Many loan officers struggle to achieve a steady, consistent flow of referrals from real estate agents. If you’re one of them, you’re in good company– it’s my experience that most are otherwise good, reliable, solid originators. How do I explain this seeming discrepancy? It’s simple: Building referral business from realtors presents challenges that have very little to with sales ability.

There are many mistakes commonly made by even the best of us, and these can cause all of your hard work and effort to come crashing down on you. Believe me: All of us have made these mistakes at one time or another. Let’s see if any of these sound a bit too familiar to you:

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Mistake #1: “I’m going to help you build your business.”

Many loan officers use this phrase, assuming real estate agents will respond enthusiastically to it. Unfortunately, this approach typically sends agents fleeing, and for good reason.

Imagine that you are a real estate professional who is constantly solicited by loan officers promising to “help you build your business.” Now, how many of those loan officers do you think will have kept those promises over the years? At what point do you think the agent begins to roll his/her eyes and think “yeah right, I’ve heard that one before?”

Besides, “building business” is simply not a big issue with most high producing agents. That’s something they’re already good at! How do I know this? The agents themselves told me. I conducted a survey with 100 local agents in my marketplace. The results would likely surprise you!

Mistake #2: Naive Email/Direct Mail Campaigns

Before I jump too heavily into describing this common mistake, I need to talk out of both sides of my mouth for a few seconds. I don’t want you to think that I am claiming that email and/or direct mail is a waste of time. On the contrary. A well executed campaign should include an automated follow-up system whenever possible.

Unfortunately, most loan officers have no idea how to execute an effective email and direct mail campaign—It’s simply not their area of expertise. In fact, I can’t stress enough how costly this mistake can be. So many loan officers will find some sort of canned material, or subscription service and pay out the nose to get it, and then they send it out to every realtor whose email address they can manage to harvest.

You know what happens next? Nothing! That’s right, I said nothing. Most originators rely too heavily on sending emails and postcards as precious time slips right on by. They sit there and hope and wait and hope some more, that eventually some agent somewhere will respond to their message and give them a call.

Sure, this may happen once in a blue moon. But who wants to spend that kind of money and time and get such lackluster returns? please, PLEASE do yourself a favor and stop using the scattergun approach to generating business.

Mistake #3: Fear

I really had to wrestle with myself to decide what should go into spot #3: Lack of planning, poor scripting, awkward, clumsy contact approaches?

Important issues all—but all are dwarfed by the devastating impact that fear can play on our ability to succeed. One who is poorly prepared, or ill-scripted will occasionally hit pay dirt simply because they’re out there in the game. However, if you’re locked up by fear, reluctant to swing because you’re afraid of the ball, you’ve already lost before you even stepped up to the plate!

The sad truth is that most loan officers who are afraid will never admit it, even to themselves. This is the true mistake; not the fear itself.

Being afraid means that you are human. I had my battle with fear as well, and it would surprise you if I recounted all the originators (managers, brokers and owners) I’ve worked with who had poor success because they just couldn’t get themselves to meet with an agent personally. Many couldn’t even get themselves to pick up the phone!

The point is, so many of us have been there—And we managed to overcome it! You can too. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but you MUST admit the problem if we are to correct it.

There is a very simple and a very powerful solution that can make your confidence soar. I’m not going to insult your intelligence and tell you that it happens overnight. But I will tell you that we can take that fear and mold it into something great. Need proof? Again, just look how so many of us have been in your shoes and managed to defeat it.

Did any of these mistakes look a bit too familiar? Have you used any of these strategies before? If you want to move forward in learning more about how to incorporate an effective strategy into your current game plan, visit my website to signup for my next free teleconference call.

Copyright Chad Weber. All rights reserved. Carving out his niche as a Loan Officer, Chad Weber developed a fool-proof system that guaranteed referral business from real estate agents. It became the foundation for “Average Joe L.O.” which provides hype-free marketing products for loan officers who target real estate agents. If this is your target, visit AverageJoeLO.com today to take advantage of additional free training materials.

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