5-Step Guide to Create and Manage a Much Bigger Pipeline
Because of the unique advantages my company offers to its Loan Officers, one of the recent hires was able to grow from doing 3-4 loans a month to a pipeline of 25+ loans. 😎
But, he was struggling to manage it.
He was consistently missing his close of escrow dates, spoiling his newly built real estate agent relationships, and jeopardizing future client referrals. This, after working 16 hours a day. 😫
I personally reviewed his pipeline with my Processing Manager, Bianca, and noticed all the classic Loan Officer mistakes.
After analyzing the pipeline for 2 full days I came up with this 5-point guideline for him to better manage the same.
It helped him tremendously and I am confident it will help you a lot as well.
Do not float your pipeline
A floating pipeline is no pipeline at all. If the rates change you will not be able to meet the committed rate or cause delays by switching lenders – either case you will end up with an unhappy client.
Do not take crappy loans
2 crappy loans take as much work as 10 good ones. Even when I was doing 2 loans a month, I said no to DPA loans that would suck all my time and energy.
Give realistic timelines
Do not commit to a 21-day close if your turn times point towards a 30. If the loan has more paperwork than usual – Solar Subordination, Full Condo Review, Flood Insurance review, etc, commit to a longer close of escrow since these things take time and you are dependent on a 3rd party. If the loan is not CTCd, do not commit a closing date. You very well know that hundreds of things can go wrong at the last minute. And if something gets delayed, give them the bad news on Day 1 even if it means getting beat one time vs every day.
Know your guidelines and paperwork
You need to know how to structure a deal and what paperwork is acceptable and what is not. The loan should be so well packaged that it should come out of conditional approval with minor conditions. You cant have a loan go back and forth into underwriting 3+ times for a CTC. And you can’t be dependent on a Processor to package your loan, its not their job. I structure every single of my loans and 90% of them get CTCd with one touch after approval.
Help processing do its job
If you take crappy loans, give unreasonable expectations, and change lenders – then even the best of processors will take 2-3 months to close a loan, even longer. And it doesn’t matter how good your processor is.
I have worked on the same 5-step guide for Loan Officers 👆🏼to grow my business from doing $2.8 million in my first year (in 2009) to $235 million last year (2019).
And you can do it too 💪🏼
Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels