Finding your focus and setting efficient processes is one of the best ways to increase your loan volume. This year’s Sales Mastery speakers offered many awesome loan officer tips on how time management will bring you to success. Most noteworthy was that having a great loan officer schedule will free you up to enjoy your life outside of work.
Keep in mind, this isn’t the first time we’ve written about scheduling your day. That means something, right? You can read more about a prescriptive daily loan officer schedule over here.
Here’s the loan officer tips for finding your focus that they shared:
- Why Time Blocking is Important
- Spend Time Planning For Your Business
- Set Your Routines
- Delegate Accordingly
- Compartmentalize Your Focus & Set Boundaries
- Commit To Your Plan
Why Time Blocking is Important
Time blocking is a way of setting up your daily schedule. Just as the name implies, it involves dedicating specific blocks of time to certain tasks. Not only does planning ahead in this way, make your day more efficient, it will also help you better understand how you’re spending your time.
Rachel Pierce says, “Time blocking has really grown my business because I have set times to do my calls, and it has given me more family time. I go to that first. If you can be disciplined and block your time, you can do it.”
Spend Time Planning For Your Business
In our last Lessons from Sales Mastery article, we talked about the importance of a great loan officer business plan. No matter what your goals are for your future, it’s critical to plan ahead if you want to reach them.
James Pulsipher says, “Spend more time planning. When you’re starting [a] business, it’s all about survival. Had I just paused and gotten a little bit better at planning, it would have let that growth happen sooner and more organically.”
For example, one way to plan for your future is to determine exactly what you’d like from your business, and work backward from there. James says, “If I want to close 10 units a month, I need to go to 10 closings a month. If I want to get to 10 closings, I need 13 loan applications, which means talking to 36 borrowers, or whatever your conversion [rate] is.”
Part of the planning process is determining your conversion rates so you can in fact set goals for each stage of your pipeline.
Set Your Routines
Now that you know your goals, it’s time to decide what routines you need to set to get you there. These routines will probably need to be fairly specific. For instance, you could decide to dedicate an hour every morning to calling your leads. Or, block off two lunch times a week to meet with realtor partners to strengthen those relationships.
Another way to increase your efficiency is to follow the loan officer tips regarding decluttering. Lisa Wills says, “I have been a slave to my computer. For every email you send, you get three back, so I stopped sending unnecessary emails, and my calendar cleared.” This isn’t exactly scheduling your day with to-dos, but instead, deciding what you won’t do that day.
Additionally, Lisa says that she evaluates her efficiency on an hour by hour basis. “I do 55 minute hours. [I] take those last five minutes to look back and say, ‘Was I efficient? Was I effective?’ You can’t control very much in the industry, but you can control your time and your focus.”
This is a great way to track your effectiveness and decide if your schedule is bringing you closer to your goals.
Delegate Accordingly
The next, crucial step, is to delegate the tasks that you can. That may mean assigning certain tasks, such as sending drip marketing campaigns or loan status updates, to your CRM.
Delegating is not easy. After all, it requires trusting others to help you reach your business goals. However, not only does delegation increase team trust, it also will free you up to do the things that matter most: which could be life outside of work.
Compartmentalize Your Focus & Set Boundaries
You must set boundaries with your time if you want to be successful. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself being pulled in a million different directions, trying to handle every email, phone call, and question at the same moment.
Heather Bomar says, “Compartmentalize focus. Wherever you are, be there. If you’re at work, work. If you’re at home, be home. Don’t mix the two.”
Another way to increase your efficiency and reach success is to block out distractions. Marty Preston says, “I always sucked at time blocking because I always allowed interruptions.” When your phone is ringing off the hook or your email is dinging with unread messages, it’s nearly impossible to truly focus.
By time blocking, you can set aside “distraction free” times to work on bigger projects that require all of your attention.
Commit to Your Plan
It’s essential to commit to your new plan of efficiency if you want to see a return on your investment. Todd Duncan says, “You’re not paid by how many hours you work. The only relationship between an hour and worth and wealth is how you pay attention to the minutes.”
This means that you need to stay consistent with your focus, and make the sacrifices and changes necessary to reach success. Todd goes on to say, “It’s not whether an idea is new or not, it’s whether you do something with it. The principles are the principles because they are the principles, success is a byproduct of executing the principles.”
Bottom Line
These top producing loan officers who spoke at Sales Mastery shared many loan officer tips regarding time management. Scheduling your day carefully will help you reach your goals, and will also free you up to pursue the parts of your life beyond work.
Ready to find out how to make your day even more efficient, close more loans, and make more money? Sign up for a free, no-pressure demo of Jungo today.
