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Success with Subprime
by Brian
Sacks
Do you have a question for Mr. Sacks? E-mail
it to brian@loanofficersuccess.com.
Click here
for more articles by Mr. Sacks.
Setting Realistic Goals
Setting realistic goals is an important step toward being
successful, but in all honesty, it is also the easiest part. A more difficult challenge is developing a business
plan that outlines how you will achieve your goals.
I ran across a saying years ago that I have displayed in
my office ever since: "Some people make things happen; some people watch things happen; and some people wonder
what has happened." If you want to make the achievement of your goals happen, you need a plan.
Suppose I say that I would pay you a million dollars if
you can get to Kalamazoo by 9:00 tomorrow morning. The goal is obvious. You just need to gather critical information,
map out a travel strategy, and go! Where is Kalamazoo? Is possible to drive there avoiding major city rush hours
along the way? What is the weather forecast for today and tomorrow morning? What is the nearest major airport?
What are the flight schedules? How long would it take to get there from the airport to the destination? In other
words, once you have a clear idea of where you are going and when you want to arrive, you have to decide how you are
going to get there. You need a road map, so to speak - the road map that will lead you step-by-step to your success.
One aspect of developing a plan involves finding the niches
that will support the achievement of your goals. We've already discussed how exploiting a particular niche and
establishing yourself as the expert sets you apart from your competitors and helps you gain more control of your
time. Another advantage of focusing on a particular niche market is that you can tailor your work, to some extent,
to fit your individual preferences.
Whether you like dealing with wealthy folks or you like
to feel as though you've helped someone who has experienced a tragedy rebuild their lives, you can choose your
area of focus. You can choose to do low volume with relatively high profit margins or the opposite, whichever suits
your style.
Another crucial step in the overall plan is getting educated.
You must take an honest, candid look at yourself and your shortcomings and identify skills you need to acquire
to become an expert in the niche you have chosen. And don't, as many loan officers do, neglect basic sales training.
Anything you can do to improve your salesmanship will pay
dividends in this business. A number of options exist for getting any training you need. Taking courses and attending
seminars are popular traditional means of getting up to speed on specific skills or topics.
Your yearly and monthly income goals come into the planning
stage when you start to analyze your market. To lay out a reasonable plan for achieving your goals, you must consider
the average loan size in your marketplace, your sources of referrals, and the types of products you offer.
This information will help you reach a reasonably accurate
estimate of how much you can expect to make per loan. Then it becomes obvious how much business you need to do
each month. As you are calculating how many loans you need to close each month to reach your goal, don't forget
about the fallout factor.
You actually need to initiate a few more loans than you
want to close, because for various reasons they won't all make it. Generally, you should allow for a 15-20% fallout.
This means if you need to close 10 loans in a month to reach your goal, you'd better process 12 or 13.
Click here
for more articles by Mr. Sacks.
Visit Brian Sacks's web site at www.loanofficersuccess.com.
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