Interview with a Winner:
Amy Tierce
Fairway New England Mortgage, Brookline, MA
2004 Sales Volume: $48 million
Average Loan Amount: $335,000
Software: Point, ACT, Mortgage Coach
Referral Source Mix: 50% Realtor and 50% past clients
Boni Lonnsburry: How did you get started in the mortgage business?
Amy Tierce: I was a Realtor from 1985 to 1990. In August of 1990, the loan officer I used to refer all my business to found out that she was pregnant. She called me up to see if I wanted to partner with her. I joined her as a loan officer shortly after, in September of 1990. She had been an underwriter prior to being a loan officer, so working with her was a great way to learn the business.
Boni Lonnsburry: Were you an immediate success?
Amy Tierce: That's a little hard to say because I was riding her coat tails to some degree, although I had a lot of my own relationships in the community because I had been a Realtor there. This was back in the time when loan officers were really territorial – we actually covered territories. Business was pretty robust. She and I remained partners for a little over a year and then went our separate ways.
As a result, I had to give up my town where I had all the connections. However, another loan officer I knew had decided to go to graduate school and handed over his pipeline to me. He introduced me to all of his Realtor contacts and I gave him a little piece of the action for the first six months after I took over his business. This was moving into 1993 when rates started to drop again. It gave me a real solid base to build a very good pipeline of past customers. Pretty much all along I was in the top three or four in a company of about 20 loan officers.
Boni: What mistakes do you often see new loan officers make today?
Amy: Now that I'm in management, I see new loan officers from a couple of different angles. First of all, I think they make a big mistake in not being consistent in implementing a marketing plan. Frequently new loan officers, as well as experienced ones, get impatient when they don’t see immediate results and move on to the next thing. However, the absolute rule of marketing is "repetition, repetition, repetition" in order for the message to sink in.
From a management standpoint, I see other new loan officers focusing an awful lot on the marketing but not enough on the fundamentals of the business. So when the leads are generated, they don’t know how to manage those leads with confidence. In today’s marketplace, if you can’t pick up that phone and project a level of confidence and expertise, then you are going to alienate the borrower and lose the transaction.
Rookie loan officers need to learn the basics of how to do the business and be consistent in their marketing. They also need to understand that marketing alone is not going to generate all the business they need. They need to get out in the world and really talk to people. Prospects don't respond to mail alone, no matter how elaborate your mail marketing plan is. They want to see a human being. You have to build relationships with your prospects and clients. But I think that everybody wants it to be easier than it is.
Boni: What mistakes do you frequently see veteran loan officers make?
Amy: They make very similar mistakes. I recently spoke at a program about getting back to basics. I think veteran loan officers, me included, want to sit behind our desks and take phone calls. However, I don’t think that market exists anymore. We have to go back to basics. We need to be more visible. We need to be out in our market and building relationships one-on-one. We need to go to the consumers, whether through open houses or other types of marketing strategies. I think it’s a little more like a political campaign now. You have to really work the streets, shake the hands and kiss the babies more than rely on things like call capture, email and drip campaigns. It’s still a people business, and we should want to keep it a people business so that we don’t get replaced by the technology.
Boni: Tell us more about your marketing strategies.
Amy: I have a multi-layered approach to marketing. I do a quarterly newsletter to my past customer database, plus eight to ten postcards a year. My best friend is a photographer and the postcards feature really fun photography involving me and a household or handy tip. One example would be a postcard I sent out with photo of me holding a fire extinguisher and wearing a fire helmet. It included a safety tip about making sure you have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in your home.
I also regularly go through my database and send hand-written notes or make random phone calls to my top 200 clients, those who are consistently doing business with me or referring to me. I believe in really treating the whole database. There may be people I haven’t heard from at all in seven years who will call me up ready to buy a new house – so everybody gets attention from me.
I do a weekly email blaster to my Realtors. It contains timely market news and information as well as any great product, program or idea I have for them. I send direct mail to the Realtors as well, periodically. I’m a huge believer in hand-written notes, so the second I get a referral from a Realtor over the phone, a hand-written note goes out to whoever referred me.
For the last three years, I’ve done a Realtor educational event where I’ve brought in a national real estate trainer for my Realtors. I do that in conjunction with a couple of the other loan officers that I’m working with so we can share in the cost and build synergy among the brokers. That has been a fun event and we’ve all learned a lot from it.
I’m a big believer in my own communication system, which is part of what I market. I tell folks, “You don’t ever have to call us because we are going to proactively call you to status you on your loan, if you’re a consumer, or the transaction if you’re the listing or the selling broker.” I use that as a big piece of my marketing strategy to let people know that we have this communication system and how it works.
Boni: If you had a son or a daughter entering the business, what advice would you give them?
Amy: I think it’s one of the greatest businesses in the world. I think you have to put your head down and work really hard for a few years to build a reputation. I think that you have to keep it fun, and one of the ways to keep it fun is to make it personal.
Even though I very rarely meet with my borrowers face-to-face (I do most of my business over the phone), I like to keep my marketing very fun, light and personal. I like to talk about my family, talk about what’s going on in my life and share things about me. I want to make a personal connection and that is part of what keeps it interesting after almost 15 years. So I would suggest to my son or daughter that they become an expert, never stop learning, and never think that they know it all.
Boni: What was your most successful marketing campaign?
Amy: I would have to say the postcards that I send to my borrowers. I never send them out without getting phone calls back, even if they are just telling me how much they loved the card. The emails I send to the Realtors have also been very powerful. They call me up and tell me if they don’t get them, so I know they enjoy the information.
Boni: Who or what would you say has been the biggest contributor to your success?
Amy: Back in 2000 I was ready to toss it in because I was bored. A fax came over marketing the “ High Trust Sales Academy ” offered by the Duncan Group. I decided to go. This was back when I thought I had it all together and knew everything. I thought I was going to be the star producer at the seminar and everyone else there was going to be a newbie. I thought I was just going to watch videos in my room and hang out in San Diego . However, it ended up changing my approach to business.
Through Todd Duncan I have become friends with Tim Braheem. Tim Braheem has had a great influence and been very supportive of my life. I’ve met amazing people as a result of the Duncan Group. But ultimately, it’s really not the “who,” it’s the “what.” And the “what” has been deciding to make the commitment to invest in continuing education and training. Now I make it a point to attend a couple of conferences every year, be it Duncan or “Turn on Your Million Dollar Brain,” or whatever might be going on. I'm committed to seeing speakers, talking to other loan officers and learning as much as I can. This training and education has absolutely turned me around and made my career more fun.
Boni: If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your current business?
Amy: I’d like to become a little bit better about creating the strategy and implementing it. I don’t want to sound egotistical, because I don’t intend to be, but I’m "good" kind of by nature. This is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in that a lot of things come naturally, but it's a curse in that I don’t push myself as hard as I should. I have a really smart son whose education came so easy to him in so many areas that he is sometimes lazy as a result. I have a little bit of that in my personality as well. My business sort of comes in on its own, and I know I could elevate my status so much more if I would actually focus and implement instead of just thinking about it.
Boni: What are your current goals?
Amy: To continue building my presence while going back to basics. To get out on the road and work with my Realtors and have more fun. I want to build a couple additional pillars of business as well. One that I’ve sorely neglected would be with financial planners. I'd also like to get involved with a FSBO program.
Boni: Do you have an affiliation with financial planners right now?
Amy: I have two or three that I do a little bit of business with, but I could build more. I think it’s more a matter of going into my customer database and getting some referrals from them. An example would be the other day when I was in dialog with a borrower about a loan and I recommended a strategy using a 5-1 versus a fixed rate. He called me back an hour later and told me he spoke with his financial planner, and that she agreed with my recommendation. My response to him was, “Great, can I have her name and number.” That financial planner is somebody I should be talking to. Just like with Realtors, you don’t need a lot of them. You need a couple that you really connect with and can partner with.
Boni: Is there anything else you’d like to say to other originators who’d love to create the level of success you have created?
Amy: An originator came up to me at an event the other day and said, “You know I keep trying to implement all these plans and programs and it’s just not working. But this week I took four Realtors out to lunch and I got three leads as a result.” I looked at her and I said, “So do what works.” There is an awful lot of information out there, and it's hard not to take it literally.
If I hear Tim Braheem speak, or Sue Woodard speak, I used to think that their strategies were the letter of the law. But that’s not how it is. You need to implement the strategies that are comfortable for you. There are going to be things that Amy Tierce does that other people wouldn’t dream of doing, such as plastering her face all over postcards or wearing goofy clothes or whatever. You have to stay true to yourself. Try a strategy that appeals to you for 90 days. If it doesn’t work, drop it and move on.
I think that people get very stuck in what other people say worked for them. Certain campaigns do well in some part of the country but not in others. Building corporate relationships could work great for one person, but not for another. You can’t get too married to an idea and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work for you. So I would say to people that no matter what you see or read, you still have to do a smell test and go with your gut as to how it feels and whether or not you will be able to implement it.
I feel the same way about Realtors. There are so many loan officers and speakers who will bash Realtors. I always tell them that I love working with Realtors, but I only work with the Realtors that I love. It’s about being true to yourself, true to your plan, and not aspiring to be somebody whose personality doesn’t naturally fit yours. I would love to be Tim Braheem, but he has a level of drive in his personality that I don’t have. It’s taken me awhile to let go of some of those ideas.
Also, don’t be afraid to change your strategy as the market dictates. Everybody preached different styles over the last couple of years when we were in a refi boom. We’re now in a purchase market and your marketing strategy is going to be very different. Know that in a few years you are going to change your strategy again. Flexibility is part of the beauty of this business, but we have to remember to get out of the trench and adapt to the change in the topography of our environment. Don’t forget that the business is not easy, even though other people want to make it look easy.