An excerpt from Volume 1 of Be The Better Broker.
During my first few months as a licensed Mortgage Broker, I called on ten top producers in our company. Each made time for me, which in itself made a lasting and influential impression.
It was interesting how far ranging each of their personal styles was. In some meetings, we hardly spoke about the business. Instead, we spoke of personal philosophies, the world around us and life in general. Others were all business, methodical and analytical. They drilled down into the nitty-gritty details of underwriting a client’s file.
Those meetings helped shape the foundation of how I approach the business today. On my best days — methodically, thoughtfully and with an unflinching optimism — suggesting that there is always a solution to be found.
What sank in the deepest from these meetings was how all of these top performers had the willingness to make time for a rookie in the business.
I paid attention to that lesson. A few years later when I spoke to a group of over 300 mortgage Brokers in my hometown. I said, “My office is right off the #1 highway, a couple of exits down from this venue. My door is always open. If anybody wants to talk about the business of business, I’d be happy to do so.”
Over the following 12 months, only three of those 300+ Brokers accepted my offer. I make no claims to being the mortgage oracle, but my business seems to be doing what many other Brokers want their businesses to be doing. Why not take 30 minutes and stop in? I suspect the percentage that did probably correlates to the number of Brokers that will build a successful long-term career: one in 100.
It is also a perfect example of why you can be generous with your ideas. I have given away more ideas than I will ever be able to act upon, and I have been given amazing ideas from others that would change my business; but finding the time and energy to implement them is a challenge that each of us faces.
The beauty of idea (information) exchange is that it is exponential. 1+1=11 in the realm of ideas. In other words the more you share the more you will have.
When you exchange goods with someone, the number of goods does not change. Perhaps you each value what the other has to offer slightly more than the one in possession of the goods, and so the exchange is a ‘win-win’. But think about the exchange of ideas. If you have an idea, and I have an idea, and we share our ideas, now we each walk away with not just two ideas apiece, but an affect that tends to multiply and spin off hybrid ideas. You might walk away with five new ideas once you factor in the information that I have shared, as might I.
Keeping ideas to yourself is the worst idea of all.
Share. Ask others what they know, and in return offer them what you know.
Don’t just be a go-getter, also be a go-giver. (click the link and read Bob Burgs book as well)
Thank you
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