With the constant ebb and flow of the market, many loan officers often find themselves falling into common, and sometimes avoidable, traps.
In today’s day and age, the mortgage industry is an ever-changing environment. With the constant ebb and flow of the market, many loan officers often find themselves falling into common, and sometimes avoidable, traps.
One mortgage executive says that there are two common pitfalls that loan officers must be aware of: a lack of perspective and resistance to change, says Jason Dozois, CEO of Colorado-based Loan Simple. “I think the two major pitfalls most loan officers fall into is a lack of perspective and a resistance to change,” says Dozois. “Perspective is required when determining if the actions you are taking are the ones most likely to achieve your goal. There is a fine line between a habit and a rut. It is all too common for loan officers to continue to do something that might have worked at one point but is no longer working.”
Furthermore, Dozois mentions how loan officers at times can struggle to adjust to change even when they are fully aware that change is necessary. “It can be scary to go from the known to the unknown, the familiar to the new,” he continues.
Yet, alike many obstacles, there are ways to overcome and persevere above the setbacks that hinder many LOs. According to Dozois, self-examination is one way that loan officers can rise above these pitfalls – though it may not be as simple as it seems. “In terms of perspective, self-examination is difficult. This is why we strongly encourage our loan officers to work with our management team or a third party coach to help them assess what’s working, what’s not and what they can do to change the outcome,” he says. For overcoming change, Dozois suggests removing the possibility of failure as an easy way of passing that hurdle. “[We] never advise our loan officers to do something we haven’t already done. Before we encourage the use of a new process, system, product, coaching program, sales tool, etc., we always test and re-test internally. When we can show that a specific change results in a specific result, it is no longer a leap of faith. It’s simply a better route to their destination,” he says.
Despite the variety of pitfalls facing mortgage professionals today, Loan Simple strives to promote the success of its employees through the highs-and-lows of every challenge.
“We recognize that there is no such thing as one size fits all in the mortgage business. Every branch manager and loan officer faces different challenges in every market every day. Our job is to understand the unique challenges they face and remove them,” says Dozois.
