Advertisemant - Do you really want the secret of sales production?
I have the secret… really! I know the shortcut

Honest to God! I know how to make money without working, without having to put in very much effort, without the need to be innovative, inventive, interesting and persistent. It is cheap, costing you only a reasonable percent of a thousand dollars. So, let me tell you how it works.

But first, I need to convince you of the secret.

I have such a great shortcut to the secret of riches beyond your wildest dreams. Why it took me so long to get it out into the public eye is just a crying shame. I probably would not be writing this paper today if only I had taken the time to teach you what every successful person in the world knows. They have a secret and I’m the only one who is going to tell you. It will probably cost me my life, cause now that I’m letting all of you know about it, my life is probably not worth spit.  But what the hell, I’m getting pretty old now, feeling punk, health issues are creeping up. And all my friends tell me that if I tell this secret, create a book, a CD, a series of training materials that will be able to sell for some ungodly figure, at least if I am killed, my wife and kids will be left a wonderful amount of money that they’ll be able to splurge on.

Bull shit! Yes, Horse shit!

Ok. Open your eyes here, real wide. And put your hands over your ears here, cause I’m about to shout.

THERE ARE NO SECRETS. THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS.

What every successful salesperson in America knows, nay, every salesperson that lives anywhere, in any place on earth and beyond knows, is that the secrets are nonsense. Utter Nonsense!

What these people might have is a ready made program, a ready made outline, a ready-made path to follow, well worn tried and true methods that have worked for millennia.

I love some of the programs that are available on the marketplace. I’ve been schooled in Loan-Tool-Box, the Turning Point program for Data Base retention, seen Mortgage Coach perform a wonderful service, read every week the Mortgage Market Guide so that it’s value is so apparent, that I don’t know why every loan officer doesn’t use it.  I’ve seen affinity programs, ready to mail postcards, letters and advertisement programs. Every one of these tools is a very important part of the successful whole.

BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lets start at the beginning.

No secret remains that way for very long. Usually every secret is told between two people who trust each other. At least the teller is trusting the listener. Well, I don’t know you well enough to trust you, so if you learn anything here, be sure you pass it on. Just be sure you use my name in the telling.

Salespeople need to do three things to be successful:

• GIVE AWAY INFORMATION;
• ASK FOR BUSINESS;
• BE PERSISTENT.

GIVE AWAY INFORMATION- If you don’t let people know what you know, if you don’t proactively let people know that you understand what you do, how are they ever going to know? In order to do that, of course, you really have to understand what it is that you do. About four years ago I had the bright idea of having a group of loan officers, who all worked at one branch, share in the concept of group marketing. The idea was for them to each individually write an article about a particular subject, such as ARM’s, Truth In Lending, Good Faith Estimate, etc. Then each could use each other’s article to send to their respective clients via a weekly email. What a disaster. What an utter waste of time. In the group of seven of these people, not one of them was able to accurately describe the subject they were asked to write about. I was appalled, amazed, and alarmed. What I had to do was to write the articles myself. They are now available to you on the MORTGAGE PRESS website, www.mortgagepress.com.  That of course is a shortcut. But for you to actually be able to give away information, you need to study and learn about your business, your livelihood. So, one of my pet peeves that you can mollify me on is to read at least one article a week on the mortgage industry at least until you understand it.

Your business, your ability to help the customer accomplish what it is that they want.

ASK FOR BUSINESS- This can be a subtle or direct request. But it must be made. I have always taught salespeople that in order to generate business, they need to ask for it. Marketing your services is done through many means. Advertising, seminars, flyers etc.; there must always be the mantra that would include some reference to having the client contact you to see if they need what it is that you are offering.

It is important that you never leave the presence of anyone who can refer business to you without asking them for a referral. Will you always get one, no of course not, but if you don’t ask for business, you won’t get it. This raises the issue of “NO”. The word I have learned to love more than any word there is. No just means I’m closer to yes. No means you heard me. No means I asked. No means- maybe not right now, but if you ask me at the right time in the right way, it might be yes. No doesn’t mean I don’t like you it only means I’m not ready to do business with you right now. You turn no in to yes, but now on to the third step that will get you to yes.

BE PERSISTENT Because if you are not, if you do not ask over and over if you do not market overt and over time after time then what are you wasting your time doing? Here are a couple of statistics that the Xerox corp. has published. Only 92% of salespeople persist after the 4th call. Conversely 60 % of the buying public buys something only after being asked Five times. WHAT? What is that? You mean that if the last 8% of sales calls were follo3wedthrought with there would be a 60% chance of making a sale? Wow oh wow. Well, here is the way most people work. Oh no, they don’t like me so I won’t go back. They’ve told me over and over.

Here is another piece of my logic. If you want to generate business from an apartment complex and you have decided that there is where you are going to market your wares, but you NEVER send even one piece of marketing material to that apartment complex. NEVER. What is the likelihood that you will generate business from that apartment complex? Pretty slim I imagine. Well, here is the other question. If you send a marketing piece to that same apartment complex for the rest of your life, do you think that you’ve increased you chance of generating business from that apartment complex? Duh? Oh my God1 I don’t understand this. It is too logical.

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