Interview with a Winner:
Brad Sorsabal
Home123, Palmdale, CA
2005 Origination Volume: A little over $42 million ($200 million branch volume)
Average Loan Amount: $180,000
Software: Empower, ACT
Referral Source Mix: 60% Realtor, 25% past client, 15% Builder
In Touch Today : How did you get started in the mortgage business?
Brad Sorsabal: By chance, I suppose. I was an electrician for 16 years, working for a major company in aerospace. In 1991 I was injured and subsequently laid off. My wife was in real estate and one of her friends asked me if I wanted to get into the mortgage business. It grew from there.
In Touch Today: Were you an immediate success?
Brad Sorsabal: I wouldn’t say that at all. In fact, I wouldn’t even go out in the field for my first 90 days in the business! I’d never been in any kind of sales position at all and wasn’t comfortable marketing myself until I learned to understand mortgages. So I sat in the office for 90 days pouring over program information and working with the processors. My wife wouldn’t even give me any business because she wanted to make sure her deals would get done.
In Touch Today: So after 90 days, what happened?
Brad: After 90 days I actually did my first loan. At that point the interest rates had started to fall from the 9% range down to the low 8% and there was a lot of refinancing. I had to learn, and I had to learn it quick. I just made sure I had the knowledge behind me to go do it.
In Touch Today: Does your wife give you any business now?
Brad: Actually, my wife got out of the real estate business in 1994 and went to work for me in 1995.
In Touch Today: So how long would you say you worked as a mortgage originator before you really started seeing some results?
Brad: I saw results even in the beginning as I was doing two or three deals a month. I began seeing bigger results once I went to work for Western Bank Mortgage in 1993. They had a training facility with a trainer by the name of Dennis Black. The additional training allowed me to double my volume within about a six month period using his “sledgehammer approach.” This approach involved warm calls rather than cold calls. I’ve used the same approach ever since.
In Touch Today: What is the “sledgehammer approach” and how does it work?
Brad: Dennis Black is a former Xerox employee. He took the Xerox training manual and adopted it for the mortgage industry. His “sledgehammer approach” is made up of several steps:
1) Research the agents you want to contact. Find out as much as you can about their business.
2) Make a list of questions you want to ask them. I’d recommend asking them high-trust sales-type questions such as “What do you like best about real estate?” and “Why did you choose to go into real estate?” as well as the basics such as “What type of business do you do?” or “What was the main type of financing your clients used last year?”. Above all, be certain to ask them “If there were one thing you think your current lender could do better, what would it be?”
3) Contact them to set up a short meeting so you can get the answers to your questions in person. Keep the meeting brief, unless they want to get into more detail with you. Take detailed notes.
4) Three days later, send the agent a letter. Use your notes to refresh your memory about what was discussed. Take the opportunity to address the ways you can benefit their business (based on the answers they gave to your questions).
5) Continue to contact them every three days. You can contact them by phone, with additional letters, with value-added pieces, whatever you can come up with.
If you keep up with this approach, you’ll start getting business from them. A “warm call” is just what we call it because at that point you aren’t just trying to meet someone off the street or walk into an office.
You can also take an intensive 15-day approach to the agents. You’d hit them every day for 15 days. After the 15 th day, you call them and set up an appointment. At that point they already know something about you and understand that you are all about value-added process and not just about the deal. You then go into an interview with the same questions, but you’ve broken the ice already.
Focus on 25 different agents each week and try to set five personal appointments for the following week. Keep doing this until you feel that you have enough appointments scheduled.
With the way the economy is right now, this approach is actually well received. Agents are looking for ways to make their businesses grow.
In Touch Today: Do you stay in touch with your past clients pretty closely?
Brad: I market to a little over 1000 past clients on an annual or a quarterly basis and about 750 on a monthly basis. I also strategize with my Realtors every month. The whole office is very in tune to building relationships rather than relying on cold calls. I want these guys to consider themselves professionals every bit as much as an attorney or a doctor or anybody in a professional field would consider themselves. I think we need more of that in this industry to be quite honest. But that’s just my opinion.
In Touch Today: So as a branch manager, I would assume that you deal with new loan officers all the time?
Brad: All the new loan officers in my office have to meet with me every Friday morning for their first 18 months. After that, I meet with them on a monthly basis.
In Touch Today: What mistakes do you see the rookie loan officers making?
Brad: They expect instant gratification. They don’t realize the time that has to be spent in this industry on a daily basis to develop the good work skills, habits and disciplines that are necessary to continue to have your production grow.
In Touch Today: What about those who have been in the business for awhile? What kind of mistakes do you think that they make?
Brad: The biggest mistake they’ve made from about 2001 to the present is to rest on their laurels. They started to count on all those refinances instead of continuing to practice their business disciplines. As a result there are now a lot of struggling loan officers who have never been through a downsided market or a slow down market. And I think that’s going to weigh heavily on a lot of them.
In Touch Today: So what do you think differentiates you from the average loan officer?
Brad: I’m definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’ve made a commitment to this business and have 100% passion for my job. That’s what separates me from a lot of the loan officers out there.
In Touch Today: How is your branch different because of this?
Brad: There is a true commitment on everybody’s behalf to do the best they can. I coach everybody monthly and stay in tune with them on their personal side as well as their business side. We create action plans. We create an environment where people are excited to come to work.
In Touch Today: With respect to coaching, do you have a coach also?
Brad: Yes. I do. The company I use is “Building Champions.” Raymond Gleason at this moment is my personal coach. It definitely works for me. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I did not get involved with “Building Champions” and Daniel Harkavy’s bunch. It has taken me to levels that I almost think are ridiculous sometimes.
In Touch Today: If you had a son or a daughter entering this business, what advice would you give him or her?
Brad: My son actually works for me. When he left college almost three years ago he made a decision to enter the mortgage business. I told him I wasn’t ready for him so he worked with another loan officer for awhile.
He understands the relationship part of the business and I think that’s very important. But it’s also important to know everything that you can before you go out and try to do deals. I think the biggest problem with many loan officers is that they over-promise and under-deliver.
In Touch Today: What has been your most successful marketing campaign?
Brad: We’re doing one right now with Tom Bass. I believe it’s called the 20-90-200 system and it has been going quite well. For 15 days you make 15 calls, send letters, or mail out value-added pieces to someone you’re trying to establish a new business relationship with. At the end of the 15 th day, you set up an appointment. We probably had about a 75% hit ratio on getting that appointment with the agents we’ve been contacting. And our marketing position this year is that we’re going to have to have double the agents in order to do the same amount of business or more business than we did last year.
Our marketing through In Touch Today has also been huge for us. That, to me, has been one of the most positive things that I’ve ever done since coming across the company back when we were Sterling Capital Mortgage. That outsource business frees up so much time for my assistants that now I get to utilize them in true assistant roles. In Touch Today has been fabulous for me.
When I go on relationship meetings with Realtors, and even when I talk to loan officers who are having a problem with database management or outsource marketing, right off the bat I direct them to www.intouchtoday.com. One of the things we do for our Realtors is to coach them on business planning. We show them how much money they’re spending on their marketing and where they could be spending more or less.
In Touch Today: So you’re teaching them that they can do it for less money and get more bang for their buck?
Brad: Of course because what people never bring into the equation is what their hourly rate is. They think their time is free – but it’s really not.
If you can’t do your marketing during the work day then you’re interrupting your family because you’re doing mailings at night or not doing something you want to do because – oops! I forgot! I need to go do those mailings! So I just try to get a grasp of what they think their hourly rate is and what they think they spend time-wise on their marketing a month. Nine times out of ten they’re telling me that they’re working three, four days a month on their marketing. Well, you multiply $100 an hour by 32 hours and you’re talking $3200 just in time spent! That doesn’t even include stamps and material.
In Touch Today: What is the best turn-key sale or marketing idea that you have used?
Brad: Again, Tom Bass’ 20-90-200 system. You go to his seminar and get a complete booklet on how to market with letters. I sent both of my assistants to one of the seminars because I wanted to do mass concentration on relationship building this year and start adapting some new Realtors to our philosophy.
It’s important to know and understand the real estate side of the business as well as you understand the mortgage side. You need to know how the agents you partner with sell real estate because you need to give them pieces which will help them move their properties. It may be a loan program but it can be more than that. Maybe you’re offering them the concept of value-range pricing. For example, we’re bringing a Realtor into town from San Diego to do a seminar on value-range pricing for our 200-300 agents. This is going to bring more leads to the listing agents table so that the seller has more opportunity to make the property visual to more offers. Obviously if you can write more offers, you’ll have more chances of getting an accepted offer.
I’m not an inventor. I’m a recreator. I don’t like to go out and reinvent the wheel. It’s too time consuming for me. So I will spend a little bit of money because then the return on that money is sometimes unbelievable. Just like In Touch Today, these programs bring a lot to the table.
In Touch Today: What client follow up marketing do you do?
Brad: I do the In Touch Today quarterly newsletter as well as the monthly post cards. I also send out a Thanksgiving and Christmas card. But my cost to do it is minimal because I probably make ten times as much from it as it cost me.
In Touch Today: And you’re not sitting at home at night licking and sticking?
Brad: No. I don’t take work home with me. I work from about 7:30 in the morning to 5:00 in the evening, four and a half days a week. And I take every half day Friday through Sunday off.
In Touch Today: Who or what has been the biggest contributor to your success?
Brad: Again, Daniel Harkavy and “Building Champions” by far. I can’t give that company or Daniel enough praise for where I stand today. I also have gone to a lot of Todd Duncan seminars. If you ever want to get involved with someone who is truly a leader, consider John Maxwell. I think he’s absolutely incredible.
In Touch Today: It sounds like you spend quite a bit of time on continuing education?
Brad: This year I’ll probably hit six seminars. Two of them are almost one week long. One of them is a full week. We’re going to the Bahamas for it.
It is a half a day each day and then you get a half day off. They do a networking-type thing by the pool if you are into that sort of thing. I was a part of the ALE back in 2002 (Todd Duncan’s “Achieving League of Excellence”) as one of the panelists. It’s a very intimate week long conference attended by around 150 people. It makes a big impact as far as how to run your business. You learn a lot of things that can really take you to the next level as a person as well. And I really need stuff like that in the position that I hold in this branch. It helps to meet our commitment to what we’re doing.
In Touch Today: Now what about the employees? Do they also follow your lead?
Brad: Three of us in the office are going to the Steven Marshall Strategic Equities Platform seminar. We are also going to Vegas in June, and then we go back up to Washington where Steven’s located and do the final up there. The seminars are all about using equity management and growing wealth positions instead of allowing your mortgage to gain zero interest. Instead you’re taking your equity and growing your interest in it. It’s kind of a cutting edge thing. It takes some understanding to really get involved with it. That brings you into the Certified Financial Planner position where you can really start building affinity relationships with planners.
In Touch Today: And part of your plan this year is to begin building more of those relationships?
Brad: I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of “Team One?” “Team One” is a concept developed by Doug Andrews, the author of “Missed Fortunes 101.” Everybody should read that book. “Team One” is the financial side of the whole concept of equity wealth building, how to build it, and what you should be doing with it. The people who do it well are doing a ton of business and their clients are just totally raving about what’s going on.
In Touch Today: So would you deliver your seminar to consumers or would you be delivering this seminar to CFPs?
Brad: I would have a CFP involved with my seminar and I would market it to my past client list. That’s the beauty of having a database. It’s almost like an insurance policy with residual income. If you don’t have a database, you’re just living for today and you forgot about those people that you just closed. I can really guarantee that I’m making at least five to ten deals a month off my database.
In Touch Today: If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your current business?
Brad: I was meeting with an agent yesterday and we were going over some coaching things, trying to develop a life plan for her. I looked at her and I said, “You know, sitting down and looking at my business today. I can’t truly say that I would change anything.” The way we’re set up team-wise flows really well for me. It’s been flowing well for me for quite some time. But like I say, I work four and a half days. I take off vacation when I need to. I have a team of people to take care of things when I’m gone. A lot of my Realtors would rather work with my team members than deal with me! We’ve established all the relationships for such a long period of time that they know that no matter what comes through the door, it’s going to get closed if we say it’s going to get closed. So I don’t know. I’m in a pretty happy place as far as how our business operates.
In Touch Today: What are your goals for the year?
Brad: My goal for the year is to get 300 units. I’ll probably end up a little bit short of that. So that, depending on loan amounts, is going to put me someplace between $54 million and $60 million for the year. We should be up by $20,000 or more on the average loan amount this year because of appreciated value.
I also plan on establishing a better relationship with more Realtors. As I mentioned before, I want to take my Realtor base and double it. I want to go from the 15 to 20 agents that I now have up to about 30 agents.
If I’m doing five to ten through a referral business off my past clients, then I need to do between 15 and 20 purchases every month. We’ve had a couple slow months, but we anticipate that to grow. So for my average I need to be at 25 units at the end of every month.
In Touch Today: Are there any other ideas you’d like to leave for other loan officers who aspire to the kind of success that you’ve created?
Brad: Lenders really need to be on top of their database. This is the time (while business is slow) to put your past clients into your database system if you have not already done so. Start mailing out to those people to see what is going on in their world. Or give them a call and set up an annual mortgage review. It doesn’t matter what market you’re in, people are still going to buy and sell houses. It may be a little tougher today than it was yesterday, but you can still be successful. Get back to basics and start doing what is right.
Be passionate, be tenacious and have purpose in what you’re doing. Invest in a mentoring system that will help you stay the course. Always put your client first, and help them from your heart.
Consider options other than 30 year mortgages. You may end up putting them into a 30 year mortgage, but check out other products first to see if you can truly enhance their financial position.
And never sell a program because of payment. That’s just ridiculous. Sell it because of what they can start earning on their own money. Your clients will thank you for it. Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.