"It's not your fault, but it is your problem"

It was in 2016 when Daniel Halvorsen recalls recalibrating the strategic focus of his team. As area manager at Bank of England Mortgage, he told MPA that recognizing the need for diversification, they concentrated on enhancing their database to improve direct marketing efforts to past clients and expanding their reach within the industry.

“Our business was about 90% driven by real estate agent referrals - 10% of it was past clients and other sources of business,” said Halvorsen. “Real estate agents will always be a great source of business for a lot of retailers – however, we spent a lot more time working on our database. [It’s about] having high-quality, valuable data, staying in front of people, and putting a strategy together to market specifically to past clients. Subsequently this organically became marketing to other ancillary professionals within the industry, financial professionals and real estate attorneys.”

This instigated something of a lightbulb moment for Halvorsen – leading him to ask himself how they can get people that have already done business with to work with them once again. Fast forward a few years and now 70% of their business is past client and database referrals while 30% is real estate referrals.

“I think this was really something that was a springboard for the success of our team,” said Halvorsen. “Another component of that is on a day to day [basis] the team as a whole was already regimented with respect to following up with leads and clients – it’s very structured. We have a plan, we execute it, we don’t deviate from it.”

It’s this commitment to following up on all client leads and questions that ultimately led to an increase in revenue for Halvorsen – even if the questions themselves revolved around non-revenue issues at first.

“It just solidified our value to them,” he told MPA. “And increases the likelihood they come back through the door. In a nutshell, this is a large portion of how we were able to do more volume than we [used to].”

Leading his team through change is only one of Halvorsen’s skills. Starting out as an originator before managing a team and building that growth has given Halvorsen a unique perspective on what each role demands.

“Our singular focus is getting the customer to the closing table,” he explained. “Within that, there’s a quote I reinforce to our sales team – ‘It’s not your fault, but it is your problem’. Anyone who has been in this business knows things go wrong at some point – there’s a lot of people involved. And sometimes, if something doesn’t go as planned there’s a mentality of ‘it’s not my fault’.”

Instead, Halvorsen believes in taking accountability, finding a solution together, and never pointing the finger.

“Face it as if it is your problem. Come back to the client with the focus of getting to the closing table.”

Another favorite quote for the high-pressures stakes of the mortgage industry? You can’t measure outcomes, you can only measure effort. By that, Halvorsen means keeping a personal check on what a successful day looks like – and work to maintain that level of productivity.

“How much time you spend in prospecting, how many good conversations you’re having - because at the end of the day all we can do is measure the effort we’re putting forth and the outcomes will come from that,” he said. “I constantly remind people that if they’re looking solely at how many loans [someone] is closing, this really cannot be measured. You can only measure what you’re doing to get people in the door.”