Podcast

026 – Dave Savage : A Mortgage Industry Shifter

By October 22, 2020December 2nd, 2020No Comments

BCS 26 | Mortgage Industry

 

The mortgage market can seem complicated to the inexperienced. However, it is not as complicated as it is ever-changing. Understanding how the market works will give you a better idea about mortgage programs offered by certain lenders. In this episode, Brian Covey talks to the CEO of Mortgage Coach, Dave Savage. Dan has over 30 years’ experience as a mobile tech pioneer and a mortgage industry agent of change. Committed to educating and preparing lenders and loan officers for the digital mortgage revolution, Dave is often invited to company keynote and industry events such as MBA Tech, Sales Mastery, and the Mastermind Summit to help facilitate Mastermind events. He also facilitates the Mortgage Coach Productivity Mastermind group on Facebook to help mortgage professionals connect and learn from each other. Dave helps all originators achieve their personal and company best by conducting weekly interviews with top producers and other industry leaders and sharing these stories and strategies on the Mortgage Coach YouTube channel. To date, Dave has interviewed more than 1,000 leaders and the Mortgage Coach channel has been described as the most valuable YouTube channel for mortgage professionals.

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Dave Savage : A Mortgage Industry Shifter

This episode is extra special because I’ve got my good friend Dave Savage on. You guys are not going to want to miss this episode. Before we get into that, I want to share with you. We’ve had some killer guests lately. If you haven’t been paying attention with Dave Meltzer, Anthony Trucks and some guys that have brought some tremendous value. What we designed that around was for people out there that are learning how to increase their sales capacity, become better leaders, parents out there. It’s about learning and growing every day. Each time we bring a guest on, we’ve got a unique focus and somebody that I’ve personally been following along, I’m connected with, and they’ve been leading by example. Dave is one of those guys.

If you check out his YouTube channel in the mortgage and real estate space, he is the guy to go to whether you’re a beginner, intermediary or an advanced trying to get your black belt. He’ll talk about that. Over 11,000 subscribers on YouTube, Dave has personally spoken and worked with our company at Loan Depot and works with all of the top companies in the mortgage space. He’s designed what I believe is going to be the future of where mortgage lending goes. This is not just for mortgage lenders out there. My friends and leadership, and those of you that are looking to embrace technology and learn and grow yourself, you’re going to want to tune in because he’s a guy that I call him a change agent. We’ll unpack some of that as well. Dave, welcome.

It’s good to be here, Brian. I love that opening. Thank you for that. I’m pumped for this conversation. Every time I talk to you, I get fired up.

I remember the last time you were here in Franklin. You came out and spoke to our group. I was pulling up pictures and all that stuff. We’d gone to the coffee shop and you spoke to our team. What was interesting is that was prior to coming into 2020, which has changed for all of us. You were talking about some of the innovations and some of the change. One thing that resonated that day, you were talking about the speed at which we would see change would accelerate to such a degree that we would see change that normally would happen in 15, 20 years, in a few years and it would get compounded. Were you ever right?

I was referring to Moore’s Law. At the pace of Moore’s Law, we would have seen several years’ worth of change in two years and 2x. Moore’s Law plus COVID’s Law equals a decade’s worth of change in a single year and maybe more. Grandma knows what Zoom is and the world has radically shifted since the last time you and I were in person together.

Think about 2020, and I know for all of us, things that I noticed is my five-year-old has now done Zoom. My two older kids have now done education from home and they’re on Zoom calls. They’re learning technology. They’re realizing technology works when it works, when it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. My daughter is going to school. She said, “One of our teachers unfortunately tested positive for COVID. She’s going to Zoom in to the class. While they’re there, she’s not at school. She’s going to Zoom in. You think about everyone’s using technology. You’ve been a promoter of this and that Moore’s Law stuck with me because for many people, they probably don’t embrace change.

I call you a change agent. I always think about if I were going to describe Dave, and you’re going to have words about different people, you’ve been a change agent. I’d love for you to talk about, is there anything that you’ve taken out of 2020 and you’re like, “This is things that I realized in 2020, but I’ve been able to implement and help my business or shift in that change agent type of world.” I’ve noticed some changes, but you’re doing it.

We all know the difference between good and bad. When it comes to social media and building a personal brand, bad is not turning on the camera. Bad is not being intentional about what you look like when a family googles you, not having intentionality around your online reviews, with how you connect with people. The difference between good and great is more subtle. I have tried to update my game. I’ve got better lighting. I’ve got a better camera. I’ve always been in the business of trying to be the best. If I’m not the best, at least I want to be great. I don’t want to be good. I want to be great.

You’ve seen a lot of loan officers step into that. I do think that the middle class in the mortgage business is separated. You’re seeing loan officers that are crushing it in even greater levels. There are still tens of thousands. I’m having a company that I get data from do some analytics for me and there are 4,114 loan officers that have done over 300 loans in 2020. When I say loan officers, those are teams. There are still 70,000 loan officers that haven’t done twenty loans. They’re still struggling. You’re seeing people lean into the game of great, deliver an amazing online digital experience and embrace technology. You’re still seeing people that are like, “I’m going to get by with whatever I can.” I do think this acceleration we’ve seen will shake out as rates stabilize and the market stabilizes. It will be a reckoning for loan officers that are not leveraging tech.

A mortgage coach is someone who puts the customer first, someone who wants to help people beyond the transaction. Click To Tweet

We’ve seen it. We know that shift is going to continue to happen. It always happens in these seasons, in these waves. To your point, you are seeing this massive separation of that top echelon. They are the ones that are embracing it. Think about 2020, those of us that had grown up in the business. We could meet face-to-face, have coffee and lunch, do these mixers and all these types of face-to-face, belly-to-belly. That’s not happening in every market. If you didn’t adapt to that quickly and you’re not figuring out how to do online, which I realized personally, I can get to thousands of people versus getting to 50, 100, 200 at my best day. I’m like, “What was I missing out?” What’s one of the things that you’ve seen like maybe a tactic of those that are leading and leading that change agent world, where you’ve seen someone embrace something and you’re like, “That’s cool?” That’s something we could probably all do. It’s not too difficult, but a good tactic that they are using.

I’ve seen a lot of people expand their day and expand where they could work. Pulling from an interview I did with Amber Kovarik, a top-producing loan officer out of Chandler, Arizona. The month I interviewed her, she had closed 45 loans. I asked her, “How are you balancing refis and realtors?” She’s like, “During the day, it’s all about purchases, realtors and delivering value on that.” She talked about her process, “My assistant does this. I do that.” She said, “In the evenings, I’ve got two kids. After they go to bed, this is not a time of balance for mortgage professionals. I’m doing refis.” What made it cool is she was using Mortgage Coach, our platform. She’s putting a 90-second video on it. I thought, “That’s cool.”

You’ve expanded your day. If it was me, I wouldn’t be doing it after my kids went to bed because I’d be going to bed. I’d be doing it in the morning. The point was as a mortgage professional, you’re able to expand your day with video and with tech because you could create this amazing presentation, put a video on it and send it to a family, and in her case, wake up in the morning and it’s a green light. Let’s go. That’s a new superpower. I’ve interviewed a lot of loan officers that pre-COVID were meeting with a good portion of their clients in person. They’re like, “I’m using Mortgage Coach, Zoom, Vidyard. I’m doing this digital experience. I’m able to build trust faster and I’m able to convert.” I’m hearing twice as fast. People said, “I had an hour to 40-minute.” Pre-purchase, pre-call are saying, “I’m down to 20 to 30 minutes. It’s as good and as valuable and I’m crushing it.” They’re able to do more with less because of the way they’re using tech.

When you hit on something there that 2020 provided us all an opportunity, I know me included, I had to reassess because I’m a routine guy. I know you are too. I’m in a rhythm. I’m in a routine. That all got thrown upside down. Even though the summer, it started to be like, “We’ve got to shift again.” We got busy for those of us that are growing. I realized, “Now I’ve got to shift again. I feel like 2020 has probably been 3 or 4 major shifts in my day in my approach that I’m starting to fine-tune. That’s what I’ve realized talking to top leaders, producers, leaders of teams, they are finding the time. I’m a morning guy like you talked about. I wouldn’t do the night thing. I would do the morning, but they’re finding time to make the most of their time.

We’re not commuting. Most of us driving in and out of the office. Video, you were talking about that. One of our guys enlightened me. He started doing video updates. I know a lot of companies in CRMs produce those standards. We do updates along the process. That’s cool. He decided, “I’m going to customize these. I’m going to bring my team into the video and bring the entire group to introduce the team. He said, to your point, his conversion is like 10x. Are you referring to Tyler?

I talked to Tyler because I’m preparing for a training event for you guys later. I am seeing that as a trend. I’ve seen a lot of loan officers adopt a video at the point of sale. In your case, you are using Vidyard and it’s an email video. There are a lot of other platforms, BombBomb, Covideo or something like that. They thought they might want to change their name in this marketplace, but I’ve also seen a lot of people do text videos. Josh Mettle, I interviewed him and he’s meeting the family sometimes on the phone and sometimes it’s with Zoom. When he sends them the link, he’s texting it.

It’s a 30-second text video. Not turning on the camera, bad, not a sustainable business practice, not a best practice, turning on the video, learning how to use it in different channels, good. Do you have good enough lighting to where people can see your eyes? That’s how trust is built. I see a lot of loan officers in the frame, in their video. There’s too much space between their head. If there’s any one change I can get people to make coming through these COVID times is at least play well. If you’re not going to play the great game, play the good game when it comes to video.

What was interesting in 2020 is I know you went through some of this with Rene, but there are people out there now and we have access to information and people that are willing to help. Me even virtually, I was setting up the studio and everything here. For not as much money as I thought it would be, you could adjust some things and get better quality lighting. You could get a better mic. You’re talking about a couple of hundred dollars that the difference between how someone’s going to perceive you. Let’s call it what it is. They will judge you based on that perception. If you’re doing this regularly, which we should be every day, you want to be playing at the highest level. I’ve seen you make those shifts too.

As you look at your video game, because I know we can talk about equipment and those things, and that’s probably a different segment, but is there anything you’ve learned through? Rene coached you some. You’ve been through some of the amplify events and all that. You talked about building trust with your eyes. Is there anything else that you’ve seen? This is something I don’t think is talked about is once you get on the camera now, how do I perform my best to build trust in that?

René Rodriguez is a mentor of mine and I’ve been through his Amplifii program three times, going on fourth. I did three in live pre-COVID, in person, and I did one virtually. It’s having the right lighting, camera to your point. One, it’s easy and there’s probably a different color on that. I do think that leadership and influence. It is a time to upgrade our leadership, influence and making sure that if we’re going to be doing that virtually and I do believe most of the top producers I talked to do believe that even as we cure the disease is at the right word, but as we gain immunity and as we get on the other side of what the normal looks like, digital is a new channel and it’s exploded.

A lot of people are going to want to do the digital channel over the in-person channel or they’re going to want to do shorter in-person meetings. It’s like when texts became a thing and when social media became a thing. It’s preference management. It’s a communication style. In addition to the technology itself, control your mute. That’s the biggest mistake I see people make is they join calls and don’t control their mute. It’s anywhere from embarrassing to obnoxious. That’s probably the most important thing, but even your hand gestures.

If I kept my hands down the whole time and talked to you, we have to bring our hand gestures above our waist. Whereas like if I was in person, it’s different. I do think Amplifii is for anyone that wants to play the great game and you want to be the best influencer. I don’t mean like a social media influencer. I mean someone that, “I’ve got ideas, I have standards and I want to be able to communicate those in a way that gets other people on my team,” you want to do Amplifii with René Rodriquez. It’s amazing and at least follow him on social media.

BCS 26 | Mortgage Industry

 

That’s one thing in 2020 that I know I’ll put in my arsenal is I’ve expanded those people that I believe are going to make a positive impact, whether they’re directly mentoring me or I’m following their content. What I’ve found is a lot of those people have leaned in. They’ve gone from good to great. I believe some of those. You talked about this leadership and influence. I know we’re both into social. Whether you’re in a mortgage or real estate or insurance sales, sales, you’re trying to build your brand. You’ve built a cool brand around Mortgage Coach, but also there’s a Dave Savage brand. I think about Dave as a brand that you’ve built out as an educator. The change agent I’ve used that with you before, but also somebody that’s influencing the industry.

What you’ve been able to do is you’ve proven collaboration over competition. Meaning that if you have an abundance mindset, which I know we both do, there’s enough business to go around. If we play our best in our market, where we are, we think big and we deliver, we’re going to have a business. You’ve been able to bring that to the market and deliver on social. Are there any things that you’ve learned or tips around building your brand or connecting and building that community? You’ve done one of the best jobs, Dave, and you’ve built a community.

That is my strategy and goal. I don’t think of, “I’m doing social media.” What I do is I’m community building and I’m using our technology, whatever the power that drives my mobile phone and my laptop. How can I use those tools in a way to build community? Coming out of the meltdown of 2007 to 2008, one, I found out how many use our technology because if they didn’t, they were gone. I learned it, the biggest impediment to people adopting technology was their why like, “Why should I do that?” I decided that if I’m going to be successful with the Mortgage Coach, the way I want to be. I don’t want to have these elite nerds using our platform, small market share, I needed to grow the market share. I needed to change how loan officers think. I had a tribe. Back in those days, it was a smaller tribe but of progressive servant leaders.

Google yourself and make sure that if someone goes and looks at you on one of these channels, you look professional. Click To Tweet

A mortgage coach is someone that puts the customer first. A mortgage coach is someone that wants to help people beyond the transaction. A mortgage coach is someone that wants the family to think of their mortgage coach differently. I knew I had to use more technology to do that. Probably the one thing that is killing it for us is our Facebook group. I have seen a lot of loan officers build their own Facebook groups with real estate agents. That’s a hot idea for anyone that is using social media strategically. We’ve definitely learned in 2020. I learned it a few years ago, but social media is a mixed bag. It can suck your life. It can make you angry. Some people, the older they get, the better they get and some people, the older they get, the more bitter they get. Social media can drive that bitterness. If it’s used in a positive way, both in how you consume and how you create, it’s a game-changer. That’s been proven out. Your evidence of that and what you’ve done on social media.

You continue to learn and expand into your point. In the beginning, it is tough. I look back on my journey. I had this notification. It’s funny on Twitter. I’d forgotten that I joined Twitter several years ago. I’m looking back like I’d been on LinkedIn several years now. How long have you been doing this? It takes time. What I learned and now, if I were to tell my former younger self, it would be what you said is have some guardrails, go intentional with those communities. Over time, those communities will expand and you’ll attract people to them. I had learned that sooner because it’s almost like that targeted avatar of the person you want in your community.

You have those similar beliefs. They’re going to challenge you and make you better. To your point, Dave, this is something people don’t talk about is social could be both good and bad at the same time. It could suck your time. On the other hand of it, it has a tremendous opportunity to create real direct referrals that I’ve seen. It’s a balance. Have you seen people that are leaning into social? Let’s cut to it. Those that are using it and they are getting business from it. They’re not building a brand or glorifying their record months that we see. Everyone in the mortgage business had record months. Welcome to that club, congratulations. What have you seen around that? To me, that’s the separator. There’s a small difference there when you get to the great. Is there anything you’re seeing those people do that they’re more intentional? You talked about the Facebook groups. The agents love that. That’s killer.

I know a lot of realtors are killing it on Instagram and monetizing it. Seth O’Byrne is probably one of the best examples. Follow him on Instagram. He is selling a lot of homes with his stories on Instagram. I don’t know a lot of loan officers that are monetizing Instagram. Most loan officers, Facebook. Even like Jeremy Forcier, if you follow his Facebook, he’s funny. He’s not doing anything intentionally, but he’s getting loans every month because he’s a compelling person. You take like Denise Donoghue, Kelly Zitlow, Dan Keller, they’re killing it with how they are creating content and doing that. I’ve done a lot of interviews with people on that. I am starting to see some case studies pop up on LinkedIn. A lot of mortgage professionals that are doing recruiting. They’re all over LinkedIn from that perspective.

In terms of loan officers getting business from CPAs and financial planners, I’ve seen a lot of success stories there and on YouTube. If I was talking to a loan officer, first and foremost, make sure that when someone Googles you, you know what it looks like, so Google yourself. Be intentional and make sure that if someone goes and looks at you on one of these channels that you look professional. It’s not blank. You don’t have a picture. If your picture is not up there and you have it edited and looked at it in the past year, that’s bad. If you’re creating content and you’re being intentional, that’s great. It depends on your goal. Do you want to be the most well-known, most recognized, or maybe not the most, but recognized and well-known loan officer in the community that you serve? If you do, social media is awesome. Some of the names I mentioned would be great people to follow.

I follow them too. What’s cool about the journey we figured out in 2020 is you can follow them easier. They are putting out more content. All of us would say, “I know I’ve put out more content than I did in 2019.” As you do more content, the quality of your content gets better. I shouldn’t say that to everybody. That’s not a set standard, but I do think the more that we do it, the better we get. You talked about this. You’ve got a good focus on the originators, but I’d love to shift and pick your brain for the leaders out there.

Those people that are running teams like myself and others that were starting to realize that there’s a gap of we’ve got this push for modern originators, embracing technology, all these things we’ve discussed. There’s not a space. I’ve tried to lean into this, but there’s not a space to cultivate and nurture modern leadership so that we start building leaders who build leaders. Whether that’s in position and title or you’re helping out your ops team, your agents, your customers, you’re a leader. What are you seeing? What are your thoughts on leadership and influence at this point?

I have a lot of thoughts on that because we’re doing the Modern Mortgage Summit. I’ve got 30 top producers and every one of them is like a poster boy or girl of the modern mortgage originator. Bill Gaylord is a great example of this. He’s going to be doing a how-to video and someone you want to follow on social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. One of the things I noticed as I was looking and studying these loan officers, our speakers, the average production, they’ve already closed 360 loans for the year. Several of them have already closed 500. Almost all of them have closed over $100 million. Some have closed over 500 loans. I was breaking down. What are the similarities? They all use their CRM. Every one of them, not daily, but hourly, it drives their business. They all use a link to take an app, not like 50% of the time. The majority of the time they know how to lead. They know how to tell the client like, “Here’s the best way and the easiest way for you to do business with me.”

It’s not like, “I could take it for you or I can send you an email. If you don’t want to do the email link, I’m happy to.” They’re confident. They’re leaders. The way they deliver the app is leadership. They have links for how they deliver videos and they’re doing milestone videos. They’re using video throughout the sales experience. Thirty-four percent of loan officers that do over a hundred loans. That was in 2019. It’s even more in 2020. Use Mortgage Coach. When they give advice, they give a link. Here’s the thing. I was shocked when I asked every one of them, are you being coached or have you been coached? All of them are either being coached and have been coached. I also asked them, “Are you currently doing any coaching or mentoring?” All of them are coaching and mentoring. Here are the takeaway guys. We create leadership like what Brian is doing. This is coaching and mentoring at scale, in a group format.

The time he takes to do an interview like this, he gets smarter. He gets better. He takes on some of my quotes. Every audience that he’s doing, he’s interviewing someone. He tagged me and I shared it. He’s bringing more people into his community. I push every loan officer. You need to be coached and you need to be a coach. When you’re talking about coaching, it doesn’t mean you need a fee. All of them were not doing fee-based coaching where like, “I am charging X a month for six months.” A lot of them were doing fee-based coaching, but a lot of them weren’t. You could do with social media. Here’s a great strategy for everybody. Interview people in your local community, your fire chief, the owner of your favorite restaurant or a couple of the top agents, a couple of the top CPAs. With taxes being due, for COVID times, it would be great interviews. Interview financial planners and interview people because you’re coaching, you’re mentoring at scale and you’re getting better on the process.

Without fail, I’ve realized that in my own life, but as I’ve surrounded myself with successful people, and I ask them that question, it is that they are being coached and they also are coaching. It’s almost, to your point, some are fee-based and I get all that. I do that personally myself. To your point, there’s also some of that mentoring and coaching that goes on the side. In 2020, I’ve seen an uptick of collaboration and I was pushing for that in 2019. We had in our industry some infighting, whatever you want to call it, like competitiveness coming out. What I’ve seen is that people that are collaborating, regardless of what company you work for, of what channel you’re in, of how you do your business, we’re learning that’s forever changed in 2020.

You highlighted some of those. David, I see this as something I’d love to talk to you about is the shift of consumers going online, which we know is real. It’s changing at a rapid pace. If we solely wait for referrals to come inbound, we’re not going to be growing our business. We’ve got to be going outbound with a strategy and having inbound coming to us. Are you seeing anything in that direct to consumer or you mentioned some of those guys that are doing social, is there anything else that they’re doing or that you’re seeing that’s innovative ongoing directly?

When I think of the modern mortgage advisor, they use technology in a consumer-first mobile-first way that I described, then there’s a business model side of it. Be relying on referrals is not a great strategy. Your number one strategy should be your database. At the Modern Mortgage Summit, we’re going to have multiple speakers talking about how they’re scaling their databases, what tech they’re using, what strategies they’re using. The loan officer of the future, your database and your goal should be, and I don’t care whether you are brand new in the business, your experience. How can I get 1,000 people that know me, like me, trust me, refer me to business, give me online reviews? They’ve gone through my perfect loan process. You’re going to do 100 plus loans a year for the rest of your life.

Maybe too, on the basis of that past customer database. Database first. You need to start looking like I have a realtor strategy, but I have a consumer-first strategy. I need to create content so that I’m getting to the consumer first. I believe as mortgage professionals, we’re better at lead aggregation in the real estate space. We’re better at driving consistent processes better than they are. That’s the other thing I advocate for mortgage professionals. Don’t go consumer first, be the captain of the wealth team. We have more information about a family that a CPA and a financial planner do because we have the assets and the liabilities.

We’re in this position that we could own the future as mortgage professionals, but we’ve got to use tech. We’ve got to be thoughtful about our channels. We need realtors. We need consumer direct. We need to be customer first. I would wrap all of that with leadership. As we get on the other side of whatever the future is, this pivot, the seismic shift that’s taking place, when the next price compression hits, which it will, it’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when. It will be a reckoning. If you are a loan officer, that’s not using your CRM hourly, you know how to use links to take an app, you know how to use links to give advice, you know how to link to virtually connect with people.

Just relying on referrals is not a great strategy. Your number one strategy should be your database. Click To Tweet

If you’re not a good leader and you don’t have a diversified model, it will be a reckoning for you as the next price compression comes. For the loan officers that did everything that I said, you’re good to go for a decade to come. You’re going to be like a snowball rolling down a hill. It’s the glory days of the mortgage pacer here because we have this amazing tech stack. We have this evolved sophisticated understanding of the mortgage business. It’s going to be a good time for a lot of people.

I love this time because it has forced a lot of us to take some additional action that maybe we were holding off or we were scared to take. It’s normal. It’s like, “We’re changing this. We’re going to try that. We’re going to integrate this.” I loved one of the graphs you shared the other day. You mentioned something and I thought about this. Dave is the captain of the wealth team, customers at the center, and we’re helping him with all these other parts of their life that are there.

You shared something. I don’t know if you created the graph or you had found it, but it was talking about what we view as all the things that are important like pricing, products and all this stuff right at the top. You had the customer is looking for around their experience. That’s what they’re thinking. What was that stating? That was profound. I found a lot of people engaged and it hit me between the eyes of like, “I’m looking at this. Customers are looking at that.”

Robert Stover has been a coach that I’ve spent a lot of money and a lot of time with from a marketing perspective. It was his graphic. I don’t get credit for it. His name was in that little sketch somewhere, but one of my big lessons, how like every coach you’ve ever had, you like pull something from. He got me to see that we think about our business. We think of products. We think of rates. We think of all these acronyms and not only that, but our business and what we do takes up a lot of mind share. You look at our brain. The mortgage takes up a lot of space where our consumer, the mortgage itself, is taking up a lot less space.

They’re thinking about it in a lot fewer layers. At that particular graphic, it was like the customer is looking at promises to fill like, “That’s all I care about. Do I believe the promises you’re going to make, you’re going to do? When you fulfill them, I love you.” I do think that oversimplifies. It was a good point because I also think consumers want to come to you. You need to provide something beyond Google. If I was making that graphic, they want to be wowed. They want to learn something that they hadn’t considered. That promise is fulfilled and I’ve talked to Stover about it. We didn’t redo the graph. It’s like a transactional mindset.

It’s all about a transaction, but the consumer wants more than promises fulfilled. That’s table stakes, Amazon promises fulfilled. Uber promises fulfilled. Big bank app promises are fulfilled. You go through how the world has shifted. Zillow promises fulfilled. To me, what the consumers want is they want you to go beyond their expectations. They want you to teach them something. They couldn’t have got themselves on Google and they want it in 30 seconds. We’re ADD society. It’s like asking me some questions and then tell me something I didn’t already know.

That’s how trust happens its scale in the mortgage industry. I nerd out on how to do that and how loan officers can do it. There are a lot of great loan officers that are doing this at scale. They’re doing it consistently. They’re growing monster mortgage practices that are doing 300, 500 units a month. If they don’t want to work that hard or have that big a team, they’re doing 100 to 200 loans. It’s a scale with smaller teams because they’re super-efficient.

I was looking at the graph and we had a similar takeaway. I’m glad to hear you say that because when you’d shared it originally, it made me stop and think. I was like, “I hadn’t thought about that.” I’m in the same way as you. You’ve talked to Brittany Hodak before as well. Brittany talks about creating super fans. She was one of our first episodes, if you want to learn more about super fan and the killer stuff Brit was sharing. It was amazing what she talked about how to create a super fan. It’s a different day, a different episode. We were at Disney with the family and I was thinking about this celebrity experience in a sense of you go to Disney, there are fast passes. There’s VIP stuff. We learned about people that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to be part of this exclusive Disney Club.

BCS 26 | Mortgage Industry

 

What’s the celebrity and superfan experience you can create for your customer? How do you create it on a consistent basis? It got me thinking as I’m going through all the stuff we’re dealing with and all that. I’m an observer. I’m paying attention. I’m looking at all these Walt Disney quotes and things. There are a few I’ll be sharing. What I kept looking at is they never have stood still with anything. They always are trying to up their service, wow you, one extra thing so that you’re not like, “You showed up and you wanted to get on some rides. You want to see some stuff. We had food there. Check the boxes. What did you do to wow us, to make us want to come back and spend our money with you versus somewhere else?”

In the mortgage space, we haven’t cracked the code for everybody on that, but there are some people that they figured out how to crack that super fan celebrity code of customer closes. Through the process, they feel like they are the most important person. They feel like they got educated. They were communicated. Promises were fulfilled and they got some extra. Somewhere along the way, they felt special. How we create that is up to each of us to figure out.

That’s not a new idea. If you ask almost anybody, what’s your favorite restaurant? It may have a different name, but it always comes down to the place that they know me. The place that they say my name, I feel special and they feel like they know me. That’s your favorite restaurant. That’s not an old idea. That dates back to my grandpa’s day, how we get there is different. In this world with social media, with video, with CRMs that can create consistent experiences and processes, we can get there. It’s good for the loan officers that adopt these things, the future is yours. I don’t know who did this quote, but I love this quote. I put it on social media many times, but I believe this at my heart that the illiterates are those who cannot read and write in the 21st century. The illiterates are those who can’t learn, unlearn and relearn. That is the world that we live in.

That if you can’t learn new things and then when something better comes out, “I’ve learned it, relearn, learn a new idea.” If you can’t do that, it’s a real struggle. I would push every mortgage professional reading this that should be your number one priority. We’re in the fourth quarter of 2020. We got some good months ahead. I don’t have any fear of what’s going to happen to interest rates and what a month we’re going to have in the first half of 2021. It’s going to be solid. I don’t think the pace we’re on is sustainable. Sometimes whether it’s the second half of 2021 whether it’s 2022, the reckoning is coming. Improve your leadership skills, improve how you’re delivering advice to clients.

Make sure it’s not a fee worksheet with rate payment in cash to close. That’s a commodity. That’s a transactional triangle. It will close some deals. It’s not the fast and most efficient way but go beyond the transaction. That’s what Mortgage Coach is. It’s like give the family a total cost analysis that shows them options, that show them cost over time. Give a little more education and you’ll wow people. You will be prepared for the future. You’ll kill it in this market too. It makes it faster.

Last question as we go in the fourth quarter. It’s going to accelerate through. It always does in the holiday season. Is there anything that you would be recommending for people as they’re planning 2021, what they should be thinking about to include may be in their business planning or to prepare for 2021 now? What should they be doing?

There is a survey that I posted in our Facebook group. It said, “Are you a modern mortgage originator?” It had a series of 21 questions. I don’t have one answer for everyone, but go check out that poll. I’ll give you a link to it, Brian. Wherever you have a weakness, fix it. If you are not using your CRM hourly, you’ve got to fix that. You can’t do big business at scale and not use your CRM consistently if you’re still in the camp where you’re not delivering the app in a best practice way. Every company has like, “This is how we share the app.” If we share it in this best practice way, you get all kinds of magic tricks.

You get automated approvals. You pick up meta-tags for social media marketing to market. There are best practices in how you do business. Figure out the 21 things I’ve got that questionnaire. It might get your mind thinking, but what are twenty things that in your mind define a modern mortgage professional and wherever you have a gap, fix it. By the end of the year, it’s like black it out so that like, “I am the modern mortgage advisor.” That would be my push to people. We’ve got a big summit. It’s called the Modern Mortgage Summit. It’s not only going to be a great live day, but that content will be available for 30 days afterward. I picked top producers that define modern originator. Figure out where your weaknesses are and fix them one at a time.

I love what you shared. You’re a leader and a change agent out there, Dave. Talking about those that are accelerating their growth now, they have coaches and they’re coaching other people. That’s key. We talked about embracing technology. This was everything I thought about. I know we could talk for a while. I love learning from guys like you because it gets you thinking. If you’re not thinking every day and you’re challenging yourself to what Dave said in the end, I love that you’ve got to learn new things. There are some things we need to unlearn. There are new things we need to continually learn.

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It’s a growth process and journey. We don’t have a destination for this deal. For all of us, we can continue to up our game. There is an area we’re probably the ones that are aware of it. That is a weakness that is holding us back from our best in 2021. Address it, fix it now, get there. If we can help you with that, that’s why I created this show originally was to help everybody open the curtains a little bit to my growth journey. This is all about learning and growing together as a community. Thank you, Dave, for sharing your insights, your wisdom, what you’re going through. I know this is going to help people. It’s going to give them ideas. It’s going to spark them. If they choose to take action, they’re going to have success. Thanks for being one of the change agents, a friend and mentor out there to many of us in the mortgage space.

It’s truly an honor. I love every time I talk to you. I love what you’re doing on social media, what you’re doing with your own team. You’re helping your loan officers become that modern mortgage originator. You’re a change agent also. I’m honored to be here.

Thank you. We’re having fun with it. This has been another episode. Make sure you like, subscribe, leave us comments and feedback. If there’s any guest or anybody you would recommend that fit into that learning and growing mindset that we’re sharing and cultivating this community around, let me know, and we will do this together. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you missed any of it, make sure you reread. Thank you, Dave. Have a good one. We’ll catch you in the next episode.

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About Dave Savage

 

BCS 26 | Mortgage IndustryCommitted to educating and preparing lenders and loan officers for the Digital Mortgage Revolution, Dave is often invited to company keynote and industry events such as MBA Tech, Sales Mastery, and the Mastermind Summit to help facilitate Mastermind events.

He also facilitates the Mortgage Coach Productivity Mastermind group on Facebook to help mortgage professionals connect and learn from each other. Dave helps all originators achieve their personal and company best by conducting weekly interviews with top producers and other industry leaders and sharing these stories and strategies on the Mortgage Coach YouTube channel. To date, Dave has interviewed more than 1,000 leaders and the Mortgage Coach channel has been described as the most valuable YouTube channel for mortgage professionals.

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