How Do You Spell Success?

How do you measure the success of a loan officer? What is your definition of success? What disciplines increase the chance of success? As a leader, you have multiple methods of tracking the success of your sales team members. Closed loan reports, revenue generated reports, pipeline reports, new application reports and call reports are just a few of the options available to help you determine the success level of each loan officer that you lead. Now that you have this information, what do you do with it? Let’s be honest, none of those reports reveal why the loan officer was successful, or how you as a leader should respond.

What we need is a tool that not only shows the loan officer’s level of success, but also the disciplines that create success and the guidance for you to become the leader that they need. Tim Enochs, Master Coach at Building Champions and author of Every Day is GAME Day! stepped in and helped me develop such a tool, which we would like to share with you in the hopes that it will improve your ability to coach your team to higher levels of success.

The Success Management Model
This model is built around a four-quadrant chart that is customizable for each team member’s position based on your expectations of them—both from a production perspective and a discipline perspective. Each quadrant describes a combination of good results/poor results and disciplined/not disciplined in reference to your team members. Depending on which quadrant a loan originator falls into, there are arrows that describe the best possible course of action that will lead to a “Model Loan Originator.” For example, this chart says that an originator who falls into the poor results/not disciplined quadrant will need greater accountability through further training opportunities. The beauty of this model is that you determine what is considered good, poor, disciplined and undisciplined as opposed to a stale document that doesn’t really fit your organization.

Step 1: Create your definition of “Good Results” and “Poor Results”
It is important to define these terms for yourself and your team. To help define these conditions, I would suggest that you look at a variety of measurements including what you feel are positive monthly closing number, monthly gross revenue, monthly net revenue and cross-sell levels. Define “Good Results/Poor Results” by using weighted success criteria.

Step 2: Create your definition of “Disciplined” and “Not Disciplined”
You need to be clear with yourself and your team on what performance is considered “Disciplined” and what is “Not Disciplined.” Again, I would use several factors in making this determination including looking at what you feel is the acceptable number of past clients to be contacted monthly, the number of monthly pre-application consultations, monthly face-to-face meetings with referral partners, and the number of applications to be completed monthly. Again, define “Disciplined/Not Disciplined” by using weighted success criteria.

Step 3: Plot each loan officer on the Success Leadership Model Quadrant
The Success Leadership Model Quadrant (mentioned above) is designed with the following labels: Disciplined/Not Disciplined and Good Results/Poor Results. Using the results from step one and step two, plot each loan officer using this quadrant system. The model will then tell you what action needs to be taken. For example, the loan officer that has good results and is disciplined would be considered a model loan officer. However, the loan officer that has good results but is not disciplined is probably riding the success of the company by catching referred or call-in deals. I would recommend diverting those leads to the model loan officer, which should give this loan officer incentive to becoming more disciplined to continue to achieve good results. The bottom quadrants are where this model becomes most valuable because this is where management becomes challenging and sometimes difficult.

When a loan officer falls into the poor result and not disciplined quadrant, the result must be additional accountability. This loan officer would need to agree to and embrace intensified coaching and additional training from the company in hopes that their results would improve. If they cannot embrace this idea, it should be clear that it is time for them to seek employment elsewhere. Similarly the loan officer that falls into the poor results and disciplined quadrant needs additional training to allow their discipline to create improved results. These are the people that are willing to do what you ask but have not achieved acceptable results. When they have received appropriate training and have had enough time to improve, check the results again and make necessary adjustments.

Once you have designed this system to meet your criteria, it becomes a very simple tool to use with each loan officer to keep them focused on success. My goal would be that your loan officers would begin to plot their results on this model themselves, and take the appropriate action even before you do, creating a much more satisfied and productive team.