“Self-Promotion”

I had a rare opportunity to go to lunch with 3 competitors of mine. We had done this before a couple of years ago and all of us were owners of our businesses. There was lots of discussion and complaining about, how much more difficult it was to get loans approved and how much longer it takes to get loans closed. 

At one point I started to laugh, I couldn’t help it. I said, “Can we talk about what is going well and share some successes?”. You could have heard a pin drop. I decided to stir the pot, I asked, “What are you doing that is better than the rest of your competition and how does that translate to the loan officers in your offices?” 

It was sad actually, they all seemed to be very uncomfortable with the question and all eyes were now on me. I told them, I had to focus on giving out more referrals. They all looked at each other and I’m sure they were all thinking the same thing. “Isn’t the idea to get more referrals from others?” one of them asked. I guess that thinking is OK, but my focus works better the other way.

 I shared with them a couple of things I felt I did better than anyone else. One of those things was blogging and social media and the results these efforts were having on my business. All said they didn’t have the time and would leave that to the newer LO’s. So, you are telling me, you don’t lead by example? 

We talked about Activerain, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and the Patch. I invited each of them to join Activerain, so far no takers. I noticed that all have checked out my Linkedin profile. It is always fascinating to interact with competitors, as I always walk away thinking how thankful and fortunate I am.