November 20, 2024 • 34 mins
WATCH
▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube
***
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode, Bekim is joined by Alex Meloche. Alex is the Divisional VP of Sales at Rocket Mortgage Canada. He has been with the company since May of 2020. Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario and coming from a big family, Alex picked up strong communication and story-telling skills from a young age, and has parlayed that into a very successful career in sales. With a professional life spanning the past 2 decades in industries such as debt and legal collections, dental, office & furniture, and now mortgages, Alex has continued to build his sales and leadership skills from amazing mentors, and hopes he can open the doors for the next generation.
Alex is here to discuss: → His professional career and why he wanted to join Rocket Mortgage Canada, the legacy he wishes to leave, and staying motivated with 1, 100, and 1000 day goals. → What makes a great salesperson, transferable sales skills across all industries, and the building blocks of sales and leadership, effective communication and confidence. → The importance of running a professional process/system, using conversion metrics through your process to level up your skills, and why professionalism over politeness is the way to win clients and be a great friend.
Alex Meloche's LinkedIn: @AlexMeloche
***
CONNECT WITH THE SHOW
🎙️ Lending Thoughts Podcast: @lendingthoughts
📺 Lending Thoughts Podcast YouTube: @LendingThoughtsPod
📸 Lending Thoughts Podcast Instagram: @lendingthoughtspod
⏰ Lending Thoughts Podcast TikTok: @lendingthoughtspod
👥 Lending Thoughts Podcast Facebook: @LendingThoughtsPodcast
***
CONNECT WITH BEKIM
📸 Bekim Merdita's Instagram: @bekim_merdita
📋 Bekim Merdita's LinkedIn: @BekimMerdita
***
CONNECT WITH ROCKET PRO CANADA
🔗 Rocket Pro Canada Website: www.rocketpro.ca
📸 Rocket Pro Canada Instagram: @rocketprocanada
📋 Rocket Pro Canada LinkedIn: @RocketProCanada
👥 Rocket Pro Canada Facebook: @RocketProCanada
***
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Thank you for joining this episodeof Lending Thoughts Podcast
(00:02):
brought to you by Rocket Pro.
Today, I'm joined by Alex Meloche,
who's our head of sales here atRocket Mortgage Canada.
We're going to be talking aboutsalespersonship.
We'll talk about sales process.
We're also going to talk about
mindset, which is just asimportant.
So you're not going to want tomiss this episode.
Alex has a lot of great things toshare with us.
Listen in.
with us.
Listen in.
Welcome to this episode of Lending
(00:31):
Thoughts.
Today, I'm joined by Alex Meloche,
who is our leader of sales here atour very own Rocket Mortgage
Canada.
Alex is a good friend of mine
through the years here.
Actually has an interesting story
as to how we ended up at RocketMortgage, which I'm going to
probably try to pull out of you aswell as through this conversation.
But happy to share.
I think it'll be interesting.
Alex is a talkative individual,very type A, someone that I could
personally spend two hours withjust talking about how to make the
(00:53):
best ham sandwich if necessary.
But we'll avoid that for our
cooking show, which is comingsoon.
Coming soon.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Alex, thanks for joining metoday.
joining me today.
Appreciate it very much.
I know this podcast is somethingthat you've been working on for a
long time.
I've watched you do what you
needed to do to bring it to life.
Very excited for you.
you.
Very excited for today.
Awesome.
Thanks for joining.
So a question that I always startwhich with, can you is, tell us
(01:16):
your life story in 60 seconds orplease?
less, Yeah, I will try my best.
Like you said, talking to the
individual, but born and raisedhere in Windsor to a pretty large
extended family.
As you know, mom had 12 or 13
brothers and sisters.
Dad had six or seven brothers and
sisters.
So, you know, holidays, family
visits, 50, 60, 70 peoplesometimes as the family grew.
So, you know, I had that bigfamily vibe, average upbringing in
(01:38):
an average family, average city.
After I was done school, decided
as many young men do to go outWest and find myself.
I call those years, the years thatI got comfortable with my shadow,
did some soul searching.
Those closest to me know that
those are my dreadlock years aswell.
The years that I joined a band andgrew out some dreadlocks and
(01:59):
quickly shaved my head and thengot my work experience going.
Those are really formative years.
You know, that's when you become a
man in my world.
So that's when I got into business
and that eventually brought meback home, which is great.
And that's when I feel like therest of my life kind of started.
You know, I felt like my valuesystem was in place.
I felt like I got some greatexperience and work.
(02:20):
Met my wife, bought a house herein my hometown, which was a great
accomplishment for me as part ofthe end goal.
And started our family now withbaby Isla around.
This is the golden age of my liferight now.
Just being able to, you know,support my family, look to the
future, be there with my family.
And things are looking great.
The horizon is looking good.
So that's pretty much how I got to
where I am today.
(02:40):
Awesome.
Yeah, the dreadlock story isinteresting.
The rock band, everyone needsthat.
It is on Facebook somewhere,buried deep.
People have tried to find them.
They've shown up in a couple of
teams messages here in the officefrom time to time.
But everyone needs a dreadlockface.
You know?True.
I never got there.
You never got there, but I thought
about it.
You know?
I thought about it.
Well, you got the hair.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
(03:00):
So I actually want to jump intosomething that you said regarding
like the big family.
It started off with a bit of a
joke, but it's true.
You're a very easy person to talk
to and help navigate a crowd.
A lot of times, even when we were
in a crowd, I'm pushing you to thefront so that I can move to the
back and pull the introvert partout.
But do you feel like that wasformative for you and ultimately
what led to a career, which iseffectively in sales?
(03:21):
But I like to think about sales inthe form of communication.
And when you talk about having alarge family like that, I'm sure
there has to be a lot ofcommunication taking place.
That's a It a great point.
And you and I think about sales so
similarly.
It's about effective
communication.
It's about deep care.
It's about engagement, right?And I come from a family of
storytellers, right?Grandpa was telling bear stories
(03:42):
at the kitchen table of huntingbears and Uncle Ricky was talking
about pirate stories, you know,down in the Caribbean and, you
know, just all these greatstorytellers who you just sit
there amazed looking up and watchthem tell these stories.
But eventually you become thatperson.
I find myself doing that with myown daughter right now.
And certainly those skills, youknow, they're difficult to teach,
(04:03):
but everyone's got them in them tolike a certain degree and
everyone's got their own versionof that.
And I definitely apply that tosales all the time.
I apply it to sales leadership aswell, right?
Being able to rally your teamaround some objective or rally
your team around a mission thatyou're going toward.
It all really starts with yourability to engage.
Completely agree.
And then maybe let's talk about
(04:24):
the sales portion of your career.
So you you ditch the dreadlocks
you're like we've got to make somereal money here and build a life
yeah what does that journey looklike in terms of your career and
what has led you to rocketmortgage today off the back of
what you've done in the past yeahthat's a great question i believe
sales skills are transferable fromcareer to career from job to job
(04:44):
let's that's a great question ibelieve sales skills are
transferable from career to careerfrom job to job let's it, or like
industry to industry.
So I started out in collections of
all things, but I had some amazingteachers who taught me about
negotiation, who taught me aboutstructuring a business and
building a process, and who taughtme how to, you know, negotiate
with people very successfully,let's call it, you know, like
build a conversation, build trust,build urgency, and then help
people with whatever it is theyneed help with, whether it's
(05:06):
collecting a debt.
Or then after that, I went into
legal collections where I wasmanaging relationships with large
organizations like Capital OneBank and the 401 Highway, doing
some great work with them.
But again, drawing on those same
skill sets.
So transferable from collections
to legal.
Then, believe it or not, went into
dental.
Naturally.
Naturally, the progression is togo from legal collections to the
(05:28):
dental industry.
Yeah.
But funny enough, working withdentists to build rapport and send
their patients to the appointmentbooking desk with, you know, a
thumbs up to book that nextappointment and what that
conversation should look like.
Again, engaging, building to go
from building rapport, you know,building urgency, and then getting
the appointment closing, right?From there, that's when I got my
(05:49):
opportunity to come back home.
I was in furniture and office
supplies working for a local momand pop, Monarch Basics.
It was actually quite large.
They were most of Southwestern
Ontario they serviced.
But I mean, that was pure sales.
We had an inside sales team.
We had an outside sales team.
(06:10):
We had a furniture team that wouldgo out, do large jobs here in the
city.
We also had a team that would work
with smaller businesses.
So the entire gambit of what makes
a great salesperson or a greatsales team very effective was on
display there.
So I really got to hone in on some
of those skills and apply all thethings that I learned through all
(06:31):
those years there.
And funny enough, and I know you
like this story, so I'll jump in.
It was 2019, and I had gone out as
the director of sales to this newbusiness that had just renovated
an old bar and fish market that Iused to hang out at as a
youngster.
So I went there, and I checked
(06:51):
out, oh, Rocket Innovation Studio.
Interesting.
Okay, knock on the door, per se,right?
Met the building manager and tooka tour.
I said, so what do you guys dohere right i'm getting to know my
client what do you guys do hereyada yada he goes this is a tech
building we didn't do likeprogramming and we do a lot of
tech related things and i'mlooking at this building i'm going
(07:12):
i know a sales floor when i seeone like the metropolitan credit
collection floor was almostexactly like what we have, you
know, downstairs.
And I go, I know a sales floor
when I see one and I know whatrocket is.
I said, if you ever hear the wordmortgage or someone in a suit and
tie is on the sales floor, callme, please.
I'd be very interested in speakingwith those people.
And that was in 2019 at somepoint, mid-year 2019.
(07:34):
February of 2020, I get a phonecall.
Hey, a couple of people heretalking mortgage on the floor.
Just wanted to let you know.
Okay, man, give me a name.
Who is it?He looks around and goes, the only
guy I know is Bekem Merdita.
And I go, spell it for me.
Went on LinkedIn, looked lookedyou up and then you know the rest
of the story I reached out to youand I said hey I know what you
(07:55):
guys are up to I happen to haveyour paper and pencil contract
which is tiny being a you knowtech first firm but I'd be very
interested in joining your teamI'm an expert team builder I
consider myself a sales expert andI would love to join as you know
and you put me onto recruiting andthey did their thing.
(08:15):
Well, that was in February of2020.
And by May of 2020, I was hereand, you know, coming in as a
mortgage associate to cut my teethand prove myself.
And I mean, you could attest to,it was a natural fit.
You and I talking sales on dayone, we had been taught and had
taught others the exact samethings in terms of pipeline
management, in terms of urgency,in terms of, you know, digging
deep when times are good and, youknow, knowing when to rest, if you
(08:39):
need to, you know, pull back fromyour business, just all these
similarities in what we'd beentaught.
So to kind of round out yourquestion, yeah, everything, no
matter where you're at in yourcareer, in sales, or, you know,
working with people, all of it'stransferable.
No matter what the product is, theproduct can change, right?
How you present yourself, thelevel of care that you bring to
your work, whether you're leadingothers or whether you're selling
on the phone or sellingface-to-face, all that's
(09:01):
transferable.
So in my experience, all of that
led to, you know, where we aretoday.
So maybe let me touch on somethingsmall within that story, which is
you said, Hey, if that's rocketmortgage, I want to join.
Why was that?Why did you have that belief you
were working for, as you said, youknow, a successful business
already, uh, you were leadingsales for that organization and
something told you before you evenknew what it paid and what the
(09:24):
future held and what the ultimatebusiness plan was.
You said, if that's RocketMortgage, I want to go there.
Why is that?for I mean, being from Windsor, if
you were to look out one of thesewindows, what do you see?
This beautiful skyline, Detroit,the massive city.
And it's a very well-known factthat Rocket has done amazing
things in Detroit back in thequick and lones days and all the
(09:45):
way through to now being Rocket.
It's just this fairy tale story.
And knowing that the people thatdid what they did to Detroit and
bringing it up, you know, anddoing what they did, that there
was a fleck of hope that theycould do that.
The same thing here in Windsor wasjust too much to pass up.
My grandfather built neighborhoodsin this town.
(10:06):
This town means a lot to me.
You know, I've written some blog
posts about what it meant to mefor Rocket to come here and to be
a part of that, to be a part ofwhat we could do to help my
hometown and the people that Ilove in it was just this amazing
opportunity.
So there was a lot of flash, a lot
of razzle dazzle around it.
(10:27):
Not to mention just knowing that
the pros pro sold at Rocket andbeing a part of that was cool as
well.
Yeah.
Want to play with the best.
That's it.
I love that.
You consider yourself an A player.
You want to play with other Aplayers, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Alex, let's dive in there alittle bit, which is you started
when we were just a couple of, youknow, a couple of sales people.
(10:49):
Now we've got an organization thatcombines sales and marketing and
technology and finance and so manyother things that we have in our
grasp here today.
Let's dive into that sales piece,
which is what do you think makes agreat sales person?
And what do you think makes agreat mortgage agent?
And are they one in the same?That's a great a great question.
What makes a great sales person?I mentioned it a couple of times
already.
And a great sales person is a
(11:11):
healthy balance of care andconfidence in one hand, right?
And administrative passion inanother passion in another hand.
So care and confidence, I'll startwith.
And I think being a mortgageagent, if you have care and
confidence, you're going to be agreat mortgage agent because
you're handling probably the mostimpactful transaction, financial
transaction of any one person'slife or the average person's life,
right?So if you don't show great care
and you make it about numbers,very, very likely that you're
gonna lose that client becauseyou're not acknowledging the
(11:35):
emotions.
A lot of times the stress that
comes with that.
So first and foremost, being a
great salesperson, you have tohave great care.
So what does that mean?It means that you don't rush
through your call.
It means that you don't focus on
rate.
It means that you are asking more
questions, right?You are listening more than you're
speaking.
We call it the two ears, one
(11:56):
mouth, right?Listen twice as much as you speak.
That's a lot of the battle rightthere.
Then you have high level,passionate administration, running
a clean business.
That means throughout your funnel,
knowing what your day looks like.
Where have I got to focus my
efforts immediately today?It means knowing what transpired
(12:17):
in your previous conversation withyour clients that are already in
your pipeline.
Right.
So important.
I'll tell you right now, we've all
been there and you forget to put anote.
You forget to put an update on aclient's file and your follow-up
date comes up.
You got no notes.
You're freaking out.
I'm going to look like an idiot.
(12:39):
I barely remember this person'sname.
How did I get myself into thismess, right?
You never want to be in that case.
The client at hand is the most
important person in front of youat all times, right?
And they have to feel that.
So making sure that you manage
your pipeline very, very cleanlyand very, very methodically is
important.
And when you mix those two things
(13:00):
together, you get that A playerall-star result, which is you've
got clients that are working withyou, want to work with you,
referring you to others, and youare calling, assessing, and
closing super efficiently.
And those two things, when put
together, is just a recipe fordynamite.
If you can figure those two thingsout, you're going to be very, very
successful.
I don't care what the industry is.
(13:21):
Yeah.
So I like what you said there,
which is have a process, but havea conversation.
How do you interweave these twothings?
Is it with technology?The way I like to think about it,
it's like, I want to put theperson who is on our team
communicating with the client inthe best position to have the best
possible conversation, meaningthat I want to remove as much as
(13:42):
possible off their plate in themundane, the task oriented, all of
the above so that they can justfocus on what matters most, which
is understanding what their clientis ultimately trying to achieve.
And you talked about that a littlebit, which is like listening
versus how much you're talking.
But also, you've got to be able to
make sure that you're getting allthat sort of like documented,
(14:03):
recorded.
Like operation to operation to it.
And then there's thatcommunication into it.
Your system has to help peopleremain organized.
Your system has to prompt yourpeople or prompt you, even if it's
not on a massive scale, even ifit's on an individual scale, you
have to have a system.
You and I talk about that a lot,
(14:25):
right?Your system needs to be
unbreakable.
Starts with your, maybe it's just
outlook, right?Maybe it's just everything you do
is an outlook and you takemethodical notes.
You set your reminders the sameway every time.
I'm personally, I'm a two reminderguy.
I'm a one hour and a 15 minuteguy.
I got to get it on my radar anhour before, and then I need that
15 minute you're on soon, right?Everyone has their own thing, but
(14:48):
yes, your system has to complementwhat you're trying to achieve with
every client.
And this could be a singular
client.
This could be on a B2B level.
This could be no matter what itis.
I think you raise a good questionin that, you know, you have to
have the technology today tosupport running a clean business.
(15:11):
But once your technology tees itup for you, you yourself have to
be professional enough to run thatsystem, run that play.
I like to coin the phrase, youknow, professionalism over
politeness, right?You have to have a system that you
believe in and you have to letyour clients know that working
(15:34):
with you means that you're workingthat system for them.
You have to be very clear aboutit.
And some people, you know, itcomes down to fear of
confrontation, comes down to fearof failure, and they'll allow
themselves to let their systemdeteriorate to accommodate a
friendly conversation, which ispoison.
It's absolute poison for yourbusiness.
They are coming to you as aprofessional.
There's a couple of people outthere who are going to like this I
liken it to are coming to youstory.
(15:55):
as a There's a couple of peopleprofessional.
out there who are going to likethis story.
I liken it to hiring someone tobuild you a deck.
And I'll give you the cliff notesversion of this.
If the person you hired to buildyour deck is asking you if you
should use nails or screws andwhich they prefer, you don't want
to talk to that guy, right?You want someone coming in and
going, here's what we're going todo.
(16:15):
Now that I've got your design,this is the system.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Within the next 48 hours, you're
going to have yourself a deck, butit's got to be done this way.
Your dog needs to be left in thehouse or else I can't go in the
backyard.
Deathly afraid of dog.
You need to clear out yourdriveway so I can drop off the
(16:37):
lumber.
And they've got a system, right?
You need to implement thoseguidelines with your clients
without fear of losing.
I think about appointment setting
the same about appointment settingthe same way, which is like, you
know, the person for the decks,like I can start whenever you'd
like, as opposed to not very busy.
I can start next Thursday at 7.30
(17:00):
AM.
I go, okay, this is somebody who
like clearly has a set schedule, abusiness that they're running.
And I'm one of their clients, butthey do this all the time and they
do it extremely well.
And they're very dialed in.
That's right.
Exactly.
Your process, the way that youpresent that is going to build
confidence in your client.
Guess what?
If you feel like that person is aprofessional, I'm going to get it
done.
What aren't you going to do?
Go elsewhere, right?If I ask you whether you want
screws or nails used to build yourdeck you're gonna go yeah probably
(17:21):
screws and i'm gonna leave andyou're gonna go i gotta call this
next guy hey man i need you tocome and give me a quote for a
deck and i need you to know ifyou're gonna use nails or screws
okay yeah you know what i mean solike you have to bring that
confident element into your saleor people aren't going to trust
you enough to close for them.
Yeah, that's really well that's
really well said.
So maybe let's go a little deeper
on like the process aspect,because I know that one thing that
(17:43):
we do extremely well and somethingthat you're very keen to is the
metrics around the actual sale andthe sales process and the entire
really mortgage process tounderstand where clients are at in
their journey, how they'reprogressing through that journey.
Are we caring for them?Are we advising the right way?
Are we following up as we should?How do you think about metrics as
it pertains to the actual salesprocess and supporting the
(18:04):
mortgage agent?Yeah, this is where, you know,
when we talked about whattransferable skills from other
industries do I use?This is something that has been
taught to me from day one.
You have to understand what your
conversion looks like throughoutthe entire funnel.
You know, in our world starts outwith lead, right?
Like, okay, leads in the system.
What do we need to do to maximize
allocating a client?Like how often does someone pick
up?And when they pick up, how often
do we speak to them for more than90 seconds?
(18:26):
So important to know thatmilestone.
Once you do, then you've gotengagement, right?
Now you're on the stage.
Your salespeople are on the stage.
Now that we're engaged, how oftenare we getting to that next key
milestone?What is that milestone?
In our world, you build enoughtrust to pull someone's credit,
right?So let's use that sort of gap
there.
So between allocate and credit, we
know that's where soft skills areon display.
Are you building rapport?Are you building trust?
And when you see an individual ora team lacking in that area or not
(18:49):
converting as high as your bestperforming team, you know where to
focus.
You're probably getting blown off
the phone in the first two minutesof the phone call with some kind
of busy objection or something.
You're probably talking numbers
more so than you're talking goals.
So you can then tailor your
training for these individuals orthese teams just by knowing what
(19:10):
conversion you should need fromlead to allocate and what
conversion you should see fromallocate to credit.
Know it and make sure that you'retraining.
You know where the high end ofthat metric should be and you know
where to focus your training basedon the numbers.
Then from credit, you might gocredit to application or credit to
say submission to a lender.
Well, now what does that mean?
That means that you've builttrust, you've pulled credit.
(19:32):
Now you've got to present, right?Now it's time to close.
This is where the rock stars dovery, very well.
This is where the people who leanon politeness versus
professionalism, that's where youtend to lose a lot of clients
because, okay, you've built enoughrapport.
You've got a good personality, butnow is your process very
professional.
I like you, but I may not do
business with you.
Exactly.
I would definitely go for a beerwith you, but you're not touching
(19:55):
my mortgage, which is basicallywhat you're seeing.
So then you know what to trainthere because you know, it's
presentation skills.
You know, it's about
professionalism.
It's about organization.
And then from there, it's mostlyadministrative in our world,
right?So you need to know the metrics of
the administration.
Like once we get a submission and
the client's committed and you'vegot their signature, now it's
(20:17):
about how fast is our process?It's about knowing when you go
from submission to, say, brokercomplete, what's going on in that
process?Well, you're gathering documents,
the big tagline or the bigbuzzword, there's document
fatigue, right?How often are you prepping your
client throughout the sale andgetting them to start gathering
those documents?Or have you forgotten about that,
run a more polite business thanyou have a professional business?
(20:40):
And now they're getting bombardedwith these document requests.
We lose a lot of clients, more sothan I would like to see.
We lose a ton of clients betweensubmit and broker complete because
we have an opportunity or someagents have an opportunity to
foreshadow that or ask for moreupfront, build more trust, right?
So all in all to like, you know,round out your question.
Yes.
Knowing the conversion metrics
(21:00):
throughout every milestone of yourfunnel should be the foundation of
how you build your team, how youbuild your process.
And ultimately what's going toallow you to scale if scalability
is one of your goals.
Let me jump into the psychological
there with you.
Not that we're doing a
scientific-based show here, but Iwant to understand that it seems
so obvious and you say it withsuch high conviction that we very
(21:21):
clearly need to communicate thesethings to clients.
This is where clients struggle.
This is where sometimes mortgage
agents or any salesperson canstruggle.
If we know we're going to needthis set of documents and we know
that there's likely to be a coupleof bumps through the processing of
the mortgage and we're going tohave to work collaboratively to
make that happen.
Why aren't we clear in our
communication when speaking to theclient to inform them what to
(21:42):
expect and really tell them howit's going to going to go.
Yeah.
This is like every sales leader,
every business owner, every let'ssay chief revenue officer who's
like dealing with the people whoare tasked with selling, right?
The fear of confrontation or thefear of failure is what's driving
these politeness is right.
And that is certainly not a
scientific word.
That is what's driving it is that
(22:04):
you don't want to let them knowthat there's any difficulty
because you fear that your clientwill reject that and say, oh, I
have to get you my T1 generalsthat might be with my accountant
right now.
And you need these by tomorrow.
That sounds unreasonable.
I'm not going to go with you.
It sounds ridiculous when you saythat, right?
Like you've engaged this person.
You've got them to commit.
You've got their signature.
And now you're asking them for the
(22:26):
documents that you need to followthrough on what they've agreed
with.
It's reasonable.
But we don't do it because itseems like it's difficult and
we're more worried about beingpolite or more worried about
making people feel good thanmaking people feel supported nice
over kind right exactly yeahexactly it's like i've been
staring at that piece of spinachin your teeth this is your thing
(22:47):
i've been staring at that piece ofspinach in your teeth you know for
the last five minutes.
And before anyone else been
staring at that piece of spinachin your teeth you know notices,
you're one of those, right?And like, you don't want to be the
person who allows someone to keepthe spinach on their tooth.
You want to be the person whotells them that there's spinach on
(23:08):
the teeth.
And in sales, that's where you
need to tell your clients what toexpect.
And you need to let them know it'sgoing to get more difficult before
it gets want to be to get moredifficult before it gets easy.
Right.
But I'm here for you.
One thing that working with me isgoing to ensure is that you're
going to have support.
(23:29):
One But thing that working with me
is going to ensure is that it'sgoing to be as easy as possible.
And if you ever have anyquestions, I'm here for you.
Yeah.
One thing that I've found that has
worked quite well for me in thepast is just letting the client
know how hard I'm going to work ontheir behalf.
(23:51):
So for example, if I'm going toask them to gather documents, I
might tell the client, which istrue, Mr. and Mrs. Client, I plan
on spending about five hours or soprocessing your mortgage over the
next 30 days between now andclosing, as well as I'm getting
full support from a processingteam.
In our world, we use loanprocessors and closing specialists
(24:13):
and things like that.
So I'm going to put a whole team
behind this to write and closeyour mortgage.
My time's going to be about fivehours and we get about three hours
of help from my team.
I need you to spend one hour for
me, just getting me the thingsthat I need so that we can do our
jobs.
Are you okay with that?
So beautiful.
It's reasonable, the next right?
(24:34):
You know, it's like, just behonest, right?
Let them know that you got skin inthe game too.
We're in this together.
I'm here for you.
I'm going to be working twice ashard as you are for you.
Yeah.
Right.
Most of it's going to fall on myshoulders.
So important.
Yeah.
So Alex, I want to switch it up alittle bit to mindset because I
actually think just as much ofimportance it is to have a great
process and to be a greatcommunicator.
This is a hard job to do day today.
(24:55):
day yeah and something that i'vealways you know taken away from
you that i think you do a reallygood job communicating to the team
is this concept of one day versusa hundred days versus a thousand
days and you often relate thisback to goals and get people to
reflect when times are reallyreally hard because in the
day-to-day, deals do go bad andclients don't always participate.
And we work in a collaborative andcommunicative culture here.
It can be corporate at times too.
And you're navigating that world.
But touch on, if you could, thisconcept that you've repeated over
(25:15):
and over inside of our walls,which I think our team lives
today, which is one you know, oneday goals, hundred day goals,
thousand day goals.
What does it mean and how can
salespeople and mortgage agentsbenefit from that?
It's a great from that?It's a great question.
I mean, building vision, right?Leaning on that vision when times
are tough is very important.
And as a leader, you got to be
able to balance, you know, pie inthe sky.
Hey, we're all going to bemillionaires now.
Go out and get it.
(25:37):
it you can't have that but you
certainly can't say get on thephone every single minute of every
single day you have to have thatbalance so you know the day-to-day
especially doing it the way thatwe do it right what's an average
agent's lead to close threepercent yeah right yeah three
percent like that means three outof a hundred are going to close
that means three out of a hundredare going to close.
That means 97 out of a hundred aregoing to be no's.
(25:59):
And you need to understand thatgoing into your day.
Okay.
Let's say lead to allocate.
It's going to be 50%.
Okay.
So half the people that I call aregoing to pick up, right?
Understanding again, we're goingback to the metrics, understanding
the metrics of the business, helpyou with that mindset first and
foremost.
So communicate that with people on
the day-to-day your goal today isto pull three credits.
So because of that, you know,you're going to have to call 23
leads, right?And you're only going to speak to
six people, six people.
And of those six people, three of
(26:21):
them are going to allow you topull their credit, right?
We know that.
So you get the mindset sharp doing
that and saying, get ready to hearsome no's, but get ready to pull
those credits and celebrate them.
So that's the other thing on the
day to day.
In our world, we have our team
chats, right?And every director, every morning
saying, how are we celebratingwins today?
(26:43):
Sadly, sometimes they celebratewins with face and holes of
myself.
They might go scour the internet
for some photos and, you know, butit's all about making it fun
because when you're celebrating,we know the daily wins are hard to
come by, right?So because they're hard to come
by, you celebrate them in a grandway together as a team.
(27:05):
And it keeps the mindset sharp asyou're getting those all day.
So on the daily, that's how thathappens.
Then you look out hundred daygoals.
What are we doing this quarter?Right.
What are we trying to achieve?These are generally around like
team goals, right?So this works both for individuals
that are doing exceptionally wellso that they don't let their foot
off the gas, right?Because they have a grander goal
in mind.
So you keep your top performers
engaged, not checking out at noonon Fridays because they've already
hit goal 13 days into the month.
(27:26):
And well, you know, I figured I'll
do this.
We find that so long as everyone
knows what the larger hundred daygoal Because goal is, you can keep
people engaged, right?So as a leader, you're getting a
lot of engagement from your topperformers, but also those that
are generally middle of the pack,or maybe a bottom of the pack
performers, they don't want to lettheir team down, middle of the
pack or maybe a bottom of the packperformers they don't want to let
(27:49):
their team down especially whenyou've got this great relationship
and this great like team goal thatyou're going after they feel a
drive these are the people thatyou and i at 9 10 11 at night are
thanking and congratulating whenthey're shouting out to the team
that they're putting in dealsright that they just got off the
phone with a client who thankedthem profusely late at night and
they're shouting out to the teamthat they're putting in deals,
(28:13):
right?That they just got off the phone
with a client who thanked themprofusely late at night.
And they're digging in and they'redoing what they need to, not just
for their own business, but fortheir team as well.
And then you've got theorganizational thousand-day goal,
right?I think about when we started our
big purchase initiative a fewyears ago, and we had these
thousand-day goals, theserighteous goals of purchase
specialized agents are going tolead the company in production.
They're going to lead the companyin production.
(28:34):
They're going to lead the companyin earnings that a third of our
business is going to be throughrealtor referrals and all these
other great thousand day goalsthat we would bring up on our
quarterly team meetings, right?We would just do quarterly
check-ins on where we were withthem.
That is important because you needin the end, whether they're top
performers, bottom performers,recruiting, whoever it is, they
(28:54):
need to know the mission.
Where are we headed and what does
it mean for me in terms of mycommitment?
Because on a daily and weekly andquarterly basis, monthly and
quarterly basis, I'll be here todo the work.
What does it mean long term?When I'm looking further down the
funnel, what is that light?You know, those thousand day goals
keep that light burning.
And then it's on you to follow
through, right?It's on the leader, not just to
(29:15):
make these BS, but to followthrough and make sure that once
you hit these milestones, not onlyare you celebrating, but that
you're working with your executiveteam to make sure this growth is a
real thing so that you don't, onceyou hit them, disappoint people.
Yeah.
Or under deliver yourself as a
leader.
yourself as a leader.
I like to say that people askthemselves two questions when
joining an organization.
The first one is where is this
(29:36):
company going?And the second one is how do I fit
into that?Yeah.
And I think thousand day goals doa fantastic job of helping people
see past the immediate, becauselet's be honest, like when you're
working really hard at something,you want it all now, right?
Like I deserve right?Like I deserve this.
I've earned this.
It's kind of like when you're, you
know, going on a diet, you eat thefirst salad and the next day you
jump on the scale and you're madthat you didn't lose any weight.
(29:57):
We want immediate gratification.
But the reality is the We want the
reality is the work that we do isit's a long-term goal.
It's something that you build overan extended period of time.
And then it starts to compoundover time like an annuity and
start to pay you dividends for theyears to follow.
So I will use that as my segue toask you my last question, which is
you've made a tremendous impactalready, Alex, on the lives of
many others.
You've led many people in your
day.
What do you want your lasting
impact and legacy to be in lifeand in business?
This is a deep one.
This is a deep one that truly, I
(30:19):
mean, you have this idea, but thisis one that just changes as you
get into these different phases ofyour life.
I love the depth of this question.
And certainly being a new father,
you know, Isla's only a couple ofyears old you of years old She
turned here.
two in September and Renee and I
being new you parents, I was onlyknow, only a couple of years old
She turned here.
two in September and Renee and I
(30:40):
being new parents, I thinkeveryone wants to do better than
what their parents did.
They want to build on the
childhood that they had.
So I think about that often.
I want my daughter and my wife toremember me as someone who was
there for them, someone who workedhard for them and someone who
cared very, very deeply about themand loved them very much.
That's first and foremost on theradar every day when I wake up,
(31:02):
good or bad, that's what I'mdoing.
That's kind of my why in general.
In business, I've been very, very,
very lucky to have amazingmentors.
In many ways, I consider you oneof those people.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Among many, many others.
I think about Greg Marks.
I think about Edwin Acevedo.
I think about Balaji Swaminath.
I think about Todd Pelson.
Among, like I said, others.
And they opened so many doors forme.
They cared so much about what Iwanted.
(31:24):
And they cared so much aboutteaching me everything that they
knew so that I could then applythat and then build on top of
that, which ultimately has led tothe opportunities that I've had
today.
And they open doors.
Among And for me, I want to be theperson who helps open hundreds, if
not thousands of doors for thepeople that I get the privilege of
working with over the course of mycareer here.
And I feel like there's going tobe a very, very long one.
But I want people to say that guyopened a lot of doors for me
(31:46):
because that's my way of payingback the amazing people that have
opened doors for me.
So that would be a very meaningful
career.
It'd be a heck of an impact on of
an impact on the world.
So, Alex, thank you for your time.
Appreciate you joining LendingThoughts with me here today.
Let's have some more greatconversations like this in the
future.
We shall, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining this episodeof Lending Thoughts Podcast
(00:02):
brought to you by Rocket Pro.
Today, I'm joined by Alex Meloche,
who's our head of sales here atRocket Mortgage Canada.
We're going to be talking aboutsalespersonship.
We'll talk about sales process.
We're also going to talk about
mindset, which is just asimportant.
So you're not going to want tomiss this episode.
Alex has a lot of great things toshare with us.
Listen in.
with us.
Listen in.
Welcome to this episode of Lending
(00:31):
Thoughts.
Today, I'm joined by Alex Meloche,
who is our leader of sales here atour very own Rocket Mortgage
Canada.
Alex is a good friend of mine
through the years here.
Actually has an interesting story
as to how we ended up at RocketMortgage, which I'm going to
probably try to pull out of you aswell as through this conversation.
But happy to share.
I think it'll be interesting.
Alex is a talkative individual,very type A, someone that I could
personally spend two hours withjust talking about how to make the
(00:53):
best ham sandwich if necessary.
But we'll avoid that for our
cooking show, which is comingsoon.
Coming soon.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Alex, thanks for joining metoday.
joining me today.
Appreciate it very much.
I know this podcast is somethingthat you've been working on for a
long time.
I've watched you do what you
needed to do to bring it to life.
Very excited for you.
you.
Very excited for today.
Awesome.
Thanks for joining.
So a question that I always startwhich with, can you is, tell us
(01:16):
your life story in 60 seconds orplease?
less, Yeah, I will try my best.
Like you said, talking to the
individual, but born and raisedhere in Windsor to a pretty large
extended family.
As you know, mom had 12 or 13
brothers and sisters.
Dad had six or seven brothers and
sisters.
So, you know, holidays, family
visits, 50, 60, 70 peoplesometimes as the family grew.
So, you know, I had that bigfamily vibe, average upbringing in
(01:38):
an average family, average city.
After I was done school, decided
as many young men do to go outWest and find myself.
I call those years, the years thatI got comfortable with my shadow,
did some soul searching.
Those closest to me know that
those are my dreadlock years aswell.
The years that I joined a band andgrew out some dreadlocks and
(01:59):
quickly shaved my head and thengot my work experience going.
Those are really formative years.
You know, that's when you become a
man in my world.
So that's when I got into business
and that eventually brought meback home, which is great.
And that's when I feel like therest of my life kind of started.
You know, I felt like my valuesystem was in place.
I felt like I got some greatexperience and work.
(02:20):
Met my wife, bought a house herein my hometown, which was a great
accomplishment for me as part ofthe end goal.
And started our family now withbaby Isla around.
This is the golden age of my liferight now.
Just being able to, you know,support my family, look to the
future, be there with my family.
And things are looking great.
The horizon is looking good.
So that's pretty much how I got to
where I am today.
(02:40):
Awesome.
Yeah, the dreadlock story isinteresting.
The rock band, everyone needsthat.
It is on Facebook somewhere,buried deep.
People have tried to find them.
They've shown up in a couple of
teams messages here in the officefrom time to time.
But everyone needs a dreadlockface.
You know?True.
I never got there.
You never got there, but I thought
about it.
You know?
I thought about it.
Well, you got the hair.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
(03:00):
So I actually want to jump intosomething that you said regarding
like the big family.
It started off with a bit of a
joke, but it's true.
You're a very easy person to talk
to and help navigate a crowd.
A lot of times, even when we were
in a crowd, I'm pushing you to thefront so that I can move to the
back and pull the introvert partout.
But do you feel like that wasformative for you and ultimately
what led to a career, which iseffectively in sales?
(03:21):
But I like to think about sales inthe form of communication.
And when you talk about having alarge family like that, I'm sure
there has to be a lot ofcommunication taking place.
That's a It a great point.
And you and I think about sales so
similarly.
It's about effective
communication.
It's about deep care.
It's about engagement, right?And I come from a family of
storytellers, right?Grandpa was telling bear stories
(03:42):
at the kitchen table of huntingbears and Uncle Ricky was talking
about pirate stories, you know,down in the Caribbean and, you
know, just all these greatstorytellers who you just sit
there amazed looking up and watchthem tell these stories.
But eventually you become thatperson.
I find myself doing that with myown daughter right now.
And certainly those skills, youknow, they're difficult to teach,
(04:03):
but everyone's got them in them tolike a certain degree and
everyone's got their own versionof that.
And I definitely apply that tosales all the time.
I apply it to sales leadership aswell, right?
Being able to rally your teamaround some objective or rally
your team around a mission thatyou're going toward.
It all really starts with yourability to engage.
Completely agree.
And then maybe let's talk about
(04:24):
the sales portion of your career.
So you you ditch the dreadlocks
you're like we've got to make somereal money here and build a life
yeah what does that journey looklike in terms of your career and
what has led you to rocketmortgage today off the back of
what you've done in the past yeahthat's a great question i believe
sales skills are transferable fromcareer to career from job to job
(04:44):
let's that's a great question ibelieve sales skills are
transferable from career to careerfrom job to job let's it, or like
industry to industry.
So I started out in collections of
all things, but I had some amazingteachers who taught me about
negotiation, who taught me aboutstructuring a business and
building a process, and who taughtme how to, you know, negotiate
with people very successfully,let's call it, you know, like
build a conversation, build trust,build urgency, and then help
people with whatever it is theyneed help with, whether it's
(05:06):
collecting a debt.
Or then after that, I went into
legal collections where I wasmanaging relationships with large
organizations like Capital OneBank and the 401 Highway, doing
some great work with them.
But again, drawing on those same
skill sets.
So transferable from collections
to legal.
Then, believe it or not, went into
dental.
Naturally.
Naturally, the progression is togo from legal collections to the
(05:28):
dental industry.
Yeah.
But funny enough, working withdentists to build rapport and send
their patients to the appointmentbooking desk with, you know, a
thumbs up to book that nextappointment and what that
conversation should look like.
Again, engaging, building to go
from building rapport, you know,building urgency, and then getting
the appointment closing, right?From there, that's when I got my
(05:49):
opportunity to come back home.
I was in furniture and office
supplies working for a local momand pop, Monarch Basics.
It was actually quite large.
They were most of Southwestern
Ontario they serviced.
But I mean, that was pure sales.
We had an inside sales team.
We had an outside sales team.
(06:10):
We had a furniture team that wouldgo out, do large jobs here in the
city.
We also had a team that would work
with smaller businesses.
So the entire gambit of what makes
a great salesperson or a greatsales team very effective was on
display there.
So I really got to hone in on some
of those skills and apply all thethings that I learned through all
(06:31):
those years there.
And funny enough, and I know you
like this story, so I'll jump in.
It was 2019, and I had gone out as
the director of sales to this newbusiness that had just renovated
an old bar and fish market that Iused to hang out at as a
youngster.
So I went there, and I checked
(06:51):
out, oh, Rocket Innovation Studio.
Interesting.
Okay, knock on the door, per se,right?
Met the building manager and tooka tour.
I said, so what do you guys dohere right i'm getting to know my
client what do you guys do hereyada yada he goes this is a tech
building we didn't do likeprogramming and we do a lot of
tech related things and i'mlooking at this building i'm going
(07:12):
i know a sales floor when i seeone like the metropolitan credit
collection floor was almostexactly like what we have, you
know, downstairs.
And I go, I know a sales floor
when I see one and I know whatrocket is.
I said, if you ever hear the wordmortgage or someone in a suit and
tie is on the sales floor, callme, please.
I'd be very interested in speakingwith those people.
And that was in 2019 at somepoint, mid-year 2019.
(07:34):
February of 2020, I get a phonecall.
Hey, a couple of people heretalking mortgage on the floor.
Just wanted to let you know.
Okay, man, give me a name.
Who is it?He looks around and goes, the only
guy I know is Bekem Merdita.
And I go, spell it for me.
Went on LinkedIn, looked lookedyou up and then you know the rest
of the story I reached out to youand I said hey I know what you
(07:55):
guys are up to I happen to haveyour paper and pencil contract
which is tiny being a you knowtech first firm but I'd be very
interested in joining your teamI'm an expert team builder I
consider myself a sales expert andI would love to join as you know
and you put me onto recruiting andthey did their thing.
(08:15):
Well, that was in February of2020.
And by May of 2020, I was hereand, you know, coming in as a
mortgage associate to cut my teethand prove myself.
And I mean, you could attest to,it was a natural fit.
You and I talking sales on dayone, we had been taught and had
taught others the exact samethings in terms of pipeline
management, in terms of urgency,in terms of, you know, digging
deep when times are good and, youknow, knowing when to rest, if you
(08:39):
need to, you know, pull back fromyour business, just all these
similarities in what we'd beentaught.
So to kind of round out yourquestion, yeah, everything, no
matter where you're at in yourcareer, in sales, or, you know,
working with people, all of it'stransferable.
No matter what the product is, theproduct can change, right?
How you present yourself, thelevel of care that you bring to
your work, whether you're leadingothers or whether you're selling
on the phone or sellingface-to-face, all that's
(09:01):
transferable.
So in my experience, all of that
led to, you know, where we aretoday.
So maybe let me touch on somethingsmall within that story, which is
you said, Hey, if that's rocketmortgage, I want to join.
Why was that?Why did you have that belief you
were working for, as you said, youknow, a successful business
already, uh, you were leadingsales for that organization and
something told you before you evenknew what it paid and what the
(09:24):
future held and what the ultimatebusiness plan was.
You said, if that's RocketMortgage, I want to go there.
Why is that?for I mean, being from Windsor, if
you were to look out one of thesewindows, what do you see?
This beautiful skyline, Detroit,the massive city.
And it's a very well-known factthat Rocket has done amazing
things in Detroit back in thequick and lones days and all the
(09:45):
way through to now being Rocket.
It's just this fairy tale story.
And knowing that the people thatdid what they did to Detroit and
bringing it up, you know, anddoing what they did, that there
was a fleck of hope that theycould do that.
The same thing here in Windsor wasjust too much to pass up.
My grandfather built neighborhoodsin this town.
(10:06):
This town means a lot to me.
You know, I've written some blog
posts about what it meant to mefor Rocket to come here and to be
a part of that, to be a part ofwhat we could do to help my
hometown and the people that Ilove in it was just this amazing
opportunity.
So there was a lot of flash, a lot
of razzle dazzle around it.
(10:27):
Not to mention just knowing that
the pros pro sold at Rocket andbeing a part of that was cool as
well.
Yeah.
Want to play with the best.
That's it.
I love that.
You consider yourself an A player.
You want to play with other Aplayers, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Alex, let's dive in there alittle bit, which is you started
when we were just a couple of, youknow, a couple of sales people.
(10:49):
Now we've got an organization thatcombines sales and marketing and
technology and finance and so manyother things that we have in our
grasp here today.
Let's dive into that sales piece,
which is what do you think makes agreat sales person?
And what do you think makes agreat mortgage agent?
And are they one in the same?That's a great a great question.
What makes a great sales person?I mentioned it a couple of times
already.
And a great sales person is a
(11:11):
healthy balance of care andconfidence in one hand, right?
And administrative passion inanother passion in another hand.
So care and confidence, I'll startwith.
And I think being a mortgageagent, if you have care and
confidence, you're going to be agreat mortgage agent because
you're handling probably the mostimpactful transaction, financial
transaction of any one person'slife or the average person's life,
right?So if you don't show great care
and you make it about numbers,very, very likely that you're
gonna lose that client becauseyou're not acknowledging the
(11:35):
emotions.
A lot of times the stress that
comes with that.
So first and foremost, being a
great salesperson, you have tohave great care.
So what does that mean?It means that you don't rush
through your call.
It means that you don't focus on
rate.
It means that you are asking more
questions, right?You are listening more than you're
speaking.
We call it the two ears, one
(11:56):
mouth, right?Listen twice as much as you speak.
That's a lot of the battle rightthere.
Then you have high level,passionate administration, running
a clean business.
That means throughout your funnel,
knowing what your day looks like.
Where have I got to focus my
efforts immediately today?It means knowing what transpired
(12:17):
in your previous conversation withyour clients that are already in
your pipeline.
Right.
So important.
I'll tell you right now, we've all
been there and you forget to put anote.
You forget to put an update on aclient's file and your follow-up
date comes up.
You got no notes.
You're freaking out.
I'm going to look like an idiot.
(12:39):
I barely remember this person'sname.
How did I get myself into thismess, right?
You never want to be in that case.
The client at hand is the most
important person in front of youat all times, right?
And they have to feel that.
So making sure that you manage
your pipeline very, very cleanlyand very, very methodically is
important.
And when you mix those two things
(13:00):
together, you get that A playerall-star result, which is you've
got clients that are working withyou, want to work with you,
referring you to others, and youare calling, assessing, and
closing super efficiently.
And those two things, when put
together, is just a recipe fordynamite.
If you can figure those two thingsout, you're going to be very, very
successful.
I don't care what the industry is.
(13:21):
Yeah.
So I like what you said there,
which is have a process, but havea conversation.
How do you interweave these twothings?
Is it with technology?The way I like to think about it,
it's like, I want to put theperson who is on our team
communicating with the client inthe best position to have the best
possible conversation, meaningthat I want to remove as much as
(13:42):
possible off their plate in themundane, the task oriented, all of
the above so that they can justfocus on what matters most, which
is understanding what their clientis ultimately trying to achieve.
And you talked about that a littlebit, which is like listening
versus how much you're talking.
But also, you've got to be able to
make sure that you're getting allthat sort of like documented,
(14:03):
recorded.
Like operation to operation to it.
And then there's thatcommunication into it.
Your system has to help peopleremain organized.
Your system has to prompt yourpeople or prompt you, even if it's
not on a massive scale, even ifit's on an individual scale, you
have to have a system.
You and I talk about that a lot,
(14:25):
right?Your system needs to be
unbreakable.
Starts with your, maybe it's just
outlook, right?Maybe it's just everything you do
is an outlook and you takemethodical notes.
You set your reminders the sameway every time.
I'm personally, I'm a two reminderguy.
I'm a one hour and a 15 minuteguy.
I got to get it on my radar anhour before, and then I need that
15 minute you're on soon, right?Everyone has their own thing, but
(14:48):
yes, your system has to complementwhat you're trying to achieve with
every client.
And this could be a singular
client.
This could be on a B2B level.
This could be no matter what itis.
I think you raise a good questionin that, you know, you have to
have the technology today tosupport running a clean business.
(15:11):
But once your technology tees itup for you, you yourself have to
be professional enough to run thatsystem, run that play.
I like to coin the phrase, youknow, professionalism over
politeness, right?You have to have a system that you
believe in and you have to letyour clients know that working
(15:34):
with you means that you're workingthat system for them.
You have to be very clear aboutit.
And some people, you know, itcomes down to fear of
confrontation, comes down to fearof failure, and they'll allow
themselves to let their systemdeteriorate to accommodate a
friendly conversation, which ispoison.
It's absolute poison for yourbusiness.
They are coming to you as aprofessional.
There's a couple of people outthere who are going to like this I
liken it to are coming to youstory.
(15:55):
as a There's a couple of peopleprofessional.
out there who are going to likethis story.
I liken it to hiring someone tobuild you a deck.
And I'll give you the cliff notesversion of this.
If the person you hired to buildyour deck is asking you if you
should use nails or screws andwhich they prefer, you don't want
to talk to that guy, right?You want someone coming in and
going, here's what we're going todo.
(16:15):
Now that I've got your design,this is the system.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Within the next 48 hours, you're
going to have yourself a deck, butit's got to be done this way.
Your dog needs to be left in thehouse or else I can't go in the
backyard.
Deathly afraid of dog.
You need to clear out yourdriveway so I can drop off the
(16:37):
lumber.
And they've got a system, right?
You need to implement thoseguidelines with your clients
without fear of losing.
I think about appointment setting
the same about appointment settingthe same way, which is like, you
know, the person for the decks,like I can start whenever you'd
like, as opposed to not very busy.
I can start next Thursday at 7.30
(17:00):
AM.
I go, okay, this is somebody who
like clearly has a set schedule, abusiness that they're running.
And I'm one of their clients, butthey do this all the time and they
do it extremely well.
And they're very dialed in.
That's right.
Exactly.
Your process, the way that youpresent that is going to build
confidence in your client.
Guess what?
If you feel like that person is aprofessional, I'm going to get it
done.
What aren't you going to do?
Go elsewhere, right?If I ask you whether you want
screws or nails used to build yourdeck you're gonna go yeah probably
(17:21):
screws and i'm gonna leave andyou're gonna go i gotta call this
next guy hey man i need you tocome and give me a quote for a
deck and i need you to know ifyou're gonna use nails or screws
okay yeah you know what i mean solike you have to bring that
confident element into your saleor people aren't going to trust
you enough to close for them.
Yeah, that's really well that's
really well said.
So maybe let's go a little deeper
on like the process aspect,because I know that one thing that
(17:43):
we do extremely well and somethingthat you're very keen to is the
metrics around the actual sale andthe sales process and the entire
really mortgage process tounderstand where clients are at in
their journey, how they'reprogressing through that journey.
Are we caring for them?Are we advising the right way?
Are we following up as we should?How do you think about metrics as
it pertains to the actual salesprocess and supporting the
(18:04):
mortgage agent?Yeah, this is where, you know,
when we talked about whattransferable skills from other
industries do I use?This is something that has been
taught to me from day one.
You have to understand what your
conversion looks like throughoutthe entire funnel.
You know, in our world starts outwith lead, right?
Like, okay, leads in the system.
What do we need to do to maximize
allocating a client?Like how often does someone pick
up?And when they pick up, how often
do we speak to them for more than90 seconds?
(18:26):
So important to know thatmilestone.
Once you do, then you've gotengagement, right?
Now you're on the stage.
Your salespeople are on the stage.
Now that we're engaged, how oftenare we getting to that next key
milestone?What is that milestone?
In our world, you build enoughtrust to pull someone's credit,
right?So let's use that sort of gap
there.
So between allocate and credit, we
know that's where soft skills areon display.
Are you building rapport?Are you building trust?
And when you see an individual ora team lacking in that area or not
(18:49):
converting as high as your bestperforming team, you know where to
focus.
You're probably getting blown off
the phone in the first two minutesof the phone call with some kind
of busy objection or something.
You're probably talking numbers
more so than you're talking goals.
So you can then tailor your
training for these individuals orthese teams just by knowing what
(19:10):
conversion you should need fromlead to allocate and what
conversion you should see fromallocate to credit.
Know it and make sure that you'retraining.
You know where the high end ofthat metric should be and you know
where to focus your training basedon the numbers.
Then from credit, you might gocredit to application or credit to
say submission to a lender.
Well, now what does that mean?
That means that you've builttrust, you've pulled credit.
(19:32):
Now you've got to present, right?Now it's time to close.
This is where the rock stars dovery, very well.
This is where the people who leanon politeness versus
professionalism, that's where youtend to lose a lot of clients
because, okay, you've built enoughrapport.
You've got a good personality, butnow is your process very
professional.
I like you, but I may not do
business with you.
Exactly.
I would definitely go for a beerwith you, but you're not touching
(19:55):
my mortgage, which is basicallywhat you're seeing.
So then you know what to trainthere because you know, it's
presentation skills.
You know, it's about
professionalism.
It's about organization.
And then from there, it's mostlyadministrative in our world,
right?So you need to know the metrics of
the administration.
Like once we get a submission and
the client's committed and you'vegot their signature, now it's
(20:17):
about how fast is our process?It's about knowing when you go
from submission to, say, brokercomplete, what's going on in that
process?Well, you're gathering documents,
the big tagline or the bigbuzzword, there's document
fatigue, right?How often are you prepping your
client throughout the sale andgetting them to start gathering
those documents?Or have you forgotten about that,
run a more polite business thanyou have a professional business?
(20:40):
And now they're getting bombardedwith these document requests.
We lose a lot of clients, more sothan I would like to see.
We lose a ton of clients betweensubmit and broker complete because
we have an opportunity or someagents have an opportunity to
foreshadow that or ask for moreupfront, build more trust, right?
So all in all to like, you know,round out your question.
Yes.
Knowing the conversion metrics
(21:00):
throughout every milestone of yourfunnel should be the foundation of
how you build your team, how youbuild your process.
And ultimately what's going toallow you to scale if scalability
is one of your goals.
Let me jump into the psychological
there with you.
Not that we're doing a
scientific-based show here, but Iwant to understand that it seems
so obvious and you say it withsuch high conviction that we very
(21:21):
clearly need to communicate thesethings to clients.
This is where clients struggle.
This is where sometimes mortgage
agents or any salesperson canstruggle.
If we know we're going to needthis set of documents and we know
that there's likely to be a coupleof bumps through the processing of
the mortgage and we're going tohave to work collaboratively to
make that happen.
Why aren't we clear in our
communication when speaking to theclient to inform them what to
(21:42):
expect and really tell them howit's going to going to go.
Yeah.
This is like every sales leader,
every business owner, every let'ssay chief revenue officer who's
like dealing with the people whoare tasked with selling, right?
The fear of confrontation or thefear of failure is what's driving
these politeness is right.
And that is certainly not a
scientific word.
That is what's driving it is that
(22:04):
you don't want to let them knowthat there's any difficulty
because you fear that your clientwill reject that and say, oh, I
have to get you my T1 generalsthat might be with my accountant
right now.
And you need these by tomorrow.
That sounds unreasonable.
I'm not going to go with you.
It sounds ridiculous when you saythat, right?
Like you've engaged this person.
You've got them to commit.
You've got their signature.
And now you're asking them for the
(22:26):
documents that you need to followthrough on what they've agreed
with.
It's reasonable.
But we don't do it because itseems like it's difficult and
we're more worried about beingpolite or more worried about
making people feel good thanmaking people feel supported nice
over kind right exactly yeahexactly it's like i've been
staring at that piece of spinachin your teeth this is your thing
(22:47):
i've been staring at that piece ofspinach in your teeth you know for
the last five minutes.
And before anyone else been
staring at that piece of spinachin your teeth you know notices,
you're one of those, right?And like, you don't want to be the
person who allows someone to keepthe spinach on their tooth.
You want to be the person whotells them that there's spinach on
(23:08):
the teeth.
And in sales, that's where you
need to tell your clients what toexpect.
And you need to let them know it'sgoing to get more difficult before
it gets want to be to get moredifficult before it gets easy.
Right.
But I'm here for you.
One thing that working with me isgoing to ensure is that you're
going to have support.
(23:29):
One But thing that working with me
is going to ensure is that it'sgoing to be as easy as possible.
And if you ever have anyquestions, I'm here for you.
Yeah.
One thing that I've found that has
worked quite well for me in thepast is just letting the client
know how hard I'm going to work ontheir behalf.
(23:51):
So for example, if I'm going toask them to gather documents, I
might tell the client, which istrue, Mr. and Mrs. Client, I plan
on spending about five hours or soprocessing your mortgage over the
next 30 days between now andclosing, as well as I'm getting
full support from a processingteam.
In our world, we use loanprocessors and closing specialists
(24:13):
and things like that.
So I'm going to put a whole team
behind this to write and closeyour mortgage.
My time's going to be about fivehours and we get about three hours
of help from my team.
I need you to spend one hour for
me, just getting me the thingsthat I need so that we can do our
jobs.
Are you okay with that?
So beautiful.
It's reasonable, the next right?
(24:34):
You know, it's like, just behonest, right?
Let them know that you got skin inthe game too.
We're in this together.
I'm here for you.
I'm going to be working twice ashard as you are for you.
Yeah.
Right.
Most of it's going to fall on myshoulders.
So important.
Yeah.
So Alex, I want to switch it up alittle bit to mindset because I
actually think just as much ofimportance it is to have a great
process and to be a greatcommunicator.
This is a hard job to do day today.
(24:55):
day yeah and something that i'vealways you know taken away from
you that i think you do a reallygood job communicating to the team
is this concept of one day versusa hundred days versus a thousand
days and you often relate thisback to goals and get people to
reflect when times are reallyreally hard because in the
day-to-day, deals do go bad andclients don't always participate.
And we work in a collaborative andcommunicative culture here.
It can be corporate at times too.
And you're navigating that world.
But touch on, if you could, thisconcept that you've repeated over
(25:15):
and over inside of our walls,which I think our team lives
today, which is one you know, oneday goals, hundred day goals,
thousand day goals.
What does it mean and how can
salespeople and mortgage agentsbenefit from that?
It's a great from that?It's a great question.
I mean, building vision, right?Leaning on that vision when times
are tough is very important.
And as a leader, you got to be
able to balance, you know, pie inthe sky.
Hey, we're all going to bemillionaires now.
Go out and get it.
(25:37):
it you can't have that but you
certainly can't say get on thephone every single minute of every
single day you have to have thatbalance so you know the day-to-day
especially doing it the way thatwe do it right what's an average
agent's lead to close threepercent yeah right yeah three
percent like that means three outof a hundred are going to close
that means three out of a hundredare going to close.
That means 97 out of a hundred aregoing to be no's.
(25:59):
And you need to understand thatgoing into your day.
Okay.
Let's say lead to allocate.
It's going to be 50%.
Okay.
So half the people that I call aregoing to pick up, right?
Understanding again, we're goingback to the metrics, understanding
the metrics of the business, helpyou with that mindset first and
foremost.
So communicate that with people on
the day-to-day your goal today isto pull three credits.
So because of that, you know,you're going to have to call 23
leads, right?And you're only going to speak to
six people, six people.
And of those six people, three of
(26:21):
them are going to allow you topull their credit, right?
We know that.
So you get the mindset sharp doing
that and saying, get ready to hearsome no's, but get ready to pull
those credits and celebrate them.
So that's the other thing on the
day to day.
In our world, we have our team
chats, right?And every director, every morning
saying, how are we celebratingwins today?
(26:43):
Sadly, sometimes they celebratewins with face and holes of
myself.
They might go scour the internet
for some photos and, you know, butit's all about making it fun
because when you're celebrating,we know the daily wins are hard to
come by, right?So because they're hard to come
by, you celebrate them in a grandway together as a team.
(27:05):
And it keeps the mindset sharp asyou're getting those all day.
So on the daily, that's how thathappens.
Then you look out hundred daygoals.
What are we doing this quarter?Right.
What are we trying to achieve?These are generally around like
team goals, right?So this works both for individuals
that are doing exceptionally wellso that they don't let their foot
off the gas, right?Because they have a grander goal
in mind.
So you keep your top performers
engaged, not checking out at noonon Fridays because they've already
hit goal 13 days into the month.
(27:26):
And well, you know, I figured I'll
do this.
We find that so long as everyone
knows what the larger hundred daygoal Because goal is, you can keep
people engaged, right?So as a leader, you're getting a
lot of engagement from your topperformers, but also those that
are generally middle of the pack,or maybe a bottom of the pack
performers, they don't want to lettheir team down, middle of the
pack or maybe a bottom of the packperformers they don't want to let
(27:49):
their team down especially whenyou've got this great relationship
and this great like team goal thatyou're going after they feel a
drive these are the people thatyou and i at 9 10 11 at night are
thanking and congratulating whenthey're shouting out to the team
that they're putting in dealsright that they just got off the
phone with a client who thankedthem profusely late at night and
they're shouting out to the teamthat they're putting in deals,
(28:13):
right?That they just got off the phone
with a client who thanked themprofusely late at night.
And they're digging in and they'redoing what they need to, not just
for their own business, but fortheir team as well.
And then you've got theorganizational thousand-day goal,
right?I think about when we started our
big purchase initiative a fewyears ago, and we had these
thousand-day goals, theserighteous goals of purchase
specialized agents are going tolead the company in production.
They're going to lead the companyin production.
(28:34):
They're going to lead the companyin earnings that a third of our
business is going to be throughrealtor referrals and all these
other great thousand day goalsthat we would bring up on our
quarterly team meetings, right?We would just do quarterly
check-ins on where we were withthem.
That is important because you needin the end, whether they're top
performers, bottom performers,recruiting, whoever it is, they
(28:54):
need to know the mission.
Where are we headed and what does
it mean for me in terms of mycommitment?
Because on a daily and weekly andquarterly basis, monthly and
quarterly basis, I'll be here todo the work.
What does it mean long term?When I'm looking further down the
funnel, what is that light?You know, those thousand day goals
keep that light burning.
And then it's on you to follow
through, right?It's on the leader, not just to
(29:15):
make these BS, but to followthrough and make sure that once
you hit these milestones, not onlyare you celebrating, but that
you're working with your executiveteam to make sure this growth is a
real thing so that you don't, onceyou hit them, disappoint people.
Yeah.
Or under deliver yourself as a
leader.
yourself as a leader.
I like to say that people askthemselves two questions when
joining an organization.
The first one is where is this
(29:36):
company going?And the second one is how do I fit
into that?Yeah.
And I think thousand day goals doa fantastic job of helping people
see past the immediate, becauselet's be honest, like when you're
working really hard at something,you want it all now, right?
Like I deserve right?Like I deserve this.
I've earned this.
It's kind of like when you're, you
know, going on a diet, you eat thefirst salad and the next day you
jump on the scale and you're madthat you didn't lose any weight.
(29:57):
We want immediate gratification.
But the reality is the We want the
reality is the work that we do isit's a long-term goal.
It's something that you build overan extended period of time.
And then it starts to compoundover time like an annuity and
start to pay you dividends for theyears to follow.
So I will use that as my segue toask you my last question, which is
you've made a tremendous impactalready, Alex, on the lives of
many others.
You've led many people in your
day.
What do you want your lasting
impact and legacy to be in lifeand in business?
This is a deep one.
This is a deep one that truly, I
(30:19):
mean, you have this idea, but thisis one that just changes as you
get into these different phases ofyour life.
I love the depth of this question.
And certainly being a new father,
you know, Isla's only a couple ofyears old you of years old She
turned here.
two in September and Renee and I
being new you parents, I was onlyknow, only a couple of years old
She turned here.
two in September and Renee and I
(30:40):
being new parents, I thinkeveryone wants to do better than
what their parents did.
They want to build on the
childhood that they had.
So I think about that often.
I want my daughter and my wife toremember me as someone who was
there for them, someone who workedhard for them and someone who
cared very, very deeply about themand loved them very much.
That's first and foremost on theradar every day when I wake up,
(31:02):
good or bad, that's what I'mdoing.
That's kind of my why in general.
In business, I've been very, very,
very lucky to have amazingmentors.
In many ways, I consider you oneof those people.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Among many, many others.
I think about Greg Marks.
I think about Edwin Acevedo.
I think about Balaji Swaminath.
I think about Todd Pelson.
Among, like I said, others.
And they opened so many doors forme.
They cared so much about what Iwanted.
(31:24):
And they cared so much aboutteaching me everything that they
knew so that I could then applythat and then build on top of
that, which ultimately has led tothe opportunities that I've had
today.
And they open doors.
Among And for me, I want to be theperson who helps open hundreds, if
not thousands of doors for thepeople that I get the privilege of
working with over the course of mycareer here.
And I feel like there's going tobe a very, very long one.
But I want people to say that guyopened a lot of doors for me
(31:46):
because that's my way of payingback the amazing people that have
opened doors for me.
So that would be a very meaningful
career.
It'd be a heck of an impact on of
an impact on the world.
So, Alex, thank you for your time.
Appreciate you joining LendingThoughts with me here today.
Let's have some more greatconversations like this in the
future.
We shall, sir.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.