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Persistence Enables Unexpected Growth Part 2

Guest articles > Persistence Enables Unexpected Growth Part 2

by: Daniel Milstein

Throughout my time as a salesman, I have seen people fight for what they want and succeed. Without persistence, I wouldn't have become a successful salesman, Gold Star wouldn't be what it is today, and my staff wouldn't have excelled in their careers.

In 2004, my processor announced she and her husband were moving to Tyler, Texas, but wanted to remain employed with Gold Star. She wondered if we were interested in opening an office there. I was unsure only because it wasn't part of our immediate plans and we had greater priorities. However, I was impressed with her work ethic and desire to stay with Gold Star. So we provided her with a crash course in the sales side, enabling her to open a home office when she arrived in Tyler. After working from her home office for a few months, she eventually developed sufficient business to make it worthwhile for us to open a small Gold Star branch, which helped us develop a model that we would adapt to other areas.

In 2006, we made a major move that helped propel Gold Star into an even more visible position on the mortgage industry map. The manager of the Allied Home Finance office approached me to discuss potential merger plans with the local Chase Bank branch. They had been asking for suggestions regarding high producing mortgage brokers and were encouraged to call me. Their goals were to be able to close loans in multiple states, and to combine a top producing mortgage brokerage with a correspondent operation. I was intrigued, but in no rush to affiliate with other firms unless I could be assured we would avoid the stumbling blocks often associated with such corporate marriages. We began a series of discussions to see if we had similar long-term objectives, whether such a merger made sense to all of us.

Our casual conversations soon evolved into serious planning to achieve the ambitious goal of uniting the three firms into a single entity. I was excited about the prospects of this potential expansion, but our future certainly wasn't dependent on the deal. We had a successful office of 20 talented, loyal people who enjoyed working with each other to ensure Gold Star had a bright future. I reasoned that if this merger didn't work out, there would be other equally promising opportunities.

Our deliberations lasted more than four months, during which we reviewed mutual goals, financial arrangements and various other topics. Chase's experienced loan officers had to be convinced it was to their advantage to join us. In order to get a consensus, so that everyone would be enthusiastic about joining the new group, I had more than 30 group and one-on-one meetings, where I could share the company philosophy and help make the originators comfortable with the proposed alliance. We finally agreed to the creation of a separate division of Gold Star Mortgage-- National Home Lending. It would take a year before all of the new loan originators and staff had moved into the same building, but essentially the deal was done. This was definitely a momentous milestone in Gold Star's relatively short history.

Sales is about finding a mutual benefit to a transaction. If a consumer doesn't see this benefit, it's your job to be persistent, find the benefit and close the sale.

Daniel Milstein is the bestselling author of ABC of Sales. For more information, visit: http://amzn.to/ABCARTICLES.

Contributor: Daniel Milstein

Published here on: 17-Nov-13

Classification: Sales

Website: http://amzn.to/ABCARTICLES