CHICAGO—Good training comes from having good recruiting practices, declared one panelist at the “Best Practices in Sales Training” session at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention here.
Michael Jablonski, the executive vice president, retail mortgage production manager, at BB&T Home Mortgage, said “The people I hire have a direct reflection on the mortgage industry.” And vice versa, the people he hires are a direct reflection on him, he said.
It is important to look for people who are a good match with your company's culture. Jablonski looks for people with a “sales personality,” as well as knowledge and motivation.
When looking to hire new sales staff, the recruiter should fully describe what his company is about to the target and what it takes to be successful in that business. At BB&T, it conducts “cultural immersion” sessions.
“If you don't know who we are, you will after this,” Jablonski declared. The immersion training leads some people to decide they do not fit the company's culture and they opt-out at that point. And while that is OK, he noted that this is an opportunity to go back and reexamine your recruiting process.
BB&T conducts its training sessions in multiple modules, with the new hires sent out into the market in between. This gives an opportunity for the sales leader (or coach) the person will be working with an opportunity to connect with the loan officer early in the process, Jablonski said.
The advantage of the module system, he continued, is that training delivered in small bites is better accepted and remembered by the student.
BB&T has continuous training in such areas as product, compliance and company culture, plus there are specific training events for top producers.
Gene Lugat, senior vice president and division manager for PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital company, said today's sales job candidate has to be agile in order to adapt to all of the changes in the mortgage industry.
What has worked in the past for recruiting top producers does not work today. It is more difficult to be a loan officer now and managers have to realize that. Echoing a point Jablonski made, Lugat stated recruiters should never compromise on their hiring practices.
The interview is the place to see if the candidate fits into your organization. At PrimeLending, he said the applicant meets with the entire management team. “You need to meet our team and team needs to meet you,” is the company's attitude.
To create valued employees, the company needs to provide them with tools and training. PrimeLending developed the ONTRACK program, which takes the best practices of its top-performing loan officers and developed a scorecard of activities for its sales staff.
A key for retaining top producers is rewards and recognition for their work, Lugat said. But in the end, the best retention tool is making sure loan officers get their loans closed.
The sales training process starts with your recruiting, added Bonnie Sorge, senior vice president, national retail sales manager at U.S. Bank Home Mortgage. Her company sends recruits to “university training” for a week.
It is not all just sales training, she said, but an opportunity to understand the company and its culture. A lot of time is spent during the week talking about the customer experience.
U.S. Bank Home Mortgage sets up individual sales training plans based on each loan officer, taking into account what their client base is. The goal is to develop loan officers on their individual strengths, Sorge explained.
Each loan officer has his or her own business plan; there is a performance tracking guide and managers are to use this as a coaching tool.
Annual training is provided to its leadership teams so they are able to work with the loan officers in the field and coach them.
There is ongoing training because sometimes the loan officer has to reinvent himself or herself, she said.
Patricia Sherlock, the president of QFS Sales Solutions, said there is a need for what she termed “sales training 2.0” as today's more demanding customer requires a better sales person.
This new model moves away from the mass training experience and she said most people have short attention spans.
Any sessions which last longer than 10 minutes are “wasted training.” It has to be crafted as short learning bites and it has to be accessible through technology, Sherlock said.
