Top Originator: Eric Rotner brings confidence and comfort to his clients

When it comes to personal reflection and self-assessment, Eric Rotner has got it down. He’s the vice president and a mortgage banker at Commerce Home Mortgage, and he doesn’t hesitate to elaborate on both his strengths as well as his weaknesses.

“I’m not a good marketer, that’s always been a giant weak spot of mine, but I’m extremely knowledgeable as far as every aspect of the loan process, and loan guidelines throughout. I think over time I’ve been able to pass on a feeling of confidence and also comfort to both my referral partners and my clients that what I tell them is true and what I say will happen will. So it’s more of a slow growth process, but it’s also a much higher conversion rate than a lot of other approaches.”

That growth means closing close to $120 million in 2018.

Rotner works primarily in the jumbo space, although he recently looked at this database and realized that he also has great success with first-time buyers, people who generally want more reassurances and nurturing throughout the process. As with any top originator, his database is the crux of his business, and he’s gotten to know it inside and out.

“If there’s an opportunity within my database, my clients hear from me before I ever hear from them. I know the details of all the clients in my database, both their financial details and also just the insular details that come along and that you get from conversations with clients: what they enjoy, what they like to do, what their goals are,” he said. “Staying on top of that definitely creates long term relationships with the clients and also creates opportunities to work that database, because frankly, there’s no one who’s going to be more loyal than a client who is satisfied.”

He may be good at managing his database, but it’s not easy by any means. It’s grown significantly over the years and has surpassed his ability to mentally manage it anymore (having three children might have something to do with that as well). He’s making more of a concerted effort to utilize his technology for database management, exploring all the functionalities of his SalesForce CRM and making that familiarization a part of his daily best practices.

His clients are extremely loyal, and so are his partners, who he says are loyal because he’s responsive and reliable. He’s also sensitive to the fact that his clients and partners “take my word like gospel” so he refrains from making guarantees where there are none and making promises that he can’t deliver. He tells people when he can do something, when he needs to look into something, and when he can’t do something, and both parties respect that honesty.

Before moving to Commerce, Rotner worked as an in-house lender for ReMax Accord, and although he said his experience there was a positive one, the knowledge he gained was mostly how not to work with agents—in itself a valuable experience.

“I learned a lot about how to identify when there’s not a deal to be had there, or when someone’s using you,” he said. “People would use my knowledge and then go tell that to their lender, or people would waste my time spinning my wheels, and I very quickly recognized when they didn’t actually have a deal there.”

Most of his challenges these days, however, have nothing to do with realtors. Instead, they center around the fact that banking institutions are willing to do loans at a loss in order to get and retain business. It’s common for originators to lose business over something they can’t control, he said, and added that since volume is down, banks are also more willing to take on loans that they would never have considered.

In spite of that, originators should avoid the race to the bottom when it comes to rate.

“Often times, you’re beat on rate but we’re able to deliver the service that the clients need. Especially in a purchase environment, you’ve got to close quickly, you have to be able offer short contingencies, we have an extremely competitive market, and these are things that most of the big banks can’t provide on a regular basis, and my referral partners are well aware of that and advise their clients accordingly,” Rotner said. “It doesn’t matter if you have a quarter percent lower rate because if you can’t get a house, that loan doesn’t exist.”

Chasing lower rates might put an originator in a better position for the short term, but in a different market—and the market’s always changing—those reasons may no longer make sense. Rotner cautions originators to consider what they can control and what they can’t. For an originator, that means service, value proposition, and choosing a company that aligns with their values.

This year, Rotner’s taking advantage of the name recognition that he’s gained, stepping away from managing the loan process in order to get in front of more partners. He’s good at engaging people one-on-one, and so he plans on putting himself in a position where he has more of those opportunities.

“A lot of people learn to quote an interest rate, how to recognize the basics of a loan product and then sell a loan and forget about it, but that’s not the environment that we’re in. Loans inevitably have challenges, have issues, and you need to be the resource that everyone thinks to go to, and if you are, that brings people back to you over and over again.”

He’s the source of solutions, not the messenger of problems, and that goes a long way.

Looking for more ways to build clients for life? Don’t miss the keynote address “Fierce Loyalty: cracking the code to customer devotion” at the Power Originator Summit in Anaheim on April 4th.