Small mortgage lenders and independent loan officers make money based on how many loans they close and what mortgage tools they use. But everyone—from loan officers to branch managers—has only a limited amount of time to get work done. So, using the right productivity tools can help you make the most of the hours you do have. Also, this improves your ability to:
- Bring in new business
- Nurture leads
- Improve service to existing customers
- Close loans
- Maintain work/life balance
So, check out these mortgage tools and how they can streamline your mortgage marketing and loan processes.
1. Calendly for Scheduling Meetings
Ask any loan officer about their most frustrating and time-consuming tasks, and most will probably tell you that trying to schedule meetings with clients is up there. Going back and forth on the phone, by text, or email trying to find a mutually agreeable date and time is a waste of your and your clients’ time.
Calendly makes it easy to get clients on your schedule without any back and forth. You create a schedule with blocks of time that are available for client meetings, then send a link to the client. They browse your calendar to find a time that works. So, with a couple of clicks and a little bit of information input, they get on your calendar.
Also, the app even sends automated reminders to you and your clients about upcoming meetings to avoid no-shows. If you want to send them some information beforehand, you can have Calendly automatically send that via email at a specified date and time before an appointment.
2. Toggl for Time Tracking
Taking time to document and understand exactly how you spend your time can unlock your ability to improve efficiency as a loan officer. Even if you are “working” all day, you might not be using your time efficiently.
With all of the distractions that can come up—from checking email to answering calls and putting out fires with your lending partners—it can be hard to stay focused on the activities that actually contribute to the bottom line.
Why Track Your Time?
Time-tracking apps make it easy to figure out where all those hours are going, and where you could trim unnecessary activities to focus on revenue-producing tasks. You may not even realize how much time you devote to things like paperwork that you could automate or delegate to an administrative assistant. Also, sorting through and responding to non-urgent emails.
Additional Benefits For Supervisors and Managers
Also, Toggl time tracking is an effective tool for managing a team of loan officers. You can’t be everywhere at once. But, tools like Toggl can help you get a better understanding of where everyone is spending their time. So, you can use the information to coach employees who are spending time on unproductive or inefficient tasks.
Time Blocking to Improve Efficiency
Time tracking tools also help you create a “schedule” for your day (or your employees). Studies show that time blocking is an efficient time management technique, and can double or even triple your productivity. Time blocking is the process of scheduling out your day into blocks dedicated specifically to a single task or activity.
An example of time-blocking for a loan officer might look like this:
- 9:00-10:30 am – Marketing, new lead outreach, lead nurturing
- 10:30-12:00 pm – Outreach to clients and lending partners
- 12:00-12:30 – Check and respond to email and instant messages
- 1:30-3:30 pm – Client or team meetings
- 3:30-4:30 pm – Administrative tasks and paperwork
- 4:30-5:00 pm – Check and respond to email and instant messages
As a side note, studies show that we are most alert in the morning hours. So, those are the best times to schedule tasks that require a lot of mental energy and alertness. Saving meetings for the afternoon avoids disrupting those productive hours for you and your team. It’s also important to schedule a specific time for checking email and responding to IMs (two of the biggest distractions in the workplace) and only get into your inbox during these times.
3. ToDoist to Organize Your Day
Writing down all the things you need to get done has several benefits. It helps you organize your day, prioritize the most important tasks, and avoid forgetting something really important. But, ToDoist is more than just a list of things that you have to get done. It has features to create a schedule and deadlines for each task, organize them into separate sub-lists, create recurring tasks, and connect with all the other apps you use every day, like your calendar and email. The paid version also includes reporting and billing tools, as well as tracking features to visualize your productivity.
4. Jungo CRM for Leads, Marketing, and Retention
Also, loan officers have two options for bringing in revenue: acquiring new clients or bringing back repeat customers. So, managing your time efficiently between these two can be difficult. This is where a customer relationship management (CRM) tool comes in.
Using Your CRM to Bring in Repeat Business
Unfortunately, most loan officers don’t have the mortgage tools they need to effectively connect with clients. So, this is probably why Black Knight data showed that fewer than one in five people return to their loan officer for business more than once.
Mortgage loan officers aren’t the only ones neglecting the potential for repeat business. U.S. companies spent $282 billion on advertising in 2019, and only $2 billion on loyalty programs. Also, while these two numbers don’t represent an exact comparison between acquisition costs and retention costs, they do provide an idea of where companies are focused.
So, customer retention is easier with the right CRM, which can help you:
- Manage all your current customers in a single place
- Send out regular communications by email, text, and mail to existing or past clients
- Manage and track mortgage loan documents to efficiently categorize clients by total business, type of business, and more
- Send thank-you cards, birthday notes, and more to earn repeat clients
- Build stronger partnerships with referral partners through regular communication
Using Your CRM to Manage New Leads
New leads are the lifeblood of any successful mortgage loan business. So, the challenge for many loan officers is managing leads efficiently to stay in contact, move people toward a loan decision, and focus your valuable time on the most promising leads.
A CRM can help with all of these things if it includes features to:
- Pull in potential client contact information from your lead partners
- Automate the entire outreach process by sending specific marketing communications and tracking the client’s journey
- Integrate with your existing mortgage tools, like auto-dialers, POS, loan document management, and more
- Send out co-marketing materials with your lending partners
Increase Your Productivity Today With Mortgage Tools
So, discover how the right mortgage tools can improve your productivity to bring in new business and boost your bottom line as a loan officer. Find out how Jungo can help you simplify mortgage management and master the entire loan process from start to finish.
