Tomorrow – What Are You Going To Do Tomorrow?

Tomorrow – What Are You Going To Do Tomorrow?

Without a plan you are going to be miserable

BY RALPH LOVUOLO, SPECIAL TO NATIONAL MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL

When you get up to go to work tomorrow, what are you going to feel like? While you’re driving to work tomorrow what will you be thinking about and what emotions are you going to be feeling?

Here’s what I’m willing to bet. Most of you, the greater majority to be exact, well maybe even more than that, will feel a combination of a sense of panic, worry, wonder, envy, dread and fear.

Why all these negative emotions? Why would people in the greatest business in the world, one that allows us to help our fellow man live a better life and make money while doing that, why in the world should you not be feeling GREAT?

What I believe, based on careful observation of people just like you for over 50 years, is most of you have no sense of your goals, your plans or what to do with yourself almost every day of your life. You really, for the most part, don’t set yourself up to win, you allow yourself to fail, or at least be mediocre. At best!

ELIMINATE QUIET DESPERATION

Don’t you want to be a professional? Don’t you want to eliminate from your life the quiet desperation that the philosophers say most of us live with every day? Don’t you want to be in control of your life, your income, your future, your family, your existence?

You can you know. But all of those things can only be yours if you change and do it quickly. I have written repeatedly about the perfect storms that the mortgage industry has had to bear. I’ve written of just a couple of ways that can help you navigate out of the storm. But there is something bigger, something so immense that most of us can’t even comprehend it.

I read all the wonderful things that most of my peers write. I see all the websites, Facebook pages and informational pamphlets from coaches and trainers that promise to help you make a life for yourself filled with riches beyond belief. So why don’t you have those riches? Why oh why are you so desperate every day to figure out where your next deal is coming from? I’ll tell you again. You won’t change. You won’t take control. You just want to roll with what’s going on in your life because change and taking control of your daily activities is too hard.

Well I guarantee you this, if you don’t take control, don’t set up a plan don’t take your life by the horns, you’re going to continue to be miserable.

SUCCESS IS WITHIN REACH

If I could be in front of most of you right now, I’d grab you by the shoulders and shake you silly. You know why? Because your success is right in front of you, right there for the taking; as available to every one of you as it is to those who have already achieved success.

So about 40 years ago, I was working as a new loan officer. There was this guy, a real estate salesman. He was most unremarkable, in appearance, dress, brainpower, and sociability. But one day, when I went to visit, he told me he was going to open his own office, be his own boss.

Little did I know what had gone on behind the scenes. He had been studying. He had decided to change; to make something of himself and change the way he acted to achieve the dreams he had.

He asked me to visit the new office. I found out he had been studying how to set up an office; how to be a manager by studying management books. He was ready to change. He was positioned to be the man he wanted to be.

DON’T FEAR SUCCESS

You can be that person, you can change the way you do things every day, but why don’t you? Why don’t you just decide to be what you want to be? What the hell are you afraid of? Success? Is that what you’re afraid of? Is that why you won’t take control of your life? I don’t buy that for a minute.

Here is what I believe. You are doing what you do because you like it. You’re comfortable; if you take yourself out of your comfort zone, you might not be able to get to where you want to be. You’re afraid, because someone in your life told you that you should not put yourself out. Well thank God for those few that don’t listen to that crap.

Your dreams can only be realized if you take serious major steps in a different direction. Well, maybe you’ve been crawling. You need to get organized, establish goals, and put together a plan. Then you need to actually work on the plan, creatively, as if you mean it; as if you were putting together a group to go out this coming Friday.

And right here is the first solid step for you.

SET YOUR GOALS

What are your goals? How much business do you want to do in the next 12 months? How much money do you want to make in the next 12 months? And what are you going to do with the money? What the heck are you working for? What dreams can you actually make happen if you had the money? WHY do you do what you do?

Write down on one piece of paper exactly what I’m about to tell you to do. Do it just like I’m telling you, and if you put it off, you really don’t want to change. Do it NOW!

Make a list of the next 12 months, one under the other; next to each month, write how many loan applications you will write that month; next to that write down how many closings you will have. Next to that make an average of how much you make per closing and multiply it by the number of closings you will have, total the final column and see if it adds up to the amount of money you say you want to make.

If the numbers don’t add up, you need to adjust the number of loans you will write or the number of closings or the amount of commission you will earn. I hope you have noticed that I have not once used any of the following words; expect to, hope to, want to, might, maybe. The goals you write down must be real; they must be attainable; they must be a bit beyond reasonable. But more than anything they must be written down.

MAKE YOUR MARKETING PLAN

Next you need to come up with a minimum of FOUR different marketing initiatives that will get you the number of loan applications you will write, close, and get paid on! Here are some samples:

• Apartment complex marketing.

• Database marketing. Call every person in your database every quarter.

• Realtor partnering.

• Affinity marketing.

• A weekly email to every person you know.

• Calling on bank and credit mortgage officers to ask them to give you the loans they can’t do.

• Develop relationships with builders.

• Develop relationships with financial planners, CPAs, insurance brokers.

• Teaching at real estate schools.

Write out a detailed plan of how you are going to actually put into play the minimum of four marketing initiatives that you’ve chosen. A detailed plan. Got it? Detailed. How many? specifically how often? who? when? why? Who are they? Detailed. Specifically what are you going to say when you write, call or email them?

Any good marketing plan has as a basis the idea that you will do it over and over and over until you die. DIE! If you get lost in the details, ask someone who knows how to do this sort of thing to help you. Details. A plan. Got it?

Statistics show that 44% of all salespeople quit after the 1st call (mailing); 22% after the 2nd; 14% after the 3rd; 12% after the 4th; ONLY 8% persist to the 5th call back. Further statistics show that 60% of all buyers’ say “No” 5 times before they buy. So, it is imperative that you become part of the 8% that persevere.

Most salespeople fail because they give up too soon.

Ralph LoVuolo is a regular contributor to National Mortgage Professional. He produces a video daily at www. oneideaaday.com