The Mortgage Recruiting Leaders Phone Scripting

Hey everybody, it's Richard Mulligan here with Foresee Recruiting, and today I'm going to talk about phone scripting. Okay, so in my experience, this is something that may be a bit foreign to a lot of the mortgage recruiting leaders that are out there, and I say that jokingly, but I do hear a lot of voicemails and I hear about a lot of the introductory You know, scripting that, that a lot of you are using when you're calling recruits. Okay, so, you know, there's a lot of recruiting that goes on inside the mortgage industry. In fact, in my experience, there may only be one other industry, the pharmaceutical industry, where people get pursued as hard as they do inside the mortgage industry. So the little things are the big things. Okay, phone scripting is so important. In fact, there's really 2 things that you need to use again and again and again in this business to be a successful mortgage recruiting leader. LinkedIn is one of those, and most of you don't know how to use LinkedIn. Okay? You connect and then you ask. You have an ask. You ask for a meeting. No, you shouldn't be doing that, but I'm not here to talk about that. But the other tool that you use, that you should be using, is the phone. It's too powerful. It's one of the top 2 things that you need to use in order to be a successful recruiting leader. Now, here's the bad news. If you're not using the phone, you have to use the phone. Okay? I recognize that most people sign up for being a branch manager and, um, and don't realize they're signing up to be a telemarketer. Yes. If you're going to be a successful recruiter, if you're going to be a successful branch manager, You have to recruit. In my— in the numbers that I've studied, 9 out of 10 hires come directly through the recruiting leader. The recruiting leader is the branch manager, the area manager, the regional manager, or VP. They don't come through recruiting departments. Okay, they don't come from external recruiters. People come to you because of you, the recruiting leader. Okay, so compliments to you. People are going to come to you because of you, which means that you have to be able to establish relationship over the phone. And what it means is that you have to have a phone script when you call someone. Now, it doesn't mean you're going to read directly from the script, but you better have some bullet points that you're going to actually engage around when you call somebody. Now, I hear what's being used out there, and it is— it's sad because you are— a lot of you are setting yourselves up for failure. You're making a mockery of your leadership because when you call, the scripts that you're using are so weak. And a lot of you are actually leaving voicemails. And I get to hear those voicemails because a lot of people that I coach actually send me the voicemails and say, you won't believe the voicemail that I heard today. And the voicemails are very weak. So take your voicemail and stop leaving them, period. Voicemail is a breadcrumb, breadcrumb that leads back to you, the recruiting leader. And I'm sorry to tell you this. But nobody wants to talk to you. Nobody wants to talk to you. Nobody wants you with your agenda to call them and to say, hey, I've got a better opportunity for you. Please let's meet. They just don't. It's, it's, it's not something— listen, we've tested this at a very high level with a very large mortgage company, and in leaving over 1,000 voicemails, we had 4 responses. And those 4 responses were people that we were not interested in. Okay. That means that's a, what is that? A 0.04% response rate to voicemail and a 0% return on the voicemails. Voicemail is not a productive tool for you to use as a recruiting leader. Keep in mind, the recruiting leader fishes for recruits different than the corporate recruiter does. The corporate recruiter has this huge seining net that they get to use. You as a recruiting leader use an individual fishing pole, and what's on the end of that, at the end of that hook, is you, the attractive leader. Okay? The attractive leader represents this: has a vision. Okay? If you don't have a vision, get a vision. Is very clear in their core values, their core convictions, their vision. Can articulate that very well. And then lives and acts in accordance with that vision. So that's, that's the bait on the end of your hook. Okay. So when you call with that bait on the hook, you have to have a completely different script with a completely different presentation. So let me give it to you. Okay. It's not that complicated. Do some research before you call somebody, take that cold call and turn it into a warm call very quickly because you've done a decent amount of research on the individual. Okay, now when you call, when you call, you're going to, you're going to get one of two things immediately when you introduce yourself. I'm Richard Milligan with ABC Mortgage Company. Immediately you're going to get one of two objections. If someone says, I'm so glad you called, thank you so much for calling, your antennas need to go up right away because that's not supposed to happen. What is going to happen is you're going, you're going to get one of two, um, objections. I don't have time to talk to you right now. Okay, one objection. The second objection, I'm super happy where I'm at and I'm not going to leave. Thanks for the call. Okay, now how you handle that objection is ultimately going to mean how much success you have in recruiting. So I'm going to acknowledge the objection. I appreciate the fact that you're a busy person. I'm gonna acknowledge it. Let me be real direct. Simple script to overcome it. I'm happy where I'm at. Okay. Um, and, and I'm, and I'm never gonna leave this company. I'm gonna die here. I appreciate the fact that you're happy where you're at. I'm excited to hear that. So let me be real direct and tell you why I'm calling. Okay. That's how you overcome the objection. And now here's a very simple script. Um, I'll include the bullet points of this script in this post here so that you can go back to those. But here's the scripting that you're going to use around this. Okay. Okay, I'm not calling to recruit you. Lead with that. Okay, now I'm saying lead with that and then honor that, because if you get to meet them face-to-face, don't recruit them. If your first face-to-face— if your objective is to move them to a face-to-face meeting, and then in that face-to-face, first face-to-face meeting, you're trying to recruit them, you have lost. You have lost. Recruiting is building relationships. That first meeting should be all about building relationships. Remember, you're an attractive leader. You're not a recruiter. Yeah, you do wear a recruiting hat, but how do you move people through your recruiting pipeline? You do it through building trust. Go back 2,000 years ago. There were 2 reasons why people resided underneath a king. They were for protection and they were for provision. But at the heart of that, there was trust. There were core values involved. Trustworthiness, authentic leadership, loyalty. These are the things that are at the heart of that. We fast forward 2,000 years and leadership and why people reside underneath leaders has never changed. It's not changed a single bit. It's called what are your core values? You want to win over somebody? Show them who you are as a leader. What are your core values? What are your core convictions? What is your vision? That first meeting needs to be built around understanding who the candidate is, who the recruit is, what is it that motivates them, and then letting them see who you are as a leader. Okay? So we're going to honor this in the phone scripting. We're going to honor it. We're going to say, I'm not calling to recruit you. I'm simply calling to build a relationship with you. And here's why. In this business, I understand that every— that people transition on average 2.5 years. That's what the average is. Every 2.5 years, somebody transitions. Listen, that should be motivating you as a recruiting leader. 4 out of 10 people are going to transition this year. 4 out of 10 people based on that number will transition this year. That means that if you can build relationship, if you can build trust, if you can get them to see who you are at the heart of you, you will have success recruiting. Okay? So I'm not calling to recruit you. I'm actually calling because I did a bunch of research on you, which you will use Zillow, use LinkedIn, use NMLS, do some organic Google searches, go to Yelp. These are all places to find phenomenal information. I've done some research on you and it appears that we have some similar core values, some similar core convictions. So I'm actually reaching out to introduce myself and I'm asking you if you would be willing to do a face-to-face meeting with me, understanding That the average time that someone spends at a company in this business is 2.5 years. And I understand that if something happens at your company, something significant changes, they sell, they get bought, they change, you know, something of significance that affects you and your family, your protection and your provision for your family, that you're going to reach out to people that you trust to see what, what would make a great plan B. And all I am wanting to do is to be that person. That you could say at some level you trust. And the only way for us to get there is for us to meet and for us to see if we can, if we align. I want to find out about you. You find out about me. But I promise you, I promise you, in this meeting, I will not recruit you and I will not talk about my company. So I'm available next Tuesday at 10 AM. What's your schedule look like to grab a cup of coffee? That's a beautiful script. Now honor that. Okay. Honor that. Now, there are a lot of reasons why that script works, and it also plays into next steps in the recruiting system and the recruiting processes that I teach. That's a powerful script. Start using it and stop winging it. So many of you are winging it. You're devaluing who you are as a leader when you show up and you wing it on anything. You know this. Show up to a presentation and wing it. People will devalue your leadership. You are winging your calls. I hear the scripts that you're using. I hear the voicemails that you're leaving. There's a lot of people out there that are simply rolling the dice and hoping the right words come out of their mouth. Get a script, memorize the script, know how to overcome these objections, use them. Powerful things will come from them. Okay. All the best to you as a recruiting leader. You have the most difficult job inside the mortgage industry today. I believe that you wear 12 to 15 hats on a daily basis. And you have to wear the recruiting hat. That's hard to do, but you can do it and you can do it well. I know that lots of people do, and you can do it. You need to understand some basic things around to be successful. I'm here to teach them to you. Have a great week, everybody.