By Mike Moffitt (Mike is a Senior Loan Officer with US Bank Home Mortgage, Minneapolis, MN. He specializes in the first time homebuyer market. Mike has created an excellent product entitled, "Recession Proof Your Business." This product contains a book, along with an audio CD and a PowerPoint presentation on a CD. It is a detailed, and has step-by-step instructions on seminar preparation and registration; sample of seminar forms, marketing materials, follow up letters and scripts; database management techniques and the first-time home buyer seminar "speech." CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO. If you have questions about his system, please email us.)
Mike will also be one of the featured speakers at Turn On Your Million Dollar Brain IV Workshop, in February, 2004. CLICK HERE for more details about this year's incredible lineup of speakers .
Listening is one skill than can improve careers, relationships, wealth and happiness more than any other. Ineffective listening, however, remains a liability many of us choose to ignore. We are a society of talkers, yet in everyday life, the most charismatic people are often the best listeners.
Research has consistently demonstrated that ineffective listening habits present the most common barriers to success in relationships and careers. The greatest "listening" paradox is that most of us admit we don't listen effectively and yet do little to improve.
One of the quickest ways to improve your effectiveness as a loan officer is to start listening - I mean really listening to your clients. We have two ears and one mouth. We should listen at least twice as much as we talk, yet most of us don't. My wife saw a t-shirt the other day that said, "I'm talking and I can't shut up!" I bet everyone of you reading this article knows someone you immediately think of when you read that phrase. Would someone reading that phrase think of you? I hope not!
It's rare to meet a listener and even rarer to meet a listening salesperson. If you believe that to sell is to serve, listening is the right thing to do. Most of us got into the mortgage business because we felt we could make a good living by helping people obtain the best financing for them. How can you help someone make the right decision if you don't know what's good for them?
Want to have some FUN with everyone in your office? Visit a website called "Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab" at www.esl-lab.com. This is an online "listening quiz" where you listen to a conversation and then answer questions about what you have heard. If you would like to obtain a copy of a "written" quiz, go to www.esl-lab.com.
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The scope of this topic is too large to do justice in an article. What I can offer you, however, is to tell you what not to do when you're with a client, and tell you how to make a quick, decisive beginning to being regarded as a good listener.
Let's start with what not to do:
Written By: Mike Moffitt
