[caption id="attachment_9654" align="alignright" width="268"] Dave Hershman[/caption]

There are many ways we must support our team:

• Training: orientation, coaching, product, technology, sales/marketing
• Communication: changes in programs, policies, goals, meetings
• Automation: equipment, automated systems, LOS programs
• Product: programs, pricing, service programs
• Marketing: leads, marketing tools, CRMs
• Operations: processing and closing support

When we hire the right people, we promise them we will help increase their production. In this case, we assume we generally have the same programs as most of the other mortgage companies out there and good operational support.

Thus, the ability to differentiate ourselves would lie in the individual support we can give to our hires. This is especially true in light of the aging of our industry. As our ability to bring on self-sufficient top producer’s wanes, many will focus upon bringing loan officers into the industry and improving the results of existing loan officers.

In addition, as we populate the industry with new loan officers and they don’t receive the support they need from other companies, there will be the additional opportunity to attract those who are serious about taking their career to the next level.

For decades this industry has survived, for the most part, by bringing on experienced producers and loan officers. Sales managers were top producers and they did not have a lot of time to coach someone. If someone was not producing, the coaching applied was typically affected too late to rescue poorer producers. Managers are also not trained to coach as they have always been producers.

There are variations within the industry which exist, for example, in-house lead generating mortgage companies that are more likely to train and coach. However, in this case, the training is focused upon converting leads, not generating leads. Thus, the focus is on sales training vs. marketing training.

With loan officers who generate their own leads, the need for coaching is expanded from sales to marketing as well. When generating your own leads, marketing is actually more important than sales because marketing determines the strength of the lead:

• If you are purchasing leads and fielding cold calls, you will need extraordinarily strong sales skills.
• If you are generating strong referrals, your sales skills have to be adequate but not extraordinarily strong.

Coaching and mentoring are essential elements of management, which will become even more important in the future as our senior salesforce starts to retire. Because of this transition, we must evolve from organizations that exclusively hire experienced top producers with a total focus upon supporting them operationally, to one that will support and coach from a sales and marketing vantage point as well.

We must ask:

• Do we have the training we need to provide for our loan officers?
• Do our loan officers have the sales skills they need to convert leads?
• Do they have the marketing skills they need to produce leads?
• Are we supporting their marketing efforts as an organization?

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..