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Summary
LO Accelerator community discussed challenges with current interest rates and finicky clients, with Kimberlee McAllister presenting Empower LO's strategy for loan officers to achieve production goals via consistent daily activity tracking.
Market Challenges and Clients
Participants discussed the difficulty in addressing client inquiries about future interest rates and the prevalent challenge of client ghosting. An anecdote demonstrated that ignoring highly demanding clients saved time and confirmed initial doubts about their seriousness.
Activity Over Production Focus
Kimberlee McAllister emphasized that top producers succeed through consistency, stressing that loan officers must focus on controllable daily activities instead of uncontrollable production goals. The primary decision was made that production goals should be reverse engineered to determine the required daily outreach efforts.
Tracking and Conversion Strategy
Activity tracking via a CRM is necessary because closings are lagging indicators, and most loan officers make the mistake of tracking feelings over data. Statistics show that responding to leads within 1 minute increases conversion by 400%, and consistent, personalized marketing is critical for eventual client engagement.
Details
- Meeting Recording and Community Distribution: Alex Hernandez confirmed that the meeting is being recorded and the recording will be shared with their community and hosted on their website. Kimberlee McAllister expressed optimism about providing valuable content for the recording.
- Challenges with Current Interest Rates: Alex Hernandez noted that clients are frequently asking about the future of rates, to which they responded that if they could predict the future, they would not be a loan officer. Scott Munds mentioned that a significant challenge they are facing is clients ghosting or disappearing from communication.
- Addressing Finicky Clients: Alex Hernandez shared an anecdote about a client who was reluctant to provide the necessary application information and demanded three different rate options, which Alex Hernandez refused to provide. They chose to ghost the client, who subsequently failed to submit earnest money or construction deposits, saving Alex Hernandez time and confirming their intuition about the client's lack of seriousness. Ben Yost and Alex Hernandez jokingly referred to such disappearances as clients being "abducted by aliens".
- Purpose of the LO Accelerator Community: Alex Hernandez emphasized that the goal of the LO Accelerator community is to bring people together to learn from one another, rather than selling courses. They reflected on their personal experience, noting that they wished they had such a supportive community earlier in their career.
- Introduction of Kimberlee McAllister and Empower LO: Alex Hernandez introduced Kimberlee McAllister as the latest guest, who would be speaking about how top producers track their daily activities to ensure effectiveness. Kimberlee McAllister introduced themself as the VP of Empower LO, a company they own with their spouse, which was founded in 2018 and provides a CRM, as well as runs multiple community initiatives.
- Focus on Activity Over Production in Loan Origination: Kimberlee McAllister explained that their specialty is working directly with loan officers and teams, ranging from beginners to top producers, which gives them insight into why some people succeed quickly. They stressed that top producers are not lucky but are consistent, and that the biggest mistake is focusing on production goals (like closing 35 loans), which are uncontrollable, rather than focusing on daily activities, which are controllable.
- Reverse Engineering Production Goals: Kimberlee McAllister detailed the process top producers use to reverse engineer their goals, starting with a production target (e.g., 24 loans/year) and calculating the required number of applications, conversations, and outreach attempts. Using example conversion rates, they calculated that 24 closed loans require 2,400 outreach attempts, which breaks down to 10 contacts per day, emphasizing that daily consistency is crucial to prevent the workload from piling up.
- Tracking Activities as Leading Indicators: Kimberlee McAllister asserted that closings are a "lagging indicator," and loan officers should instead track "upstream" metrics like outreach, pipeline conversion, and referral partner relationships. They demonstrated the activity tracker feature they built for their clients, which allows for daily logging of calls and custom metrics, helping users quickly identify if they are off track from their weekly goals.
- Using Data Over Feelings for Business Metrics: Kimberlee McAllister advised that most loan officers track their feelings, which are a "terrible business metric," and should instead start with educated guesses based on past deals to establish initial numbers. They noted that within a few months of tracking, these guesses will evolve into real data, allowing the business to be run based on predictable numbers. They confirmed that their activity tracker is based on the High Level platform and can be embedded in any High Level platform, including RAD CRM.
- Burnout and Individuality in Tracking: Alex Hernandez suggested that burnout is often due to the inconsistent "yo-yo" pattern of business, which is mitigated by consistent tracking and understanding the consequences of missed activity. Both Alex Hernandez and Kimberlee McAllister stressed that activity tracking must be unique to the individual and their goals, as different career phases and lead sources require different levels of activity.
- Statistics on Lead Conversion and Speed: Kimberlee McAllister shared industry data indicating that most mortgage leads require 8 to 12 touches before converting, but the average loan officer attempts only two or three. They also cited a statistic that responding to a lead within one minute can increase conversion by nearly 400%, emphasizing the need for a CRM with automated communications.
- Consistency and Personalization in Marketing: Alex Hernandez shared a personal example of closing a refinance deal from a client they had not spoken to since 2022, who had seen their rate update email 86 times over the previous year, demonstrating the power of automated, persistent communication. Scott Munds added perspective by describing the overwhelming volume of emails in their personal inbox, highlighting that successful marketing is about timing and consistency until the client is ready to engage.
- Empower LO Product Offerings and Integration: Scott Munds inquired about Empower LO's services, and Kimberlee McAllister explained that they are a CRM company and offer a free community for High Level users called HL4 (High Level for Mortgage Pros). Kimberlee McAllister also explained that their "Broker Toolkit," which includes the activity tracker, newsletter creator, rate monitor, and loan advisor, can be used standalone or easily embedded into a High Level instance like RAD CRM using a share widget.