Working well individually (and as a team)

Jake Vermillion	Welcome to Up-Market Sales Success, a series designed to help busy loan officers just like you make the most of high-volume markets. My name is Jake, I'm a member of the Mortgage Champions team, and we are incredibly excited to bring this powerful offering to you. Let's dive into the topic at hand, Working well individually (and as a team), with Dale Vermillion. Hi Dale!
Dale Vermillion	Hey Jake!
Jake Vermillion	In this installment, we want to explore how to set ourselves and our teams up for success in the fray of surging volumes. In previous U.S. Bank trainings, which listeners can access online at m.mortgagechampions.com, you've detailed a complete system for organizing your day, establishing priorities, managing your time... which aspects of that system would you say are most important to keep in mind during high-volume markets?
Dale Vermillion	Well Jake, that's a super important question. And let me just hit the key things that I think really will make the difference. And the first thing is you gotta start by performing that time audit. Look, you can't solve what you don't understand. So, unless we sit down and take the time and it seems painstaking, but it's really not&emdash;it's nothing more than taking a couple of days with a sheet of paper in front of you and just jotting notes to yourself on the things you spend your time on. When you do that, what it does is it gives you a detailed list of not only what you're spending your time on, but what are the repetitious tasks. And, what are the things you want to remove, the things you want to reduce—by providing that time compression—and the things you want to reassign or delegate. That's the first and foremost rule to making sure that you get a handle on your time. Then, once you've done that. Every single day—and remember, the time audit is pretty much a one-time or once-a-quarter activity—but every day, you've got to build a priority list. That priority lists has got to list-out the things that you know that morning you absolutely must do in that day and the things you want to do. And you can either establish that first thing in the morning. Or at the end of the previous day, whichever works better for your schedule. And the key is just to prioritize those things then from highest to lowest priority and established timeframes to those so that you're starting to create that time compression principle, where you're creating deadlines and urgency to force you to work at a much more expedited timeframe. That's critically important. And then, once that's done, schedule those priorities in. Make sure you've got them in your scheduler. And, always make sure—I can't emphasize this enough Jake—you got to optimize your email and your voicemail by shutting off those email notifications, making sure you're not getting distractions when you're working on things, set up your out-of-office so that people know when you're going to be returning emails and phone calls so that they have good expectations established. And set your voicemail messages up the same way, so that if somebody calls and leaves a message not only do they know when you can return phone calls, but they can let you know when their schedule works. So you don't play phone tag. You do those things, you not only are super set for the day—and you're ready for success; but, you're really maximizing your time and you're minimizing your distractions.
Jake Vermillion	What about working with colleagues in high volume markets? What can loan officers do to work well with loan officer assistants, processors, underwriters, their managers?
Dale Vermillion	Well, I think the first thing is to really apply the OthersFirst™ mindset: do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in all things with humility, value others above yourself, looking out for their interests and not your own. Look, we got to ask the question, "What can I do for my colleague?" Not, "What can my colleague do for me?" I think that's such an important question to ask ourselves in the things that we do, because here is what we know: if you're a loan officer, for example, and you're putting in really great files and you're treating your colleagues really well, and your being kind to them and understanding of the challenges they face—they're probably going to get to your files first. And that's what you really want to focus on is working well within a team by being compassionate, by making sure that you're providing quality applications, by making sure that you're doing a great job on what you're working on every single day, and by being empathetic, particularly in high-volume times to the volume that people are doing around. Remember, in addition to really thinking, thinking about the other people you're working with, you know, the key to this business has always been the same: you've got to submit high-quality applications, complete applications, full-documentation applications in this business to make your pipelines move faster. It's all about quality. It's all about making sure you're doing it the right way. So, we want to make sure that we're really submitting quality applications into the system. That means that the processors can do their job well, the underwriters can do their job well, have complete notes included in that. Remember, even a bad processor can process a great file, but a great processor can't process a bad file. And always just be empathetic when you're in a high volume-market. All of the stress that the people around you are dealing with, the high-volume they're dealing with. So again, apply compassion in all cases when you're working with your teammates. And then the last thing is just stay in communication, but don't be overbearing and don't over-communicate to the point that it's driving people crazy. Only include people in your emails that need to be included, make sure your emails are very short and concise. I love using what we call the three sentence rule, particularly for internal communications. And what that simply means is when you send an email, say what you need to say in three sentences—no more than that. Tell them what you want, why you want it, and when you're looking for it. You do that, and everybody has a lot less stuff in their inbox and a lot more gets done. Now, for managers, it's important for you to understand that in these high-volume times that you are making sure that you're having those morning meetings with your people, you're setting up your checkpoints during the course of the day, that your people know what the goals are, and you're keeping them on track for that. And that you're creating availability and accessibility—particularly if you have people working from home, that's really important.
Jake Vermillion	Before Dale's parting thoughts, you heard him mention the OthersFirst™ philosophy. If that's something that speaks to you, consider taking the OthersFirst™ pledge. It's totally free and enrolls you in a growing community of mortgage professionals committed to an ethical and effective approach to loan origination. Check it out and sign your name at thinkothersfirst.com. Dale, any parting thoughts on this topic?
Dale Vermillion	I think the number one thing Jake that we got to remember in a high-volume market is that we're making a lot of money! We're really doing well! And what happens a lot of times, I've said this many times, you know, when you're in a high-volume market, it's kind of like Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." It's the best of times because we're making money and there's a lot of business. It's the worst of times because we're stressed and we get burnt out potentially. And we're dealing with all of that frustration. Look, the way you stay out of frustration is simple: remember that you are making the most money you've ever made, remember that you're changing more lives than you ever change, and remember that, you know, things are going to go wrong. It's okay. Expect those things to happen. And the key is to pivot to solution. When a problem or a challenge comes up, don't dwell on the problem. Don't dwell on the challenge. Just pivot immediately to "How can we solve this?" Don't don't blame anybody. Don't get mad at anybody. And establish attitudes standards so that you keep yourself in check so that you always remind yourself that your attitude is going to affect everybody else's attitude. The more positive you can stay, the more positive the people around you stay, and the more you're going to get done at the end of the day.
Jake Vermillion	If this is your first time listening, know that this is the second in a 16-installment series you'll be receiving directly in your email inbox every morning, Monday through Thursday, for the next four weeks. That's 16 lessons covering Dale Vermillion's proven techniques for maximizing production in high-volume markets. I trust the strategies Dale shared in this installment will help you on your path to refining your own sales process. But if you'd like a little extra help, consider connecting with our team by emailing instructor@mortgagechampions.com, or by logging into your Mortgage Champions Online™ account, where you can view hours upon hours of additional training. Whatever your needs, we're here to help. Don't forget to complete today's skill challenge by performing a time audit of your own. If you need some help getting started, just message our team on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Coming up next, Organizing your day and reclaiming your life.