Coach Bob Williamson - Coach Bob Williamson :: Professional Coaching & Training for the Mortgage Industry

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New Blog Post:
Are You Really So Sure Your Clients Are Happy with You?

Every week, I talk to loan officers who've been chastised by a customer over the glacial pace of their loan approval process, or because somebody in processing misplaced a document and the customer has been told they need to upload it again, or they have been told that the 27 documents they've already supplied now show that they need to supply a 28th in order to have their loan approved.

These same loan officers are quick to point out that the vast majority of their clients are happy with their service and appreciative of their help in getting their mortgage financing approved.

But the latest JD Power & Associates survey of mortgage customer satisfaction shows that ... Go to full post

Welcome to CoachBobWilliamson.com:
Resources for 21st Century Mortgage Professionals

The purpose of this site (and my work as a coach) is to provide loan officers and other mortgage professionals with practical, ethical strategies and tools for succeeding in the face of the toughest economic, banking and real estate environment we've seen in decades.

Challenging or difficult times always present opportunities for those who have the vision and courage to pursue them.

The D.A.N.G.E.R. Report:
Report Commissioned by the N.A.R. is the Key to Getting Realtors' Attention (and Ultimately Earning their Loyalty)

"After buying and selling a few houses I would rate real estate agents just barely above the drug cartels when it comes to morality and honesty." -- "Jay P. Consumer" (commenting on the D.A.N.G.E.R. Report in the Washington Post

The National Association of Realtors, under the auspices of its Strategic Thinking Advisory Committee, commissioned Stefan Swanepoel and the Swanepoel T3 Group to uncover, research, and index the potential threats facing the real estate industry.

Their report, the D.A.N.G.E.R. Report (Definitive Analysis of Negative Game Changers Emerging in Real Estate) was issued by the NAR on May 15, 2015.

You can download it here for free: http://www.dangerreport.com/

This is an extraordinary and concise report on the dangers confronting the five faces of the real estate world: Agents, Brokers, the NAR, its State & Local Associations, and the MLS.

Mortgage loan officers who want to get or grow their share of purchase origination business would help themselves by understanding the major trends affecting Realtors – because Realtors still refer about 80% of homebuyers to their eventual lenders. And loan officers who want to receive these referrals must find legal, RESPA-compliant ways to help agents attract, retain, and close buyer leads and seller listings.

If you're one of my coaching clients, or if you have followed my writing and seminars on the subject of working with Realtors, you will find that the D.A.N.G.E.R. Report contains a significant amount of information that confirms much of what I have been teaching loan officers for years.

In this article, I am going to focus on a few key points from the report: Read the full article

How to Get the Most out of This Site:
Explore the navigation tabs at the top of each page. Content is organized as follows:
Bob's Blog -- news and topical observations on the state of the housing market, real estate, and the mortgage industry. New blog posts are added several times a week, and your comments are invited.
Seminars -- Information about upcoming webinars and workshops
Articles -- somewhat longer pieces that deal with sales, marketing, business strategy, productivity, and other key areas that determine the degree of success for mortgage loan originators.
Reports -- even more in-depth documents (usually 10 pages or longer) that can be read online or printed.
Videos -- Instructional videos on a variety of topics within my focus on whatever makes you a better, more successful loan originator.
Coaching -- information about my approach to coaching -- just about everything you would need to know if you were thinking about using coaching as a way of moving to the next level in your career.
Contact -- how to reach me if you have a question, comment, etc.
About -- information about my background and experience

Latest Blog Post: Stop Losing Arguments with Your Inner Slacker

We all have these inner conflicts sometimes between doing the things we know will make us better or more successful people (those 2 things are not mutually exclusive) -- and doing the easy thing. And most of us have a harder time figuring out why we sometimes give in to our Inner Slacker.
I have a new blog post up that addresses the question: How do you win the argument with your Inner Slacker?

How Do We Fix the Bottleneck in Home Sales?

The Wall St. Journal recently reported that about 35% of home owners with mortgages are in a position of effective negative equity -- which means that, while they may or may not be technically underwater, they lack sufficient equity, given their home's current value, to be able sell that home and have enough left over to pay off the mortgage and the expenses of selling their home -- and still be able to make even a minimum down payment on another home. They may want to sell their homes, but they can't.

A disproportionate share of the 35% with effective negative equity are people with homes in the bottom one-third of home values in their areas -- which is where first-time home buyers typically look for a home to buy.

Read my analysis of what all this means to you, and my recommendations for productive action you can take in your local market.

(You can also repurpose this article as an email report to Realtors in your market.)

Why Realtors Prefer Local Lenders

Loan officers have long been frustrated with competition from Call Center lenders. They question the experience and professionalism of the people working in these call centers, as well as their knowledge of local markets and deliver the loan they promised when they promised it. Now, LOs have an important ally in this battle -- at least when it comes to purchase transactions: A new survey shows that Realtors have a strong preference for local lenders. Find out in this blog post what's behind that preference, and how you can capitalize on this insight.

Free Seminar: The Home Buyer Strategy Session: Your Key to More Originations

Watch the recorded video here
In an effective buyer prospect interview (covered in Seminar #7 in this series), you show people the difference between a Home Buyer's Coach and an ordinary loan officer. You help them understand their motivations for wanting to buy a home, as well as any fears or obstacles they may be concerned about. You get basic prequal information from them, and you get them to take the next step of scheduling a Strategy Session so they can have a solid plan for moving forward.

In the Home Buyer's Strategy Session, you help your clients resolve whatever concerns or obstacles they told you about in the interview. Your goal is to provide objective information so they can re-evaluate their concerns and, with your help, make a decision about whether they are now ready to move forward with the home buying process.

The current regulatory structure dictates (or limits) what your company can charge for the loan and what they can pay you to originate it. However, it does not prevent you from providing your clients with more value than just the financing -- and this added value will pay you dividends in the form of loyal clients and more Realtor and Client referrals.

This online seminar shows you how to conduct an effective Strategy Session -- one that accomplishes the following:

Clients who have made a clear choice to move forward with the homebuyer process will be much more confident and decisive. Instead of taking a Realtor's time and then losing interest or giving up, they will make buying decisions more quickly than the prospects Realtors try to develop without your help. By delivering solid and committed buyers to your Realtor partners, you will shorten their sales cycle, and help them close prospects they would have lost to competitors, increasing their income and building your reputation with agents.
Thanks to your help, your clients will know what they need in a home, and they will know the difference between what they want and what they need. Again, because of your assistance, they will know what information to ask their Realtor to get for them before they make an offer on a home. They will know what needs to be included in the offer and contract in order to protect their interests, they will remember you as the one who helped them -- and they will tell their family and friends about you.

If you have already registered for this seminar series, you'll receive instructions for joining the next online seminar.

If you have not already registered for these seminars, you can do so here, or by clicking the button below. The seminar is free, but space is limited.

Featured Article:
The Hubris of Dodd-Frank
What Originators Need to Know About the Regulation of Their Industry

"Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience."
-- Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith's point, in the quotation above, was that people who consider themselves to be virtuous, when granted power over the rest of us, are more dangerous than those of us who know we're fallible sinners, because the "sinners" at least have the occasional attack of conscience that moderates their vice. The virtuous, believing unquestioningly in their own virtue, have no such qualms.

For example, in 2008 we had a financial crisis, brought on by virtuous politicians, bureaucrats, and special interest groups who were dedicated to the proposition that home ownership should be made "affordable". These virtuous and well-meaning activists argued that Fannie & Freddie's underwriting guidelines were so strict that they were preventing low and moderate-income families from being able to buy homes. In 1992, Congress directed the GSEs to meet a quota: 30% of the loans they bought had to be for low and middle-income borrowers. These goals were raised over the years until, by 2008, 56% of all mortgage loans in the U.S. were subprime or of otherwise low quality from an underwriting standpoint. The flow of "easy" money for buying homes naturally spiked demand, which (also naturally) caused home prices to rise precipitously -- a classic bubble, created by government activism in the markets.

When the bubble predictably burst, the virtuous politicians and special interest groups immediately blamed it all on Wall Street greed, the banks and the money lenders.

The very same people whose legislation and regulation caused the bubble in the first place, now told us the problem was that the financial services sector was not sufficiently regulated, and that we needed to "reform" it. The result was the Dodd-Frank Act. As I hope to show, this series of events is a perfect illustration of Adam Smith's point. People who sincerely believe themselves to be virtuous, and acting with the best of intentions, brought one-sixth of the economy to its knees. Still believing themselves to be virtuous, there was no way it would have occurred to them that their actions had been the catalyst for the crash. So they made the lending industry the scapegoat and called for more regulation.

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A client of mine attended a conference in 2013 where David Stevens, then president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, was the keynote speaker.

The gist of Mr. Stevens' comments was that he expected 2014 to be a difficult year for the mortgage industry – the result of a stagnant economy, chronically high unemployment, and the consequences of massive new regulation that will continue to make it more difficult -- and dangerous -- for lenders to lend, while raising the cost consumers must pay to obtain mortgage financing.

The good news, Mr. Stevens said, is that there would likely be a reaction to these consequences that would begin to push the pendulum in the opposite direction. In other words, the government will be forced to undo some of its regulatory excess in order to make it easier (and less expensive) for people to finance their home purchases.

I hope he's right, and there are encouraging signs as a result of the appointment of Mick Mulvaney as acting head of the CFPB. But even if Stevens is right, the regulatory infrastructure is pretty deeply entrenched, and is being run by people with less understanding of mortgage lending than you might think, and far less appreciation for the unintended consequences of their actions than you might like. It's likely (and appropriate) that 90% of your professional attention is on originating loans. But federal regulatory oversight has already significantly altered the mortgage marketplace, and you would ignore its potential to threaten your livelihood at your own peril.

Read the full article here

How to Earn Solid Commitments from Realtors
by Making Strong, Effective Presentations

"I really am grateful for all that I have learned from you. Today I was actually busy talking to new leads who called me from my new Realtor partners' referral recommendations. It is much better to receive incoming sales calls for new purchase loans rather than cold calling for refinances!"
-- Julia Maio, Fremont Bank, San Diego, CA

If you've been attending or watching my series of online seminars, you know that Realtors are a big key to purchase market leads, and that I recommend a 3-stage strategy:

Stage I: Increase your visibility and credibility with the real estate agents in your market by providing them with relevant, useful, and interesting content.

For maximum effectiveness, provide that content through multiple channels – e-mail, your website, and social media.

Every piece of content should provide the Realtor with a way to take a "next step" toward finding out how you might be able to help them be more successful.

Stage II: once a Realtor has initiated contact, your next step is an Interview – a telephone conversation, usually lasting 10 to 20 minutes. In this interview, your goal is to understand what the Realtor believes are the primary obstacles he or she faces in their business.

It isn't enough to just get a one sentence description of the Realtor's problem. You need to get them to talk about the problem(s) in depth, and you do that by being interested and curious, simply wanting to know more. The more they talk, the more comfortable they feel with you.

By the time you're done doing a skillful interview, you'll know how many leads the Realtor receives each month, on average, and from what sources. You'll also know (if you didn't already know before you did your interview) how many transactions the Realtor is closing each month. Those two pieces of information make it possible for you to show the Realtor how much potential commission income he/she is walking away from every month.

Stage III: Combined with the rest of the information ... (click here to read the rest of the article)

How to Talk to Realtors

No, not like this.

The phone rings. You answer, and if it's a dear friend or a valued mentor, for example, you immediately relax and look forward to the stimulating conversation you're about to have.

On the other hand, if it's an insurance agent or a stockbroker, your internal reaction is more likely to be something along the lines of, "what does he/she want?"

You're a loan officer. With the recent rise in interest rates, any refi business you may have been doing has become a shadow of its former self. You want more business, and purchase business is the only part of the market that seems to be growing right now. So naturally, even if you're not particularly looking forward to it, you know it's important to your business to make contact with Realtors. So you make a list, and you start calling.

When they answer the phone and find out it's you, are they delighted to hear from you, anticipating an interesting conversation, or are they thinking, "what does he/she want?"

I want you to know that it's possible to have Realtors looking forward to your call. But first, you have to set the stage. Read More

What Realtors Want (and Why You Should Care)

Most of the loan officers I talked to who are trying to grow or reestablish their purchase market business tell me their biggest challenge is that they don't know enough Realtors, and that they have a hard time getting Realtors to talk to them.

It reminds me of my high school dating experience.

It also reminds me of a bit from Seinfeld in which Jerry is doing his standup routine and asks the question, "What do women want? Men are always trying to figure this out and it drives us crazy, because we have no idea what women really want. I mean, men are easy! Everybody knows what men want! We want women!"

I think loan officers today are faced with a similar dilemma. Every Realtor who is doing any business at all already has a lender. If you don't have enough Realtors, you're going to have to call on agents who already have a lender. If you want them to give you the time of day, you better know what they want.

That's why I wrote this article, which you can read by clicking below:
What Do Realtors Want? (And Why You Should Care)

Creating Effective Content Marketing to Get Realtors' Attention

A client recently asked me for advice on writing e-mails and other content for Realtors. He is a thoughtful and intelligent person who also happens to be highly experienced and exceptionally competent loan officer. He works in a major metropolitan market where competition is fierce, and where many of his competitors are also accomplished loan officers and "worthy opponents".

Recognizing the importance of finding ways to distinguish himself from his competition, he was asking me to give him some ideas as to subjects he could write about that Realtors would find interesting, relevant, and useful.

Read the full article here

Why Are You A Mortgage Loan Originator?

There's a conventional wisdom about the purpose and role of mortgage loan originators. I'm here to challenge it, and offer a broader vision with far more potential for professional and personal satisfaction.

The status quo has limited the role of the loan officer to that of an order taker, a clerk, a bureaucrat. While it is true that in order to do your job, you must efficiently deal with necessary paperwork and comply with the(ever-increasing) regulations governing our industry, you, as a loan officer, are capable of playing a much more expansive and important role for your clients and business partners.

PROSPECTS & CLIENTS
Far too often, mortgage professionals are seen as vendors selling a commodity – which means that the consumer's decision will be based only on their perception of the "price" of the loan.

The home buyer is the least-represented party in a real estate transaction. Loan originators can be powerful advocates for their homebuyer clients, teaching them how to make informed and intelligent decisions about when to buy a home, how to buy the right home for the right price, and how to finance their purchase so that it enhances their long-term financial security. Loan Officers can be trusted financial advisors and coaches for their clients.

REALTORS
Far too often, mortgage professionals are seen by Realtors as paper-pushing vendors who must be managed and badgered, lest the transaction be delayed or ruined.

Loan originators can also be trusted and respected partners to the best Realtors in their markets – helping them motivate and educate homebuyers so that their experience of owning a home is one they look back on with pride -- and gratitude toward the professionals who helped make it possible.

My mission is to train and coach mortgage originators so that you can achieve the satisfaction and recognition that comes with expanding your professional skills & capabilities so you can make a real difference in the lives of your clients and Realtor partners.

I do this by helping you redefine your role and purpose, and by providing you with the training, strategies and tools to improve your capabilities and get your story out into your marketplace. I hold you accountable, and provide you with personal guidance and unconditional support.