Understanding Values and Setting Goals

Resources

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It is my belief that we are not the sum of our deeds. We are, in fact, the sum of our dreams. Your belief system defines who you are. You create who you are by what you chose to believe about yourself. – Joe Crump, Real Estate Investor and Mentor

Values determine behavior; behavior determines reputation; reputation determines advantages. – Zig Ziglar, Sales and Motivational Expert

Because we strongly believe that your behaviors are dictated in large part by your beliefs. Our very first goal is to help you determine your values. All values are based on subconscious feelings and conditioning. Your values contribute to your ideals and behaviors that you determine are important and desirable. Let’s start by examining a sample of a value statement as expressed by the Boy Scouts of America:

 Scouting is a values-based program with its own code of conduct. The Scout Oath and Law help instill the values of good conduct, respect for others, and honesty. Scouts learn skills that will last a lifetime, including basic outdoor skills, first aid, citizenship skills, leadership skills, and how to get along with others. For almost a century, Scouting has instilled in young men the values and knowledge that they will need to become leaders in their communities and country.

In contrast, here is their mission statement:

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

Even if you study these examples for only s very short period of time you can easily tell the differences between the Boy Scouts’ value-based statement and their mission statement.

When you first think about your values it may be easier to capture the more important ones if you categorize them. American psychologist Abraham Maslow developed one of the most famous categorization of needs from which your values can be defined:

When you think about your values, you may find that you are not confident about prioritizing them. However, doing so is very important. Being clear about your values and managing your time based on the values that are most important to you will contribute dramatically to a more satisfied life and increase your control over time.

Sometimes it is hard to identify the values you aspire to most. The following list reflects some values you can commit yourself to:

What are You Selling?

Before we bridge over to how to work with other people’s values consider the three things that you can sell:

If you are like most loan officers you are selling products because that’s the safe thing to do. You can accept it if someone reject your products much easier than if someone rejects you! But the key to successful selling is selling yourself not your products for two reasons.

First, buying a home is extremely emotional. Second, sharing life financial history with a stranger is hard. Both are much easier when the loan officer the borrower is working with is more of a friend than a stranger.

What about Other People’s Values?

One of the biggest mistakes loan officers can make while interviewing a prospect is letting the consumer direct the conversation. Most loan officers go on the defensive as soon as borrowers take the lead by asking, "What's your rate?" After all, the question lends credence to the idea that the caller is a logical creature looking for the best rate so why not immediately start concentrating on the financial issues at hand.

In reality nothing could be further from the truth. People buy on emotion and then justify it with logic. Remember our Irresistible Offer call during which we said the buyer will study your offer in three steps:

1. What's in it for me (study your touchstone)?

2. Why should I trust you?

3. What's the price?

Try diligently to establish an emotional tie-in with your callers within the first five minutes of your call, the sooner, the better. So you might be asking, "If values are that important how do I tap into other people's values?" We will discuss two ways to accomplish this.

Question to Elicit Values

The first method is to try using phrases and questions that elicit emotional commitment. Listen carefully to their reactions. The way they respond can provide great insights in to what their values are. Such phrases and questions include:

You must connect with your prospect on an emotional level. The easiest way to sell is to either tie your product or service to a positive emotion or as a solution that removes the pain of a negative emotion. You can talk about features and benefits all day long but if your prospect doesn't “feel” a solution to their problems, you won't “see” a sale.

When you meet someone for the first time, do you shake their hand warmly, smile and look them in the eye? Or do you simply cold heartedly say hello to them so that you can remain aloof and distant? You take the personal approach to create a memorial contact and to elicit trust. Should you do nothing less just because the contact is a prospect?

Using the FAME Method

A great method to building rapport is by using a method called “FAME.” In FAME the purpose of your initial call is to gather information that will help you understand the emotional and value triggers that your customers use to make purchase decisions. There are four steps to the interview:

F: Family. Find out as much as you can about the prospect’s family. Think about it, the buying needs of a single person are much different than a family of four and the buying needs of a family are eight are definitely different than the family of four. Remember also that families are dynamic; a family of four might become a family of eight.

 A: Activities. What borrowers and their families do in their spare time can provide common bonding elements that act as glue in securing a deal from your competition. A borrower who graduated from Auburn University is much more likely to do business with another Auburn graduate than with a loan officer who graduated from his or her arch rival, the University of Alabama. Likewise, someone might choose to do business with you because he or she learned that you served as a Little League coach and their kids are heavily involved with sports.  

M: Money. You need to know about money in order to do the loan so why not use this opportunity to gain further insights to the value system of your prospects. 

E: Employment (and Expectations). The final key actually consists of two parts. Employment is important because you typically must qualify your borrowers on their work history and income. Understanding what a person does can also provide you with insights into their value system. Teachers, police officers and ministers will usually have a different set of values than rock stars, rap artists and actors.

But knowing what someone does can help you in the sales process as the following example demonstrates:

A loan officer once asked Mark Collins, the eMortgageProfessor, “What do I do? We’re closing this afternoon and my borrower wants me to cut my fees to match a quote he found today.” Mark found out that the client was a dentist and suggested this, “Dr. Smith I can understand that you want the best deal you can get. But how would you feel if I came to your office and asked you to fill a cavity and then when leaving gave you to check for $50 less than your fee saying ‘A dentist down the street told me that he would do it for this amount so I just figured that you would be willing to match his price.’” The loan officer related the story to his client who simply responded, “I’ll expect your closer at 3:00 pm.” Yes, the loan officer had even arranged the closing to take place at the dentist’s office to minimize the time he was away from patients. 

The other half of the “E” factor is expectation. Asking for what the borrower’s expectations during the loan process accomplishes two things. First, it shows the borrower that you care about their feelings and want to understand what they hope to have happen. Second, it enables you to align your values and behaviors to the values and behaviors of the people you choose to do business with. You might opt not to do business with someone that is so keen on getting the best terms that you know there will be little or no profit in the deal for you.

When it Comes to Setting Goals, Think SMART

S: Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer as many "W" questions as practical:

Which goal is better: "Close more loans." or "Implement a FSBO marketing campaign by August 1 to increase production by two units per month."

M: Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal. To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

A: Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals. You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.

R: Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love. Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

T: Timely - Timely - A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there's no sense of urgency. If you want to close 10 loan a month, when do you want it to happen? "Someday" won't work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, "by October 1st", then you've set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal. 

Types of Goals:
Qualitative Goals

Reaching one goal is not an end; it is the means by which you set higher goals to reach. We talked a lot about goal setting earlier but we now want to talk about the qualitative nature of goals. There are three qualitative goals that we haven't talked about yet.

Achievement Goals

Achievement goals are special measures of the struggle you endure to reach your goals. Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine, suggested, "Success is not measured by what you accomplish but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds." Achievement oriented goals that those goals that you are can pride in achieving but have trouble measuring like working hard to be professional, striving to help others and taking time to acquire new knowledge and learn new skills. These goals can be realistic, specific, challenging and exciting but are difficult to measure.

Productivity Goals

Productivity is the measure of attaining a specific level of accomplishment. Peter Drucker wrote, "Efficiency is doing better what is already being done." For example, you might have as a goal to obtain underwriting decisions on any file you originate within 48 hours. This type of goal is a production oriented goal. Productivity goals have all of the attributes of effective goals that we discussed in our first lesson.

Material Goals

Finally, we look at material goals. Some of you might have set as a goal to be able to purchase a new and larger home within 12 or 24 months. Material goals stress the importance of things that you can buy or acquire with other resources. To be frank, we do not like to set material goals, we prefer to concentrate on achievement and productivity goals. Working towards a particular material goal often causes an individual to lose sight of the larger picture. As we mentioned before, making money is not your vision; your vision is what you do with the money you make.

Some Goal-Setting Principles

Consider the following:

For those of you using Encompass you understand the concept of milestones. When you include milestones in describing a goal you have defined activities that you can use build into your to-do list. For example, say your goal is to produce five loans per month. Based on your funding percentage you know that to produce five units you need to interview 15 clients. The following milestones might help you:

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