Commercial Loan Broker
This commercial loan broker knows that bragging is not great, but F it. We’re excited.
With volume in our industry way, way down. Like in talking to our lenders and commercial mortgage broker brethren transaction activity fell off the cliff in November probably dropped 75% to 90%. Us too.
Commercial Loan
But unlike the credit freeze in 2008, now there is plenty of capital available for commercial loans. Despite the headlines of banks having stopped making loans. So we started shaking the trees. Called and emailed around 1,000 people who we worked with or tried to work with over past 20 years. I’d call them prospects. I define customers as people we’ve closed loans for and gotten paid. These people we called, maybe they signed a loan application, or a fee agreement with us, or we just talked to them and analyzed their deal.
Commercial Loan Broker Training
We stratify them in my contact database by how far through the sales process they got. Or with today’s terminology, the funnel. I learned this from master sales trainer Stephan Shiffman. In the mid 1990s I read one of his books, called ‘Getting to Closed’. I liked his book so much I ended up studying the book, and reading some more of his books. I arranged for a 2 day seminar where he would come to my former company and teach us his technique. It was expensive so he had to come by our office and pitch it to the then partners. They opted not to do the class.
When he was in our office I showed him how I organized my contacts with labels. Basically his technique is whatever your business is, you can define milestones when someone is 25% of a customer, 50%, 75% and then 100% when they pay for the sale. He says he doesnt know your business and you have to define what those relevant milestones are.
For us I chose 25% was when they sign a fee agreement, 50% when they sign a loan application, 75% when the loan is approved, 100% when the deal closes, and 110% when we close their second deal. I also added a few more milestones along the way that I thought were releavant to track, so that there is a series of about 10 labels in my contacts, I call them the opportunity labels.
Become a Commercial Loan Broker
I showed Mr. Schiffman and he was blown away. He said he had never seen anyone organize it so elegantly, let alone a commercial loan broker, and he was proud to see his process being applied to a contact database like that. I’ve always been a data junkie so if you give me your card or phone #, its locked down in my vault. I rarely lose a phone # or chance to capture someone’s contact info even if just a fleeting business encounter.
Commercial Loan Broker Business Opportunity
Well I had never really done anything with these opportunity labels. Blessed with repeat customers and mainly relying on people calling us when they needed a loan and staying busy like that. Sometimes we would update the label, like if I was talking to the person on the phone maybe we would change the label from 25% to 100% if we had closed a deal with them. We didn’t keep up on it but it was fairly accurate. Underestimated if you catch my drift, because people only can go up, not down. Figureing one day we would utilize this.
Well that day is now. And by shaking the trees we got flooded with deals. Thank you Stephan Schiffman. Your system works. One of our staff did a calling and email program that has been going for a couple of months.
Commercial Loan Broker Salary
We may need to bring in another anlayst now. We’ll see. Maybe team up with a commercial loan broker near me.
Its been nice catching up with people on phone that I havent spoken to in many years. We haven’t called our customers and repeat customers. But this commercial mortgage broker might have the staff do that next. I mean I would think they would call us when they need something, but never hurts to check in, right? I hope they dont get offended that I’m not personally calling. So far nobody has. I know that prospecting is important but the part I like best about the business is crunching the numbers, creative problem solving. My favorite is when I create a new financial product and then we convince a lender that is the best way to do the deal.
Forgive me for being out of touch. You know you have a good friend when you havent spoken to them in 10 years and you pick up right where you left off. Happy Holidays from Financial Compound!
This goes to show the importance of training, studying and reading then applying what you learn. Repetition is the mother of all learning, and this is a good reminder to not only ready and train, but apply that knowledge. Impressive
As a investor in commercial real estate, I make it a point to read about the current market conditions, specifically what is going on in the Commercial Mortgage market. I will say, the last year has become increasingly difficult to find money, I mean it is out there but it’s not cheap. I stumbled across Financial Compound just browsing different blogs online. I have to say, the information being shared is valuable. I recently shared some of the blogs with my partners and they were equally impressed. We have a list of 3-4 brokers to contact regarding upcoming projects we need to get financed, Financial Compound is on that list… Be talking and hopefully doing business with you soon.