Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Why Most LOs Struggle in 2025—and the Few Strategies That Are Crushing It

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Why Most LOs Struggle in 2025—and the Few Strategies That Are Crushing It · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  Hey, you've ever had one of those months where every deal feels like a battle,
• 0:02
  you know, from securing the client to keeping the loan from falling apart and closing.
• 0:06
  Well, that's the reality for many loan officers in 2025.
• 0:10
  But what if you could turn this market from a daily grind into your biggest growth opportunity yet?
• 0:16
  You're listening to the Borgif Market Reader podcast,
• 0:18
  the place where we help you effectively and confidently
• 0:21
  grow your business without chasing,
• 0:23
  cold calling, or using outdated tactics.
• 0:25
  My name is Jeff Zimpert, and I'm your host.
• 0:28
  Today on the show, we're asking how do you scale and grow a top performing team of originators
• 0:34
  in one of the most challenging markets in recent memory?
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  To help us unpack that, I'm joined by Natalie Overtur,
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  division leader at CMG Financial and a true force in shaping culture, systems, and scalable
• 0:44
  success for loan officers.
• 0:46
  In this episode, you're going to discover why hard is your defining word of 2025
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  and how the best are adapting and thriving.
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  We're also talking about what every LO must know about products and branding to stay competitive
• 0:57
  and the specific activities and strategies that are driving real production right now
• 1:01
  for open houses, to build on partnerships, events, and consistent, authentic social media.
• 1:07
  And we'll also dig into something that might shift your mindset,
• 1:10
  which is why the one loan a month producer is on the brink.
• 1:13
  And what today's new baseline for survival really is.
• 1:16
  So if you're ready to stop surviving and start gaining ground and thriving in this market,
• 1:21
  stay tuned for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
• 1:27
  Natalie Overtur, welcome to the show.
• 1:37
  Hi Jeff, I'm excited to be here today.
• 1:39
  I wanted to bring your perspective to the conversation here today because here we are in
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  May, gosh, 27th already, almost the halfway point of 2025 here, right?
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  And so you are a leader, you're overseeing a region, a highly productive one of the top regions,
• 1:56
  you know, for your company. And I wanted to get your perspective on what is the vibe?
• 2:02
  So we're talking to loan officers across the country at all different levels, right?
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  And experience level. Is there a theme or a word that you see kind of recurring for your team
• 2:11
  from a leadership perspective that you seem to always have?
• 2:13
  It's coming up that you have to deal with.
• 2:16
  Yeah, I would say the word is hard.
• 2:18
  Like it's the word of the year of 2025, hard loans, hard market, just hard.
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  It's hard. And I feel like part of my job here in a leadership role is to make sure that my
• 2:34
  owner and exact leadership understands the complexity and the difficulties of this market.
• 2:39
  Like even when you get a deal in the door and you win the deal, it's keeping the deal.
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  Like we're having more deals swiped at closing for price or
• 2:48
  instruction didn't go well or just people getting spooked and deciding to bail on a transaction
• 2:54
  and probably anything I've ever seen before. And so it support from your company,
• 3:00
  tools, resources, pricing, innovation, all of it matters today because you got to have all the
• 3:06
  tools in your arsenal to make it work.
• 3:09
  How big is the division that you lead? How many? What's the head count?
• 3:13
  I have it about 280 loan officers today in my division. I'm actually the largest division at CMG
• 3:19
  today. We last month we closed. I don't know. We're going to land for May, but April,
• 3:23
  we were about 438 million in close volume for my division. So it's a fairly large division.
• 3:29
  What are you seeing for like average units? I know it can skew, but I just looked at this
• 3:35
  interestingly enough because it is a really important metric right now as loans close per loan
• 3:43
  officer. There is a divide happening to where you're seeing the top when I would say probably
• 3:50
  60% of LOs capturing more business in the bottom 30 to 40 losing transactions that I think
• 3:57
  will force out, continue to force out that bottom rung of originators if they don't step it up.
• 4:03
  But we're right about four, right about 4.3 loans close per loan officer,
• 4:12
  which is a really good metric in our industry. It's probably in the top one or two
• 4:17
  compared to the other IMBs nationally. Yeah, I would say so. I saw there was a post, I think
• 4:22
  I linked in recently about that like average transaction count. And there was a conversation
• 4:26
  around that was, what do you think the average unit production should be to keep somebody on?
• 4:33
  No, I don't want to put you on the spot here. It's two. You need to close two loans per
• 4:38
  month. And what I would say, maybe depending on your loan amount, it's one to two. Your average
• 4:43
  loan amount. I mean, I have in my division, I have Idaho small markets to LA, which is more metro,
• 4:51
  higher loan amounts. So LA loan officer can do one loan a month and survive. And my Idaho
• 4:56
  guy is probably doing two loans a month. But really, it's for the health of the company, it's for
• 5:02
  the health of the originator, like you can't survive. You're not in a career as a loan officer.
• 5:07
  If you're not close on a deal a month, right, you don't know how to work in the systems,
• 5:12
  you're not actively marketing, you're not a part of the community. At least that's not our model.
• 5:16
  What I would say, there's probably a place you can go where you might do a couple of deals a year,
• 5:20
  but I don't think that serves the loan officer or our profession, honestly.
• 5:26
  Yeah, I mean, I know, I know plenty of my old friends in Newport Beach, California,
• 5:31
  were, you know, where I now live here in Vegas, so the loan amounts are different. But yeah,
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  I mean, you know, if you're doing a million to a million dollars, but as you said, it's like,
• 5:38
  is that a real business, you know, it is probably not, probably not. And I have, I'm having less
• 5:45
  of those conversations. We were having more of those when we came out of the 21 market, right,
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  where, you know, volume just took a nose dive. And I mean, we've lost a lot of, I don't know what
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  the number is now. I mean, over 100,000 originators have exited the business over the last two years.
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  And so I feel like there's a lot less of those people here, at least inside of our organization.
• 6:12
  Well, that speaks a lot to your culture, who you attract, and who you keep also.
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  I'm in a comment a moment ago when I asked you that question about average transactions,
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  and you kind of alluded to something about another segment of the population of loan officers
• 6:28
  rolling out. And if they're not hitting a certain threshold of production,
• 6:32
  they're losing whatever the terms is you said. But
• 6:37
  what for the people who aren't hitting those numbers or, you know, the four per month,
• 6:42
  like I think you said something about like, they're not being able to convert. What's,
• 6:45
  what do you, let's go to a little bit deeper? Why do you think, because you see how many,
• 6:50
  you know, how many people are in the pipeline. I don't know if you're looking at rate locks to
• 6:54
  convergence or how you're doing it. Okay. And then you're seeing how many are losing,
• 6:58
  and by price, let's say, I think it's what you said, like losing on a quarter or an eighth or
• 7:02
  something like that. Well, yeah, I mean, part of it is for when we're get, you know, if the market moves,
• 7:07
  you know, down people trans sweat, you know, swipe a deal out of your pipeline at the last minute,
• 7:12
  we're seeing more of those kind of things happen where a loan officer lost the deal, the beginning
• 7:16
  and then tries to steal it at the end. We don't lose them a lot, but occasionally, we're having to
• 7:20
  come back in with a price exception to keep the deal. I mean, I talked a lot of my industry peers
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  than it's happening, right? Or we just have really complex loans. And so if you're not a student
• 7:31
  of your craft and you don't know the guidelines, you don't know your way around, not just the standard
• 7:36
  30 or fixed, but you understand our non-QM, you understand, you know, reverse construction,
• 7:41
  renovation, like all the pillars of your business and you aren't able to place loans correctly,
• 7:46
  you're going to be at risk of not closing as many transactions. And I think we actually do a really
• 7:50
  good job of that here. I do a Monday call, every Monday with my team, it's an optional call,
• 7:57
  but it's called our success stories call where I have a loan officer, it doesn't have to necessarily
• 8:01
  be someone, you know, that's in their top 10. Any loan officer that I see that's having success
• 8:06
  with a certain strategy or a certain product will come on and share it's a quick 30 minute kind
• 8:10
  of downedery call, but they share what they're doing. We really try and collaborate more, you know,
• 8:17
  the rising tide lifts all ships, you know, philosophy versus competing one
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  against one another is more drafting off of each other. And so we really do try and spread
• 8:28
  the good word on what is working for others, because it is a hard market and if we can lock
• 8:33
  arms and help each other, you know, it actually helps the team at large.
• 8:38
  Well, it's funny, I was talking to somebody the other day about this and it was in the real estate
• 8:42
  context, but I've said the same answer when people talk about becoming a loan officer,
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  because I have a fair amount of people who get on my calendar, a variety of different ways
• 8:50
  at different levels of experience. But when somebody's new or one of the answers I off and they ask
• 8:54
  about like how to, you know, succeed in this market, this business, whatever, I usually talk
• 8:58
  about, you know, find a team that you can join to get leadership, mentorship to kind of learn
• 9:03
  the ropes. So I love that you alluded to that. It seems like your company's strong on that coming
• 9:08
  together as a team. And as you said, the rising tide lifts all boats.
• 9:13
  Yeah, and I also think today it's, you have to be willing to put the work in. I think I,
• 9:19
  I saw a podcast that you did. I can't remember who said it, but it's like it's back to the basics.
• 9:24
  I mean, everybody's talking about it. It is back to the basics. It's eye to eye, toe to toe.
• 9:28
  Like we went to, we had a national conference and one of our very successful builder originators
• 9:34
  asked the group, how many of you are going out every weekend to visit builder sites and open
• 9:39
  houses. And you know, you might get 10% of your population that is doing that, which is a little
• 9:44
  shocking because I think loan officers feel like everybody's doing it. So I'm not going to do it too.
• 9:48
  That's actually not the reality. The reality is most aren't doing it. And so there is
• 9:54
  opportunity there. You know, that I do think we make assumptions that everybody else is calling
• 10:00
  that top agent or they're going out to open houses. It just isn't true. It's not true. We're missing
• 10:05
  that too. I used to think that too when I was a loan officer. I did. I remember having a conversation
• 10:12
  with Alec Hanson a few years ago. We were on each other's podcast and he was in my same market in
• 10:16
  Mission Viejo, Orange County, California. And he would tell the story about how sitting out in front
• 10:22
  of this open house and like the mega producer agent was inside the open house and you would pull up
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  and you know, he talks about the story. I was like, you know, he's like working himself up,
• 10:30
  up on himself up to get the Kurds together. And he's like too fearful and drives off. He doesn't
• 10:35
  go in, you know, we've all been there. Yeah. We've all done that, actually. Exactly.
• 10:42
  Well, I want to go back to something else as well that you said. The hard is the is the word
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  that you talked about. And then what I heard you say is something about you've got to know your
• 10:52
  stuff. Like you mentioned, you know, DSCR and non-QM, you know, new construct. My question for you
• 10:59
  is this is, do you, you know, because we hear a lot about marketing, we hear a lot about
• 11:04
  niching down specialization and things like that. So do you think you need to be today more of a,
• 11:10
  you know, the word that comes to mind is generalist versus specialist, but it sounds like what
• 11:14
  you're saying is you need to today have a broad understanding of products to be able to deliver
• 11:20
  a solution because of the market. I'm going to give you a really crazy answer. I'm going to say I
• 11:26
  think it's both. And I actually, in my note, because I did take some notes ahead, one of the things
• 11:31
  that I find is really helping our top top producers is niching, niching down, but that doesn't mean they
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  don't understand a broad variety of what's available in the marketplace. I mean, I, you know, non-QM
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  obviously is becoming a bigger, bigger part of the marketplace. I think we've got 95 total
• 11:50
  different non-QM products, you know, between all the different investors. I mean, obviously,
• 11:55
  no one person is going to know all those products, but you need to have a general understanding of
• 11:59
  what a DSCR loan is and what bank statement or 1099 or, you know, so that you can help your clients.
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  But niching, I think, is very important today because it's part of your brand and you have to have
• 12:10
  a brand is to really, I think, be relevant today as an originator. So I think it's both actually.
• 12:18
  So you think the niche, the specialty, brings them in, right? And yet it's kind of that argument
• 12:24
  we've already heard of like, well, if I specialize, I'm going to lose out on all this other business.
• 12:29
  Well, I actually took some notes on just a few of our top guys that are, that I feel are in our top 10
• 12:35
  nationally. Okay. A few of them happen to be in my world, but I can just give you three of them,
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  are three out of these four are in my division. So Brady Thomas, he's in Oakland and he, I know Brady.
• 12:46
  Yeah, he's, he joined our team in January. He has the two home tango. So his kind of thing that he
• 12:53
  markets is basically being able to buy before yourself. That's his niche. That's his brand. He
• 12:58
  markets the heck out of it. But Brady does everything, right? He's not just doing the buy before
• 13:04
  yourself. And so I think he is a great example of someone that niches, but still, but still attracts
• 13:13
  a wide audience as well, because people look at him for his expertise on that by before you sell.
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  And they're like, well, I don't need to do that. But this guy's obviously smart knows what he's talking about.
• 13:23
  That's what he does. That's what he's doing. Yes, he does a lot on social. So I also think he's done
• 13:27
  a really good job of branding himself on social. Another really good example is Carrie and Seer. She's
• 13:34
  not in my market. She's in Nashville. But if you go to her social, she's all about events. The girl
• 13:39
  does events all the time. Not just puts on events. She takes agents to events. She's like, you don't
• 13:43
  have to actually put the event on. You can just get a group together and go to events. She's like
• 13:48
  put on dancing with the start. She used to be a dancer. She puts on dancing with the start. She
• 13:52
  goes like big with it, but Carrie owns close 50 million. So far this year, like she's like
• 13:57
  already and may already and may Brady's clothes right about 50 million, too. So they both are at
• 14:03
  that 50 million dollar mark and they have chosen to find their niche. Next question, I'm going to
• 14:09
  jump in here. What's their primary source of business, do you know? Agents, realtors. What?
• 14:18
  Real estate agents. I'm sorry. I thought agents were becoming irrelevant. You know, and like we're
• 14:25
  going consumer direct and that's where everybody should be looking. You know, I think it's so
• 14:31
  interesting over all these years, everybody's looking for kind of that magic unicorn source of
• 14:34
  business outside of the real estate world, but we still the predominant source of business is
• 14:41
  real estate agents and builder. I would say these are not builder agents, but builder and real estate
• 14:46
  agents for sure. I'm having a little bit fun with it. You know, obviously. The reason being is
• 14:52
  because I'm sure you see some of the narrative out there about like people throwing agents under
• 14:58
  the bus like stop chasing the coffee up. No agent wants to meet you for like all the stuff we
• 15:05
  see, right? And there's like this narrative of like forget agents. Aren't you tired of, you
• 15:11
  know what I mean? That whole thing. And like you just proved the point. Yeah. I mean agents are
• 15:17
  there are partners, right? In this. And if we partner and look at it as a partnership and approach,
• 15:24
  we shouldn't work with every agent. Every agent shouldn't work with us, but there's a lot of very
• 15:27
  good real estate agents that approach this business, you know, professionally and want to partner
• 15:33
  with a good originator. And we work a lot of them every day. I will say Harrison and Boisey,
• 15:40
  the main source of his business, oddly enough, he niched down. We have our all-in-one first lane
• 15:44
  HELOC product, which is a big. Is that right before you sell thing or what is that? No, it's it's
• 15:53
  the all-in-one loan, which is basically it's a purchase mortgage HELOC product, right? So
• 15:59
  and he it's used with financial planners as a tool to buy after a home early. And so Harrison
• 16:04
  has found financial planners and YouTube influencers. He has a couple of YouTubers that he has found
• 16:11
  that he is actually working with to do lead generation with. And Harrison's right about he's 44
• 16:18
  million year to date. So that's not Harrison. I know. So Harrison, he's in Boisey and George.
• 16:27
  George, I'm going to look him up. Yeah. Okay, cool. See now this is this is what's great. Okay,
• 16:33
  we're not saying you shouldn't think about going consumer direct and be smart and be a modern
• 16:40
  originator and think about building a personal brand, maybe having a YouTube channel or you know
• 16:44
  having social customer facing. We're not saying that. Now like what we're I think you and I are
• 16:49
  on the same page of saying don't chase that at the demise of the pillar, the one fundamental to
• 16:56
  you know referral partners all that. That's right. That's more than now business, which is what I
• 17:01
  always tell L.O.'s is like yes, like you need business now. Great. Go with the referral partners S.O.I.
• 17:06
  And yes, build these other pillars here, but just know that those are going to be longer term.
• 17:10
  Well, and what is longer term for Harrison? It took him a long time to build regular referral
• 17:14
  sources with the financial plan. It is. It's a longer term play. And I do agree. If you need
• 17:18
  business today, you need to be having regular conversations and meetings with real estate agents.
• 17:23
  It's the fastest way. Which most people need business today because they close it
• 17:26
  a long, long time. We all do. I agree with that. Starting over every month, man. That's right.
• 17:33
  I know I remember you remember Brian Hale. You did a Brian Hale. So I worked. He was our leader
• 17:38
  when I was at MetLife years ago. And I'll never forget the shout out to Brian Hale.
• 17:43
  He said on a call the self-sourced loan originator wakes up broke the first of every month. And
• 17:50
  I'm just like, there is no more true statement in this business having to recreate your success
• 17:55
  every 30 days. It's what makes our business so challenging and unique. But also we're well
• 18:00
  compensated for it because it is so hard. Yeah. Okay. So the word thus far for the year has been
• 18:06
  hard. I want to run the balance between strategy, strategic and tactical. Because I always want to
• 18:16
  give somebody tactical that they can walk out of here today listening to us watching us and apply.
• 18:21
  So is there any? Okay. So you've got your team meeting, your regional. You've got the people
• 18:25
  on the call. Do you have a like, okay, go in your local markets, execute? Is there some activities
• 18:32
  you'd like to suggest that work right now? Well, I would say open houses on the weekends are the
• 18:39
  place that people are going and getting business today, like visiting open houses. It's in very
• 18:45
  few loan officers are doing it. The other place that we're having a lot of success is being backup
• 18:51
  for builder preferred lenders. Right. Being the number two, like approaching the builder saying,
• 18:58
  hey, we know you have your own in house or build our own mortgage company. But what we find is they
• 19:03
  have a very small box of available products for clients. And so a lot of their fallout, they don't
• 19:09
  have any place for it. And so we actually have a couple of very large builders that we work with where
• 19:14
  we are actually getting the incentive that they would give the builder mortgage company that's
• 19:20
  tied to the builder mortgage company if it's a turn down that they give to us. So to me, those are
• 19:24
  the two places that you can meet people where they are, right? Hey, are you tired of cold calling
• 19:31
  realtors and feeling like you're getting nowhere with my agent classes? You don't have to chase agents
• 19:36
  anymore. We hand you a done for you system of ready to teach presentations, plug and play marketing
• 19:41
  and even 200 producing agents to invite. So you can double your agent referrals in 90 days or less.
• 19:47
  Plus you'll get weekly coaching and a community of loan officers sharing exactly what's working
• 19:52
  right now. Here's a quick win from one of our members. Been part of my agent classes for a little
• 19:58
  over a year and totally changed my business. I grew at least 25% and that was during a pretty
• 20:05
  down market and have only grown every single month that I've kept doing it. Community is great,
• 20:11
  jump to the Friday calls. It's awesome. Have fun with it. Teach as many classes as you can.
• 20:16
  Just do more. Do better. Are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on
• 20:20
  demand? Book a call at mortgagemarketing.pro or hit the link in the show notes now back to our show.
• 20:26
  What's the what's the approach to the builder? You know, give me an example. I don't want to put
• 20:31
  you in a spot that like, you know, the call or whatever, you know, hi, my name is Jeff with CMG and
• 20:36
  well, first of all, I do your research, right? We actually have a new technology called Zonda,
• 20:43
  which is a data. Is that that commercial? Yeah, it's the app that has all the
• 20:49
  builders in it. In my for buildings, right? So you can literally go in and see who's got standing
• 20:54
  inventory. You know, who's doing loans? What kind of product they have? So I always say you shouldn't
• 21:02
  use the pray and spray approach. You need to be strategic. Do your homework and then find out who
• 21:07
  who's the gatekeeper, right? It is visiting the site, meeting the site agent, find out who you
• 21:12
  need to talk to. You know, who are the decision makers? You know, bring in a coffee on the weekend,
• 21:17
  you know, start and build those relationships. I always say it's a long game, right? This isn't
• 21:21
  Rome wasn't built in a day, but find out who this decision makers are and then approach them with
• 21:27
  the proposal. Like we have this, this in this product, we can help you move. We do, we do builder
• 21:34
  forwards, many builder forwards. So a lot of companies do builder forwards are being able to lock
• 21:40
  inventory that's sitting with, you know, builder concessions that you can advertise a rate on. I
• 21:45
  mean, we bring them strategies and how to teach their sales team how to sell sitting in there's
• 21:51
  a lot more sitting in inventory today than there was three months ago. Yeah, for sure. A lot
• 21:56
  more. So there is an opportunity when, when homes are flying off the shelves like in 2021,
• 22:03
  you're just, you know, another loan officer. Today, we can be partners and approach it. Like,
• 22:08
  let me help you sell a home. So, right. So for those who didn't get you, that's called Zanda. I believe
• 22:14
  ZO NDA. Right. And that's a, that's a tool like MMI, but for builders, which is an intelligence
• 22:21
  database tool. That's correct. That's cool. Yeah, I've heard of other ideas because what the
• 22:27
  builder wants is they want traffic, right? Yes. And so I've heard of loan officers that will host
• 22:32
  events, you know, how they do the, the listing pitches, like realtor shop and they go,
• 22:39
  here's the listings. I have the hot listings or here's a hot buyer. That's a great idea,
• 22:43
  actually. Yeah, good. I can pour an idea into you today. But, but yeah, I've had a couple of
• 22:50
  fellows who've done that successfully because then they're like, Hey, can I host a listing pitch
• 22:55
  at this, you know, builder development, we're going to get 20 agents in the room and they're all
• 22:58
  going to see the development, the problem works. Oh, sure. And all that fun stuff. Now, depending
• 23:03
  on the builder requirements that they have with that, but that's useful and or other types of
• 23:08
  just social functions and events. Like, one of the ones we have here in Vegas in the city is there's
• 23:13
  a place called, it's called downtown and it's kind of older non-strip for those who aren't in the
• 23:18
  known Vegas. Oh, yeah. And there's a high rise being built in this area that's been totally
• 23:24
  refurbished and it's by Seagstrom Hall, which is this like place where they have these amazing
• 23:28
  symphonies and plays and concerts and stuff. Anyway, this is a high end high rise. I'm talking two
• 23:32
  million above per unit and realtors and lenders in title have been hosting their weekly month,
• 23:40
  you know, listing pitch meetings there. Right. Instead of the local restaurant. Well, that's
• 23:45
  such a great idea. If you have those places available, I love that. I love anywhere where you can
• 23:50
  get people together. And as far as strategy is concerned, I mean, I do a call every week with
• 23:56
  top producers who share what they're doing. And from a strategy perspective, there's a couple of
• 24:02
  things that I see are working. Number one, social media, people getting committed to a social media
• 24:08
  strategy. And that's not posting once a week, that's posting every day and really being very
• 24:12
  consistent. And what and I have recently really started going, you know, posting every day on my
• 24:19
  social media. And I am certainly traction and more followers, but it is a commitment and you got
• 24:23
  to commit to it. But the ones that I, I mean, we had a guy on my on my call a couple of weeks
• 24:30
  ago, he's out in New Mexico and he has doubled his business from last year to this year and the
• 24:35
  year before doubled from that year to this year. So he has literally had a 200% increase in his
• 24:41
  business year over year over the last two years, basically. And he credits it, social media,
• 24:48
  100% his name is Paul Parsons, I'm going to New Mexico. And he's just an awesome guy.
• 24:54
  Small market, small loan amounts, going outside of his market, it's allowing him to reach outside
• 24:59
  of his market, his immediate market where it's a little bit slower or he's worked with a lot of
• 25:03
  the people there. So it's definitely allowed him to extend his reach. So social media.
• 25:09
  Do a content or which platform? Instagram has been mostly what he does. And he posts three or four
• 25:15
  times a day. You can go, you can go look at his Instagram handle, Paul Parsons, creative stuff,
• 25:20
  some funny videos, some of its educational content, some of its closing, some of its his personal
• 25:25
  life. He does a little bit of everything, market updates, a few, doesn't do. I mean, he says
• 25:29
  quit posting, you know, the boring charts, you know, that, you know, it's not that you don't put
• 25:35
  some of that on there, but you need more exciting content for people to engage. But he said he's
• 25:40
  just getting more. I found him right here. I'll put a link in the show notes, but it's
• 25:45
  home loan superhero. Yes, that is him. This is Instagram. Yeah. Very interesting. All right,
• 25:51
  go check that out. So people go follow his content, see what it's all about. What do you, because
• 25:56
  you obviously see a lot of loan officers with the size of the team that you have? Speak
• 26:00
  of the social media. What do you see as the most common areas of resistance that keeps people
• 26:06
  from really tapping that video? Don't want to be on video. Don't want to be on video. Yes,
• 26:12
  they don't want to be, they don't want to hear themselves. They don't want to see themselves.
• 26:16
  And I always tell them like, that's what you look like. That's what you sound like. So I can't hide
• 26:21
  that, you know, and I do think that it's interesting because I have twin daughters that are 20 years
• 26:27
  old. They're both in college. And I talked to them a lot about what's going on with AI. And it's
• 26:33
  a, you know, it's an emerging thing for them in the job market that they're looking at out of
• 26:37
  college. And there is a real desire for authenticity now, where people want to see the real you
• 26:46
  on video and talking. They don't want the polished, over edited, you know, they want to see
• 26:53
  real. And I think that trend will continue to be honest. And get on video, talk about yourself,
• 26:58
  talk about what you're doing, let people get to know you. Well, I want to geek out for a second
• 27:02
  on the video, because I'm sure you've seen the AI generated videos. I have seen the AI. I've tried
• 27:08
  that. Hey, Jen, and I just can't get the voice to sound like that. I just wanted to give it a try.
• 27:12
  I'm like, that doesn't even sound like me. Just give it time. It will. What's your take on that?
• 27:19
  Yeah, just open-ended question. Yeah. I, well, I'm an adopter, because I, I use Shatch BT a lot.
• 27:27
  I use, I am a big fan of AI. I use plaid. I use type set. Actually, Jeremy Forcier,
• 27:35
  turned me on to a couple of cool things a few weeks ago when I saw him in a mastermind.
• 27:38
  Like, I'm a big fan of AI. I feel like if you're not an adopter, you're going to get left behind.
• 27:42
  I do have some mixed feelings about it, though, especially with video, you know, your
• 27:48
  avatar being generated. You need to tell people that's not you. I mean, that's my thing. It's like,
• 27:54
  if you're not new, there needs to be disclaimer on there that this is a video.
• 27:58
  Or a generator. Yeah. So to me, we shouldn't be fooling people. We should, we should tell them
• 28:05
  what they're getting. Now, whether that will become, I don't, there's not a lot of
• 28:09
  rules around AI yet. So it's kind of that wild, wild west. We'll see where it goes.
• 28:15
  Well, I think it goes back to the point you're really making and this, you know,
• 28:19
  even further back to what is the number one source of your top producers business and it's,
• 28:23
  you know, comes back to having conversations. Isn't that the real game of everything we're
• 28:27
  trying to play? Whether you run ads, whether you're doing social, you're doing classes and events,
• 28:30
  the bottom line is how many people you're talking to. That's right. And I always tell my team,
• 28:35
  when I look at my six, the success I've had over the years, whether that was an
• 28:38
  origination or recruiting or business development, it always has been direct correlation with the
• 28:44
  number and quality of conversations that I have every day, whether that's over the phone in
• 28:48
  person. And so many of our loan officers are just resistant to the phone. I mean, I work a lot
• 28:52
  with my team on, you've got to pick up the phone and call people or get out and see people in
• 28:56
  person. Like, you can't hide behind email. You can't hide. You have to get out and talk to people.
• 29:02
  Those, those originators you refer to there that are resistant to the phone. How long have they
• 29:06
  been in the business? Long time. A long time. I don't know. That doesn't make me close. They don't
• 29:12
  want to call people that they haven't worked with in a while. And in fact, I had an interesting
• 29:16
  conversation with one of my lawyers who has worked for a really long time and actually did a lot of
• 29:19
  on in 2021. And I do think, and this is not to be critical or judgmental. They're, they're,
• 29:27
  we were in a decade of our business where if we were doing a good job with our database and we're
• 29:31
  staying in good contact with our agents, business kind of just kept rolling, right? We didn't have
• 29:36
  to do a lot of that extra. And we're in a market where you have to do the extra. I mean, I just saw
• 29:43
  what the purchase markets down seven and a half percent year to date. I mean, the purchase
• 29:47
  market is not growing right now. In fact, it's shrinking a little bit. And then the refiizer kind of
• 29:51
  like going like this depending on what's going to happen in the industry market. And so she's like,
• 29:55
  I just can't see myself out, you know, going to open houses and calling on these young agents
• 30:01
  that, you know, I know more than they know. And I'm just like, that, if that's how you think about
• 30:06
  it, you're right. You shouldn't be doing that because you're probably not going to stay in this
• 30:10
  profession for the long term. Is that you go getting in the way like, you know, open houses are
• 30:15
  beneath me? Yeah, I think it's part of that. I think it's just exhaustion too. I mean, there's a
• 30:20
  certain part of, you know, the originator that's been doing this a long time that just doesn't
• 30:26
  maybe have the energy. But I have younger contingency of loan officers that are, and I have
• 30:32
  one that's in their late 20s all the way into their mid to late 30s that just are getting after
• 30:39
  it, right? They just don't have all the kind of the same paradigms and the old stuff. And
• 30:44
  they're just excited for the opportunity. Well, it reminds me earlier today. I was on someone
• 30:50
  else's podcast and they were asking some of their questions and, you know, not to sound self-serving,
• 30:55
  but you know, five years ago, they're referring to this book. I wrote five years ago, which is
• 30:58
  called Disruptor Die. Thank you very much. I don't have my shelf behind me anymore because I
• 31:05
  redid my office here. But the whole point of this is, you know, there's something I talk about
• 31:11
  in there and I've talked about a lot, which is the whole notion of survival of the fittest.
• 31:17
  That's actually not accurate if you want to go back to it. And I don't want to be like, oh,
• 31:21
  my Darwin guy, but I actually looked up the actual original kind of writing of that survival of
• 31:27
  the fittest and that's not actually accurate. It was, it's not the strongest to survive. It is
• 31:33
  the most adaptable to change. That's right. Yes, I could not agree more. And if you are not going
• 31:39
  to adapt right now, you're going to be in trouble. Maybe not today. It's not going to take long.
• 31:45
  And I, I feel like AI is not going to take over. I don't, I mean, it's interesting. Everybody asks,
• 31:52
  what do I think about the, the rocket redfin acquisition there? What kind of impact is that
• 31:58
  going to have? You didn't ask me, but no, I'm glad you brought it up. It's a really interesting. I
• 32:05
  looked up like rocket has like four, four percent market share. Redsen had less than one percent,
• 32:11
  right? And so you, that's five percent market share. But they're saying that could four times,
• 32:17
  right? Because of the capability with search that it could go to 16 percent. They would go from
• 32:21
  four to 16 because of this one person acquisition because of the search and the brokerage and
• 32:28
  I don't know if I buy that. I got to be honest with you. Redfin was, he gives them some strategic
• 32:37
  players, but rocket is still rocket, right? It's, it's the bot that you're doing alone with.
• 32:44
  Our superpower is our humanity and our ability to connect and build relationships. And rocket
• 32:50
  has tried to have the self-sourced originator out markets and it didn't work. They tried to
• 32:56
  get realtors to be loan officers and that didn't work. They actually did away with that program.
• 33:01
  So I think they'll take some share and maybe I'm being naive, but I think if we do our jobs and we
• 33:07
  do them well, we can at least on the purchase front, refives are different. So what are you going
• 33:13
  to say? For me, the Mr. Cooper acquisition is a little bit more troublesome. Well,
• 33:17
  a request in general are going to be tough for the self-sourced originator unless comp comes
• 33:22
  way down on those. It's just going to be very, very hard, very hard to compete. Right. And
• 33:27
  well, I mean, I always lived and died by the refi, right? So you've got to build your purchase
• 33:31
  pipeline or else, what are you really doing? Yes. I agree. You know, your word that we open up with
• 33:39
  is pretty accurate because it is hard, harder. There's so many more things to consider these days
• 33:47
  with, you know, back when I got in in 2003, there was no social media, right? And so it was pretty
• 33:52
  clear, man, you know, go out and meet people, do events, all that fun stuff. You know, phone calls
• 33:58
  and it was like, and now it's just like, oh, I need a personal brand, I need video, I need this
• 34:02
  and this and this. And I think people get overwhelmed because there is like so many options.
• 34:09
  And my advice is pick one, right? Cindy Ermann, she's my coach with a defining difference. She's
• 34:13
  always says you can never have more than three cars out of the garage, right? You can't have more
• 34:17
  than three strategies. And that to me is probably too many. You probably need to have one or two.
• 34:22
  If you're going to go all in on social, then do your social. And I can name probably 5 or 6 LOs
• 34:26
  this last year that have done it and are starting to really monetize it and get results from it.
• 34:31
  It takes a year, right? It's not something that happens right away.
• 34:36
  Yes, sure. You've got to pick one. Yeah. And I think the problem is, is people do the hummingbird
• 34:41
  thing. They keep going from different thing to different thing to different thing, right?
• 34:45
  And deluding their power. Yes. I love this three car approach. And yeah, you might be right,
• 34:49
  it might be too many cars. Some people are extra special. I can have the three cars out. I'm
• 34:55
  probably one or two. The Gary Keller, the one thing. Just picking that one thing. That's where I've
• 35:02
  kind of found my success kind of going all in on one thing at a time. Yeah, very interesting.
• 35:06
  Okay, so here we are at the halfway point pretty much of the year, rolling into June here in a
• 35:12
  few days. You can't believe it. All right, before you know that, it'll be Christmas.
• 35:16
  Same. What type of coaching would you be doing for people to have to finish this year strong?
• 35:26
  Yeah, what would you advise them to do? And if it sounds repetitive, that's okay because,
• 35:29
  guess what, fundamentals always win. Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I'd revisit your business plan.
• 35:35
  And if you don't have a business plan, do a business plan. Yes, do a business plan. So,
• 35:42
  I mean, it really is, I don't want to say it's simple because it isn't simple, but the fundamentals
• 35:48
  are simple, right? You need to have a plan. You need to have systems. You need to have disciplines.
• 35:53
  And so you've got to go back to, do I have those things in place first and foremost? And do
• 36:00
  the SWAT analysis, right? Go through and make sure you've got your calendar dialed in,
• 36:06
  your discipline's dialed in. Because what I do know is, it's, you know,
• 36:11
  was at Atomic Habits, you know, rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your
• 36:15
  systems. If you do not have those in place, you're going to be flailing. And so what I generally see
• 36:21
  is lone officers who just don't have any plan that are just kind of winging it. They're just,
• 36:26
  they're flailing and they're suffering. And it doesn't have to be that way.
• 36:30
  Get a plan, figure out what those disciplines are and commit to it and commit to it for 30 days.
• 36:36
  Do it every single day, find an accountability part. That's the second thing, Jeff. Like, I am
• 36:40
  big on coaching. I'm a big, I've been coach since 2005. I've had a coach. And if you don't want
• 36:48
  investing coaching, find somebody who will hold you accountable at least. Like that will hold
• 36:53
  your feet to the fire that you can declare publicly what it is that you're saying that you want to do
• 36:57
  whether it's a health goal or a professional goal, but get some accountability in your life.
• 37:01
  It makes a big difference. I love that so much. Get some accountability.
• 37:06
  And get a coach. And I don't understand if you don't have somebody else to essentially look
• 37:11
  over your shoulder. How do you see your blind spots? Honestly, it is so true. I mean, I've had two
• 37:16
  coaches at one time. I was coaching with Richard Milligan for recruiting and Cindy Ertman,
• 37:20
  because Richard was a specialist in recruiting and Cindy was helping me build my team. And
• 37:25
  people just thought I was kind of crazy. And I pay for all myself. I mean, if you're not going
• 37:30
  to invest in yourself, who will? In fact, there's that Instagram guy. I can't remember his name
• 37:36
  where he goes and he sees people driving up in really expensive cars and he asks them, how
• 37:40
  did you make your first million dollars? What's the most money you made in the year? And I saw him ask
• 37:46
  a gal who drove up in like a Lamborghini and really fit, you know, she was probably in personal
• 37:53
  development or training or something. And he's like, what's the most money you made in a year?
• 37:57
  And she's like, $10 million. And he said, well, what's your one piece of advice? And she's like,
• 38:01
  invest in yourself. Because if you won't invest in you, who will? And why should anybody else?
• 38:06
  And I think we forget that. In this business loan officers, we want everybody to pay for everything
• 38:11
  for us. And at a certain point, Carl White says that, you know, if your company won't pay for the
• 38:15
  assistant, pay for your own assistant. Because if you're so confident and get there, then pay for
• 38:20
  yourself. So we have to invest in ourselves. Yeah. How seriously are you taking it? I mean,
• 38:25
  you have the ability to earn a million dollars in this business, not saying you need to or want to,
• 38:30
  but you have the ability, the upside. And yeah, if you're in a place in your business right now,
• 38:34
  where you're frustrated, you're burnt out, you're challenged, I get it. We've all been there.
• 38:38
  Yes. And I think it's just like, you need to decide, what do you want to do? Do you want to
• 38:42
  continue? And do you want it to continue as it is? Because, you know, something's got to change,
• 38:47
  right? And well, you know, in order for things to change, guess who's got to change, right?
• 38:51
  That's right. The definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing, expecting different
• 38:56
  results. And I think we do that a lot in our lives. I'm just as guilty. I mean, I,
• 39:01
  luckily, have a coach and, you know, support system that shakes me out of it.
• 39:04
  Right. And I want to say that too as well before we wrap up here in terms of, I mentioned earlier
• 39:08
  about people, realtors, law officers who ask me, you know, and I suggested go to a team.
• 39:13
  And the other part I say with that is, look at company culture. So you're called company culture.
• 39:19
  Just, just by the 20 or 30 minutes we've been talking here, I've heard multiple references to
• 39:23
  your team, your infrastructure, your support, your accountability, your coaching. So it's no wonder
• 39:27
  people thrive in that environment. And I feel for people who come to me and I have a conversation,
• 39:33
  I ask about their current environment or situation, maybe they're at a broker or whether there's
• 39:36
  less support. Right. And it's like, okay, so maybe that's how you're going to pay for coaching.
• 39:41
  You're going to give up basis points, but you're going to go to a company, maybe like CMG,
• 39:45
  where it's just like you're going to be in an environment now who actually will lift you up and
• 39:48
  support you with different resources. And so what do you give up for that? Maybe some bips,
• 39:52
  but guess what? You make it up in volume. Yeah, I always say, I mean, for one, I will never
• 39:59
  badmouth any platform. I mean, you need the broker, you need the IMB, you need the bank,
• 40:04
  the credit union, it's an ecosystem. And it's very good for us to have competition. It's what
• 40:08
  keeps pricing in check. It's good for the consumer. It's good for our comp, product development,
• 40:11
  innovation, all those things. But what I will say is when people want to go to a broker for
• 40:18
  comp or price, here's what I tell them, you can have that same comp or price here because what are
• 40:23
  you giving up to have that comp or that price? There's always trade-offs. We all get the same
• 40:28
  amount of dollars in trading. Maybe your execution get a little sharper if you're bigger and
• 40:34
  you know, securitizing, but it's not a lot, right? So mostly we're paying with the same dollars.
• 40:39
  So what are you giving up? What are the choices? And I'm not saying that I'm the right place for
• 40:43
  everybody. There's lots of great companies, but I will say platform and support probably matter
• 40:49
  more today than, and I've been in this business for 30 years. I've never seen an environment where
• 40:55
  people need structure. They need accountability. They need strong leadership. They need coaching.
• 41:02
  They need cheering. They need all the things right now. It's really hard to be a solo
• 41:07
  preneur right now. It's lonely and it's hard. Oh, especially in the market that we're in.
• 41:13
  So volatile and dynamic. And there's a great big broker team that have banded together and
• 41:17
  all worked together, but that one guy's in his house. You know, that's a hard, that's a hard thing
• 41:22
  to do. I mean, good luck to you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I can remember when I first started
• 41:29
  going back to the country, why days and the early days, one of the benefits I had was, you know,
• 41:32
  I had a sales manager and I could walk in and run scenarios by him. You know, like I was too
• 41:37
  green to understand, like, can I make this deal work? And then, you know, he and I would sit in his
• 41:41
  office and we spend 20, 30 minutes going through this file and figuring out, can we make it work? Like,
• 41:45
  what's that worth? Well, and we're back in that day because deals are so complex and so
• 41:51
  difficult. Like, I was just talking to our underwriting leader the other day and we have a,
• 41:56
  we have a chat open to all LOs that's underwriting where anybody can put a scenario in there. And I
• 42:02
  watched, I watched all the scenarios in there and I think goodness, we have a group that,
• 42:07
  you know, we can bounce things off of one another because we learn from that. But also some of
• 42:11
  the scenarios I'm seeing, I'm just like, that is crazy town. You think you see it? You've seen
• 42:16
  everything and it's like, you see something that you've never seen before. So it is important
• 42:21
  to have that community around you in my opinion. All right. So we're closing out with what to do
• 42:27
  for the balance of this year. It was have your business plan in order. Fundamentals are always
• 42:31
  in play. Anything else you want to add to that? Well, I would say don't settle. Like, you know,
• 42:38
  you can do more. And what, what are you compromising on? And most people are settling.
• 42:49
  When they say they want to do more, they're really content where they're at. And so I do a good
• 42:54
  check on that. I mean, we, what I would say, I heard Darren Hardy say, I go, you know, I go to
• 42:58
  lots of things and I remember him saying, we, there really aren't any new ideas. There's variations.
• 43:05
  We know what to do. We need reminders. Sometimes we need that accountability. We need to
• 43:09
  slip kick in the booties. Sometimes I know I do. But why, why are you stuck where you're stuck?
• 43:15
  And really do a hard look at that. And maybe it is you need a new company, a different platform.
• 43:20
  Maybe it is just a meeting with your manager to say, I need help. Ask for help. If you need help,
• 43:26
  this is the kind of market where a lot of us need help. We don't have all the answers. So,
• 43:34
  you know, for me, it's like, don't settle if you're feeling like you're not where you want to be.
• 43:39
  That's the love that don't settle. And it goes back to the environment you're in as well. Because if
• 43:43
  you're not in an environment that's lifting you up, if you're not surrounded by people who
• 43:47
  want to take the challenge of the market head on. That's right. Like, yeah, get around the right
• 43:53
  people who have the right mindset, who can break you out of that. You know, I wrote down growth
• 43:58
  mindset versus fixed mindset. If you're around here, I was looking at my notes on the few people
• 44:04
  that niche down. I mean, I was looking at just the handful. I mean, Brady's at 50, Harrison's
• 44:10
  at 46 million. Danny Meyer is 93 million year-to-date in personal production. He's my top producer
• 44:18
  up in Seattle, Snowhomish market. So, there are people doing remarkable things, a remarkable
• 44:24
  volume. So, the business is out there. That's the one thing. I remember Rosemary David. I don't
• 44:29
  know if you've met Rosemary. She's my boss. She's been my boss. We've worked together for 20 years.
• 44:33
  And she's been my boss since 2011. And I would never forget. She says that individual
• 44:37
  originator cannot own market share. So, the good news about that is, I can double the amount
• 44:44
  of my loans, right? I can go from two to four or four to eight or eight to 16. Like, it's much
• 44:50
  difficult, more difficult for CMG to double their market share, right? But for me as an individual,
• 44:54
  I can go double my market share. I can triple. I can quadruple it. That's within my power and my
• 44:59
  grasp. And so, it's just figuring out what are those strategies? How do I take ground? And the last
• 45:04
  thing I will say, the thing that is what gets me up and excited in the morning, is this is the
• 45:08
  kind of market where you can take ground because they need you today. They didn't need us in 20 and
• 45:14
  21 when, you know, homes were 10, 12, 20 offers, right? They need us today. We're a valuable asset
• 45:24
  today if we're doing our jobs, right? Yes, absolutely. Reminds me of the phrase separation season.
• 45:31
  For that's a number of people. And I'll just kind of put a cherry on top of your point about you
• 45:36
  can double your business. One of the exercises I often take an L.O. through when they get in that
• 45:41
  fixed mindset. And I used to do this in Orange County whenever I would get down on me, right? And
• 45:46
  I'd be like, how come my business isn't growing? It's a tough market. I would pull up the purchase
• 45:52
  sales in my county. And I would look at how many purchase transactions went down. And I would ask
• 45:58
  obviously, how many of those did I get? Right. That's right. And, you know, it'll vary based on
• 46:03
  markets, but there are hundreds of purchase transactions going down in your backyard right now.
• 46:09
  That's right. You just heard from you, your example of Danny, do a 90 million, Brady,
• 46:14
  do a 50 million. You know, and it's just like there is business to be had. Let's
• 46:20
  completely. You did not share the pie. I mean, that's really what you got to ask. It's just
• 46:24
  harder to get it. Jeff, you're, I mean, you offer pre-done classes. Like to me, that's what I
• 46:31
  would be doing. I'd be going out and teaching classes and holding webinars and getting in front
• 46:37
  of the one to many strategy, right? Getting in front of as many realtors as I possibly could,
• 46:41
  even if only two show up, that's two more than you had, right? That show up for your class. A lot
• 46:46
  of loan officers get stuck on having to be, you know, CE certified. Right. It doesn't teach a class
• 46:52
  on what are the latest AI tools that they need to use. You'll get 10 agents to show up for that.
• 46:58
  I mean, to me, it's like, you know, education, lead with education, right? That's the key to
• 47:04
  winning in this market. Thank you. By the way, if we're bringing that up, but it goes back to,
• 47:07
  what is the problem? When I do web arts and all this stuff with the loan officers, you know,
• 47:11
  I have, there's five reasons why you don't get enough referrals, but usually it comes back to
• 47:15
  more often than not. The reason why most allies aren't getting enough referrals from agents is
• 47:19
  they're simply not talking to enough people. That's right. Period. That's what the one to many
• 47:23
  approach does. So yes, if anybody's interested in that, they know how to reach me. Anyway, we are
• 47:29
  officially out of time, but this has been fantastic. We could keep riffing for another 30 minutes,
• 47:34
  but I know you're busy. What's the best place for people who want to connect with you? Maybe
• 47:39
  just follow you? Because you put out some great content, by the way. I follow you on LinkedIn,
• 47:42
  predominantly. Oh, thank you. Yes. I am on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram and Facebook, and it's all
• 47:48
  just Natalie Overture. If I don't have any fancy handles, just Natalie Overture. If I post
• 47:53
  almost every day on Instagram and Facebook, at least weekly on LinkedIn. I need to see your
• 47:59
  inspiring me now, like to post daily. I'm still working. Well, I would have to give a shout out
• 48:04
  to Michelle Burman. Michelle, what's up? Listen to it. Michelle. Yeah. Yeah. She's the slipkick in
• 48:10
  the booty for me on that. She holds me highly accountable. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She will definitely hold
• 48:14
  a high standard. Yeah. She's amazing. Well, listen, I'm going to link up your social profiles in
• 48:21
  the show notes so everybody can follow you, say hi. And if, by the way, if you're listening to this
• 48:24
  and you heard this episode, just DM Natalie and let her know, hey, heard you on the episode.
• 48:28
  I would love it. Yeah. Let her know what's one thing that stood out from you for this episode.
• 48:32
  So Natalie, can't thank you enough. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Jeff. I'm a big fan.
• 48:35
  I love your podcast. Thank you so much. And listeners, you know what to do? Follow Natalie.
• 48:40
  If you like this episode, leave us a review. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. All right.
• 48:43
  Take care. Okay. That's it for today's episode. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to remind you about
• 48:47
  my agent classes, your proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days. Imagine never
• 48:54
  having to co-call again, instead building real lasting relationships with top-producing agents
• 48:59
  who want to send you business with done for you presentations, marketing automation, weekly
• 49:04
  coaching. It's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun. So if you're ready to
• 49:10
  take control of your agent referrals and grow your income, visit mortgagemarketing.pro or check
• 49:14
  the link in the show notes and why you're there. Don't forget to check out the success stories
• 49:18
  from other mortgage pros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening and I'll see you
• 49:22
  on the next episode.