Every loan officer encounters people who want to buy a home, but cannot currently qualify. How you handle this kind of situation says a lot about both your character and your business sense.

Years ago (sensitivity about my age prevents me from saying just how many years ago), I was in a coaching session with Greg Frost, the nationally known top producer and speaker. We were discussing the fact that a significant percentage of his “prequal” customers had to be declined. He didn’t want to crush their hopes by just telling them “No,” (which spoke to his character). He also realized that some of these people would eventually get their financial houses in order, and he wanted them to come back to see him when they did (which spoke to his business acumen).

So we designed the “Don’t Give Up” form – a simple document outlining the steps a person would have to take to qualify for the loan amount they were seeking. Greg would fill out the form every time he had to turn someone down, and ask them to call him when they had followed the written plan he had given them.

A year or two after that first coaching session, Greg showed me a letter he had just received from a single mother who had received one of these forms from Greg, had followed his recommendations, returned to Frost Mortgage, and had just moved into her own home. The letter was a touching and heartfelt expression of her appreciation for Greg’s help. In it, she revealed that she had been turned down by other lenders before coming to see Greg. But her experiences with these other lenders left her feeling embarrassed and discouraged. In contrast, her meeting with Greg had given her hope. It had taken him less than 5 minutes of his time to fill that form out for her, but it had a dramatic impact on her life.

I’m sure Greg still has that letter, and many others like it.

Below, you can see what the modernized version of the Don’t Give Up form looks like. If you would like your own copy, just contact me and request the Don’t Give Up form. I’ll email it to you so you can save it to your hard drive and use it.

Would you like to close more loans?

Are you a loan officer or manager looking for sales & marketing training to improve your productivity?

Sign up for a free coaching session with Bob Williamson, one of the mortgage industry's most innovative and dynamic production coaches.

You get to choose the agenda of this one-hour, private and personal coaching session. Whether you want to:

• Develop a winning strategy for your local market,
• Generate more leads,
• Close a higher percentage of your leads,
• Deal with a staff/personnel problem,
• Improve your time management, systems & organization, or
• Resolve a pipeline management problem,

The hour will be devoted to your priorities.

Bob has found that giving mortgage professionals a real "taste" of what his coaching is like is the best way to identify the people who will benefit most from it. At the end of your session, you'll be given the option of scheduling additional coaching, but there will be absolutely no sales pressure of any kind.

Just click here and fill out the simple registration form. We'll respond to you by email with available dates and times.

Availability is limited, so act now.

To read an interview where Bob answers questions about how he works with loan officers and other mortgage professionals, go here.

For background information about Coach Bob Williamson, go here.

And be sure to check out the free content on our homepage.

 To learn about Coach Bob's unique approach to helping mortgage loan originators build more succesful businesses, go here.

Webster's defines the verb manage as: to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of.

To direct is: to regulate the activities or course of; to dominate and determine the course of.

The first thing you must understand about "managing people" is that the phrase itself is an oxymoron: people cannot be "managed".

Most of us acquired our image of management from the 1950's business model. The boss was a kind of enlightened despot who knew all the answers and would tell his employees what to do how to do it, and when to do it. The manager's focus was on controlling the activities of his employees.

Over the past 40 years, this management model has been replaced in more progressive companies, due in part to the work of people like Peter F. Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, Tom Peters, and others.

Stephen Covey explains the choice managers face in his book, First Things First:

"The choice ... boils down to a choice between "control" and "release" styles of thinking and managing. If our paradigm is one of control, we assume that people have to be tightly supervised if they're going to produce or perform well. If our paradigm is one of release, our assumption is that, given the freedom, opportunity, and support, people will bring out the highest and best within them and accomplish great things."

Max DePree, in his best-selling book Leadership Is An Art, says that the art of leadership is in liberating people to do what is required of them; in removing the obstacles that prevent them from doing their jobs.

Why have some of the most progressive, productive -- and profitable -- companies of the 90's abandoned the old "control" management model in favor of a "release" paradigm?

For one thing, employees themselves have changed. As Michael LeBoeuf points out in his book Getting Results:

Nobody works for you. Everybody works for themselves. Your employees don't care about what you want one-tenth as much as they care about what they want.

I have been saying this for some time now in conversations with clients on the subject of employees. Rarely, though, do I get the impression that people really get the full implication contained in the statement that your employees are not working for you, they are working for themselves. As managers, you will nod your heads and agree that this is true, and then continue to act as if your employees "should" do exactly what you tell them to do. Whether you're prepared to admit it or not, you even expect them to share your vision for your business, be just as excited about it as you are, to be willing to work as hard as you do, and be as conscientious as you are. Often, you even expect them to read your mind and handle the situations they face in the same way you (after the fact) think you would handle them.

I'm not suggesting that you are acting like some kind of tyrant around your employees. On the contrary, you want them to like you, and you often go out of your way to accommodate them, to try to be flexible for them, to make allowances for them. In fact, that's part of the problem:

The primary reason that there is a gap between what you expect from your employees and what you get from them is that you yourself, to begin with, are not clear about what it is that you want. Beyond that, what little clear thinking you have done about the results you want your employees to produce, you have not communicated effectively to them.


Michael LeBoeuf says that millions of people go to work every day and flounder aimlessly because they don't clearly understand their job's goals and/or they see no relationship between performance and rewards.

Max DePree says that "the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader must be a servant and a debtor."

"Defining Reality" means communicating clearly what the specific results are that you have hired them to accomplish. One of the best ways to do this is to negotiate with your employee a "Goals/Rewards Agreement" (see following page) that states, in writing, a specific objective, the qualities they must develop in order to achieve the objective, and the rewards they agree will motivate them to achieve it, and which you have agreed to provide when they do.

In other words, your job is to create a reward system through which your employees get what they want, you get what you want, and the right things get done.

GOALS/REWARDS AGREEMENT


I, _______________________________________, agree to work toward achieving the following

results by ___________________________________________________.
                                                                  Target Date

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________


To make this project a winner, we must emphasize:

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________


My reward for successfully achieving this goal will be:

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Agreed on ___________________________ by:
                                              Date

______________________________
Achiever

______________________________
Manager

• QUALITIES/BEHAVIORS TO BE DEVELOPED:
  
  
  1. Solid Solutions vs. Quick Fixes
  
  2. Risk Taking vs. Risk Avoiding
  
  3. Applied Creativity vs. Mindless Conformity
  
  4. Decisive Action vs. Paralysis by Analysis
  
  5. Smart Work vs. Busywork
  
  6. Simplification vs. Needless Complication
  
  7. Quietly Effective Behavior vs. Squeaking Joints
  
  8. Quality Work vs. Fast Work
  
  9. Loyalty vs. Turnover
  
  10. Working Together vs. Working Against
  
  
  REWARDS:
• Money
• Recognition
• Time Off
• A Piece of the Action*
• Favorite Work
• Advancement
• Freedom**
• Personal Growth
• Fun
• Prizes
  
  * Employees who become owners act like owners
  ** I don't care how the job gets done as long as I get results

You can begin the process which leads to a workable goals/rewards agreement with your employees by asking them to write their answers to the following questions in a total of 250 words (1 page) or less:

1. What results do I produce in my job?

2. Why am I producing them?

3. What am I doing that is unnecessary?


I say that this is a process because the need to communicate with your employees is ongoing. It will never end. One of the things you owe to your employees is the opportunity to grow with you. Teach them what you know about your business. Talk to them about your experiences and what you have learned from them. The more you can educate them, the more valuable they will be to you.

"This is the true joy in life ... being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy ... I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." 
                                                                                                                         George Bernard Shaw

By Bob Williamson

Using a personal story from his own experience, Bob identifies one key to success in selling – without which no one can ultimately be successful.

Of all the qualities and skills necessary for a successful career in mortgage lending, the ability to sell – to communicate persuasively – is certainly one of the most essential. But what does it take to be a great salesperson?

One of my first jobs was selling encyclopedias door-to-door in the summer of 1967, at the age of 18. That experience taught me one of the most important lessons I've ever learned.

I had just graduated from high school, and was ready to enter college in September. I needed a summer job, and saw an ad in the newspaper looking for students to conduct a “survey”.

The P.F. Collier Corp. was doing pretty well using young people to sell their encyclopedias door-to-door in those days. I was hired along with a group of others my age, and we were all trained to deliver a canned presentation, the essence of which was that Collier was looking for a limited number of homes where we could place our fine set of encyclopedias free of charge -- in exchange for the family's agreement to do two things: 1) write us a testimonial which we could use in our advertising; and 2) protect our “investment” in them by purchasing a set of 10 yearbooks, which would keep the encyclopedias up-to-date for the next ten years. (The yearbooks, of course, cost about $600 – the actual market value of the encyclopedias.)

To paraphrase our President, when I was young and naïve, I was young and naïve. I believed every single word of that presentation. As far as I was concerned, the encyclopedias were being given to these families free of charge, and it was only fair that we ask people to care enough about them to keep them current!

I did very well. I "placed" far more encyclopedias than anyone else in our office, and for most of June and all of July I was ranked #3 out of the thousands of PF Collier salespeople in the country.

One day in early August, I knocked on the door of a man who let me in and listened patiently to my entire presentation. I knew there was something different about him, because he seemed very amused by it all -- not the typical reaction I was used to getting from my prospects. He proceeded to tell me that he had sold encyclopedias a few years back, and that he had invited me in because he wanted to see if anything in the “pitch” had changed. (It hadn't, he said.)

I was shocked. Looking back, it's a little hard to imagine how I could have been that naive, but I was. I didn’t even know what he meant by the word pitch – but he explained it to me.

The next day I confronted my sales manager with my new-found worldliness.

"Is it true that we're really selling these encyclopedias, and this whole thing about placing them free is just a way to get people to think they're getting something for nothing?"

My manager's answer was spoken like a true salesman (always answer a direct question with another question): "What do you think, kid?"

From that point, I was history. I couldn't bring myself to lie to people, so I re-wrote the presentation. Although I was troubled by the deception in the original script, I still believed that the encyclopedia was a good product, and thought that if I showed people what a great value they were getting, they'd still buy.

But they didn't.

My boss insisted I go back to the script. I tried, but within a week, I was having terrible stomach pain. I went to my family doctor, and he told me I was developing an ulcer. That gave me a great excuse to quit the job.

Looking back on it, here's what I learned: To be effective, you have to believe in what you're selling. Although the term wouldn’t come along for another 25 years or so, that was my first introduction to the concept of a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If you don’t believe down to the core of your being that your product or service is in some way unique and superior to that of your competitors, you either have to improve it until it is, or find a better product. The alternative is to lie to people; if you take that road, you will ultimately become a cynical crook.

Many of us were spoiled by the recent refi boom. If you could take an application and get it closed, there was plenty of business to be done. But those days are gone, for now. And whether you are marketing yourself directly to the consumer, or to a referral source like a Realtor, the question you have to ask yourself is this:

“What can I do for this person that is concretely different and better than what my competitors are doing?”

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. The thing your clients want, the thing they’re missing (whether they realize it or not), the thing you could do for them that would make you the clearly superior choice – might very well be something that loan originators don’t typically provide. (For an example of how you might do this, click here.)

Try interviewing your past clients about the entire home buying experience with an eye toward identifying a common problem you can help solve. Interview your Realtor partners about their side of the transaction. Be on the lookout for insights you weren’t expecting to hear – those are often the best ones. (For example, one of my clients realized that, even though his customers seemed to love him and the service he provided, they rarely referred new business to him. I persuaded him to survey some of his past clients and specifically ask the question: “Is there any reason you haven’t sent your family and friends to me?” He was horrified to learn that the “vibe” they had gotten from him was that he was already so busy that they wouldn’t be doing him any favors by sending him more business! So he solved the problem by ending every conversation with a client by saying how much he loved his work and enjoyed being of service to his customers – and that if they knew of anyone who was thinking about buying a home or refinancing, he would really appreciate it if they would have them call him. He immediately tripled his referral rate.)

Do a serious and thorough self-examination. What could you do to make yourself a better loan originator – from the standpoint of what you give to your clients and referral partners – instead of from the standpoint of what you can get. Would you deliver better service more consistently if you took the time and trouble to develop and implement a system for getting your loans processed and closed? Would software tools like ACT! or Mortgage Coach make you more efficient, more organized, better able to explain loan options to your clients? Do you know your loan programs and guidelines as well as you should? Do you have the right products to best serve your market and clientele?

Act on the results of your self-examination. I have often encountered people who are looking for the easy answer, the quick fix – the magic marketing idea that will bring them lots of loans without their having to do too much actual work. They think that their life would be great if they could just find the right script that will turn leads into loans. And there are in fact consumers who can be at least temporarily persuaded by just the right words – as I learned during my brief career selling encyclopedias door-to-door. But if the words aren’t true – if you don’t walk your talk – sooner or later, you’ll start hearing a little voice in the back of your head calling you a phony. If that happens, listen to it: that’s your conscience -- the best friend an honest salesperson ever had.

Bob Williamson is a trainer and personal coach whose clients include some of the mortgage industry’s top producers. If you think you could benefit from coaching, find out how you can get a free, 1-hour personal coaching session with Bob.

And go here to find out how you can become the #1 Purchase Loan Originator in your local market -- not in spite of today's challenging market conditions, but because of them!

© 2008, Robert Williamson. All rights reserved.

By Robert Williamson

In this article, Bob debunks the idea that there is a “magic marketing pill” that will automatically make you successful. He explains why fundamental marketing principles call for a deeper understanding of what your clients really want, and shows you how to prepare yourself to offer them something your competitors are not offering – something your clients really want – and how to actually deliver on the promises you make.

“If [you] can … make a better mousetrap than your neighbor, … the world will make a beaten path to your door.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most originators understand (conceptually at least) that in order to increase market share in a competitive marketplace, you must offer something of relatively high-perceived value to the consumer, something the consumer would not expect to get from your competitors.

But most originators don’t act on that understanding. And many of those who do act on it get hung up trying to appeal to the consumer’s perception of value, while completely ignoring the actual value of the service they provide.
In other words, they’re concentrating on the hype, rather than on their performance.

Which is a shame, because with some creative-out of the box thinking and a little focused effort, you could actually deliver on a promise big enough to convince most serious prospects that you are unquestionably the best lender for them!

The Prospective Homebuyer is undoubtedly one of the most crucial market segments for a mortgage lender. These are the people who, by definition, have not yet signed a purchase agreement but who will be buying a home (new or resale) some time in the next 12 months.

When I first started coaching loan originators, the “Prequal” (using only borrower-supplied information to determine what a buyer could borrow) was the hot marketing concept of the day. Today everyone is offering a “PreApproval”, where the customer’s credit is actually underwritten and approved subject to a property. Most lenders are now able, thanks to automated underwriting, to offer the possibility of virtually instant loan approval.

These innovations are all inside-the-box improvements on the initial Prequal idea, which was a response to consumer demand for reliable information about what they could afford before they went out and made an offer on that dream home.

There is nothing wrong with inside-the-box improvements. But have you noticed how many of your competitors were able to provide those improvements around the same time you were? See, they are all thinking inside the box too!

If we wanted to think outside of the box, we might begin by asking ourselves this key question:

What do prospective homebuyers really want, that they’re not getting now, that we might find a way to provide? What could we offer them that would be so valuable it would permanently tip the scales toward us and make them customers for life?

Okay, that was more than one question. But the point is, if the only question on your mind as an LO is how to get more business for yourself, it might never occur to you to ask what unmet need you might be able to resolve for your customer. What’s your priority? If your priority is getting more business, your energy will be focused on “what to say to get ‘em in” and your sales & marketing approach will be characterized by gimmicks and flowery but vague promises about your service. On the other hand, if your priority were to find breakthrough ways of serving your clients, a natural result of accomplishing that is you’d have all the business you could handle! This is the difference between hype and performance.

Recently the NAR commissioned a nationwide survey of homebuyers to measure their level of satisfaction with the service provided by Realtors. Here is the finding that should get your attention:

“Of greater concern to the homebuyers surveyed was the lack of incentive for a [Realtor] to negotiate the best possible sales price. The buyer cares most about getting the lowest price, while the perception is that the salesperson is motivated to complete the transaction and be paid a commission based on the final price.” (Emphasis added)

The Buyer cares most about getting the lowest price, but Realtors on both sides of the transaction are almost universally working for a commission – based on the final sales price and paid by the Seller. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the higher the sale price, the higher the commission – so where’s the incentive to negotiate the lowest possible price for the Buyer?

The Buyer is, without question, the most under-represented party in a residential real estate transaction. Most buyers are actually in a much better negotiating position than they realize, but they don’t have the information that would allow them to capitalize on that strength.

The Buyers are going to have X number of dollars for down payment and closing costs. They’re going to finance the rest. So any difference between the lowest price the Seller would have accepted and the listing price is going to be rolled into a loan amount and amortized over the term of the loan. If you can provide them with information that helps them buy a home listed at $200,000 for, say $190,000, you have helped them save the $10,000 difference plus the interest they would have paid on that difference. If they stay in the home for 10 years, they will have spent more than $6,000 in interest for that $10,000 (at 7%, 30-yr. amortization). In this rather modest example, you would have helped the Buyers save over $16,000, not even counting their savings on discount points, title fees, and other closing costs.

Meanwhile, back in your market, Realtors are probably telling Buyers they should shop the mortgage companies to get the best deal. And you LOs are out there scrapping and clawing and killing each other over a few hundred dollars difference in closing costs! (If the glaringly obvious opportunity presented by this situation isn’t smacking you between the eyes, please review the numbers in the previous paragraph.)

What you really want to do is help your Prospective Buyer clients do a better job of negotiating the purchase price of their home. That’s where the real money gets saved. If you can do that, you will earn loyalty that will not only transcend competitive differences in loan pricing, but will also position you as a trusted financial advisor. If you stay in touch, they will never go anywhere else for a mortgage loan, and they will recommend you to their friends.

.

How to Help Your Clients Negotiate the Lowest Possible Price for the Home They Buy

We have seen that most lenders realize they must offer the consumer some kind of Unique Selling Proposition [USP] in order to distinguish themselves from the competition. Unfortunately, too many of us get hung up on the hype (how we market ourselves; the message) and pay little attention to our actual performance (the actual value of the service we offer our clients).

We also know that the homebuyer cares most about getting the lowest price, but that Realtors on both sides of the transaction are almost universally working for a commission – based on the final sales price and paid by the Seller. The higher the sale price, the higher the commission – which creates an environment in which the real estate agent has no incentive to negotiate the lowest possible price for the Buyer.

I might add that there is nothing wrong with that – in a free market economy, you “dance with the one what brung you,” and for the Realtors involved in the transaction, that’s the Seller. This is simply the way the system works; it works quite well for Sellers, and to complain about it is pointless.

Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to the opportunity for the enterprising mortgage lender to fill the void left by the fact that no one is truly representing the Buyer’s interests in the price-negotiating aspect of the home purchase process.

If you can fill that void, you will be giving your homebuyer prospects an absolutely compelling reason to do business with you – and even if your competitors down the street have better loan pricing, they’re still not going to be able to match the bottom-line savings you help your clients obtain!

I’m not suggesting that you get personally involved in negotiating real estate contracts for your clients. I am suggesting that, as part of your initial consultation with the client, instead of focusing exclusively on the loan, you help your clients understand some of the practical things they can do to protect themselves and improve the strength of their position when it comes time to negotiate the price of a home.

Here are some of the recommendations you could make:
1. Know the neighborhood; Know the market.
Narrow your search to no more than three neighborhoods that meet your criteria for:

Type and size of home
School systems
Travel time to work
Neighborhood safety
Churches
Shopping and community services.

Once you’ve selected a neighborhood, research the market – especially the current ratio between the total number of homes on the market and the average number of homes sold in a month. The higher the ratio, the stronger the buyer’s negotiating position. If there are 50 listings in an area, and there have been an average of 5 homes sold each month in that area over the last 6-12 months, the ratio of listings to sales is 5 to1 – conditions which strongly favor the buyers – but only if they know it!

Buyers should also have a record of all homes sold in their targeted neighborhood over the past 6-12 months –the address, square footage, number of bedrooms & baths, the original listing price, and the final sales price, so they are aware of the difference between current listing prices and actual sold prices for similar properties.

You can help your buyer clients obtain this information from a good Realtor (the information is usually available, but the buyer has to know to ask for it). You may want to join your local Board of Realtors and access the information yourself, or you may be able to get it from your appraiser. Or, you can get it from a database service that uses public record and/or title plant information, such as NiteOwl Plus (http://www.niteowl.net/).

2. Know your buying power; Take appropriate steps to improve your negotiating position.
Lenders tend to focus on determining the maximum loan amount for which a buyer can qualify. While this information is useful, smart buyers should also know the minimum amount they can realistically expect to spend and still get the kind of home that meets their needs. And in the negotiating process, the goal is to spend as close as possible to the minimum, not the maximum.

Explain why it’s to your client’s advantage to get preapproved for their mortgage financing. Among other things, if your clients can furnish a lender’s commitment letter with their purchase offer, the seller is assured that the buyers have the financing to consummate a quick closing, and will take the offer more seriously even if it is below the asking price.

Most lenders issue a standard commitment letter showing the maximum purchase price (or loan amount) for which the buyer can qualify. If your client is trying to buy a home listed at $190,000 for $175,000 and your commitment letter says they can spend $200,000, you’re undercutting your client’s negotiating position by divulging that information! Instead, if you want to represent your client’s best interest, issue a commitment letter based on the price your client is offering – even if that means generating multiple commitment letters for the client.

3. Understand how to negotiate with the Realtor/Seller in the transaction.
This is where you can make the greatest contribution to your clients’ bottom line. Good Realtors are well-trained, highly skilled sales professionals. Unless it’s a very hot seller’s market, the Buyer is usually in a stronger negotiating position than the Seller – but few buyers know it, so they’re not prepared to press their advantage.

Counsel your homebuyer clients to walk the fine line, in their dealings with Realtors, between giving away too much information (thus jeopardizing their negotiating position) – and appearing to be obnoxious, rude, or uncooperative (thus removing the Realtors’ desire to work with them). Your clients should always be friendly, polite, and respectful – but firm in their insistence on keeping their finances private and on paying no more than necessary for a home that meets their needs.

Realtors will always ask your clients how much they have to spend. But it’s not in your clients’ best interest to reveal that information to a Realtor. Instead, you should teach them to politely explain that they have already been preapproved with you and that when the time comes to make an offer on a home, they will supply a lender’s commitment letter. In the meantime, questions about price range should be answered with a description of the neighborhood(s), size of home, and other criteria, regardless of the asking (listing) price.

Coach your clients to avoid “falling in love” with a home, because that invariably interferes with their best financial judgment. And you should stress that even if they do fall in love with a house, they should never reveal that emotional reaction to the real estate agent. The Realtor should always be given the impression that your buyer clients stand ready today to buy the right home -- for the right price – but no more. If a particular home can’t be bought for a price they’re willing to pay, they will simply keep looking until they find a home that can be bought for the right price. There are always other options. In a normal market, for every home sold in a month there are 3 homes that don’t sell. Consequently, Sellers are almost always under much more pressure to sell their home than your Buyers are to buy that home. This is your client’s negotiating advantage, and it is one of the best-kept secrets in real estate.

Advise your clients to present themselves as being fully prepared to consummate the right transaction very quickly, while at the same time being fully prepared to take whatever time is needed to find that right transaction. In other words, even if your clients are in a hurry to find a home, they should not reveal that to a Realtor, because it reduces the strength of their negotiating position.

If you’re not an expert on your local real estate market, and on the finer points of negotiating the price of a home, you can educate yourself. One of the best books I’ve seen on the subject is Not One Dollar More: How to Save $3,000 to $30,000 Buying Your Next Home, by Joseph Eamon Cummins. (If you don’t find it in your local bookstore, you can get it from amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047135726X/qid=1139964104/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-2359722-9183339?s=books&v=glance&n=283155.)
One of my clients, who has been using this approach for the last three years to attract and keep purchase clients, has actually gone to the trouble of maintaining a database of every purchase client -- where he has tracked the original listing price of the home and the actual price they paid for the home. In a market where the average sale price is about $125,000, his clients have saved an average of $14,000, which means his clients borrowed $14,000 less than they would have if they’d paid full listing price. Now, you do the math: how much lower would my client’s competitors’ pricing have to be in order to equal that $14,000 saving plus the interest his customers will save by virtue of having borrowed $14,000 less? And can you imagine the impact it has on his prospects when he shows them the spreadsheet detailing the money his clients have saved with his help?

How to Use This Approach to Market Yourself to Homebuyers

To generate homebuyer leads, run a small ad in the real estate classified section (or in real estate magazines) offering a Free Report showing people how to save money on the price they pay for the home they buy. The report should give them a taste of what they can learn about negotiating for a home if they meet with you. I have written a 12-page report for this purpose. To obtain a copy, along with a sample ad you can run, click here: http://www.loanofficermagazine.com/store/store1.php?item_no=lom1

Unquestionably it will take some effort, some time and some research in order to be able to competently advise homebuyer clients on the ways in which they can help themselves negotiate a lower price for the home they buy. Some loan originators would rather look for the magic marketing techniques and the quick fixes.

But if you think about it, that is the difference between hype and performance.

.........................................................................................................
Bob Williamson is a trainer and personal coach whose clients include some of the mortgage industry’s top producers.
He can be reached at 505-292-4318
ã 2002, Robert Williamson. All rights reserved.

 In an interview, Bob discusses his approach to coaching his clients in the mortgage industry. This will give you a good overview of Bob's strategic approach to the mortgage business. To schedule your own personal coaching session with Bob, go here.

Curtis: Hi, I’m Curtis Warner, and I want to welcome you to another in our MasterMind Teleconference Series. Today we are pleased to have with us Bob Williamson. Bob is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he has been coaching mortgage loan officers and branch managers all over the country since 1988.

Here’s how I met Bob; I had been talking to some of my clients who have had long-term success with our technology, picking their brains for ideas I could share with my clients and prospects. Bob’s name came up in several of these conversations, so I called him.

After hearing Bob explain his system, and after reading his course materials, I knew this was something that would make a big difference for our clients. This system, in my opinion, provides the answer to all of the problems and obstacles that you all have told me about, including:

• Realtor relationships – why they’re not as satisfying & productive as they could be, and how to change that
• What to do when the refi market goes away; when the business cycle is down.
• Why on-line mortgage companies are taking business from you and what to do about it.
• How to turn rate shoppers into customers.
• How to recession-proof yourself against drops in production
• How to get far more referrals from your clients.
• How to implement marketing systems without them being too difficult or too time consuming to maintain.

Thanks for being here, Bob.

Bob: Thanks for having me, Curtis.

Curtis: Bob, how would you describe your system? What is it?

Bob: It’s a way for a loan officer or a branch manager to master their market, and by that I mean being able to do as much business as your “team” is designed to do, consistently, month-in and month-out, regardless of whatever the market may be like at that time of year, or regardless of where the industry is in its business cycle.

So in other words, if you’re a loan officer who wants to do 10 loans a month consistently, or a branch manager who wants your branch to close 100 loans a month consistently, the system is designed to allow you to do that in any set of market conditions.

There’s only one way to accomplish that, and it starts with having a clearly superior product – something that is way better than anything your competitors are offering.

Why do you need a clearly superior product? Because when the mortgage business cycle approaches its low point, where demand is relatively low, you have roughly the same number of competitors chasing after a smaller pie. Unless you can come up with something that definitely appeals more to the consumer than what your competitors are offering, you will end up getting in line with everybody else to get a smaller piece of that smaller pie.

So first you have to create a superior offer. I show my clients how to gain the expertise necessay to position themselves as more than "just" loan officers. Of course they will do all the things that competent loan officers should do, and they do them very well. But in addition to that, they help their homebuyer clients learn how to protect themselves in the buying and negotiating process, so that they can buy the right house for the lowest possible price. When you consider the total impact on the homebuyer's financesof paying thousands of dollar less for a home than they otherwise would have, a loan officer who provides that service is providing ten times the value of a more conventional LO. 

The Homebuyer Coaching service starts with the initial appointment, called the Strategy Session™. A Strategy Session is a free consultation with a prospective homebuyer, in which you provide superior value, well beyond the standard preapproval service offered by most lenders, and you earn the customer’s trust and loyalty for the resulting mortgage loan. I teach my clients how to do a Strategy Session that will make every potential homebuyer who hears about it want one.

The second part of the system is what I call your Customer Care System™. This is a written, step-by-step breakdown of your “fail-safe” system from the point you take a loan application all the way through the approval and closing process and into your post-closing relationship with your client.

On paper, it can act as a checklist of what has been done and still needs to be done on every loan file. In a contact management program in a computer it can serve the same purpose without having to physically pull files.

You design your Customer Care System to make sure every customer has a great experience, whether you’re closing 5 loans a month or 50. It is one of the things that will ultimately enable you to grow your business, because it lets you know right away when your pipeline is getting too big to handle with the people you’ve got, and it makes it much easier to train new hires to your system.

The Customer Care System integrates all of the loan processing functions with the sales and customer service and marketing functions you would want to do with every single customer -- if you and your people could just remember and find the time to do it all. The Customer Care System makes sure you remember, and you will find that when you and your people stop treating each new loan as a whole new experience, a whole new wheel to reinvent – in other words, when you actually have a system, you will find the Customer Care System probably takes less time than your current method of pipeline management.

In addition to the benefits I’ve already mentioned, the Customer Care System incorporates a continuous gentle reminder every time we communicate with the customer that we appreciate their business and we actively seek their referrals. For example, I have a client who has about 1,000 past customers in his database. Through July of this year, he has closed 55 loans from customer referrals and repeat customers – that’s an average of 8 loans a month that come in his door just because of his Customer Care System.

A properly designed Customer Care System has the same kind of impact Walt Disney had on people when he first opened Disneyland. He completely wowed everyone. They’d never seen anything like it. When they came back, they told all their friends about it. That’s the kind of impact you can have with a well-designed, well-executed Customer Care System.

Curtis: OK, so far we’ve got the Homebuyer Coach and the Strategy Session, which is your superior offer, and the Customer Care System, right?

Bob: Right. The Homebuyer Coach/Strategy Session gives you a better offer so people will want to meet with you, and the Customer Care System gives you a way to actually over-deliver (deliver more than you promised), and to be able to do it consistently, loan after loan. Promising big and delivering even bigger – that’s the only way you’re even going to show up on the customer’s radar – otherwise you are just one more in a long parade of reasonably competent but not particularly inspiring vendors they have dealt with in life.

But if you stand out in the customer’s experience as someone who is extraordinarily competent and who actually cares about them and recognizes them as individuals, someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty for them, your customers are going to tell their friends about you. So, if you put those two pieces together, the Homebuyer Coach/Strategy Session and the Customer Care System, you’ve got a good solid foundation.

Third, you need a way to identify the people who are thinking about buying a home so you can reach them with your superior offer. In a typical market, only 1-2% of the population will buy a home in any given year. You have to be able to find out who those 1-2% are before they commit to another lender. That’s where lead generation comes in. I teach my clients how to do the 2 things that seem to give people the most trouble:

• How to get Realtors to participate with you in your lead generation efforts, and how to generate the maximum possible number of leads. There is only one way you’re going to get enough Realtors to participate with you in this lead generation effort – and that’s by convincing them that working with you will result in additional business for them that they would not have gotten otherwise. I show my clients how to have the right kind of working relationships with the right kinds of Realtors. And I've developed a PowerPoint presentation to Realtors that takes the Realtor step by step to the logical conclusion that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by working with you on this. So that’s the first common obstacle for people to overcome in making lead generation really pay off for them. The second obstacle is: 

• How to turn the leads into Strategy Session appointments and loan applications – and referrals to Realtors that, in turn, generate additional referrals from Realtors. See, once you have the leads, you have to do something with them! Assuming this person is probably going to buy a home, you have to make a connection with them that results in you getting the loan and your Realtor getting the sale. So the key is in being able to make the right kind of connection with the lead, the prospective home buyer. And I’ll be blunt here: If all you’re going to offer that person is pre-qualification or pre-approval, or your services in comparing various loan products to see which one would be best for them – in other words, if all you’re going to do is offer loan-centered services, you’re not offering anything different -- anything they can’t get in a dozen or more other places in your town, and I’m not even counting the Internet! That’s why I came up with the concept of being their Homebuyer Coach – it gives you something new and interesting and above all valuable to talk to the homebuyer prospect about.

So there’s the Strategy Session, the Customer Care System, Lead Generation & Appointment-Setting. The next part of my coaching system is Scorekeeping.

Curtis: Scorekeeping?

Bob: That’s right, scorekeeping. The reason most people fail when they try to implement perfectly good marketing ideas is they have no way to measure what’s happening in their sales system. So I designed a simple scorekeeping system that works whether you’re a loan officer working the system by yourself, or whether you’re a branch manager with an office full of loan officers and support staff.

The scorekeeping system tracks the specific activities that lead to closings:

• Leads generated
• Calls/Contacts completed
• Applications taken
• Loans Submitted
• Loans Approved
• Loans Closed

This way, you can see who is producing what results. You can look at each of the stages in your process (from leads generated to loans closed) and compare the relationships between them. If there’s a bottleneck in your system, it becomes immediately obvious. This gives you the tool you need to solve the biggest problem in maintaining a profitable business: knowing what to fix; exactly where in your system you need to improve TODAY.

There’s one last part of my coaching approach that sort of helps you tie it all together; and that's time management and leadership.

Time management is critical, because, let’s face it – none of you are listening to this conversation because you don’t feel like you have enough to do; none of you are listening to this because you’ve got too much time on your hands. Most loan originators work 50 hours a week and more, sometimes much more. The problem is not that you don’t spend enough time “working.” The problem is that poorly designed workflow systems, or the lack of any real system at all, makes it necessary for you to re-invent the wheel every time you do a loan. Or the problem is that, during the time you’re working, you are not always properly focused on the one thing that, at that particular moment, is your very highest priority. The problem is you don’t take the proper time to plan ahead your day, your week, your month – your year. The problem is that, during the hustle and bustle of the work day, you spend too much time thinking (worrying) about what to do next, and not enough time doing it. The problem is you haven’t yet realized that the number of things you could possibly do and might want to do is infinite, while the actual amount of time you have is not infinite. (I mean, it sounds kind of silly that you wouldn’t recognize that, but if you’re honest with yourself, when it comes to being realistic about what you will or won’t get done in a day, your eyes are bigger than your belly, which is what my mother used to say when I asked for seconds at the dinner table, and then didn’t eat it all.) And the problem is a combination of all of these things, so we’ll spend a whole hour talking specifically about time management challenges in the mortgage industry, and some of the things you can do to get more of the right things done in a reasonable workweek.

Leadership is important because even if you’re a single loan officer with no staff that’s accountable to you, you’re probably still working with people – processors, underwriters, Realtors, and customers -- whose behavior you must influence if you’re going to be able to get things done. So I work with clients on the qualities of a leader, and how you can develop more of those qualities in yourself.

Curtis: You mentioned that the first step is to have a superior product, a superior offer you called the Strategy Session that would make every prospective home buyer want one. What is a Strategy Session, and how does it make your offer superior?

Bob: Well, let’s first look at the existing industry paradigm of what mortgage companies and loan officers offer clients (and when I say clients I’m referring to the people that most of you call “borrowers”). You’re all offering:

1. The loan product itself, which is a means to an end --a way to finance a home purchase. The loan product is a commodity – which means that, from the client’s point of view, the only difference between your $150,000 loan and your competitor’s $150,000 loan is the price!
2. Service – This is one of your favorite words – whenever I ask a loan officer why a client should choose them over their competition, they always talk about how their “service” is better. But when you boil it down to its essence, “service” means you promise to keep the client informed as to the progress of their loan, and you promise to return their calls. That’s about it. Some of you keep client information in a database so you can let them know if at some point in the future it might benefit them to refinance. But whatever you call “service”, from the client’s point of view it is nothing more than a vague claim. EVERYBODY says they have good service! But for the client, there’s no way to objectively evaluate the claim, so your promises of good service mean nothing.
3. Convenience – This is an aspect of service, but it’s a little more concrete. How easy (or difficult) do you make it for clients to apply for a loan, receive full approval, and close? For the client, differences in the convenience factor translate into their time – a valuable commodity for almost every consumer these days. That’s partly why so many of you are worried about competition from internet lenders – because (whether or not they are actually delivering on the promise yet) – they promise added convenience (in addition to the promise of more competitive pricing) – you can do everything from the comfort of your home computer.
4. Honesty/Integrity/Experience/Reputation – Remember what I just said about service? You have to understand that just because you say you’re honest doesn’t mean the consumer will believe you. If they don't know you, they have no way to evaluate your claim.

These 4 components – the loan product (and its price), service, convenience, and reputation – these components make up the existing paradigm for mortgage loans. So if I’m a consumer and I’m trying to decide which mortgage company to go with, the only information I have to make my decision with is inside that paradigm, inside that box. Because, just between us chickens, all of you sound pretty much the same, you all love to talk about your loan programs, your service, and your reputation for honesty and competence.

Curtis: Yeah, I guess there aren’t too many loan officers telling people they have bad service, or that they cheat their customers.

Bob: Exactly. So if everybody else is talking about those same 4 things, and that’s the paradigm for what a mortgage company/loan officer does, if that’s the box everybody is thinking in, and if we want to create a product, an offer that’s, as I said, way better, clearly superior – then we are going to have to think outside of this box.

Why? Because if price, service, convenience & reputation are the only variables inside the box, then we’re all going to look the same to the consumer. I’ll give you an example. Ten years ago, it was not at all uncommon, in fact it was the norm for it to take 3 to 4 weeks to get a loan approval. This was often inconvenient for the customer.

The industry responded to consumer feedback, and now, with automated underwriting, you can get a loan approval in minutes. Well that’s great, it shows the free market at work, but, pay attention now, how much faster than a 5-minute approval can you get?

It made a difference to the consumer when we went from 3 weeks to 3 days, even when we went from 3 days to less than an hour. But who cares whether it takes 5 minutes or 1 minute? The changes we can make at this point are too incremental to be exciting. That’s why we have to think outside of the box now.

We are going to have to challenge the old assumptions about what a loan officer or mortgage company does for a customer. We are going to have to look for services that are NOT currently being provided to the consumer by ANYBODY – services that we have the ability to provide and which would have a very high perceived value in the consumer’s mind. In other words, we have to find a vacuum not being filled for the consumer in the home buying process, and then we have to figure out a way to fill that vacuum.

There was a very interesting survey recently commissioned by the NAR. They had the survey done to prove that people were happy with the service they received from a so-called “buyer’s representative” on their home purchase. Now the industry generally uses that term when there is a signed contract between the homebuyer and a Realtor, designating the Realtor as their representative in any purchase transaction. In return for a guaranteed commission if there’s a sale, the Realtor is contractually obligated to disclose certain types of information about the property, if they have such information.

[I would argue that, to be a true buyer’s representative, the agent would be working for a flat fee paid by the buyer, or for a commission paid by the buyer and based on how much money the Realtor saved the buyer through the Realtor’s negotiation efforts & skills – assuming there was even a way to come up with that number. (Actually the idea of a flat fee paid by the buyer has been tried in several states, but it’s not very popular with the Realtors, because they don’t think they’re making enough money on the transaction.)

Anyway, the NAR commissions this survey to measure homebuyer satisfaction with the buyer’s agent. Let me quote directly from the survey report:

“Most of the buyers surveyed who worked with a buyer’s representative understood that no other salesperson at the brokerage firm represents them. Two in three surveyed are comfortable with the arrangement, possibly because buyers choose a representative for the individual and not the brokerage."

Of greater concern to the buyers surveyed was the lack of incentive for a buyer’s representative (i.e., Realtor) to negotiate the best possible sales price. The buyer cares most about getting the lowest price, while the perception is that the salesperson is motivated to complete the transaction and be paid a commission based on the final price.”

Do you get that? In other words, homebuyers are telling us they are aware of and are even uncomfortable with the fact that there is a conflict of interest in relying on a commissioned Realtor to negotiate the best price for them! And they are also telling us that negotiating the best price is their top priority.

And well it should be! They are going to have X number of dollars for down payment and closing costs. They’re going to finance the rest. So a $5,000 difference in the purchase price is going to be rolled into a loan amount and amortized over the term of the loan – meaning that, if they stay in the home and pay that loan off over 30 years, they will have spent over $8,000 in interest for that $5,000! (at 8%.) So they didn’t just pay $5,000 too much for their home, they paid $13,000 too much!

I’ll give you an example. Recently, U.S. Sprint conducted a study of 232 of its employees who were relocating to different parts of the United States. The employees who bought a home using a listing agent or a selling agent paid, on average, 96% of list price for the homes they bought. The employees who used a negotiating strategy paid 91%. I think the median price for a home is about $106,000, so if they all bought average-priced homes, the ones who went the traditional route paid about $4,000 less than list price, and the ones who used a negotiating strategy saved about $9,500 off the list price of the home. But they didn’t just save $9,500 – they also saved over $20,000 in interest – a total of more than $30,000!

Meanwhile, the Realtor is probably telling them they should shop the mortgage companies to get the best deal. And you guys are out there killing each other over a couple of hundred dollars in closing costs while you’re ignoring an opportunity to be worth $30,000 to that homebuyer – an opportunity that the real estate profession has ignored. In other words, they’ve left a $30,000 value vacuum for anybody smart enough to step up and fill it.

Curtis: Are you saying that loan originators should go into competition with the Realtors? I know they’re probably not doing it, but shouldn’t that be the Realtor’s job, to negotiate the purchase price?

Bob: No, I’m not saying we should compete with Realtors. We don’t want to sell real estate -- that’s what Realtors do. What we really want to do is help our customers do a better job of buying real estate. Instead of competing with the Realtors, what I’m suggesting is that we fill a vacuum that Realtors have not chosen to fill.

The home buyer is, without question, the most under-represented party in a real estate transaction. Most buyers are actually in a superior negotiating position to the seller, but they don’t know it! There’s a vacuum there, where somebody is not being served. If we fill the vacuum, we make ourselves much more valuable to the customer, the home buyer.

And that’s something our profession needs very badly right now, is to make ourselves more valuable to our customer. Right now, we’re just a means to an end. In the customer’s mind, they think they need the Realtor a lot more than they need us. Why? Because they see the Realtor (if they have one) as their principal advisor and they see you as one of several possible sources to fund their home purchase. You’re only slightly more important to them than the title company!

What I’m suggesting is that the ideal we aspire to is a partnership with Realtors. In the first stage, we identify a potential homebuyer with our Call capture technology technology. In the second stage, we contact the prospect and offer them a free Strategy Session – designed to help them develop a strategic plan for buying their home that puts them in the best possible negotiating position. In the third stage, we provide them with market analysis for the neighborhoods where they’re thinking of buying. We show them how to find out the actual prices homes are being sold for in a neighborhood, instead of exposing them only to the prices homes are being listed at! There’s a big difference! We help them understand what those numbers mean in terms of their effect on the strength of their negotiating position. We also get the customer preapproved.

So what the Realtor gets from us is a willing buyer, ready to buy a home. Our buyers are confident. They're not afraid of making a mistake on the biggest purchase of their life. So they are much more decisive, and they don't waste the agent's time.

In other words, we have followed the Golden Rule – we have referred the Realtor a customer in the same way we would like the Realtor to refer a customer to us. This is what partnership is about.

See, now YOU are directly contributing to the Realtor’s income with your referrals. The reason they don’t respect you is you don’t bring any deals to the table! In any organization, the person who can deliver the business ALWAYS gets respect. When you start adding to the Realtor’s business, they will respect you. When all you do is show up in their office with your hand out, you have to understand they’re going to see you as a vendor, no matter how nice your suit looks, or how tasty your doughnuts are. They’re going to see you as a vendor, because you never bring them business, you’re always asking them for business. And vendors don’t get that much respect. Partners get respect.

What Realtors want more than anything else is to sell more homes. They know that the hardest part is the selling part -- If you can bring them business, if you can do some of their selling for them, you will earn their respect. In fact, if you can establish a provable track record of being able to do that, you will be able to work with the Realtors of your choice. They’ll be calling you.

So, to answer your question, Curtis, no, this is not about competing with or trying to replace Realtors, it’s actually the opposite. I think that loan originators, if they’re willing to think out of the box, can create a win-win-win situation that benefits themselves, the Realtors, and the consumers. Everybody wins because, as I say, you’re filling a vacuum. It’s like you created a whole new product (or service), and you are (at least temporarily) the ONLY one in town who has it. It’s something that everybody who finds out about it wants it. I mean, it really gets people talking.

To schedule your own personal coaching session with Bob, go here.

For more information on Bob's coaching services, go here.

On the surface at least, the value of setting production goals is that you get to make more money when you reach those goals.  But there's a lot more to it than that.

When you set a goal, and then accomplish it, you are developing and exercising personal power.  Power can be defined as the capacity to produce a preconceived result, or to cause such a result to be produced.  Another way to put it is that when you become a powerful person, your word becomes law in the universe.

This concept has implications that go far beyond your success in the mortgage business.  Powerful people (i.e., people who have learned how to produce a result) have a greater capacity to make a difference -- from the microcosm of their businesses and their families to the macrocosm of their community, their nation, and ultimately, the world.

This is the game that interests me.  If I can help you become more powerful with respect to your business, my real contribution to your life is that you can now apply that power anywhere.  It's like the old story about the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish.

When you look at your numbers you sometimes find that there is a gap between the goal and your actual results.  While this may not always be clear to you, I am not interested in getting you to feel bad about your failure to accomplish the goal; my purpose is to help you to discover what it will take to produce a meaningful change in your results.

Power is the capacity to produce (or cause to be produced) a pre-conceived result.  Power resides in persons, not techniques.

Information, research, marketing statistics, marketing ideas & programs, and coaching are of no value unless you, as an undivided being, make a commitment to change.

We have all listened to an argument between two or more voices within our own minds -- a struggle between the change we say we want and the reasons we say we didn't, or can't.  The struggle manifests itself as effort.  And effort is the opposite of power.

If, for example, you say you want to make 100 prospect contacts per week, but you say you can't find the time to make your calls, you may believe you are in a struggle between your desire to make your calls and being distracted by other priorities.  But in fact, you have already chosen not to make the calls (i.e., you have chosen to do something else instead of making the calls).  The "struggle" that you describe only serves to hide this fact.
By focusing our attention on what appears to be a struggle to change -- the reasons and explanations and excuses that we generate instead of results -- we engage in a conspiracy to pretend that we are an accidental grouping of disharmonious parts working against each other.  When you say, "I want to manage my staff so that we consistently reach our marketing goals every week, but I can't seem to get my assistant(s) to make all their calls," who is it that "wants to" and who is it that "can't"?  (Hint:  it's not your assistants who "can't."  If you are clear about the job you want done, whose responsibility is it to make sure you've hired someone who has both the ability and the desire to do that job?)

So it is as if there were two of you, and the one who "can't" has more power than the one who "wants to."  You pretend that the "real" you is the one that "wants to."

By focusing on the struggle, instead of on the results, we avoid having to admit that the one who wants change and the one who resists change are one and the same, that we are whole, and that we really do get what we want, which is struggle and effort, rather than results!

This is tough stuff to get.  It's tough because years of mental habit have conditioned us to think that we really are in conflict with ourselves.  To admit that the so-called struggle is phony -- and that we have invented this struggle so we can pretend that the "real" me is more ambitious and successful than my results would indicate -- is scary.  It's scary because we don't want to admit that we already have the results we're willing to be responsible for. 

The problem is that as long as I identify my "true self" only as that part of me that wants to change my results, and not also as a presently more powerful desire to remain the same, I will continue to be stuck in the phony struggle.  The more I "try" to change, the more resistance I will experience, and the more I'll stay the same -- stuck.  It is ironic, but true, that I will only be able to change by giving up trying to change.

In order for things to get better, they must first get worse.  If you want to get out of debt, you must first acknowledge how it serves you to be in debt.  In order to have a smoothly functioning and efficient staff, you must first be honest about the payoff you get from having a staff that screws up all the time.

No kidding:  wherever you see a problem in your life, you must learn to make it your policy to assume that you get a real payoff from having that problem.  If you can operate from that assumption that there is a payoff, and be committed to maintaining honest introspection until you know what the payoff is, you will eventually discover it.

For example, I talked with a client the other day who was recently honored for being the top producer in her office.  Shortly after that happened, she began to find it increasingly difficult to motivate herself to continue doing the things that had gotten her to #1.  No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she berated herself for her lack of organization and motivation, she couldn't seem to return to the work habits that she had already proven to herself would make her successful.  This was a real problem for her, and a source of great frustration, struggle and inner conflict.  It wasn't long before she was back in the middle of the pack.  So what was the payoff?  In her case, she eventually realized that she had been uncomfortable with the attention that went along with being #1.  She began to feel that her colleagues didn't like her as much as they did when she was just "one of the gang."  Believe me, feeling accepted by your peers is a big payoff for a lot of people.

Now, here comes the good part:  by being willing to operate from the assumption that she was getting a real payoff from her "problem", the payoff soon became clear to her.  That was the first step; telling herself the truth about the payoff from her problem, recognizing that she was really a lot more powerful than she had been willing to give herself credit for being.  It's a step most of us never take.

The second step is to accept yourself as you are.  It's OK to be more concerned with being accepted than you are with being successful.  Really!  This is also a very difficult step for most of us.  After all, the reason we set up the phony struggle in the first place is that we don't want to admit that we're so needy and vulnerable that we'd rather be liked than be first.  But if you really are needy and vulnerable, it does no good whatsoever to try to cover it up with a phony struggle.  When we finally accept ourselves the way we really are, we give up the struggle to get better.  Then, finally, we are free to change.

That's step three, which can only be taken after mastering the first two steps.  Within the context of being an integrated, whole person, we are free to state a new intention, one that we are willing to be fully responsible for making happen.  That's when we truly become powerful people, not just in our businesses, but also in our lives.

How You Can Get a Free, Private 1-Hour Coaching Session with Bob Williamson