If youre searching for a proven method that leads to fast results, than this article is for you. Many times I come across loan officers who are either new in the industry and need to earn immediate income or who joined during the height of the refinance boom and now needs to build purchase business.

Either way, this strategy Ive tested with dozens of loan officers and have had great success. In fact, its one of those ideas thats commonly known, but is uncommonly practiced meaning that its another way of getting ahead of your competitors.

Captive Audience

With the housing market appearing to cool off and inventory climbing in many towns across America, it prompts agents to hold open houses again. This is great news for you, because it means theyre captive. Its one thing to approach an agent at their office, when theyre on their natural turf, but when its an open house, youll discover their behavior is strikingly better. For one thing, if the traffic for the open house has been slow, theyll be happy to have someone to speak with.

So the first step, which believe it or not, is the most difficult for loan officers, is to give up some personal time on a Saturday and visit several open houses. How much time? If youre efficient, meaning youve spotted the open houses in Fridays paper and planned a route, you could knock out a dozen in three hours.

Your Plan

If youre going to take some personal time on a Saturday to pursue agents, you definitely want to make the most of your effort. So lets review your objectives; an open house visit is your chance to:

• Schedule Appointments Dont miss this point Your primary objective in visiting open houses is to schedule appointments, not to share every reason in the world why they should do business with you. Youre not there to socialize longer than 20 minutes. If youre staying longer than that, youre giving up too much information.

• Build Your Prospect List If you visit a dozen open houses, you should gain at least 4 appointments. But what about the other 8? If you dont get an appointment, always seek permission to market your services to them in the future. Just say, If youre like most agents I meet, youre interested in ways to grow your income. If I come across ideas from time to time that can help you do that, would you be offended if I send it to you? Of course, very few will turn you down and now youre building a list of prospects who have granted permission for you to send them information.

  If you find yourself quickly accumulating a permission-based list, consider implementing a regular email or direct mail campaign so you can build familiarity, which leads to future originations.

• Demonstrate Your Professional Commitment Just by showing up on a weekend, youre making a statement about your willingness to service agents.

• Make Friends You might find open houses to be a less confrontational method to meeting agents. Some of my toughest clients, loan officers who never called on agents before, found open houses to be less intimidating and trouble-free.

The idea of visiting open houses has been around since the dawn of timeok, maybe not that long, but hopefully you get the idea. It can give you a quick jump start to meeting agents, developing some familiarity and if you schedule several appointments, a real chance to interact with agents who will send you originations.

If youre new in the industry or havent marketed your services to agents before, its a strategy worth trying. Youll find that its not too difficult, and agents recognize the effort youre putting forth, so theyre more empathetic to your cause.

Jeffrey Nelson

Since 1999, Jeffrey Nelson has worked with hundreds of mortgage companies and loan officers to help them attract more clients by improving their marketing strategies to beat their competitors and win more agent-referred business.

Many of Jeff's clients are experts at originating loan applications, pricing loans and determining the best loan program for their client's lending needs, but the expertise they don't necessarily have is how to build a steady stream of business to their office door.

His battle-tested program, Become an Agent Magnet, teaches loan officers the core fundamentals to magnetizing their marketing, and in doing so, positioning their expertise so it stands out from the competition and attracts agents.