New Business

I just finished a call with one of my friends who works as loan officer, I started the conversation with the question, “How is business?” He responded, “not good, but listen, what can you expect the housing market is down.” So I asked him, “Why did you decide to participate in the recession?”

There was a long pause, and then I told him the following story:

Once upon a time there was a guy who had a sandwich stand off a major highway. There were big signs on the road pointing to his place, the food was delicious, he employed lots of workers to serve people really fast and get them on their way, and business was booming. One day his big brother, who worked in Wall Street, came to visit. He took one look on what was going on, and looked his younger brother straight in the eye and said, “Don’t you know that there is a big recession going on in the city?”

The naive younger guy, who lived at a nearby farm, had no idea what was going on in the city, but he knew that a recession was a very bad thing. He was happy that his smart big brother was there to help.

“So what do you think we can do?” he asked for advice.

“Everyone is downsizing,” the Wall Street expert said scratching his bald head. “You cannot keep up your payroll and keep on ordering so much inventory when there is a recession going on.”

“You are right,” agreed the sandwich expert.

He wanted to prepare for the big recession. First he fired half of his employees to reduce the overhead. Then he cut his inventory and his billboard advertisements in half. After 2 weeks, the sandwich stand was out of certain items every other day and people were getting nervous waiting while the employees who were left struggled to prepare orders in a reasonable time. Plus the reduction in advertising didn’t help bring customers in the door. Business started to slow down and people were looking for better places to get their lunches. Four weeks later he called his brother on Wall Street and said, “You know brother, you were right. There is a recession going on. Thanks for warning me in advance”.

Speaking to one of the top commercial loan officers in Manhattan a while ago, I asked him how he is handling the drop in the housing market, his answer was, “Maurice! I don’t have time for this stuff. I am helping investors find the right loan for their projects. I am committed to make doubling my commissions this year compared to last year. And, so far I am on track.”

Some loan officers are so happy to see news reports every few days saying, “real estate loans fell in November by 0.573 percent.” They look it at and say, “You see. I told you the market is down, you just cannot find investors or make deals.” They focused on the 0.573 percent decline and then the market fell.

Approximately 8.4 million homes were sold in 2005. Industry experts expect sales in 2006 to come in at around 7.5 million. You cannot handle all of them. Even when the market goes down 0.573 percent there are still way too many loans for you to handle. I think you should not do more than 100 deals or loans per year because it gets too complicated to handle and take care of each deal individually. So all you have to do is go out and find the 100 people that would be lucky to get your expertise, care and attention. And when a deal does not work out or you get rejected just remember that you only need 100, and those people will be very lucky to deal with you. You will not take more than 100, but you will refer the others to your good friends.
Are you participating in the recession?

Action Steps

Make a list of all your previous customers. Visit them, ask them how things are going, and how you can help. You will be surprised on how much business you will get from doing this.

Maurice Friedman is a sales and business coach helping people to get comfortable with themselves; you can read his blog at www.UnlimitedSales.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Are You Participating in the Recession?