Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How to 10X Your Loan Volume Without Hiring Staff with Floify

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How to 10X Your Loan Volume Without Hiring Staff with Floify · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
0:15
can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
0:20
Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
0:31
And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
0:34
with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
0:47
You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
0:56
Don't miss out.
0:57
Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:09
This week, my special guest, love bringing these folks back.
1:13
As a matter of fact, the last time I had them on the podcast was back in the day as they
1:17
say was July 2018, when I originally had Dave Sims, the CEO of Flowify, which is an industry
1:24
leading mortgage automation and point of sale solution.
1:29
On a recent episode, we talked with folks at experience.com and we talked about the importance
1:33
of your consumer experience, like what is your CX, your customer experience, and how that
1:38
can be a point of differentiation for you.
1:41
But the other side that we didn't really get to talk about, and this is why I think
1:44
the conversation with Flowify is great is we also have
1:47
on this episode, a special guest, James Pulsifer, who is a regional manager at Fiddle
1:51
Letty Mortgage, which is a division of Bay equity home loans.
1:55
And I always like to why I'm having this conversation is because I believe part of my
2:00
role here in having visibility to lots of different things in the mortgage industry.
2:07
Oftentimes I hear L.O.'s tell me about different tools and platforms they use to help grow
2:13
their business, help to have process efficiencies to free up their time.
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And so that's why I'm having this conversation with you here today is because once again,
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I've talked to a number of people who are getting amazing results leveraging this platform
2:28
called Flowify.
2:29
Some of you probably have it, some of you don't, you need to go check it out.
2:33
If you're looking for a point of sale from start to finish, loan mortgage application,
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software platform, that does some amazing things from you that didn't even include
2:47
like e-signatures and hybrid closings, hybrid e-closings and all in soup to nuts that is
2:56
in one simple mobile first platform that makes it easy for you to grow and scale your business.
3:01
As a matter of fact, you're going to hear from James and how he talks about how he added
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400 units to his production only adding one team member, only needing to hire one person
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because Flowify simplified and streamlined the process that would have without that required
3:21
him to hire at least three other people.
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So I'm going to let the conversation unfold and you decide if there's something more for
3:29
you to go check out.
3:31
There's no skin in the game in this for me, other than just bringing it to your attention
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and if you want to go check it out at Flowify.com, that's F-L-O-I-F-Y.com.
3:41
Link in the show notes as well, without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
3:46
Dave Sims, welcome to the show.
3:48
Thanks, thanks for having me.
3:49
James, Pulsifer, welcome to the show as well.
3:52
Hey, good afternoon, guys.
3:54
All right, so now you guys know who's who with the voices.
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Dave Sims, why don't you tell the listeners who you are, what do you do?
4:00
I am Dave Sims, I am the CEO of Flowify, Flowify Streamlines, the mortgage process, we're
4:06
known in the industry as a pointed sale.
4:09
Nice.
4:10
James, how about yourself, what do you do?
4:13
So I'm James Pulsifer and I'm a regional VP for Bay Equity, we're based out of San Francisco
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but I'm based in Colorado and also do mortgage loan origination personally and supervise
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a production team here in Colorado.
4:28
Thank you.
4:29
Now, I'm going to spend a moment, James, just for context, if you don't mind, I hear you
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are a pretty solid producer, the rumors are, do you want to provide any context for us
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on that?
4:41
Yeah, so personal production for my team last year was 926 units for about 250 some
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million and some change, so I've done personal origination for about 27 years, so good track
5:00
record in the business and I produce those units myself as an originator and then I have
5:07
a team that helps me as well as tools like Flowify with fulfillment of those units, so that's
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a little bit about what we do.
5:15
I mean, Dave, you said James was kind of a slacker before he got out of college, I don't
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know where you're getting that from.
5:23
Oh my goodness.
5:24
Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
5:26
Oh, when I first met James, and I don't know, it might have been six years ago, James
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was maybe coming up on 100 million, maybe the first year I met him, he did 100 million
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or maybe it was the next year, two, three hundred units, team of James plus maybe five folks
5:45
on his team, his direct team, not his region.
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That's what I remember back then.
5:51
Yeah, so we've certainly seen some phenomenal growth, and I mean, last year was Banner for
5:55
everybody with the COVID change in the market dynamic for sure, and so we've been fortunate
6:01
to capitalize on that, but it's been a phenomenal ride and a lot of growth along the way for sure.
6:08
Yeah, for sure, so quickly then James, tell us then how you're leveraging Flowify from
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an originator standpoint, like if you imagine who's listening to this podcast, it's let's
6:20
just say, you know, the laptop carrying, you know, or the virtual remote that's been
6:26
for all of 2020, right, producing loan officers on screen, how are you best leveraging Flowify?
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What does it really do for you?
6:32
Yeah, absolutely.
6:33
And I will say that tools like this are what helped us sort of outgrow the constraints
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that the pandemic gave us because having the right tools really put us in a position
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to go uninterrupted and have scalable growth when COVID started instead of saying, okay,
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now that I can't yell to the office next door to my assistant or my team, I can still function
6:56
and in fact, on a higher level.
6:58
And so what Flowify does for us is it's the consumer face of the mortgage transaction from
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start to finish, and that's the dynamic of the product.
7:08
It's the first thing that somebody sees when they call and say, hey, James, my real estate
7:12
agent told me to call you, they get a link into that system that allows them to complete
7:17
the loan application.
7:18
And then from there, everything that they do from cradle to grave happens in that system
7:24
all the way from signing disclosures and credit authorization and e-consent.
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And so it's a really great point of sale for us because it's one of very few systems
7:34
in the industry where there is a single bar or point of contact.
7:38
And so it goes without saying that the better you can create that buyer experience, the
7:46
more positive feedback you're going to get, that ease of process just goes to people wanting
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to use you that word of mouth promoting itself.
7:55
And this does that.
7:56
And other systems and other processes we see are really peace in part.
8:00
They'll have one place where you can provide your documents in another place where you apply
8:04
for the loan and then you've got an e-consent in a separate system and even for technologically
8:09
savvy consumers, that can really become overwhelming, especially with all the cyber fraud that's
8:15
out there right now.
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You know, when you separate systems like that, people are calling you saying, I've gotten
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this, but I'm not sure of the system.
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And is it real or is it, you know, a spam of some sort or a fishing email.
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And so this really eliminates that.
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And they get in one system.
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They get comfortable with it.
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They understand how it operates.
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And they know that that's sort of their life of the loan from start to finish.
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If we need anything, it's there.
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If they need to sign anything, it's there.
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And it takes a lot of the anxiety out of the process for the consumer because they know
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that they're in the know about their transaction, you know, from start to finish.
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It's just a really great way to help the dynamic of communication consumer experience.
8:59
I can see clearly why now, Dave, you asked James to be here on this call.
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I, he says it's so much better than I was like, we're, we're done.
9:09
Where do you go from there?
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I mean, but to be clear, I can't program anything.
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So we need James and we need James.
9:17
No, seriously, that had to be one of the best representations I've ever heard on.
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You know, when I've done these calls, when we have a setup of, hey, we're talking about
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a product, a platform, a software.
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And then I always like to invite, you know, a mortgage professional who's actually using
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it in the field.
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And I got to say, that deserves a James Brown.
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Here we go.
9:36
Yeah.
9:37
All right.
9:38
That's a shout out.
9:39
All right.
9:40
So Dave, let me, and thank you again, James for that.
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It was great.
9:44
Dave, and you know, you mentioned you referred to yourself as like point of sale.
9:50
Explain to me like, are we talking about like point of sale?
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I'm driving, you know, my client there who wants to basically fill out an app.
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And I'm just giving him, you know, my mobile experience of flow of five, what does that
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look like?
10:04
Yeah.
10:05
Really, it has come that the terminology emerged maybe four, maybe five years ago.
10:10
And it really just means like James was saying, it is the one place where the borrower
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goes, cradle to grave, does all their things, whatever the thing may be, like signing like
10:20
initial disclosures, closing disclosures, eConsent, credit authorization, uploading documents,
10:27
you know, retrieving bank statements from the bank automatically.
10:32
Yeah, but just to clarify, all this can be done right from your mobile phone?
10:35
Correct.
10:36
From the phone, it's fine.
10:37
It's all good.
10:38
Laptop, desktop computer as well.
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And do you have stats?
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Do you see like our most people using the mobile phone as they're navigating along?
10:47
Maybe a little bit in the beginning.
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And I think as they get a little bit like a zibar, where it gets a little bit deeper
10:51
in the process, I think they're going to transition to that top desktop, but there's plenty
10:56
of mobile phone usage tongues.
10:58
Wow.
10:59
That's, that's, well, it's funny because when I'm thinking as I hear you guys describe
11:03
what you both are, the term, you know, consumer experience comes to mind because I had just
11:11
down a session with the folks over at experience.com and we were just all hot on talking about,
11:16
you know, the consumer experience.
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And I, from what I heard the way James describes it, and I'm obviously on your website looking
11:22
at some of the features and functionality, I'm sitting here thinking like, I mean, how
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could you not have something like this here today?
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If you're looking to be a quote modern originator, be savvy, right, but also deliver an amazing
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consumer experience, I mean, are you, what's the opposite of this out there?
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I mean, fee sheets and PDFs, are we still seeing that?
11:43
You know, if, if I can, if I can take that one, I, I have a really unique perspective
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because on a corporate level, I help to, you know, coach and do some business development
11:56
and recruiting of one of those nationwide and it's phenomenal to me how many people
12:02
that we see, even that are very productive, who have very manual processes, you know,
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they live in a world of physical files and sticky notes and, you know, you can imagine
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how inefficient that is just on any level, but then put the, the COVID restrictions on
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top of that and it just really amplified some of those inefficiencies.
12:28
And so I think that that this new workflow, this new reality, we're in really separated
12:34
the people who are integrating tech the right way versus people who are really presenting
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that manual process.
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And I think for those of us who have been originating for a long time, the concept is that
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part of your value proposition is holding on necessarily to, you know, some older habits,
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which are manual and process because they feel nurturing to the consumer and it's important
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I think to know that, that you can provide that reinforcement and that concierge level
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of service to the consumer and integrate technology.
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In fact, technology can help you with that and it's not a one or the other proposition,
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but it floors me to see how many fairly successful loan officers are still not leveraging tech
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like they should.
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And is there still a gap in terms of, you know, learning, adapting?
13:27
Do you guys see that James or Dave as you go out there and you know, try and talk about
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being a modern originator, you know?
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I think that, no is the short answer because no matter what level you are in the industry,
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you're using tech because even if you're not using it from a consumer facing standpoint,
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you're using it to, you know, to deliver loans and get your stuff in system of record
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and disclose loans, it just, to me, if you're not using something that then faces the consumer
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the same way, you're completing half the circle, so you're doing twice as much work.
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So for me, the consumer facing systems like flowify are going to, going to almost simplify
14:08
that process because they're created in the mind of a consumer who doesn't know mortgage
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so that they're easy to navigate.
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In the systems we use on the backside, presume that mortgage knowledge, they almost take
14:19
more technical acumen to act to navigate those than what it would really on the front side.
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So I think it's just a matter of, you know, changing habit, which is hard for anybody to
14:31
do and just embracing that change and rolling it out that really stops people.
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I remember, if I can interject, I remember when I first met James about six years ago,
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back then we had a, we have a mutual friend and with this mutual friend saying, James,
14:47
like, I've got like, you know, more business coming in, you know, I think I'm just going
14:53
to hire more.
14:54
And James was like, no, no, no, like James had the vision back then.
14:58
He was like, no, no, no, the future is automation and, you know, bring in the right tools.
15:02
Don't just make hiring your go to, and I think over the last five, six years, James
15:07
eventually has approved that because, I mean, if his loan volume is 250 million now,
15:13
that's insane compared to even what he was doing a few years ago.
15:17
And I'm betting that James's staff has not grown exponentially during that time.
15:21
Yeah, we added 400 units between 2019 and 2020 in production.
15:28
And we added one in staff, and that was in October.
15:33
So what was that role that you added?
15:36
What's that?
15:37
The role that we added was just an additional coordinator position that sort of split roles
15:42
on the initial file intake, you know, the people who talk to the consumer about their
15:48
documents, they're getting into the system and everything like that.
15:51
So we decided we wanted to maintain excess capacity, but we made the change by leveraging
15:57
technology and finding different ways to be efficient and automate versus, you know,
16:03
loan count by body count, which I think a lot of people make the mistake of doing.
16:07
And it goes without saying that, you know, it's harder to hire people and bring them in
16:12
and train them, and it's also more costly.
16:14
So if you can leverage the technology, there's a faster uptake and a greater profitability
16:22
than if you're just adding minions to the process that, you know, try to keep up with it.
16:29
Are you saying that flowify can do the work of an employee?
16:35
Easily.
16:36
I would, if absent flowify would have to have probably three or four more full time people
16:40
on my team.
16:41
Well, 100%.
16:42
All right.
16:43
That makes a good case.
16:44
Hey, I'm curious, James.
16:45
This isn't like, you know, normally I dig a real deep on the loan officer, but while
16:49
I've got you here, what is your number one source of business?
16:53
I'm in relationships.
16:55
Again, you know, I'm, I've been doing this 27 years.
16:58
I was joking.
16:59
I said it when I was nine, but having done it for a long time and having a good database
17:06
of people, my biggest resource, you know, 60 plus percent as people I've dealt with before
17:11
in their spirit of influence and then, you know, real estate related clientele.
17:17
But my business is entirely relationship driven.
17:20
I'm one of a few people you'll talk to in this industry who, you know, isn't really on
17:25
social media and, you know, doesn't do third party, you know, lead buying, anything like
17:31
that.
17:32
There's nothing wrong with that, especially for people who are new, we're starting
17:35
in the business, but my business is entirely relationship driven.
17:40
Yeah.
17:41
Well, I'm glad you make that distinction because, you know, I'm not to do a small plug
17:46
here, but I wrote about that in the book, just wrapped her die.
17:51
And it was the whole purpose behind that was everybody is pounding the whole digital side
17:57
of things.
17:58
But I'm like, wait a minute.
17:59
If you've been around like James for 20 years, whether you're an agent or a loan officer,
18:02
you have the advantage of having that database and relationships.
18:06
So, you know, you can continue to go to that.
18:09
You know, now there might be ways of different of engaging or communicating and moving that
18:14
in a more traditional way to moving it online, if you will.
18:16
But still, you're not in the same boat of like, how do I generate business?
18:19
Well, you got, right, a 5,000 client in your past client database or whatever, I mean,
18:24
that's how you're going to do it, you know, plus all the realtor relationships.
18:26
So, I'm glad you can, you can provide that context because I don't believe it's all
18:30
or all or none.
18:31
As a matter of fact, we are, I'm coining this phrase, me and the boys, called the hybrid
18:36
loan officer, you know, so where you live in both worlds, traditional and the modern.
18:42
So I'm looking at some of the different features and functions you guys, and just, I didn't
18:46
set this up at the beginning.
18:47
But here's why I'm having this conversation.
18:49
I think Dave gets this because Dave, as a matter of fact, we talked about this before
18:52
we hit record.
18:53
The last time we had this conversation was two and a half, almost three years ago in
18:58
2018, July, 2018, I'm looking at our podcast, it was episode 80, you're going to be like
19:02
episode 215 or something like that.
19:04
So we've both come along with, yeah, no doubt.
19:09
And has your, any like big things or big ways your product has evolved like since then,
19:15
since our original, you know, back in 2018, I remember when COVID was just hitting just
19:21
last March, we were working on a hybrid e-closing solution.
19:27
And the timing was perfect, right, because it made it possible to spend, instead of spending
19:33
like 45 minutes or more at the closing office, you could spend five minutes.
19:40
Because everything on the, you know, on the day of closing all these documents become
19:44
available for signing, for electronic signing.
19:47
And so they just cut down, especially in the early days when everyone did note this COVID
19:51
thing was.
19:52
Right.
19:53
And there was a lot of fear going on.
19:54
And so they really wanted to minimize the time spent there, even if it was in their
19:58
car at the curb.
20:00
And it really, I think that was a big change and the timing was just right.
20:05
Yeah.
20:06
Now that's, so that's just a big thing since now that's like the new norm is digital closing
20:10
and all that, right?
20:12
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of interesting.
20:14
We have a lot of customers using our hybrid e-closing and we still don't, among our largest
20:21
enterprise customers, there's still not a huge push for that 100% don't step foot at the
20:28
title office just yet.
20:29
Just to be clear, I'm not one of those people.
20:32
I'm pushing.
20:33
Do it.
20:34
Okay.
20:35
All right.
20:36
Cool.
20:37
Excellent.
20:38
I'm excited.
20:39
You know, because not all states have adopted that, but we see a not too distant future where
20:44
it all happens with an integrated e-note delivery, you know, on the secondary side, that
20:49
allows us the efficiency of selling loans into agency the same day they closed.
20:54
That's a huge pickup in efficiency.
20:56
And having the consumer be able to do a single stop experience for closing versus physically
21:02
showing up somewhere, again, I think people are resistant to that because they're thinking
21:07
that their value to the consumer is in that handshake part of the transaction, but you
21:12
can add that value with the automation, whether it's a phone call, it's a shorter meeting,
21:17
it's a video conference, there's a lot of ways to integrate that and I think that the
21:20
people who don't get around that are going to get left behind because it's, it's the future
21:25
of mortgage banking, I think.
21:27
And to be clear, James was our first user of hybrid e-close and it was James.
21:34
It was James who called us up and said, hey guys, we really got to do this.
21:39
Yeah, I always say that, like you get your best enhancements or involvement from your
21:43
customers, your best customers.
21:46
So what you're really talking about there, what James is referring to and I think what
21:48
you guys deliver at Shopify is process efficiency on all the fronts, right?
21:53
From point of sale, it's funny, I used to hear there was this guy back in the day who
21:57
used to say, well in terms of like, you know, in mortgage and real estate, people present
22:01
themselves as like the best things, it's like spread and you know, we do all these great
22:05
things and we have an incredible efficient system and then the reality is something different.
22:09
But he said this one thing, he goes, does your external perception match your internal
22:14
reality?
22:15
And I was like, oh, that's good, man.
22:18
And as I look at what you guys do and the, you know, from beginning to end process
22:24
and flow, that's what came up for me.
22:27
It seems like you've covered those bases so that it's a smooth efficient process from,
22:33
you know, from start to finish.
22:36
Yeah, I think so and it's just been, it's just been like, James has been a huge part of
22:40
this, just taking us down the path of going deeper and deeper and deeper.
22:44
Like in the very, very beginning of Shopify in 2013, we didn't have a loan application,
22:49
you know, we, it was a document management solution, right?
22:52
And so we, you know, we added that loan application, you know, a couple years on and it's
22:57
just been a continuous process and it's not just there for the borrowers, there for the
23:02
realtor, the referral partner and, you know, the processors and the, the file intake folks
23:08
and we're, we're expanding just beyond, you know, who you might think it might be a user
23:14
of Shopify.
23:15
What is, what is Copilot?
23:17
What is that feature?
23:19
Copilot just makes it possible for someone on the LOS team to assist a borrower in real
23:25
time through a screen sharing mechanism to help them get through that loan application.
23:30
So if they get a little stuck on, what do I put here for the employment section?
23:34
They can turn on Copilot and make it, it's essentially a screen share through the browser.
23:39
And so that way it's a lot easier to help the borrower get through that section.
23:42
Yeah, very cool indeed.
23:46
Do you have any other projects, enhancements that are, you know, on the drawing board
23:51
or are you not like in that mode right now?
23:54
No, it is, it is an everyday, every month type of push, but I mean, some things that
23:59
we've come out recently are big hits is reporting in analytics.
24:03
It's great to be able to see like what are the pull through rates for a different L.O.
24:07
Teams.
24:08
All right.
24:09
James, Dave, I think this has been a good conversation on, you know, if, if anybody
24:13
listening doesn't have a platform or technology like Flowify to be able to streamline the
24:20
point of sale through the whole process to end close, then I'm encouraging people to
24:25
take a look at this because you already heard how James was able to add how many units
24:30
was crazy.
24:31
What did he say?
24:32
400 units.
24:33
Yeah, 400 units adding one person for head count.
24:36
That's amazing.
24:37
So if that's not endorsement enough, I don't know what else is.
24:40
So once again, James, appreciate your time very much for being here.
24:43
You bet.
24:44
Thanks, guys.
24:45
Yep.
24:46
Dave, before we close out, I know we've got some people who want to learn more.
24:49
Where should they go to learn more about Flowify?
24:53
That's easy.
24:54
Flowify.
24:55
F-L-O-I-F-I.com.
24:56
Lots of good stuff there and yeah, thanks for having me on and James, always good to
25:01
chat with you.
25:02
Thanks, guys.
25:03
Yep.
25:04
Hey, listeners.
25:05
Go check out Flowify.
25:06
We'll put links in the show notes as well.
25:07
Appreciate you tuning into this one and we'll see you on the next one.
25:10
Bye for now.
25:11
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