Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / The Power of Relationships in Mortgage Lending

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The Power of Relationships in Mortgage Lending · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
Hey, what's up, Jeff is him for coming at you again with another episode of Mortgage
0:15
Marketing Radio.
0:16
Appreciate you tuning in here.
0:17
If you're liking the podcast, do me a favor.
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We want to reach more people and you can help us do that.
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How do you do that?
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Leave us a quick review wherever you're listening to this somewhere, most likely on your phone.
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the link and you can leave us a review about how the podcast content guests have impacted
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your business.
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0:41
If you do that, go over and DM me on Instagram what you do that and I'll send you a free
0:46
gift as a thank you.
0:47
Appreciate that.
0:48
Okay, before we get into this week's special guest, which I know you're going to want
0:52
to listen to if you want to get some guidance and direction on how to close out 2024, strong
0:58
and hit 2025 with a vengeance.
1:01
My special guest is a multi-year president's club producer, branch manager, area manager,
1:07
regional SVP platinum club, like the guys got all the accolades and in just a moment I'm
1:14
going to be introducing you to him.
1:16
But before I do, I have another success story coming at you from the community of Mortgage
1:21
Professionals that we work with in our my agent classes program, which helps you as an
1:26
originator, attract versus chase agents, scale your reach, scale your conversations and
1:32
multiply your results, getting agent referrals at scale.
1:36
There I say double your agent referrals in 90 days.
1:40
Shout out to lone lady Liz, Liz Reese, what's up, longtime member four plus years member
1:44
in our platform.
1:45
We've got multiple people who are senior founding members like Liz and others and Liz shared
1:51
with me the other day that she hosted our winning the buyer presentation class, which
1:55
is helping real estate agents navigate the new rules with the NAR settlement and helping
2:00
them position themselves as a leader up their value, integrate the lender as part of the
2:07
value proposition.
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Well, check this out, Liz did that class yesterday, 17 of the 20 agents that showed up for
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her class.
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She did not previously know nor had she worked with in the past 17 out of the 20.
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So you're going to hear in a moment from my special guest that many people are woefully
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short on the roster of agents that you have as potential and existing referral partners.
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You're going to hear from my guest now he has 35, right?
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When he was originating, he had a core base of 35 or agents who were referring him on
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a consistent basis.
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What's your number?
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When I have L.O.s come to me and they fell out the form to come schedule a call with me,
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the average number I see on there is 10.
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It's often less and I got to tell you, 10 is not going to cut it in this market with
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all the chains that's happening, the transition with some agents leaving the market with there
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being a transaction recession.
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You need multiples, you need more than you think on your bus.
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The real question is how do you then scale your engagement and conversations so you can
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add more realtors to your bus of qualified referral partners?
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You've got to give yourself that margin of insurance with the law of large numbers.
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You've heard by now that the way we do that is we go into the local market and build
3:23
our personal brand.
3:24
We attract versus chase and we host classes events and workshops.
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That position you as the most valuable lender in town make you five mile famous and attract
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a bunch of agents to work with you so you can have conversations and decide if you guys
3:36
are the right fit.
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Back to Liz, how else would you get in front of 17 agents that don't know you otherwise?
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How long would that take you?
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What methods would you use?
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Well Liz did it in about an hour, right?
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So she used the class that we put together for her.
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She used us for the marketing.
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We send the emails, the text messages.
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We do the landing pages.
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We do the follow up automation and confirmation, etc.
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Basically she shows up and uses the content that we provide.
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Turn key, plug and play, run some slides, read some speaker notes, show some videos, follow
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a process and you get conversations and you get in front of agents you've never gotten
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in front of in the past and people start talking about you and you build your personal
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brand.
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17 out of 20 agents you never met before.
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You know what's happening now?
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She's getting conversations, meetings, referrals, she's building her future business now.
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If that sounds interesting to you, go to mortgagemarketing.pro and book a call so we can see if
4:28
we are a fit for each other.
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It's not right for everybody.
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You must be coachable.
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You must be doing at least three transactions on average or more per month.
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You must have at least an average of three years in the business per full time, right?
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Or more, we are not for everybody.
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We're for somebody who is willing to work, willing to be coachable, willing to show up and
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follow the proven process.
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Mortgagemarketing.pro.
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Let's see if it's for you.
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Okay, on to my special guest.
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I've been teasing it up a little bit.
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I'm really thrilled to finally bring my conversation with Brian Weiss to you.
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I already told you a little bit about Brian, right?
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President's Club Producer, Multiplatinum Winner, all around great dude, father and husband.
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He's also co-contributor to this green book.
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I'm holding up my hands, rethink everything you know about being a next-gen loan officer,
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which was spearheaded by my good friend's Kyle Draper and Brian Vue.
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I'm also contributor to this book as is Brian and many other professionals in our industry.
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Brian is an amazing mortgage leader.
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He is knowledge and experience is deep and wide and he really understands what's happening
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in the market because of his years of experience and because of the companies and individuals
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he's working with right now.
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So we are going to unpack the strategies for today's mortgage originator.
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We're going to unpack his chapter from the book and give you some really key high-level
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takeaways on how to reignite your career with ideas and action and I'll just give you
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a quick little snippet right here to thrive in today's market.
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Mortgage professor must diversify their sources of business and take a multi-layer
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approach that combines traditional methods with a modern system.
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So we unpack some different pillars or different additional sources of business in addition
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to the traditional sources like agents in past client database and we're going to give
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you some ideas on which of these pillars might be potentially worth you pursuing.
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And of course Brian's done some cool stuff and so there's lots of links in the show notes
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for you to go check out.
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He's got a free Facebook community, he's on LinkedIn and a lot of other things.
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So listen to this podcast episode, check the links in the show notes and let him know
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that you heard about him and connected with him through this podcast.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
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Brian Weiss, welcome to the show.
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Thanks very much for having me.
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This is a long time coming, frankly.
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I've seen your name around for so many years.
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I've bought your book and I finally get to meet you face to face and actually talk to
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you.
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So this is an honor.
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As well, I've seen you buzzing around and you know, we're both contributors to this
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wonderful book.
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Let's give a shout out to the book.
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I'm holding up my hand, rethink everything.
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You know about being an ex-general loan officer led by Kyle Draper and Brian Vue.
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Of course, we are both co-authors in there.
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So I'll link it up by the way in the show notes too in case anybody does not have it yet.
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But before we get into your chapter and what your topic is for people who may not be
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aware of you, tell us whatever you want to tell the listeners about who you are, what
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do you do?
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Yeah, so I'm personally for most a dad and a husband, but professionally, I've been in
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the mortgage industry for nearly 30 years.
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I almost hate to do the math, but now it just sort of is what it is.
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But I've been in mortgage for almost 30 years.
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Most of that time with some of the bigger retail companies.
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And most recently have evolved into a coach, a consultant.
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And then I also work with a consulting agency that helps other people open mortgage companies
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under a franchise model.
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So it's newer in the space, but it's a great support system for those that want to go down
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that entrepreneurial, take that entrepreneurial leap.
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What's the name of that organization?
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So the name of that company is CoLab Mortgage Franchise.
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Okay.
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Yeah, it was founded by a woman.
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Yep.
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And it was founded by a woman by the name of Megan Marsh, 20 years in the industry, very
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successful as a mortgage broker and company owner.
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And now, oh, you know, Megan?
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I know who she is.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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A great lady, amazing human being.
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Mm-hmm.
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Okay.
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All right.
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So.
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And then you're, why don't we put it out there right now?
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By the way, for those who are curious to learn more, you don't need to stay at the end,
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but the link will be in the show notes.
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You also have a website for your consultative services.
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What is that?
8:52
Yeah.
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So my consulting website is brwconsole.com.
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Got it.
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Brian Russell Weiss.
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Yep.
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And then coLab is coLabservice.com.
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We got housekeeping out of the way.
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A week.
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Yeah.
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I mean, normally I save that for the end, but what the hell, let's mix it up a little
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bit today.
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Hey, we're here.
9:13
Okay.
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And we're right here.
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Yeah.
9:16
That's just over folks.
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Thanks for tuning in.
9:18
Yes.
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Thank you.
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All right.
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So I want to jump into this chapter.
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If you don't mind, let's get right into it.
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We think everything in the chapter 19 from the book, reignite your career with ideas in action
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is the title of your book or the chapter.
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And your focus is on, if I'm correct, well, let me ask you this way, what will you hope
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into accomplish with your chapter, your contribution to the book?
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You know, ultimately, and this is going to sound a little strange, but ultimately, what
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I want to accomplish is to give people hope.
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I mean, it has been, and think about last December, November, when you and I were asked
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to participate in this group, I mean, that, sorry, the book, that was in the thick of
10:02
it, right?
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People were really struggling.
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It couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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I just wanted to give people some hope.
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And I wanted to give them some ideas about things they can do to adapt, change, and to
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bring in some business.
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You and I have been around the business long enough.
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We know there's a thousand different ways to get business.
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And I believe, especially earlier in my career as a loan officer, you could survive on two
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good pillars.
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And that was your past customer database and your sphere.
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And that was a nice list of real estate agents that would refer you business on a regular
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basis.
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I think in today's world, two pillars are not enough.
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I think we've got to be a little bit more creative in other pillars, social media.
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Another pillar might be financial advisors.
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Another pillar might be builders, pillar might be, you know, zilla leads or lead acquisition.
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It just, we've got to be a little bit more creative and put more lines in the water to
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get business than what we needed to do even just a few years ago.
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Right?
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Okay.
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Love that.
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Let's break it down a little bit further.
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Why do you, what's changed?
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Why is that now you believe important today?
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What's happening?
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What's happened?
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What's coming?
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Yeah.
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So it really, it comes down to the business dropping off.
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So many people entered the business when, when rates were low.
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It was refinance, mania and a lot of those individuals hung on for a very long time, made
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it harder for those of us that have been in the industry for 20 or 30 years because there
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was just more competition.
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So that combined with margin compression, you know, certain loan officers might be making
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less per deal.
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Companies are certainly making less per transaction.
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So we might not have the resources that we used to have.
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And I believe, you know, a lot of the, especially the bigger companies had some pretty robust
11:53
coaching programs and support from a business development standpoint and a lot of those resources,
12:00
I was hearing we're going away too.
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So that's why, you know, it's great to have individuals like yourself and some of the
12:07
other coaching companies out there as resources, but, but their internal resources were, were
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cut back or eliminated altogether because of the compression that was happening.
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So I feel it was, you know, it's our duty to fill that void and help wherever we can,
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whether it's ideas or business development planning or, you know, mindset or whatever
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it may be, it was our job to help.
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How, this might not be a fair question and I'm just trying to, so I'm thinking through
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the frame of what you just said and what, what, you know, I know or at least I have some
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access to feedback from because I talked to a pretty decent amount of L.O.'s around
12:50
the country is, I think, first of all, I mean, on its, on its surface, I agree with what
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you're saying, right?
12:57
As we need to add more, as a matter of fact, that was the kind of, what I talked about
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this morning on the podcast, which you and I were talking about before we hit record,
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which was adding these additional pillars.
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But house, I guess what I, what I see when I hear that or my response to that is a few
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things I see occur.
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One, they do a lousy job of it, they dabble and they don't really create any momentum
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or they forget that the foundational element or sources of their business at the, you
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know, at the risk or the sacrifice of that golden goose to be like, you know, I'm going
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all in on social media, man, screw agents, right?
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Like, you know, like, so how do you address for those that are listening, like what would
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you advise them if they're, if they're hearing you, they're like, yeah, I get it, man,
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I need to add a couple more pillars.
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Like, how would they begin to identify those pillars and then maybe add those?
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Yep.
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Yep.
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So first of all, you know, my advice is always don't, don't trade one pillar for another,
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right?
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Don't neglect your current database just because rates are high and you're focusing on
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social media.
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I do think there's a little bit probably a lot for some people too, too much focus on
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social media.
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It's important.
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I think it should be there.
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Gotta invest time, but don't go all in on social media, not right away for most of us.
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So there's that.
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It's adding pillars, not neglecting the others.
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And that might mean working a little bit longer.
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That might be work, meaning working a little bit smarter, a little bit harder.
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The other thing is that's where the coach comes in.
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I think, you know, now more than ever, people do need a coach and a mentor.
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If you're not getting that, my advice always is if you're not getting that at your company
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or if your company's coaching resources have diminished, you've got to seek help outside
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of your company, right?
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So it's realizing you need more pillars.
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It's getting with the right coach to help you develop those pillars and simultaneously.
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And you and I touched on this right before the before we press record, too, but I developed
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it.
15:06
I started a coaching company back in December, too, a free coaching group based on Facebook.
15:11
It's called the action plan community.
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It started out as the loan officer action plan, but it became the action plan community.
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Because even though it was for loan officers, we had real estate agents joining our calls
15:22
and our group all the time.
15:24
So I wanted to broaden the scope, rebranded recently as action plan community.
15:30
You can anybody can find it on Facebook and join the group.
15:34
So there's that community inside Facebook and then we do calls on a regular basis with
15:39
subject matter experts.
15:41
Jeff, I hope to have you.
15:43
It's my goal.
15:44
My dream to have you as a contributor in the group at some point here.
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You didn't know that yet.
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So you don't have to answer off the cuff, but when I created that resource to get that
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creativity and get those ideas flowing and then it's up to the individual loan officer
16:00
then to execute.
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And if they need help with execution, that's where they reach out to a coach, maybe even
16:07
Jeff, right?
16:08
Sure.
16:09
So we can link that up in the show notes then, right?
16:12
Yep.
16:13
Yep.
16:14
Okay.
16:15
Cool.
16:16
So anybody's listening.
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It will be a link to that also in the show notes.
16:18
Okay.
16:19
So back to your book here in a wonderful green book.
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And once again, shout out Kyle Bryan, if you're listening, hey man, we love you.
16:24
Green book.
16:25
Great.
16:26
Nice and prominent in the video.
16:27
As a matter of fact, I'm going to get a real clip.
16:29
That's like, let's just point at the book and go, yeah, man, the book is awesome.
16:35
They've developed quite a community too.
16:37
I mean, I'd sorry to interrupt your chain of thought here, but I mean, the contributors
16:40
and I've met almost all of them at this point, great people with great hearts, passion
16:47
for the industry and some really amazing ideas.
16:50
So if you are a loan officer looking for ideas, I mean, that green book is your, your Bible.
16:55
I mean, that's, that's it.
16:57
That's the best.
16:58
What is it?
16:59
$15, $16.
17:00
You can ever spend.
17:01
Yeah.
17:02
I mean, so that's from what I hear.
17:04
That's a beer at Michigan State these days, so it declarifies University of Michigan,
17:11
not Michigan State.
17:12
Oh, sorry.
17:13
I don't know if it watches this.
17:14
I've got to, I've got to clarify that.
17:15
The test is over now.
17:16
Sorry, Katie.
17:17
Sorry, Katie.
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Oh, boy, there's like, there's a guy who doesn't really know his colleges.
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That's me.
17:27
All right.
17:28
So let's go through some of the pillars you have in here.
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And maybe let's, I'm the reason why I want to do this is to help those listening.
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How would they identify what would be a natural next pillar?
17:37
Let's just assume that whoever's listening has real estate agents somewhere because it's
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tradition.
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And I'm happy to get into a riff on why agents or why not and a lot of people like to
17:45
bag on agents, but that's up to you.
17:48
But the other pillars here are, I mean, not read them all because you have quite a few,
17:53
financial planners, renovation.
17:56
What else we got?
17:57
You mentioned social media, video, consumer direct marketing strategies, educational webinars.
18:03
Like where would somebody start what, you know what I mean?
18:06
What would be, is there any, does it depend on where they're at or what would you say?
18:11
I would say follow your passion and as cliche as that sounds.
18:15
I mean, I would, you know, take a pen and a paper going to quiet room on a Saturday
18:19
morning where you're not going to be interrupted and just sort of think through these things
18:23
and the types of people that might be involved in those pillars and what you'd most enjoy.
18:28
And I would dip my toe in the water, maybe talk to a coach, talk to some colleagues, talk
18:32
to people that are already in that space.
18:34
If you've developed a passion for, or you think you'd be very interested in renovation
18:39
lending, I think it's an amazing pillar.
18:41
It could be a pillar all in itself just focusing on renovation lending.
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I mean, there's coaches in the industry, MrRenovation.com, there are coaches in the industry
18:51
that talk about just renovation lending, Vince at MrRenovation.com, amazing human being.
18:59
He was a contributor on my calls just a few months ago on the coaching group.
19:05
And for a week laid out how to develop a business development plan for renovation lending.
19:11
All of those calls are recorded.
19:12
You could go into the Facebook group now, scroll back, see the calls with Vince, and get
19:16
a little taste of what it's like to work renovation lending.
19:20
And you might listen to those calls and or talk to Vince and find out, you know what,
19:25
it's not really my thing.
19:26
Okay, then take a look at a different pillar.
19:28
Maybe it's VA lending.
19:30
Maybe it's reverse mortgage.
19:31
I mean, there's so many ideas out there and I guess, you know, you and I have been around
19:37
in the business so long, Jeff, that maybe we take those ideas for granted.
19:41
And that was kind of the idea of my chapter is to spur some creative thinking and get
19:46
some ideas cooking for some people.
19:48
It's also the idea of how my coaching group, then you can choose from there.
19:54
Choose from the list, I guess.
19:55
Yeah, I like that a lot.
19:57
You know, it's funny.
19:58
And I love this, it's expanding the pool of opportunities or thought for some people
20:04
listening.
20:05
I hope because usually what most people do is they deal with the realtor thing and then
20:09
they're like, oh, you know, I'll try some financial advisors.
20:13
And then they go down the list like, oh, let me pay for some leads, you know, but you've
20:18
actually opened it up.
20:19
And I think there's an important point here, you know, as you well know, there's a difference
20:24
between being transactional versus relational, right?
20:29
And I am going to say publicly right now and you can, I'd love to riff on this if you
20:35
think it's somewhat different, that when you're buying leads and you're dealing with
20:39
an internet lead that's been purchased, that's hard to develop a relationship.
20:46
Am I a long or you're absolutely right?
20:51
So when I was a retail loan officer, I purchased leads.
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They had a, they had a retail, I think they called it the retail purchase lead program.
21:01
And I can't remember.
21:02
I think I paid $2,500 per month and you had a certain allotment guaranteed a number
21:08
of leads that would be sent to you.
21:10
I tried it for three months.
21:11
I failed miserably.
21:12
It didn't close one loan, but it's because my mindset, the biggest waste of money ever.
21:19
But my mindset was retail and especially at that time, if you got a referral from a real
21:25
estate agent as long as you called them within a few hours or in many cases, same day,
21:30
you were fine.
21:31
And lead, you got to, even then, you had to hit that in a couple of minutes or they already
21:35
had 12 other calls and they're already angry because people are calling them.
21:39
So it was a different mindset.
21:41
I was taught that, but I didn't act on it.
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I didn't understand it.
21:45
So I, I, yeah, I, and you think about that, but I've been this, by the way, we didn't
21:52
talk about this, but my first start was I worked for a subprime lender, taken internet
21:56
leads over the phone, you know?
21:58
So I totally get what you're saying, and that's why I got the guy out of that and went
22:01
to Countrywide or Mutual Company that we both were at.
22:05
And because I realized that I wanted to build a career, which circled back to these, these
22:09
other pillars that you talked about, I mean, that's why I wanted to highlight the, and
22:13
again, I'm not here to pass judgment like everything works you said at the beginning, right?
22:16
Everything, I have this saying that mark when it comes to marketing, everything works.
22:19
It just doesn't work equally well for everybody all the time everywhere, right?
22:23
So you got to figure out what, to your point, what works for you.
22:26
Now what I love about the examples you wrote down of additional pillars is these are largely
22:32
relationship driven.
22:35
Because if I'm going to put time, money, and effort in something, I want to be able to
22:40
have a competitive advantage.
22:42
That's built on my skillset, my ability to market, my ability to connect and build relationships
22:48
with people.
22:49
And I just think, as I said, that's a lot harder to do with, with buying leads.
22:53
There are companies that do that because they are a huge operation, right?
22:56
Like quick and loans or somebody.
22:58
So that's a whole separate animal though.
23:00
There's nobody listening that's going to become a quick and loans.
23:02
I don't think.
23:04
But could you, could you build a platform?
23:07
Could you follow some advice in coaching that helps you attract and engage financial
23:12
advisors, reverse mortgage, reno loans, you know, all those things?
23:16
I think so.
23:17
Why haven't more people done it?
23:19
Yeah.
23:20
Yeah.
23:22
That's a great question.
23:23
I have a feeling though, and I don't know for sure because it was never a pillar of business
23:29
of mine.
23:30
I'm trying to think if I ever had a loan officer on my team that it was a pillar of theirs.
23:37
But for sure, you could find a coach in the industry that would help narrow in that particular
23:42
pillar.
23:44
I was just tossing it out there as an idea because I know there are people that do it.
23:47
I'm trying to think of anybody that's actually doing.
23:51
I know.
23:52
On the reverse side, there is Christine.
23:53
I love them.
23:54
Oh, yes.
23:55
Yes.
23:56
Yeah.
23:57
Christina, she's been on the podcast.
23:58
I have a client of mine.
23:59
Liz Reese, what's up?
24:00
Shout out.
24:01
She also is diversified and reversed and does really well with it.
24:05
And of course, I always come back to if I was going to originate again.
24:08
I love that you brought this up because I hadn't thought about these pillars in a while.
24:11
But one of the other pillars I used to think about would be the divorce niche because
24:14
that's one that's recession proof.
24:17
You don't get shopped on rates.
24:18
They value expertise.
24:20
It's not super crowded.
24:21
It's relationship-based.
24:22
It's referral-driven.
24:24
Yeah.
24:25
So that'd be one I would consider too.
24:28
Yeah.
24:29
Absolutely.
24:30
And absolutely.
24:31
It's a great idea.
24:32
And again, I know there are coaches that zero in on that and teach how to build a business
24:37
development plan around that.
24:40
So I personally don't know if you do, but there are people out there that do that.
24:46
I mean, there's certified diverse lending that CDLP.
24:50
There's DivorceThisHouse.com.
24:52
These people have been on the show and I've gone through Divorce This House training.
24:57
They've been on at least two times in the podcast.
24:58
I've interviewed loan officers that are doing divorce.
25:01
And again, talk about sources of business, which is why a lot of people tend to go with
25:05
the financial environment.
25:06
They're like, what's the next place that's got sources?
25:08
Oh, financial advisors.
25:10
And then we get into this discussion about what's wrong with agents.
25:15
What's wrong?
25:16
Why agents suck?
25:17
All this stuff.
25:18
And it's like, look, man, every lead source has its issues and challenges.
25:22
It's easy to throw agents under the bus because there's so many of them and we have a long
25:25
history.
25:26
But there's challenges worth working with every niche.
25:28
You know, like my buddy Tim Davies, just to say, everything's hard to choose your hard,
25:32
right?
25:33
Yep.
25:34
That's brilliant.
25:35
That's brilliant.
25:36
Yeah.
25:37
That's a key point because none of it's easy, but that's why I think you have to choose
25:41
and focus in and not add too many fillers, but it does take more than two.
25:47
So well, and see, that's another good point.
25:50
Let's circle back and kind of double tap on that for a second.
25:55
We mentioned this a few moments ago, which is be careful.
25:58
Like I'm sure you've seen people try and scatter themselves too thin.
26:05
They spread themselves too thin and try and do 17 initiatives at once.
26:11
Hmm.
26:12
How do you coach around that?
26:13
Yeah.
26:14
So more often, it's the opposite problem that people aren't investing enough time and enough
26:19
fillers, but you're right.
26:21
There is that other extreme when people try to do too much, so they've got seven pillars
26:24
and there's really only so many hours in the day and what happens is if you dilute your
26:29
time too much, you're not being effective in any one given area.
26:34
And I'd love to say the magic number now is four pillars, but the reality is it depends
26:39
on which pillars you choose, right?
26:42
So I think sphere and your database is always a number one pillar, real estate agents.
26:49
If you're going to really focus and focus well on financial advisors, and if you're going
26:54
to add a reverse mortgage component to that, like you just brought up, that's a big time
26:59
commitment too.
27:00
That might mean, you know, those four pillars are enough or those three pillars, sorry.
27:05
So I think it just depends on your approach and how much time you're going to need to invest
27:11
in that given pillar.
27:13
If you are going to do lead acquisition, you know, that can be a time commitment in and
27:18
of itself because you're not investing time getting the leads, you're just writing a
27:22
check, but it's the follow up, it's the chase, it's the long cycle of rapport building,
27:27
it's building the marketing and follow up plans, it could be a big pillar too.
27:32
So that's why, and I'm throwing, I know I'm kind of vomiting a bunch of ideas and stuff
27:37
here, but that's why it's important to have a coach and have somebody that's going
27:41
to help you hone these things in and really focus on it and be held accountable.
27:47
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
27:50
Having a fresh set of eyes who can see things you can't see because you're too close to
27:53
it always helps.
27:56
Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
28:00
What were your, I don't know if we covered this, but what were your primary pillars when
28:03
you were originating?
28:05
So it was two.
28:06
It was real estate agents and it was my pillars, or sorry, my sphere of influence, my database,
28:12
past customers, friends of family.
28:15
That was it.
28:16
It was two, a little bit of builder business on and off, you know, in the condo boom in
28:20
the late 90s in Chicago, I had a number of condo development groups or condo developments
28:25
in the city of Chicago where I'd call on high rises and condo conversions, but that
28:30
was really only for a few years, yeah, yeah, it was fun, it was a lot of time.
28:38
What was the primary source of your business when you were originating?
28:41
It was real estate agents was was the primary.
28:44
What did that look like?
28:45
Like how many core agents did you have like sending you?
28:48
Yeah, yeah, so that's a great question.
28:50
I was I had I would say 35, 35 to 40 good agents at any one time.
28:58
There is there's two, there's a lot of ways to approach real estate agents, right?
29:02
So within that pillar, there's sort of micro ways to approach it.
29:06
Some people will only call on top performers, right?
29:10
Only call on the best of the best and therefore you'd only need four or five.
29:13
My approach was not to work with the newbies either.
29:17
I mean, I did, I have another of those in my in my sphere, but I didn't spend a lot
29:22
of time with them.
29:23
I would do group training with the newbies and things like that.
29:27
But I would go for the middle of the road agent and my theory was and I think I was right
29:30
in most cases, but the theory was that they're not getting called as much as the top producers
29:36
and maybe didn't require as much financial support, right?
29:43
They weren't asking for the big marketing budgets.
29:45
They weren't asking for covering big expensive events.
29:48
They were a little bit more realistic on what the marketing budget should be.
29:52
So that's why it doesn't mean that's right, but that that was my thinking at the time.
29:57
And there's four.
29:58
I had a pretty large group of agents.
30:00
The other thing, my approach was always just to do open houses with sponsor brokers
30:06
opens.
30:07
I would go to open houses on Saturdays and Sundays and I met, that's how I met people.
30:12
And then from there, I would build this big pool, this big list of real estate agents and
30:16
I would drip on them with email, phone calls, and then I would do monthly events.
30:22
Usually happy hours occasionally, a lunch and learn to educational event, but I did mass
30:30
marketing through open houses face to face, then events to build relationships.
30:36
Yep, that's what I did a lot.
30:38
So open houses was your superpower?
30:41
It was.
30:42
It was.
30:43
Interesting.
30:44
I don't hear that very often.
30:45
There are a drudgery for many.
30:47
Did you enjoy it?
30:49
At first I hated it.
30:51
At first I hated it.
30:52
I'll be honest, the first time I did this, I remember I drove into the city and went to
30:58
one of the nicer neighborhoods and sat in my car, had my list of addresses that I was
31:04
going to go see, sat in my car for 20 minutes before I walked into the first one.
31:08
Stressful, right?
31:09
You don't know how you're going to treat it or you're going to have a door slammed on
31:12
you.
31:13
Are they going to shout at you?
31:16
But it took me a minute to work up the courage, but once I did it, I developed a routine
31:23
and then I kind of enjoyed it.
31:26
I found it a way to meet new people.
31:29
I made it a game in my head.
31:30
My goal was to not go home until I had 10 business cards in my pocket.
31:34
Because I knew if I got 10, there would be one or two that I just knew I wasn't going
31:39
to call because it wasn't an immediate match.
31:42
But so if I did that twice in a weekend, I'd have 15, 16 cards, 18 cards of people to follow
31:49
up with on Monday.
31:51
I would add all of those cards to my database, add them to my email drip campaign, and I would
31:56
call them throughout the week.
31:58
And then it would bite them to my events.
32:00
I mean, it would slow it.
32:02
Brian, can that work today actually?
32:04
I honestly think it would.
32:06
I really think it would.
32:08
You know, open houses are coming, yeah, yeah, it would.
32:12
It would.
32:13
It's, you know, the phrase that I keep going back to, and I can't remember where I heard
32:18
this at first.
32:19
I didn't write it.
32:20
I heard it somewhere.
32:21
But if you want to do more business, meet more people.
32:23
And honestly, what better way to meet agents face to face is to show up at their open house.
32:28
It's a captive audience.
32:30
Most of them are very, very nice.
32:31
It was very rare that I got a negative reaction from you working on a Saturday just like
32:37
they're working.
32:38
If nothing else, they're impressed that you're out there hustling just like they are.
32:42
Right.
32:43
And did you wind up like hosting them together, like pre-qualling people in the house with
32:46
your laptop and stuff?
32:49
You know, rarely on a weekend, I probably should have done more than that more than more
32:54
of that.
32:56
But my goal doing the weekend things was in different approaches.
32:59
But my goal was to just get as many cards as I could on one day, right?
33:04
Yeah.
33:05
If you're sitting there, you're only connected with one agent.
33:08
Meet and greet.
33:09
It only enough time to build a poor grab a card and then I was off to the next one so that
33:13
I could get a number of cards.
33:16
What I would do is I'd host a broker's open during the week.
33:22
At the time, if I remember correctly, it was every Tuesday that had broker opens in
33:26
the city of Chicago and I would host, I'd bring sandwiches, flyers, my laptop, I'd do
33:31
the whole thing.
33:32
And then agents would come to me and still it was the goal was to get as many cards as possible.
33:38
Great way to meet a lot of agents, you know, your position with that agent at the open
33:42
house.
33:43
Yeah.
33:44
I mean, it's a quote unquote old school, but you know, this is a connection business, right?
33:51
And the more, like you said, the more people you meet, the more business you do.
33:55
It's a lot of large numbers.
33:57
Absolutely.
33:58
100% it is.
34:00
The other thing about that too is do you think, like back then, was it quiet out there?
34:06
Like there's not a lot of L.O.'s do in open houses.
34:09
There was not.
34:10
There was not.
34:11
And I'm kind of curious now, I'm going to do a poll and find out how many loan officers
34:16
are actually doing open houses today.
34:17
I would guess very, very few.
34:20
But back then, no, I don't think I ever, ever, and I did this for years.
34:25
I don't think I ever ran into another loan officer at an open house.
34:29
You know, I also want to just pause and make a, just double, double tap on this thing.
34:33
This point you made for a second though that you sat in your car out in front of that
34:35
open house for 20 minutes and kind of worked up the courage.
34:38
I can 100% relate to that.
34:41
And I can remember more than one occasion where I was afraid to walk in, nervous, scared
34:46
and all the stuff you described.
34:49
And then you realize that most of that, it's just a head talk.
34:53
And they're nice.
34:54
And they're like, oh, how are you, they're happy to see you.
34:57
And I used to go in with finance flyers that I would design for the house in advance.
35:01
Look up the listing for that day, you know what I mean?
35:04
And just walk in like, boom, I got your flyers ready to go for your listing.
35:08
Oh, thank you so much.
35:09
Now, some might toss them, but I don't care.
35:12
Like you said, the whole strategy is you physically got in front of 10 or 20 agents and tell
35:17
me about that then on Mondays or Tuesdays, when you follow it up, how did it look conversion
35:21
wise to lead them to the next step?
35:24
It was about a third that I could get them to, you know, meet or have a, yeah, about
35:30
a meat or and or have a meaningful conversation on the phone.
35:33
I would call that a win.
35:35
Not everybody would take time for coffee.
35:37
But to me, if I had a 40 minute conversation about our kids and sports or life, like to
35:44
me, that's a rapport building and that's the idea of a coffee meeting.
35:47
So I knew that if I could have a meaningful conversation, I could get them to one of my
35:51
events eventually and I was doing them every month.
35:54
So I knew I could get face-to-face with them if I had that rapport building conversation
35:59
day one or day two.
36:01
It's so funny.
36:02
You say that events.
36:03
I know you're working lunch and learns classes, workshops, all that.
36:07
And you just described there is, you know, I were talking, we were talking about Alex
36:10
Hermosy before we hit record.
36:12
And I think this is another area, Eldo's myth is, if you have an actual system, like you
36:18
think about a funnel, right?
36:19
The picture of a funnel and funnels are so popular today, right, click, funnels, etc.
36:23
Everybody knows what they are.
36:25
But let's just, I mean, how many of you don't have a funnel?
36:28
Let's just take agents because that's what we're running on here.
36:30
Like you actually had a process.
36:32
That's what a funnel is.
36:33
It's a process.
36:34
Meet, get 10 cards, you follow up, you've invited them to their events.
36:38
It's just like, that's what a company, a business does.
36:41
Is it markets to those people through different channels and means consistently over time?
36:45
Yeah.
36:46
Maybe, why aren't I, why aren't I more successful with agents?
36:52
Maybe because you're not following a system like Ryan just outlayed, you know, which is
36:55
like, oh, you actually have to follow up.
36:57
You have to have what's next when they don't take the call or they don't meet with you.
37:00
You're always dripping, dripping, dripping.
37:02
I'm sure you have stories of agents who you stayed in touch with for three, six, 12 months
37:08
and eventually, right?
37:10
Some people they start turning after that period of time.
37:12
Yes.
37:13
Yes.
37:14
Yes.
37:15
Sometimes it's a long game.
37:16
Sometimes it's a short game.
37:17
But either way, you got to play the game, right, which is getting front of people, dripped
37:21
and have a system.
37:22
That's well said.
37:23
Now, you said at the, you said when I asked you how many agents you, you know, your core
37:27
agents, you said like 30, 35, I have to tell you, when you said that number, that was
37:30
shocking to me.
37:32
When I asked most loan officers, like they actually fell out of form before a call with
37:35
me and I asked them how many agents, et cetera, I mean, the average number is 10 or less.
37:41
Oh, wow.
37:42
Crazy.
37:43
Wow.
37:44
Wow.
37:45
Today, 10 or less.
37:46
Yeah.
37:47
Yeah.
37:48
And that's, I was going to say that's kind of dangerous because unless those 10 are top
37:51
producers, you're not going to get a lot of business from 10.
37:56
Well, you've seen the stats when it depends on the agent, but yeah, true, right, true.
38:01
You know, that, oh, like, you know, what is the, what is the stat lately?
38:03
It's like 90% of agents closed for deals last year, whatever, like I just love that.
38:08
It doesn't tell the whole story, right?
38:09
There's a flip side to that.
38:11
But I think the, the, the takeaway is you need more agents on your bus in this market,
38:16
considering NAR, people heading out, right, all the turnover, all that stuff.
38:21
Yes.
38:22
Yes.
38:23
Yes.
38:24
Hmm.
38:25
Oh, yeah.
38:26
Interesting times.
38:27
And I do think, I mean, you bring up a great point.
38:29
I think this would work.
38:30
I believe this would work today.
38:31
It's, there's relationships.
38:33
The technology of a face-to-face conversation and a handshake never changes, right?
38:39
How we follow up with them changes or how we market to them changes.
38:44
The videos we send, um, video marketing wasn't a thing back then.
38:48
No, I just sounded really old when I said that, didn't I?
38:52
No.
38:53
I'm probably older than you, but keep going.
38:57
The marketing changes, the handshake is, is that doesn't change, technology doesn't change
39:03
in a handshake.
39:04
Yeah.
39:05
I guess that's one of the things, you know, I don't know if you've heard this said before,
39:07
but I love this quote.
39:08
It was from an interview that somebody was doing with Jeff Bezos, and they were asking
39:12
him, you know, how do you stay on top of like what's changing, like how do you look
39:17
out into the future and be aware of the changes, et cetera, technology?
39:21
And his response to that is we spend more time focusing on what's not going to change.
39:26
And we try to get really, really good at that thought that was brilliant.
39:31
Interesting.
39:32
So what's not going to change like with Amazon, what's not going to change, people want
39:37
a good deal and they want it fast, right?
39:39
That's not going to change.
39:40
What's not going to change in our business is it's a relationship business that's based
39:43
on trust.
39:44
And that's not going to change, even with technology.
39:47
So where is your focus?
39:48
So, yeah.
39:49
So business of saying they then focus on the things that aren't going to change because
39:53
when you focus on the things that do change, when it changes, you've got to change your
39:56
plan.
39:57
But if you focus on what doesn't change, your business plan is consistent.
40:00
Well, and you could also burn a lot of time, money and cycles chasing this next big
40:06
thing, AI or whatever, not saying it doesn't have its place in its relevance, it doesn't
40:10
it will.
40:11
But if you just, like we said earlier, divert your focus away from what will always be
40:15
the same, which is relationships, connection, trust.
40:18
And all of a sudden, you sacrifice that once again, because you think AI is the magic
40:21
pill or whatever, all of a sudden, you know, your business is hurting.
40:26
Yep.
40:27
Yep.
40:28
Absolutely.
40:29
Great.
40:30
Amazing points.
40:31
Yeah.
40:32
You got me fired up.
40:33
I'm going to go back into origination.
40:34
Let's go.
40:35
Same here, man.
40:36
Well, let's pick a niche.
40:37
You go one niche.
40:38
I go another.
40:39
We'll compare notes.
40:40
All right.
40:41
All this stuff out.
40:42
I do like the red on niche, though, because I think considering right where a lot of people
40:46
are sitting at subpar, sub four percent interest rates, like there's not going to be as
40:50
much turnover anymore.
40:51
I heard this term a while back that we're in a transaction recession.
40:55
So those are where they are.
40:56
I live in a 25, 28 year old house.
40:59
So I'm probably some point going to be a candidate for Renault, you know?
41:03
It just depends when you're ready, right?
41:07
Yeah.
41:08
Absolutely.
41:09
The other cool thing about Renault, now I'm geeking off here, is that my Starbucks is kicking
41:12
in.
41:13
But I remember working back in the day with title companies.
41:16
This is an idea for you guys listening where they can obviously pull data based on
41:20
how old a house is.
41:22
And when I was living in Orange County, there were certain pockets of South Orange County
41:27
that were all 25 year, 30, 40 year old homes, and there were tracks.
41:34
And you could target those homes, right, for Renault or sale, because we know they're more
41:40
likely, right?
41:41
And then you could do other stuff like how long is the owner living in that house, et cetera.
41:46
But again, that's called being smart and marketing.
41:48
And if you're going to pursue a niche like Renault, I'm just riffing here, but I would
41:53
think that would make sense.
41:54
No.
41:55
I think that makes a ton of sense.
41:56
I love it.
41:57
That's a great idea.
41:58
I'm writing that one down.
41:59
All right.
42:00
So let's close out on this.
42:01
Brian, we're in Q4.
42:02
Yes.
42:03
You've got a captive audience of loan officers who are stepping into Q4, 2025, looks like
42:11
it has some positive headwinds for us, for interest rates.
42:16
What are you telling everybody they should focus on for the rest of this year?
42:21
So the big thing I tell everybody, I tell different things, depending where people are.
42:27
But the big thing I tell everybody is not to put too much weight into this Wi-Fi wave.
42:32
We've been waiting years for this to happen.
42:35
And guess what?
42:36
Some of the servicers.
42:37
The servicers are coming at their servicing portfolio with inventions.
42:42
They, for months, they've been building their internal loan officer teams.
42:46
And their internal loan officer teams, guess what?
42:48
They take a reduced commissions because it's internal leads.
42:52
And they're going to be able to offer a better price.
42:54
So make sure you have a short price, a, b, make sure you're staying in touch with
42:58
contacts, c, don't count on this to write all your financial woes if you're looking
43:06
for that to make a bunch of money in 2025.
43:09
I mean, focus on it, do it, but don't bank on it.
43:12
So still, focus heavily, heavily, heavily on the purchase business.
43:17
The other thing I say is, yep, the other thing I say is, and this, again, depends on
43:22
the individual, but it's developing our pillars of business.
43:25
It's spending time in education, getting a right coach, holding yourself accountable,
43:30
and executing at a high, high level.
43:33
It's not time to take off or foot off the gas because this magical Wi-Fi wave is going
43:39
to save our problems or save our, save our making.
43:42
Live and die by the re-fi, right?
43:44
Mm-hmm.
43:45
All right.
43:46
Well, that's some good advice.
43:47
I love that you said that because, yeah, there are some people salivating thinking, oh,
43:51
I just, I can't wait.
43:52
And then, you know, they see them, the post, oh, the rates came down, like all this, just
43:55
like, you know, man, you got to control the controllables.
43:59
And what you can control is your mindset, skill set, and what you do every single day.
44:02
So, wait a put a cherry on top of this.
44:05
Once again, Brian, how do people connect with you for those who want to?
44:08
All of us.
44:09
Yeah.
44:10
So, I'm very active on LinkedIn.
44:11
I can be found on LinkedIn.
44:12
And of course, on my Facebook, Instagram, they can do a Google search and find me on
44:16
any of those platforms, send me a DM.
44:19
My consulting and coaching website is brwconsult.com.
44:26
My coaching group is based on Facebook, and that is Action Plan Community.
44:31
So, if you do a Facebook search, Action Plan Community, ask for an invitation.
44:35
Here in Mortgage, a real estate, I'll bring you in.
44:40
And then, CoLab, I mentioned CoLab, which is a very unique and fun company.
44:45
I'm really enjoying this because what we do is we help people go down this entrepreneurial
44:50
space of starting their own mortgage company.
44:53
And this could be a loan officer doing five, six deals a month.
44:57
You don't have to be a mega producer for this to make sense financially.
45:02
It's structured in a way that it's reasonable to start, reasonable support and ongoing fees
45:07
so that you don't have to do the compliance, the legal, build the marketing, and the systems
45:12
we, the CoLab does all of that for you.
45:16
We also work with real estate company owners to open there on Mortgage Company.
45:21
But that website is colabservice.com, and you can get to any of us at Colab on that
45:27
website.
45:28
All right.
45:29
We're going to link all that up in the show notes so people can easily just log in and say
45:33
to links.
45:34
A lot of them say to links.
45:35
I know, right?
45:36
Get a higher and assistant, just to put that in.
45:40
Okay.
45:41
Cool.
45:42
So listen, everybody, follow the links in the show notes.
45:43
Follow Brian, let them know that you'd like this episode, what your one big takeaway was.
45:47
Brian, I'm glad we did this.
45:48
Thank you so much, man.
45:49
Appreciate it.
45:50
Yeah.
45:51
Thank you, Jeff.
45:52
Appreciate you.
45:53
All right.
45:54
Listeners, you know what to do.
45:55
If you like this episode, make sure you leave us a review.
45:57
We'll see you on the next one.
45:58
Bye for now.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Bye.