Buying Brain Cells

BY MICHAEL COLLINS

Early in my career, there were no mortgage gurus or real sales trainers. I was given a territory & told to visit real estate offices to drop off rate sheets & donuts. Probably a foreign concept to some of you! I was also given leads of borrowers who were customers of the bank where I worked.

Both approaches worked out pretty well but I knew there had to be better ideas. Like you, I was always looking for a better way. I had the supreme luck to meet the very experienced & successful Debra Jones. Debra was a Loan Officer who owned a mortgage brokerage, but she also put out a Loan Originator newsletter.

Of the many things Debra shared, what really stuck with me & became the foundation of my marketing was, “We are in the business of buying brain cells.”

Now, what the heck does that mean?

It means we have an obligation in our career to make sure that as many people as possible know what we do for a living & how we can assist them. It sounds simple, even logical, but do you actually do this? Does everyone you know, in your family & friendships, know what you do & how you can help them?

I have known loan officers who were reluctant to do this as they “did not want to be pushy” or “take advantage of a relationship or friendship.” They believed it was better to do business with strangers. Bull hockey!

When I was young, I got involved in NuSkin, an MLM (multi-level marketing) company. The goal of an MLM is to sign people up under you in a pyramid structure, wherein you earn commissions from them. I met people who did well with the MLM but it was not my cup of tea. However, I was exposed to some great marketing concepts through NuSkin, one of which is the concept that everyone we meet has a circle of influence – of potentially 250 people!

But what does this have to do with buying brain cells?

One of the suggestions Debra gave me was to send snail mail to my past customers so one year I sent out Thanksgiving Day cards. I only had about 50 people in my database at that time so it was pretty easy to do.

The next week, I received a call from a woman who said I was the topic of conversation at her holiday dinner. “You did a mortgage for my sister last spring,” she said. “She got your card with your business card in it. At dinner I mentioned that I was buying a house & needed a mortgage so she gave me your card.” So I bought brain cells remotely, at a Thanksgiving dinner!

Although my former business partner Peter & I both originated loans, he was able to originate loans purely on his personality. Peter was a big gregarious guy who could walk into a room & within 15 minutes be surrounded by an audience laughing along with his story. It was truly a gift.

What kept his business going year after year was that there was no one Peter knew who did not know what he did for a living & how he could help them or their friends. To this day, at almost 70 years of age, he remains a very successful mortgage originator.

You’ve probably heard of Johnny Appleseed. He was actually a real person named Johnny Chapman & he really did walk across the Midwest planting apple trees, so much so that he ended up personally owning 1,200 acres of apple trees. (Back then, if you planted a tree you owned it.) Ultimately those trees provided a significant amount of fruit & cider to American pioneers as they traveled west to settle.

I encourage all my clients to think like Johnny Appleseed. The more seeds you plant, the more fruit you will get. Whether it is sending out emails, mailing cards, making cold calls or meeting people face to face, you have to be “planting seeds.” You can’t keep what you do a secret! NC

Michael Collins is a business strategist, success mentor & creator of “Street Smart Marketing for Loan Originators.” If you would like more information about “Buying Brain Cells” and how & where to start, email coach@michaelcollinscoaching.com or call 732-620-8541 for a complimentary strategy call.