[caption id="attachment_9654" align="alignright" width="150"] Dave Hershman[/caption]

This program will contain two personalized components:

• The development of an individual marketing plan.
• An individual education plan.

The educational plan will be individualized for each mentee and might include the following (some of these may be covered in an orientation):

1. LOS training delivered by the mortgage company or the LOS organization.
2. Training on investors/programs of the company and secondary procedures.
3. Advanced knowledge beyond the training class – secondary, self-employed, advanced qualification, comparing loans, managing a pipeline and more.
4. Outside courses, such as underwriting, real estate licensing, valuation and other topics.

The Marketing Plan is one of the most important components of a mentorship program for those joining a company that does not provide leads. In the case of a company that provides leads, more emphasis would be placed within the area of sales training, especially with regard to converting leads. But, for the vast majority of companies, a professional marketing plan is needed for every sales person.

• Formulation of short-term and long-term goals. These goals would include training and improvement, activities and actual production. The goals must be very specific. For example, increasing calls or production is not a specific goal statement.
• Identification of targets, the solicitation of whom will help us meet our goals.
• Selection of tools which will help us reach and deliver value to our targets.
• Choosing actions that will utilize the tools to reach the targets.
• The implementations of these actions on a regular basis (frequencies).
• The evaluation of the results of these actions.

It is important to note that the loan officer will be tempted to use every marketing tool available to reach every target possible. This is a recipe for disaster as most sales people who try to sell all things to all people fail. The marketing plan must be initiated by delineating the sphere of influence of the loan officer, as well as the sphere of their target in an “inside” environment, such as a bank. This is the same exercise that a manager would undertake in developing their recruiting plan.

Prioritize. The next step is to prioritize. Who are the most important targets in terms of concentration of business and the importance of the relationship? The loan officer should have anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 within their sphere. They must decide how to market each segment in accordance with this prioritization.

• The top priority should be potential synergy marketing partners.
• The second priority should be those with a very close relationship to the loan officer who either have a high concentration of business to refer (for example, CPAs and real estate agents) or can introduce them to the same.
• The third priority would be previous customers, previous coworkers, personal contacts and those who they have served before.
• The last priority would be comprised of those who have something in common with the loan officer, for example, members of their alumni association.

Limit the actions. The marketing plan must be compromised of a series of very limited and simple activities that are linked to each other through synergy. Do not try to undertake or use too many marketing methods.

Skills development. The development of skills will help sales personnel implement actions. We are talking about more than the development of basic finance skills and many of these are facilitated through the implementation of the mentorship program’s “field training and educational” segments:

• How to deliver great customer service through the application process.
• How to make deals happen through the use of finance skills.
• Role playing with their peers in sales meetings and training sessions.
• Listening to others on the phone, taking lead calls and having their conversations monitored.
• Going out on the street with successful loan officers and rookies.
• Going out on the street with their manager or mentor.

Monitoring of the implementation of the marketing plan. Monitoring will take place during coaching calls and during general sales meetings. Of course, these activities can be combined: you can perform one-on-one coaching sessions while out on the street together.

In order to be an effective manager or mentor, you must combine activities so that all goals can be met without neglecting others. It is at this juncture that you must adjust training plans and activities in such a way that your sales personnel can increase their performance.

Dave Hershman is Senior VP of Sales of Weichert Financial and the top author in the mortgage industry. Dave has published seven books, as well as hundreds of articles and is the founder of the OriginationPro Marketing System and Mortgage School – the online choice for expert mortgage learning and marketing content. His site is www.OriginationPro.com and he can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..