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Critical Activities for Today's Mortgage Market · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
Hey, listeners, what's up, Jeff Zimper, host of this podcast episode of the Marketing
0:08
Marketing Radio podcast and thanks again for tuning in, appreciate it.
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Whether you're a long time listener or first time here, really appreciate you making
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time out of your busy day to listen to what we're doing over here.
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And if you are so inclined, it would be great if you would take a moment and leave us a
0:21
review wherever you're listening to this right now, whatever podcast platform, it's pretty
0:25
easy to just find the link to leave us a review and I'd be grateful for that.
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Next is before we get into this week's special guest, I want to do bring another success
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story to you from the trenches of our mortgage professionals who are members of my Asian classes
0:42
platform.
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You may recall that what we do is we help originators skip the steps of vendor solicitor and
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leapfrog to the position of partner and peer helping agents solve problems.
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See, one of the biggest problems that originators have when approaching real estate agents is
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their approach is immediately flawed from the beginning because they're leading with
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products and pricing because they're looking and sounding like every other originator in
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town.
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Therefore, resistance is high.
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And what our members at my Asian classes do is they lead with educational content teaching
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classes virtually or in person using the content and the system to complete done for you
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platform that we provide to help them get in front of agents at scale because today,
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as you'll hear in a moment from our special guest, it is all about conversations, right?
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And so the question is how many conversations can you have?
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Can you compress that time?
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Can you use leverage to get yourself in front of maximum agents in minimum time with something
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relevant, useful and impactful?
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Yes, you can.
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There I say that's by following our system and plan called my agent classes.
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Case in point, I have a recent success story here for you to share from one of our newer
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members, Dustin Ames, what's up, Dustin, shout out to you.
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Dustin hosted his very first class with us.
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It's called Master the Market, how to close 2023 strong and dominate in 2024.
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So he followed our system or plan, our process in his local market and he had 13 reservations
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and 12 who attended.
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And he goes on to say that everyone was engaged and enjoyed the information.
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He also talked about a first time seller seminar in that class, which is one of the ideas
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we share with real estate agents on how they can do sellers in, I'm sorry, seller seminars
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in their local market and we equipped them with some of the tools and resources to help
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with that.
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And so Dustin is now working on his follow up with a personal video to everyone who attended
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and he is thrilled with his first class getting in front of 13 real estate agents at once
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and facilitating conversations with them.
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So once again, ask yourself, what is your process for getting in front of agents as a source
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of conversations that lead to business because even in the current market, there are still
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deals happening every single day.
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In your backyard question is how many people know that you exist?
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How many of those opportunities are you getting in front of?
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And if you're looking for a better, more effective, systematized way, that's not co-calling
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chasing, paying for leads or selling your soul in identifying and attracting real estate
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agents.
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And we might have something for you and you can go book a call with me to learn more.
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You go to mortgagemarketing.pro, check it out.
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We'll see if we're fit for each other.
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I'll share with you some of the other success stories and use cases from originators across
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the country.
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You'll take a look at our platform at some of the content classes we share with people
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and we'll see if it's the right fit.
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Mortgagemarketing.pro.
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All right, this week bringing to you a very special guest that I'm thrilled and honored.
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It's been a long time coming.
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He has been a mentor of mine since I entered the industry in 2003 and just one of the
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most authentic and I think caring, if you will, sincere in his desire to want to help
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people in this industry do what they do better.
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And who am I talking about?
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I'm talking about Dale Vermillion.
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Dale has been in this mortgage industry for 40 years.
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He's the founder of Mortgage Champions, which is a coaching training organization for
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mortgage companies and individuals.
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And this conversation today, I think you should listen to more than once.
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I think you should grab a notepad and a pen, take notes because you're going to hear
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some incredibly impactful examples of dialogue and mindset and conversations that will help
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you survive and thrive, the current market, I say air quotes, but to do well in any market
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no matter the conditions.
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So Dale is a founder of mortgage champions.
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As I said, he's trained over a million business professionals, worked with over 700 companies.
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He's the Housing Wire Vanguard Award winner for 2023 mortgage, global 100 recipient, on
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and on and on.
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And I can't, you know, fanboy enough, I guess on this conversation that Dale and I had.
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So I hope you're as equally impacted by it as I am.
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And the links to all Dale's resources are in the show notes.
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It's Dale Vermillion dot com, D-A-L-E-V-E-R-M-I-L-L-I-O-N dot com.
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Go check him out there for more.
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He also has a podcast, which you can find there over on his website as well.
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Link to that will be in the show notes, of course, for you to just start listening to.
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Also, it's called batting 1000 with Dale Vermillion.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show Dale, welcome to the show.
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I'm glad to be here, Jeff.
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Thanks for having me.
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It's going to be a fun conversation.
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I definitely believe it is as well and also impactful for the listeners.
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And I told you before we hit record that this is a long time coming and it is.
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And I say that because, you know, having been an originator for a decade and I started in
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2003, you know, you were one of those people that were consistently out there and providing
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content, direction, value, training and coaching, right?
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For those of us like myself kind of coming up in the industry and looking for some direction
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and guidance.
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So I just want to say thank you for helping me in some way back then.
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Well, it's super kind.
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Thank you.
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Appreciate that.
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That made my day.
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It's a great way to start this conversation.
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Fantastic.
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For those who may not be familiar with you, what do you want to tell them about who Dale
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Vermillion is?
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You know, probably the only thing they really want to know is, you know, I've been in
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the business 40 years.
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I started as an originator, worked up to running a national mortgage companies my last
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corporate job.
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One mortgage is my whole career.
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That was 12, first 12 years in the last 28th, I've trained a million, a million and a half
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loan officers and leaders around the country in the mortgage industry.
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So that's probably the main things that care about.
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Okay.
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That's a lot of people you've reached and you've been at it a long time and that's why
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I'm glad to have somebody of your, you know, lens, if you will, come into this conversation.
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So, you know, the lens of time in this industry and things you've seen have come and go and
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things that people said.
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We're going to happen, but didn't.
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So I'd be curious to kind of enter this conversation.
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Here we are November 7th, 2023.
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We've had a busy week with NAR lawsuit announcements.
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We've had obviously the spike in interest rates, you know, everything going on and housing
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that everybody listening knows.
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What are you coaching to or around considering all that right now?
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You know, it's so interesting because for a guy like me, it's been doing it for four
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decades.
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I've seen so many up and down markets, came in the industry when rates were in the 17s,
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were selling five points on deals and didn't think a thing about it because that's just
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what it was, you know.
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So for people who are in the industry today who generally have less than 10 years experience
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a lot of times and they haven't seen the kind of gyrations, it's a big deal.
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But you know, this year we've had a theme all year long.
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The theme has been back to the future and the reason we use that theme was it's going
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back to the basics and the fundamentals to succeed in the future.
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And what we're really helping our clients understand and the funny thing is, you know,
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our clients are doing way better than the industry as a whole is doing statistically.
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And the reason is we're just keep reminding loan engineers today that the key to your success
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is really simple.
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Don't focus on rate.
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There's nothing you can do to change it.
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The market is what the market is.
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We're going to buy and borrow no matter what.
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We have the highest demand we've ever had for purchases in US history.
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If you look at population numbers, Jeff, the population numbers of the last two generations,
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Gen Y and Gen Z 168 million people.
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You compare that to the generation before that and you're going to 134 million people.
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So we've got more demand than ever.
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We've got more equity to work with whenever we've got a tough economy on consumers, which
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means they need to save money more than ever.
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And here's the biggest thing.
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Consumer debt is the highest it's ever been in US history.
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So when you add all those things up, you know, everybody talks about inventory and affordability.
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And those things, you don't control inventory, but affordability.
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You can control.
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You can make it better.
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But the bottom line is we are still in a market where a lot of people want to buy.
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There's, it's a great time to buy for buyers because there's less competition so the
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better chance of getting a contract rates are going to go back down.
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They always do.
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So you've just got to quit listening to all the negative noise.
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Look at the market, understand we're here to help people in a big way and we can do that
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today.
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And the American dream is never going away.
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It's going to be here no matter what rates do and people will buy no matter what.
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Yep.
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Great advice.
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So we're talking about mindset there, right?
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We are.
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Yeah.
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You've obviously coasted a lot of people.
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As we mentioned, do you find, so I want to unpack, like if you could picture this visual,
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this brain of yours, right?
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And the doors are opening up on the brain and you know, Dale's all got all this, this
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experience and interaction and wisdom.
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So there's a lot of things flowing through my mind in terms of questions to ask you.
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But on the one hand, I think people know that, right?
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Because we've heard that for a while a long time.
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But then actually living in and applying it is a different thing.
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So let's take that a step further.
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How would you help people actually own that, right?
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And live it in the daily, weekly basis.
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Yeah.
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Great question.
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So first thing you have to remember is this, okay?
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It's never what happens to you in life.
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It's always what happens in you in life that makes all the difference.
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That's the first thing that everybody's understand.
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When we get up in the morning, we got to realize that we're in an industry that never goes
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away.
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Real estate has been the number one source for wealth, for Americans, for decades and
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decades and decades.
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So we're in an industry that's evergreen.
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There's always going to be people that are wanting to buy and borrow like I talked about
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a moment ago.
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And therefore we've got to get it each morning.
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We got to say, okay, I don't control the market.
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I'm not going to try to.
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The biggest mistake I think I see today is people are trying to control the things they
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have no control over and therefore frustrates them and creates fear and anxiety and all these
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other things.
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And so I'm just saying, here's the deal.
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If there's less inventory, how do I fix that?
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Here's the answer.
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Widen your net.
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Get a bigger network.
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You know, the one thing that we've known about real estate all 40 years I've been in it
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is that there's a front sheet and a back sheet when it comes to real estate sales.
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The front sheet is the MLS listing.
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The back sheet is all of those transactions that happen behind the scenes between realtors
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that never make it to the front sheet because they happen to know the homes that are for sale.
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And that's where the money's at.
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Great loan officers understand that and what they're doing is they're always making sure
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that they're expanding out their database and their network in a marketplace like the
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compensate for the shortage in inventory and the shortage of customers.
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Second thing, call everybody you know.
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This is the time you get up and you know, here's the mistake, here's the number one mistake
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we make Jeff.
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What do most loan officers do when they get up in the morning?
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They look at the headlines mistake number one, they go to their emails mistake number
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two.
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There ain't nothing good in there.
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You don't want to go there.
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What they need to do is get up in the morning, read something positive for 15 minutes.
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Practice and role play for 15 minutes on their pitch for today and just start dialing
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the phone, prospect for partners, call your past customers, call your cancellations and
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turn down, mine your database, create some positive activity because if you create conversations,
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you're going to get positive results and that's going to change your attitude.
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Instead, what they do is they sit around and they wait for it to rain.
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Well, it ain't raining right now.
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That was 21 and 20, 23, it's not raining customers.
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When rates go up, customer activity goes down.
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That's the one quick pro code to be sure of.
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So you've got to create the activity, not wait for the activity.
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Yeah, that's great advice.
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I wrote down conversations equals contracts, don't know who said that, but I swiped it.
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So love that.
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Here's a question for you, I jotted this down in listening to you for a moment.
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I'd be curious to get your take on sources of like ranking sources of business and how
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do you coach around those or evaluate the criteria of those?
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Well, referral partnerships are always number one.
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It's the number one best way to get business and I don't just mean professional referrals.
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I mean customer referrals too.
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Every day I talk to them and they say, look, if today you'll just get up, lock out two
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hours, first thing in the morning, I said, this is a 9-1-1 market, what does that mean?
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It doesn't mean that the world's coming to an end, it means you sell from 9 to 11 every
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morning.
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That's what it means.
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When you get up, you hit the phones at 9, you hit them until 11 and here's what you
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do.
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When you call your customers, what you're doing is you're not calling to sell them anything.
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You're calling to check in with them and say, look, I know the economy is tough right
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now.
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I'm sure you're feeling the effects of it like I am.
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Is there anything I can do to help you?
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Because the fact of the matter is many of my customers have more debt today than ever
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and more equity and forget about the rates.
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I'm saving them thousands and thousands of dollars during the course of the month.
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I love to do that for you.
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Now, they're going to say one of two things.
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Yes or no?
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And all you have to do is say, I'd like to do a free analysis for you just to see if there's
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something I can do.
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All they can say is yes or no.
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If they say yes, you got to app in a conversation.
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If they say no, the next question is, okay, no problem, let me ask you a final question.
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Who do you know that's looking to buy a home today or who do you know that might be
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looking to lower their payments or maybe utilize their equity in today's market?
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They're going to know somebody, everybody does.
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So you turn every call into either repeat business or referral business with your customers.
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And then prospecting, we just need to get out in the community and be with the realtors
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out there and all the other sources.
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That's the other mistake we make.
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We're all targeting realtors.
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Okay, realtors are a great source, obviously.
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Financial planners, though, are phenomenal.
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Wealth managers are phenomenal, CPAs are phenomenal.
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Invest agents, phenomenal.
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Anybody in the financial services sector can be a resource for you for business.
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So don't just go after the realtors that are available as Chase and go after the ones
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nobody's chasing and you're going to get divorce attorneys.
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Oh my gosh, so much business right there that we could be getting.
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We just got to go after.
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I'm glad you said that because I often thought if I was to get back into originated, I would
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definitely focus on a niche, you know, certain type of buyer or like divorce, for example,
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that's something that's present in all markets.
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And, you know, I want to be perceived as a subject matter expert, not a commodity, like
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everybody.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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Do you have, so that's interesting.
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You don't know how you're on the same page there, so speaking of podcasts, you have
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a podcast.
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Is it called batting 1000?
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That is correct.
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Yeah, batting 1000 will put a link to it in the show notes.
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Appreciate it.
16:08
Obviously people are listening to this podcast, and so I think I've interviewed roughly 200
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of Americans top producers, and when I ask them what their number one source of business
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is, eight out of 10 times, they say referral partners, right?
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You know, now let's, if you wouldn't mind, let me, let me play this NAR card, an AR card,
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like the recent lawsuit, if you don't mind, can I play that for a second, please.
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Because obviously you're seeing a lot of the dialogue go on about the future of real
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state agents, et cetera, and everybody, you know, some people are, you know, questioning
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agents as a source, and, you know, what's going to happen about, you know, the thing?
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What's, what's your, you know, read or take on this for an originator listening?
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Well, look, if anybody thinks that this is the thing that's going to cause a challenge
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for realtors to be the source they've been in the past, they haven't been paying attention
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to the marketplace for 10 years.
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This is just the icing on the cake from my perspective.
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I've been saying this for a decade.
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You've got to start really diversifying your sources because realtors are under attack
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and they've been under attack.
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If it's not by this thing with NAR happening, or if it's not by lawsuits, if it's not
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by controlling commissions and reducing them like we've had happened in the mortgage
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industry, then it's going to be those companies that come into play that are doing 1% and
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a half a percent and $500 flat fee things online because we're working, we're moving
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more and more and more into an online world.
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We've been doing that for a decade.
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So a lot of customers think about how many purchases happened today and have happened
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in the last five years where people buy and never even go walk through the property.
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They literally do it online.
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There's no reason to pay a six or seven percent commission to do that.
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Consumers are going to figure that out and companies have already figured that out and tried
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to attack it.
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Now, by the way, I want to be clear here, I love the realtors and I'm going to continue
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to work with them as long as I'm in the business because they'll always be viable.
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They bring a great service to the industry.
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There's no question about that.
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So I don't want any of this to come across against disparaging.
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It's just the fact of the matter.
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They have competition just like we have competition in the mortgage market with fintech companies
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who want to eliminate originators, do it all through technology and get the lowest margins
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they can to try to win on price.
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It's the same play only in the real estate side of the business.
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So if all you're putting is your eggs in one basket, we all know that old saying and
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what that turns out, doesn't turn out well.
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That dog don't hunt as the old saying goes over time.
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So we've got to expand and diversify.
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Real estate professionals should be your primary source.
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Builders should absolutely be a key place today because new home construction is rocking
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again.
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And that's where a lot of the inventory is coming from.
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So you've got to have connections through realtors or through builders to get to them.
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But outside of that, go to the places like I said a minute ago that everybody else isn't
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going to.
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That's where you can really diversify and build a stronger base of business.
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So I think the real estate industry is going to be very different three years from now than
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it is today or has been for the last 40 years of end of the business.
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Interesting.
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And to put a cherry on top of that, it goes back to kind of what we opened up with, which
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is mindset, which is controlling the controllables.
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Like you can't control what's going to happen with that whole thing.
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There's a lot of noise.
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I mean, there's going to be appeals.
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Who knows when this actually is going to actually have any meaningful change.
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So focus on the daily activities, right?
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The daily method of operation, which is conversations.
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Now along those lines, so we've got obviously your bullish on realtors, referral partners,
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and those different subsets that you mentioned.
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Now let's, let me get your take on, quote unquote, consumer direct, right?
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And you want to unpack, what's your definition of consumer direct?
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So consumer direct is just what it says it is.
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It's where we are creating opportunities directly to the consumer, be it through organic
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website leads, buying leads from companies like lending, trading companies like that, whatever
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resource you want to use, it's creating a direct initiative to consumers.
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Now I'm going to tell you something that's going to blow your mind, Jeff, which is really
20:24
interesting.
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So we're working, I've trained over 700 companies in my career.
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We work in any given year with between 25 and 30 companies.
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I think we have 27 clients we're working with right now out of those 27 clients, two of
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those clients who are my clients that are doing the very best are actually beating their
20:40
2021 numbers, they're having their best year in history in 2023.
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Now here's the thing that will block your mind about it.
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Both of them are consumer direct shops and both of them do straight refi in what's considered
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to be a quote unquote non-refi market.
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That's because they understand the niche approach to refi today.
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It's about getting rid of debt.
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That's what it's about.
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It's not about cash out.
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It's not about obviously refinances because you're not going to be able to write into
21:09
anybody nowadays.
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It's all about leveraging debt into opportunities to help people to eliminate their debt, lower
21:17
their payments, and get out of that debt quicker, which is a huge thing to help consumers
21:22
with today.
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You can do that regardless of rates.
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If rate mattered with that, I would not be sitting here today because I started at 17
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and a half.
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All we did was cash out, debt elimination repies.
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For the 12 years I managed, I managed over 10,000 loan officers in that period of time and
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we crushed the numbers.
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I'd loan off to you in 30 loans a month that 17 and a half percent rates believe they're
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not.
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We never built it on rate.
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You seem probably seeing my t-shirt rate is overrated.
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That's true.
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It really is.
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Everybody talks about it, but that's not what matters to a consumer.
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It's what they ask you because they don't know what else to ask you.
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What matters is, what's my cash flow in a tough economy like 2023?
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Do I have any money in the bay for reserve to protect my family if something goes wrong?
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What's sitting in my 401k and my 529 plan for my kids and my savings in check and account?
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That's what matters.
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Those are all the things that consumers care about.
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What loan officers care about sometimes is, well, what's our rates?
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Forget that.
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Just go show your borrower how you can change your life and you win.
22:26
I work with consumer direct companies forever and this is still a very powerful market for
22:33
consumer direct companies that understand how to have what you talked about earlier.
22:39
Great conversations.
22:40
That's the key.
22:42
It's interesting.
22:43
The word conversation has the word conversion bedded right in it.
22:50
The only two letters you add is A and T. And what does that stand for?
22:53
Allow time.
22:55
If you'll allow enough time to converse with your borrowers on a level that helps them
22:59
understand you and you understand them, you'll find out 30 things they need you to do
23:05
for them today that would change their life that you can do at 8% rates.
23:09
But if you only try to sell them a loan, shoot them off a link, which is what everybody's
23:14
doing today.
23:16
Never have a great conversation with them and think you're going to win and ain't going
23:20
to happen.
23:21
You've got to wow them in today's market.
23:24
That's really great advice there.
23:26
Everybody listening should rewind and listen to that a second time.
23:30
So I'm going to get a little bit more tactical on that idea if you don't mind.
23:33
Not at all.
23:35
What I wrote down was intentional under the umbrella of conversations.
23:39
Yep.
23:40
And what I'm visualizing in my, I visualize this loan officer in their office and they're
23:46
like you said earlier, they're standing in the desk and what do I do today?
23:49
What do I say?
23:51
And I think what you recognize, obviously, and I want to really illustrate for the people
23:56
listening is to your point about just sending a link or whatever.
23:58
This comes back to customer experience.
24:03
What is your engagement process like when you are calling people?
24:07
Are you intentional?
24:08
And I think this would you agree?
24:09
It takes some thinking, some structure, maybe some laying out a basic talk crack.
24:15
Absolutely.
24:16
And that's what we've taught at Morgan's Champions for decades.
24:19
That's why we've been so successful in training loan officers to hit big numbers in these
24:22
kind of marketplaces.
24:23
Look, it's really about being conversational with your borrowers.
24:27
It's about being a human being.
24:29
That's what it's really about at the end of the day.
24:32
I've said this my whole career.
24:34
What are the three things that 95% of loan officers talk about to their borrow in the first
24:38
five minutes?
24:40
Here's what they are.
24:41
Price?
24:42
Product?
24:43
Process.
24:44
As we talk about, okay?
24:46
And then what do most loan officers do in the first three minutes of the conversation?
24:50
They qualify the borrower.
24:52
The borrower is on the phone.
24:54
They're giving us an opportunity because they're saying to us, they're raising their hands
24:57
saying, look, I'm thinking about buying and maybe looking for some cash for improvements
25:01
because just wondering what your rates are.
25:04
Okay?
25:05
A loan officer hears that and goes, oh, they're asking me the right, no, they're not.
25:08
They're asking you for $50,000.
25:10
They're asking you for $400,000.
25:12
That's what they're doing.
25:14
The first thing you don't say to them is, well, let me ask you a question.
25:17
Do you happen to know your FICO score?
25:19
I can't tell you how many times I've heard that.
25:21
Or, well, how much are you putting down?
25:24
And can you tell me, are you gainfully employed and can you verify your income?
25:29
No, be a human being.
25:32
Just talk to them.
25:33
Wow.
25:34
All right.
25:35
Well, let's begin by talking a little bit more about what you're looking to do.
25:37
Tell me about that new home you're looking to buy.
25:40
Tell me about that $50,000 and what you want to do with it.
25:43
And start to engage them in a conversation and before you know it, 20 minutes has passed,
25:47
they love you and they're not even thinking about the rate, let alone asking you about
25:51
it because you're already talking about how you can solve their problem.
25:56
That's what they want you to do.
25:57
So we really, if we're going to be tactical, what we need to do is we need to quit thinking
26:02
about mortgage terms and mortgage conversations.
26:07
We got to quit qualifying the borrower up front and thinking, wow, I don't want to waste
26:11
my time.
26:12
Well, let me ask you a question in this market, isn't that the thing you've got the most
26:15
of?
26:16
It's not reading customers today.
26:20
So if I get somebody who's interested, I am not in a hurry.
26:23
I have no rush whatsoever.
26:25
I am really going to settle in, get to know them.
26:28
And here's the key.
26:29
I'm going to give your listeners a great strategy.
26:33
Open up the conversation by talking about the economy.
26:37
Everybody's freaked out about it.
26:38
We are.
26:39
They are.
26:40
And everybody, when the economy goes bad like this, what's the first thing that every
26:45
husband, wife, parent, human being in this country who owns a home is looking to do.
26:52
They're looking to improve their financial situation.
26:54
They're looking to build stability, security, and savings.
26:58
Those are the three things they want.
26:59
Don't talk.
27:00
Price, product, and process.
27:01
Talk security, stability, and savings.
27:03
That's what you talk about.
27:05
So if I get on the phone with you, I say, Jeff, let me tell you what I'm calling.
27:09
This is one of the toughest markets we've seen since 2008.
27:11
This economy is brutal.
27:13
And I'm sure you're you and your family are feeling the effects of that.
27:16
Let me ask you a question.
27:17
If I could literally show you a way today, like I'm doing with a lot of other customers
27:21
to say thousands and thousands of dollars in this marketplace, set up your family and
27:26
protect them with reserves and help you increase your cash flow considerably.
27:31
Would you like to hear about it?
27:32
Doesn't cost anything to find out if I can do it or not.
27:35
That's all you have to say.
27:37
And you should practice that day after day after day after day.
27:40
Be prepared with that.
27:41
And when you get on the phone, be confident.
27:43
And they're going to have a conversation with you.
27:45
I love that.
27:46
And if we play that out just a couple of more sentences, not at all.
27:54
So they say, yes, you know, they're having some issues with security, stability and savings.
28:01
Take me, take me through that.
28:02
Like what's that?
28:03
What's the next step?
28:04
Yeah.
28:05
Talk to us.
28:06
Yeah.
28:07
You ask a question.
28:08
Instead of acting like you're on a phone for a sales call, imagine you're in a social
28:13
function meeting this person for the first time.
28:17
What would you say to them?
28:19
Tell me more about that.
28:21
Let me understand that.
28:23
What?
28:24
What are you?
28:25
Yeah, what is struggling with?
28:26
Tell me what's happening in your life and be curious, be compassionate, be interested,
28:34
listen to them.
28:35
Don't look at your dang screen, turn away from your screen.
28:39
Don't say, oh, let me send you a link so you can fill out an application.
28:43
I want to get it.
28:44
I'll call you back and I'll let you know what we can do because then what's happening
28:47
is you're sending a link, they're filling it out.
28:51
The funny thing about the links, now look, I'm not anti-links or anti-technology at all.
28:56
I'm pro of that.
28:57
I've been a partner with ICE technology for years, great technologies.
29:01
Here's the deal though.
29:03
When you send the links, stay on the phone with the borrower while they fill it out.
29:07
Have the conversation while they're doing that work.
29:10
If you just send the link, there's three big drop-off points on that link where they walk
29:15
away.
29:16
First one is birthday, second one is social security number, third one is income.
29:20
Those three things we see drop-offs all the time and we never get the link, but even
29:25
if we do, let's say that they fill out the link.
29:28
Now you call them back, what does that conversation look like?
29:32
It's a sales presentation where you're going straight to price product and process again.
29:39
I got your link and went ahead and got you a pre-approved, let me tell you about the
29:44
deal.
29:45
Here we go.
29:46
We're right into rate.
29:47
Vars says that's too high.
29:48
We go, oh, well, and we don't know what to do with it because we created our own problem.
29:52
That simple.
29:53
All right.
29:54
Well, obviously, at some point, you've got to collect the information, right?
29:57
Their current debt structure, what that looks like, all that jazz.
30:00
That's to your point about you're walking them through that live on the phone simultaneously.
30:04
That's correct.
30:05
I'm starting with that conversation.
30:07
I'm shooting them a link because a link, the beauty of an online application is it creates
30:11
uniformity in your applications, which is better for your ops team, but here's the other
30:16
piece of that.
30:17
It's easier to get their documentation and get their commitment.
30:20
You want to make sure that you're using those links, but here's the deal.
30:24
I'm just walking you through a conversation as you're filling out about the new home
30:28
you're buying, the down payment you're putting down, why you're moving there, making sure
30:33
that's the right down payment for you, try to really walk through and work through with
30:37
you.
30:38
What's the best scenario for you, okay, without ever talking rates, ever talking fees.
30:42
Not by the way, I guarantee you there's people watching this and they're like, oh, they're
30:46
going to ask you the right.
30:48
You're right.
30:49
And you know what you say when they ask you, here's all you got to say, it's a great question.
30:53
You know what?
30:54
I have no idea what your rate is yet because I don't know anything about you yet.
30:58
We just started this conversation.
31:01
I need to understand your situation, your qualifications and your goals.
31:03
As soon as I know those, I'm going to get straight, but let me say this to you, my rates
31:07
are awesome.
31:08
You don't need to worry about that.
31:09
I'm as competitive as anybody out there.
31:12
And look, if you don't love the deal when we're done, you're always welcome to talk to
31:15
somebody else.
31:16
They're going to go, okay, and that's the end of the conversation.
31:18
And now you spend an hour building this incredible relationship.
31:22
And here's the beauty.
31:23
This is why time's so powerful, Jeff, if I spend an hour with them, they don't want to
31:28
do it again.
31:29
They're not going to talk to anybody else because they've given me the hour that they
31:34
want.
31:35
Which is, I love that.
31:36
Thank you.
31:37
By the way, for going deeper on that, I think that's incredibly instructive for people
31:40
listening and get some context around what does that sound like, the conversation.
31:45
And you mentioned something there about the time you spend on the phone with them.
31:49
That's a very interesting thing because I always found it surprising.
31:53
And I've asked a fair number of people this question, like, what is the average time
31:57
they spend taking a loan app, so to speak?
31:59
I'm reluctant to call out that based on what we just went through, but you know, basically
32:04
kind of your intake.
32:05
That's the more experienced process because I would, I've talked to people where they're
32:08
like 15 minutes, you know, that's normal.
32:11
I'm like, how the hell do you build a relationship like that in 15 minutes?
32:14
You don't.
32:15
You don't.
32:16
Even in a good market where it's just like, yes, it's just, yes is all day, you know?
32:19
You don't.
32:20
You can't even take a complete application in 15 minutes and do it the right way and
32:24
really understand that bar or at the level that you should.
32:27
You sure can't build a relationship in that.
32:29
I mean, you know, you remember your years ago in the head, that thing called speed dating?
32:33
Yeah.
32:34
It didn't work too well.
32:35
Not a lot of people got married and the ones who didn't last very long because you
32:38
can't in 15 minutes establish, oh, yeah, we're the right couple for life.
32:42
It just doesn't work that way.
32:43
Like, you got to slow down and take your time and let me, let me say this because this
32:48
is one of the things I've taught forever and it's such an important principle.
32:52
This is why time is so valuable and why you want to take your time, all right?
32:57
I'm pretty confident that anybody who's watching this today, who's an originator, if I said,
33:02
okay, if I could guarantee you, you could close 15 to 17 loans, guaranteeing minimum every
33:07
single month in any market, would you be interested?
33:10
They'd all say yes.
33:11
Okay?
33:12
And if you're doing 15, I'm going to get you to 30.
33:13
They'd all say yes.
33:15
Now here's the key.
33:17
What does it take to close 15 loans a month?
33:19
Here's all it takes.
33:20
One sale a day.
33:22
One sale a day.
33:23
If you get one borrower a day to take an application, give your documentation and commit
33:28
to the deal.
33:29
You're putting 21 deals a month in your pipeline.
33:32
National average is 70 to 75% of those fund, that's 15 to 17 loans, close a month.
33:38
So when Loanhouse, you're telling me I'm spending 15 minutes, I go, what's your hurry?
33:41
Well, I got to get to the next one.
33:43
So you're rushing to fail so you can rush to fail on the next one instead of settling
33:51
in.
33:52
But I don't want to waste time.
33:53
Look, spend five or 10 minutes conversing with the borrower and then qualify them at the
33:57
end of that 10 minutes.
33:59
If they don't qualify, the worst that happens is you have a relationship where you can now
34:03
educate them on how to qualify, follow up and get that deal three months from now.
34:08
Mm hmm.
34:09
About that.
34:10
But if you go three minutes, qualify them and they don't qualify, you got nothing.
34:14
You got no relationship.
34:15
You got nothing.
34:16
And you wasted your time.
34:18
And if they did qualify, spend an hour with them.
34:21
That's what you do.
34:22
Yeah, I love that.
34:23
And it reminds me of a phrase, you know, take, take them off the street, right?
34:27
You probably heard that one in sales, which is the cheer point about if they spend 30 minutes
34:31
or an hour with you, they're not going to want to do that again.
34:33
So all the trigger leads and all that will be kind of ignored, especially if you've
34:37
done a great job, of course, building rapport, but more importantly, when I wrote down earlier
34:43
when you asked, you know, you go, Hey, they're asking you the raid and this and that and
34:47
the other thing.
34:49
What I wrote down is what people are really seeking is advice, right?
34:54
Or set otherwise, especially in this market, is in times of chaos, people seek context
35:00
to be able to make sense of all of what's going on.
35:03
That's a great statement.
35:04
Yeah.
35:05
Thank you.
35:06
So I think it comes back to what you do so well in training and coaching and providing
35:11
people, you know, everything you just kind of laid out here, just a small example of that,
35:15
which we've heard about for years, but not everybody, you know, the seeds fall on different
35:20
type of ground, right?
35:22
So not everybody adheres to that per se, which is, how would you say, I was going to say,
35:29
this isn't and I'm pausing because it's really not the way I want to articulate it, but
35:33
this is, yes, a sales business, but it is more of nowadays, an advisor role, right?
35:43
You're right.
35:44
Like you think about financial advisor, right?
35:45
They have all this esteem and prestige because of that title and all the, they've got,
35:50
but what do you say?
35:51
Is this a sales business first or what is it first?
35:53
No, I don't think it is.
35:55
I think the people that I work with all the time, Jeff, that are top producers, they're
36:00
the most unassuming, easygoing, kind, compassionate, good listening type of people you'll ever
36:08
meet.
36:09
They're not the typical run of the mill sales people that you think of that are triple
36:12
a personality, beaten the, you know, beaten the deal down until they get the bar to,
36:16
you know, squeeze them in a submission, that doesn't work anymore.
36:20
That was gone decades ago.
36:23
You know, I recently had Cara Whitman, who I had the privilege of train, gosh, 11 years
36:29
ago, and she started in the business for a consumer direct company in Charlotte, North
36:32
Carolina.
36:33
She was on batting 1,000.
36:34
I normally have executives and kind of big hitters in the industry in there, but I wanted
36:39
to have an origin there.
36:40
And I knew her personally.
36:41
She's in the, the Scotland's guide, top 15 or top 25 for top 40 for the last seven straight
36:47
years.
36:48
She, the 600, 700 loans at a month by herself, some, or a year, I mean, by herself.
36:52
It was crazy.
36:54
And she was a perfect example, what I'm talking about.
36:57
If you watch that interview, she is just delightful, dynamic, easy going.
37:02
Yeah, she's motivated, but she's not selling anybody.
37:05
What she said time and again and time and again and time and again was, I'm a 100%
37:10
relationship person.
37:11
That's what I am.
37:12
That's what I do.
37:14
I get on the phone and I build incredible relationships and people want to buy for
37:17
me. That's all there is to the game.
37:19
She said, you taught me that 11 years ago, and I've never strayed from it.
37:23
I've always followed that rhythm and it works.
37:25
And here's somebody, you know, when you're doing 50 to 60 loans a month, obviously,
37:31
it's working.
37:31
Now form is working.
37:32
Even in last year in 2022, I think she still did 500 loans in the year, something like
37:38
that.
37:39
So markets don't affect people like that because they're focused on relationship.
37:44
They're not focused on transactions transactional salespeople only do well in a 2020, 2021
37:50
market. When it's a high volume market and you want to get as many transactions in
37:55
as you can in this market, where you're in a conversion market, not a volume market.
38:00
It's all about relationship, relationship with your referral partners, relationship
38:05
with your customers and relationship with your colleagues, treating your colleagues
38:09
with respect.
38:10
So if you're an originator, your processors want to process your loan for you.
38:15
Your underwriters want to find a way to make the deal work for you because they respect
38:18
you, they love you, they care about you, and they want to see you succeed.
38:22
Hmm. Good advice again, curious.
38:25
Then it's, it's a, you know, especially now it is a conversion, if I was correct, that's
38:30
what you said is conversion kind of engagement today.
38:33
How does that play into then to your, your example earlier of these, you know, consumer direct
38:38
companies that are probably generating a large amount of inbounding, quarries, leads
38:41
or whatnot?
38:42
Isn't that a bit of a, you know, juxtaposition though to that game, which tends
38:48
to be a volume game of leads and running an apps and all that.
38:52
Yeah, that's the funny thing about it, Jeff.
38:54
And that's where, as a consultant, I've been very different from the rest of the industry.
39:00
When I work with consumer direct companies, I teach them the same thing, I teach the retail
39:03
distributed companies.
39:05
It's still about relationship.
39:07
So if you're trying to build this business to be nothing but a volume play, good luck
39:12
with that.
39:13
When rates are good, you'll do fine.
39:14
When rates go bad, you're going to go south very quickly.
39:17
I've seen it every single time.
39:19
And the fact of the matter is I can build just as much relationship on a telephone conversation
39:24
10 states away as a local lender who's sitting across the table from somebody.
39:28
In fact, today we can do that by doing a zoom meeting like this with a customer.
39:32
So we get face to face connection with them and actually build a personal relationship
39:37
with them.
39:38
It's all about thinking out of the box, not thinking like most consumer direct people
39:43
do that.
39:44
It's a volume play man.
39:45
You just dial in for dollars, you know, more calls, more money, nope, not the way it works.
39:51
Better calls, more money.
39:53
That's the way it works.
39:55
And that's how you fix that juxtaposition in the consumer direct world.
39:59
All right.
40:00
So here's just a self-serving curiosity question.
40:03
You know, I'm thinking of like the large call center companies.
40:06
And do you think that they are training their people to play that game?
40:11
Generally no.
40:12
That's why I've been business for 27 years.
40:17
And it worked for 700 companies, you know, generally they're not and they need to change
40:22
that.
40:23
I mean, if you heard the calls, I listen to calls of my clients all the time.
40:27
I make them record their people.
40:29
We do some secret shopping to listen to their people.
40:32
The calls are horrid sometimes.
40:34
And once we train them and we get people doing it differently and we get the good calls
40:38
and we play those and those always end up in a sale.
40:41
The lenders are like, wow, you're right.
40:44
I mean, we had no idea.
40:46
I had a great example of a really good friend of mine who was a CEO just about a month ago.
40:53
We listened to his top number one producer.
40:56
I listened to his call and said, it was one of the worst calls that I've ever heard.
41:00
He's like, that's my top guy.
41:01
Well, listen, and I played and he goes, you're right.
41:04
He said, what the guy's been doing is he's just making so many calls, but actually he's
41:09
costing me more money than anybody else because he's burning my leads and he's cherry picking
41:14
through him instead of actually doing what he should do, which is slow down, convert
41:18
him.
41:19
So more people close more loans.
41:21
Interesting.
41:22
Wow.
41:23
That's very unfortunate for him, but you're correcting it.
41:25
So that's what matters.
41:26
Wow, man.
41:27
I got a page of notes here.
41:29
So this has been a fantastic clinic in how to have better connection and conversion in any
41:35
market for that matter, right, no matter what's going on.
41:38
So I just want to say thank you, man.
41:40
You really, you poured it out today.
41:42
Well, it's my pleasure.
41:43
I mean, look, I've been in this business for a long time and I have one interest, help
41:48
people in our industry to be great at what they do.
41:51
That's what we do at more champions.
41:53
That's our calling.
41:54
And then when we make the money, give it away.
41:57
We love to give to charities.
41:58
We love to help people in need.
41:59
And you know what?
42:00
In this industry, we can do, we can help our customers every day in an incredible way.
42:05
And then we can take some of our profits and we can turn it back and make a better society.
42:09
So I think you're going with those two mindsets.
42:11
It's hard to lose.
42:12
Yeah, by the way, before I let you go, I do want to acknowledge you, you know, Kudos
42:16
shout out to you for being the recipient of the 2023 Housing Wire Vanguard award.
42:23
Thank you.
42:24
Appreciate that.
42:25
It means a lot to me.
42:26
Yeah.
42:27
I mean, that's again why I said this is kind of, you know, serendipity, if you're well,
42:30
that this is coming around full circle because you've been putting it out for a long time
42:34
in a good way, right?
42:35
In the markets industry.
42:36
So the great, the gray hair shows it proves it out.
42:40
Right.
42:41
So for those who do want to connect with you, what would be the primary place you want
42:45
to send them?
42:46
Website or wherever you want to go?
42:47
Yeah, just go to daelvermillion.com, mortgagechampions.com, either one, connect with my team.
42:53
You can email me direct if you want to, daelvermillion.com.
42:56
I return my email.
42:57
So we'd be glad to get back to you.
43:00
But probably the best thing to do is just reach out to our team and chat with them and
43:05
we'd be glad to help you in any way we can.
43:07
Yeah.
43:08
And clearly, if you're listening to this right now, you are hopefully as impacted as I
43:12
am in terms of some assistance that bail and esteem might be able to provide you with
43:16
your individual producer or a company executive branch manager or something listening to
43:21
that.
43:22
So that's the Dael's website and his podcast will be in the show now.
43:25
So make sure to check that out.
43:27
Dale, once again, appreciate it, sir.
43:30
Well, Jeff, I can't thank you enough and let me say this, I do a lot of these podcasts.
43:34
You are incredible at what you do.
43:37
Great job.
43:38
This was a great interview.
43:39
A lot of fun.
43:40
I appreciate you asking such great questions and hope this was super helpful for everybody
43:43
out there.
43:44
Really appreciate spending the time with you.
43:46
Definitely was.
43:47
So listeners, you know what to do.
43:48
If you like this episode, hey, leave us a review or share it with somebody.
43:50
And we'll see you on the next one.
43:51
Bye for now.
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