Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep 151: Planning Your Best Year Ever: Lessons from a Billion-Dollar Producer

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Ep 151: Planning Your Best Year Ever: Lessons from a Billion-Dollar Producer · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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0:06
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0:35
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0:39
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of the case study today.
0:47
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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
1:24
in mortgage marketing.
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Hey, Lister, what's up, it's Jeff Zimper and welcome back.
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By the time you're listening to this, it's a new year.
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It's a new decade.
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Welcome to 2020.
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What will this year have in store for you?
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I know this for a fact that much of what this year will have in store for you is based
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on you, based on what you do, who you become, the habits and disciplines and systems that
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you implement, who you hang around with, who you listen to, who you're influenced by.
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All those things are going to impact what type of a year you have this year in 2020.
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My wish and hope for you is that you have your best year ever in all the categories of
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your life.
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I believe that that's possible.
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It doesn't happen by chance.
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It happens with self-mastery in all those relevant key areas.
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That's why I think it's so relevant that we're talking about the topic I am today.
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Before I get into that, one quick shout out to you, our podcast listeners.
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As always, I'd like to share reviews because it helps us remind you to leave a review for
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us.
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Should you be inclined to do so?
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Here's a review from one of our loyal listeners, Danny McDonough.
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Danny references a specific podcast she was listening to about the power of habits to change
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your life.
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I'm just going to reference these real quick because I think they're relevant for our topic
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today.
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But here's a couple of quotes that she she pulled out of episode number 122.
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Your habits are how you embody your identity.
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Identity is who you are being every day.
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Anything you do or don't do is based on your identity.
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Decide who you want to be and prove it to yourself with small wins every day every week.
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I thank you for sharing those quotes, Danny.
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As a matter of fact, those quotes largely come from one of my favorite most impactful books
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called Atomic Habits by James Clear.
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If you haven't yet read that or listen to the audiobook, I definitely encourage you to
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do so.
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I've continued to go back to and listen for me because it's one of those things in life
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that always evolves, right?
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Your identity and who are you being?
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So anyway, Danny goes on to say thank you for your efforts in sharing this material.
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She's finding excellent value in spending time with me online and in her ears.
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That's so sweet.
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I appreciate that.
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Danny, if you haven't yet reached out to us and asked for your swag box of podcasts,
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goodies, you know what to do, message me on Facebook, tell me you're mailing address
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and your preferred t-shirt size and we'll get you going with some brand new swag in 2020.
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So that said, let's get back into my special guest for this episode, which is relevant
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to the conversation.
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That is none other than Shishank Shikhar, who I have known for quite a number of years
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now, was one of my guests on the podcast several years ago, you know, it's 2020.
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This actually marks the fifth year of this podcast.
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Yeah, started in January 2016 was the very first episode.
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And if you've been with me for any length of time, whether you're from the beginning
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or new, I appreciate you and you know, just reach out to me.
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You can email me anytime podcast at mortgagemarketingradio.com, message me.
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But back to my special guest, Shishank, I'm just grateful because he was one of those folks
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early on when I was, you know, kind of an unknown entity before podcasts were even really
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a thing, a big thing, if you will, in this industry.
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Shishank is back on and we are talking about his journey to success.
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And you're going to get to hear his personal story, how he came to this country with literally
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nothing, an English being his third language and has grown his business.
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He started in 2008, grown his business to, you know, in 2019, closing out about $118
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million.
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Total funding's career to date, you know, to date is a billion dollars in funding.
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He's written three books, he's a very much sought after speaker.
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And he, what I love about him is, first of all, he's real and transparent and honest
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and, you know, tells the truth.
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But secondly, he's also built quite an efficient system and a business.
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And so we're talking about business planning.
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We're talking about obviously the impact of having a personal brand and what that means
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today.
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But Shishank's going to really lay out kind of his best practices and tactics and strategies
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for how to build a, you know, a successful mortgage origination business.
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And I think you'll be surprised with some of the responses he has to some of my questions
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that I often ask some of the top producers we have.
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So I'm confident you're going to enjoy.
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We're going to talk about conversions, apps to closings, et cetera, re-five versus purchase
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business.
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And it's just a wonderful crash course in how to be a successful, efficient mortgage professional.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
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Shishank Shikar, welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much.
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Thanks for having me.
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It's a pleasure, man.
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I had you on the podcast.
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I'm trying to remember two, three years ago.
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Yeah, I would think so.
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Yes.
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Yeah, early stages.
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One of my early guests willing to be on when I was a nobody, and you're still willing
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to be on.
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So thank you very much.
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Okay, so why not, obviously, you know, the listeners heard kind of my introduction of
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our, you know, you, but why don't you give them kind of your version of how long you've
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been in the biz, what kind of, you know, units production and what do you enjoy about
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this business?
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Sure, of course.
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And of course, not, not to bore the listeners with, with a very long drawn bio of mine.
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But really, I started in the business in 2008.
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And we all know probably the worst year to get in the mortgage business.
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I was year and a half in the country, literally, you only three people in the entire country
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back then started the business with about $1,900 from the, from my rented apartment.
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And then fast forward about 10 years later, I have closed over a billion daughter in sales
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last year.
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I close 180 million on track to close over 200 million this year, top 15 loan officer in
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the country.
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And the part that I enjoy the most is really the education part.
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That's the, that's the fundamental, that's the pillar on which I built this business from
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pretty much nothing to where I am.
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And that's the most interesting part of it, which is you get to educate people, especially
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first time on buyers through my three books that I've written and hundreds of blog posts,
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videos, podcasts like this, really all kinds of platforms online and offline.
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And that's the most interesting part.
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You want, I got in the business when I could see the, the mayhem that a bad education
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can create to the mortgage in the real estate industry.
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And I personally never wanted to be part of it, of course.
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And I'm sure a lot of listeners can identify to that.
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So whatever little that I can do by educating them to pick the right mortgage programs so
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that we never go through that 2008, 2010 cycle ever again, I'm just trying to do that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
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And I do recall your personal story from our original conversation.
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What makes me curious though, is why this industry, how did you come about choosing to be
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a mortgage professional versus anything else?
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So it's, yeah, it's an interesting story.
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I was, I was in India, I was working for a startup of VC funded startup.
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And they were on the mortgage side of the business and I wasn't an active originator when I moved
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here to the US when I got transferred here, I was the head of business for that company.
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So the company did some mortgages, I was, I wasn't really, I was running the show, I was
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not really running the origination.
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So when the 2008 crisis happened and they folded up the one thing that the only thing that
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I knew was mortgages, even though I really didn't know the details of how to get clients
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and all that.
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I always wanted to get started with my own business.
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I always wanted to run something and not just work for someone else all through, through
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my life.
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And I saw that as an opportunity that if it's maybe it's a good thing that I was let
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go or the company closed down.
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And in the short run, it may not work because we wanted to get in the mortgage business
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in 2008, but I was hoping more, more hope than anything else really, very little talent
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or skill to, to, to run mortgages or the industry dynamics at that time.
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But I saw that, I still saw that as an opportunity, yeah, I was looking more medium to long term.
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And the one thing that I knew and kind of made sense.
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Yeah.
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How long did you work for a company as an employee or, you know, 1099 originator until
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you started your own company?
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So I had, I ran two different branches, two different lenders I got in the business
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and then ran a branch for a company, kept that for about two, two and a half years
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and then ran another branch for another lender and then kept that for two, two and a half
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years.
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It was 2000, I would say 14.
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So yeah, about six years into the business then when I started my own brokerage, I was
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at a point where I wanted to call the shots and I wanted to run it like the way I wanted
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to run the business plus just the pride of ownership for me was huge.
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It wasn't so much about how much money would I make or lose.
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In fact, 2015 when I moved to the independent brokerage platform, nobody was again, it
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was again, again, against the tide, just like getting in the business in 2008 was against
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the tide, getting into a brokerage and getting away from a direct lending platform was again
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against the tide.
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And as we can see, as a brokerage is the fastest growing platform now in 2019, but that
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wasn't the case in 2015, but for me, it was really important to own the business that
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I was running and have the independence of building my personal brand around it and that's
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why I moved.
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So let's talk about that.
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You mentioned personal brand and I know that's a big thing for you and I've made a couple
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of notes here.
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You've done.
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I want to unpack a little bit.
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If you could set up for us because my listeners right there in a variety of different stages
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in their career, they've been in 20 years and they're at that stage, they're still passionate
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or maybe they're something else and then we've got some people that are kind of just starting
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out and ramping up.
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And you mentioned personal brand, I think that's been important to you all along.
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How important or relevant do you think that is for a loan officer today?
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So if there was one thing that I will go back and repeat all over again, like if I went
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to a brand new business today that I knew nothing about, which was kind of the case in 2008
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with Mogegis or 2009, that's one thing that I will repeat all over again.
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He Mogegis per se is a commodity business, let's be real about it.
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Really that the one thing that you are trying to sell or if the only thing that you're
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trying to sell is rates because that's the number that everyone's looking at, then
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you turn this business into a commodity business, or if you are, even if you're trying
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to sell service, it's a promise of service, which means they can't see the service before
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they hire you.
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So you're just saying, I'll give you the best service, but then everyone can be saying
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the same thing.
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And so there is no proof in the pudding per se because they haven't tasted it yet.
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And that's where personal branding comes into the play is because when they are looking
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at different options, they're trying to see who is the one I would believe when they
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say that I'll give you the best service or I'll give you the best education.
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And when they see you that, okay, you have written books or you've written blogs or you've
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been on the media, like that's the person that I find more credible than somebody else
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with saying, we're just saying the same thing.
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Yeah, I'll do this, but there's really no proof to match that kind of a promise.
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Personal branding is what really separates you from everybody else.
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As we are sitting in 2019, 2020, and one of the biggest threats to the industry or to
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loan off this versus FinTech.
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And I talk about all the time is that the best way to counter FinTech or any other challenge
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really is to build that personal brand, because at the end of the day, people are not working
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with a company.
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People don't work with articles lending.
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People work with Sashankshaker and what they see in Sashankshaker is the fact that, look,
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this guy really seems to know what he's doing, especially if you work with a lot of first
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time home buyers, which I do, then they want to be sure that this is super anxious, super,
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I would say uncomfortable step that they are taking from their current state.
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They're dependent on somebody and that person better be somebody like me.
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And that's why personal branding was as important in 2009, probably it wasn't even that important
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and then when I started working on it, it's way more important now because it's a little
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crowded now.
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And some people have caught up and when I was writing books and blogs back in 2009, it was
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nearly unheard of and I would consider myself one of the OGs, but now there are more people
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doing it.
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But really, as a way to separate yourself from the crowd, as a way to set yourself apart,
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especially if you're in a competitive market, as an Ivan Silicon Valley, San Francisco
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area, probably the most competitive market in the country when it comes to mortgages
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or real estate, I compete with banks who have over a percent lower in rate.
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I'm not saying pricing in interest rate.
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So Bank of America would go 2.75 and I'm coding 3.75 on over a million dollar loan where
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the payment difference could be substantial even with an eighth interest rate.
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And if I still get to close over 200 million dollar in business, that's the proof there
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is in the pudding that personal branding works.
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So what are some of the things you're doing today to create that differentiation through
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a personal brand?
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What are the tactics or strategies?
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So I'll take it actually all the way back to 2009 and the reason I would do that is because
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a lot of listeners may be at the very early stage or maybe considering it, because a lot
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of times you listen to someone who's already accomplished something and you would think
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as a listener or being in the audience is that of course he can do it, as a need so
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good at it.
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Of course she can do it, she's really good in front of camera or whatever.
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What I want to take the listeners back to 2009 is because I want to show where I came
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from.
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2009 when I had closed seven loans in the last 12 months, meaning when I got in the business
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I was doing half a loan a month.
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So this thing of doing 30, 40, 50 loans a month is not something I was born with.
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So first of all, understand that's what my production was in the first 12 months, half
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a loan a month, two, English is my third language, it's not as if it's like, okay, I've written
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all my life in English or whatever that is, it should be so easy.
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Or I've never spoken at really on the stage on platforms.
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All of this was really getting out of the comfort zone because one problem that I see with
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personal branding is that people are like, okay, I don't think I'm good at it.
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I don't think I can do it.
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I have this fear of doing this.
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It's not as if I had any less fear.
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In fact, probably I had more or more in security is around it.
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But the one thing that I figured in 12 months of doing half a loan per month is that I
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had to do a lot of begging even to do that half a loan a month.
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Like I would have to go to realtors and ask for business and realize that I wasn't
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good at it.
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I was really good at this begging business because I was new to the business.
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I really did not have any USB to sell to anyone.
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And I decided around mid 2009 is that I will build a business where people come to me
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versus me going to people.
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And that's how I will build this business.
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And if it doesn't, I'll just go back to corporate American work and then I'll realize
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that this is not my thing.
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And that's when I started investigating into one of the key tenants of marketing is that
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you go where your consumers go.
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You should not be doing something where your consumers are not watching.
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It's one of the things that I started looking at trends is of course social media was
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up and coming.
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Facebook was just about taking hold.
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There were more and more people joining Facebook.
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But also what I would think that I as a consumer was reading more and more blogs at that point
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of time.
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I was reading more consumer review sites to review a certain product or a certain service.
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So you as a consumer and if your target audience is the same as you, you should know what
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you are consuming and that's what your target audience will.
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So there's no one answer to saying if you're sitting in 2019, 2020, what you should be doing
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or if you're sitting in 2009, what you should be doing, what you should be doing is what
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your consumers are doing.
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So once I started seeing that trend, I knew that if I want to reach out directly to
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the consumer, which by the way, should be a huge part of your marketing is to go direct
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to the consumers that we are not dependent on your overall partners all the time.
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I knew that I had to write blogs.
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I knew that my consumer review sites and we should be up to people looking at things
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like yellow or Google or Facebook review come back later and zero review came.
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But really, I started working on all of that not because I was good at it or I really
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wanted to do it more so because that's what my consumers were consuming.
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That's where their attention was.
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And so if you're sitting in 2019, 2020, if you're making a business plan for the next four,
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five years, you should be seeing what is your
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target audience because San Francisco, various target audience may not be the same as Mississippi
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target audience, which may not be the same as New York target audience.
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So this thing of coaches and trainers and speakers talking about this is what works
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is like the worst advice you could give.
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Just like real estate is local, consumers are local and they have different preferences
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depending on the market that you live in.
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So first of all, it's social media the only way to build personal brand and the answer
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is no.
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There could be markets.
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I know tons of producers who have zero social media presence and do an amazingly good
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job of producing.
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So first of all, just because I'm good at it, I will not give you that advice.
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That's probably the wrong advice to give.
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And two, personal branding can be built around so many things.
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I started writing books.
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I started writing blogs, which one of my friends Tim Davis once said that the number of
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blogs that you've written could be put together in a book, which was a great idea.
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Probably one of the best that I've ever heard and thank you, Tim, if you're listening
20:04
to this.
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But really, that's what I did.
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It was the worst book somebody could write.
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So cringy that I do not have a copy of it because I don't know how I want to go back
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and read it off of it again.
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But it gives you that branding.
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I was then a published author which imagine back in 2009, getting on a platform and saying
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you're a published author, how many people could have possibly said that.
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And that helped me bring that brand that I'm a first time home buying expert.
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I started speaking about FHA loans, which nobody was doing in the barrier because the
20:36
loan amount limits were so low before the crisis that no house qualified for FHA.
20:42
I studied really, literally back to back cover to cover the underwriting guidelines, everything
20:46
that was happening.
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And then I started presenting on that topic to a small real estate offices and real estate
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meetings and marketing meetings and all that.
20:55
What I'm trying to arrive at is that to come up with any kind of marketing plan, especially
21:00
personal branding if you're trying to build that, you need to do the basic marketing one
21:06
or one of segmentation targeting and positioning, which is to segment your market, figure out
21:11
which what you want to target and then position yourself accordingly.
21:16
This mentality that we have is that we follow what we call successful people blindly.
21:21
So whatever works for Shashank will work for me kind of a mindset is totally wrong.
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If I followed in 2009 what worked for successful loan officers then, which is that networking
21:31
and working with real estate agent, which I tried to and failed miserably at it, I would
21:35
not be here interviewing, interviewing on this podcast.
21:38
So whatever that your market demands is the way you built your personal brand.
21:45
Interesting.
21:46
Yeah, that's a nice crash course.
21:47
Thank you and personal branding.
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I have to agree with you, there's a saying that I tend to fall back on regarding marketing,
21:54
which is everything works but doesn't work equally well for everyone everywhere.
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So to your point, and yes, it's contextual based on the activities you're going to do to
22:07
your point.
22:08
It's like realtors, I know realtors who succeed with door knocking, is that going to work
22:12
in San Francisco?
22:13
No.
22:14
It will work in wherever like Idaho or the small town where they still have that community
22:18
feel and all that.
22:21
So you've got to adjust accordingly.
22:23
Okay, so let's fast forward then to today, 2020 we're entering or when people are listening
22:28
to this happy new year, everyone.
22:33
Anything that you see that you do that is working, comma, results may vary, but is there
22:42
anything you've changed or you're doing significantly differently now than maybe wasn't
22:46
available back then or that you just think is worthy of mention?
22:50
So one of the things again, and I'll probably go against the grain here is that focus, pay
22:56
huge attention to refinancing, get a lot of coaches and trainers will tell you or speakers
23:02
whatever is that, purchase is the only way to go and I have gone against the grain like
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literally the entire decade, last decade.
23:10
If you saw the interest rate market trends over the last last 10 years, you would be stupid
23:16
if you did not focussed on the refinance market.
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If you came to me and said 94% of your business is purchase, I'd be like, you must be really
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stupid to run this business the way you are.
23:26
And I don't care what your production is, even if it's higher than me, that basically
23:30
just means that you have let almost 80, 90% of potential business go.
23:35
I just find it so in coherent and illogical that people would say that I entirely focus
23:42
my business on purchase and then what happens after that?
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What happens when you get years like to have 2016 or 2019 where interest rates drop and
23:50
you get three months of this huge refinance opportunity that you do?
23:54
What kind of database management that you have had to make sure that you are able to get
23:58
back to these customers and be able to refinance?
24:02
And I see the same trend not just for the next year in 2020, again, depending on when
24:07
you're watching this, but really for the entire decade, in 2009, I was speaking at a conference
24:14
and I said, I see a low interest rate not just for this year, but actually for the entire
24:19
decade.
24:21
And a lot of people came back to me after the event and say, you must be crazy to make
24:25
prediction like that.
24:26
But now we are entering a new decade and other than a few months here and there, we saw
24:30
a relatively low interest rate and very high refinance rates throughout the entire decade.
24:35
We will have a similar opportunity for this new decade.
24:38
So if you are not prepared for it, you're like, purchase, when you're doing a purchase
24:43
loan, you should be setting yourself off for refinance.
24:45
You should be doing two loans at the same time, as in I have had clients that I have probably
24:49
done four, five, six refinances over the last decade.
24:53
Imagine if I was not doing that, as in where would my volume be versus where my volume
24:57
is right now.
24:58
So my biggest advice to you is that put as much emphasis, if not more really on client
25:05
retention, on database management, or managing that relationship, so that when the refinance
25:10
opportunity comes along, which it will, I can guarantee you, it will come every 18 months
25:14
to 24 months for you, is that you're set up to do that.
25:18
As in I'm in the midst of doing a huge amount of recruiting for my company, your license
25:23
is now 14 states.
25:25
And that's one of the things that changes for the loan officers that are higher immediately
25:29
after the joint-arcus lending is that they come from this mindset of, okay, I've had these
25:34
loans, which are the new purchase loans, and I asked them to run through the database.
25:39
And suddenly, I don't know where, which did not think they're like this 25 year refinance
25:43
opportunities.
25:44
And suddenly, they're making that extra 100 grand that they never thought they would
25:47
be able to make.
25:49
And that's a mindset change is that you need to move away from thinking that purchase
25:53
is the only business.
25:55
And if you do that, for some of you, that could be 40, 15, and 100 percent increase in
26:00
business.
26:01
So what percentage is your, or has your business been of 2019 RIFI versus purchase?
26:07
So for 2019, we'll probably end up at 60 percent purchase, 40 percent RIFI 2016, we're
26:13
at 70 percent RIFI and 30 percent purchase 2017, 2018, we're probably at the reverse,
26:20
which means 70 percent purchase, 30 percent RIFI, what I'm trying, what those numbers tell
26:24
you is that my marketing plans, my database management, my entire business planning is
26:30
based on how the market moves and how to grab that opportunity that presents itself.
26:37
Because if you're not in that position, then when, because RIFI and Windows typically
26:42
happens for two, three months, and then all of your database refinances, if you do not
26:47
somebody else well, and then not just you lose that refinance, the future referrals guess
26:51
what goes to you, not to you, or to the last person who helped them refinance the law.
26:56
So you're not just losing one refinance, you could potentially be losing, I don't know,
27:00
dozens of referrals, because if you look at the referral chain, the first seven clients
27:06
that I did in between 2008 and 2009, my first 12 months, are each probably worth half
27:13
a million dollars to me, if I were to really branch out all the referrals that I've gotten
27:17
from them.
27:18
So for me, database management was a key from the very first loan, I actually have the
27:23
very first loan track, even now in my Google Sheets tracker that I have.
27:28
So I'm trying to, the importance for that, again, is that because a lot of people are
27:32
like, okay, with the kind of production that you have, of course, you will do 100 million
27:36
in refinance every year, because you have 1000 people in your database already, but I was
27:40
doing that when I had zero people in my database, I was working on my very first client that
27:45
I got on how can I get more refinance and more referrals from them.
27:49
So don't get daunted by the fact that I am at the production that I am, I was doing this
27:54
back in 2009 when I had zero, literally almost zero production that I had.
28:00
Well, it's why you're able to do the production you do right now, it's because you've maintained
28:04
kind of control, if you will, to a degree of those relationships.
28:08
No, I love that, that's great lessons, man.
28:14
What do you say then to the excuse, if you will, right, about what I've seen the pattern
28:23
happen with loan officers is when the ReFi boom comes, what they do is they get bogged
28:28
down with the ReFies and leave their realtors by the wayside and that back and forth game,
28:33
how do you mitigate that?
28:35
So one of the five daily habits to master that I typically talk about.
28:41
One of those is spending 30 minutes daily on your long term business, just basically
28:48
getting away from what's happening today.
28:50
In the mortgage business, it's, there are always urgent stuff, there are always ones.
28:57
And so again, time blocking as a concept is something that I'm not a huge fan of other
29:02
than those 30 minutes.
29:03
In the sense that if you time block every single minute, every single hour of the day,
29:07
it becomes very difficult because there's so many fires that come up and then there's,
29:11
you can just leave it because saying this is my time blocking to call past customers and
29:15
I don't care if someone is sitting on the closing table and the wire is not in or whatever.
29:20
It's that kind of a business where Russia's happened all the time, problems happen all
29:24
the time and you have to solve it as you are the person to be solving it.
29:27
So I actually keep most of my day open and work the day according to whatever urgent
29:33
stuff that I could reach.
29:35
But one thing which is non-negotiable is my 30 minutes of working on long-term stuff,
29:40
which is what your, if you're in a refinance boom, how do you still focus on purchase?
29:45
How do you continuously improve your operations?
29:48
One of the things that I'm big fan of is creating Amazon Prime of Movages,
29:54
creating consistency, creating predictability in your operations.
29:57
If I get a contract says 21-day close, I'm like, I will close on the 21st day.
30:02
It's the guarantee that you have.
30:03
If I write a pre-approval letter, I tell the listing agent that if you have a pre-approval
30:07
letter signed by me, that's 100% guarantee that the loan will go through.
30:11
I can't tell you about your appraisal or your title issues, but really the credit qualification
30:16
of the customer is 100% guarantee that it will go through.
30:20
Those are the kind of predictability and the confidence that I'm trying to build in
30:24
the system.
30:25
All of that does not come overnight.
30:27
You have to make continuous improvements on your systems.
30:30
You have to make continuous improvement on your marketing.
30:32
You said, what are some of the things that you're working in 2020 on personal branding?
30:37
It's every year.
30:38
It's about taking the game up.
30:40
It's every year.
30:41
It's about, okay, so this, if I wrote five blocks and I do 10, if I do 10, can I do 15?
30:46
If I wrote blocks, can I do a book?
30:48
If I do the book, can I make sure I'm going on media?
30:50
If I'm going on media, can I go on a better media platform?
30:54
So it's for everything, it's about continuous improvements.
30:57
If you put the 30 minutes, so even if you do not have the time because you're in the
31:00
refinance boom of meeting, see a lot of realtors for coffee meetings, whatever.
31:05
Just take the time.
31:06
Even if you have 30 minutes, you can text five realtors.
31:08
Hey, I was just going anything I can help you with.
31:11
You can write thank you notes for them.
31:12
You can DM them on social media.
31:14
It's not your, your, the amount of interaction can still remain the same.
31:19
You might not be doing so many as so many 101 so that they do not think that you went
31:25
completely near.
31:26
Yeah.
31:27
You're still there.
31:28
You're probably not meeting them face to face, but not everyone wants to meet face to
31:32
just the fact that you texted them every six, seven days.
31:34
Just the fact that you DM them or send them thank you cards or, or what, depending on
31:39
the season, send them like I, for my realtors, I send them $20, $30, Harry and David, cookies
31:45
or whatever.
31:46
Again, it's not important how expensive the gift is.
31:48
It's just the fact that you're thinking of them and sending them a birthday card, whatever
31:52
it is.
31:53
So if you do that 30 minutes for your clients, for your realtors, for your other referral
31:57
partners, even that's enough if you were, if you were saying the refinance boom.
32:01
And when you're not, then you, again, adjust your business and then go do more one or
32:05
once with them that that's how you work on it.
32:08
Yeah.
32:09
So you got to get more efficient and intentional with your time and then who you're pouring
32:12
into.
32:15
That's a lot of great stuff.
32:16
So let's pivot for the remaining time we have left briefly to talk about business planning
32:21
because obviously you're running a pretty sizable business there.
32:23
You've got a lot of volume.
32:24
You're growing, recruiting people.
32:28
And I know you did a business planning webinar recently with Barry Habib.
32:32
What are some of the best practices or kind of what's your structure around business planning
32:35
for 2020?
32:37
So I have a one page business plan that I do.
32:39
I, if you know me, I try to keep things very simple.
32:43
My pipeline tracker has been on Google Sheet for literally forever and a lot of people.
32:49
And it's not that I'm, I'm not tech savvy as in, it's just that I try to keep stuff simple
32:55
wherever possible.
32:57
And similarly for business plan, I do not like to do eight hour business planning.
33:01
I like to do one page business plan and your visitors really want it as they can, they
33:07
can get one.
33:08
I don't know how they reach out to you, but they reach out to me one way of, I can send
33:12
them one page of PDF, but really in a nutshell, if I can, if I can boil this down to about
33:17
three, four minutes, the biggest thing I'm looking for for, for in business planning I'm
33:22
doing for next year is first that all your numbers for the last year should be ready.
33:27
If you did not track your business the year before, there's no freaking way you can plan
33:32
for the next year.
33:33
It's impossible.
33:34
So if you, if you have not done that in the past, your first goal really should be to track
33:37
and that should, all your business plan be because there isn't much you can do if you
33:41
don't have data to play with, unless you are a year one and you have two in the business
33:44
that's fine.
33:45
But really the way I'm looking at is that I'm looking at data on of what happened the
33:49
last year.
33:50
And then when you're looking at it, there are really only three, four ways of improving
33:53
your business, going into the next year.
33:56
And by improving your business, I'm saying pure revenue goals here, not all relations
34:00
and recruiting in other ways.
34:03
So pure revenue goals, the only two ways that the most loan officers are looking at is
34:10
you increase the conversion from the leads that you're already getting.
34:14
So if you're getting 100 and from 100 leads, your leads to app ratio is 50%.
34:20
So that's 50 applications and then from app to closing is 50% you're closing 25.
34:25
You need to increase conversion either at one stage or both.
34:28
So if you're getting the same number of leads, I, and then again, that's where the data
34:33
is important is because you need to see how come out of 100 leads, I got 50 applications.
34:38
What happened to the other 50?
34:40
Did I email them once and then forget about it?
34:42
Did I not have the product because they were like, okay, I'm looking at 0% V alone and
34:47
I do not offer one or whatever.
34:49
So what happened between leads and application?
34:51
Were they not motivated?
34:52
Were they not referred to me well?
34:54
And that's why tracking every single lead is important.
34:56
Similarly, when you're tracking from application to closing, I have a 90% closing ratio from
35:01
application to closing, which is one of the highest in the industry.
35:04
Of course, there are no real stats for that.
35:06
But I'm just assuming that it has to be one of the highest in the industry.
35:11
But even for that 10%, I track why, where did it fall through?
35:15
What happened there?
35:16
Did the appraisal come lower?
35:18
Did they go shopping after they locked with me?
35:20
Or because if you do not have that, how do you improve?
35:23
And then I tell, and then the way you're looking at business planning is that for most people,
35:28
the fall through in the first stage, which is from the leads to the app is communication.
35:34
Your communication platform is not efficient enough.
35:37
It's not built into, it's not set in a way where you follow it all the time.
35:43
You might have it somewhere in your head.
35:45
As a system.
35:46
Yeah, you might think that, oh, every pre-approval that I call them, every once in a while.
35:51
But if you do not have that, if you do not have, how do you follow up with warm leads and
35:54
cold leads and hot leads and how quickly you do it, how regularly you do it, what will
35:59
be your content, what will be your script.
36:00
Again, I don't want you to memorize all your scripts.
36:03
You should be natural.
36:04
But what I'm trying to arrive at is that most of the time you'll see that's the reason
36:07
between leading app.
36:08
Your 50% conversion can easily be 60%, 70%.
36:12
If you build better communication platform.
36:14
Real quick, but also I assume by better communication, perhaps that can also mean you get
36:19
better at selling, communicating, value proposition, positioning, dealing with objections, all
36:26
that, right?
36:27
Absolutely.
36:28
When you get the lead, I think the first call is your best indicator of how good converter
36:32
you are, so to say.
36:34
You should always lead on by listening.
36:38
One of the problems that we have is that especially as we get older in the business is to say
36:43
how great we are.
36:44
Because we get a new lead and like, as an, I'm sure you know, I'm one of the top producers
36:48
here.
36:49
I do all of this and I'm so good and I'm author and people interview me all the time.
36:54
I always let them do the talking and use their need as, so it's like building credibility
37:01
through empathy is what my tone for that is that, that you're building your credibility
37:06
not by saying how great you are, but empathize with what their need is.
37:10
If they're a first time home buyer, you build your credibility by saying that you've
37:14
helped dozens if not hundreds of home, first time home buyers buy by their first home and
37:19
this is how you've helped them.
37:20
But if someone is trying to buy a real estate for investment, then your, your credibility
37:26
through empathy is completely different.
37:28
Then you're trying to tell them how good you are at getting them, say, better interest
37:32
rate on investment properties or connecting them with real estate agents who specialize
37:36
with investment.
37:38
So if you do not listen that and if you're trying to tell them how great you are at this,
37:42
but their need is completely different is so you're not able to make that sale.
37:46
So for me, the high lead to app conversion is because of their first interaction with
37:52
me.
37:53
And of course, in my case, a lot of my director consumer leads come from the, the personal
37:57
branding or the online platform that I built, which again is their kind of half sold even
38:03
before they have made the call.
38:04
They're read my blog.
38:05
They've seen the video.
38:06
It's something where they've already seen that I'm an expert at what I'm doing.
38:11
All right, so let's get back in there more specifics about business plan.
38:16
I love the, you've got to look back at your numbers from the previous year.
38:20
Start to look at conversions, look for areas of improvement there.
38:23
Anything else?
38:24
Yeah.
38:25
And then so that's, that's on the conversion side.
38:27
And again, even app to close ratio is the same thing.
38:30
Why is it that you're losing the lead?
38:32
Are you being shot?
38:33
Are you not seen as an expert?
38:34
They're looking, you can do loan comparison charts as mortgage coach, mortgage, MBAs highway,
38:39
I've, as in the past, I've just turned it on Excel.
38:42
But I'm, I'm trying to build systems wherever I see that might be guessed, might be guessed
38:47
fall through is.
38:49
So that's on, on the conversion.
38:51
Let's talk about the, let's talk about the other thing, which is, how do you get more
38:56
leads?
38:57
Like, so, so there are two ways, as I said, is, is where you, you can get more business,
39:01
which is one by increasing your conversion and two by getting more leads.
39:04
And again, when it comes to getting more leads, my first focus always are my existing clients,
39:10
always.
39:11
If I have 50 people in my database, how come I'm only getting 10 referrals?
39:15
If I have five people in my database, how come I'm only getting one referral?
39:19
Irrespective of the size of your database, and again, if you don't have a database because
39:23
you've never created to build one, then your first goal for the year should be to build
39:27
one irrespective of the size of it.
39:29
But if you have a size, and whatever that size is, you're, that's your first focus.
39:34
Because whenever people come to me and they're, they're, they're asking about new ideas
39:38
to gain leads, my first question to them is that, what are you doing with your existing
39:42
clients base?
39:43
And most of them are like nothing.
39:46
I have this, this girl out of Los Angeles mover business from 10 million to 27 million
39:51
this year, which is a substantial improvement, as you can see, mostly by just doing what
39:56
I'm telling you now.
39:58
First, I helped her like literally go to her phone, get all the emails and text and everything
40:03
that she could from the last two years of her business because she had zero database
40:06
built.
40:07
Put that into the system and make an entire client retention map on how do you remain
40:12
in touch with them to improve that business.
40:14
So first of all, when you're trying to get more leads, focus on your clients because that's
40:19
should be the biggest source for your business coming from.
40:22
Again, if you have tracked your source in the past, you should be able to know where
40:27
your business is coming from.
40:28
You need to double down there.
40:30
So if you're really good with realtor relationship, that's where you should double down.
40:34
You should be meeting more of them and then get more from the realtor that you're already
40:38
working with.
40:39
So if you're working with somebody and they're doing 10 transactions a year and you're
40:42
getting six referrals, they already like you and trust you.
40:45
Why are they not sending the other four?
40:47
You not have the product base to they not like you with a certain demographic like what's
40:52
going on?
40:53
Try to figure that out.
40:54
So get more from the people who are already referring you and get more from the same
40:59
channel where you're already good at.
41:00
Maybe you're doing something that makes you good with real estate agents.
41:04
Why don't you get more?
41:05
Why don't you ask the current real estate agents to refer you their friends?
41:09
Everybody has one or two or five or you can go to the office and make presentation.
41:13
So before you get on this bandwagon of trying a new lead source, figure out how you can
41:20
maximize what you already have.
41:22
And if you get on the bandwagon of trying a new new lead source, give it a few months
41:26
to a year to even two years because most lead sources take time to materialize, especially
41:31
if you don't want to do personal branding like the way I did, which as I said, it's probably
41:34
the best thing I've done for my business.
41:37
Give it time.
41:38
These things do not happen overnight.
41:39
Making content, letting people see you and observe you and then consider you as an expert
41:45
is a very long-term planning.
41:47
But if you do it, it's probably the best way to get business.
41:51
So what I heard there was obviously some fundamentals when it comes to database and building
41:55
that and getting that kind of set up and optimized, but also look at the areas of strength that
42:01
you already have, whether it be real to referral partner CPAs or whatever that thing is and
42:07
invest in there and then perhaps and only then to optimize that, do you bring on an alternative
42:14
source?
42:15
So again, that's one of the things that I encourage to work on one additional lead source
42:23
all the time, because one, all of them won't work, two, it will take time to do it.
42:31
But if you're working on one, because ideally you should have four pillars of your lead
42:36
acquisition.
42:37
But if you work with four pillars, then irrespective of which market you are in.
42:40
If you're in a purchase market, you have the real to referral source and if you're direct
42:44
to consumer and you have say a CPA or financial planner, whatever you have, your client relationship
42:51
may not work so much because your refinancing market may be dry.
42:55
They can still refer you other people, but they won't be refinancing.
42:59
But if you work with irrespective of whether you are in year one or year 20 of the business,
43:05
if you start working with four solid pillars of lead acquisition, you will never have a
43:10
truly bad year.
43:11
It's the business cycle where you'll have a decent year and a great year and all that.
43:17
But you will never have a bad year because you have built it and that's where I've, I
43:21
always had my, my real to relationship, my client relationship, my direct to consumer,
43:28
which was, which is my online branding.
43:31
And then the online branding, which by the way, which media and radio and television,
43:36
all that.
43:37
And then blogging, which has always been my, my strength where people find me on Google
43:42
to blogging and the consumer review sites like my biggest transaction I've closed in
43:46
my life came through Yelp.
43:47
So Yelp and Google and Facebook and Zillow, all the consumer review sites have been my
43:51
huge pillars of acquisition.
43:54
Let me ask a question, not prepared to you, but I'm curious how you rank blogging today
44:01
versus back when you started in terms of relevance.
44:04
If I'm going to look to build a personal brand, right, because you know, there's lots of
44:07
different options now and some, some SEO issues and all that stuff.
44:12
Very high, especially on the mortgage side of it, not so much on the real estate because
44:17
you're competing with the likes of the Zillow and the red fence of the world, which pretty
44:20
much for every keyword, they're going to rank higher.
44:24
On the mortgage side, I see it as relevant now as before.
44:28
Mortgage is one of the fields where people don't watch a lot of videos.
44:31
I know videos is a huge thing and what's probably great on social media because people are
44:37
on Facebook, so they'll probably watch you.
44:39
But if they're just googling for something, people are not going on YouTube, googling
44:44
for how to buy your first home.
44:46
What's the difference between points, paying points or not?
44:48
It's not something people are searching on YouTube, so YouTube's trending searches will
44:52
not be mortgage terms.
44:53
People want to read content on mortgages.
44:57
Videos work great for fun industries, for real estate and what's great because people
45:02
get to watch like homes and shiny countertops and all the cool things that comes with the
45:08
home.
45:09
Mortgage is still a very boring subject and for boring subjects, unless you're really
45:13
good at video and some people are natural and they can be super humorous or they can
45:17
make some really creative videos.
45:19
If you're really good at that, of course, you will get traction.
45:22
If you're like me, as in you'll probably do better with blogs and I've done a lot of
45:26
videos by them on YouTube, but not a ton of traction.
45:29
I still think that mortgages as a concept is something that people want to read more than
45:35
watch.
45:36
Interesting.
45:37
Good advice.
45:38
All right.
45:39
Listen, I know you're busy.
45:40
We are almost out of time, but before we let you go, why don't you tell us about this new
45:43
project you have that looks pretty amazing, the MLO masterclass.
45:49
What is it?
45:50
Why?
45:51
And then we'll leave with how people can learn more.
45:53
Sure.
45:54
MLO masterclass is really all my decade of learning condensed or distilled into one product.
46:02
I speak across the country and I'm always asked by loan officers if I do personal coaching
46:07
which I don't.
46:08
By the way, I don't have a bandwidth.
46:10
But I always thought it will be, if I offered one, it will be so expensive that it will be
46:15
prohibited for most people.
46:17
Right.
46:18
And I did not want to do that.
46:19
I did not want to let people be left out just because they could not afford me because
46:24
back in 2009, if that happened to me, I would feel really bad.
46:28
And so it's my way of really giving back everything that I've known as and everything that
46:32
we talked about in podcast.
46:34
Imagine if there was a masterclass on each one of those topics.
46:37
So I have distilled all that knowledge put into MLO masterclass.com and made it so affordable
46:44
that somebody if they started in the business today will be able to afford it.
46:48
So everything from client retention to realtor acquisition to database management to time
46:54
management, which by the way is huge for me because I usually just work about 8 to 5
46:59
and then spend rest of the time with my family, have two young daughters that I like to
47:03
spend time with.
47:04
It's huge on time management and a lot of other stuff that we talked about, personal branding,
47:09
sales psychology, mindset, all of that is really condensed into this MLO masterclass.com
47:14
and I was just fortunate that Barry Habib agreed to be a faculty member for that as that's
47:21
what we call them because these are classes in the masterclass that we are teaching.
47:25
So you get all of that along with the tools I talked to you about the pipeline tracker
47:29
that I have used on Google Sheets, the one page business planning, literally everything
47:33
that I have done in my business, all the templates, everything is available on MLO masterclass.com
47:39
and I'm really proud because I set out with a vision to make this the best training platform
47:44
for loan officers and at the same time still keeping it super affordable and I, from the
47:50
initial feedback that we received, it seems that we are on the right track.
47:54
Wow, that's great, congratulations to you, I know it's been a labor of love, you know,
48:01
heavy on the labor and the love too.
48:03
That's really cool.
48:04
So for those who want to learn more about that, I'll put links in the show notes.
48:09
Is it MLO masterclass.com?
48:12
That is correct, it's MLO masterclass.com and for the listeners it's usually priced
48:17
at $12.95 for the year or $129 I think for the month but they can go to MLO masterclass.com
48:25
forward slash 2020 and then they get discounted pricing as low as $95 a month or so.
48:32
Super discount, $995 for the year, that's about 25% discount on the price, on the price
48:39
which somebody would go to the website and get it, so that's MLO masterclass.com forward
48:44
slash 2020 and not just that, they get seven day all access free trial, their credit card
48:50
is not even built until they ate this, so you can go in, take a look, you can see everything
48:56
that I talked about and if you don't like it, just cancel it, send us an email and it's
49:01
really no question asked, we don't make it very difficult for you to cancel by doing
49:06
all that.
49:07
Send us an email and tell us you want to cancel it and that's fine, we want to fill your
49:11
car.
49:12
Like that, it's a good way to do business, cool man.
49:14
How about if any, just personally or directly somebody wants to reach out to you website,
49:18
social media, where do you want to direct them?
49:20
Facebook is the best platform, shashankadarkaslinning.com, it's another way of looking at it.
49:27
But yeah, those two are probably the easiest and the fastest way to get to.
49:31
We'll make sure we put links in the show notes and I appreciate you making time out of your
49:34
busy day, especially as we're heading into, you know, what's busy for all of us, which
49:37
is the holidays and just, you know, thank you for all the value you bring to our listeners,
49:43
but the community as a whole, always great to check in with you, my man.
49:46
Absolutely, it's always a pleasure to be on your show.
49:48
Thank you so much.
49:49
And listeners, you know what to do if you like this episode, feel free to check out the
49:52
resources and the show links and make sure if you feel like it, leave us a review on
49:58
the socials and wherever you're listening to this podcast.
50:01
We appreciate you and we'll see you on the next one, bye for now.
51:43
We'll see you on the next one, bye for now.