Why Not Call Friends and Family?

“I don’t want my family to think I need money,” she said. It was a conversation that I had with a fantastic loan officer last Thursday. She does a heck of a job closing loans in Florida. Another 2.0 stranger that I’ve come to like. It’s a serious thing, you don’t want to be an relentless shill, monetizing the crap out of your friends and family….but you always feel terrible if they get a bad deal with someone else, or are stuck with paralysis.

Still–it’s ego–that keeps that from happening. We loan officers get people looking at us as if we’re either (A) evil or (B) starving way too much. We don’t want our friends and family to think that we don’t have enough business. Or we don’t want them to feel pressure to work with us. We probably also don’t want to have them feel ‘used,’ by us also, or always be selling something.

All of them are valid concerns.

But here’s the rub: If you don’t offer to help your friends and family…you are responsible for whatever bad service that they get. I have a buddy that did an option arm 3 years ago. He was going back to his same provider, with conforming credit a few months ago, and was being offered the “3 out the back 2 out the front deal,” by the same person that gave him an unnecessary option arm (he was a salaried guy, and it was a savings of nothing, but he made 3 out the back then, too). I offered to look over the paperwork, and my loan was profitable at a lower rate with no points. Had I not reached out to him, that would have been $1400 a year out of pocket, and $5500 out of equity.

You never want to monetize everyone you know, but you DO want to make sure that they get good service, good advice, and are taken care of. So what do you do?

You’ve got to be authentic. You’ve got to be honest. And you have to really care. Fake sincerity is odious.

1. Admit it’s a business call immediately. (This relieves tension for BOTH of you) “Hi Jane, This is Sarah, and this is a business call, do you have a minute?”
2. Tell them what’s happening: “You know that there’s a ton of bad news in the mortgage industry, and I wanted to make sure all of your family’s questions were answered, and you didn’t make any major mistakes.”
3. Get something from them: “Well, you know me, and I was also wondering if you could help me make sure that nobody that we know gets a bad deal on their loan.”

If you do this once a quarter, people will ultimately feel like you’re looking out for them. It takes 2-3 minutes per connection, and you return to “top of mind” with them. Feel free to intersperse a sentence of topical information. “I know you’ve heard that the Fed lowered the rate today, and I wanted to make sure you knew what that meant for your mortgage.”

Now, you’ll get the occasional person that thinks you’re broke, or thinks you have bad intentions. That’s 100% OK. You will also get the occasional FRIEND thousands dollars–and keep them from dealing with bad lenders.

Finally: I’ve come out with an e-book of secrets on surviving this market. No less than Brian Brady called it the “Thrival” guide. And “the most important investment you can make.” This is a “ruby slippers” approach to making yourself money. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine, but click on the book to see what some cool people are saying about it.

Chris Johnson is the author of Loan Officer Survival Guide. He can be reached at chris@tendayteam.com