Mindset or Sales Skills

I received an email this week that said the following:

As a sales person myself I find that sometimes I get "on a roll" and can do no wrong while other times I can't sell a life preserver to a drowning man. I think its probably in my mindset and posture.

What do you think is more important in Sales ...Mindset or Sales Skills?

I don’t think you can be truly successful without both, but I can say that I have trained people with average skills and mindset to become outstanding performers, so I’d have to say skill (not to be confused with experience – that makes you knowledgeable, but not necessarily successful or effective). By the same token, the best mindset without skills won’t do you much good. Good skills tend to lead to good mindset.

Loan Officer Tip - Prioritize Refinance Leads for Success

Last week, I talked about prioritzing your leads. So how do you determine the order of the leads? Here are four tips:

Prioritize by Equity: Prioritize your leads from highest to lowest equity. As we covered last week, this is the first and foremost criteria for qualifying a borrower.

Prioritize by Debt: Prioritize your leads from the highest to the lowest debt. This establishes the greatest opportunity for creating benefits for the borrower (the more debt, the more monetary benefits you can provide – we’ll cover this in a later edition).

Prioritize by Opportunity: Now re-prioritize your stack from the highest combination of equity and debt (top of stack) to the lowest combination (bottom of stack).

Categorize your Leads: Finally, divide your leads into 3 categories: A, B and C. “A” leads are those with lots of equity and debt (highest sales potential), “B” leads are those with medium or low equity and debt (medium sales potential), and “C” leads are those with no equity or debt (No sales potential). Once completed, remove any that do not have adequate income to qualify based on a post-consolidation debt to income calculation.

Now that you only have qualified leads in your stack and they are properly prioritized, start at the top and work your way down. Give maximum time to the A and B leads and minimal time to the C leads.

Loan Officer Tip - Prioritize Refinance Leads for Success

Avoiding "Random Selection"

A few weeks ago, I talked about identifying qualified leads in today’s changing market. This week I want to focus on prioritizing those leads to maximize your success. This is a critical tip that will make the difference between success and failure. Understand, there is a priority order to your leads.

For example, if you have 10 leads on your desk, there is one, and only one, lead in the stack that is the highest potential (easiest to sell) – a lead that has so much benefit value to your borrower that it will change their life. By the same token, there is only one lowest potential (impossible to sell) lead in the stack that you could not sell under any circumstances. The eight leads in between also have a priority order from highest to lowest potential.

Your challenge for this week, if you really want to succeed, is to put your leads in order from highest to lowest potential. Start at the top and work your way down!

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Success From Self-Promotion

Personal Referral Sources

1. Daily Contacts: Promote yourself in social and business settings.
2. Personal Contacts: Identify personal contacts that represent sales or referral opportunities.
3. Local Businesses: Contact local businesses regarding referral opportunities.
4. Industry Conferences: Attend lending and credit conferences.
5. Community Events: Get involved in community events to network.
6. Community Associations: Become a member of one community association.
7. Trade Shows: Attend industry related trade shows
8. Speaking Engagements and Articles: Write articles for your local paper or industry periodicals or speak at events.
9. Professional Network Group: Coordinate a ground of lending, credit and financial service professionals to meet monthly.

Are there any others that you have found to be successful? Leave a comment with some of the ideas you have found to be helpful in regards to promotion!