Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #7: Shashank Shekhar: Top 200 Originator

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Ep #7: Shashank Shekhar: Top 200 Originator · Mortgage Marketing Radio

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Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in Mortgage Marketing.
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Welcome to another edition of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Jeff Zimper, your host, and today I keep saying I am so excited about the guests that we have
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on each of these podcasts and I keep getting more and more excited every week because they
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just keep getting better, so we keep raising that bar.
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Today, my special guest is Shashank Shakhar and if you haven't heard of him, you need
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to because he has done some amazing things in his business and a quick summary about Shashank
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is, I mean, it's a long one, so I'm going to kind of make it short here because he'll
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tell us his story.
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But Shashank has been in the business for 10, 14 years now and he has done some amazing
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things.
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Is he an author of First Time Home Buying 101 and Real Estate Unleashed, which you can
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find on Amazon?
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This guy is a media magnet, a superstar, he's been featured on Yahoo News, ABC, CBS, NBC
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Fox.
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He's interviewed by Emmy Award-winning director Nick Nanton for his TV show America's
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Premier Experts.
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You can find him on the top 40 under 40 most influential mortgage professionals.
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He is ranked by Scotsman's Guide in 215 on the top 200 originators list.
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He's on the hot 100 list for 2015 for Mortgage Professional America and I can't say enough
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about what he is done and accomplished in his career, so let's just bring him on.
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Shashank, you're there.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thank you, Jeff.
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And thank you for that introduction that was indeed a long one.
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Yeah, well, you've got a long bio and you've done a lot of stuff.
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So let's get right into it.
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You and I, as you know, we have a mutual friend in Tim Davis and Tim talks a lot about personal
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branding, mastery and stuff.
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But if you wouldn't mind, I think what we want to try and share, you and I agreed to
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this before we hit record is for those, there's originators at various levels that listen
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to this podcast.
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There's the folks that are kind of new, maybe a couple of three years in the business and
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then there are maybe 10 years and there might be a few folks that are 20 years plus.
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But I think, as you know, what I'm all about is truth and marketing, I think what we can
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convey to people today is how to start from where you are and utilize different forms
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of media and different mediums to do that, which we'll talk about, but utilize different
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forms of media to grow your business to establish your platform, to position yourself as a subject
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matter expert.
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So if you wouldn't mind, maybe just take a minute or two and kind of outline where
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you started and how you've got, you know, to where you are today on the top 200 list,
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40 under 40, all that stuff.
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Sure.
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I actually started in the US mortgage business in 2008.
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So I know that in the intro, you mentioned that I've been in the industry 14 plus years.
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I've been on the lending business or I would say in the lending industry for that long,
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but I was working for GE, General Electric in India actually and their lending division.
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Then I moved to the US in 2007 and the company I moved for, they closed their shop in 2008
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and they were doing some mortgage stuff.
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I was the head of business for them, but I was just a year old in the country and I didn't
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know a soul.
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In fact, I actually knew only three people in the entire country in 2008.
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And those three people were my ex co-workers from this company that I was working for.
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They closed their shop in 2008.
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It was a VC funded company.
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We just couldn't meet their revenue goals that we were expected to because of the downturn
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in the industry.
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And because I didn't know anything else, I thought, oh, let's get into the mortgage business
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even though it was 2008.
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And what I quickly realized is that knowing about the business, because I knew all the
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guidelines, because I was managing a large team, et cetera, et cetera, and running a business
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is two completely different things.
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And the biggest difference I found out was the fact that you need to know where you would
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get your clients from.
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And that's something that hit me pretty quickly because when it was here, 2008, where
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a few people were doing mortgage, I had no circle of influence to go to.
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And by no, I mean no, not even a soul.
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And I did not know how to acquire clients.
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So the first 12 to 24 months was quite a struggle.
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I remember in the first, I think 12 to 14 months, I did seven loans.
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I was doing averaging probably alone every two months.
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And yeah, and about 12 to 14 months around that time, I realized that I need to either
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dramatically change something with what I'm doing or I need to quit and go back to corporate
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America and find a regular job.
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But from there, we're from knowing three people and doing several loans in 12 months to
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closing $116 million last year in production, it's been quite a ride.
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So that's in short, is the story or you call it drags to riches or whatever you will,
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but that's the true authentic story that we're talking about.
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The story with the record button.
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Yes, thank you for that.
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And congratulations on a great year last year, $116 million.
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So there's a lot of stuff that happened in between what you just described, right?
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So how then you had this realization that, okay, I need to figure out how to get clients.
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You started to do that sporadically.
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But when did it really click for you?
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The lights that went on or something that happened where you found a way, obviously,
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to accelerate the process for acquiring clients.
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How did you begin to do that and maybe what remains today of what we'll put you on that road?
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So my biggest realization came from, and it's not always that light that goes on and
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it happens like I'd or something.
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But I was, because of the lack of circle of influence that I had,
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I started trying to go to real-time networking events.
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And because I knew that these guys have clients ready, and if they like me,
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they will refer to me clients.
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But again, one of the other realization that came pretty quickly was the fact that
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one, they had a lot of choices, people who have been in the industry much longer than I have been.
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And two, it almost felt like begging in the sense that I really have no credibility,
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or expertise, or experience.
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And I'm trying to go to them and say, hey, can you refer me business?
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I had really no value add to make to their business or the reason to ask for business.
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And after doing that for a few times, there were a couple of things.
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One, I knew that this is not going to work.
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Two, I realized that I'm not good at it.
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I'm not really a good networker where I can talk smooth,
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and talk to these guys, and get them to refer me business.
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And I have an MBA with a major in marketing.
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And that's when I kind of went back to the basics of what marketing 101 is,
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which is, you need to differentiate your product if you want to excel in the business you're in.
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And I was reading Jeffrey Gitmer at that time.
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I think it's this book sales bible of the sales bible,
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it says that if you want to be considered as an expert,
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you need to either speak or write or preferably do both.
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And that's what I wanted to do.
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I decided then that I need to create a brand or an expert status
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where I do not have to go to people.
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I do not have to go to realtors.
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I do not have to go to potential clients, but they come to me.
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And I knew that's the only way I'm going to build a business,
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which will be long-lasting, which will fit to the personality type, which is I am.
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And that's when I started working on it.
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It started slowly, so I'll probably give you a couple of things that I started on.
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One of the things that I started in 2009 was to write my own blogs,
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lendingexpertblock.com, which is a website that I created,
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and I started writing my own blogs.
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And back then, Joff, I don't have an exact count,
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but I think probably there were less than 10 originators in the country.
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Active originators were blogging back then.
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And an English is my third language.
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So it's not exactly my expertise.
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But I started writing something which is most people know about it.
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Those blogs were nothing out of ordinary,
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but it was still something I was putting on a web platform.
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Because I realized in 2009 that the social media, blogging, videos,
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these are going to be next generation marketing tools.
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And not too many people were doing it back then.
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It took me six months of writing a blog post every single week
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before I got the first call from someone who said,
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hey, I found your blog post online and I'm calling a response to that.
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Most people in the industry or in any industry
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will probably quit doing something if they're doing it every single week
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for six months and they see no results.
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But I got the first call from that.
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And slowly people started finding it as it started getting ranked on Google.
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People were finding for stuff and then found me.
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And then down the road, in fact, some of my initial media exposure came from my blogs
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because I remember someone was doing the news for Yahoo News.
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And they said, hey, we found your blog post online,
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would you be open for an interview?
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And then he referred me to another Yahoo News editor and so on, so forth.
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So that opened up a lot of opportunity and around the same time
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I started writing my first book as well, the first time I'm online 101.
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And so suddenly it's very, very slowly and gradually,
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of course, it was nothing overnight.
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But within 12 to 24 months, now people started calling me
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and I could, there were realtors who were willing to refer me launched
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because they knew that I was an author, I've published a book.
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And that was one side of it.
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Because I remember I told you, Jeffrey Gitmer said that you need to speak or write.
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And then I was like, okay, now how do I get into speaking?
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Because nobody knows me in the industry, especially on the real stateside.
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So nobody will come to listen to me even if I put up a show.
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So I reached out to a speaker who was very well known in the San Francisco Bay area
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where I am.
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And I asked her, would you be willing to speak if I paid you?
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And she said, yeah, of course, if you want me, as if you're paying me,
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I'll speak anywhere you want me to.
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But I told her the only condition is that I need to share the stage with you,
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meaning I'll be talking either before or after you.
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And again, she was fine because she's like, I don't really care who speaks
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before or after me as long as you pay me to speak.
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And my strategy behind all this was that I wanted people to listen to me.
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I wanted to kind of force people to listen to me.
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Because they wouldn't have come to listen to me,
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but they definitely wanted to listen to this other famous speaker.
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And my hope was that once they listened to me two or three times,
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they kind of realized that I know what I'm talking about
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and it will be a good idea to work with me.
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And thankfully, that's what happened as I was able to get anything
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between 40 to 70 real estate agents for this three series of speaking assignment
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that I had the speaker for.
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But I was speaking after or before her.
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And then these realtor's realized that Shashank knows his stuff,
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what he's talking about.
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And I was able to set up a lot of follow-up meetings after that with the
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realtor's where, again, I wasn't really asking for business
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because they had kind of seen that, well, this guy talks at a platform
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as a published book already.
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So this wasn't really begging for business.
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This was more a meeting of equals.
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In fact, in a sense, it was meeting of unequals
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because they saw me at a higher pedestal than this at themselves.
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So this is what really kickstarted.
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They're speaking and writing, getting into that.
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So for first two years, this is what I worked on the most,
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probably every single week and got it kickstarted.
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Yeah, thank you.
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So do you mind if I ask who that speaker was that you brought it?
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Carol Rodoni, she was the past president of a land panel
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realtors, which at that time probably was the largest real estate company
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in Bay Area and also a commercial real estate.
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And she, in fact, went on to this is another fascinating story.
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She went on to go out for that book real estate only with me.
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So that was very, very interesting because even she was very impressed
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after speaking with me for those events.
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And she reached out later saying that I have never written a book in my life
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and I see that you have written one.
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And I would like to partner up with you to write a book on real estate,
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which I think we published in 2010 or 11.
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And it was hugely successful among real estate agents
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because she speaks at so many platforms.
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We were not just able to sell a lot of copies,
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but more importantly, it got my brand recognition
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really, really prominent among all other agents.
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Yeah, so there's so much good stuff in there.
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I mean, one is the obvious fact that you decided to align yourself
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with an already well-known respected name
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in the local real estate community, you know,
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in that real estate broker owner.
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So that's great, right?
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Attachment of your brand to that.
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Secondly is you're talking about positioning.
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You've totally repositioned, as you said, right?
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Your brand who you are.
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You had no authority, no affiliation with agents
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in your local area, so you had to quickly get there
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and a great point by the get-em-er thing, right?
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It's like you got to speak or write or both.
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And that jump starts your success.
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How did you then with the book and ongoing?
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Let's take it from there.
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So you brought in, you know, this realtor president.
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And she did a three series event with you.
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Two quick questions on that.
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One, what were the topics on and then two,
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how have you carried on this speaking thing since then?
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So Carol mostly talks about what's going on
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in the real estate industry now and what are her predictions?
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That seems to be a general speaking topics
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that she would speak on.
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And she has a huge database of real estate agents.
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So she reached out to them.
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In fact, she just sends out her emails and newsletters
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saying that I'm speaking at a platform and then they attend it.
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And I knew a few people, so I was able to reach out.
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In fact, I sponsored some real estate marketing events.
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So we have breakfast meetings of different real estate boards.
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And I sponsored some not to pitch my product,
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but to pitch that event I was holding.
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And so I paid a little bit for that as well
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and got them to attend it.
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So that's how I was able to get people in the room
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that 40 to 70 agents that we talked about.
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And my topics at that time was mostly
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around different financing.
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In fact, in 2008, 2009, FHA loans were unheard of
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in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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The reason was that their loan limit size before 2008
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was about $271,000.
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And in the Bay Area, as probably some listeners would know,
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the average, the median price around that time was $700,000.
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So FHA was completely irrelevant to the lenders here.
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But during the crisis, the FHA loan amount was raised to $729,000.
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And I quickly realized that this is going to be a huge loan option,
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a big loan option for any first-time home buyers.
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And I read up a lot on FHA.
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In fact, I remember I drove six yards to Orange County,
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which in Southern California, because there was somebody
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presenting doing a four-hour course on FHA.
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And I wanted to learn all about it.
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So I drove six yards both ways.
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So 12 yards really in a day's time
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to just attend that event and learn all about FHA.
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And I was talking about FHA loans at these events.
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And these realtors have pretty much none of them
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heard about FHA in a big way because no one was doing it.
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And I was telling them how good it could be for first-time buyers
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with a low down payment and everything it had.
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In fact, and because of that, I got invited to speak
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at real-state boards and other real-state marketing events
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talking about a FHA because they thought,
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I'm an expert on that topic.
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I had people from Bank of America and Wells Fargo
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and other big banks attending these events
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because they didn't know anything about a FHA financing
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at that time.
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And I knew all about that.
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So this tied with my first-time home buyer expertise
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because I wrote a book on first-time home buying 101.
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Now I was pitching for FHA loans.
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And this kind of had that, if you'll see that this shows that,
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and I started pitching myself as a first-time home buyer
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expert because I told them, hey, look, I wrote a book on this topic.
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And two, I'm talking about loan options that work for them.
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And most of the realtors, even though they were not willing
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to send probably all their transactions to me,
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they still started talking about the fact
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that Shashank is a first-time home buyer expert.
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If you have any client who is a first-time home buyer,
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you should be sending to Shashank.
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And that started happening quite often.
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So you can see that it was kind of thought
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through that you don't just do random stuff saying that,
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OK, today I'll start blogging.
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Tomorrow I'll start writing a book.
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Third day I'll start speaking.
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It was kind of thought through that my branding strategy
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in the first two, three years was solely
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to establish me as a first-time home buyer expert
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because that's in which I was focusing on.
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I did not want to sound like, hey, I do everything.
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Send me anything that you have.
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And so it's not just the fact that, as I picked my media
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and I picked the fact that I'm speaking,
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but I made sure that I am presenting one image
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to any real estate agent or only online reader
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who's looking at it and thinking that, wow, this guy knows
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everything about first-time home buyers.
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Is that still your specialty today?
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Happens to be is on purchase transactions probably 80%
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of my clients are still first-time home buyers.
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And that's I've carried on that branding
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or that image of all this six, seven years.
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Yeah, that's great.
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So have you parted ways then with Carol in terms
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of her now guest speaking at your events?
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Are you the primary speaker and you're still speaking,
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correct?
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I am speaking.
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I don't need to have the deflation with Carol anymore,
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which is in itself is a good thing.
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And since then, we have four big real estate boards
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around where I am.
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Santa Clara County real estate is the largest real estate
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board in the country.
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And I think they have five to six thousand of real churches
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part of its membership.
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And now it's more a question of when I want to speak.
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And if I do want to speak, I reach out
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to any of the education directors at those,
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any of those boards.
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And there'll be more than glad to have me come at one
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of their events or schedule an event just for me to speak.
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And there are realtors who know about me,
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so they don't have, usually have a problem
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filling up the room.
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Also, because my topics have always
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been relevant and something which most people don't talk about.
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Like I started talking about YouTube marketing in 2011-12
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when nobody was talking about it.
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I started talking about Facebook marketing
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in the very first couple of years
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when it started becoming popular.
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So I tried to pick topics last year.
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I was talking about trade when it was getting launched
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and not talk to many people knew how trade will ban out
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and what will happen.
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And I was telling most realtors that it's not the end
21:55
of the world, like most people are trying to make it sound.
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So I picked my topics wisely and then
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so that it's something which attracts people
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to come and listen to.
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And yeah, it has been very, very popular.
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I don't do my own events anymore.
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I did probably the last one.
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I did post a couple of years back,
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but I still regularly speak at real-state boards.
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So when you say you don't do your own events,
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that's because you don't need to, I'm assuming,
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because you've built up such a following
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and probably aren't on the hunt for realtors anymore.
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They are sending you business on a regular basis
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because you've put all this work in.
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That is correct.
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And if you would talk to a lot of loan officers,
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most of them do not like doing business with realtors.
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It's because of a couple of things.
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One, probably only one thing, which is the realtors
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think that they are higher in the food chain
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than loan officers.
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And that they control the clients.
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And so they dictate how the communication goes, et cetera,
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et cetera.
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I really, really like working with real-state agents
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because I control the transaction and they don't.
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Because they know that they are working with someone
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who is definitely trying to think, much bigger brand.
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Yes.
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They are probably in awe of me, as I'm not trying to brag here
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or something, but all these years of building that brand
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has really, really paid off.
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And I set the tone in the very first meeting that we have.
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And the fact that they already know that I'm an author,
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I'm an media, I'm one of the top loan officers in the country,
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definitely helps.
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Even in the very early days, we talked about that story
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when I was only doing probably a loan
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a month or something like that.
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Even then, when I approached them,
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I already had spoken in front of them,
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and they already knew that I had published a book.
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So it was always intentional from day one
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that that's how I'll work with real-state agents.
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And that really, really helps because they know
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that they're working with somebody who knows what he's doing.
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Also, it's very important.
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I know this is a marketing podcast,
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and we're talking about different marketing ideas.
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But it's very, very important to know
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that marketing just gets you people in the door.
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What happens after that is equally important, if not more.
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And so we have made, we probably make changes every week
24:32
or every month into our processes and systems
24:34
to make sure that once the client calls us or emails us
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or comes to CS, then from then, whatever
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happens to the rest of their lives
24:43
in terms of transaction or interaction with us,
24:46
it's something that they are wowed by.
24:50
I wouldn't say that this is the best in the industry,
24:52
but we try to do stuff which makes them feel amazing
24:58
at the end of it.
24:58
And that's why you will see that.
25:01
Of course, you will see me all over the media,
25:03
but you will also see that any review platform that you see,
25:06
whether it's Facebook or Zillow or Yelp or Google,
25:09
it's pretty much an all five star review
25:11
that we have on all these platforms.
25:13
And we are very, very conscious of that.
25:16
If anything goes wrong with any clients,
25:18
as even now after doing 116 million,
25:22
I still feel very concerned if something doesn't go right.
25:28
And understand that we are brokers,
25:29
which mean that we don't control half of the transaction.
25:32
It's a lender we are sending the loan to,
25:35
they can sometimes delay something,
25:36
they can mess up things.
25:37
So we don't even control a lot of what we are delivering
25:41
to our client, we still make sure that they have
25:43
that five star experience at the end of the day.
25:46
So it's a very, very important lesson
25:48
for anyone listening to this,
25:49
is that while marketing is a great idea,
25:52
and I'm a huge, huge fan of marketing
25:56
to get those clients into the door,
25:58
make sure that your processes and systems and your team
26:01
supports that customer service and customer delight,
26:04
philosophy and theory that you might have.
26:07
Because if you don't do that,
26:08
then you're probably wasting your time at the top of the funnel,
26:11
if you're not able to address those clients
26:14
once they come into your door or give you a call.
26:16
Yeah, that's a great point.
26:18
I heard it once characterized as
26:21
the external perception has to match the internal reality.
26:26
So if you are pitching yourself as the place
26:32
for the smooth transaction, no delays,
26:34
all that stuff that you just described,
26:36
then you better make sure you've got it set up internally
26:39
to make that happen.
26:40
So you do have that great end-to-end user experience.
26:43
So it's interesting you bring up a point
26:44
that being a broker, you don't control
26:46
the entire transaction, obviously.
26:49
How do, there's two questions in here.
26:52
One is, what, being a broker still,
26:58
are you impacted by delays?
27:01
And if so, how do you adjust to those, right,
27:06
when you're trying to meet that time to close deadline?
27:09
So I picked my investors wisely.
27:12
That's something which is very important,
27:15
that when you're a broker that,
27:18
even if you're approved with several lenders,
27:20
you need to know which investors will honor
27:25
the commitment that you have to your borrowers.
27:27
And if you work with a select few investors,
27:31
they will be willing to make exceptions for you.
27:35
A lot of people just look at the best price lender
27:37
and send the loans to them.
27:39
And we don't do that,
27:40
even though as in price competitiveness,
27:42
it's something that we focus a lot on.
27:44
But we still try to have, say, 70, 80% of our loans
27:47
send to top four or five investors, all lenders.
27:52
And we are sending to lenders who have good turn times
27:57
who have good pricing and who I have personal relationship with
28:00
so that I can ask for exceptions when it comes to.
28:03
Also understand that the reason to stay broker
28:06
and not to work, say, as a branch or work with a bank
28:12
was again intentional on my part
28:14
because I wanted to control the entire branding experience.
28:18
If you work for someone else,
28:20
then I wouldn't say it's true for every company.
28:24
I'm sure there are lots of companies
28:25
which are very, very flexible.
28:27
But then there are certain companies
28:29
that would only let you do a certain thing.
28:31
They may not allow you to blog on your own.
28:33
They may have social media restrictions
28:36
that you might have.
28:38
And I would have struggled with that
28:39
because I was trying to do something
28:41
which was completely independent
28:42
of maybe any other player that could have influenced me.
28:47
That was the reason to stay on the broker channel.
28:49
It's of course, it's not easy all the time.
28:51
There are challenges with it,
28:52
especially the fact that you don't control
28:54
a lot of things during the transaction.
28:58
But if you keep to your core investors
29:00
and you work with them, like for example,
29:04
with quick and longs,
29:04
I get a top producer of what every year
29:06
because I do probably $25, $30 million with them if not more.
29:12
It's because that I trust their processes,
29:15
they trust their systems and I have people in place
29:17
who would make an exception
29:19
if I have to close on time.
29:21
And that's what we do.
29:22
And that's what in fact most people should do
29:25
is that if they are on the broker channel,
29:26
they should make sure that they are sending 80%
29:29
of their business to top 3, 4 investors.
29:32
Great points.
29:33
So you mentioned you're not doing the speaking yourself anymore.
29:36
Obviously you've built up a brand
29:37
and a database and the following
29:39
and you've got the blog.
29:42
What are you doing personally still?
29:45
It's directly tied to origination in your business.
29:50
So most of the business is still comes because of me
29:54
because if you see the branding and it's still right a blog,
29:58
probably not once every week now,
30:01
but still pretty frequently.
30:04
There are months where I'll still write four to six blog posts
30:07
and there are months where I may still write only one.
30:10
But I have not taken my eye off that.
30:13
I have a radio show in a local radio station
30:16
for last three, four years now on a weekly show.
30:19
That does very, very well.
30:21
That's my own show.
30:23
That's something I run on my own.
30:25
I still do speaking when I'm requested to
30:28
at different events.
30:29
Again, I'm not pushing for it personally,
30:31
but I'm still doing it.
30:34
And we are working on a lot of things right now.
30:36
We are working on a weekly video show,
30:39
something like Gary Vaynerchuk.
30:41
If you have seen here's a Gary Vee show
30:42
that he does on a weekly basis.
30:45
But we are trying to do that starting next month,
30:47
which will basically be taking questions on Twitter
30:50
and Facebook and from people who are thinking
30:53
of buying or refinancing and doing a weekly show of it,
30:57
trying to answer those questions
30:58
and then have all those archived in a place
31:01
where it's easy for people to access.
31:04
We're thinking of doing that.
31:06
I'm still working on my next book,
31:08
which should be out later this year,
31:10
not early next year.
31:11
So the tons of marketing stuff,
31:13
that's something which I never stopped doing
31:15
because I have reached here by marketing myself
31:20
and that's something I'm never going to stop
31:23
because my goals for every year keep going higher
31:26
than what it was for the last year.
31:28
And if I stop doing that,
31:30
then I will probably stay where I am
31:32
or maybe even go down from where I am
31:35
if I stop doing that.
31:37
What do you find of the social media platforms
31:42
that are out there?
31:43
You mentioned Twitter and that's a great idea,
31:45
by the way, with the weekly show to take those questions.
31:49
Is there a particular social media platform
31:52
that you find better for engaging
31:55
and does it differ if it's real terms versus consumers?
31:59
It does.
32:00
I find LinkedIn very, very useful for reaching out
32:05
to real estate agents.
32:06
So what I do on LinkedIn is that
32:08
I don't just share an update on my personal page
32:12
but I also share the same update
32:15
if I'm writing a blog or if I have any industry news
32:18
even if it's links to other media or something.
32:22
I'll take the same news or same blog
32:24
and then I'll post it to about 15 different real estate groups
32:27
that I'm part of.
32:29
So these are groups.
32:31
So most real estate boards have their own LinkedIn groups.
32:33
So for example, Santa Clara County has its own LinkedIn group.
32:36
Silicon Valley has its own LinkedIn group.
32:39
And there are tons of these groups that are there.
32:42
So I'll take the same thing and then I'll post it
32:45
on all these different LinkedIn groups that I'm part of.
32:48
And then I'll have comment and then people will engage on that
32:51
saying in favor against what I basically my goal is to
32:55
one get the word out that hey, I'm posting these things
32:57
which are useful to you and two get them to engage on that post.
33:00
And I've found a lot of real estate agents reaching out to me
33:04
because of that outreach that I've done on LinkedIn.
33:08
Same with Facebook, I have probably about 600 real estate agents
33:13
as my friends, maybe even more.
33:15
And my goal is not always to, of course, to pitch business,
33:18
but it's something that makes me on top of their mind.
33:23
There are tons of time when I find out that my buyer has
33:27
made an offer on a property and I call the listing agent
33:30
and listing it will be like, oh, I know you have seen you on Facebook.
33:33
We are friends. We have been friends for a long time.
33:36
It's just the fact that they find me familiar,
33:39
even if they have not done business with me.
33:41
And that helps a lot if you have 10 people who have made an offer
33:45
and there's this loan officer or a mortgage broker
33:48
that you know from any place.
33:50
And you know that as in everything that he posts on Facebook
33:53
or most of the stuff that he does there is useful.
33:56
And same thing on Facebook, there are other real estate groups
33:59
that I'm part of, so if there is anything useful,
34:01
I'll post it on their platform as well.
34:03
Never selling myself. I would never put something
34:06
which says who our rates are the best, give us a call
34:09
or something like that. That's something I have never done in my life
34:12
on any platform.
34:14
Because again, I'm trying to establish expertise.
34:17
I'm trying to establish value add to their business.
34:20
And the same thing with my clients.
34:22
Most of my clients are my personal Facebook friends.
34:25
So when they see any award that I've received,
34:27
any new blog post that I've put, even my children pictures
34:30
say to say it just increase the lightness factor for them
34:35
because they might have a kid who is doing something similar
34:38
in the CEO of Poshashank's kid studs.
34:40
That's something similar.
34:41
So all this is to make sure that you stay on top of their mind,
34:45
make sure you're adding value in one form or the other.
34:48
And then it increases the, say, the lightness factor or familiarity
34:52
which when you, even if you end up doing business with them
34:55
two years down the road, they'll probably remember who you are.
34:58
Yes, great point.
34:59
Does it matter fact, speaking of Facebook,
35:01
I'm on your Facebook page right now.
35:03
And I can see already we have something in common.
35:05
Looks like your daughter is entered an American Open
35:09
Taekwondo Championship.
35:10
That is great.
35:11
And my son is going for his black belt this Saturday.
35:14
See.
35:15
So how many years has your daughter been in Taekwondo?
35:20
Four years.
35:21
So, so see you see right there, Joff.
35:23
If you were a listing agent on that transaction
35:25
where my buyer was making an offer and I would call you this.
35:27
Yeah, I know you, Shishankan.
35:29
Wasn't your daughter participating in that tournament?
35:31
My son was there too or my son is doing something similar.
35:34
And we talk about that for five minutes.
35:36
So, so we talk in sales about all the time
35:39
is that try to find something which is common with the other person.
35:43
And that's what happens when you have Facebook profile
35:46
where you have say 600 to a thousand real estate agents
35:49
as your friend.
35:50
And that's intentional by the way.
35:52
It's not something.
35:53
Again, most of the things that I try to do
35:55
had some purpose behind it.
35:57
Since most of the time it's not random.
35:59
Even though it might seem random.
36:02
Because those are the real estate agents in the local community.
36:06
Chances are that.
36:08
And that's what that's what happens is that a lot of times
36:11
even in this super competitive market where on every house
36:14
there is anything between 10 to 90 offers.
36:18
A lot of time my clients win the offer with lesser down payments
36:21
than other people is because the listing agent knows me from somewhere.
36:26
Either he attended one of the seminars that I talked to
36:29
or he saw me on Facebook.
36:31
Or I know another real estate agent from his office
36:33
that I can refer to and I can call and tell him,
36:36
hey, you work for a land panel, that's great.
36:38
I don't know you know it, but Carol Rodoni was the past president
36:41
of that company actually wrote a book with me.
36:44
And I can send you a copy whether we get to work together or not.
36:47
So any of that, even if it's a reference to another agent
36:49
or another manager in his or her office,
36:52
all of this is done to make sure that our clients
36:55
are a better chance of getting that offer accepted,
36:58
even sometimes when their offer is not the most favorable one
37:01
for the sellers.
37:03
So you're telling me that in agents,
37:05
you've got the level of relationship with some agents
37:08
where they're going to fight to get the deal,
37:13
even at less down and they're going to be able to win that deal
37:17
because they can convey the certainty of the loan transaction
37:21
because of you.
37:23
And that's what happens, right?
37:25
Most of the time, we know the number one reason
37:27
a transaction falls through after getting into contract
37:29
is because the loan doesn't get through.
37:31
That's a fact.
37:33
So the sellers and the listing agent,
37:35
as in all, of course, other than the fact
37:37
that they want the highest dollar for their house,
37:39
their biggest concern is that will this go through
37:42
if we accept the offer or will we have to bring this house back
37:45
on the market?
37:47
So if you know that you're working with a loan officer
37:50
that you know him personally by some form or the other,
37:54
and you're able to make sure that the fact that this person
37:58
is going to take this transaction through,
38:00
they'll probably take $5,000 lower in the offer price
38:03
and be 100% sure that this will go through
38:06
then take the $5,000 higher and only have 70% confidence
38:10
that it will go through.
38:12
Wow, that says a lot.
38:14
I mean, what's that value of that worth, you know,
38:17
for you establishing that positioning?
38:19
It really makes me think of that question.
38:21
What do you say to loan officers who complain about agents not being loyal?
38:25
It's the same thing, right?
38:27
As an agent, it's in any relationship,
38:30
whether it's personal or professional.
38:32
If you're not adding value to the relationship,
38:35
then they will go somewhere else.
38:38
It happens with our kids.
38:40
It happens with our spouses.
38:42
It happens at a professional level
38:44
which is, I wouldn't say they will go somewhere else,
38:46
but the relationship does not remain as strong as it would.
38:50
That's why I rarely have at least my core realtors work somewhere else
38:55
unless I say no on a transaction
38:59
because of whatever lack of investors or for any reason.
39:02
They keep coming back because they know that if this deal goes
39:05
to Shishank, he will make sure that this closes and this closes on time.
39:08
The other thing about that is that,
39:11
and the other thing about that listing agent
39:14
or being in a competitive market because I know a lot of people
39:18
in the industry right now are going through the same thing
39:21
where it's a seller's market and a lot of markets
39:23
and you're trying to compete.
39:25
One thing that I tell the listing agent all the time,
39:27
which is, look, if you have my pre-approval in your hand,
39:31
I'll give you one fact.
39:33
In my seven years of being in the industry,
39:35
it has never happened once that a client that I pre-approved
39:39
got declined in underwriting.
39:41
Never happened once, which is a truth
39:44
because we do our due diligence at the time of pre-approval
39:48
just like an underwriter would do almost going to that extent.
39:52
That tells them that it's a hundred percent guaranteed chance
39:56
that if I'm holding Shishank's pre-approval in my hand
39:59
that this will go through.
40:01
You need to have confidence in your abilities.
40:03
If you do not, then you first need to go and read the guidelines
40:06
and make sure that you gain that confidence in yourself.
40:09
But if you make claims like that and authentic claims,
40:13
by the way, I'm not trying to make a point here
40:16
that you should falsely claim to something like this.
40:19
All of this combines to give an impact to the listing agent
40:23
and then to the sellers that this guy knows his stuff
40:26
and he will make sure this transaction goes through.
40:30
Awesome.
40:31
I love that.
40:32
I was just thinking about your comment earlier about everything
40:34
you've done, you've done with a purpose in mind.
40:37
Back from the early days of you recognizing
40:40
that you had no relationships,
40:42
how were you going to be able to establish and position yourself
40:46
to appear different than every other loan officer
40:50
in your local market?
40:52
You've obviously done that very well very successfully.
40:55
As we wrap it up here, it's funny.
40:57
Whenever I have a conversation with someone like yourself
40:59
and the people who understand that premise of
41:04
stop winging it, shooting from the hip,
41:06
and stop just throwing stuff against the wall, pull back,
41:09
analyze, design, do stuff with purpose, understand that
41:13
if you do the kind of things you're talking about,
41:15
which is positioning and effectively and properly
41:17
through the most powerful mediums, speaking, writing,
41:20
and now obviously online, there's a lot of loan officers
41:25
who know that, right?
41:27
But what do you see as the wall that keeps them
41:32
from the wider loan officers?
41:34
And we've all been around this space for years.
41:36
Why do we still have the people that are out there
41:38
doing the same old same old, right?
41:40
I can go those in seven days and rate sheets
41:42
and the why do you think prevents people
41:44
from crossing over doing this stuff that you've done?
41:47
Like a van Bition.
41:49
Really?
41:50
Like a van Bition?
41:51
They just don't want it that bad?
41:52
Yeah.
41:53
I wanted it really, really bad.
41:55
I knew that I did not want to get back to corporate America
41:59
even when I was doing MBA back in India.
42:02
I always used to tell my friends I'm doing it
42:04
because I want to start my own company.
42:06
And when I got that opportunity to do that in 2008,
42:09
I did not want it to go to waste.
42:12
And one size started even doing remotely well.
42:15
For me, it was all about all these guys
42:17
who get interviewed as being the top producer
42:19
and I want to be that guy who gets interviewed for the top producer.
42:23
Right now, I'm in the probably in the top 40, top 15,
42:27
in the country.
42:28
My thing is why I can't be the number one loan officer
42:30
in the country.
42:31
It seems far faster because the guy who was number one last year
42:34
did probably 600 million, I did 115,
42:37
and one sixth of one fifth of what he did.
42:40
But all these things is not really to make more money
42:44
because if you achieve that,
42:46
money will come on its own.
42:48
But it's about why I can't be the best in the industry
42:51
even with all the limitations I started with.
42:54
I always wanted it really bad.
42:56
And most of the people you would interview,
42:58
the job who was very, very successful,
43:00
is that I see two common threads
43:04
among a lot of successful people wanting it really bad.
43:07
Because if you don't have that need,
43:09
then there is no reason for you to get out of your comfort zone.
43:12
If you're fine with doing two through loans a month,
43:14
which you do now,
43:15
and you feed your family okay,
43:16
and you live a decent life,
43:17
then there is no reason for you to think more.
43:20
And the two, the second commentator I see
43:22
is that always improving oneself,
43:26
always improving oneself in everything that you do,
43:29
and that's why I said,
43:31
all parts of our funnel,
43:33
from the time we get people to the door,
43:35
which is how do we improve our marketing?
43:37
How do we improve our systems?
43:40
What do we do after we have closed a loan?
43:42
Every single step of the loan process,
43:45
I keep improving every month, every week, every year.
43:48
Because I'm always looking at it and see what we can do better.
43:52
And so the fact that most loan officers,
43:55
even though the fact they know it,
43:57
they don't do it,
43:58
is because they don't want it enough.
44:01
And if they wanted it really, really bad,
44:03
they would do it.
44:04
I read somewhere this analogy,
44:07
and I'll probably be wrapping up with this,
44:09
is that somebody said,
44:11
okay, how many loans do you think,
44:12
and this was for a different industry,
44:14
but I'm customizing it for our industry.
44:16
So how many loans do you think that you can do this here?
44:19
And let's say that number is 40.
44:21
And you say, okay, but can you do 100?
44:25
And they said, no way.
44:27
There's no way on earth I can do 100 to see.
44:29
And they said, okay, what if somebody kidnapped your wife,
44:33
or your son, or your daughter,
44:35
and said that the only way we will release him or her,
44:39
is that if you did 100 loans this year,
44:41
would you then do 100 loans this year?
44:44
Instead, of course, I would do 100 loans that year,
44:46
if this takes are so high.
44:48
So it's all about, what do you think,
44:50
how high their stakes are?
44:52
And most people, their stakes are not high enough.
44:56
Most people are happy with what they have.
44:58
Most people are even willing to change the industry,
45:00
if something goes wrong, which is what,
45:02
65% of the industry did in 2008,
45:05
and I can guarantee, they will do it again,
45:07
if there was a repeat of 2008.
45:09
For me, that was never an option,
45:11
that will never be an option,
45:12
and that's why I keep grinding every day that I get.
45:16
So that leaves us kind of with one last question then,
45:19
is what's your why?
45:23
So I did a company video sometime back,
45:27
and I talked about the fact that I wanted to do something
45:31
in the industry, which really put customers first.
45:35
We talked about that a lot,
45:37
but we know that most major banks will probably not do it.
45:40
I'm not criticizing individual loan officers,
45:42
but more at the organizational level.
45:44
And the fact that a lot of us in the industry
45:47
just do it because of us.
45:49
For me, the fact was that,
45:51
if I can reach out to the people
45:53
who want the most education,
45:55
which is first-time home buyers,
45:56
because people are refinancing,
45:57
have already gone through it.
45:58
People who are buying their second third home
46:00
have already gone through it,
46:01
and they kind of know what to do.
46:03
But first-time home buyers, to me,
46:05
always struck as the class of people who knew nothing.
46:08
It was a great thing that they wanted to do,
46:12
but they were never sure how to get started.
46:14
They were anxious, they were uncertain.
46:16
And I thought, if I can put an educational platform for them,
46:19
which does not exist anywhere,
46:21
then I would actually be helping them
46:24
while helping myself.
46:25
And that's why you would see that
46:27
all the YouTube videos,
46:28
all the books, all the blogs,
46:30
radio, seminar, webinar,
46:31
I have really social media.
46:33
There's really nothing on an offline
46:36
that I have not done to educate them.
46:38
And that's my why,
46:39
that I, in fact, want to be one day nationally,
46:43
the preferred brand for first-time home buyers,
46:46
and help them in a way that I personally think
46:50
that nobody else does at this time.
46:52
That's an awesome why.
46:54
And I think it's showing up in what you've been doing,
46:57
what you are doing.
46:58
And I look forward to watching your growth
47:00
as you continue to add more value.
47:02
It really shows up in who you are,
47:04
and who you communicate.
47:05
I have to say,
47:06
I'll put all the links to your blog,
47:08
your book, everything in the show notes here.
47:11
In terms of a destination for people
47:14
to find out more about you,
47:15
where would you like to send them over to your blog?
47:17
Yeah, lendingexpertblog.com.
47:19
Okay, great.
47:20
Well, listen, I know you're extremely busy.
47:22
You've got more lives to change.
47:24
I appreciate you taking time to change a few lives today
47:27
for those listening,
47:28
and I hope we can stay in touch, Ashak.
47:30
That'll be awesome job.
47:32
It was my pleasure.
47:33
All right.
47:34
And everybody for listening,
47:35
thank you very much for tuning in
47:36
to another edition of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
47:39
We'll see you on the next one.
47:41
Bye for now.
47:42
Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
47:52
One more truth in Mortgage Marketing.
47:54
Get more free training and resources
47:56
at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com.
48:10
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48:13
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48:16
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You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business.
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Let's just face it,
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48:25
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