I worked for years as a mortgage loan officer. During this time I worked with two highly successful mortgage loan officers. However, their styles were as opposite as they come. These two loan officers were opposites to the point where they basically could not stand each other, and spent most of the day avoiding each other.

Here is how their stories go.

The first mortgage loan officer whose work habits I am going to tell you about is Mike. Mike was a creature of habit. He was always the first one in the office in the morning, where he would drink his cup of coffee and read his newspaper up and down and cover to cover.

Mike never left the office, he never participated in cold calling in the evening like the rest of us, he never sent out flyers or mailers. In fact, Mike never did any thing except provide excellent customer service, and work the seat of his pants off for his customers.

Mike was also a very serious student of the mortgage industry. He learned everything there was to know about it. He read countless periodicals, and numerous news paper articles. He attended mortgage seminars at night, and he knew all the niche mortgage programs of every mortgage lender our mortgage company dealt with.

Mikes excellent customer service along with his excellent knowledge of the mortgage industry put him in a position to help his customers in all kinds of financial situations.

A lot of these people were in desperate need of obtaining financial help. Mike was always capable of finding them a mortgage lender and a mortgage program to fit their financial needs, while being compassionate and available to them the entire time.

Mike treated these people with such kindness and dignity that he not only made their holiday card list, they talked him up to anyone that would listen. And, some of the people listening needed mortgages.

Mikes inflow of mortgage referrals came from no less than one hundred of his previous customers that he had helped in a time where the largest financial decision they would ever make was at stake.

These people never hesitated to refer family and friends to Mike because of the way he treated them, and the hard work he did for them. The bottom line is, they trusted him, and they liked him, so they referred to him.

About the other guy .. .

The other guy I worked with was a guy named Joe. As I stated earlier, Joe and Mike were completely different in style.

Joe would come hustling and bustling into the office every morning approximately five minutes after the office opened. He made a grand entrance and said a hello and how are you to everyone in the office.

Joe was usually coming from a restaurant after having breakfast with a client, or coming in from one of his many morning networking events.

You see, that was Joe's angle, he networked. Joe attended every networking event there was to attend in his area. The chambers of commerce, the lions clubs, the rotary clubs, you name it and he was there.

Unlike Mike, Joe could not stand to be holed up in the office all day.

Joe had really put his time in at these networking organizations, and he had really paid his dues. He took the time to get to know the other members of the business community that he was very much a part of. He not only got to know them, he took the time to get to know about their business as well. This way he could refer business to them.

From these networking groups alone, Joe continued to receive his own steady flow of referrals.

These two scenarios are only two of the many different ways you can keep mortgage referrals coming your way. And, as you can see, different loan officers use different techniques. In these two cases, the loan officers used what worked best for them.

Find out what works best for you, and stick with it! Good luck!