How Branch Managers Can Help Loan Officers Close More Loans

As a branch or regional leader, or as a head of production, one of the best things we can do is help someone make more money by helping them do more with less. And Jeremy Forcier did just that with his team “TCA-a-Day Challenge.” It was a 30-day contest with a reward and to qualify for prizes, such as a trip to Vegas for two team members, team members had to get into the habit of doing something that would increase productivity, decrease concessions and decrease the amount of time to lock in a loan.

“But the real incentive was to show them how much more they can do by utilizing this great tool—the Total Cost Analysis,” Jeremy says. “I tracked the impact on their business and the results were fascinating.”

One loan officer on Jeremy’s team was only using TCAs once in a while. During the contest, he became a brown belt by doing 100 TCAs.

“The most interesting result I found was that many people who were already using it said, ‘Heck yeah. I’m in. I’m going to do this.’ And they were doing it because they thought they were going to win, but none of those people won. Sometimes it’s a gut check on what you think you’re good at and what you think you’re doing on a daily basis, but the proof is in the numbers and the data. The people who won were not using it every day. And they crushed it. Now, I guarantee you, they are going to use it every day.”

Mortgage Coach TCA Analyzed

During the “TCA-a-Day challenge,” loan officers had to send Jeremy their week’s worth of TCAs every Friday.

The Results:

  • The average concession decreased by 67%.
  • The average concession in basis points decreased 23.8 basis points compared to those who didn’t participate.
  • Lock ratio to app closure: The winner, Peter Torres, who had all six items needed to lock ratio in his app, increased 140% from the previous month of not doing the TCAs with almost the same app count. That was huge in itself and it was up 28% average net aggregate for everyone else.
  • Credit pulls: Before “TCA-a-Day,” Danny, initiated 11 apps and four credit pulls. I had 49 apps initiated and 47 credit pulls. The biggest difference was that I use a Total Cost Analysis to move along the process. In the next 30-day timeframe, Danny had 19 apps initiated which led to a huge increase just in leads. Now he’s at a 68% credit pull rate because of using the Total Cost Analysis.
  • Those who used video in their TCAs vs. those who didn’t: People who didn’t use video in their Total Cost Analysis had a 21.2% less lock rate than people who did. People who were using the video had a lock rate that was over 20% higher than people who weren’t using video in their TCAs.

Watch the full interview with Jeremy below to hear about this for yourself. 

Jeremy’s Big Tip: Every time you do a price exception or have that conversation, the deal is at risk and you are hurting your conversion. To create a healthier mortgage practice, track leads, conversion and profitability.

Translation in Profits: 0.23 basis points on $100 million in business equals $230,000—that’s money you don’t need to be losing.

“When you look at my profitability compared to the control group and uncontrolled group, I was still better than the control group by 19 basis points. And even though they got 67% better—by 23.8 basis points—I was still better than the control group. And that is just from habit and practice, owning your craft and using the TCA every single time. So, a lot of it is creating a new habit and realizing what the impact is, and then doing it over and over and over again so it becomes an efficiency and non-negotiable in your business.”

“If you’re locking 25% more loans than you were before, that is a huge increase in your business, your profitability and your paychecks.”

And what we want is not just more at-bats from a cold body, we want more at-bats with people who are going to listen to our advice. The best way to deliver advice is using a Total Cost Analysis with a video.

TCA Presentation Tips

Don’t Round Down. “If the market goes different the next day and it’s worse, how is that conversation going to go now that it doesn’t cost 0.2 but costs 0.6 because the market moved? I teach people not to do that. I show the real cost. If it costs 0.198, I show 0.198. If it costs 0.431, then the cost is 0.431. It’s not like things trade-in exactly 25% basis point increments all the time. It was a huge eye-opener to me that people who were participating in the group were asking better questions and I got a chance to actually teach them something.”

Drive Skill-Based Improvement. If you’re a manager, how often are you doing meetings like this? And are the meetings you’re having with your team generating measurable results? Every branch manager and regional leader should be driving this type of skill-based improvement.

In loan officer sales meetings, embody the 4 C’s of leadership:

  • Commitment: Show up, invest your time/energy, measure results.
  • Courage: Push people to do more.
  • Competence:Teach them to be competent.
  • Candor: Correct people constructively when they’re not doing things right or they’ve missed the boat.

“If leaders can focus on those four things, your meetings will always be well attended, people will be engaged and you’re going to see results that are going to benefit everyone in the organization.”

Jeremy’s favorite meeting is Coffee Talk with Jeremy.

“I’m on Zoom from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. I do this every other week for my loan officers. I tell everyone to come with a question, challenge or frustration. We’re all going to help each other and I’m going to dive in and help you specifically on it. And then I’ll have a theme we can get to. We almost never even get to my theme because there are so many real questions and you have to be able to have candid conversations with everyone and help them out. They will show up. People will ask for help if you show them that you actually want to help them.”

People ask questions like, ‘When you’re showing people options, like when something is 0.26 cost, but I want to show a zero-point option, what do you do?’ And it was such an eye-opening thing for me to say, ‘These people are just giving it away before putting it into a format, a system or a presentation.’

Loan officer sales meeting tips

  • Have a weekly meeting that’s different from the sales meeting where you come with a theme to talk about.
  • Don’t make it about going over a new guideline or reviewing the numbers for the month. That’s not helpful to people.
  • Show people how to save time, make more money, be more efficient and have more fun.
  • Be specific on price exceptions rather than say, “It’s costing us money.”
  • Maintain a praise box. You always want to highlight people and behavior that you want replicated.
  • Call out top performers and those coming in last.
  • Encourage all loan officers to do a TCA a day.
  • Ask them what their biggest TCA challenge is.

Watch the full 22-minute interview with Jeremy Forcier.

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