So you've just returned to your office after delivering an Oscar worthy presentation to a real estate agent. They're impressed and ready to do business with you. In fact, they promised to refer their next buyer to you. Good job, now you can kick your feet up on your desk and wait and wait and wait?.

Does this sound familiar? Have you had agents promise you deals that never appear? So what happens after the first meeting? Why do Agents have such short -lived memories of promises they've made to you? Has it reached the boiling point ? the point of giving up on Agents altogether? If so, keep reading because you'll find the mistake you've been making that by correcting it could dramatically turn things around.

Practice Like a Trial Attorney

If you consider it for a moment, trial attorneys are one of the great persuaders among professions. They spend their careers in courtrooms convincing juries if someone should be deemed guilty or not. So why not take a few cues from them and adapt as part of your strategy for building loyalty with agents.

Like an attorney's opening argument expresses his point of view, in your first meeting with an Agent, you share compelling reasons for doing business together.

After your opening argument is often the place loan officers make their mistake. Once they've heard the Agent remark, "I'll send you my next piece of business," they think their job is done, when in actuality, it's just begun. What the Agent has really said is, "I like you and you're a swell person." Not exactly the sound of commitment, is it? Solidifying a relationship with an Agent comes from building your case, just like an attorney convinces the jury, it happens over the course of the trial.

To Build Your Case, Document Your Performance

Too often, loan officers have a tendency to make lots of promises, like:

• Closing loans on time
• Being available 24/7
• Returning calls promptly
• Having doc's early to Title
• Providing leads to Agents

Instead of making promises, learn how to document your performance. Documenting your performance means that you've specifically accounted for your actions and quantified results you've helped achieve with the Agent ? your client. It communicates how you've solved a problem for them. Nothing ever speaks louder to a prospect than your track record.

Look at the two examples to demonstrate the point:

Example A: "I can close your loans on time."

Example B: "Over the past 2 years, 99.3% of loan doc's have arrived to Title 5 days prior to close of escrow."

Example B uses the S.M.A.R.T. method. The results are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-phased. This method will help shape your documentation so it's powerful in the written form.

By reviewing your performance regularly with Agents to document results, not only do you uncover quantifiable intangibles, but also it helps to positively remind the Agent why they chose you instead of your competitor. So the next time your competitor solicits your client, they'll be confronted with some tough-to-answer questions on how they've solved problems for other Agents.

With a track record in tow, you can use it to build your case by dripping it to your prospects after the first meeting. As long as you document, you'll always have fresh and continuous results to build your case with a prospect.

To Build Your Case, Use Variety of Packaging

Why do people believe what they see in writing before they believe what they hear? Because words published in black and white text are considered trustworthy compared to the spoken word.

Once you've documented your track record, package it in varieties. This includes, but isn't limited to:

• Articles
• Case Studies
• Audio CD's
• Newsletters
• Flyers
• Postcards

Gift wrap your documentation in varieties because people gather information differently. Some prospects want information in small doses. Sending postcards with pint size content can be easily digested. Then there are prospects that need to know everything. They'll appreciate reading a newsletter or lengthy article.

Having variety gives you the chance to build your case by dripping over time. Just because you send a prospect a flyer after a first meeting is no guarantee that they'll read it.

It's like a Grammy Award Winner. A musician doesn't win an award after someone has heard his or her song one time. They win because listeners hear the song repeatedly.

Send the same information repeatedly, just change the packaging. If your first piece is an article, let your second piece be an audio CD of the article. Or send information at different lengths. A postcard communicates a different message than a newsletter, yet both can include the same message.

To Build Your Case, Communicate Single Messages

My last trip to the grocery store turned out poorly. My wife called and asked me to pick up some things, she gave me the dreaded grocery list. Upon returning, she graciously informed me that I didn't get half the things she requested. It wasn't my fault ? but that's another story.

When you communicate a list of things, nothing gets communicated. Agents are more likely to read or listen to information that communicates a single message. Remember, you're competing in a communications jungle that's overcrowded and most messages get lost in the noise. It's easier to get noticed by sending one message than by sending too much information that ends up diluting your case.

Besides if you tell the prospect everything there is to know, there's nothing left to anticipate. That's like getting the same prize every time in the Cracker Jack box. After a while, it becomes anti-climatic.

As you drip one message at a time, you'll stay in sight and in mind! This establishes familiarity, which breeds attraction. After meeting with an Agent, building your case is the key to solidifying the relationship. A documented track record gives you persuasive material that can be packaged in varieties and dripped to your prospect. It becomes only a matter of time before they are convinced that you're their preferred loan officer.

Jeff Nelson helps mortgage companies and individual loan officers increase loan originations by attracting quality relationships with real estate agents from the development of customized relationship-building strategies.

Click here to get a free copy of the Marketing Planning Guide, a 20-page workbook designed to help you outline a strategy to becoming an Agent Magnet.

Visit us at http://www.loan-officer-marketing.com