By Todd Duncan

Hutchinson, Minnesota, is just south of the middle of the state, about an hour’s drive west of the Twin Cities overlooking the Crow River Valley. In summer, folks come from surrounding areas to celebrate
the Polka Festival and the Grand Day Parade at the McLeod County Fair. Three lakes sparkle minutes from downtown where fishermen and brave swimmers pass their time and there is green space in abundance for those who enjoy an afternoon nap. Hutchinson is a lovely place to miss the sounds of the big cities but it’s an unlikely place for an ambitious mortgage professional to settle down. Ian did anyway.

There are only 13,451 residents in Hutchinson and less than 5,700 homes with an approximate median price of $115,000. The city limits encompass only 7.4 square miles of space. None of this kept Ian from setting his sights high. Really high. His goal was to gross $35 million in loans that year.

He sat down with a coach and was told it would be impossible without a brilliant strategy. Hutchinson was not the kind of place you could rely on walk-ins or eye-catching billboards. And you could not do all the work yourself. You needed a team to expand your productivity and a network of locals to spread the good word.

Ian got right to work with a two-part plan. He began talking regularly with current customers to make sure he was meeting their needs and then he formed partnerships with influential townsfolk.

You might guess what happened. People started talking and Ian began delivering. Word travels fast in a small town because good business is good conversation. By the end of the year Ian had far surpassed his goal. When the final tally came in, he’d closed over $66 million in loans, nearly double his initial target.

This was two years ago and his business wasn’t done climbing. Ian remains a topic of conversation today and his team averages about $100 million in loans each year. But he quickly explains that numbers no longer matter. Now his goal is simple: to meet the needs of his friends. That’s what customers become when you do good business in a small town.

Lesson Summary

Crunch all the numbers you like, small odds of success don’t matter when you have a foolproof strategy. Ian knew how word travels in a small town and he came up with a business plan that leveraged its pace. Word-of-mouth marketing is, and probably will remain, the best way to grow a business. The key is giving people a reason to talk without telling them what to say. Do this and it won’t matter if the odds aren’t in your favor; eventually, everybody acts on what they hear if they hear it enough.

Unwavering sales success is maintained by consistency. Consistent actions on your part lead to consistent expectations on the customer’s part which lead to consistent reactions from the customer which lead to consistent results in the sales transaction.

How you work where you are matters more than where you work.

How you sell what you have matters more than what you have to sell.

How you make your calls matters more than how many calls you make.

How many hours you produce matters more than how many hours you work.

Getting loyal business matters more than how much business you get.

Having clients with high trust matters more than how many clients you have.

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