Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #48: Funding $434 Million With Shant Banosian

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Ep #48: Funding $434 Million With Shant Banosian · Mortgage Marketing Radio

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In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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the real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
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can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
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Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
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To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too.
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
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Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute.
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It's your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing.
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Hey listeners, it's Jeff Zimfer.
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Welcome to this week's episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Have I told you how much I appreciate you?
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I really do.
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If you're a listener who's been listening to this podcast for a while, thank you so much.
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I'm grateful for you.
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You're why I do this, you're what keeps me going.
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If you're brand new, welcome, love to get your feedback.
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Whether you've been here a while, your brand new or not, you know you can communicate with
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me anytime.
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You can send me a direct email to infoatmortgagemarketinginstitute.com.
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You can connect with me on Facebook at Mortgage Marketing Institute and you can request
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to join our private Facebook group where we share additional content, resources and just
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looking to build better modern mortgage originators.
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Speaking of that, this interview, get ready for a doozy.
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This is a good one.
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My guest for this week's episode is a man who's gracious at the same time is just a machine
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in terms of production.
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I watched a video that was a Facebook live video from the Mortgage Mastermind in Vegas
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and I saw this man talk about his process, his loan process and the efficiencies that
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he's got in place that allow him to scale his business.
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So who is this guest?
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It's Shant Bonozion.
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Shant Bonozion, the number one mortgage loan originator in the entire state of Massachusetts.
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Let me give you some quick stats on Shant.
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As I said, number one in the entire state of Massachusetts in 2016, he closed 1136 units
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for $434.5 million in funded loans in 2016 alone.
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Here on the podcast, how now he just has first $50 million month.
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That's right month.
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By the way, as you're listening to this, you think, oh, well, that's his team and he's
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got all these originators out there.
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That's not exactly the case here.
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You've got to set aside any of your potential preconceived notions.
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You know, that's funny.
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When we talk about somebody doing full for $400 million a year, a lot of you listening
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may say to yourself, you know what, I don't want to do $400 million a year.
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But would you like to do another $10 million a year?
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Would you like to do another $20, another $30?
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Whatever your goal is, if your goal is growth, you realize that you've got to have certain
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processes, systems, standards, and mindset in place in order to get to that level of production.
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It's like the old saying, the level of thinking that got you to where you are is not enough
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to get you to that next level.
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And that I find to be so true with my special guest today.
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So just a true gentleman, somebody who's willing to share is not of a scarcity mindset,
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but as an abundance mindset.
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I mean, the accolades just go on and on for sure, right?
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Back in 2016, the number three originator in the entire country.
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And it's just, you know, I mean, there are so many lessons and stories in this.
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If you're listening to this and thinking, man, I need to grow my business.
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But I challenge to do that because I am the assistant and you're stuck in that mode
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of I originate, then I process, I originate in my process.
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Or what are the right systems, tools, people to put into place?
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So I can grow my business.
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What are the best sources of business?
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How do I engage with my realtors?
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What is a perfect customer process that I can put in place?
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That's going to help me create raving fans.
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How do I shift the conversation away from price to advice?
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I mean, we just, you know, dive into this all here and just does a complete pouring
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into you as a listener to get a look inside the business of somebody
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who is just, you know, over a $400 million producer in 2016.
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And most of that is because of his efforts, his work,
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him still engaging with buyers and, you know, borrowers every single day.
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So I'm really thrilled to have Sean as a special guest knowing that the dollar
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cost just for him to carve out about an hour for us on this podcast is just
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enormous when you think about it.
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So I am eternally grateful for that.
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And I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.
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So without further ado, let's transition into this week's show.
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Hey, Sean. Welcome to the show.
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Hey, thank you very much for having me.
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My pleasure.
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Yeah, welcome, welcome, welcome.
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So you're a tough guy to nail down because you're extremely busy, highly productive
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and I'm so thrilled to bring you to our listeners here today.
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So in the intro, I obviously talked about who you are, you know,
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your production amounts and all that kind of stuff.
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But I think that for the listeners, what I didn't get into is get us the brief,
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you know, bio history of Sean's entry into the mortgage space, you know,
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who are you?
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And what are you doing?
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Yeah, absolutely not.
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I appreciate it.
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Again, thanks for having me.
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You know, it's fun for me to talk about this stuff.
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So I've been actually on this side of the business.
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I've only been originating loans for about nine years.
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I got into the business virtually right out of college back in 2003.
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I worked at a regional,
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sub-prime lender, mostly online leads through like things like lending
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tree.com all over my bills.
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I learned how to sell, you know, all phone sales at that time, you know,
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for about a year.
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And then I quickly got promoted to the point where I was in management, you know,
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a couple of times over the course of years by time, you know,
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I was like 25 or 26 years old.
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I was managing a team about 40 loan originators doing all.
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Essentially, it was just phone sales through lending tree and loan my bills
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and other lead aggregators.
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It was actually very, very valuable for two reasons.
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One is it really taught me how to differentiate myself.
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Because generally every single client I was talking to four to five different people.
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And, you know, it taught me the value of relationship selling, how important that is,
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you know, at the time, I didn't know this time, but we weren't selling, you know,
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the greatest product, you know, a lot of one year arms and two year arms.
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And, you know, it was a lot of tech and solidation, cash out refinances, all that kind of stuff.
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And, but it really taught me how to kind of get to know my clients,
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how to establish relationships and speak confidently, concisely over the phone,
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which is really valuable now because it's funny as, you know,
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I thought once I got into the retail side, everything would be face to face.
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But as technology has changed, you know, it's switching back over to phone sales almost predominantly
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because a lot of people don't want to come into the office anymore.
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And to do the kind of volume that I need to do, that I want to do, you know,
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do a lot of face to face meetings, a lot of phone, but I was doing that.
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And then, you know, in 2008, 2009, you know, the whole, you know, market collapse.
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So I was essentially what I was doing was, you know, I was in a position where I was training
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and recruiting and coaching and I was in management,
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but I hadn't originated in four or five years in the market for was up.
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I had to try to figure out how I was at a crossroads both in my career
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and in my life trying to figure out what I was going to do.
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I really enjoyed the mortgage business.
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I really enjoyed sales.
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I enjoyed the competition of it.
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I enjoyed helping people.
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You know, there was the competitiveness.
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There's a lot of things I really liked about it.
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The people and people interaction.
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And so I decided to, you know, become a loan officer again.
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So in a, that's when I started from scratch, but, you know,
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so there's a lot of things that I learned in terms of like,
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you know, how to be really good salesperson over the phone, how to manage my time,
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how to manage my days, learn how to win, learn how to lose, like all that stuff,
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but what I didn't have was any relationships back then.
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So I've really been on this side of thing for seven years, but I didn't know back then.
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I didn't know any really any real tours, attorneys, title insurance companies,
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home insurance people like I never really started from scratch.
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So, you know, what I did was, you know, I went back to what I knew.
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I, you know, I partnered up with a really great mortgage company
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that had some really great products.
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And I learned this side of the business side to really learn,
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like I literally had to learn what Fannie Mae was, where Freddie Mac was,
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what FHA was, because we didn't have any of that stuff
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at the previous company was at and teach myself all the loan products, guidelines,
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how that stuff worked, literally running VU, LPL kind of stuff.
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And then I went out and I started networking.
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I joined Rotary Club, I joined Chamber of Commerce, I joined the B&I Group,
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I joined everything that you could possibly imagine.
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I went and I would talk to any realtor that would want to talk to me.
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And I also, you know, I did, when I initially started,
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I even bought some leads on Lending Tree again, just to kind of have some clients.
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And I got off those pretty quickly.
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It only took me about six months or a year of doing all that networking stuff
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to where I didn't really need any leads at all whatsoever.
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And to the point where I was fully self-sufficient on referrals.
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And then, you know, my impact back then was just constantly,
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you know, I was focused on meeting just anybody
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that would be able to refer any business and refer partners.
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So as I was saying, CPA is financial advisors, anybody.
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And then once we got a deal, I focused on quality.
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Quality and communication is still to this day.
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The biggest focus of what we do and how the foundation of our business
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and how we're going to keep growing.
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But every single time we take on a deal and we took on a deal,
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made sure one, we knew what we were doing, you know,
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make sure that every pre-approval that we sent out was spot on
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and is something that wasn't going to be denied.
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Something that we stand behind 100 percent.
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Once we put a deal in process,
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making sure the client was super informed all the way through the process.
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The realtors were informed on both sides of the deal,
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the buyer's agent and the listing agent.
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The attorneys were in the loop and, you know,
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so we really became known almost immediately for, you know,
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the quality of our work and the communication that we delivered.
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And there was really, really easy to add new realtors at that point
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just because they were really impressed.
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We could really let our work, you know,
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and I say, we, I mean, me at the time, it was me by myself,
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do the talking.
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And then, you know, that's what we focused on.
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But we just constantly focused on improving the client experience.
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There are communication they were getting from us.
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We're, you know, constantly focused on making the process more efficient
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and setting proper expectations through the whole process.
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You know, I've established a really great brand is, you know,
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if your clients, you know, want to work with somebody
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that's going to be always available,
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that's always going to be honest with them out front with them
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and deliver on dates and whether it's commitment dates
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and closing dates and quick closing,
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and so on and stuff, like really made sure
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that that was something that we could, that we could build upon.
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Yeah.
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You know, I think accessibility, both realtors and clients,
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is super important, delivering quality,
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pre-approvals and product is huge.
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And just being known, I think people demand consistency
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and in a market like, you know,
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I do most of my business in Boston and, you know,
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it's one of the hotter real estate markets in the country.
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And I think everybody thinks their markets are honest, right?
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But I think that, you know, you have to be able to deliver
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and we do over and over and over again.
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Definitely.
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And thank you for sharing that, by the way.
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There's a lot in there.
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And what I want to do is, as you made that transition
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from doing the, you know, the phone sales,
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what did you identify, who did you have to become or change,
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what about you, did you need to prepare yourself for, right?
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As you go back on the street, no relationships, all that.
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I mean, what was that mind?
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Did you have to make a mindset shift?
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Or there's some certain things you're aware of
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that you're like, man, I haven't done this in a while,
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but I need to get out there and do this.
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Anything coming up?
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In a lot of ways, when you're doing the leads,
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one deal does not carry over to the other.
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I mean, obviously, if you do a good job,
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you hope to get referrals from those clients.
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But when you're primarily referral based and realtor based,
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you know, those deals are all interconnected.
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So, you know, you could do a great job for some clients.
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But if you don't do a good job,
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after a while, that lead source will cut you off.
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So, I think if you do a good job consistently,
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you'll be able to get more referrals from that lead source.
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And then, too possible, we have that realtor
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refer you to other agents in their office
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or other agents on the other side of deals.
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So, I think making sure that you knew that the quality
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of your work was super important
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because there's major longevity to that.
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So, but anyway, that is like, you know,
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whereas like a, you know, when you work with like a financial advisor, right?
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Or as a financial advisor, if they keep a client
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on their books forever, you know, they get paid incrementally,
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you know, based on the assets they have under management.
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Whereas with us, you know, we have to kind of create that on our own
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in the sense that we hope that when we do a deal for a client,
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they come back to us every single time they refinance or want to buy.
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But we don't get paid for as long as they hold their mortgage.
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I wish we did.
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But, you know, the same thing goes with a realtor.
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Like if you do a great job or open over and over again,
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there's no reason that realtor is ever going to leave you.
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But if you don't do a good job on the communication side of the quality of your work
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or whether they're, you know, the response that your client frankly gives that person,
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then, you know, you could have that person disappear
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without you even knowing and move on to somebody else.
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So, just know that every single deal has other implications to it.
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It was really a big mindset shift.
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But other than that, a lot of it's the same.
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I mean, it's, you know, I was pretty successful on the internet-based lead stuff.
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It really prepared me really well.
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I thought it was a pretty smooth transition.
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I didn't have a lot of difficulty transitioning over to the face-to-face and networking side.
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Okay. So, you said earlier when you got out there to, you know,
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to develop those relationships, you did networking like crazy, right?
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You just amped it up.
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What is today or what when you first started out?
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What was your most successful way of capturing real estate agents
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and building that referral base?
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You know, I still, for this day, I think it's all about like the low-hanging fruit in the sense that,
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you know, when I first started out,
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she's literally based on the people that I knew that I grew up within my town,
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like who are the local real estate agents, right?
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And then their friends and their friends and their co-workers.
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And I would just go everywhere that they are, right?
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So generally speaking, you know, like most of the real estate boards and real estate
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areas have different types of groups.
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Like in our area, there's a greater Boston Association of Realtors.
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There's mass association of realtors and they all have events.
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So I would make sure that I was at all those things.
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And then, you know, it's one thing just showing up to those events.
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But then it's another thing, taking action items to actually try to generate meetings
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from those and try to grab, you know, coffees and lunches and dinners and play that.
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So then more than anything, it's not like, you know,
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just tell them all about you, but to get them to know you like you and trust you and
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have them understand what you're all about.
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And that's how you get business.
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If they don't like you or trust you or even know you, there's no chance
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they're ever going to send you a deal, right?
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And a lot of people just go to those meetings and then they collect business cards
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and they never do anything with them.
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And it's a matter of, you know, going there with a plan, you know, knowing how many
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you know, coffees and lunches that you wanted to take out of there and actually
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following up the people when you leave those meetings with, you know, calls and emails
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and trying to schedule actual events and actually getting into their offices.
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And, you know, I do a lot of lunch and run type things where I go into real estate offices
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and just update them with market conditions and what's going on in the industry
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and what's going on in their marketplaces and things that we're seeing.
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And, you know, just anything I can do to get in front of agents.
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So that's everything I might, my business is probably built on real estate agents.
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You know, we have some financial advisors just that send us some business as well
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and other, you know, like when I say financial guys, I also mean like counts.
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But, you know, and then obviously, of course, over the course of time we built this
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really great book of business and our clients really like us and trust us and so they tend to
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refer us business as well. But everything I did was always focused on just being in front of
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as many real estate agents as possible and then just getting there and trying to, you know,
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differentiate yourself from everybody else and I tried to not do it from a product standpoint.
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You know, because I feel like everybody goes in and sits down and says the same things.
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I just wanted to get them to know me as a person, want to give me a shot and then once
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say, give me a shot and really just wild them with how different our communication and process
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and efficiency is versus our competition.
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So what would you say to those listening, you know, you've obviously got a well-established
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brand in your community and I think everything you shared is definitely spot on and then you've
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worked, you've worked with a lot of LLOs, you got LLOs on your team, you coach them and maybe
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you don't run into this because of, you know, the brand and the platform you've built there
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like when a new LLO comes on your team. But I know other LLOs when I teach them that same thing.
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Right. Oftentimes the frustration or challenges they have is, well, how do I uniquely position
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myself or, you know, oh, I met with them and, you know, they haven't sent me any business. So,
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are there any like, you know, script strategies or, you know, kind of mindsets that you put into place,
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processes, you know, to help move that relationship forward?
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Does that make sense at all? Yeah, I mean, I really think, you know,
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just like any other type of business or sales or whatever you want to call it, you know,
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I really just think it's all about asking for the business. So, when I'm meeting with these people,
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you know, I literally asked them, hey, would you mind sending me your next deal? You know, like,
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it's literally that simple. All right. So, yeah, I, you know, I asked them for the business and
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hey, nothing happened. I don't know if that's, I'm sure that happened to you early on,
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but how would you address that? I mean, you know, it's a numbers game, bottom line, like I'm not
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going to pretend like I get deals from every single person I meet with, you know, if I'm consistently
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meeting with people, whether it's three a week, five a week, one a week, whatever that number is,
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that I'm going to get some, right? I'm not going to get every single one. It's virtually impossible,
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right? You know, with great baseball player, you know, if they had 300, you know, they're, you know,
18:26
and they all start game, right? So, like, you know, it's the same thing, like you have to,
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you have to have your foundation for like what your goals are every single week, but, you know,
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I think it's a matter, it's a matter of falling up with them, you know, with emails in terms of,
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for example, like every Friday, I send an email to make sure that everybody knows that I'm
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around this weekend and doing pre-approvals, right? It goes up to my entire filter database.
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And I don't do that for any other reason. One, it's just a reminder, and two, I'm in their email
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all weekend. So if they do have a client that needs a pre-approval, and they have something that,
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you know, they're at a house on a Saturday or Sunday, and they're like, you know,
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clients as I need a pre-approval, my mortgage guy said he's around this weekend. Here's his
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contact. You'd be surprised by the amount of realtors that give me a shot for the first time,
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just because they know I'm available on weekends. And again, you know, meet with somebody,
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you have a coffee or a lunch, and then they don't send you anything. It's okay to follow up with them,
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and give them phone calls, and send them emails and text messages, and just keep asking for the
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business. In a non-knowing type of way, I'm not very aggressive, like as much as I say, I ask for
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the business, I'm also like, if it's not the right fit, and they're just not comfortable to send me
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business, I'm going to eventually leave them alone. But, you know, it's important to kind of get
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them to realize that like, I find that if you ask for it enough, all I'm looking for, right, is one
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deal, right, from that person, because I feel like my process and communication, my team are so
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good now at this point, that if we do one deal, and then they go somewhere else, and they convert
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to somebody else, is they're going to keep coming back to us, right, or what they're going to cost
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them to, I actually need them to give me one layup. And then once I get it, you know, from the time
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I do the pre-approval to the loan, it's been processed, the closing, after closing, I think they're
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blown away by how, how much we're communicating with them, keeping them in the loop, and the love
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that their client's getting. But, you know, it's not just like, I don't have like a magic word
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that I'm saying to somebody that's like, hey, there's not like a script. I think, you know,
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it's really important that, you know, when I go into these meetings, I'm not really just talking
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about myself. Frankly, I'm doing just a lot of question asking, and I'm trying to learn about
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them. I find that, you know, generally when people talk about themselves, they think that the meeting
20:20
went really great when they love talking about their business, and what their goals are. Like,
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I want to learn everything about them. I want to learn about what their goals are, how they go
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into the business, what the deals with their family, what their, you know, what their business
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goals are, what their personal goals are. And then I asked them, you know, what's, what are they
20:34
looking for in their loan officer relationships? You know, what's important to them? Are they looking
20:39
for people that are going to deliver great experience, speed, are they looking for a client
20:44
referrals back? Like, what's important to them? And then I just try to make sure that if I'm
20:48
the right fit for them, I communicate that if I'm not the right fit for them, then I probably just
20:51
don't follow up very much. You know, I try to also be picky with like, I don't just work with
20:56
everybody, right? You know, I try to generally speaking like, what's the real truth that I work with
21:00
in a real estate agency? I work with, I become super friendly with because I get along with
21:04
these people really well. It's hard to generate like really great relationships and get
21:08
business from people that you're just not a good fit with from a personality match standpoint.
21:12
And eventually it's going to fall off anyway. So I find that most agents I work with, I genuinely
21:16
enjoy talking to, finding out what's going on with work and what's going on with their personal
21:19
lives and everybody and we've just become friends. And most of the people that I've worked with
21:24
have been working with for a very, very long time now. And we don't. And it also makes it easier
21:28
because the reality is this is a tough business, right? There's a lot of parts things go wrong.
21:32
You know, it's nice to be able to call somebody and have a really honest conversation with them
21:35
is to, hey, what's going on and everybody has these other facts that you get through it together
21:38
as opposed to not having the type of relationship where things can get off track and not having
21:43
somebody kind of helping you through it. All right. So we're going to transition in a minute to
21:48
like business and process and all that. But how do you deal with the realtor who
21:54
pretty soon in the conversation? Well, to give you a couple examples. Well, you know, I get leads
22:00
from my other lender. That's why I work with them. Or yeah, I'd love to do a, you know, a
22:04
co-marketing thing on Zilla, whatever, if you're going to help me pay for it. How do you,
22:08
how do you handle those situations when you run into them? Yeah, absolutely. So I mean,
22:12
with the whole getting leads from, you know, the law officers and we totally, yeah, I try to do
22:18
a really great job. If my client's coming attached, it's part of my business plan is to try to
22:22
refer out as much business as possible. One more importantly, because I know that if I put them in
22:27
touch with my realtors that I know it like trust, they're going to do a good job for those clients.
22:30
And those clients are going to be more sticky to me. You know, I am, I remember one of the biggest
22:34
things that B&I, the little slogan there is givers can. And I find that the more business you
22:38
give out, the more you get back, more just out of a matter of good faith. And I like referring
22:42
out business if I get satisfaction out of it. I feel good about it. Like it's, so I do try to
22:46
refer up business however, you know, so the more realtors, I know in different locations in
22:50
geographies and different personality messages. I have matches. I try to match up my clients with
22:54
them whenever the opportunity arises. But that's not what I'm really all about. It'd be perfect
22:58
honestly. Like if you're going to send me business, it's because you want to make sure your clients
23:02
are taken care of. You want to make sure the quality of the work. You want to make sure when your
23:06
offer is accepted that, you know, we're going to hit every single date. Nothing's going to go wrong.
23:11
It's going to go smooth. So I'm a good fit for a realtor as a loan officer. If they just want
23:15
the best experience and they and somebody they can count on deliver a really great process
23:20
and product, not just because they're going to get a couple deals. Like if they're just looking for
23:23
a couple deals a year, you know, I bring a lot more to the table than that. In terms of the
23:28
co-marketing stuff, you know, it's one, again, it's one of those things. I'll never jump into a
23:31
relationship and start spending dollars. Those never worked out. You know, I've never, you know,
23:36
there's no relationship there. It's all about money and I just don't think it's a great way to
23:39
build a business. You know, anytime I've ever helped with like from a marketing standpoint, whether
23:43
it's, you know, open houses and events and all that kind of stuff, it's always the people that we
23:47
have long-term relationships with that, you know, it just makes sense just like in any other business.
23:52
But we would never lead into a relationship with that stuff. When I just explain to them,
23:55
I hope you understand that, you know, that's not that's not the way we go on to business relationships.
24:00
If you know, if it's something you want to do in the future after we've done a bunch of business
24:02
together, something we'd be open to talking about, but it's not how we answer into a relationship.
24:07
Wow, that's powerful. That's really taking control of the conversation and it's setting the
24:13
premise, right? The tone of the relationship. And I like that because it's not, you know, money
24:19
allows would rush to, okay, I got to do this co-marketing thing with this realtor, right?
24:23
Because he's a top producer and he wants us to like kick in to Zillow and, you know, to your point.
24:28
And I'm sure many listeners who've been down that road where it's like if it starts at money,
24:32
yeah, that's that's the wrong premise. It never works. You know, I've had a lot of learning
24:37
experiences over the course of my career. You know, those never work. And you know,
24:41
the one of the biggest things I've learned on my career, whether it's with realtor's, with clients,
24:45
it's just knowing when you're not the right fit with somebody. It's really hard to make yourself
24:50
the right fit, like you're either the right fit or you're not. So it's like, and when, you know,
24:53
I have a lot of clients, I have a lot of clients that come to me and I know I can't do that
24:56
deal just because we can't offer them the product they need. But a lot of times I know they can go,
25:00
they're going to be able to, they're financeable, but I'm just not the right fit. And I have
25:04
a group of loan officers out there, different, whether it's commercial or foil blenders,
25:09
you know, certain banks and credit unions that do certain nichy products that we're just not
25:13
interested in doing. And I, I refer out a ton of business to other loan originators. When I
25:17
came into the deal, when I know they can say yes, because I'd rather have everybody refer me
25:21
every single deal, let me figure out where the loan should go. So I, I don't want to just say no
25:24
and show them, but I've become very confident saying no, but somebody else is a better fit.
25:28
Same thing with my realtor partners, like I can just tell right away whether I'm going to be a good
25:31
personality matching somebody. If I am, you know, I'm going steam ahead and trying to, you know,
25:36
cultivate that relationship. If I'm not, then I just kind of have that gut feeling and walk away
25:40
because there's, there's so much business being done out there. Yeah, there's so many
25:43
realtors, there's so many clients buying homes. You know, it's, you're, you're going to be,
25:48
you're going to have more satisfaction in your job and your life and everything. If you're just
25:52
working with people that you really enjoy being around and a good fit for you, as opposed to,
25:56
you know, yeah, how would you feel good about it all day, every single day, you know, you're buying
25:59
all your relationships? That would be, that's not a sustainable business. And it's also, it's just,
26:04
that's, that feels good. Yeah. Alright, so let me bring up, you know, the talk crack of price
26:09
for a moment because I'm sure you deal with price and I hear a lot of things in the marketplace
26:15
about the G-Rate price and the, in the good rates, if you will, in air quotes. So I'm trying to
26:25
figure out how do I ask you this question. I mean, I guess I'll have to both ways is that one,
26:29
do you run into, you know, price issues on deals and then how do you move the conversation
26:35
from price to advice? Great question. I think that, yeah, of course. I mean, everybody does.
26:40
You know, we have a really great product set, conventional FHA,
26:46
about conventional and guvvy jumbo. I mean, we're, we're, we're a very diverse, right? But at
26:51
the end of the day, there's always going to be somebody that is, you know, going after a certain
26:56
amount of business aggressively, whether it's in the jumbo space or conventional or whatever it is.
27:01
So I find that, you know, we're, price very aggressively, we're always going to be, you know,
27:06
at the very top of where we should be in terms of the market, that's what we want to be in,
27:09
but there's always going to be somebody can probably price that a little bit more aggressively,
27:12
right? If they want to, there's a lot of like rate sheet lenders out there now that are just,
27:17
you know, giving the price away. Yeah, especially in purchase market. Yeah, big time. You know,
27:21
we're definitely not in every single price, you know, category, the most aggressively price,
27:26
but I find that, you know, and if you look at any type of business, like the companies that
27:30
work on the lowest margins, like how long do those generally last, right? Like you want the
27:33
company to make money and you want to be able to make money so that you can build the sustainable
27:37
business that you can keep bringing investing in, right? And so, you know, I think that, you know,
27:42
a lot of the work to get away from price right off the bat is before you even get to that point,
27:47
right? So, you know, I think when a client calls me, I never, like, if a client just wants to
27:52
talk about a rate, like it's not, that's not my, that's not my thing. Like I want to get to know
27:57
everything about them. I want to understand their goals, their needs. I want to build rapport,
28:00
right? I want to understand, you know, when they want to buy, why they want to buy, you know,
28:06
everything about them, right? And then I establish, you know, who I am in the business, what my
28:11
brand is, what my reputation is, you know, what my experience is, and why that will help them,
28:17
you know, I want to explain to them everything that we're going to talk about up front in terms of
28:21
what entails a pre-approval. Why I'm going to, what I'm going to go through regarding their credit,
28:25
their income, their assets, educate them on why those are important, talk about the type of
28:29
collateral, whether it's a condo, single family, investment property. And then once I get all that
28:34
out of the way, I explain to them, you know, I educate them on their pre-approval. So what they're
28:38
max pre-approval is what their comfort zone is, what their payments are going to be, what goes into
28:42
those payments regarding insurance, taxes, PMI, condo fees, all that stuff, what their down payment
28:47
options, whether they want to put down 20% or whether the ability to put down 5% or whatever,
28:52
what their closing costs are going to be, when those are due, and then different types of products,
28:56
whether it's fixed or an arm. So I go through all that stuff. And then, you know, throughout the
29:01
course that I'm reporting, and then I'm following up and I'm talking, and then I try to make my clients
29:06
pretty sticky to me. So every time they want to make an offer afterwards, I want them to get a
29:10
customized pre-approval letter from me. I want to get on the phone with them and say, you know,
29:13
specifically for this property, you know, here's what your payments look like, your rate at the
29:17
current time, closing costs again, all that stuff. I find that the more of those conversations I have
29:21
up front, then, you know, by the time they get their offer accepted, you know, it's really not about
29:25
price anymore because you become their friend, their advisor, you've already put the work, and
29:29
they want to award you for it, and they just want to know, hey, tell me what's next. So it's really
29:34
establishing that before you get the price. But if say, you know, a client comes to me with, you know,
29:40
offer accepted, we haven't had time to build some reports. So I got to kind of reel it back in,
29:43
like, I'm never one of those people who are if a client just like sends me an email and they
29:47
am talking at six different lenders sending me your best rate on the 30 or fixed, like, I don't
29:52
even know where to start there. I was like, you can't. I mean, there's too many, there's too many
29:55
variables and factors to just send out a rate, you know, without even talking to somebody.
29:59
So, you know, I try to make it more than just about rate. You know, I find that when we do
30:05
have to compete on rate, you know, we'll win some, we'll lose some. I mean, I think that's the way
30:08
it is for everybody. There's no, I don't know of any lender that's going to win every single time,
30:12
or any loan offset. It's going to win every single time. I'm a big believer in that relationship,
30:16
totally makes a big difference. You know, there's a lot of clients that are waving mortgage
30:19
contingencies right now. And mostly some of these busier markets, you know, in order to get your
30:23
offer accepted, you got to close quickly. And you got to, a lot of times have confidence that
30:28
your lender is going to be able to deliver if you don't have a mortgage contingency because you might
30:31
be competing against some cash offers. And that's where like, I really might value those wayway up
30:36
because I can do both those things. If I say I'm going to do it, it deals getting done. And if I,
30:41
I'm going to deliver it at that point, you know, you're going to jeopardize a $50,000 deposit,
30:44
$100,000 deposit over an eighth of a point or a quarter percent interest rate.
30:47
Right. Right. So, so if there's a contingency, like, must close in 21 days, for example,
30:52
right, you'll obviously have the conversation to demonstrate that you can do that. And you'll,
30:55
you'll get the stuff done on your side, the pre-approval, the, you know, all that kind of jazz
31:00
conditions removed to the degree you can within that time frame. 100 percent.
31:04
Yeah. Do you get involved in any, you know, cross qualifying on listings, you know, how you,
31:11
what's the listing agent would have you written in to the notes on their purchase contract?
31:15
Yeah, definitely, especially in multiple offers situations. You know, they obviously they can't
31:19
force them to work with us. But they can't require them to get a pre-approval from us.
31:24
And then it's on me to, you know, show the value in terms of like, you know, why I'm a good fit.
31:29
And again, just go back to report building and getting them to like entrust us and understand why
31:34
we're better fit than whoever they're working with. But yeah, a lot, you know, I'm happy to do that.
31:38
You know, it's, it's a little bit labor intensive because, you know, some people have already built
31:42
a great relationship and they're just going to use you for that pre-approval letter, which I'll
31:45
find with like to me, that's a, that is a good use of my time. I'm talking to a client that's,
31:50
you know, making offers that's a series of a buy-out place. So I find that, you know, I can have
31:54
a bunch of those conversations and it works in my favor more often than not. But yeah, I love that
31:59
stuff. To be honest, I've done it for a very, very long time. It helps you win deals.
32:03
It helps you win deals and it helps separate, you like, it helps you meet realtors. You know,
32:06
I can't tell you how many times, you know, I've met new relationships just because of those
32:11
situations. I think, you know, if you're a loan officer, if you can get your listing agents
32:15
to require a pre-approval from you, whether, you know, and that happens a lot with builders as well,
32:20
you know, there's a lot of really successful loan officers that I know that don't work with
32:23
realtors at all and they do all their business with builders and the builders ride into the contract
32:27
right there and that, you know, I know in order for them to get their offer considered,
32:31
they at least have that pre-approval. They end up when, you know, I find that really good people
32:35
that know what they're talking about. If you're putting yourself in a situation, you're going to
32:40
have a pretty good success right there. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. Okay. Good stuff. Let's transition
32:44
that into building a team. And for those listening, if you just give it, I definitely talked about this
32:50
in the intro, but I think this is critical to know because I'm a big guy all about process and
32:55
and you and I talked to before, you know, you were at a point in your career when you got out of the
32:59
the phone sales and into on the streets retail, you know, you were building up some momentum and
33:04
got to a certain level of production and at some point, there comes that conversation, okay,
33:08
I need an assistant, right? And if I'm going to continue to grow my business, you've grown way
33:11
beyond that, right? With about 19 people on your team. If I'm correct, you are tracking to do what?
33:17
40 to 50 million a month? Yeah. So the last two months, I did, I did 55 million in June that
33:23
just closed out and I did I think 52 million in May. So first time ever that we had broken 50 million
33:31
in a month and we did it back to back, which was pretty cool. Last year we, we closed 400, I think,
33:37
I don't know, 435 million or something. So we did 40 million a bunch of times last year,
33:40
but we were ever able to break through 50. So we've done that a couple times this year.
33:44
I think the thing I'm proud of most is that, you know, I'd say about 85% of my business is purchase
33:48
business. So, you know, the last month, for example, I think we closed like 122 deals or 128
33:55
deals and over 100 of them were purchase deals. So I mean, we're still doing some refinances,
33:59
but I've very purchased driven. So yeah, so finally busted through 50 million, which is a year-long
34:05
yeah, congratulations, man, that's just like amazing. So in hearing that, a lot of people are
34:10
blown away, you know, they're like, oh my god, how's that even possible? And like you and I talk
34:14
about before, a lot of people listening, loan officers, right, that's not necessarily their goal.
34:18
I mean, they'd like to get the 50 million in a year, right? Let alone a month. Yeah, yeah.
34:23
So, but going back, so we got L.O.'s listening, it's like either they're going to hire or hope to
34:27
hire an assistant or an L.O.A., you know, something like a junior. What best advice would you give for
34:34
somebody who's at that cusp, you know, where it's like, damn, I need to get a team member if
34:37
I'm going to scale and grow my business. What things do they need to have in place? What lessons
34:41
did you learn? That kind of jazz. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of lessons learned. You know, every time,
34:46
I'm finally at the point in my career right now where I'm hiring ahead of the curve, as opposed to
34:50
out of necessity, like, whereas my first like two years, I always hire when it was too late. But,
34:56
you know, when I go to about, I think when you start getting to doing about, you know,
35:00
somewhere between 30 and 40 million, that's when you need to start considering hiring an
35:06
assistant. So I did it when I was getting just broke through 40 and I realized that I was having
35:11
it and granted, I wasn't at the time. I wasn't at nearly as good of a company as I am right now.
35:15
So I have a lot more support process, technology, everything, you know, product, everything is
35:21
better here than where I was at before. But, you know, when I got two before 40 million, I actually
35:25
will honestly say that five or six years ago, I did like 50 million bucks and I was miserable,
35:29
right? It was everything was on me. Literally, I was miserable to the point where like I was like
35:33
trying to figure out whether I even want to stay in this business or not because I was, I just
35:38
wasn't enjoying it. Like, I didn't feel like I was delivering great service to my clients and
35:41
I feel like I had any freedom to like leave the office or go on vacation or take a day off.
35:47
I was, you know, I was literally selling loans, clearing conditions, locking loans, clearing
35:51
conditions, working with the closing department, like helping up, sending closing back, like literally
35:55
involved in everything. Now, it's just not, and that's not like stuff that I'm passionate about,
35:59
you know, like it's, I'm passionate about developing new business, growing my team and doing,
36:04
doing closing deals, like I, you know, I still love talking to my clients and selling deals,
36:08
like that's fun to me. When I started getting involved in other stuff, like what I'd find,
36:12
what happens when you're doing everything you yourself is that you sell for like two weeks,
36:17
and then all you do is, you know, process for two weeks, and it's, it's just too up and down,
36:23
you're up and down months, it's hard to get consistent. Whereas now, I'm literally just selling
36:27
every single day. So I'm consistently able to put up big numbers because all I do is sell all day long.
36:33
But, you know, when I got to that, you know, 40 million mark, I think, I think part of the thing is,
36:38
the reason people don't hire assistance sooner is confidence, right? Confidence that,
36:43
hey, you can afford it, you'll be able to train the person that you love a planet that you can,
36:49
that they'll be able to make money. Yeah, there's a lot of things that are, you're a fear factors,
36:53
but once you get over those, you know, it's huge. You know, I always kind of, every time I add somebody,
36:58
I kind of look at it like, I always look at two things. If I hire this person, am I either going to
37:03
do more business, or am I going to get some of my life back? And if as long as I can,
37:07
if I can make the same amount of money and get some of my life back and get some free time to spend
37:11
with my wife and kids, I'm okay with that, or if I do more business, I'm okay with that. But if
37:15
it's not going to do one of those two things, then I'm not interested, then they're not the right
37:19
fit. So it's hard to hire, you know, so, you know, I think one person is, you know, come up with all
37:26
the high leverage activities that you want to be doing and then write down all the things that you
37:29
don't want to be involved in, and that's what you train that person. But it's not the key mistake
37:34
that most loan originators make when they hire an assistant is just assuming that that person's
37:38
going to figure out everything on their own, but they're not. So if like, you're really good,
37:42
like I was really good at clearing conditions, right? When I'd call a client, I'd get on the phone
37:46
with them, and I'd be like, this is what I need, exactly how I needed, when I needed, now they'd get
37:50
it to me. I'd never have a problem with that. So when I hired an assistant, I was like, you know,
37:54
here's I asked for it, here's exactly what you say, here's what they may say, and here's what you say
37:58
back, and this is like, you know, having checklists for them to follow. I was literally chasing down
38:03
all my condos, right? Like I was literally collecting condodocks, condo questionnaires, master insurance,
38:08
budgets. Well, it's one thing for me to not want to do that stuff anymore, but it's a really important,
38:13
you know, I do four to five hundred condos a year. So I hired somebody and their full-time job now
38:18
is tracking down condo stuff, and it's, you know, I need them to know what they're looking at when
38:22
they're looking at a master deed and buy loss. I need them to know what they're looking for for
38:25
the master insurance. I need them to know what they're looking for in a budget, what questionnaires
38:29
stuff they should be, you know, so I've really trained those people in all those things. What to
38:35
look at, I only look at appraisals now when it's a problem, right? Like I've never used it in light,
38:40
that's when it gets brought to my attention. But the other, you know, a hundred appraisals that
38:44
come in, I never even look at it, but somebody on my team is looking at them, my eye is essentially
38:48
knowing what I'm looking for and bringing it to me if it's an issue. The first and foremost thing I
38:52
would do is one, you know, like take all the administrative stuff off your plate. Like you want to
38:58
be focused on it, essentially selling all day long. So administrative stuff, whether it's chasing
39:02
conditions, insurance, condo stuff, you know, set ordering appraisals on ordering title work,
39:06
somebody should be doing all that stuff for you, you shouldn't be doing that yourself. And then,
39:10
you know, the more and more business you do, you'll be able to tell a kind of like, I've been
39:13
able to tell every single time I've hit a new milestone. Like I remember I went from 50 million
39:19
to like 126 after I heard my first assistant and I went to 180 and at 180 or one, sorry, 160,
39:24
we hit a major like roadblock again, we were we weren't staffed enough and then I had to bring on
39:28
somebody else. And like then we got up to like, you know, a couple years later, we got up to 300,
39:32
we hit a, you know, a major roadblock in terms of we weren't growing, we had to hire some more people
39:38
to do, we're big into specialization. And then, and then, you know, this past year, we got up
39:43
to 430 and I knew we could do more. And now we're trying to knock out 500 million. And I feel like
39:48
for the over the last year, I'm finally hiring a head of growth as opposed to when you'll be a roadblock.
39:54
It's important. You can see you're coming. Do you have any pre-hiring, you know, processes or,
39:58
you know, a lot of people use the disc profile. Do you, do you have anybody do stuff like that before,
40:02
as you're vetting them out? You know, I, you know, the one thing I've learned is that every time I've
40:07
ever made a mistake hiring, it's always been when I've hired somebody that comes from the working
40:11
business on the sales side. So anytime I, I generally hire people from outside the business might,
40:16
only failures that I've had from the hiring standpoint have been people that already came with
40:20
previous loan off experience, just never works out. Well, that's interesting. Why, why is that man,
40:25
bad habits or what? Yeah, bad habits, preconceived notions. You know, I got into this business,
40:30
you know, without any experience. And I, I did pretty well. So I'm kind of looking for people.
40:34
Well, you know, I, I do generally like to hire people with previous experience in some form of
40:39
life, whether it's sales or other jobs that have, you know, had some good coaching, but in that
40:42
translates over to well. But I find that with loan officers that want to be like sales assistants,
40:48
like they just, they've just got bad habits. And it's really hard to reteach those things. I,
40:52
I'd rather just teach, I'd rather be the one that creates a foundation, you know, from some,
40:57
from scratch. And I'd really just looking for people that are coachable, hard working, and hungry,
41:02
you know, and people that are, you know, I just, I haven't had any successful hard bringing
41:07
loan officers onto my team that, that maybe just weren't having success in their own right. But
41:12
from an op standpoint, from like, you know, my loan processors and that's, I do like having people
41:18
with experience, although even that's not a requisite, you know, so I just, you put them in the
41:24
right environment, you can coach them and teach them, and you know, we're doing enough transactions
41:28
where they can learn on the fly. When we bring somebody on, we have a, now we have a, you know,
41:32
structured method in terms of like what they need to learn and, you know, how we kind of bring
41:37
them in little by little by little. I find that it takes about, you know, six months to a year for
41:41
somebody to like really fully being reigned where they're off on their own. But, but that's okay,
41:46
because that's part of it, you know, any company, nobody ever hires anybody and that person's
41:49
an expert right off of that. Yeah. So how many LOs do you have on your team? So on my own,
41:54
individual team, I don't have any loan officers that are like, I'm kind of getting credit for
42:00
your business at all. I have, I have three sales assistants that help me, you know, take applications.
42:08
Speaking of that, yeah, sorry to interrupt, but speaking of that is, I was, I wanted to ask you,
42:12
that's why you triggered that. What is your, your process? Because a lot of the folks that I'm
42:17
working with that want to grow and scale, they're in this dilemma of like, well, do I take the 1003?
42:22
Do I just be the, you know, loan consultant and flip over the 1003? What's your process? Yeah,
42:27
I'll take 1003s myself if like I have to in a sense that like if it's like a time constraint,
42:34
where they just got to get it done right away. Or if the client just is not comfortable,
42:38
either having somebody else on my team take it for me or doing it online. I'm a huge
42:43
proponent of the online application. So we have a really great online application. I,
42:48
you know, I try to work by appointment only for the most part, you know, as much as I can. I don't,
42:53
you know, I build in times where that's not realistic throughout the course of my day,
42:57
but you know, I try to set appointments with all my clients. I find that, you know,
43:00
busy, successful people appreciate having an appointment and it works well for me to be able
43:04
to talk to as many people on a day as I can. When I build and make an appointment with somebody,
43:09
I try to have them complete my online application first and try to get me as much of their documents
43:13
up front. So I just find that I can have a really powerful impact on the conversation that happened.
43:18
It's a buddy that they've already completed my application. I find that I get bored
43:22
if I'm taking down like email addresses and phone numbers and addresses and work history and all that
43:26
kind of stuff. Like I don't, I lose attention. I just, I get I'm not as good of a salesperson,
43:31
I'm not passionate. I just kind of start, I'm just not as good, you know, like if I'm having to do
43:35
all that stuff. So having all that stuff ready for me is important because then I can, again,
43:39
build before I find out what they want to do and then explain everything they need to know about
43:43
their credit, their income, their assets and their payments and their closing costs and the product
43:46
products and make sure they get it. I feel like I'm teaching at that point and explaining and
43:51
educating as opposed to just like data entry. I hate data entry. There's no way I can do other
43:56
business that I need to do and want to do. It's impossible. So a lot of mine, somebody calls me.
44:02
I try to make an appointment, have them put in all that application or I give them the option.
44:06
I have one of my team members called them to take the application over the phone instead of
44:10
applying it with me. And then, you know, there is I probably take, you know, probably one or two
44:16
a day myself where I'm just doing it from start to finish only because it's like a last minute
44:19
thing offers to and they need to know right away and I'm just like, you know, let's do it.
44:22
Wow. Very interesting. But, but if I heard what correctly what you're saying is,
44:27
by and large, your role then is to once they've in a perfect process, once they've taken the
44:32
online app or gotten the app from someone else on your team, you're there as, right, having the
44:37
the loan conversation, as you said, to use the word teaching, right? So you're being that trusted
44:42
advisor to help direct them in the direction they should go, build some rapport, give them their
44:46
options and all that. But once that conversation's done, is it then flipped over your team and are
44:51
you then kind of out of the mix by and large? No. So, I mean, here's the best way I can describe it.
44:56
And I really mean this as an eligible guest. So like, you go to the doctor's office for your
45:00
physical, right? When you first get in there, you fill out a bunch of paperwork, right?
45:04
Probably with an admin or a secretary, right? The doctor's not taking any of that information.
45:08
Right. Then you go into a writing room, you know, they you sit in there and somebody comes in,
45:12
takes your temperature, your, you know, your pulse, all that kind of stuff, whatever else they do
45:16
and ask you a bunch of questions. The doctor's also not the one doing that. But then the doctor
45:19
comes in and does all the meat and potatoes and gives you, you know, reads everything that
45:23
everybody's done so far, you know, spends time with you and then is out of there, right? And then
45:27
but they've done all the important stuff because that's they're the experts. Same thing with me,
45:31
like I'm not the one doing data entry, you know, getting the basics, sending out emails initially
45:36
up front to, you know, collect paperwork, that's what my team's doing. So I'm fresh, excited and
45:41
fired up to do all the stuff in terms of educating my clients about everything. And then after that,
45:46
you know, we issue the pre-approval, you know, I have, I have scripts and follow-up campaigns,
45:50
mostly we follow up by email and text with our clients in terms of like, hey, how's your home
45:54
search going? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Once they find a house, offers accepted. That's when I jump
45:59
back in, I, you know, close the deal. I generally lock every single one of my loans. Yeah, because we
46:05
have a lot of things to pick from. It's not, it's not just a matter of putting the lowest rate as
46:08
everybody on this probably knows, you know, you have to pick investors, you know, based on other
46:12
products and, you know, their qualifications. Then, you know, I sent pretty detailed instructions
46:17
to my processing team in terms of like everything, I feel like they need to know on the file.
46:22
And then, you know, my processing team takes it from there. Like, once I've blocked the loan,
46:25
I agree the terms of the client, let them know how the process is going to look from here.
46:29
And who will be involved in the loan from there on out, finally jump in if they need me for
46:34
important stuff. I generally try to only jump in if they have questions about the loan product,
46:38
price, closing costs, really any of the number of stuff. In terms of documentation collection
46:43
or questions around the docs, I let my team do it because at this point, they do a much better
46:47
job of that stuff than I do. They're experts at it. They don't talk price, product, and rates.
46:51
That's my job. They talk documents, underwriting guidelines,
46:55
clear to closes and all that kind of stuff. Nice. And then, what about post closing? What's that
47:00
process look like? So, you know, we send out a survey to every single one of my clients to make sure
47:05
that we did a good job. Surveys are shared with every single one of my team members that were
47:09
involved in the loan. And we want to get feedback from the clients just how they thought the process
47:14
went, what they liked and what they didn't like. And I think that everybody on my team cares about
47:18
those things. So, they read it and we try to focus and get better. Yeah, we send them a thank you email.
47:23
I don't do a ton of like phone calls and conversations after closing, you know, immediately.
47:28
You know, there's emails that go out. I don't call them just because we're closing somewhere
47:33
between 100 to, you know, 120 loans a month. It's hard to make that many phone calls.
47:38
And, you know, that's something that we could definitely work on and process that, you know,
47:41
will probably implement at some point, you know, a lot of times we try to help them out with their
47:45
first payment just because that seems to be a question that pops up a lot. And then afterwards,
47:49
you know, we have email campaigns that go out about whether they want to refinance in the future
47:53
or they're thinking about buying another house and we stay in touch with them. You know,
47:55
I recall times here, both through emails that we send out individually as a team and then my
48:00
county sends it on my behalf. So we stay in touch with them largely by email. I am about to
48:06
implement a process where we're actually calling them, you know, ideally twice a year or just to
48:11
check in and let them know we're here because one of my things that still drives me insane to this
48:15
thing. It's like it's just a major lecton as when I find out one of my clients refinance or
48:19
bought with somebody else just because they forgot to call us. And it's usually not intentional.
48:23
They just do it because, you know, they're realtor puts them in touch with somebody else. They saw
48:26
a commercial or they realize that you can help them. So stuff like that. And speaking of surveys,
48:31
I was curious what you used for that. Are you doing it like any online reviews and stuff? How do
48:34
you capture that real quick? So yeah. So I mean, we asked them for, we asked them to review what
48:39
I saw in a zero-hole yell Facebook, Google, like we send out an email asking them to
48:44
sit or review on that stuff and then give them the links to all those places they can do for us.
48:50
I think all the reviews are getting more and more important. So we 100% ask for that.
48:55
And then just to survey itself, you know, says, you know, I do think the process went, you know,
49:01
if then this is at a high level. I mean, how do you process went? Do you like your loan officer?
49:05
Would you recommend guaranteed raid and shot? What would you do differently? You know, if there's
49:09
any feedback, you give us what would it be? Stuff like that. And so it gives them the opportunity
49:13
of one raid that's on a skill of one to 10, but also provide, you know, a written feedback as well.
49:18
Got it. Very cool. That's how you improve. I mean, really honestly, as much as I'd like to say,
49:22
you know, I wish everybody gave me a tag and, you know, that makes you feel good when you have
49:26
those, but there's really some really great learning experience you have from one of the clients that
49:29
say, hey, this is what I didn't like or this is what could have improved or this is what are wrong.
49:34
Like that's really really learned. So, you know, it's really easy to say, oh, that client didn't know
49:38
what they were talking about or can you believe that person? Like they have no idea. But, and that's
49:42
like everybody's, you know, a lot of people's natural reaction, but that's like gold right there.
49:46
You know, that's people can really, you know, they're not giving you that feedback because it,
49:50
you know, they're generally a lot of people that give me feedback or like just truly want us to
49:54
improve, you know, and they're, so you got to listen to that stuff. You can't be, you got to be a
49:59
little bit thick skinned, but you can't like get upset at those people because that's not the whole
50:02
point of it. Like you're never going to improve. You can't really think everybody else is wrong.
50:05
That's right, man. That's good points. Feedback. Well, this has been very informative. You know,
50:10
there was one question I wanted to answer. I'm a little bit reluctant because it could be a long
50:13
weighted answer, but I'm going to go forward anyways. Did you set out to be, you know, the mega
50:19
producer you are? Like if you look back when you were at that, you know, the call center and stuff,
50:24
and you're like, okay, I got to switch out of the call center. You know, had you, I mean, I get the
50:28
sense you're obviously a go-getter app anyways, getting after it. But, did you make that conscious
50:34
choice? Like I want to be the number one mortgage guy and the entire state of Massachusetts?
50:38
You know, not really. No. To be honest with you, it's kind of like you're just the environment
50:45
that I'm in. So like when I was at, when I first got into the business at my current company,
50:51
at the company I first started out like, you know, we're on lending tree. And I was like, well,
50:54
if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be the top lending tree guy at the company. And I eventually
50:58
figured out how to do that. And then, you know, when I first got into the retail side of things,
51:02
you know, I was at a small local, I'm a small, you know, regional mortgage company. And I was
51:07
like, oh, I'm from here. I might as well, you know, talk guys doing something. I got to figure out
51:11
150 million. I might as well be here. Yeah. And like when I first got, when I first got the guarantee
51:16
rate, I was literally doing $50 million and I was like killing myself. And there was like something
51:20
like 15 people that had done a hundred million. There was like a couple people that had done 200
51:24
million. There was one guy that did 300 and there was even a guy that did 400 million that year.
51:27
And I thought it was like a complete fabrication. Like that was like, there's no way that's possible.
51:32
And like then I started getting exposed to stuff like Scotsman's Guide, Mortgage Market Guide,
51:36
like all these other, and all those publications that put out like the numbers. And I was looking
51:39
at these numbers and I was like, these are big numbers. And you just got to start, you know,
51:44
I share best practice with some of the biggest producers in the country, both at my company
51:49
and at other companies as well. They have become friendly with over the time. I love where I work
51:53
because there is so many big producers here. So it keeps you competitive. It's a healthy
51:57
competition. It's fun. They're all in different markets, but everybody's doing different things
52:02
that constantly, you know, it's funny. Like there's a bunch of people that are doing a big amount
52:06
of business, but everybody's the team's the structure a little bit differently. Everybody goes
52:09
after different kinds of business. So I'm constantly just trying to figure out, you know, what they're
52:13
doing and how I can implement that and share what we're doing and how they can, they can use some
52:17
of that stuff in their market. But my whole thing is like, I'm going to play in the sandbox. I want to be,
52:22
you know, one of the better guys doing it. And so we're just constantly trying to focus on how to
52:27
improve our processes, be more efficient with our time and our day and our clients and just do
52:33
a better job. So ultimately, if I'm going to do it, I want to do it well. It's good for the brand to
52:37
be considered one of the better originators in the industry and in the state. And I don't know,
52:42
it's just I've always been a competitive person by nature. I like working hard. I like having
52:47
success. So all those things kind of lead into, you know, being in successful, I guess.
52:51
Yeah. Well, I tell you what, what I really love about you, man, is not only are you, you know,
52:56
a go-getter and you want to be successful and you definitely hold yourself to high standards.
53:00
I really get from you that, you know, to your point about your sharing best practices with people
53:04
at competing companies, et cetera. You know, you've got the right mindset, the right vision,
53:08
you're a go-giver instead of a go-taker. And so you are a complement to the industry and to
53:13
loan originators around the country. And, you know, if we just had more people cut from the same
53:18
cloth of like, look, man, there's the pie is big enough for everybody. You know, none of that scarcity
53:22
mindset. I just think that would serve the greater good that much better. So yeah, yeah, I'm going
53:27
to be honest, I couldn't agree with you more. I appreciate you saying that. It's very kind of you
53:30
to say, you know, today you're right, the pie is big. I mean, it's it's very, very big and there's
53:36
so many fun ways to do it. There's not so fun ways, but I'm searching after I want to do more
53:42
business in work class, right? Like that's ultimately the goal. So like if I can like figure out a
53:46
way to keep doing more business and get better, I will and, you know, also have that work-life balance
53:52
which is super, super important to me. And, you know, I know I'm not going to figure it out on my own,
53:57
but there's fortunately a lot of really, really great resources out there and people out there that
54:00
are willing to share that stuff. And so you just try to, you know, pick their brain and become better
54:04
every single day. Awesome. Well, before I let you go, man, we got to bring up the haters. You know,
54:09
you're in New England. I'm from New England originally predictions for this year. Patriots.
54:15
I plan on being in Minnesota for the Super Bowl. I was, I was, I am going to be in attendance. I
54:21
was there last year in, I guess, the talkings that you were saying, I was there the time before
54:27
that when we beat the Seahawks. So I, even though Minnesota and February is probably not the best place
54:32
in the world to be, I like our team a lot this year. I love what, I mean, you got to like
54:38
Tom Brady. And I just like all the additions we've made this year. Yeah. And you know, I'll take
54:43
Bell check and Brady all day long. They've definitely got a system. Yeah, they're doing something right.
54:49
Yeah, man, in terms of like perfected system and process, they've definitely got one for sure.
54:53
Much like you, man, right, add people to the team to the roster and they just right put them in
54:58
in the system and they perform. And that's what it's all about. So well, that's great, man. And listen,
55:02
I know you got to go. You're very busy. Thank you so much. This has probably been an expensive
55:06
hour for you. So we are grateful for your time. My pleasure, man. I thank you for having me.
55:11
I really enjoyed it. The pleasure is all ours. So for listeners, once again, thanks for listening.
55:14
If you like this episode, let us know. Give us a rating on iTunes, Stitcher, subscribe,
55:19
market stuff like this to come. And as always, I appreciate you, the listener. And we'll see you on
55:23
the next one. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in
55:29
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