADD!

So I made a New Year’s Resolution to get an Accountability Partner this year.  And I gotta tell you it is working out GREAT!

Here’s how it works … every day (and I mean EVERY day) my accountability partner calls me at 5:00 PM sharp and we have a two-minute conversation that goes like this:  I tell him what I did during the day to make me 1) Wealthy  2) Healthy   3) Happy and I tell him what I will do tomorrow for those same 3 goals.   He does the same for me. 

We do this every day and it has worked wonders for both of us.  I feel guilty looking at the clock knowing that David will be calling me at 5:00 PM, ready or not, so I better do everything that I said I was going to do or I will feel bad telling him that I didn’t get it done.

And that’s an important point:  You must respect your accountability partner enough to actually feel bad if you have to tell them that you didn’t do what you said you would do.  If you don’t care what they think about it, it won’t be nearly as possible.

My buddy and mortgage market mentor Carl White told me at our marketing mastermind meeting in Tampa Bay last December that having an accountability partner will “double your income, guaranteed.”  I was a little skeptical that the results would be THAT dramatic, but after one month I’m convinced.

Having an accountability partner has forced me to actually FINISH projects that I have been planning to do for months.

I can’t let “call reluctance” keep me from making my prospecting calls for Realtor referral partners because I have to answer to David every day at 5:00 PM.

So I strongly encourage everybody reading this to find an accountability partner that you like and respect and hold each other accountable for your daily plans.  You will be amazed at the results.

Just be sure to follow these simple rules:

1) Call at the same time every day.  You can do it at 8:00 AM, 12:00 Noon, 6:00 PM … whatever time works best for both of you.  Stick to the schedule so that you never plan a meeting or anything else that would interfere with your daily call.

2) Designate one person as the “caller.”  You don’t want to be in a situation where you say “I thought you were going to call” .. “no, I thought YOU were going to call.”  David calls me every day (M-F) I never call him.  That way we both know what are responsibilites are.  I have to be near a phone at 5:00 PM to take his call and he has to make the call every day at 5:00 PM.

3) Keep it SHORT!  Two minutes is plenty. No chit-chatting and no criticizing the other person’s plans and/or lack of accomplishments.  Now I admit that we sometimes break this rule and comment on each other’s plans, but only if the other person is open to the critism.   It’s best to just stick to the facts.

Give this a try for at least a month and I’ll bet you’ll be very surprised at how much more you get accomplished.

I haven’t posted here for awhile because I’ve been busy in my office getting some new employees up to speed. It’s nice to have a growing business, but sometimes the “growing pains” are not fun.

I had a sales meeting with two loan originators today and I want to pass along what we discussed.

One of the LO’s was closing 2-3 times the number of loans as the other guy. Both of them work in my office and they are both working leads that I provide to them.

Since they are essentially getting the same number and quality of leads, their results should be pretty close to the same, right?

So I asked both of them what they were doing so we could learn from the successful guy.

The the top producing guy spent only about 10-15 minutes on the phone with a new lead. He gets their basic information and then tells them he wants to spend a couple of hours checking different lenders (we are a mortgage broker) so he can get them the best solution. He then sends them an email with 2-4 program options. He does not try to close them on the initial incoming call, he closes them with his follow up calls and/or emails.

The other guy spent anywhere from 30-60 minutes talking to a prospect on the initial incoming call. He typically attempted to close them (i.e. get a loan application) on the first call.

Instinctively, it would seem that the guy who spent the most time on the phone with the leads would have a better chance of closing them because he is building rapport.

But the reality is that the he was probably giving the prospects TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

It’s great to educate your clients and help them make an informed decision, but you have to know what to shut up and let them make a decision.

Here is a simple yet very powerful marketing/sales formula:

1) Tell ‘em what you’ve got.
2) Tell ‘em what it will do for them.
3) Tell ‘em what you want them to do next.

If you keep that in mind when talking to your mortgage loan prospects, you might find that you take more applications and close more loans.

Don’t leave out any of the 3 steps, but don’t overdo it.

The top producing LO in my office has a very simple mental script that he sticks to on EVERY call. He doesn’t get sidetracked with a lot of extraneous details, he moves the conversation along using the 3-step marketing formula above.

Now, don’t get me wrong. He is very friendly and engages the clients in small talk, but he doesn’t let them lead the conversation off the track.

If you find yourself spending a lot of time talking to people but not closing as many loans as you think you should, try to be more efficient in your conversations.

When I was a journalism student, my professor always preached “Less is more!” In other words, be concise.

A short 10-15 minute conversation focused on the 3-step sales formula will be more powerful than a rambling hour long conversation with no predetermined purpose or goal.

Keep this in mind on your next sales calls.