Is Brokering stressful?
“No”
Not if once you make the decision that you ‘don’t do stress‘.
This is a path that takes courage, a leap of faith, and the setting of boundaries.
Here are two tactics that build on the strategy required to eliminate stress from your life, and from your clients lives.
1. Pre-Approvals – Raise the bar.
I get it, you can’t bring yourself to stop, it’s too big of a leap to say ‘no’. OK, what you can do is set the bar higher, much higher. First off by limiting the opening ‘pre-app’ conversation to a maximum of 15 well scripted minutes with no mortgage amount or rate offered whatsoever. To offer suggestions on either number (without a signed *LOE and a complete application) is to court disaster.
‘Yes we do offer pre-qualification (aka a ratehold), and here’s what’s required to move into any conversation around potential mortgage amount or specific rates’
- Signed *Letter Of Engagement (you know the one)
- Photo ID
- Current Credit Report
- 100 days bank statements (even if the down payment money isn’t there yet)
- Current income docs (you know what you need – and yes, you need ALL of them)
To engage in a conversation without all of the above is, at best, to waste your clients time and your own. At worst it’s courting disaster in the form of a regulator complaint and lawsuit (if you know you know… *LOE).
Set the bar for people who want to to access your time, expertise, and brain, higher.
This will eliminate stress from a wide variety of angles.
Q. Why is gold valuable?
A. Because it’s scarce
Limit access to your time, this increases it’s value to others, and to you.
2. Ten Business Days
Set clients expectations clearly from the start, set them in writing.
Rule #1 – All lender conditions, even the irrational sounding ones, must be met Ten Business Days prior to the completion date.
To back this up, email your clients with outstanding conditions every single weekday around 4pm.
Every
Single
Weekday
Over
And
Over
The good news; you’ll not have to ask more than three times in a row, it’s some sort of magic. Those of you already doing this know the power of constant spaced repetition.
As you arrive at 21 days from completion, should anything be missing, email and call – daily. Making it clear that at 15 (business) days out you’ll either need the client to move the completion date or find a new Broker/Agent.
Why?
Because you don’t do stress!
There is no need.
Once you apply these tactics it becomes clear that the opening line of this post is accurate.
Brokering is not stressful, unless you allow it to be.
Conclusion
Manage your own expectations as well; this helps us to temper our tone. Clients will join us in whatever state we are in, so be calm, cool, and collected. Don’t buy into their world of crazy.
And should you find yourself in a world of crazy, review the above steps – have you skipped some?
If so, probably because your working with friends and family, that is when we fail to stick to our policies, and that is when it all goes wrong.
Stop.
Be the consummate professional that you know you are.
DW
P.S.
There are many key components of the ‘don’t do stress‘ plan which also include proper fuel, quality rest & quality sleep (two different things) as well as being physically active.
Re exercise; exchange excuses for reps! (I just paused and did 20 push-ups – you should too!)
What do vegetables, 7.5 hours sleep, and strength/cardio training have to do with Brokering?
Everything, or at least that’s what science would suggest.
More on this over the next few weeks.
P.P.S.
If you found value in this piece, please forward it to another Broker you know and respect.
And as always, comments are welcome!