SALES – Are You Selling Or Wasting Time On Implode News Sites?

I did car sales for a year in my late teens. It was an eye opening experience. As a Mortgage Broker I wanted to send my Loan Officers to work auto sales for 3 months as a boot camp for learning sales.

One thing I always remembered was the “tuber” guy. He was the loser salesman with all the excuses. I’m sure there’s other names but he was the guy who never sold much and would drag everyone down. He would come around and suck you into all of his negativity and get you to wallow in his misery, as to why he couldn’t sell. Of course, he had a million reasons why it was everyone else’s fault and keeping him from doing sales. You had to avoid him cause he’d hide out back at the coffee machine and talk your ear off with tricks to drag your mind down to his level. Frankly hiding out at the coffee machine kept him off the sales floor and its was kinda ironic his sales where always low. When he was done feeding you his bull you’d wanna quit too. You could be having a positive great day and he could ruin it. You’d score a sale and he’d say something to take of its shine.

All through my sales career I’ve always seen those negative guys and been wary. Misery loves company and those people seem to have a way of trying to keep you down where your at, so that you don’t go beyond and outgrow their low comfort zones. God forbid you should get ahead successfully and make them look even lazier than they are. I learned along time ago when people get close to you they dont like being left behind. You may have people in your life that do this to you. This is why success coaches say get away from the news and the negativity of people that bring you down.

Last year as these implode doom and gloom mortgage blogs came out, the mortgage market got worse and worse. As an AE for wholesalers it used to really disturb me that mortgage loan officers where reading it first thing in the morning and sometimes all the time when I’d come by to visit. I started to wonder if anyone was doing much else in originating loans. I had one Manager that spent most of the day reading it and ignoring his sales team, who were trying to get deals done. It came to a point that the whole division failed with his ineptness. On a large scale the negative news paralyzed him in fear of doing his job. I must admit I look at one or 2 a week to glance it over for updates, but I just wanna quit my job if I get caught reading any of the articles. It seemed like so many Loan Officers where reading them that nothing was getting done and weirdly enough business went down. A lot of mortgage companies failed because their business volumes when down. Creepy huh. Self fulfilling destruction maybe.

Recently, I tried a few of the blog sites to try to find places to refer my clients whose deals I couldn’t do. I thought wow, these sites may be all of the mortgage professionals collectively positively working together to weather the storm and close deals. While there are some positive people trying on there, I’ve been shocked and the huge amount of negativity, discouragement and uneducated internet rats that are on there. You can see how often they post and some of these folks are posting at what seems to be all they do all day. I look at it thinking a lot of these people must not be working mortgages hard cause they are living on this blog site pissing venom all day. I can tell you if I owned a mortgage company I’d block these sites from my office. Maybe thats what my brokers should do. Many of the sites seem to have a majority of jaded losers who wanna drag all the positive posters down. A lot of times their info was completely off base, on truth or reality. A large amount of Haters and tubers seem actually angry that some of us are still working hard and making money in the business. Whats worse is they want to engage you and suck you into arguing with them just like the “tuber” back at the coffee machine. Soon enough your engaging/correcting them and not selling and they win. Sales is a head game and if negativity gets in your head – game over.

There are some good people on them but very few. While I’ve tried to be a lightning rod to support my fellow mortgage people its time we collectively worked together. I dont want to know what the problem is – bring me the solutions. Tell me how I can do it, not how I cant. The disturbing thing I’ve found is many of the owners of these sites dont have a positive regard for our industry, its people and refuse to support collective business building for us working together. Some of its people spit ugly when you try to work together with them. Its time for a lot of us in the industry to do “a checkup from the neck up.”

So lets get to the sales lesson – yes it been tough times. But the key to sales is HOW OFTEN ARE YOU IN FRONT OF A CUSTOMER! Read that for me 3 times. Turn off the TV’s, Ban the implode sights, turn off the losers who cant sell and are afraid to work hard. Put a big sign on your computer – how often am I in front of customers. What am I doing right now to BUILD my business. Is a loan gonna fall in your lap reading “tuber” websites? Theres always a customer buying something somewhere. You’d think with all these sites and news no one is doing anything. I like the line “there are people out there waiting to give you their money, you just have to go find them.”

Right now I see Realtors and Lo’s suffering, but I see others with tons of business innovating to get in front of more customers. Realtors with foreclosure buses, Realtors offering money back guarantees, etc. All changing the rules and dymaics to adapt. Theres always business and customers out there its just how hard do you want to work to get it.

Let me tell you my story. Right now a majority of my fellow wholesale AE’s have left the business. My last manager is working at a pizzeria. How am I surviving with more business than I ever had? A year ago I stated AE’ing at the worst time to start in this business. Now I have 8300+ loan officers across the Nation that I communicate with weekly. I get close to 300 mortgage scenarios a day! I have so much business its insane and I almost need an assistant. My problem is not having enough business but knowing enough wholesalers that can do all my catagories of business. I’m trying to AE for 4-5 or more wholesalers so I can be a one stop for my lo’s. I realize my Brokers want more. Their tired of running to 30 AE’s to get something done. I’m tired of telling them the one company I work for is lame and cant do it.

So I’ve gone out and got multiple lenders that want to help me and my brokers. I’m literally in front of customers 8+ hours a day. As the business got harder I came up with ways to get in front of more of my customers. My database grows cause I get 50-100 referrals a week and I ask brokers for more business. I have such loyalty with my clients when I goto a new lender, they blow off the new lenders old AE and start sending deals to me. I’ve overrun wholesalers with broker apps while my fellow AE’s cry they cant get anyone to sign up. I have a dearth of offers to come to work for wholesalers that I can turn offers away.

Whats my secret? I do work hard and smart. BUT I spend all my work time getting in front of and pitching as many people as I can. And my big final secret – I SELL. I’m not reading negative material. I turn off the TV at night and reflect on my business spending time with my family. I keep a task list so I know wha
t I need to do the next day (reading the internet is not one of the tasks). I’m re-writing the rules on what an AE is so that I can help coordinate and support my brokers, even if I dont make money referring a deal for them, I will. If I keep them in business they’ll keep me in business and together we’ll make it.

I applaud my courageous associates that have stuck it out in the business and even though its not easy, as I tell people it beats what my old associates are doing flipping burgers and pizza’s. We all know that the markets always recover and with so much competition wiped out we’ll make a huge killing. Just like a boxer you may get beat up in the ring but you get to drive off with the purse at the end.

So focus, turn off the distractions, get off the downer addictive media websites and the TV. These media elements are like drug habit to suck you out of working and success. Realize you may be hooked cause its easier to go there than make calls. Try just avoiding the negative media for a week and see how much better you feel. Read the book The Secret and find out how what you focus on is what you get. Read and do stuff that makes you better at what you do.

Take pride in what you and dont let those negative website ruin your head.
Do a checkup from the neck up and clear that garbage in your head and quit reading and listening to media garbage. Does the forum panel on CWBC talking about the mortgage crisis pay your bills this month? NO! YOU DO! So why are your watching a bunch of opinions. Do something right now that makes you money. Recognize your time wasters. ASK IS WHAT I’M INVESTING MY TIME ON, PAYING MY BILLS RIGHT NOW. WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT? Ask yourself “how can I do more business” How can I get in front of more clients? Am I making the best use of my time right now. Remember the ABC of sales? A great movie to watch is Glengarry Glen Ross. Not only does it have a great scene about closing, it’ll show you how other sales people share misery in dragging each other down while the top salesman is out getting customers.

Turn off the media. You wont get business if your reading crap and you’ll create your own self-fulfilling prophesy of failure. That negative junk will be in your head and come spilling out your mouth in front of your customer and you’ll lose the sale. You’ve gotta protect your head. Ask yourself if your getting checks for reading all the crap rags? No checks from them? Go do something that will get you a check.

Put a sticky note right now on your computer – “Get in front of more clients and am I utilizing the best use of my time getting in front of customers right now?”

Get out there – Do It Now! Take control and dont let newspapers and quitter websites determine the quality of your life!!

I’m here to tell you – you can do it!