You have to plant the tree now, so next year you’ll have shade. Having built a 100% referral based business, nobody knows that better than Southern California Broker/Owner and COO of Amerifund Home Loans, Jamie Cavanaugh. Starting as a Loan Officer Assistant while still in high school, Jamie has amassed over 20 years of industry experience. After experiencing multiples sides of the business and surviving the ‘08 crash, she has learned that while there are endless ways to be successful in the wholesale channel, at the end of the day, you just have to do the right thing. Sometimes that’s referring a potential client to another brokerage, sometimes that’s advising and educating a borrower with no expectations in return. 

Above all else are the relationships you build, not just with borrowers, but with potential referral partners, lenders, and even your own loan officers, processors, and assistants. Long-term success is dependent on the strength of your relationships. This refi-boom won’t last forever, and when purchase reigns, everyone will be crawling back to the real estate agents they’ve been ignoring. But not Jamie. Jamie utilizes her Salesforce CRM to keep up to date with all of her connections, checking-in weekly with free educational newsletters and templated texts. 

At the office, Jamie has created a system that fosters and awards growth, paying for licenses and training for all her staff. She also keeps up to date with the best industry tech, not to replace the broker experience, but instead leveraging tech in order to offer the ideal personalized experience for her borrowers. 

Once a warm lead comes her way from any of her countless quality relationships, Jamie can get started on what she labels her favorite part of the mortgage process; the nitty gritty. A balancing act of finding what’s best for each individual consumer, Jamie has created her ideal loan process that measures rates, programs, lenders, and overall service; whatever will best suit her client and lead the path of least resistance.

Rounding everything out with a mix of old school and new school marketing techniques, including both radio and social media advertising, Jamie has created a long-term successful business plan where the client comes to her, not the other way around. Listen in for some immediate takeaways as Jamie joins our host JP Hussey for a discussion about relationships, hiring practices, and even some tips on how not to get overwhelmed.

Show Notes: 

The post The Long Game: Using Your CRM to Create a Referral Based Brokerage (with Jamie Cavanaugh) – Episode 45 appeared first on AIME.