Brokers' know-how should evolve along with their tools, Patton says
As the director of sales at Butler Mortgage, Daniel Patton boasts 17 years of experience in the industry – years that have seen significant steps in the evolutionary ladder of communications technology.
This has taken on a deeper meaning in the age of COVID-19, which has spurred the so-called “teleworking revolution” that has seen industries across the board conduct majority of their business online.
“A lot of what we do now is electronic and over email or Zoom chats,” Patton said. “There was a time where I would meet with every client in person and run numbers, etc., for a pre-approval. As the years have gone by, we’ve really had to adjust to a more electronic-based customer service and a more efficient internal processing system internally.”
The very nature of their work necessitated these shifts, Patton said.
“We are a high-volume brokerage which brings in a lot of leads, but you have to ensure those leads won’t suffer from a customer-service standpoint, so adding our internal tracking system has really enabled us to focus not only on the customer service, but [also on] the ability to handle a large numbers of leads without compromising the service we’ve built our team on,” Patton said.
The sheer amount of data that Patton’s firm had managed also provided him with valuable tools.
“Knowing the different bank products (whether they be in the broker channel or not) really helps give us an advantage when placing a deal,” Patton said. “We’ve been able to turn many declines into approvals by simply knowing the different lender rules.”
Patton said that his organization’s success has only been possible with colleagues who have similar views towards technology and the business.
“Over 18 years, there have been many changes and challenging deals that we all as brokers have dealt with. Having the support of a great team and lenders alike to answer questions and help package deals is extremely valuable,” Patton said. “Learning different products, adjusting the way we run a pre-approval, and adding an electronic tracking system for our deals and internal files have made a huge difference in our ability to grow and service clients to the best of our ability.”
