Happy Sunday Everyone:
Realtors advertise/market their numbers more than lenders. It’s not a knock, its smart. Your volume is certainly an indication of your value to your clients. Lenders are more aware of their internal ranking because the companies we all work for want internal competition. Most people in sales are competitive, hopefully no new news there.
Our data analytics team is big. We have more reports available to us than I could ever understand. Helping run our division; the data team sent some reports to me on our market share in various markets we’re in across the country. I was of course curious about my own market, Contra Costa County, and Alameda County primarily. Turns out our team was #1 in Contra Costa County by almost double the volume, and #10 in Alameda County (2024 numbers). I knew we did well, but I had no idea, or you would have heard about it sooner (partially joking). I have a few bigger points outside of using this venue as an opportunity to brag.
Being number 1 is great but guess what % of the volume I was in Contra Costa County. You ready for the number, total domination, wait for it, wait for it, .78%. Number 1, but less than 1% of the total volume. In Alameda County #1 spot was .58%, we were .39% at #10. Contra Costa County’s top 10 loan officers represented 4.34% of the total volume, Alameda Country, top 10 loan officers represented 4.5% of the total volume.
Why does this matter? Serves as a reminder to me to make data-based decisions vs. emotional based decisions. A couple LO’s were laughing with me about trying to break into a market where their emotional perception is that I have a lot of market share and it’s almost impossible for them to break into it. The data would tell them I don’t have 99.3% of the market share. It would tell them the top 10 don’t have 95.66% of the market share. So, what other excuse do you have to not get out there and prospect? Side note- had a great sales call with Sean Herrero last Tuesday for our division, he suggested we all swap out the word “reason” with “excuse”. So instead of saying the “reason” I didn’t do something, replace it with “the excuse” I have for not doing something, keeps you more honest with yourself.
Why else does it matter-Play your own game. I can tell anyone that wants to know where they are on these lists where they are against their competition. Personal goal for me is to stay #1 in CCC and get from the 10 spot to the 5 spot in Alameda in 2025. I can look at this report monthly and it will tell me if I’m climbing or falling. Data is measurable, we can track our activity, we can see the results, for better and for worse.
I know for sure I can error on the side of emotional decisions, I’m an emotional person, and I’m okay with that. When it comes to consistency, when it comes to measurable, when it comes to scalable, those are always going to be based on data, never emotions. A certain amount of calls turns into a certain amount of meetings, those meetings turn into establishing some trust with clients and business partners, that trust turns into some lead opportunities, those leads turn into pre-approvals, and those pre-approvals turn into contracts, those contract turn into closed loans, and those closed sum up to your total volume, and that total volume ranks you against your competition. That’s 100% data, 0% emotion.
I’m embarrassed I didn’t know these specific reports were available before now. Personal lesson for me is to have an alarm bell going off in my head if I’m making emotional vs. data-based decisions. I do believe the more responsibilities we all take on, the more we need to shift from emotional to data based decisions, not entirely, but primarily.
Have a great rest of your Sunday. Thanks for reading!