Importance of Team Loyalty for a Successful Loan Business

Today's Business & Life Tip, I’m going to start by asking you a question, “Would you rather be feared or loved?” You know it’s an important question, and the answer I think it's pretty obvious, most of us would rather be loved...

And yet at the same time, the decisions that we often make as leaders are once that put us in a position we’re to be feared by our teammates and the people that we worked closely with. I think we need to take a long look at that and decide whether or not that's really gettings us to what we want.

Another important question I ask is, “What is the message that I'm sending to my team as it relates to me displaying for them that I care and I consider them to be an important asset to me?” If I did an interview with your team, what would say about your leadership, what would they say if I asked them the question, if you really care about them, truly care and are the message that you're sending consistent with that?

A few things to give some consideration to, is it appropriate for your processors and the rest of your teammates to be giving out their cell phone number to your referral partners and your clients? I would offer no, I think that your modeling bad leadership and bad life balance in requiring them to do that. If you're making the choice to do that yourself that’s your business, I would highly encourage you to not do that either. I think that at some point in time that your workday needs to end. You need to be able to go home and be with your family and things can wait till tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. We're not talking about life and death here but, I definitely recommend that you do not subject your teammates to being out of balance because that’s not going to create long-term success for your team longevity. People are going to feel underappreciated and burn out after awhile.

Another question that I would ask is, as your going out now and starting to develop more relationships with real estate agents and that temptation could be to just take on anybody, “What’s your vetting process to ensure that the agents that your bringing in to your system, that your subjecting your team to, are agents that you really want to work with that are respectful?” Too oftentimes I see loan originators contort themselves and comply with Realtors excessive, obnoxious, and unrealistic demands to the detriment of not only themselves but to their team and I’m wondering, what’s the message that’s being received there by the team member?

I think that the message might be that making money is more important than your happiness. Making money is more important than requiring them to work with somebody that’s kind to them. And, are you defending your team to referral partners and requiring your referral partners to work in conjunction with what would be the best interest of the balance and harmony of your team? These are the important things to think about because, in the end, people want to feel appreciated, they stay with you long-term if they are feeling appreciated. We’ve talked time and time again about how turnover kills and how you really want to make sure that you have a team that’s highly motivated to work for you.

Too many times I hear loan originators complain to me that they don’t have a great team and when I start to do the analytics and really start to get under the hood and look at it, a lot of it’s because there’s not loyalty. And it starts with the leader, earning that loyalty as a result of first, caring.

Hopefully, this makes sense hopefully this is helpful to you, to your success we look forward to having another business tips coming your way.