March 26, 2025 • 34 mins
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode, Bekim is joined by Kyle Dionne. Kyle is the Senior Director of Brokerage & Lender Operations at Rocket Mortgage Canada. Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, he also attended the University of Windsor, where he achieved an honours degree in Labour Studies & Sociology, and eventually got a Bachelor of Education. Kyle and his family then moved to England, where he spent a decade teaching, before returning home to Windsor in the summer of 2020. Kyle is a dynamic and results-driven senior leader, specializing in process optimization, strategic leadership, and talent development, with a history of success in developing teams and consistently achieving key business results.
Kyle is here to discuss: → The need for speed & certainty in the mortgage process, what "blackjack deals" are, and how they're the key to a higher completion rate & funding more files. → Building trust & accountability with a new team, creating a culture of continuous incremental improvements, and the lynchpin of communication in bringing teams together. → Improving the future of the lending industry, what motivates Kyle, and leaving a legacy & lasting impact.
Kyle Dionne's LinkedIn: @KyleDionne
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Lending Thoughts,
(00:02):
sponsored by Rocket Pro.
Today, I have a great discussion
with Kyle Dion, Senior Director ofboth Brokerage and Lender
Operations at Rocket MortgageCanada.
Kyle and I have a great discussionabout the need for speed and
certainty in the mortgage process,what blackjack means to mortgages,
and the importance of closing in21 days or less.
(00:23):
And we talk about the importanceof building culture on teams and
his process for going about doingthat.
You're not going to want to missthis episode.
Have a listen in.
Kyle, thank you so much for
joining me today.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
So you know the drill here.
Can you tell us your life story in60 seconds or less, please?
(00:46):
The time aspect is the hard part.
Not because I have many exciting
things to talk about because, youknow, I like to talk.
I was born and raised in Windsor,got an honors degree in labor
studies and sociology, got a minorin psych.
After that, stuck around at theUniversity of Windsor, got my
teaching degree.
Knew I wanted to travel, so I left
Windsor after graduation, moved toLondon with my then -girlfriend,
now -wife, Diana is her name.
(01:07):
We packed everything up in two
hockey bags, just a bunch ofclothes, a few thousand dollars
between us, nothing really figuredout yet.
Didn't have a full -time job linedup.
but did start taking day -to -daygigs as a substitute teacher,
quickly hired on as a full -timeteacher in North London.
Got my first leadership positionleading phys ed when I was around
25.
her name.
Worked in a few different schoolleadership positions and loved
(01:27):
leading teachers and seeing theimpact we had on kids.
During that time out there, we dida bunch of traveling.
My wife gave birth to an amazinglittle boy named Oscar Lorenzo.
Before we knew it, a full decadehad gone by and then COVID hit.
At that point, my wife's parentshad some health issues, but
thankfully a little company by thename of Rockin' Mortgage.
which was putting down roots in myhometown.
So my wife and I made a decisionto pack up our lives in a shipping
(01:49):
container.
We accumulated a few things since
the hockey bag days.
And we moved the family back to
Canada during the pandemic, joinedRocket, almost on the ground
floor.
Started my career in mortgages as
a mortgage agent.
I knew I had to really push myself
or this would have been theultimate ball drop.
Living in London with theopportunity to travel into Europe
and leadership positions allironed out.
But thankfully, it did pan out.
I worked really hard, was promoted
to team captain, then director ofsales development, where I
(02:11):
developed a training program forour new agents.
And over time, I was asked to leadthe broker operations team, then
took on the lender ops team aswell.
Serves both our internal agents aswell as our Rocket Pro business.
And here we are today.
Okay.
Well, Summarize, thank you so muchfor sharing that.
So we'll start with this brokerageoperations team in which he
started out by leading andcontinue to lead today for Rocket.
So what does that exactly mean?I think the traditional mortgage
(02:32):
agent thinks about themselves astheir operations team, right?
They get the application from theclient.
They are asking the client for thenecessary documentation in order
to meet the conditions of themortgage.
Ultimately, they go on to fulfillall those conditions and get their
broker complete that they need andpush it over to the lawyer and get
to closing.
So what does broker operations
(02:53):
actually mean and what do thosefolks do?
Awesome.
Yeah.
So when I first took on the role,the broker ops team was more in
the background.
So our team is made up
predominantly of.
document specialists and closing
specialists.
And from there, you know, it was
an assembly line mentality wherethe agent would get the client
committed.
They'd submit the application.
We'd get our conditional approval.
From there, the document
specialist would be busily workingin the background.
(03:14):
They'd handle about 40 files perperson.
And then from there, the agent wasstill doing much of the
communication on the front end.
So they were still the face with
the client all the way through.
And the closing specialist.
would come in at Broker Complete.
And at that point, you know,
that's working with the lawyer,working with the title company,
(03:35):
working with the client to makesure that everything gets buttoned
up and is as smooth as possibletowards the end of the process.
But since then, we've evolved andour aim was to help increase agent
allocations ultimately and keepthem in front of new business more
often.
We changed our model a bit and the
document specialist evolved intowhat we call a loan processor.
And essentially, they still dothat document specialist work
where they're going to be handlingthe documents and doing a lot of
(03:57):
the, you know, print togetherDocuSign packages.
and things in the back end, butthey're also managing the client
relationship from CA to BC.
And so at that point there, we had
to really evolve our team becausea lot of these people, when they
came in, they had the skills to dothe loan processor job
effectively, but not all of themfully believed in themselves and
having that ability.
And I think it gave them a bit of
(04:18):
concern or anxiety to be the onehandling that client and all the
objections that can happen.
Because obviously anyone in the
work industry knows, Once thecommitment letter is there, it
becomes real.
Getting that signed, that sort of
rubber hits the road for a lot ofclients.
And they start to get a little bitworried and thinking, am I doing
the right thing?So huge responsibility on the
broker ops team to get thatclosed.
(04:40):
And they've done an amazing job.
So can you just talk about the
learning?It sounds like there's been some
evolution of those roles overtime.
It sounds like one of the majorthings was in the early days, you
talked about the documentspecialist.
They were not communicating withthe clients.
The agent would continue tocommunicate with the client.
The document specialist in thatcase would review the conditions,
think about what's needed, butthen they would ultimately go back
to the agent and tell the agent,hey, here's the things that are
(05:01):
needed on this file and try to getthese as fast as possible.
The evolution sounds like we gotto this loan processor role where
the loan processor would actuallytake over communications after the
conditional approval was issued.
Why was that the strategic shift
that was chosen?What do we think the lesson is
there?And what have we learned since
doing that?The The Yeah, good question.
I think we learned that it ispossible, right?
Clients, as long as there's anice, smooth handover where
(05:22):
everything is foreshadowedbeautifully.
You're very familiar with thisanalogy.
I've heard you say it, but thisidea of a haunted house analogy
really comes into play.
So what I'm going to do next, Mr.
and Mrs. Klein, is I'm going tosubmit your application to the
lender.
And from there, we'll get that
commitment letter back.
And from that point forward, you
can be working with an amazingloan processor.
(05:42):
Their name is.
and so, and they're going to be
with you every step of the way.
Of course, I will as well, more so
in the background, though.
If you need me at any point, you
can reach out.
But your loan processor is very,
very capable.
They're document experts, and
they're going to help get you.
Broker complete.
So for us to get that evolution toactually happen effectively, it
was more than just writing somescripts for them.
(06:04):
It was more than, you know, kindof putting in a process, but it
was also helping develop thepeople.
So we run our operations team likea sales team.
And ultimately, you know, we don'twant them to be order takers.
We want them to be ordered givers.
We use personal branding like any
good client facing person shouldto build trust with the client.
But we also teach them to useassumptive language.
We teach them how to mirror theclient.
We teach them how to buildrapport, explain the importance of
(06:25):
firm appointment setting anddocument deadline.
And that's not to trick the clientto doing something they shouldn't
do.
But ultimately, we do know that
completing a mortgage transactionis an adult activity.
And adult activities are thosethings that you put on a to -do
list that keep getting put off andput off and put off and put off.
And obviously, when you work inthe mortgage industry, when you
put off all the things that youneed to do on the way to close,
(06:48):
what ends up happening is you havea really bad experience in the
11th hour.
Our overall mission is to show our
minds how much we care and toguide them through the process,
you know, with the least amount offriction as possible, I suppose.
You talked a little bit aboutprocess orchestration.
You talked about the importance ofcommunication and foreshadowing.
Couldn't agree more, you know, forthose who are unfamiliar with the
(07:09):
haunted house analogy that weoften throw around in our world.
It's like, hey, a haunted house isonly scary because it's dark and
you don't know what's comingaround the corner.
But if they were to flip thelights on, wouldn't be that scary.
And really flipping the lights onis just telling the client
constantly what's coming next.
I'm curious, though, like what is
the ultimate goal of the process,right?
Is it speed?Is it certainty?
What have you figured out when itcomes to processing a mortgage,
what matters most so that we cando the best job of it and get the
(07:34):
highest reviews in return and thehighest rates of referrals?
clients coming back to us andthings like that.
What are you ultimately trying toachieve and why?
I think it's a little bit of both.
It's both speed and certainty
because you can do things really,really quickly, make a bunch of
mistakes or over -promise andunder -deliver and you provided a
terrible experience.
Certainty, of course, means that
when I tell you something's goingto happen, it does happen and it's
predictable.
We have an emphasis on both.
(07:54):
One of the things that we foundover the years, regardless of the
submission date, And the time fromthe submission date all the way to
the closing date, whether it's thefull 120 days out, if we can get
our clients broker complete in 21days or less, we have a higher
pull through essentially.
And there's more likelihood that
that mortgage is going to close.
And ultimately that's the client's
(08:15):
goal and that's our goal as well.
So we have something we call our
blackjack deals, right?And our team's pushing.
towards that.
That being said, there's the speed
aspect of it, but also thecertainty aspect in saying that
getting them to broker complete,that gives them that certainty.
At that point, the deal's gonethrough pre -fund.
They know they truly can getexcited in waiting for their
mortgage to close, but that's beena big push for us and it's been
(08:36):
very successful for our team.
Certainly.
Yeah.
The branding around Blackjack
being that of 21 days is abeautiful thing.
It's perfect.
Right.
And to speak to that a little bitmore, because, you know, I tracked
it closely, obviously.
And what we discovered through the
data was that once the 21 days hadpassed, the likelihood of that
mortgage closing actually startedto go down.
Yeah.
Something around that.
period for clients.
It just stood out that by then
(08:56):
they expected to know for surewhether or not their mortgage was
good to close, whether it was setto close a week from then or two
months from that time, three weeksin, they're like, I'm done working
on my mortgage.
Now I need you to say that we're
good to go and let's move on tothe next step here, which is me
sitting on my hands waiting tosign the final paperwork.
(09:18):
If you can't give me that level ofconfidence by X date, I'm going to
start.
wondering whether or not you're
going to actually get this donefor me.
And that's a scary feeling, butyou're back in the haunted house,
right?Yeah.
Yeah.
I think when we started, we made
our first goal.
This is when we had agents doing
most of the outreach and obviouslyagents' jobs are very, very busy,
(09:44):
right?So you're expecting them to find
new clients.
But then when they were being
asked to process their loan on theback end with the help of the
document specialist, it's just toomany plates to spin.
And at that point, our percentageof deals that went broker complete
within 21 days, again, regardlessof submission date and funding
date, it was... around 60%.
And that's where we kind of lived.
But since we've evolved our modeland had our loan processors handle
(10:05):
that part and allow the agent tofocus solely on new business, you
know, this month we're at over 80% right now.
And it's been consistent 13 monthsin a row that they've gone beyond
their goal, which was 66 % atfirst.
And we've raised our goal,obviously to 70, because, you
know, if you keep hitting thegoal, you got to raise the goal.
So they've continued to meet thechallenge.
And I will shout out if you outthere listening, our leader for
this team, Peterson Terrace, withthe help of Kyla Sovereign, who's
(10:26):
the team captain.
They've done such an amazing job
championing this message andleading from the front.
That's really well said.
So I'm curious about the
challenges that arise whencreating a process like this,
because I've talked to manybrokers, agents over the years,
and what they tell me is, hey,we've heard this many times.
I think Rocket in the US pioneeredsome of this in a lot of ways,
task -driven processing exercises.
And where a lot of people break
(10:48):
down is in like all the minutedetails of what the agent knows
after having all thoseconversations with the client to
what the ops processing team nowknows about the client.
I mean, something as simple as,you know, hey, I'm going to get
you all these documents this week,but next week I'm actually, you
know, I'm traveling abroad and Iwon't be available.
That deal gets passed, right?It's conditionally approved.
It's in the hands of a loanprocessor now.
(11:09):
The loan processor is calling thatclient every two, three days to be
like, hey, I need you to submitthese documents.
The client gets back only to findout they got a bunch of text
messages and emails from theirloan processor.
And they're like, hey, I told youguys that I was going to be out of
town.
Why are you blowing up my phone?
That's just one of like a millionexamples or, hey, you know, I'm
(11:32):
working on this, you know, divorcedocument as a part of this
process.
And I told you that I would, you
know, submit it as X date.
And you're sending me a, you know,
an every three day follow up emailsaying, where's the document and
all these things like.
How do you prevent against the
breakdown in communication andexperience for the client, given
that there is so much sitting withthe agent as a part of that
(11:54):
original relationship that is nowgetting passed on?
Yeah.
So as I mentioned in my opening 60
second intro, which probably wentpast 60 seconds before I came from
ops, I was in sales and my role asa director of sales development
meant that.
All new agents passed through my
team.
So when I moved to ops, I was in a
really great position to try tobring the two teams together.
One of the first things that wedid is we brought them into the
(12:15):
same office and made sure thattheir office phase coincided.
Because a lot of those breakdownsdid happen and I think would
continue to happen if the twoteams saw themselves as two teams
and not one team.
So getting them just together was
a big win.
Getting them to trust each other
and also making sure that oursales team knew how hard our
operations team was working.
and made sure that they realized
all these wins that were happeningas they were happening.
(12:35):
You know, anybody who works in theindustry knows, anybody who's in
sales knows that the minute youput your trust in, say, you know,
any other stakeholder, whetherit's, you know, a loan processor
or a lawyer or what have you,you're really going to remember
that one loan that goes sideways.
So reminding them that, you know,
that one loan is one of a hundred,maybe, right?
(12:57):
That went sideways, but the other99 were beautiful, right?
And they worked out wonderfully.
So don't get lost.
in that one bad experience thathappened, but then also not
pushing it to the side orexplaining it away, but also doing
a post -mortem on those and makingsure that we can understand where
things went wrong and how we canbe better.
I've got a great relationship withall the sales leaders, and it's
been awesome to be able to refineour processes together to make
(13:19):
sure that our two teams, as Imentioned already, work as one
team.
Yeah, it makes so much sense.
I mean, I've heard you use theanalogy in the past of front of
house, back of house.
That's right.
Thinking about it as a restaurant,right?
Like the server's out there.
Just for those who aren't familiar
with the analogy, I think it's abeautiful one.
(13:41):
That's right.
So the server is the mortgage
agent.
The server's getting face -to
-face.
They're making a bunch of
promises.
Oh, for sure.
You want the steak?the steak?
Medium, done, right?But like they're not actually
cooking the steak medium.
They're ultimately handing a
ticket back to the back of thehouse and they're relying on that
thing to come out medium and thenthey go and deliver it.
And ultimately the client'scustomer is sitting on the other
(14:01):
side and they're holding thatindividual responsible.
So it's very easy if the back ofthe house isn't delivering to
start really getting frustratedwith that.
And it's very easy sometimes toforget all the good things.
you know, the other 99 orders inwhich they nailed it.
So I like that you use the wordtrust there.
I mean, it ultimately does rely ona belief that both sides are
trying their absolute best to makeit happen.
And when people start to believethose things to be true on both
(14:23):
sides, that it creates a betterworking relationship.
It creates a, as we say, hashtagone team environment.
And we work towards ultimately theconsumer above our own needs,
right?Exactly.
Exactly.
You mentioned that from the time
in leading brokerage operations,you went on to lead.
Lender operations, we launched ourlender for those unfamiliar in
2023 in and around June, got tomarket and you start underwriting
loans.
And there are some similarities to
the processing of mortgage in thebrokerage operations division, but
there are also a lot ofdifferences.
Number one, you're sitting on acompletely different technology
(14:44):
stack.
So you've got to go and you've got
to learn a whole new technologystack.
You've got to integrate thattechnology stack.
You have to.
train new people to do things.
Oftentimes, even if they'reexperienced underwriters to do
them your way, right?Because it's like, Hey, like I
appreciate that you've been doingthis for 20 years, but we do
things a little bit differentlyhere.
(15:05):
And you probably feel like you'vegot this thing nailed down after
20 years, but we have a mindset ofgetting 1 % better every day.
And I need you to like reset andthink about how we can do this
better.
What challenges did you face in
the times when you were takingover the lender operations and
underwriting side of the businessso that we could actually
ultimately fund these mortgages?I think ultimately you nailed it.
think ultimately you nailed it.
(15:26):
There's the way that other lenders
have been operating for so manyyears.
And when you've got experiencedunderwriters who have seen it only
done that way for those number ofyears, sometimes kind of
challenging those assumptions wassomething that I had to do when I
first came because I saw thingsthrough a broker lens first.
So I saw it.
(15:46):
you know, from a different
perspective.
And that's not to say that people
on the lending team who were therealready were reluctant to change
or were not open to finding abetter way because they were.
That's why we hired them on.
Ultimately, you know, that's a big
part of our interview process ismaking sure that we've got the
right people on the bus.
I think we do a pretty damn good
(16:07):
job of that.
But that was a big challenge, I
think, in terms of, as youmentioned, you know, working with,
you know, a whole different.
system and making sure that it was
integrating well with our pre-existing systems.
And then also making sure thatthat team integrated well with our
broker operations team who hadbeen kind of doing things their
way and our agents as well.
And then as you know, that lending
team by lead, it also serves ourRocket Pro business as well.
So it's also, you know.
(16:29):
Finding a way to make sure that
those experienced brokers who areexternal to Rocket are amazed and
impressed by what we deliver.
And through that, how we did that
was through a lot of feedback,right?
So just listening to what thebrokers are after, putting
ourselves through the process,making sure that we see from...
From, you know, walking throughthe front door of the business,
what's it like for a broker who'sgoing to send a deal to Rocket
(16:50):
Pro?What sort of experience are they
going to have?And then just making sure that
we've got things in place with ourunderwriters in terms of, you
know, non -negotiables, right?Something as simple as like, you
know, no bad news is everdelivered, you know, through
email, right?So picking up the phone and having
a conversation because ultimatelythat one deal is so important.
It's that broker's paycheck.
And you don't want to get bad news
sent to you in an email, even ifit's, you know, we need to rework
(17:13):
this.
is not dead, but we need to rework
this.
That's bad news, right?
The brokers submitted it and theythought we were good to go.
So they hit them with anything,you know, in terms of an email to
say that we've got to changecourse.
It's something that we don't do.
And it's been a great experience
so far.
Amazing feedback over and over
again from our brokers.
And, you know, we've got amazing
BDMs and Dan and Tori who arefielding a lot of conversations
(17:35):
with our outside brokers.
And the feedback has been great.
It's helped us grow.
And it's also reaffirmed that we
are doing the right thing.
You mentioned getting feedback
from these brokers and you talkedabout our BDMs and it sounds like
you're talking about ourunderwriters too.
It sounds like there's a lot ofcommunication going back to the
broker.
Is that in that process, the
biggest learning for you is justthat communication aspect above
(17:57):
all else?I think a lot of people in the
industry, they often point to thefact that, hey, like, you know, we
can get super creative withunderwriting or we can do, you
know, X, Y, Z. But you're talkingabout something which sounds
simple on the surface, butprobably is not that easy in that
like, hey, like all those otherthings are going to be there, but
we're actually focused on thecommunication piece.
Can you just... speak to how weidentified how that was so
(18:18):
important and what we had to doculturally to change that?
Yeah.
So it's a good question.
I think when it comes tounderwriting, you know, we're all
underwriting from essentially thesame place.
You've got to underwrite to theinsurer's guidelines or to your
investor's guidelines.
You know, we work at the lender
themselves.
to the lender's guidelines.
And ultimately, you can ask peopleto underwrite faster and do all
these sort of things.
But ultimately, you have to work
through and create some processesthat allows us to focus our energy
(18:39):
on the right things at the righttime.
And that's one of the things thatwe've done with Rocket Pro Zero.
Any deals that come in with docsin, we make sure that those docs
are reviewed so we can send thatCL out with a bit more certainty.
In terms of the communicationaspect, you're spot on.
That's the biggest thing thatneeded to be, I guess, worked on
for anybody because when you'reasking someone to underwrite
really, really quickly, it justseems to be easier in that moment
(19:02):
to just fire off a quick email.
That's not how brokers want to be
communicated with.
Let's at least go through a text.
Text messages are nice and quick.
You go on their phones all the
time.
Also having those conversations is
how we're going to build up thoserelationships.
That's how you get people to trustyou, right?
And you get people to want to workwith you again if you show them
how much you care, right?The Roosevelt quote.
which is another great one.
(19:23):
Nobody cares how much you know
until you show them how much youcare.
So if we can show the brokers howinvested we are in their own
business, then we think that's ahuge inch for us.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
I mean, it puts the underwriter
also in the seat of effectivelybeing in sales and in some
fashion.
And the reason why I say that,
like the sales is often correlatedwith like trying to like get
(19:44):
people to do something.
But the reality is sales is just
truly communication.
So you're putting them in the role
of communicator from.
the seat of, you know, who would
be better to have thatcommunication and the person
working on that mortgage at thattime and give a real time update
of, Hey, I'm struggling to make Xwork.
What if we looked at Y and let'swork on this together.
(20:04):
And I hear those conversationsdaily from our underwriters and
they're fantastic.
They're ultimately, you know,
seeking solutions with the brokerhand in hand and saying, here's
the trouble that we're having andgetting this over the line.
And here's where we need to go.
Here's a few ideas.
Can we do this or can we do that?And when people take the approach
of communication andcollaboratively to try to find the
solution ultimately for theclient, then it's much better that
(20:26):
way.
in We've got some amazing
underwriters.
And again, coming from the broker
space and coming from, you know,before broker operations sales,
I've worked with someunderwriters, never mentioned
names, right?But our specific lenders that
you've worked with, but sometimesit feels like they don't want to
do the deal.
And it's like, well, aren't we all
in the business of writing loans,right?
Whereas like when you haveconversations on the floor with
our team, they truly want to makethe deal work.
(20:46):
And I'm so impressed at whatlength they will go, you know,
what conversations they'll havewith insurers to try to, you know,
sell the deal, right, to theinsurer to see if this is
something that they'd have anappetite for.
They work tirelessly for ourbrokers.
I'm super impressed by all ofthem.
That's fantastic.
Thinking about that culture and
thinking about something you saidearlier around, you know, getting
people to maybe question some ofthe original assumptions that they
(21:06):
had coming in, especially ifyou've done underwriting as an
example for a long time, you buildup a set of best practices and the
things that got you to where youare might not be the things that
are going to get you to where youwant to go.
It really takes a first principlesmindset to question some of the
deepest assumptions that we haveabout what works and what doesn't.
What things do you do that willget people who are experts and
(21:27):
professionals in this game andhave been doing it for a long time
to go back and think from firstprinciples about how we can do
things differently?How do you culturally build that
into?you're part of the organization?
Well, one of the first things Idid when I joined the lending
operations team is just workreally, really closely with
people, right?So spend as much time as possible
(21:47):
with the people that I was goingto be working with, asking them
questions, you know, find outwhat's working well for them.
What do they feel is somethingthat slows them down or stands in
their way?You know, what can we change?
What can we enhance to make, youknow, not only our clients
experience better, but their teammember experience.
So I think doing that is the firststep.
(22:08):
Also, Finding some quick wins,right?
Finding some things that you canshow them that making these
suggestions actually leads tosomething because we do act on
them.
That's a big part of our culture
and showing them that sometimesthere is a better way.
It's not necessarily one thatyou're used to or one that you've
done, you know, in the past, butwe're going to work together to
find better ways.
We're going to make subtle
improvements all the time, right?Especially when you've dialed in a
(22:30):
process and it works frombeginning to end.
It's about finding those littleincremental.
improvements that you can makethat slowly slowly improves things
bit by bit getting the team aspart of that process is really
really important i mean thetrouble there is often how
regulated the lending industry isright you want to make drastic
changes you see the opportunitiesmean the trouble there is often
how regulated the lending industryis right you want to make drastic
(22:51):
changes you see the opportunitiesfor improvements in the
underwriting process.
Some of those things are just flat
out prescriptive and dictateddown, right?
From the powers that be to make usdo things a certain way, even if
there is a better way.
For sure, some of those things
are, you know, probably going tocome to roost here in the coming
years.
But I think about the ability to
(23:12):
verify things digitally, forexample, right?
Like even, you know, pre -COVID,for example, like many of these
things had to be hand -signed.
You had to print documents off and
then COVID happened and it waslike, okay, we'll take e
-signation.
on these moving forward.
It was like, we should have alwaystaken these signatures.
And then we went back in BC.
And then we went back in BC.
(23:34):
Yeah, yeah.
It was like, okay, yeah.
There was like some emergencymeasures put in place.
And for some reason, we went backto getting wet signatures on
specific documents.
There are more and better ways
nowadays to verify credit thanpreviously existed.
There are better ways to verifyassets.
pay stubs and things like that weseem to have a reluctance in our
industry to adapt to these thingsand i think the frustrating part
is especially when you see it andyou are a first principles thinker
(23:57):
and you do take a step back andsay there's a better way
unfortunately for now though weneed to keep doing things the way
that we always have the way theywere done 30 years ago despite the
fact that they probably just don'tmake sense in today's environment
and it creates a bit of aninnovator's dilemma in that sense.
So I know you're somebody who'salways looking to innovate,
create, think from the start ofsomething and think about how we
(24:17):
could do it better.
When you think about the lending
industry as it exists today, whatis something that you're excited
about for the future?What is something that you think
needs to change such that we canbetter serve consumers in the end?
Well, Well, I'm still holding onfor open banking.
I think a lot of what youdescribed there is just that, and
that will make things so muchbetter for consumers, I truly
(24:39):
believe.
But also, as we all know, the
buzzword of 2024 more so was AI.
So using AI to help do some
document processing for us,specifically, you think of like
bank statements, right?If you've got more than one
borrower.
on an application and there's down
payment coming from multiplesources and you've got 90 days of
this and 90 days of that, it canbe very, very time consuming and
mistakes can be made.
That's a big area that I think is
obviously going to really take offand make things better and more
accurate.
There's also a lot of work out
(25:01):
there right now being done with AIvoice generators.
And I think with those, those aregoing to be super exciting for the
industry in terms of removing someof the mundane conversations that
have to happen throughout themortgage process and speeding
things up and allowing our teamsto be more efficient to focus on
the conversations that mattermost.
And obviously there's someprograms out there, you know, kind
of simpler ones, I'd say that are.
that are helping us design our
SOPs, right?So like on of the days where you'd
(25:23):
have to take hours to dial in aprocess and then have to go back
to that and refine it with everyminute detail that you've changed.
Those programs out there likeScribe, for example, is one of
them, which is fantastic, which isgoing to help us create better
SOPs, which can then be used forprocess refinement and rolling out
(25:44):
training so much more effectively.
I'm going to switch it on you for
just a second.
I want to talk about culture with
you, Kyle, because I've personallywatched you lead.
three teams that are business andin each area that you led, you
ultimately developed a reallystrong culture in those parts of
the business.
Ones that are focused on speed,
constant improvement, you know,getting along with your peers,
ultimately lifting each other upto make everybody better.
(26:04):
It's not always easy in thebeginning when you go in and you
try to make cultural changes theway that you have.
I'm curious for just some of yourthoughts, if you will, if you
could lend them to us on.
culture, cultural change, how you
think about starting a team, howyou think about taking over a
team, and ultimately what you'retrying to achieve as you go about
building culture on teamseverywhere you go.
(26:25):
Yeah, I think there's so much tounpack with that.
And I know I'm going to forgetsomething, but I'm going to listen
to this back and kick myself fornot saying it.
I think one of the first things todo whenever I'm taking on a new
team, first and foremost, to letthem get to know me and to sit
back and observe, but not to apoint of being passive, but just
(26:47):
to understand all the ins and outsof how that team operates and who
the different personalities areand what's driving the team,
what's holding the team back.
Because it's not always all bad,
right?There's a lot of good things that
are happening.
You also want to find out who your
early adopters are going to be orcertain things that you're looking
to change.
You know, having some good
conversations with people to showthem that you're here to help the
(27:09):
team, not to destroy it.
And then again, as I mentioned
already, finding some quick winsand also right from, you know, the
minute you take on a new team toup until, you know, the present
day is doing your very, very bestnot to alienate yourself from your
team.
So obviously the cliche is having
an open door policy, but it'struly.
having one, right?Making sure that your team has
(27:31):
easy access to you.
You know, my calendar is
completely open for the wholecompany to see.
They know what I'm doing at anygiven time.
I'm also available for them ifthey need me for anything
whatsoever.
And I take the time to get to know
them.
You know, my one -on -ones with my
team is in all business, right?I make sure that they know that I
want to know about them.
(27:51):
I want to know, you know, what
their wife's name is, theirhusband's name is, you know, their
pet's names, their children'snames.
And you make sure that you showthem how much you care, right?
These are good people.
That's why they're on your team.
And that's important to me.
It does resonate well with the
team.
And on the flip side, I said this
one second because I don't want tolead with this, but there's
(28:12):
coaching up and there's coachingout too.
So when you take on a new team,it's important to know that you
haven't inherited a ready -madeproduct.
This is an evolving team andpeople need to show that they want
to be part of the solution.
You're either a radiator or you're
a drain.
You're either going to radiate
positivity and good vibes oryou're going to be a drain on the
team.
(28:32):
Everyone has an equal opportunity
to show me which person they are.
But ultimately, you know, the
expectations are high.
Every team that I lead has a
really high performing culture andhigh accountability across the
board.
I'm accountable to them just as
much as they're accountable to me.
And we have to be all rolling in
the right direction.
That's really well said.
I'll leave it there becausethere's so much that we could
potentially unpack.
But I want to ask you, is there
any question that comes to yourmind that I should be asking you
(28:55):
that I?haven't already.
I feel like there's so much,there's been so much learning
over, you know, the last fiveyears.
You talked about leading, youknow, the sales development.
You're ultimately, you know,responsible for training every
single mortgages that we bringinto this organization.
And then responsible for trainingthe operations people that we
bring into this organization.
And then you're leading the
operations team for the brokerage.
You're leading the operations team
for the lender and theunderwriters and the closing
(29:16):
process.
And there's so much cultural
change that goes.
through, you know, building from
nearly zero effectively in yourcase to where we got.
So what should I be asking you inyour mind?
Does that stoke anything for you?I don't know.
I think maybe what motivates me.
Great question.
That's the question.
I think, you know, what motivates
me?And I think, I think that's
important, right?So like ultimately.
(29:36):
You know, in those situations,those new roles that I took on,
these were opportunities that as abusiness, you know, I was called
to kind of stand up and take on.
And at first, you know, going from
sales to ops, for example, youknow, you start to wonder, you're
like, is this the right move forme?
Like, is that where I really wantto be?
I saw myself as a salespersonfirst and I really liked all the
people on that side.
And I thought, you know, is this
going to be good for my career?Is this going to be good for my
(29:59):
day to day happiness?But ultimately, you know.
Stopping and pausing and realizingthat it's an opportunity that I
need to seize and I need to showthat I can achieve in different
settings was a good thing.
And for me, you know, the people
around me motivate me to seizethose opportunities and to do my
very best day in and day out.
My wife and son are the biggest
motivators in my life.
Everything that I do, obviously
you do for them and the people Ilead motivate me, you know, when I
(30:21):
got into leadership.
I knew that I would have others
depending on me.
And I know it sounds cheesy, but I
don't take that opportunity orthat responsibility lightly.
And I take the time to get closeto the people I lead by asking
them what's standing in their wayand what challenges they face.
And our clients motivate me.
At the end of the day, there's no
business without our clients.
And the processes we build are
(30:42):
always centered on what's going todeliver the best experience for
them.
That's well said.
So I want to wrap by just askingyou about impact and legacy.
I know sometimes when we're...
young -ish, right?
Thank you.
I'll say that.
Yeah, young -ish.
You know, Thank you.
I'll say that.
Yeah, know, we don't maybe spend
as much time as we could or shouldthinking about overall impact and
legacy, but as you look forward toyour life, your career, and all
(31:04):
the things that you probably stillplan to achieve in that, like, how
do you think about the lastingimpact that you want to have and
the legacy that you want to haveand the people around you?
Yeah.
So I don't have some big master
plan necessarily.
I'm not looking to run for prime
minister one day.
That's too bad.
It might be too bad.
(31:25):
But I envision myself always
working with people.
Every role that I've been in has
involved people in some aspect.
And my current one involves people
in process.
It And for me, the people part,
the leadership aspect is the one Ifind most rewarding.
There's nothing better thanproviding opportunities.
challenging people and seeing themgrow as human beings, not just as
team members.
So I'd say that I'd say my lasting
(31:46):
impact that I'd like to make and,you know, how I'd like to kind of
set my sights on would becontinuing to fulfill that and
working closely with people andhelping impact the outcome for
them.
The impact that we can have on
others is something that I thinkthat a lot of people go back to.
Yeah.
It's okay because that's what it's
all about.
So thank you for sharing.
Thanks for being on.
(32:06):
Thanks for.
everything that you've done overthe years for this business and
myself included on a personallevel.
So much appreciated, Kyle.
Thank you very much for having me
on.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Lending Thoughts,
(00:02):
sponsored by Rocket Pro.
Today, I have a great discussion
with Kyle Dion, Senior Director ofboth Brokerage and Lender
Operations at Rocket MortgageCanada.
Kyle and I have a great discussionabout the need for speed and
certainty in the mortgage process,what blackjack means to mortgages,
and the importance of closing in21 days or less.
(00:23):
And we talk about the importanceof building culture on teams and
his process for going about doingthat.
You're not going to want to missthis episode.
Have a listen in.
Kyle, thank you so much for
joining me today.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
So you know the drill here.
Can you tell us your life story in60 seconds or less, please?
(00:46):
The time aspect is the hard part.
Not because I have many exciting
things to talk about because, youknow, I like to talk.
I was born and raised in Windsor,got an honors degree in labor
studies and sociology, got a minorin psych.
After that, stuck around at theUniversity of Windsor, got my
teaching degree.
Knew I wanted to travel, so I left
Windsor after graduation, moved toLondon with my then -girlfriend,
now -wife, Diana is her name.
(01:07):
We packed everything up in two
hockey bags, just a bunch ofclothes, a few thousand dollars
between us, nothing really figuredout yet.
Didn't have a full -time job linedup.
but did start taking day -to -daygigs as a substitute teacher,
quickly hired on as a full -timeteacher in North London.
Got my first leadership positionleading phys ed when I was around
25.
her name.
Worked in a few different schoolleadership positions and loved
(01:27):
leading teachers and seeing theimpact we had on kids.
During that time out there, we dida bunch of traveling.
My wife gave birth to an amazinglittle boy named Oscar Lorenzo.
Before we knew it, a full decadehad gone by and then COVID hit.
At that point, my wife's parentshad some health issues, but
thankfully a little company by thename of Rockin' Mortgage.
which was putting down roots in myhometown.
So my wife and I made a decisionto pack up our lives in a shipping
(01:49):
container.
We accumulated a few things since
the hockey bag days.
And we moved the family back to
Canada during the pandemic, joinedRocket, almost on the ground
floor.
Started my career in mortgages as
a mortgage agent.
I knew I had to really push myself
or this would have been theultimate ball drop.
Living in London with theopportunity to travel into Europe
and leadership positions allironed out.
But thankfully, it did pan out.
I worked really hard, was promoted
to team captain, then director ofsales development, where I
(02:11):
developed a training program forour new agents.
And over time, I was asked to leadthe broker operations team, then
took on the lender ops team aswell.
Serves both our internal agents aswell as our Rocket Pro business.
And here we are today.
Okay.
Well, Summarize, thank you so muchfor sharing that.
So we'll start with this brokerageoperations team in which he
started out by leading andcontinue to lead today for Rocket.
So what does that exactly mean?I think the traditional mortgage
(02:32):
agent thinks about themselves astheir operations team, right?
They get the application from theclient.
They are asking the client for thenecessary documentation in order
to meet the conditions of themortgage.
Ultimately, they go on to fulfillall those conditions and get their
broker complete that they need andpush it over to the lawyer and get
to closing.
So what does broker operations
(02:53):
actually mean and what do thosefolks do?
Awesome.
Yeah.
So when I first took on the role,the broker ops team was more in
the background.
So our team is made up
predominantly of.
document specialists and closing
specialists.
And from there, you know, it was
an assembly line mentality wherethe agent would get the client
committed.
They'd submit the application.
We'd get our conditional approval.
From there, the document
specialist would be busily workingin the background.
(03:14):
They'd handle about 40 files perperson.
And then from there, the agent wasstill doing much of the
communication on the front end.
So they were still the face with
the client all the way through.
And the closing specialist.
would come in at Broker Complete.
And at that point, you know,
that's working with the lawyer,working with the title company,
(03:35):
working with the client to makesure that everything gets buttoned
up and is as smooth as possibletowards the end of the process.
But since then, we've evolved andour aim was to help increase agent
allocations ultimately and keepthem in front of new business more
often.
We changed our model a bit and the
document specialist evolved intowhat we call a loan processor.
And essentially, they still dothat document specialist work
where they're going to be handlingthe documents and doing a lot of
(03:57):
the, you know, print togetherDocuSign packages.
and things in the back end, butthey're also managing the client
relationship from CA to BC.
And so at that point there, we had
to really evolve our team becausea lot of these people, when they
came in, they had the skills to dothe loan processor job
effectively, but not all of themfully believed in themselves and
having that ability.
And I think it gave them a bit of
(04:18):
concern or anxiety to be the onehandling that client and all the
objections that can happen.
Because obviously anyone in the
work industry knows, Once thecommitment letter is there, it
becomes real.
Getting that signed, that sort of
rubber hits the road for a lot ofclients.
And they start to get a little bitworried and thinking, am I doing
the right thing?So huge responsibility on the
broker ops team to get thatclosed.
(04:40):
And they've done an amazing job.
So can you just talk about the
learning?It sounds like there's been some
evolution of those roles overtime.
It sounds like one of the majorthings was in the early days, you
talked about the documentspecialist.
They were not communicating withthe clients.
The agent would continue tocommunicate with the client.
The document specialist in thatcase would review the conditions,
think about what's needed, butthen they would ultimately go back
to the agent and tell the agent,hey, here's the things that are
(05:01):
needed on this file and try to getthese as fast as possible.
The evolution sounds like we gotto this loan processor role where
the loan processor would actuallytake over communications after the
conditional approval was issued.
Why was that the strategic shift
that was chosen?What do we think the lesson is
there?And what have we learned since
doing that?The The Yeah, good question.
I think we learned that it ispossible, right?
Clients, as long as there's anice, smooth handover where
(05:22):
everything is foreshadowedbeautifully.
You're very familiar with thisanalogy.
I've heard you say it, but thisidea of a haunted house analogy
really comes into play.
So what I'm going to do next, Mr.
and Mrs. Klein, is I'm going tosubmit your application to the
lender.
And from there, we'll get that
commitment letter back.
And from that point forward, you
can be working with an amazingloan processor.
(05:42):
Their name is.
and so, and they're going to be
with you every step of the way.
Of course, I will as well, more so
in the background, though.
If you need me at any point, you
can reach out.
But your loan processor is very,
very capable.
They're document experts, and
they're going to help get you.
Broker complete.
So for us to get that evolution toactually happen effectively, it
was more than just writing somescripts for them.
(06:04):
It was more than, you know, kindof putting in a process, but it
was also helping develop thepeople.
So we run our operations team likea sales team.
And ultimately, you know, we don'twant them to be order takers.
We want them to be ordered givers.
We use personal branding like any
good client facing person shouldto build trust with the client.
But we also teach them to useassumptive language.
We teach them how to mirror theclient.
We teach them how to buildrapport, explain the importance of
(06:25):
firm appointment setting anddocument deadline.
And that's not to trick the clientto doing something they shouldn't
do.
But ultimately, we do know that
completing a mortgage transactionis an adult activity.
And adult activities are thosethings that you put on a to -do
list that keep getting put off andput off and put off and put off.
And obviously, when you work inthe mortgage industry, when you
put off all the things that youneed to do on the way to close,
(06:48):
what ends up happening is you havea really bad experience in the
11th hour.
Our overall mission is to show our
minds how much we care and toguide them through the process,
you know, with the least amount offriction as possible, I suppose.
You talked a little bit aboutprocess orchestration.
You talked about the importance ofcommunication and foreshadowing.
Couldn't agree more, you know, forthose who are unfamiliar with the
(07:09):
haunted house analogy that weoften throw around in our world.
It's like, hey, a haunted house isonly scary because it's dark and
you don't know what's comingaround the corner.
But if they were to flip thelights on, wouldn't be that scary.
And really flipping the lights onis just telling the client
constantly what's coming next.
I'm curious, though, like what is
the ultimate goal of the process,right?
Is it speed?Is it certainty?
What have you figured out when itcomes to processing a mortgage,
what matters most so that we cando the best job of it and get the
(07:34):
highest reviews in return and thehighest rates of referrals?
clients coming back to us andthings like that.
What are you ultimately trying toachieve and why?
I think it's a little bit of both.
It's both speed and certainty
because you can do things really,really quickly, make a bunch of
mistakes or over -promise andunder -deliver and you provided a
terrible experience.
Certainty, of course, means that
when I tell you something's goingto happen, it does happen and it's
predictable.
We have an emphasis on both.
(07:54):
One of the things that we foundover the years, regardless of the
submission date, And the time fromthe submission date all the way to
the closing date, whether it's thefull 120 days out, if we can get
our clients broker complete in 21days or less, we have a higher
pull through essentially.
And there's more likelihood that
that mortgage is going to close.
And ultimately that's the client's
(08:15):
goal and that's our goal as well.
So we have something we call our
blackjack deals, right?And our team's pushing.
towards that.
That being said, there's the speed
aspect of it, but also thecertainty aspect in saying that
getting them to broker complete,that gives them that certainty.
At that point, the deal's gonethrough pre -fund.
They know they truly can getexcited in waiting for their
mortgage to close, but that's beena big push for us and it's been
(08:36):
very successful for our team.
Certainly.
Yeah.
The branding around Blackjack
being that of 21 days is abeautiful thing.
It's perfect.
Right.
And to speak to that a little bitmore, because, you know, I tracked
it closely, obviously.
And what we discovered through the
data was that once the 21 days hadpassed, the likelihood of that
mortgage closing actually startedto go down.
Yeah.
Something around that.
period for clients.
It just stood out that by then
(08:56):
they expected to know for surewhether or not their mortgage was
good to close, whether it was setto close a week from then or two
months from that time, three weeksin, they're like, I'm done working
on my mortgage.
Now I need you to say that we're
good to go and let's move on tothe next step here, which is me
sitting on my hands waiting tosign the final paperwork.
(09:18):
If you can't give me that level ofconfidence by X date, I'm going to
start.
wondering whether or not you're
going to actually get this donefor me.
And that's a scary feeling, butyou're back in the haunted house,
right?Yeah.
Yeah.
I think when we started, we made
our first goal.
This is when we had agents doing
most of the outreach and obviouslyagents' jobs are very, very busy,
(09:44):
right?So you're expecting them to find
new clients.
But then when they were being
asked to process their loan on theback end with the help of the
document specialist, it's just toomany plates to spin.
And at that point, our percentageof deals that went broker complete
within 21 days, again, regardlessof submission date and funding
date, it was... around 60%.
And that's where we kind of lived.
But since we've evolved our modeland had our loan processors handle
(10:05):
that part and allow the agent tofocus solely on new business, you
know, this month we're at over 80% right now.
And it's been consistent 13 monthsin a row that they've gone beyond
their goal, which was 66 % atfirst.
And we've raised our goal,obviously to 70, because, you
know, if you keep hitting thegoal, you got to raise the goal.
So they've continued to meet thechallenge.
And I will shout out if you outthere listening, our leader for
this team, Peterson Terrace, withthe help of Kyla Sovereign, who's
(10:26):
the team captain.
They've done such an amazing job
championing this message andleading from the front.
That's really well said.
So I'm curious about the
challenges that arise whencreating a process like this,
because I've talked to manybrokers, agents over the years,
and what they tell me is, hey,we've heard this many times.
I think Rocket in the US pioneeredsome of this in a lot of ways,
task -driven processing exercises.
And where a lot of people break
(10:48):
down is in like all the minutedetails of what the agent knows
after having all thoseconversations with the client to
what the ops processing team nowknows about the client.
I mean, something as simple as,you know, hey, I'm going to get
you all these documents this week,but next week I'm actually, you
know, I'm traveling abroad and Iwon't be available.
That deal gets passed, right?It's conditionally approved.
It's in the hands of a loanprocessor now.
(11:09):
The loan processor is calling thatclient every two, three days to be
like, hey, I need you to submitthese documents.
The client gets back only to findout they got a bunch of text
messages and emails from theirloan processor.
And they're like, hey, I told youguys that I was going to be out of
town.
Why are you blowing up my phone?
That's just one of like a millionexamples or, hey, you know, I'm
(11:32):
working on this, you know, divorcedocument as a part of this
process.
And I told you that I would, you
know, submit it as X date.
And you're sending me a, you know,
an every three day follow up emailsaying, where's the document and
all these things like.
How do you prevent against the
breakdown in communication andexperience for the client, given
that there is so much sitting withthe agent as a part of that
(11:54):
original relationship that is nowgetting passed on?
Yeah.
So as I mentioned in my opening 60
second intro, which probably wentpast 60 seconds before I came from
ops, I was in sales and my role asa director of sales development
meant that.
All new agents passed through my
team.
So when I moved to ops, I was in a
really great position to try tobring the two teams together.
One of the first things that wedid is we brought them into the
(12:15):
same office and made sure thattheir office phase coincided.
Because a lot of those breakdownsdid happen and I think would
continue to happen if the twoteams saw themselves as two teams
and not one team.
So getting them just together was
a big win.
Getting them to trust each other
and also making sure that oursales team knew how hard our
operations team was working.
and made sure that they realized
all these wins that were happeningas they were happening.
(12:35):
You know, anybody who works in theindustry knows, anybody who's in
sales knows that the minute youput your trust in, say, you know,
any other stakeholder, whetherit's, you know, a loan processor
or a lawyer or what have you,you're really going to remember
that one loan that goes sideways.
So reminding them that, you know,
that one loan is one of a hundred,maybe, right?
(12:57):
That went sideways, but the other99 were beautiful, right?
And they worked out wonderfully.
So don't get lost.
in that one bad experience thathappened, but then also not
pushing it to the side orexplaining it away, but also doing
a post -mortem on those and makingsure that we can understand where
things went wrong and how we canbe better.
I've got a great relationship withall the sales leaders, and it's
been awesome to be able to refineour processes together to make
(13:19):
sure that our two teams, as Imentioned already, work as one
team.
Yeah, it makes so much sense.
I mean, I've heard you use theanalogy in the past of front of
house, back of house.
That's right.
Thinking about it as a restaurant,right?
Like the server's out there.
Just for those who aren't familiar
with the analogy, I think it's abeautiful one.
(13:41):
That's right.
So the server is the mortgage
agent.
The server's getting face -to
-face.
They're making a bunch of
promises.
Oh, for sure.
You want the steak?the steak?
Medium, done, right?But like they're not actually
cooking the steak medium.
They're ultimately handing a
ticket back to the back of thehouse and they're relying on that
thing to come out medium and thenthey go and deliver it.
And ultimately the client'scustomer is sitting on the other
(14:01):
side and they're holding thatindividual responsible.
So it's very easy if the back ofthe house isn't delivering to
start really getting frustratedwith that.
And it's very easy sometimes toforget all the good things.
you know, the other 99 orders inwhich they nailed it.
So I like that you use the wordtrust there.
I mean, it ultimately does rely ona belief that both sides are
trying their absolute best to makeit happen.
And when people start to believethose things to be true on both
(14:23):
sides, that it creates a betterworking relationship.
It creates a, as we say, hashtagone team environment.
And we work towards ultimately theconsumer above our own needs,
right?Exactly.
Exactly.
You mentioned that from the time
in leading brokerage operations,you went on to lead.
Lender operations, we launched ourlender for those unfamiliar in
2023 in and around June, got tomarket and you start underwriting
loans.
And there are some similarities to
the processing of mortgage in thebrokerage operations division, but
there are also a lot ofdifferences.
Number one, you're sitting on acompletely different technology
(14:44):
stack.
So you've got to go and you've got
to learn a whole new technologystack.
You've got to integrate thattechnology stack.
You have to.
train new people to do things.
Oftentimes, even if they'reexperienced underwriters to do
them your way, right?Because it's like, Hey, like I
appreciate that you've been doingthis for 20 years, but we do
things a little bit differentlyhere.
(15:05):
And you probably feel like you'vegot this thing nailed down after
20 years, but we have a mindset ofgetting 1 % better every day.
And I need you to like reset andthink about how we can do this
better.
What challenges did you face in
the times when you were takingover the lender operations and
underwriting side of the businessso that we could actually
ultimately fund these mortgages?I think ultimately you nailed it.
think ultimately you nailed it.
(15:26):
There's the way that other lenders
have been operating for so manyyears.
And when you've got experiencedunderwriters who have seen it only
done that way for those number ofyears, sometimes kind of
challenging those assumptions wassomething that I had to do when I
first came because I saw thingsthrough a broker lens first.
So I saw it.
(15:46):
you know, from a different
perspective.
And that's not to say that people
on the lending team who were therealready were reluctant to change
or were not open to finding abetter way because they were.
That's why we hired them on.
Ultimately, you know, that's a big
part of our interview process ismaking sure that we've got the
right people on the bus.
I think we do a pretty damn good
(16:07):
job of that.
But that was a big challenge, I
think, in terms of, as youmentioned, you know, working with,
you know, a whole different.
system and making sure that it was
integrating well with our pre-existing systems.
And then also making sure thatthat team integrated well with our
broker operations team who hadbeen kind of doing things their
way and our agents as well.
And then as you know, that lending
team by lead, it also serves ourRocket Pro business as well.
So it's also, you know.
(16:29):
Finding a way to make sure that
those experienced brokers who areexternal to Rocket are amazed and
impressed by what we deliver.
And through that, how we did that
was through a lot of feedback,right?
So just listening to what thebrokers are after, putting
ourselves through the process,making sure that we see from...
From, you know, walking throughthe front door of the business,
what's it like for a broker who'sgoing to send a deal to Rocket
(16:50):
Pro?What sort of experience are they
going to have?And then just making sure that
we've got things in place with ourunderwriters in terms of, you
know, non -negotiables, right?Something as simple as like, you
know, no bad news is everdelivered, you know, through
email, right?So picking up the phone and having
a conversation because ultimatelythat one deal is so important.
It's that broker's paycheck.
And you don't want to get bad news
sent to you in an email, even ifit's, you know, we need to rework
(17:13):
this.
is not dead, but we need to rework
this.
That's bad news, right?
The brokers submitted it and theythought we were good to go.
So they hit them with anything,you know, in terms of an email to
say that we've got to changecourse.
It's something that we don't do.
And it's been a great experience
so far.
Amazing feedback over and over
again from our brokers.
And, you know, we've got amazing
BDMs and Dan and Tori who arefielding a lot of conversations
(17:35):
with our outside brokers.
And the feedback has been great.
It's helped us grow.
And it's also reaffirmed that we
are doing the right thing.
You mentioned getting feedback
from these brokers and you talkedabout our BDMs and it sounds like
you're talking about ourunderwriters too.
It sounds like there's a lot ofcommunication going back to the
broker.
Is that in that process, the
biggest learning for you is justthat communication aspect above
(17:57):
all else?I think a lot of people in the
industry, they often point to thefact that, hey, like, you know, we
can get super creative withunderwriting or we can do, you
know, X, Y, Z. But you're talkingabout something which sounds
simple on the surface, butprobably is not that easy in that
like, hey, like all those otherthings are going to be there, but
we're actually focused on thecommunication piece.
Can you just... speak to how weidentified how that was so
(18:18):
important and what we had to doculturally to change that?
Yeah.
So it's a good question.
I think when it comes tounderwriting, you know, we're all
underwriting from essentially thesame place.
You've got to underwrite to theinsurer's guidelines or to your
investor's guidelines.
You know, we work at the lender
themselves.
to the lender's guidelines.
And ultimately, you can ask peopleto underwrite faster and do all
these sort of things.
But ultimately, you have to work
through and create some processesthat allows us to focus our energy
(18:39):
on the right things at the righttime.
And that's one of the things thatwe've done with Rocket Pro Zero.
Any deals that come in with docsin, we make sure that those docs
are reviewed so we can send thatCL out with a bit more certainty.
In terms of the communicationaspect, you're spot on.
That's the biggest thing thatneeded to be, I guess, worked on
for anybody because when you'reasking someone to underwrite
really, really quickly, it justseems to be easier in that moment
(19:02):
to just fire off a quick email.
That's not how brokers want to be
communicated with.
Let's at least go through a text.
Text messages are nice and quick.
You go on their phones all the
time.
Also having those conversations is
how we're going to build up thoserelationships.
That's how you get people to trustyou, right?
And you get people to want to workwith you again if you show them
how much you care, right?The Roosevelt quote.
which is another great one.
(19:23):
Nobody cares how much you know
until you show them how much youcare.
So if we can show the brokers howinvested we are in their own
business, then we think that's ahuge inch for us.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
I mean, it puts the underwriter
also in the seat of effectivelybeing in sales and in some
fashion.
And the reason why I say that,
like the sales is often correlatedwith like trying to like get
(19:44):
people to do something.
But the reality is sales is just
truly communication.
So you're putting them in the role
of communicator from.
the seat of, you know, who would
be better to have thatcommunication and the person
working on that mortgage at thattime and give a real time update
of, Hey, I'm struggling to make Xwork.
What if we looked at Y and let'swork on this together.
(20:04):
And I hear those conversationsdaily from our underwriters and
they're fantastic.
They're ultimately, you know,
seeking solutions with the brokerhand in hand and saying, here's
the trouble that we're having andgetting this over the line.
And here's where we need to go.
Here's a few ideas.
Can we do this or can we do that?And when people take the approach
of communication andcollaboratively to try to find the
solution ultimately for theclient, then it's much better that
(20:26):
way.
in We've got some amazing
underwriters.
And again, coming from the broker
space and coming from, you know,before broker operations sales,
I've worked with someunderwriters, never mentioned
names, right?But our specific lenders that
you've worked with, but sometimesit feels like they don't want to
do the deal.
And it's like, well, aren't we all
in the business of writing loans,right?
Whereas like when you haveconversations on the floor with
our team, they truly want to makethe deal work.
(20:46):
And I'm so impressed at whatlength they will go, you know,
what conversations they'll havewith insurers to try to, you know,
sell the deal, right, to theinsurer to see if this is
something that they'd have anappetite for.
They work tirelessly for ourbrokers.
I'm super impressed by all ofthem.
That's fantastic.
Thinking about that culture and
thinking about something you saidearlier around, you know, getting
people to maybe question some ofthe original assumptions that they
(21:06):
had coming in, especially ifyou've done underwriting as an
example for a long time, you buildup a set of best practices and the
things that got you to where youare might not be the things that
are going to get you to where youwant to go.
It really takes a first principlesmindset to question some of the
deepest assumptions that we haveabout what works and what doesn't.
What things do you do that willget people who are experts and
(21:27):
professionals in this game andhave been doing it for a long time
to go back and think from firstprinciples about how we can do
things differently?How do you culturally build that
into?you're part of the organization?
Well, one of the first things Idid when I joined the lending
operations team is just workreally, really closely with
people, right?So spend as much time as possible
(21:47):
with the people that I was goingto be working with, asking them
questions, you know, find outwhat's working well for them.
What do they feel is somethingthat slows them down or stands in
their way?You know, what can we change?
What can we enhance to make, youknow, not only our clients
experience better, but their teammember experience.
So I think doing that is the firststep.
(22:08):
Also, Finding some quick wins,right?
Finding some things that you canshow them that making these
suggestions actually leads tosomething because we do act on
them.
That's a big part of our culture
and showing them that sometimesthere is a better way.
It's not necessarily one thatyou're used to or one that you've
done, you know, in the past, butwe're going to work together to
find better ways.
We're going to make subtle
improvements all the time, right?Especially when you've dialed in a
(22:30):
process and it works frombeginning to end.
It's about finding those littleincremental.
improvements that you can makethat slowly slowly improves things
bit by bit getting the team aspart of that process is really
really important i mean thetrouble there is often how
regulated the lending industry isright you want to make drastic
changes you see the opportunitiesmean the trouble there is often
how regulated the lending industryis right you want to make drastic
(22:51):
changes you see the opportunitiesfor improvements in the
underwriting process.
Some of those things are just flat
out prescriptive and dictateddown, right?
From the powers that be to make usdo things a certain way, even if
there is a better way.
For sure, some of those things
are, you know, probably going tocome to roost here in the coming
years.
But I think about the ability to
(23:12):
verify things digitally, forexample, right?
Like even, you know, pre -COVID,for example, like many of these
things had to be hand -signed.
You had to print documents off and
then COVID happened and it waslike, okay, we'll take e
-signation.
on these moving forward.
It was like, we should have alwaystaken these signatures.
And then we went back in BC.
And then we went back in BC.
(23:34):
Yeah, yeah.
It was like, okay, yeah.
There was like some emergencymeasures put in place.
And for some reason, we went backto getting wet signatures on
specific documents.
There are more and better ways
nowadays to verify credit thanpreviously existed.
There are better ways to verifyassets.
pay stubs and things like that weseem to have a reluctance in our
industry to adapt to these thingsand i think the frustrating part
is especially when you see it andyou are a first principles thinker
(23:57):
and you do take a step back andsay there's a better way
unfortunately for now though weneed to keep doing things the way
that we always have the way theywere done 30 years ago despite the
fact that they probably just don'tmake sense in today's environment
and it creates a bit of aninnovator's dilemma in that sense.
So I know you're somebody who'salways looking to innovate,
create, think from the start ofsomething and think about how we
(24:17):
could do it better.
When you think about the lending
industry as it exists today, whatis something that you're excited
about for the future?What is something that you think
needs to change such that we canbetter serve consumers in the end?
Well, Well, I'm still holding onfor open banking.
I think a lot of what youdescribed there is just that, and
that will make things so muchbetter for consumers, I truly
(24:39):
believe.
But also, as we all know, the
buzzword of 2024 more so was AI.
So using AI to help do some
document processing for us,specifically, you think of like
bank statements, right?If you've got more than one
borrower.
on an application and there's down
payment coming from multiplesources and you've got 90 days of
this and 90 days of that, it canbe very, very time consuming and
mistakes can be made.
That's a big area that I think is
obviously going to really take offand make things better and more
accurate.
There's also a lot of work out
(25:01):
there right now being done with AIvoice generators.
And I think with those, those aregoing to be super exciting for the
industry in terms of removing someof the mundane conversations that
have to happen throughout themortgage process and speeding
things up and allowing our teamsto be more efficient to focus on
the conversations that mattermost.
And obviously there's someprograms out there, you know, kind
of simpler ones, I'd say that are.
that are helping us design our
SOPs, right?So like on of the days where you'd
(25:23):
have to take hours to dial in aprocess and then have to go back
to that and refine it with everyminute detail that you've changed.
Those programs out there likeScribe, for example, is one of
them, which is fantastic, which isgoing to help us create better
SOPs, which can then be used forprocess refinement and rolling out
(25:44):
training so much more effectively.
I'm going to switch it on you for
just a second.
I want to talk about culture with
you, Kyle, because I've personallywatched you lead.
three teams that are business andin each area that you led, you
ultimately developed a reallystrong culture in those parts of
the business.
Ones that are focused on speed,
constant improvement, you know,getting along with your peers,
ultimately lifting each other upto make everybody better.
(26:04):
It's not always easy in thebeginning when you go in and you
try to make cultural changes theway that you have.
I'm curious for just some of yourthoughts, if you will, if you
could lend them to us on.
culture, cultural change, how you
think about starting a team, howyou think about taking over a
team, and ultimately what you'retrying to achieve as you go about
building culture on teamseverywhere you go.
(26:25):
Yeah, I think there's so much tounpack with that.
And I know I'm going to forgetsomething, but I'm going to listen
to this back and kick myself fornot saying it.
I think one of the first things todo whenever I'm taking on a new
team, first and foremost, to letthem get to know me and to sit
back and observe, but not to apoint of being passive, but just
(26:47):
to understand all the ins and outsof how that team operates and who
the different personalities areand what's driving the team,
what's holding the team back.
Because it's not always all bad,
right?There's a lot of good things that
are happening.
You also want to find out who your
early adopters are going to be orcertain things that you're looking
to change.
You know, having some good
conversations with people to showthem that you're here to help the
(27:09):
team, not to destroy it.
And then again, as I mentioned
already, finding some quick winsand also right from, you know, the
minute you take on a new team toup until, you know, the present
day is doing your very, very bestnot to alienate yourself from your
team.
So obviously the cliche is having
an open door policy, but it'struly.
having one, right?Making sure that your team has
(27:31):
easy access to you.
You know, my calendar is
completely open for the wholecompany to see.
They know what I'm doing at anygiven time.
I'm also available for them ifthey need me for anything
whatsoever.
And I take the time to get to know
them.
You know, my one -on -ones with my
team is in all business, right?I make sure that they know that I
want to know about them.
(27:51):
I want to know, you know, what
their wife's name is, theirhusband's name is, you know, their
pet's names, their children'snames.
And you make sure that you showthem how much you care, right?
These are good people.
That's why they're on your team.
And that's important to me.
It does resonate well with the
team.
And on the flip side, I said this
one second because I don't want tolead with this, but there's
(28:12):
coaching up and there's coachingout too.
So when you take on a new team,it's important to know that you
haven't inherited a ready -madeproduct.
This is an evolving team andpeople need to show that they want
to be part of the solution.
You're either a radiator or you're
a drain.
You're either going to radiate
positivity and good vibes oryou're going to be a drain on the
team.
(28:32):
Everyone has an equal opportunity
to show me which person they are.
But ultimately, you know, the
expectations are high.
Every team that I lead has a
really high performing culture andhigh accountability across the
board.
I'm accountable to them just as
much as they're accountable to me.
And we have to be all rolling in
the right direction.
That's really well said.
I'll leave it there becausethere's so much that we could
potentially unpack.
But I want to ask you, is there
any question that comes to yourmind that I should be asking you
(28:55):
that I?haven't already.
I feel like there's so much,there's been so much learning
over, you know, the last fiveyears.
You talked about leading, youknow, the sales development.
You're ultimately, you know,responsible for training every
single mortgages that we bringinto this organization.
And then responsible for trainingthe operations people that we
bring into this organization.
And then you're leading the
operations team for the brokerage.
You're leading the operations team
for the lender and theunderwriters and the closing
(29:16):
process.
And there's so much cultural
change that goes.
through, you know, building from
nearly zero effectively in yourcase to where we got.
So what should I be asking you inyour mind?
Does that stoke anything for you?I don't know.
I think maybe what motivates me.
Great question.
That's the question.
I think, you know, what motivates
me?And I think, I think that's
important, right?So like ultimately.
(29:36):
You know, in those situations,those new roles that I took on,
these were opportunities that as abusiness, you know, I was called
to kind of stand up and take on.
And at first, you know, going from
sales to ops, for example, youknow, you start to wonder, you're
like, is this the right move forme?
Like, is that where I really wantto be?
I saw myself as a salespersonfirst and I really liked all the
people on that side.
And I thought, you know, is this
going to be good for my career?Is this going to be good for my
(29:59):
day to day happiness?But ultimately, you know.
Stopping and pausing and realizingthat it's an opportunity that I
need to seize and I need to showthat I can achieve in different
settings was a good thing.
And for me, you know, the people
around me motivate me to seizethose opportunities and to do my
very best day in and day out.
My wife and son are the biggest
motivators in my life.
Everything that I do, obviously
you do for them and the people Ilead motivate me, you know, when I
(30:21):
got into leadership.
I knew that I would have others
depending on me.
And I know it sounds cheesy, but I
don't take that opportunity orthat responsibility lightly.
And I take the time to get closeto the people I lead by asking
them what's standing in their wayand what challenges they face.
And our clients motivate me.
At the end of the day, there's no
business without our clients.
And the processes we build are
(30:42):
always centered on what's going todeliver the best experience for
them.
That's well said.
So I want to wrap by just askingyou about impact and legacy.
I know sometimes when we're...
young -ish, right?
Thank you.
I'll say that.
Yeah, young -ish.
You know, Thank you.
I'll say that.
Yeah, know, we don't maybe spend
as much time as we could or shouldthinking about overall impact and
legacy, but as you look forward toyour life, your career, and all
(31:04):
the things that you probably stillplan to achieve in that, like, how
do you think about the lastingimpact that you want to have and
the legacy that you want to haveand the people around you?
Yeah.
So I don't have some big master
plan necessarily.
I'm not looking to run for prime
minister one day.
That's too bad.
It might be too bad.
(31:25):
But I envision myself always
working with people.
Every role that I've been in has
involved people in some aspect.
And my current one involves people
in process.
It And for me, the people part,
the leadership aspect is the one Ifind most rewarding.
There's nothing better thanproviding opportunities.
challenging people and seeing themgrow as human beings, not just as
team members.
So I'd say that I'd say my lasting
(31:46):
impact that I'd like to make and,you know, how I'd like to kind of
set my sights on would becontinuing to fulfill that and
working closely with people andhelping impact the outcome for
them.
The impact that we can have on
others is something that I thinkthat a lot of people go back to.
Yeah.
It's okay because that's what it's
all about.
So thank you for sharing.
Thanks for being on.
(32:06):
Thanks for.
everything that you've done overthe years for this business and
myself included on a personallevel.
So much appreciated, Kyle.
Thank you very much for having me
on.
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