Having Hard Conversations in 2022!

We all know in the mortgage and real estate industry this market has shaken all the boats. We are battening down the hatches. We are teaching good sailors how to steer the ship where we can catch a tail wind. And there is a tail wind, but it looks like hard talks and hard lessons. Many will not make the pivot, sadly.

This market has ineptly been compared to the market of 2006-08' of which I have much vivid memory like so many. For me, I was a new executive at that time at the helm of national sales for the largest international accounting firm in the nation, helping run their retail mortgage division. The end results a complete closure of that division, putting myself out of work as well as my final act. That market had high delinquency and low demand. Today we have high demand. That market had homes with no equity and left the national real estate market reeling and running for cover, today properties are at the pinnacle of an arguable inflated value position. All of this however leaves firms in the same place. Having to consolidate to weather the storm.

Yes, no matter how we got here, there must be tough decisions made and for those firms who have grown and become bloated in the last few years of the sales tsunami find themselves in need of dire deflation. Those firms small enough to stay lean and mean will have far less of a calling for life saving conversations than their larger competitors.

With this said, how do we say what is hard to say to loyal staff who have shoveled the ditches of our empires for countless years, how do we pick those we eject from the boats we are steering that are taking on water? These are the questions so difficult to have. These tough decisions will come with criticism from your sneering competitors as they jeer your tough decisions to position themselves as suitors to those looking over the proverbial fence for a greener pasture. The answer is simple. "Avoid the noise"! A phrase I wrote in my book, 'Wise Eyes- See Your Way to Success' when I wrote about the recovery of my executive journey returning from the 06'-08' market. You must do what is needed despite all of the conjecture. Executive teams need to meet in their war rooms and figure out their life saving measures.

And all sales professionals in the mortgage industry need to take note of these tough calls. I found myself one year being asked to forgo my salary to weather a market much like this. I did so, under duress because I believed in the leader who asked me to take me to greater heights in the years ahead. That loyalty paid me tenfold in my career. THIS is that kind of year. Companies will figure out really quick who their loyalists are and are not.

The same sales pros that are living in this "cheaters" market peering over that fence trying to find those greener pastures will have both good attrition (loss of unwanted sales pros that are weak and bottom dwellers) and bad attrition (those high producing pros that seek financial injection from a suitor willing to stroke a check on last years bloated W-2 numbers). Either way, below is my bullet list for Executives and to the Sales pros who need to take heed in this advice:

To the Execs!

• Do what you need to do. "Avoid the Noise" as I say above. Save the ship. Bail the water and preserve the core lifeline of your firms.
• Be fair and equitable in your cost cutting measures: Make sure whatever you do it is fair and makes sense in your approach.
• For Service Relationship Cutting: Be smart and protect relationships that have been there with you and still provide helpful services. Do not cut too deep services that you will need in your future. Ask them to shoulder the expense and propose cost reduction verses an all or nothing proposition.
• When you have to do these life-saving messages, put out a proper PR statement. Do not be fooled that this does not matter and leave the talk to the social waves. State your reasons and be firm in your statements of leadership. It will secure those remaining in the seats who are likely to be pillaged by recruiters.
• Have internal meetings simultaneously when cost cutting measures are taking so your troops hear it from the inside and are prepared to shoulder your defense.
• Feel good about these decisions. When we look back at who survived other markets the victors were those who made the toughest calls to survive.

To Sales Pros:

• Be thankful you are with a firm who knows what to do to survive. This is a good thing not the opposite.
• Be loyal to your firm and be part of the solution.
• The grass is not greener: Sure, you could take that check you are seeking, and it would feel good on the short term but know that your long-term wins will not come from shortsightedness.
• Be smart: Stay with integral firms.
• This too shall pass.
• Learn where you can find the solutions to selling into this market as this market is rich in many areas for sales but requires a full understanding of how and where. (We can help you).
• Be committed to the idea that you CAN find a ton of Cash out Refi business this year, but you must learn how to wrestle the alligator of this conversation past a rate inquiry.
• Be a trusted advisor and lead with education.?

Helping both executive teams and branches create value that retains as well as teaching how to navigate this market is our shifted focus in 2022. We too have made a fundamental pivot to properly consult. I am grateful to God I didn't decide to be a consultant without the decades of senior sales leadership I possess. That has been our firm's salvation in 2022 because we know we can lead the way. Leadership for all of us is being called upon.

~Christine Beckwith, President and Founder 20/20 Vision for Success Coaching