[PULSE] Competence leads to confidence – Confidence leads to consistency

Note: This is part four of a five-part series. Over the following weeks, Todd Duncan, sales entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author, will showcase principles for mortgage and real estate professionals to embrace for success. Find more advice in his first, second and third pieces.

It was a particularly difficult discussion. My youngest son, Matt, just eight-years-old at the time, finished his guitar lesson. As I walked with his teacher to the front door, he turned toward me and said a couple of things.

“Matt, has great potential,” his teacher said. “The only obstacle standing in his way is his attitude. He has to understand that without practice, there is no growth, and no greatness.” 

My son had greatness in him. I believed that. But, it would never show itself if his attitude towards practicing didn’t change. I did some research and came across this piece which I felt not only spoke truth, but it also involved music.  

Later that evening, I sat with Matt and we read this together:

Matt got it. He turned his attitude about practicing guitar from arduous and painful to exciting and fun. That afternoon I said to Matt, “competence leads to confidence; condfidence leads to consistency!” 

Today Matt is a masterful guitar player who has so much fun writing and performing music.

Choosing greatness is the key to everything –   It is the choice of all choices

This experience helped form Principle No. 4: Competence leads to confidence; condfidence leads to consistency. 

In the world of achievement, nothing is more important than doing what you do well, at the highest level of competence possible. When you do that, the confidence to execute gets stronger and stronger. When your confidence is high, you will want to do the thing as consistently as possible, because you are great at it.

Let’s look at this in a key discipline every mortgage, and real estate professional would want to practice as much as possible, to be as great as possible, to execute as consistently as possible – an initial conversation with a potential borrower (buyer/seller) who wants to buy a home and is inquiring about financing. The objective is to be unique and differentiated, and say things confidently that attract the buyer to you because of the unique value you offer.  

So let’s say you are being coached by me or one of our coaching faculty, and it becomes clear that your confidence in talking with buyers is low, you lack any sense of your unique value proposition, and you tend to “wing” it when speaking with a new prospect. 

To help, we write this script for you:

Most lenders will quote you a rate in the first three minutes of speaking with you. How I am different is I’m a Home Loan Strategist. You were referred to me from XX because they value that difference for their friends and clients. There are dozens of variables on what gives you the rate and program that is a “real” one and the best one for you and your family.

What most consumers don’t realize is the lowest rate with the wrong mortgage strategy could cost more than a slightly higher rate with the right strategy.

Our approach is to custom design a Complete Cost Analysis for you, presenting two to three options that integrate into your long and short term financial and investment goals and your payment, equity and cash flow priorities.

Here’s how we get started…

I’m sure reading this for the first time, It feels weird to you, clunky maybe, and you may have some doubt on whether or not you’d ever be able to say that to a buyer. And, that’s fair. But if you practice, you get better.

When you get better, you will work with better and more qualified people.  This script is not wrong because it’s wrong, it just feels wrong because it’s not you, yet. If you started memorizing this and making it yours, within about four hours you’d be pretty good at this. And what if, just what if, this improved your conversion rate by 10-15% every year for the next three years? You’d be in the top 1% in the industry in this most important category.  

Competence + Confidence = Consistency

So where do you need to get better? Where would a higher level of mastery impact your confidence and therefore, your consistency?  Have you ever done an honest assessment of your business practices?  If not, you can go here to download the LO Diagnostic, compliments of HousingWire.

It is not uncommon for people to improve their performance by five to 10 times in 12-calendar months when they seek the learning for where they have gaps in their performance.  

Dominic Dangora is a mortgage professional whom we have trained and coached who began his LO career in 2013. That year, he closed 20 loans for $2.6 million. Last year, in 2019, he helped 255 familes finance real estate for $51 million. And year to date through June, he’s helped 213 families for $47.5 million. One of the treasured quotes he forwarded….

“You gave me the confidence to consistently to implement the skill sets of top producers.  My life has changed drastically – personally, professionally and financially.”

That’s the goal – improvement.  And understanding that greatness doesn’t happen in a day; it happens daily, is the mindset of all high performing mortgage and real estate practices.  One thing that you must understand: Compounding.  The idea that a little bit of “forward” every day produces a whole bunch of “forward” someday.  

In High Trust Coaching, we help our members with this profound concept.  We are constantly measuring six different metrics that we believe are the most important growth areas for mortgage and real estate professionals.  Let me share a recent illustration from one student as to this focus on compounding.

When we began coaching Mike, his pre-qual conversion of conversations to applications was 22%. And, about 87% of those loans ultimately funded.  Those metrics were producing around $27,000 in commissions monthly.

We started working with Mike on how buyers were being referred to him, and what he was saying to hook borrowers into agreeing to meet with him.  We asked him to commit to improving his conversion rate by 2% a month for a year. Tweaks here, changes there, and yes, memorizing that “weird” script, and before you know it, he’s now at 46% conversion rate.  

The value of this formula, competence + confidence = consistency, is you will have a better business, more intentional and predictive growth, more revenue per minute worked, and more than likely two to four times the growth per year in your personal income. 

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