Skills Bootcamp

Book knowledge is one thing.  Being able to apply that knowledge to real life deals in real time is a completely different level of skill.  That is where the experts shine, the ones who have truly mastered the fundamentals of financing.  And that is where the first section of the Skills Boot Camp focuses. 

You work your way through financial statements and corporate tax returns from real life deals.  You see what to look for, how to quickly discern what deals have legs and what deals are best avoided, and how to calculate in seconds the key ratios that lenders will most care about.  Through drill after drill you sharpen your skills, so that when you are out on your own you have already mastered it.

COIs are well connected individuals who – in helping their clients on a daily basis – will naturally be discussing that client’s financing needs.  Referrals flow when your network is filled with these Centers of Influence. But how do you get in front of them?  And once there, what do you say to make them want to send their referrals to you?

Throughout the Boot Camp you become an expert at tested and proven scripts for each step in the relationship building process.  You learn how to lead by giving and how to position yourself as a help to THEIR success.  In so doing, you become a trusted part of their network and someone to whom they want to send referrals.

Not only do you learn these tactics, but you practice each step from initial phone calls and drop in visits to follow up pitch meetings and formal presentations.  Your coaches provide you feedback on each conversation, helping you to craft your messaging, smooth your presentation, and feel like an old pro before you ever have your first real world conversation.

The most successful brokers maximize each and every conversation they have.  They move deals forward with every meeting and every call.  Achieving this requires you to be able to think on your feet. You need to know your product line up forwards and backwards.  You need to quickly discern the key aspects of each potential deal, lining up clients with the right loan type and the right lender on the fly.

This is where the Assessment Module of the Boot Camp come into play. You run through more deal scenarios in this segment than you are likely to see in your entire first year as a broker.  You learn what to look out for and how to check for the most common issues that will blow up that type of deal. Then, as you practice rapid assessment, you work on real world examples to give you the practical edge in the field.

Each deal is unique.  But every deal will still proceed through the exact same stages of conversation.  The Skills Boot Camp is built around the drills and practical practice you will need in order to master these fundamentals.

You practice the exact scripts you will use at each step in the flow of a deal.  You learn what points you need to emphasize, when to hit on them, and why.  At each stage, you are continuously polishing your skills for getting client agreement on the next step.  With each drill and practice session, your coaches are giving you real time feedback on tweaks you can make to your communication that will create a practical, real world impact on your closing rates.

Everything we teach, drill, and practice is designed to avoid and minimize objections.  But the truth is that even with the best preparation, objections will still happen from time to time.  So we make sure you are well equipped to handle them.

Throughout the Skills Boot Camp we cover detailed training in objection handling for each primary category of a broker’s partnership: Centers of Influence (your referral network), Clients, and Lenders.  We cover all of the objections you might face in each type of conversation and how to best respond.  Then you practice, practice, and practice with careful oversight from your coaches.  The drills ingrain the responses, so that the first time objections come up in the real world, polished naturally flow and turn each objection into an opportunity to further the sales conversation.

Finding clients and deal opportunities is only half of the brokerage game. Superstar brokers are equally adept at working with lenders as they are with clients.  They speak the language of finance, address lender concerns before they arise, and present each deal and loan package in a favorable (and realistic) light.

Your coaches walk you through real life examples of how small tweaks in lender communications will have a major impact on the outcome of a deal.  You learn what to always include in your lender conversations, and what to NEVER say.  You review scripts for pitching opportunities, analyze positioning options, and, as always, you practice, practice, practice.  We make sure that your first real world conversation with a lender feels like a been-there-done-that-before, run of the mill call.

At the end of the day, each broker has a clear report card – the deals that you have closed.  Everything else leads up to this.  So in the Closing Module, we focus on how to keep a deal moving, how to decrease its time in underwriting, and how to avoid the pitfalls that can torpedo an otherwise great opportunity.  Your coaches walk you through the art of follow up, how to stop client delays, and how to know when it’s time to move to another lender.  You then practice the “hard conversations” that you may occasionally need to have to give dying deals a kick in the backside and revive the opportunity.

Deal flow – a steady stream of new opportunities – is the blood pumping through the heart of a healthy brokerage.  Typically the highest quality opportunities come from direct referrals, so the Skills Boot Camp devotes extensive time to the art of generating and working referrals.

You learn and practice individual scripts for both clients and Centers of Influence.  You learn how to plant the idea of potential referrals early in each relationship, and then how to return to it later on after you have proven yourself and delivered value. Finally, you drill these conversational snippets until they become second-nature to use everyday.