Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #62: How to Delegate and Grow to $75 Million in Closed Loans

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Ep #62: How to Delegate and Grow to $75 Million in Closed Loans · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
0:15
can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
0:20
Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
0:31
And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
0:34
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
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of the case study today.
0:47
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.
0:56
Don't miss out.
0:57
Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:17
Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute.
1:22
It's your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing.
1:26
Hey listeners, Jeff, it's time for a welcome to this week's episode of Mortgage Marketing
1:38
Radio.
1:39
Hey, are you looking for some swag?
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You have the swagger, would you like some help getting a swag?
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Get your swag on.
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How so?
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How do you get your own custom soft plush, form fitting, beautiful mortgage marketing radio
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I'm going to tell you how to do that right now.
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You like the podcast?
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Hey, share the love.
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You go over to iTunes or wherever you listen to this podcast and you leave us a rating.
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your swag around.
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How do you do this?
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Leave us the review.
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Once you've done so, email me info at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com and just put in the fact
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Put in the subject line, podcast review, and then in the body of the email, leave your contact
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So we can mail you a t-shirt and we've got two sizes, large XL, just let me know which
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size you prefer if you've got those muscles you want to be shown, so you can get the smaller
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size.
3:03
Anyway, appreciate the love, we'll send you a t-shirt for doing so.
3:06
All right, so let's transition to this week's special guest, very thrilled to have a
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dynamo, Tammy Saul, Federal Hill mortgage, Baltimore, Maryland.
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You know, what I love about the interview with Tammy as you'll soon hear is she has built
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business from the ground up, starting in the business, she was formerly an attorney
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and an NBA who transitioned into being a mortgage originator back in 2004, literally by accident,
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with no intention of staying beyond the three month mark.
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I know there's a few stories out that we can relate to that we had no intention of
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being a loan officer and here we are 10, 15 years later, right?
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So Tammy brings to this podcast some lessons and examples about building a business from
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the ground up and how to do it the right way, right?
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How to do it and not be distracted by the bright shiny objects like Facebook and running
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ads and things like that, and by the way, I'm not trying to say Facebook shouldn't be
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part of your overall business plan, it should, but do you have your core business setup
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first, right?
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The foundational relationship with your realtor is your referral partners.
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Do you have your past database follow-up system in place?
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Those should be in place before you venture onto some of the other opportunities that
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there are out there.
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So what you'll hear Tammy do is kind of walk through her process, her plan, how she grew
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her business and get this, right?
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She's literally started from nothing.
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Her business was in the basement, her and her husband and it's grown now to be a significant
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mortgage origination company in Baltimore area.
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How significant?
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Well, with a staff of five support people, assistants and processors, herself, she alone closed
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$54 million in 2016.
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Oh, but wait, there's more, right?
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She'll talk on the podcast about how she's going to properly delegate over the last couple
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of years, which allowed her to grow her business from $54 million in 2016 to $75 million
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this year in 2017.
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That's a huge growth, right?
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That's another $20 million in production.
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How would you like a $20 million growth in your production in 12 months?
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Well, listen to the podcast and you get some ideas on exactly how she's done that.
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Oh, and one last thing, she's got a big, hairy, audacious, not a goal, as she says, a commitment
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for 2018 and that is to do $100 million, another $25 million.
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So this is somebody who clearly knows how to grow a business, how to grow her origination,
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and how to do it in a very focused, efficient way.
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So hope you like this week's episode.
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Leave your comments below.
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If you want the swag t-shirt, leave us a review on iTunes and email me in fillet mortgage
5:40
marketing institute.com.
5:41
With that said, let's get into this week's show.
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Hey, Tammy, welcome to the show.
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Hi, Jeff.
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Thanks for having me.
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It is my pleasure.
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I am thrilled to have you here and I am excited because I want to share your story with
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our listeners.
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You know, part of my passion, if you will, is to bring valuable content through people
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like you to help L.O.'s minimize the hurdles and perhaps sometimes the timeline it takes
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to really get to where they want their business.
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And so when you shared your story with me about kind of, you know, results, your backstory,
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and all that, I said, you know what?
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We got to have you on the podcast.
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So thrilled to have you here.
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So obviously I do a formal intro, but let everybody know, what's the high level story
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about Tammy's soul?
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How did you get into business?
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Why?
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Why are you passionate about L.O.'s?
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So Jeff, I started out.
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It was very fortunate to have had from the very beginning a tough upbringing.
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My parents and I, you know, were first-generation immigrants.
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They brought me and my brother here when we were very young.
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They had no money, no language skills.
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They struggled, you know, the story of every first-generation immigrant.
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And they worked really hard, each had their own businesses.
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So I grew up from the very beginning with that privilege of being in a culture that
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constantly reminded me to be grateful, to work hard, to devour opportunity at every corner.
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And what happened is I applied that determination in my, in drive in school.
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So after college, I got my MBA in a year.
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I went to law school.
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I graduated from law school with semester early.
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And from there I was hired pretty quickly by one of the biggest law firms in the city.
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And that's where I was.
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I was doing what I thought I should be doing, going through the motions.
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But I really wasn't fulfilled.
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And what was bigger than that is that I didn't even realize I wasn't fulfilled because
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after going through the pain of law school passing the bar, I couldn't stop doing anything
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else.
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So on the surface, it looked like I was living the dream.
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I mean, I had a great job.
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I had this title.
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I had the two fancy degrees.
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I had an office and a high-rise building with a plaque on the door.
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But inside, I just wasn't happy going to work every day.
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And then what happened quite ironically, given where I am, now you're going to find this
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funny, is that I was let go from my job.
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And I was let go for lack of production.
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That time was probably one of the lowest points in my life.
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I was absolutely crushed.
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Here I was out of law school making all this money, working for the big firm.
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And then the job was gone.
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And I thought this is it.
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My life is over.
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My career is over.
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That event, though, is what changed my life and why I am where I am now.
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Because it was my catalyst for jumping into the mortgage business.
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My husband, then my boyfriend, was a mortgage loan officer, actually a sales manager at
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a small company.
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And at the time, I didn't take what he did seriously.
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But what was clear to me is that there was money to be made in the mortgage business.
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So I jumped in thinking, I'll do this mortgage thing for just a couple of months until I find
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another legal job, right?
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It wasn't planning to stay in.
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Not even after I was there for a few months.
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But on the first day at the mortgage company, the owner of the company sat down with me
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for two hours and said, OK, here is what loan to value is.
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Here is what debt to income is.
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This is how you qualify a borrower.
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And by the way, here is a script for calling people, which was strange for me.
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Two hours, he sat down with me.
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That was it.
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And that was the extent of my formal sales training ever.
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And then he put me behind a desk, gave me a list of names to call and said, OK, go.
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And it's funny looking back because that's literally how it happened.
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And what was funny is that even though he gave me a script, I never felt comfortable following
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the script.
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I maybe did it once or twice.
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But after the first few calls, I just felt like, this isn't really authentic.
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I'm just going to talk to people like people.
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I'm just going to be a person to them, be genuine.
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And even though I was uncomfortable with it in the beginning, it was OK, because for
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me, again, I had zero, absolutely zero intention of staying in this mortgage thing for more
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than a couple of months.
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And what happened, of course, is that I never got out, right?
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By my second month in the business, I double my income from law.
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And I started thinking, this could be pretty cool.
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Most importantly, I started to realize that I really loved what I did.
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And I felt like the business was made for me.
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I spoke to everything in my core that I loved.
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It fulfilled me.
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And then fast forward a year and a half later, my husband and I found ourselves together
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driving nearly 100% of the production for the entire branch.
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Not only that, but we were also working for someone who we didn't like and whose business
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practices we didn't agree with.
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So this individual who I won't name had a method of operation.
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Let's just say that wasn't honest, that was manipulative.
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It was indirect and so obviously we clashed.
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But out of that, we decided my husband and I that we would build a company that was essentially
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the antithesis of that, with the purpose to provide each and every client the utmost level
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of professional and respect, which is what I was used to in the legal profession.
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And that shift to this today is really our mission statement.
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Every borrower is a client.
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We don't use the word customer in our office.
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Every person that sent to us is a referral, not a lead.
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We don't use the word lead in our office.
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Everything else just falls under that umbrella professionalism, making sure that the client
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is communicated with during the loan process.
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That falls under professionalism, making sure that the real estate agent is given status
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updates at all times.
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That's professionalism, you know, responsiveness, email, phone calls, text messages responding
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to those seven days a week, all professionalism, knowing the guidelines so that a loan never
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falls through.
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That falls under professionalism, always doing what you say you would do integrity.
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So, you know, when clients come to us, their experience should be as if they're being
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handled by a high level doctor or attorney or not one of the bad ones, but the good ones.
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And that level of advice, that level of care that you expect from a professional.
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And that's who we are and what we bring.
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And that's why I like to think that people use us.
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They may not even realize that's why, but it's an energy and a standard.
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I'm an, I'm a big believer in the law of attraction and energy in the universe.
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So that's how we've gotten to where we are, that's how I've gotten from the legal profession
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to the mortgage profession.
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And that's how we continue operating to this day.
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Hmm.
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Well, great story.
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Thank you.
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There's a lot in there.
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And so I want to ask you a couple of questions.
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One, I want to roll back for a second.
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Just out of curiosity.
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When you were handed the phone and the script and, you know, good luck, call these people.
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Who did he have you calling?
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He had me calling people that were dialer leaves.
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So he had this massive dialer and it would call people and people, and it would, I don't
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even know what it said, but the people would respond and they would leave a message and
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some people were leaving a message just because they wanted to call back so that they could
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yell at you, right?
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So and I was calling these people and it was helpful for me because here I was an attorney
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coming out of the legal profession and just doing this work, it was very, it was a very
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humbling experience.
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Yes.
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Did you ever feel like, wait a minute, I've got two degrees, what am I doing?
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All the time.
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And it took me years to get over that.
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It took me years to get over that, but what I realized is that life is too short, Jeff,
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and you have to do what you love to do and what I do now, I make five, six, seven, eight
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times more than what I could make practicing law, but what I do now doesn't require any
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degree on the wall.
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Does it require any kind of education?
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Yeah, I know.
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And we could have a whole separate conversation about the average income for attorneys and
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some of the issues there.
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But the thing I wanted to ask you is clearly you love what you're doing and I can tell
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by the language you use just to kind of describe your process and who you are as a company.
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But why?
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What do you love about doing loans?
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I love giving advice.
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I love being the expert.
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I love producing results for people.
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I love when I get a phone call from a real estate agent saying, this loan fell through at
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another lender.
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This person talked to ten other lenders and they couldn't get the loan done.
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Can you get it done?
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And I love to get in there and really figure out what went wrong, find a solution that nobody
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else can and make it happen.
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That to me is so gratifying and so satisfying because not only does it speak to my core of my
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high D on the disc we were talking about that of being able to produce a result but also
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make somebody happy and love making people happy and also impress people.
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It just speaks to all of that.
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I really love being the expert.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Okay, so along your journey to where you're at now, you've had your own business for
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what?
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Ten plus years?
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Eleven years.
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Eleven years.
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Okay, let's roll back a little bit to, you know, you're now with your boyfriend slash
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husband.
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You know, you're you decided to break off from this other person, right, and start your
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own company?
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Does that would happen to you somewhere else first?
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No, no, what happened was, well, we didn't do it the right way.
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My husband broke off from the other company first.
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He started the company that we own now under a different name while I was still working
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for this place.
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This other place found out that we did that, which we shouldn't have and told me to leave.
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And when I left, I was doing $30,000 in commissions, which we were really counting on because we
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were starting our business from the ground up and we never got that because he held that
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back.
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Shocker.
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So that's how it happened.
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Okay.
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What I'm trying to understand is, you know, your transition from attorney and, you know,
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you're new and you're stepping in the mortgage business and you were, you know, working
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at this company that didn't jive with it, you know, you're who you are at your core.
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How did you navigate that?
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Because, I mean, you had your boyfriend slash husband, so he had been in the business.
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And how did you understand where to go and what to do?
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I mean, you know, you know what I mean, to grow the business.
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Yeah.
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You know, a lot of it was just learning by fire and following my gut.
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So I knew that just like any business, you have to produce income to survive.
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And so in the beginning, I was just doing what instinctually I knew I needed to do in
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order to close loans.
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And so in the very beginning, when we opened our business, the only clients I had were
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the ones that followed me from my job.
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And ironically, one of them that followed me became a real estate agent is now one of
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the best agents who refers me a large amount of business.
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But that's what it was.
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And I just developed relationships through the relationships I already had.
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I was always very determined.
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I was always very motivated.
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And I always work very hard.
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And that's clearly how that you're a hard worker.
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When did you begin to feel comfortable and, you know, build some certainty?
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I mean, you're already a confident person.
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I get that right?
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You're 95D on the scale.
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So you probably need less than others.
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But was there a period where you were kind of like, you know, I don't know what I'm talking
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about kind of thing?
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There were moments.
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I mean, there were moments especially, well, in the beginning, of course, when I was put
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behind a desk and given a phone, I mean, there was definitely, I didn't know, those were
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like refi calls.
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Those were refi calls, right?
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And the way that I was able to get through that is that I just didn't talk much.
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I just listened and found out that people liked you more when you didn't talk.
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That's when you just listened to them.
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So I just sat behind a desk and I listened and then, and I was very good at sounding confident
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even when I didn't know what I was doing.
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So they would ask me a question and I would be quick to respond and say, you know, that's
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a good question.
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Let me look that up.
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The guideline may have changed.
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And so eventually, you know, now I'm to a point where I never have to look anything.
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Right.
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Right.
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But that's an awesome answer.
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I love that because I oftentimes hear from L.O.'s, I don't want to do certain things
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because what do they ask me something?
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I don't know the answer.
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Yeah.
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Oh, I loved when I got to a point where I never had to be afraid of that anymore.
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I'm just bring it on.
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Any question you have, I've got the answer.
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You have that answer because I'm assuming you spent some time studying guidelines.
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Absolutely.
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I spend some time studying guidelines, but I'll tell you so much of what I learned was
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just by losing deals and having things fall through and then learning the hard way.
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Yeah.
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Interesting.
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Losing deals to your own fault?
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Losing deals to my own fault, yes, because they're a guideline I didn't know.
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I didn't know that a guideline for a manufacturer at home was different than another one.
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Remember, I had no formal sales training, so I would learn a lot just by making mistakes.
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And hopefully, frequently by catching them before the loan closed, before the loan fell
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apart.
18:48
Okay.
18:49
So you transition.
18:50
You start your own company.
18:51
Right?
18:52
Kind of walk me through like the first year or so there.
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What did that look like?
18:56
How did you generate business there?
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Well, the first year, we operated the company at the basement of our home.
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And within a three months, we hired our first employee.
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And that person's job, we hired that person as a professor.
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And that person just processed the few loans a month that we had closing every month.
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And then what happened was after I hired that first person and that first person was able
19:21
to take a lot off of me that I was doing before.
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I realized I had more time to do what I love to do, which was to originate, to counsel,
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to advise, to help people.
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And of course, that grew and then we needed a second person.
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So we hired a second person.
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And we were operating as three.
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My husband was not involved in the origination.
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He was involved in the management and the accounting and the bookkeeping, which he still
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does.
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He doesn't originate at all.
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And after a year, a year and a half in the business, we realized that in order to grow,
19:52
we need to move our location out of our basement.
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So we purchased the property.
19:57
Met property.
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We lived in the second and third floor and the first floor was the business operation.
20:02
And that made it possible for us to see clients in the office and people would come in.
20:07
And sometimes they would ask, you live upstairs, but we tried to hide it.
20:10
We built the walls, but they didn't know we lived up there.
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So, and really, that's how we operated from 2007 all the way up to 2015.
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And then in 2015, we got the location that we have now, which is on a central strip
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of the city where I now have five assistants and we have room for more and we're now having
20:34
loan officers join us.
20:35
Very interesting.
20:36
That is an American success story, huh?
20:39
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
20:41
But I will tell you, Jeff, that the breaking point for me in the growth of my business
20:46
was really in 2013 and 2014, end of 2013 to the end of 2014 when I engaged in landmark
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education, which I'm not sure if you've heard of or not, and that, yeah, the landmark
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education, landmark form, I did the entire year long curriculum, I did that while working
21:05
and that really changed the game for me because it caused me to face that the way that I was
21:12
doing things didn't really work as well as they could work and that it didn't work largely
21:17
because I didn't have the support I needed to operate at my highest level because my highest
21:23
and best use wasn't realized because I was the assistant in many cases and we don't have
21:27
enough help.
21:28
You are the assistant, right?
21:29
Right.
21:30
So, in my case, I was for assistance and once I came to terms with that and I learned
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how to delegate, which is a process that takes years, you know, and the loan officers have
21:41
this difficulty all across the country, we're so good at what we do, we don't want to
21:45
relinquish control, which really have to relinquish control.
21:48
That's the key, you really have to relinquish control.
21:51
But the other key that I think isn't spoken about enough is relinquishing control to the
21:57
right people.
21:58
So, in the beginning, I was relinquishing control a little by little, but I had one ungreat
22:04
person, but the other people weren't as good.
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And so, I kept on feeling like I needed to pull back on them, I needed to watch them and
22:13
micro-manage them and for good reason because they just weren't as good as I needed them
22:17
to be.
22:18
And then once I hired the right people and you know you've got the right person, when
22:21
you can give them something to do and they do it right and you don't have to feel that
22:25
you have to watch them.
22:26
And when you have five of those people, you've got it made and that's what I have right
22:30
now.
22:31
Yeah.
22:32
And we're going to talk about it a little bit more.
22:33
I wanted to go back for a second and ask you, your first, you said you're in your first
22:35
three months is when you hired after three months, you hired a processor.
22:39
How many units were you doing at that time, roughly?
22:42
You know, at that point, I wasn't counting as well as I should now.
22:46
At that point, I would say I was probably closing anywhere from six to seven units a month.
22:53
Okay.
22:54
Good number.
22:55
Because I think that is, you know, the magic number, the sweet spot, right?
22:57
It's like, like you said, unless you have an assistant, you are the assistant.
23:01
And, you know, you and I talked about this before is that that's, I see as the biggest
23:04
block for LOs is there to their control fakes and they're trying to do it all and a lot
23:09
of them are high seas, you know, like, like you, where it's like, hey, man, you're a tactician,
23:14
you know, you want to be involved, but in order to grow, you got to delegate.
23:17
So any advice, and I don't want to get like too far ahead of ourselves because I know
23:21
you're a disc fan.
23:22
I'm a disc fan.
23:23
I've talked about disc as a matter of fact, I had the president of Wisehire on a podcast
23:29
earlier and Dr. Marston, who founded the disc, is basically the founder of that company,
23:35
Wisehire.
23:36
So I forget what episode that is, but you guys can search that on the blog.
23:39
But anyway, so that's how big of a proponent of the disc I am is that, you know, I use it
23:43
in my coaching.
23:44
I use it to help LOs bring on assistance.
23:46
How do you identify the right team member to bring on?
23:49
Do you have them do the disc?
23:51
Absolutely.
23:52
Every person that we interview, we have them take the disc.
23:56
And for people who are processors, which is what I call four of my five people, I call
24:04
them processors, even though they do a lot more than that, I'm always looking for a C of
24:10
between 70 and 80.
24:12
I'm looking for an I under 50.
24:15
And then the D and the S doesn't matter so much.
24:17
It's the high C and the low I that we want.
24:20
And why do you want those?
24:22
Because the high Cs have that high attention to detail, which is important in a processor.
24:27
And the low I's are the ones that will fit and work and not talk all day, I found.
24:33
We don't need chatty people in the office.
24:35
We need them to work.
24:36
And I've actually hired a couple people in the past who were high eyes and I regretted it
24:40
every time.
24:41
Right.
24:42
Right.
24:43
Because they're too much about the party and people, people, people, and they'll just chat
24:45
you're off.
24:46
Right.
24:47
And they talk to me.
24:48
And I'm busy.
24:49
I need you to talk to me.
24:50
I need you to talk to me as much as you need to talk to me to get the job done and then
24:53
stop.
24:54
And the high eyes, they just keep going and going and going.
24:56
Yeah, absolutely.
24:57
So where do you look for a D then in a processor?
25:00
Yeah, you know, the D isn't that important to me.
25:02
I mean, I'm a very high D and of the people I have now, I have one processor who's also
25:06
a very high D and we don't clash.
25:09
We do find together.
25:11
I don't want the D to be too terribly low because I want them to be results driven.
25:16
So I would say as long as the D is over 35, we're going to get along.
25:22
Okay.
25:23
Good.
25:24
And that's exactly why I asked the question about the D is because to your point, if you
25:26
get somebody who's too low on the D ranking, they're not going to do well with a sense of
25:30
urgency and deadlines, which we all have.
25:32
Absolutely.
25:33
Yeah.
25:34
That's, that's awesome.
25:35
For those that are listening and wondering how do I learn more about the disc, I'm going
25:38
to pull up the actual podcast episode.
25:41
So you can listen to that yourselves, I'll come back to that in a second.
25:47
But how many units are you doing now on average?
25:51
This year, we are on target to hit about between two 30 and 240, obviously, you know, some
25:58
that may close this month may not close till next month.
26:00
We all know that, right?
26:02
And about 70 to 75 million in production.
26:05
Wow.
26:06
And what, where does the bulk of that business come from?
26:08
What's your refi purchase business?
26:11
Interestingly enough, we did have a good amount of refi business this year.
26:14
But the refi business that we have are people who we did their purchase and then they came
26:20
back to refinance.
26:22
So we always call our clients after six months to see if they like to refinance, but definitely
26:27
the majority of the business, I would say about, I mean, business purchase.
26:30
So I would say about 70 to 75% is purchased.
26:34
Okay.
26:35
Okay.
26:36
So I pulled up the podcast episode.
26:37
It's number 55.
26:38
So for you listeners, you want to check that out.
26:39
It's mortgagemarketinginstitute.com forward slash 55, and that's where you can find my interview
26:45
with the president of Wise Higher, W-I-Z-E-H-I-R-E, and I don't give you some info on how to
26:51
learn more about the disk.
26:53
But where would you, in terms of, you know, trying to get a sense of how important the
26:58
disk profile is for you for building a team having the right people?
27:01
I think it's critical, absolutely critical.
27:04
The times in my hiring career where I've not followed it because the person just seemed
27:11
great.
27:12
I'm going to hire them anyway.
27:14
It always proved to be a mistake.
27:17
You've got to have a high C for a processor, it's got to be, if it's under 60, it's just
27:24
not going to work.
27:25
It's just not going to work.
27:26
Lone officers are different, but for processors, for loan officers, for assistance, they have
27:30
to be high C.
27:32
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to transition to LOs as well because
27:35
now you're hiring.
27:36
You don't have any LOs up until recently, but now you're adding, right?
27:40
We are.
27:41
So, presently, we actually do have two loan officers that just started with us.
27:44
They haven't produced anything, but they've just joined the team.
27:47
Yep.
27:48
All right.
27:49
So let's unpack that a little bit.
27:50
How do you find LOs?
27:51
Are you looking for experience?
27:52
Are you, you know, tell me a little bit more about that?
27:55
So we're not actually actively looking.
27:58
So we do have an add out on indeed where we let people know that we're now accepting
28:06
applications for loan officers, word of mouth, and that one advertisement is all we're
28:11
doing.
28:12
So, my concern, Jeff, is I don't want to manage a team of people and then take away from
28:18
my own production, because my highest and best use is in my own production.
28:22
But if we can bring on loan officers with whom I have a mutual synergy, who have experience
28:28
and who I can help, and at the same time, they can help our company, that's a relationship
28:33
that we would talk to.
28:35
And if you're going to be hiring LOs, do you use the disc profile as a pre-higher tool?
28:40
I do.
28:41
And for the LOs, we do look for high eyes and ease.
28:44
Yeah.
28:45
Okay.
28:46
Yeah, I love it.
28:47
Were you preaching to the choir?
28:48
I'm such a big fan of that.
28:49
You know, seriously, I don't know if you're aware, but that company wise hire I mentioned
28:52
actually helps hire for roles, particularly like in your case, probably LOAs more so
28:58
than LOs.
28:59
They can help with that.
29:00
But I'm working with some loan officers right now who use them to hire LOAs and go through
29:04
this whole process that helps score and qualify people and do job postings on that stuff.
29:09
So that's not a plug or a commercial, because I don't get anything for it, but just for people
29:13
listening, for your awareness.
29:15
Okay.
29:16
So, aside from the disc profile and so forth, how do you know if you've got a good loan
29:20
officer, what are some of the obvious signs or traits?
29:24
You know, it's hard for me to say the loan officer because the bringing on of loan officers
29:28
is something that's relatively new for me, Jeff, so I can imagine over the next few months
29:33
a year I'll make mistakes and bring on the wrong people.
29:37
But in general, what I would look for is really, from a bird's eye view, the same thing
29:42
that I would look for and anybody that comes on board is self-sufficiency.
29:47
So if I see somebody coming on and they're constantly needing to lean on me and I'm having
29:51
to do things for them, I'll do it.
29:53
I'll do it for you once, but if you don't learn from that constantly having to repeat
29:57
and do it for you and step then, then that's probably not a sign that you're going to work
30:01
well with us.
30:02
Yeah.
30:03
Okay.
30:04
You know, and looking at my notes, one thing I don't want to overlook is I think this
30:07
is pretty significant.
30:08
If I heard you correctly, you said in 2016, you closed $54 million in production.
30:13
And in 2017, you're tracking what, $73?
30:16
$70.75, hopefully $75.
30:19
Okay.
30:20
So that's a pretty huge growth.
30:21
Okay.
30:23
One year, tell me more, how do you do that?
30:26
How do you grow your business?
30:27
$30?
30:28
Yeah.
30:29
Well, what's an even bigger growth is from the prior year.
30:32
So I was tracking only about $25 million.
30:35
I wasn't even counting.
30:36
I think it was about $25 million up until about 2012, 2013.
30:40
And then it was in 2014 and then in 2015, 2016, that's when I saw the jump.
30:46
And the two things that I did that created that were, like I said, the landmark education
30:51
is huge, huge.
30:53
And then just the delegating of responsibility to the right people.
30:58
I mean, if I could talk to myself 10 years ago, I would have said, Tammy, delegate, hire
31:03
the right people, delegate, hire the right people, that's the most important thing.
31:08
And they've got to be both.
31:09
You can't just delegate.
31:10
They've got to be the right people.
31:13
Did you go through some people?
31:14
Did I go through some people?
31:15
Yeah.
31:16
Wrong people.
31:17
Absolutely.
31:18
Absolutely.
31:19
And they're gone now.
31:20
They're dead.
31:21
Yep.
31:22
The hard way.
31:23
Well, give me an idea of kind of like your daily method of operation, if you will, or a glance
31:27
out of where you could something, you know, what does it look like for Tammy out there
31:32
generating business?
31:33
You know, I don't have a set and stone method of operation, honestly.
31:37
I do have certain things that I do every week and every day.
31:40
I'll tell you one thing that I do do consistently.
31:44
I am the in-house lender for a large real estate brokerage in Virginia.
31:50
A relationship funny enough that I developed, I created 10 years ago.
31:53
I could tell you the story about that, but every Tuesday I go there.
31:59
It's a long drive there and it's a long drive back, so it basically takes out my whole
32:02
day.
32:03
And I teach a class every Tuesday to the agents there.
32:06
And every Tuesday I find a different topic.
32:09
And it's not me marketing myself to them.
32:11
They're already using me.
32:12
It's me supporting them, helping them, giving them ideas on what they can do to grow their
32:17
business, giving them updates.
32:20
For example, this last Tuesday we were talking about the conforming loan limit going up
32:24
as of last week and how they can use that to increase their business next year, things
32:29
they wouldn't have thought of, things they can post on Facebook.
32:32
So I share what I'm doing in my business as it impacts their business to help them grow
32:37
their business.
32:38
So that's something that I do consistently every Tuesday.
32:41
But otherwise the way I operate is I'll wake up in the morning, wake up my one and a
32:45
half year old, take care of him, then go to work, and I deal with what's in front of
32:53
me.
32:54
And I have people calling in, every phone call that comes in, my assistant screams to call
33:00
and then she sends them over to me so I talk to every single person that calls in.
33:05
If there are issues with files and process that my processing manager can't handle that
33:09
comes back to me.
33:10
But generally that's how I work my day.
33:13
How much do you are of a time blocker are you and being very structured and intentional
33:18
with your calendar?
33:20
I don't time block.
33:21
I show it, but I don't.
33:22
I knew that was a missed ask.
33:24
Yeah, but it's okay because maybe it's something that I need to do and that's something
33:29
that people in the mortgage business, anybody who's successful knows you have to be comfortable
33:34
with being uncomfortable, right?
33:35
And realizing maybe the way you're doing things isn't the best way and figuring out new and
33:40
improved methodologies.
33:41
And I think one of the reasons that I don't time lock is because I get calls from, I don't
33:48
want to miss call from an incoming person.
33:50
I want to miss call from one of my agents who may need me right away.
33:54
But I'm not opposed to it.
33:55
It's just not something that I've done.
33:57
No, I know.
33:58
And for you listeners right now, you know, I've done podcasts on time blocking and some
34:02
of you need it.
34:03
Right?
34:04
Tammy, she's a 95D.
34:05
She's going to get it done no matter what.
34:07
So not if it was a 95D.
34:11
How many core realtors would you say you work with right now that send you the bulk of
34:14
your business?
34:15
I have a feeling you'd ask me that.
34:18
I actually have more, I have a large number of realtors who each send me some business
34:25
throughout the year.
34:27
As far as if you were, which real estate agent sends me consistently two to three transactions
34:33
a month, that's what you're asking.
34:35
I would say probably five or six, but then I have anywhere from 50 to 100 real estate
34:43
agents who know me and will occasionally send me a client.
34:47
Yeah.
34:48
And so that's what makes up the total units.
34:50
And I've heard that model before.
34:52
I talked to, I interviewed somebody else on the podcast that did a couple hundred units
34:56
or not.
34:57
I can't remember.
34:58
At least a couple hundred units.
34:59
And his was the same way.
35:00
And so the point is, you got to build a model that works for you.
35:03
But the question I do have is, so now you've got a total of 50 who are part of your sphere
35:09
of influence.
35:10
What do you do if anything to stay top of mind with them?
35:13
Well, I'm not a person who will call them every week to say hello.
35:18
Again, maybe I should do that, but I don't.
35:20
I'm just there and available for them.
35:23
I'll reach out to them on their birthday.
35:26
I'll reach out to them during holidays.
35:28
I keep gifts during the holidays.
35:30
They know I'm always there and they know I'm always responsive for the group of agents
35:35
that I support in Virginia.
35:37
Like I said, I'm there every Tuesday.
35:39
So that's what I do.
35:43
Are you more proactively engaged with, you know, those five or six realtors?
35:48
I am because we have transactions always in process.
35:51
So we're talking on a daily or every other day basis.
35:56
Okay.
35:57
And one of the things that you're doing to perhaps try and, I mean, clearly you've grown
36:00
in your business and you said largely that was due to delegating it, freed you up to
36:03
do more biz building stuff, but anything you're doing, you know, whether it's marketing
36:09
to new agents or consumer direct anything on those lines to grow the business.
36:13
We don't.
36:14
We don't.
36:15
And that's one of the things that I think that makes us very different.
36:18
It's not that we can't or that we don't want to.
36:22
It's just something that we haven't done because we frankly never needed to.
36:28
And more importantly, Jeff, I would say is that I've been afraid to do that because I
36:33
don't want to exceed our capacity.
36:35
So right now we're at a point where I have, and that's a, I mean, that's a systematic
36:39
issue.
36:40
We really need to work on that.
36:41
But right now I have, like I said, five people, my processing manager, three processors,
36:47
each of whom are also loan officer assistants, and then the admin.
36:51
And right now they're all busy and we're in December.
36:54
So for me to go out there and do marketing to bring in more business, I first need to
37:02
hire more people.
37:03
Got it.
37:04
Yep.
37:05
Yep.
37:06
You want to have capacity because that's not a good thing to have it be a bad experience.
37:09
Well, I'm on your website and I'm looking at you look to be pretty active with online
37:12
reviews.
37:13
Yes.
37:14
Yes.
37:15
Yeah.
37:16
So tell me about that.
37:17
How do you get online reviews from clients?
37:18
You know, I just at the end of transactions, people are happy because we do a good job.
37:23
So what we do is we email them saying here are view sites and I'll personally ask each
37:28
person who closes, will you leave this non-run line review?
37:32
And some of them do.
37:34
Some of them don't and the ones you see online are the ones that do.
37:38
And you know, for me, the reviews are a big deal.
37:41
Obviously, they help any business, but for me, it kind of comes from how I was raised.
37:47
My mother always told me, don't talk well about yourself.
37:51
Do a good job and other people will talk well about you and that's where that comes
37:55
from for me.
37:56
But it's as simple as when do you ask them for the review?
37:59
Is it some some point up front or is it after the transaction closes?
38:02
It's usually after the transaction, but it's usually after the transaction, but sometimes
38:07
while while alone is in process, I'll ask them for a review.
38:10
Sure.
38:11
And it's a simple email link and they go, are you driving them to Zilla?
38:16
So what I do is I have a form email and you know, at the end of the transaction, typically
38:21
how it happens is they'll email me, thank you for doing such a great job.
38:24
And that's when I'll email them back.
38:26
Could you please leave those words on one of our review sites and I'll give them the
38:30
Google site, the Zillow site, the Facebook site and then the Yelp site and let them choose.
38:35
Let them choose.
38:36
Okay.
38:37
That's in the form links in the email.
38:38
Right.
38:39
And they'll typically pick one.
38:40
Don't typically pick one.
38:41
Right.
38:42
Okay.
38:43
No, that's awesome.
38:44
I mean, you've got 203 reviews.
38:46
That's pretty awesome.
38:47
When you consider, right, today's, you know, online reviews are the currency of trust.
38:55
I love saying that today online because if you get a referral, you know, that's right.
39:02
You get a referral from an agent.
39:03
What's the first thing they do before they call you and Google you, right?
39:06
And see, okay, what's this federal mortgage all about?
39:10
Let me check into that.
39:11
Whoa.
39:12
200 reviews.
39:13
Wow.
39:15
205 star reviews, by the way.
39:17
Right.
39:18
And what you'll find that that's interesting is that the majority of them are over the last
39:21
year and a half because it wasn't until then that I actually started asking for them.
39:27
You sound like, to me, based on what I've heard, you have, and this is meant to be a good
39:32
thing and a compliment, a very traditional business, meaning you're not distracted by
39:38
the bright shiny objects of how do I run ads on Facebook or whatever.
39:43
Building business belly to belly, right, relationships in your local market.
39:47
Exactly.
39:48
Absolutely.
39:49
Mm-hmm.
39:50
Absolutely.
39:51
One of the things that I've, you know, heard other people alone officers do is they're,
39:56
you know, calling agents that they don't know asking for business and asking for coffee
40:01
meetings.
40:02
And I'm not opposed to that, but it's just something that I've never had to do.
40:07
And I'll be honest with you, there were a few times that I've done that and it was just
40:10
a very uncomfortable situation for me because it wasn't, it wasn't the way that I operate.
40:15
The way that I operate is by building the relationships the traditional way, doing
40:20
a good job, being noticed, letting other people talk about me.
40:24
Are there any communication tools or technology things, you know, whether it's a CRM, it's
40:29
a software, it's a whatever, anything you use in your business that you rely on heavily?
40:34
What I rely on heavily, I use list reports.
40:38
I like that.
40:39
I do.
40:40
I do.
40:41
And you had with Paul Carter on the podcast.
40:42
I did.
40:43
I heard it.
40:44
I listened to the whole thing and I was actually at the Todd Duncan sales mastery event.
40:47
What about you, though?
40:48
That's how I learned about it.
40:49
I was there.
40:50
I was there.
40:51
I know you were.
40:52
We could have met there.
40:53
I know you were.
40:54
I wish I knew.
40:55
I would have met you.
40:56
But I was there and what's funny is that I think I, I think you had Todd Duncan on a podcast,
40:59
right?
41:00
Mm-hmm.
41:01
So that's how I learned about it.
41:02
I was listening to your cast, heard Todd Duncan and something inside of me said, I've got
41:08
to go to this thing.
41:09
But it was only a week and a half out.
41:11
And I had a one and a half year old at home and I had a business.
41:14
But guess what?
41:15
I got to take it.
41:16
It was very expensive.
41:17
I got on the plane and I went.
41:18
Wow.
41:19
That was great.
41:20
It was great.
41:21
It was awesome.
41:22
So I thank you for that.
41:23
I got to let Todd know.
41:24
Yeah.
41:25
It was incredible.
41:26
And I actually, you know, got to meet the, you know, some, some, some leader of other people
41:31
that I'm now in communication with in other parts of the country that do what I do.
41:35
So I do that.
41:36
I also have an online, I have an automatic pre-approval software that I purchased, setkey.com.
41:42
I think it's, I think it's great.
41:43
What's it called?
41:44
It's called setkey.com, STEDKEY.com, great, my agents love it, where I can plug in and
41:52
create a profile for any borrower and it gives the agent an invitation and the agent can
41:57
go in and generate an automatic pre-approval letter at any point in time based on parameters
42:02
that I've set.
42:03
So it's, it's a great, it's a great software.
42:06
Other than that, believe it or not, I actually don't have a formal CRM.
42:09
I am in the process of getting one this week, actually.
42:12
Hmm.
42:13
Any, any that you want to talk about your value?
42:16
Well, you know what?
42:17
I actually, it, for me, the one that I've chosen to use is Jango, Jango, for self-force.
42:22
Yep.
42:23
Yep.
42:24
But I did research into Jango, I did research into whiteboard, I did research into top of
42:28
mine and I found that as much as I like the whiteboard interface, the Jango is what gave
42:34
me the ability to store emails in a very efficient manner.
42:39
Got it.
42:40
Yep.
42:41
Yep.
42:42
I know I'm talking to them a lot being on the podcast as well.
42:44
It's definitely kind of the 800 pound gorilla as far as the CRM goes in the mortgage space.
42:50
What's on the horizon for you for 2018 for business plan or activities that you want
42:55
to start launching?
42:56
So every December for the last few years, what I do is I write a business plan on how
43:02
much business I need to do the following year.
43:05
And by the way, I don't use the word goal, I use the word commitment, that's just my language.
43:09
I believe goals are easily forgiven, but commitments, you make commitment, you do it.
43:15
So my commitment for 2018 is to hit 100 million in production.
43:21
And my goal for 2019, not goal here as using the word goal, my commitment for 2019 is to
43:28
be the number one originator in the state of Maryland.
43:31
I love it.
43:32
That's a big, hairy audacious goal.
43:34
Yep.
43:35
Yes, yes, but I'm going to do it.
43:37
I'm going to do it.
43:38
I need about 150 million to do it.
43:40
Right.
43:41
And so I'm curious when you set big commitments like that.
43:45
If you then begin to work backwards, you know, to build out, or you don't mean like build
43:50
in the house like, okay, here's the artist's rendition.
43:52
Now it's like great for the foundation, put the studs, with the, you know, wiring.
43:56
Do you get that?
43:57
I'm assuming no, because you're a super high dean, you're just like screw it, I'm going
43:59
to do it.
44:00
No, but I'm also high C. So, so I'm a high D, but a slightly lower C.
44:08
So no, I absolutely do that.
44:09
So what I do is I say, this is what I'm going to produce.
44:13
These are my referral sources.
44:14
This is the amount of, and I have a spreadsheet.
44:16
This is the amount of business that I can expect from each referral source.
44:21
I add that up.
44:22
And if that doesn't get me 200 million, I say, okay, what else do I need to do?
44:27
What other actions do I need to take to get to that number?
44:29
Well, I need to have a CRM.
44:32
I need to do some Facebook posting.
44:35
I need to maybe call on listing agents that I haven't called on before.
44:41
I need to time block.
44:43
I need, so I make a list.
44:45
And that's what I did last year, and that's what I did the year before.
44:49
And then how often do you check in?
44:51
I mean, obviously you're checking in on terms of production.
44:53
That's pretty simple and easy, right?
44:55
Like your production report.
44:56
But in terms of those, initiative you just mentioned, like, you know, time blocking,
44:59
calling listing agents, whatever, how often can you self monitor?
45:03
I think I self-monitor every day, big self-monitoring, big self-monitoring.
45:09
Yeah, yeah.
45:10
No, and the reason I ask is because, you know, I talked a lot of LLs about business plans
45:14
and stuff, and people put these, you know, nice giant goals, which is like, you know,
45:17
yeah, do X amount of volume.
45:19
Great. How are you going to get there?
45:20
Or it's like, work with more agents.
45:22
Cool. What's that actually going to look like day to day, you know?
45:27
You've got to map it out and you've got to make it specific, and you've got to create lists.
45:31
And you've got to hold yourself accountable to those lists.
45:33
And call them commitments, not goals.
45:35
Hmm. And are you a reader at all?
45:39
I love to read, but I love to read specific things.
45:43
I love to read books on self-development.
45:46
I don't like to read fiction.
45:48
Is there a particular book that's really made a difference in your life or business
45:54
that, you know, maybe you recommend others?
45:56
I would recommend that everybody read Napoleon Hills, think and grow rich.
46:01
How many times have you read that?
46:02
I've read the whole thing once, but then parts of it 10 times.
46:07
Yeah, I see. I knew you read it more one month.
46:09
I think the parts that I like.
46:10
Yeah, because everybody who's read that book tends to read it more than once.
46:13
Mm-hmm.
46:14
Because there's just so much stuff in there.
46:15
You got to come back to it.
46:17
Very good. Very cool.
46:18
All right.
46:19
So wow, big, big commitments for 2018.
46:21
So if we circle back at the end of 2018, you're going to be a hundred million.
46:26
Absolutely.
46:27
You know it. You know it.
46:28
Awesome.
46:29
Well, look, I know you're busy and you've got loans to fund and stuff to do.
46:32
So I am so grateful for the time that you've made available here today.
46:35
It's been an education and I can't thank you enough.
46:39
So appreciate you being here.
46:41
Thank you, Jeff. It's a privilege.
46:43
You bet. And by the way, hey, before I forget, if anybody wanted to connect with you
46:46
or reach out with you, what would you say the best way to do that?
46:48
And I can put them in the show notes, your website link, you know?
46:51
Yep. The website link that they can email me through the website link
46:55
or they can email me directly.
46:56
It's my first initial last name at federalhomeworkage.com.
47:01
Awesome.
47:02
So listeners, thank you very much for tuning into this week's episode.
47:06
We appreciate you.
47:07
And if you like this episode, please do us a favor, take a moment to leave us a ranking
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47:12
It helps us reach more loan officers.
47:14
So thanks for listening and we will see you again on the next one.
47:18
Bye for now.
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Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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