New Recruiting Metric All Lenders Should Consider

Recruiting Mortgage Loan Officers is one of the most competitive areas of the mortgage industry. Enterprise-level mortgage lenders will roll out bonuses’, company perks, and even automobiles to get the top origination talent to sport their logo. Recruiters look at pipelines and referral partners and how their volume was distributed between retail purchases and refinances. While recruiters may consider the size of a professional network a critical metric – why isn’t a contact database equally, if not more, essential in evaluating a specific mortgage loan officer?

A survey was conducted on what lenders believe verse what borrowers do. Lenders and mortgage loan officers believe that about 40% of their business is generated through referral partners. When they asked borrowers, they said they made a lender selection 13% of the time based on the referral partner or realtor. That is a massive gap. So, if lead generation is only generated through referral partners 13% of the time, then how important is the utilization of the database to increase borrower retention?

While a dozen metrics need to be considered when recruiting a loan officer, we contend that a mortgage loan officer’s database must be one of those metrics to ensure that a loan officer can truly discover a new business in any market. Just having a database is likely not enough, so here are three considerations one should have when recruiting mortgage loan officers and ensuring they have a database worth hiring.

1. Where is the Data? – Simply keeping a database is excellent; however, where you store that data is imperative to a lender. If they show up with a Rolodex of business cards, you might need to ask if they also have a pager. An Excel spreadsheet is barely better, but at least it shows some organization. Lastly, do they leverage their LOS or CRM to maintain and optimize the data they have stored for their career?

2. How is the Data Managed? Or is it managed at all? Having all the contacts is excellent, but what is someone doing with this information that they have spent time putting together? Do they have any scalable process to engage the data to increase their business? Do they do any marketing? Do they have any automation? Of course, do they use MonitorBase or some other borrower retention tool?

3. Is the Data Good? Having contacts is great, but only if they possess data of integrity that is helping them reach their goals. Having 19 landscapers listed in a CRM amongst closed loans and prospects is not ideal. Wrong phone numbers and email addresses that aren’t filtered out can provide terrible outcomes in marketing campaigns and borrower retention technology engagements. An initial question to ask to determine if the data is solid, organized, and managed is quite simple: How many closed loans can you originate from your database monthly?

The power of a contact database is incredible if you can leverage technology, activate a process, and take continuous action on these opportunities. There continue to be more realtors in the market than home listings, but demand for a home is staying strong in 2023. When recruiting the best mortgage talent to grow your organization, the strength of a contact database and its use will separate top loan officers in the coming years. 

#EveryContactMatters