i was wondering how does a L.O who is just starting out get business i have heard that you can pre-approve buyers at open house or try and work new sub divisions but whats a sure fire way of getting business when starting out ?

Thats a golden question that if any loan officer had the answer to, we'd all be rich now wouldnt we?

It all depends on your target market. In some areas attending open houses may not be as productive as sending flyers and post cards. Using CRV's (Certificate of Residential Value) at your local county is a free and excellent way to get started. If you dont know what you're doing it can be a goose chase, but with the proper system in place, it can make you a ton of dough.

what is a Certificate of Residential Value

networking groups.

partner up with agents. if you do a good job for htem they will use you exclusivley. i have a lo i use nad i would not change who i use. he has my loyalty.

I agree with Dallas.. There are many networking groups that should welcome you in.

are there any good books on getting leads or to help improve cold calling

I will give you a tip straight from me.

I was selling mortgages at a finance company and all we did was dial the phone 150 times a day and close mortgages. I was 115 out of over 5500 nationwide in results. I later managed the finance company.

What I said was something I created on my own. We had a contact management system that tracked # of dials, # of contacts, and # of applications. We were micromanaged every 3 hours or less.

"Hi this is Greg from (Company name).. (subtract defining words like mortgage)Do you have bills?

Now you either get someone who chuckles at the silly and obvious question or you get the typical not interested click.

When they chuckle you open them up. When is the last time a telemarketer called you and made you laugh whether it be at the question or at them for asking something so obvious?

Then I changed it up. Usually I could tell by the tone on the other end what my next line was. You either get someone in a hurry to get you off the phone, someone professional, or someone laxed.

Usually it was a harmless I have a free no obligation financial analysis I can do to help save you money every month or payoff your bills more quickly. I spoke to someone (whenever you saved someone money) yesterday and they saved 350 a month and decided they wanted to pay off their bills more quickly so they took a shorter term on their mortgage and saved 15 years which was a huge 200,000 savings for them in interest plus they can finally see retirement is getting near.

The goal is to get something like that out and to listen more than you talk.

Another way is to ask open ended questions:
Would you like to pay off your bills faster? Yes
Would you like to save money every month? Yes
Would you like to be able to save more for retirement? Yes
Let me take a free no obligation look at your bills and give you a few idea's. How does that sound?

I tracked my results but I did not script every word. I could just sense the type of person I was talking too. I was confident. I was polite. I was professional. I was sometimes laxed too.

It resulted in a 44.35% contact to application ratio in 2003 and I led the division plus the 115 ranking.

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That is 1 leg of the stool. A stool has 4 legs. Each leg is needed to sit on the stool. Each leg represents a marketing tactic you are consistent with and execute.

Mine is:
1) Business Referral Partners
2) Past client database marketing
3) Internet
4) I try new things. I have enough business to occupy me all day and 7 days a week. But, maybe Direct Mail or Telemarketing as mentioned above.

Send something to your past clients every 1,2, or 3 months just to remind them of you. I also have something I use called an advocate system where I take something of value to them after closing. I negotiate discounts with business owners/professionals and do a co mailer where I introduce them all and their discounts plus some do the same for me to their database.

Realtors... Well, I have 2 brokerages and about 5 solid agents outside of those. I will not tell you how to make them happy. Ask them in here. Usually number 1 is honesty. Then answering the phone and trying to make them a priority.

Internet is pretty good for me. I have the basic site I built in my signature and I get 5-8 apps a week from it. I have a little SEO and a good directory listing or 2.

A good tip for getting business referral contacts is to set aside 1 day a week to visit about 20 places. Re-visit the same 20 places every week. Do it the same day for a few weeks. Switch up visiting Realtors if you can. Tuesday is the best day. It is usually meeting day. Or ask when that is in your first visit. Be nice. Tell them what you do. Introduce yourself. Ask if they need anything. Leave some stuff. Come back every week. Sub out the worthless ones after 4 weeks or so. Add new. 1 day. Or 1/2 day of this every week! Commit.

So there is your book! Agents Online Exclusive - Copyright Greg Phillips

I agree with Greg here. The best way to get business is get a good solid list with tight filters (Fico,loan balance,LTV,revolving debt, etc) and start dialing with some good solid scripts. I have many clients that are doing extremely well on a 6 station predictive dialer. The phones, if hit hard in the peak hours are by far the quickest and most efficient way to get business in the next 30 days, bar none.

Two suggestions-

1) What did you do before, who do you know in large companies you might have worked for before, talk to your Branch Manager and see if you can get approval on waiving fees ie credit reports, ect.

2) As the previous poster stated, be honest.

By the way, Greg, great post! Marcus, listen to this guy!

Great post, Greg!