264. Personalizing the Path to Homeownership w/ Brian Vieaux

How do we become trusted advisors to people who aren’t quite ready to buy, borrow, or transact? Professionals in these spaces are often looking to remove the human with apps, tools and bots, but is that the pathway to a positive and productive CX?


In this episode we dive into the world of data sharing, consumer control, and the future of the mortgage industry. We’re joined by Brian Vieaux, President and COO at FinLocker, a company that challenges and enables banks, credit unions, and mortgage lenders to re-imagine customer relationships and to provide personalized financial solutions and experiences. Their solution: a mortgage readiness set of tools.


Join us as we discuss:

• What it really means to be a B2B2C company
• How FinLocker’s technology is revolutionizing the mortgage process, empowering consumers and loan officers alike
• Why the local loan officer is still the hero in the mortgage industry

More information about Brian Vieaux and today’s topics:

• LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianvieauxcmb/
• Company Website: https://finlocker.com/
• Other Relevant Links: FinTalk Newsletter; FinTech Fridays on LinkedIn; Andria Thomas on LinkedIn, Sandro DiNello on LinkedIn, Steve and Rocky’s (Brentwood Grille)

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
The single most important thing you cando today is to create and deliver a
better experience for your customers. Learnhow sales, marketing and customer success experts
create internal alignment, achieved desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal
and human way. This is theCustomer Experience Podcast. Here's your host,

(00:24):
Ethan Butte. Whoever gives helpful answersto people's questions gets the best shot to
win the deal. So what areyou doing to make sure you're available for
those questions, that you're on theradar, and that you've built enough trust
and confidence that you'll be the onewho gets those questions. In other words,
how do we become trusted advisors topeople who are not quite ready to

(00:49):
buy, borrow or transact? Today'sguest has some ideas to help. He
served in leadership roles at organizations likeFlagstar Bank, Indimac Bank, and City
Group. Today he's the president andchief operating officer at Finlocker, as well
as the podcast host of Fintech Fridays. Brian View, Welcome to the Customer
Experience Podcast. Thanks Ethan, greatto be here. Love the intro.

(01:12):
That's well done, good job,good I'm glad you enjoyed that one.
I enjoyed doing those. I justregarded as it the least I can do
for you making time for these conversationsand to get us going. We'll start
where we always do, Brian,which is customer experience. When I say
that, what does it mean toyou? Yeah, I've been thinking about
that a lot because my product inour company is we're a B to B

(01:36):
two C product and service, andso we have two customers at the end
of the day, right, andso we have two sets of customer experience
that we're kind of serving. Andso at the end of the day,
when I think about customer experience,I think about that which the customer comes
to your product for a Are theyquickly getting what they came for it?

(01:57):
Is it evident? Is it obvious? Do they have to search for it?
And then secondly, do they leaveyou delighted in such a way that
they want to come back and forme again, B to B two C.
I have to do that like overand over and over and over again
at the consumer level to then proveto the middle B and that equation that
this product is making them look goodin the eyes of their customer. So

(02:21):
to me, it's all about justdelivering on the expectations at the end of
the day of that end customer loveit. And for you, when did
this term or this language come ontoyour radar? And is it something that
you use day to day? Likedoes the team at finlocker use the language
of customer experience? So I guessthat's a few questions in one but how
long you've been using it? Isit useful on a day to day basis?

(02:43):
Yeah, So I'll start with theteam and kind of Finlocker. So
we added to our team, Ishould say, a leader for our product
oversight, you know, all thingsproduct, which really is an extension of
the customer. And her name's AndreaThomas. And Andrea comes at every product
related conversation with the end customer inmind, what are they trying to solve

(03:07):
by being in our app for thisparticular utility. So in the last two
years since Andrew has been around us, we use it every day and everybody
understands when we use it what thosetwo words mean in the context of the
work that we all do to supportour product. For me personally, I
prior to you know, being atFinlocker, which has been four years now,

(03:30):
you know, and we're essentially asoftware company, technology company. I
spent thirty years in the primary mortgageorigination space, and sadly, for a
lot of those thirty years, theterms customer experience never were talked about.
You know, there are other thingsthat we're talked about that we now would
say weren't the best customer experience.But we as a as an industry in

(03:53):
mortgage specifically, didn't really focus oncustomer experience because by nature, the industry
was always transactional in nature. Itwas like, uh, they have to
be here, they have to dowhat we say, or else they don't
get their money and they're not goingto get their home. But you know,
mortgage is not in everyday transaction,right, so there wasn't a lot
of focus on that next transaction.And that's what you're trying to When you're

(04:15):
focused on customer experience and delighting thecustomer, your ultimate goal is to satisfy
them in the moment and either getthem to come back to your product if
your product is that type of situation, or at least get them to talk
favorably about your product so others cometo your product and we just didn't focus
on that in mortgage. So forme, customer experience is really it's what

(04:36):
we live and breathe. It's theoxygen that kind of keeps us going here
at Finlocker really good, and it'sobviously your primary differentiator. I think you'd
probably agree with that for folks whoare listening, Well, you just said
it to Brian's nodding his head,and it's because and this is especially true
in mortgage too. More broadly,you know Finlocker, and we'll get into

(04:56):
Finlocker just a second, like ina very explicit way, but you know,
mortgage is obviously a commodity business,same as a lot of other adjacent
businesses. Title almost by definition iscommodity, and that by law, you
have to sell the same product forthe same price. You know, in
mortgage, real estate, insurance,financial advisory, that's just simply a matter

(05:17):
of how many people are available tohelp. And so the experience is the
thing. And so I appreciate you. Probably I'm going to hear this in
the next question, the response tothe next question, that you're helping folks
with this problem in mortgage and industrythat you spent as you already mentioned a
lot of time in so to getright at it. For folks who are
not familiar with Finlocker, who's yourideal customer and what are some of the

(05:40):
core problems that you're solving for them? And I know that it's nuanced in
a B to B two C way, but take that on however you like.
Yeah, I'll define our core customeras that individual who is engaged with
the perspective HomeBuyer from a mortgage financingperspective. So by extension, that's typically
going to be the law officer.Now we tend to call our client the

(06:03):
enterprise lender, the mortgage banker,but at the end of the day,
it's really the loan officer that's facingoff with the you know, the borrower
or the prospective borrower. That's whowe think of as our client in that
equation. And so what Finlocker doesis, if you think about I like

(06:23):
to talk about a first time HomeBuyerbecause everybody can kind of I think visualize
this. The typical first time HomeBuyerdoesn't wake up magically on a Saturday morning
and say I'm going to go outand buy a house today. They typically
go through a pretty extensive process wherethey get a emotionally prepared because it's a

(06:43):
it's a big life change for mostand be they get financially prepared. And
so what Finlocker focuses on is alittle bit of both. We provide the
lender, the mortgage company and byextension, their loan officer with a fully
white labeled, branded version of ourproduct to extend their brand. And then
we provide the consumer through that extensiona set of digital financial tools to better

(07:11):
understand where they are in terms ofbeing able to confidently apply for a mortgage.
So we help them understand where theyare from a credit perspective, you
know, from a qualification perspective aroundassets, income and liability and employment,
all the things that a lender isgoing to go into a lot of detail
on, and we provide the consumerkind of this sandbox environment where over time

(07:39):
six months, twelve months, eighteenmonths, they could be better understanding where
they are on that readiness journey sothat when it comes time to buy the
home and apply for financing, theycan do it with confidence. And one
of the things we found in thiskind of product evolution is that the younger

(07:59):
generation, specifically kind of the youngermillennials older gen zs really lack trust.
They don't trust financial institutions. TheyI don't know if it's lack of trust.
I think it's trust comes out asthe as how they verbalize it.
But there's a fear of judgment andnobody wants to be told noever. But
I think maybe our generation and wejust knew that you had to go through

(08:22):
this process, but the younger generation, they don't want to be told that
they're not you qualified, they're notapprovable, and so our product lets them
kind of get that information at theirown pace in a sandbox, but always
have the connection of that loan officerin the experience. So we're really a
mortgage enough funnel, mortgage readiness setof tools that helps loan officers scale themselves

(08:46):
in their community, leading with financialfitness, financial literacy, and mortgage readiness
really good. I like that educationalelement of it, and we will get
into the tools. I'm just kindof curious what the tool set looks like
from a consumer perspective. But Ijust want to plus up and maybe have
a little bit more dialogue on thisidea of because I've heard the same thing
that you shared there about this fearof judgment, fear of rejection perhaps,

(09:11):
and I'm not even going to apply. I'm not even going to try,
and I'm not even going to stepout until i know that I'm going to
be successful. I've heard that researchexpressed in the mortgage space in particular,
but I've heard it in other contextsas well. It's really really interesting,
like when did that occur to you? And how fundamental was that to the

(09:31):
development of Finlocker as it exists,and then we'll get into how it's manifest
as a tool set. Yeah,I love that. So I mentioned Andrea
Thomas, who's our head of product. When she joined us, she brought
an approach and a discipline in productthat we just didn't have a skill set
around. And part of that approachand discipline was very targeted consumer feedback.

(09:56):
So before we write a line ofcode, we're going to understand how the
consumer is specifically how you know thetarget consumer, so younger first time homebuyers
in this example, what are theythinking? And so our product team spends
as part of our you know,design and development process. Inside of that

(10:18):
process is getting real, real timeand real consumer feedback and engagement. And
it was through that, through thoseengagements that this this concept kept coming back
at this fear of judgment. Idon't want to show all my stuff to
the loan officer when i'm if Iknow, I'm not ready already, and
so so that's where we first startedto really kind of have it come to

(10:39):
come to light for us. Butthen in the last year we've we've had
a lot of engagements with lenders andothers in the in the space that are
focused on that are using social mediaas kind of a vehicle to communicate and
educate at scale as well. I'mwatching all this interaction and these engagements that
are happening with loan officers through socialmedia, and now I'm following them,

(11:03):
and I'm engaged in watching the conversationsand I'm seeing it in real time happening
in those conversations where these younger peopleare They're going to social media for a
reason because they it's safe for them, it's safe to go ask questions,
even if that social media influencer orfinancial influencer isn't the loan officer that they're
going to work with. They feellike they're getting enough questions answered that they're

(11:28):
comfortable then to go into the process. So it's for me, it's been
an education on the communication platform socialmedia, but it's also been a real
life in education on this kind ofnext generation home buyer and the way they
think, Yeah, you just broughtup something that I want to dwell in
from it before we get to thetool set again. And it's this idea

(11:48):
of going to a human I'll sharea couple of ideas and then get your
thoughts on it. One of theideas is, you know, it's hard
to trust Google or the chatbot atsome level. This is reasonably well documented
reviews at this point we all knowcan be completely gamed. It's the same
reason we struggle a little bit with, you know, trusting the Google results,

(12:09):
like is this just the thing thatyou know hacked the system well enough
to show up first, or isit actually useful and authoritative? And how
many clicks do I want to makebefore I make these judgments? And so
so often these days in particular,and I've heard this in a variety of
contexts. When we have an ideathat we want to validate or a question
we want answered, some of itwe can rely on those other sources for

(12:33):
but ultimately in making the decision withconfidence. I'm going to go to somebody,
and maybe somebody I know. Itmight be in a community. Let's
just say a community of mortgage loanofficers might look to each other to get
that question answered. They It mightbe internal to the organization, it might
be external across different brands and companies, but we all have this thing in
common. So I'm gonna I'm justgonna throw it out to the crowd,

(12:54):
or I'm gonna go to somebody Imet in that community. People are also
going to influencers on social media forthis because they have this sense of relationship,
whether it's a one way relationship orwhether it actually goes both ways.
I actually have communicated with this person. What I'm asking here is the human
being. I'll ask this specific tothis context, but I'll also ask it
more broadly to your experience in themortgage industry. You and I both know

(13:16):
that when the smartest people get togetherin the room, they're very often looking
to eliminate the human from these processesfor efficiency. In these other things,
You're obviously investing in people and equippingpeople with a white labeled product to be
that trusted source, and with thatvery long set up, Brian, what
is the importance of the human inthis situation? At the risk of asking

(13:39):
the obvious, why does the humanstill belong here? And in places like
this and in places like this,what are the characteristics where the human belongs?
So you know, again, thirtyplus years in the mortgage space,
they haven't gotten rid of the humansyet all the way, right the fact
that when you think about buying ahome and getting financing for that home,

(14:00):
it doesn't happen often, right,I mean, in my case, we're
this is our third home in youknow, thirty plus years, right now.
I've done a bunch of refinances andother transactions inside of those three homes,
but you know, basically every tenor twelve years we bought another home,
right, So it's not like you'reever getting expert at this as a

(14:22):
consumer. I don't care who youare as a consumer. And so this
buying a home and securing financing forit, it's a complicated still a very
complicated process. And so I think, yes, there's some subset of mortgage
borrowers that could self serve through aprocess, but it's it's a fraction of

(14:43):
all the deals that get done,especially when you then bring in a first
time home buyer who's you know,there's all kinds of fears, and you
know, there's a whole emotional sideof that process. So I think the
human in the equation, and let'sjust call it at the loan officer,
who's typically that that human is.I believe that the local loan officer,
and I'll say local because we're notnaive enough to believe that every transaction requires

(15:07):
a face to face, like aphysical face to face meeting, But there
is a value in the local loanofficer who understands the nuances of first time
home buying, who understands the differentproducts and programs, and maybe in some
cases there's some regional nuances around financingand property types and different guidelines and things

(15:30):
like that. So I do believethe local loan officer is best equipped to
engage a early journey first time HomeBuyer. And again I talked six to thirty
six months up the funnel and becomethat young person's kind of financial friend leading
into home ownership. And let's faceit, most first time own buyers probably

(15:52):
don't have a financial planner because theyprobably don't have enough assets to get on
the radar of a financial planner.So a loan officer really is probably that
first real financial professional that you know, a young, first time HomeBuyer is
going to engage with. I justdon't think and I'm not knocking, you
know, call center loan officers.They're very skilled. They understand they have

(16:14):
to they have to go through thesame testing and licensing. But it's just
different when when you're in a transactionor you're looking at a relationship over months
versus you know, the typical directorconsumer call center. It's how can I
move as fast as possible, getyou into the process and move on to
the next one. It's just adifferent you know, a different skill set
and a different relationship set. SoI'm a big proponent of the local loan

(16:40):
officer. I don't think that thatlocal loan officers that local real estate professionals
go away. I think that thework they do changes. Right, So
when we think of a loan officer, traditionally they were the ones that would
go collect all the information from theborrower and do some level of you know,

(17:00):
screening and pre qualification, if youwill. I think technology has evolved
in such a way that most ofthat can be done, let the technology
do it, and then the loanofficer can play that consultative, you know,
kind of financial friend role once thatthat analysis has been done by the
by the machines. So I thinkthe work changes. I don't think the

(17:22):
person doing the work changes though.Yeah, really good. And I like
the term local. I like theidea that maybe you know three other people
I know and I might run intoa cost co. Yeah, and these
types of things like it's it bringsdown because you spoke to the vulnerability.
You spoke to the emotional side anumber of times in this conversation so far,
and that's that's the unique strength ofthe human being. And I think

(17:44):
as long as we're emotional creatures andwe haven't totally outsourced emotional connection to bots,
which I think we're still many yearsaway from it, I don't love
that for the species in general.I think to your point, there there
is always a role for someone whocan help us understand feel confident again,
take the output of the machine andanalyze it themselves before turning it over.

(18:04):
And this is true of almost anymachine driven output. I'm thinking of,
Like you know, we had theCEO of lately Dot AI. It's an
AI kind of social content platform whereyou can put in long form content and
it'll spit out thirty five different versionsof social posts to promote that one piece
of content. But she acknowledges inthe conversation would in any conversation, Yeah,

(18:27):
a lot of it's not good,you know, or a lot of
it's not exactly accurate, or alot of it isn't the way you would
say it, And so like samething, like you still get to have
that your depth of knowledge, youryears of experience and expertise, seeing these
unique combinations of things and being ableto figure out did the machine read it
the right way? And how amI going to communicate that back to my

(18:48):
client is absolutely a human role.So just to kind of fill back in
the gaps on the literacy and readinessand education component for the end consumer,
would love to know just a littlebit of detail on what that looks like.
Is it an app? And arethere different modules or their courses?
Like what does that look like?And then maybe after that and I'll remind
you of this if that, I'dalso love to know, like from the

(19:11):
l perspective kind of what does thatlook like from a tool set or you
know, can I see who's engagingwith what and these kinds of things.
Yeah, great questions. So wedo publish a native mobile app, so
iOS androids. So we're publishing afully branded product to our client, the
lender typically to their app and theGoogle play Store or Apple App Store.

(19:33):
So you'll see you'll see Finlocker orour friends and family that we call kin
Locker, a little play on words, but then you'll see thirty other versions
of Finlocker, you know, basedon our clients that we've published. For
what the consumer sees once they downloadthe app is a set of digital tools.
They may not use all of them, but there's a pretty extensive set

(19:55):
of digital tools, and they spanfrom credit all the way to you know,
kind of budgeting and goal setting.So I'll kind of go quickly just
to give you a flavor for thedifferent layers. But a consumers prompted early
on in our experience to link totheir credit that's when we do identity verifications,
so now we know they are whothey say they are, and once
they complete that, they'll see theircredit score and their credit report, and

(20:21):
then we built an experience on topof that direct source credit data that allows
the user to run simulations on theiractual credit accounts. So credit everyone's trying
to improve their credit. It's likeone of the things that we all love
to do, right. So thesimulator allows a user to say, Okay,

(20:41):
I see I'm at a six forty. I want to be a seven
twenty. What do I need todo between now and then to get there?
And so the app will provide sometips and things that other consumers that
look like this consumer have done togo from a six forty to a seven
twenty. We have an inverse ofthat, which is that's called the compass.

(21:02):
The inverses our simulator, and thesimulator says, okay, I'm a
six forty, but what would myscore do if I reduced my outstanding balances
by ten thousand dollars? Run thesimulation. We run against an algorithm that's
produced by TransUnion across millions of consumers, and the algorithm runs that model and
says, hey, if you wereto reduce your balances by tend your six

(21:25):
forty would be a six fifty sixas an example. So simulator and compass
very engaging. The credit score updatesevery week, so every week the app's
going to notify the consumer through anInApp notification or an email or a text,
Hey, your scores change, comeback in and check it out.
So highly engaging around credit. Theother prompts are going to be to prompt
the user. We ask a simplequestion at the very onset, where are

(21:49):
you today on your homeownership journey?And there's four answers, and they have
to answer one and one only,and then the answer they give sets the
persona of that app, and thenthat puts them on a kind of a
journey, if you will, basedon how they answer. So they could
say I'm ready now, and sowe're gonna quickly let the loan officer.

(22:11):
Hey, congratulations, they're ready togo. You should engage them now.
Or I'm just getting started, I'min the process of qualifying, or maybe
I hit a road bump and Ineed some help, or I'm not planning
any change with homeownership, I justwant to track my credit right. So
once they answer that question, they'reprompted to link their credit. But then
we also prompt them to start linkingtheir financial accounts, so bank accounts and

(22:34):
liabilities. So as the user startsto link those financial accounts, they're you
know, they're checking savings and maybethey're IRA four O one K accounts,
their credit cards, personal loans,student loans, auto loans. The all
that direct source data, that transactionaldata from those linked accounts and their credit

(22:55):
profile and their income and employment thatthey've told us in the pro in their
actual profile. We now have thisrich set of direct to source consumer data.
And then on top of that setof data, we built an experience
we call the Homeownership Snapshot, andso immediately the user can run the snapshot

(23:15):
and we use stars and wrenches kindof as indicators. Stars are good,
wrenches mean you need some work,and so four stars essentially means you can
confidently apply for a mortgage. We'renot pre quelling, we're not pre approving.
We focus on education and confidence inthe process. And so the gamification

(23:36):
happens with the turning wrenches into starsand watching your credit score increase. If
they've set a goal to save twentythousand dollars for a down payment, we
track their progress against that goal fromtheir actual link bank account. So in
real time, all these data pointsare driving towards an outcome or an objective
in this case, homeownership readiness ormortgage readiness. Really good. I now

(24:00):
understand very specifically why we call ita locker. Yeah, there's a lot
of important information in there. Ilove that there's an identity and verification layer
on the way in that comes upfrom time to time on this show because
it's it's just the era that we'rein from your you know, you said
B to B to see from theB to B standpoint. You know,
for your customers service provider, dothey get to follow along on any of

(24:25):
this? Did they get a looklike, for example, why? I
just think that it's in the answer. Maybe no, but I just think
it's super engaging. If I knowthat this person has touched the app sixteen
times in the last month, let'ssay, and hooked a couple of things
up to it, I, asa loan officer, might be more interested
in putting a couple more outbound callsor outbound video messages to these people than

(24:47):
to someone who hasn't touched it.Yeah. Great, great points on that.
So the nature of the app froma consumer perspectives, as your audience
probably is already ascertaining. It's there'sa lot of personal information in there,
right, now you link your creditcard, all of a sudden, all
the transactions, all your spending isin the app. So we're very very

(25:07):
careful. We're a consumer first platform. So now that's not to say we're
you know, shut the lender andloan ops are out, because that's our
paying client. But we believe verymuch that the consumer needs to be in
control and feel confident that they're incontrol of their data. So when the
user first creates their account, they'reprompted to opt in for data sharing and

(25:33):
if they say yes, which eightyfive plus percent opt in for it.
Because the verbiage in that pop upis in order for your lender, your
loan ops sort to best serve you. There are things in this app that
if they know about, are goingto be helpful, you know. And
that first layer of sharing that I'mdescribing, i'll call it kind of non
PII. It's more like milestones,activities, achievements. Things they've done in

(26:00):
the app, like linking bank accounts, linking credit cards, their credit scores
improving. They have one out offour wrenches and now they have two or
one out of four stars, nowthey have three out of four. Things
like that that to your point,are great signals for a loan officer to
reach out and try to supplement thatexperience. Later later in the experience,

(26:21):
when a consumer actually gets those fourstars and they're ready to confidently apply for
a mortgage, we have another datasharing process that goes a layer deeper now,
that goes into the sharing of theasset data, all the stuff that
you're going to share anyway for amortgage application. So think of it as
two different layers of consumer permission sharingthat the consumer controls. That gives them

(26:45):
more confidence that you know, thatthey're not being big brothers, not watching
over the entire time. And thenthere's enough visibility to your point, to
the loan officer to not be bigbrotherish, but to come in when it
makes sense to come in, andand hell, and then the other thing
inside the experience itself, the loanofficer. There's a card, a little

(27:06):
card in there with the you know, the loan officer's picture and buttons the
link right the right to message them, so they can communicate right from the
app directly to the loan opicer.They could schedule a meeting right from the
app on the loan officers calendar,and so they always have access to their
loan officer when they need them,so smart. I like the concept all
the way around. This is likea it's a different level of relationship.

(27:29):
It's a longer term play. Ican just imagine a scenario where I'm interacting
with someone. I've got some verypreliminary questions. My friend or my parent
or someone else referred me to thisfinancial professional, and at some point in
that conversation they offer me this case, one thing I do no obligation.
Sounds like we're, you know,maybe off here. You get introduced to

(27:51):
the app, and now I'm justonce I'm hooked up, I'm not unhooking
up right, really good. Iwant to go a little bit higher level
here. You've been in banking andending four years. You already alluded to
a little bit of this off thetop, like how customer experience was not
necessarily in the forefront, but evenmore broadly, what kind of changes have

(28:11):
you seen either in the business,the business model, what is important,
you know, the way we goto market or the way we serve people.
What are simily kind of the topline changes me over the past ten
years, and then maybe even overthe past twenty five yeah, I'm in
the Greater Detroit area. So thetop two mortgage lenders in the industry by

(28:33):
volume happened to be you know,twenty miles from me either way, Yeah,
and I want to give them bothcredits. So it's it's you know,
Rocket Mortgage formerly known as quick End. And I can go back to
the nineties when I first met theDan Gilbert and his brother who they were
mortgage brokers Rock Financial. They've reallycreated an expectation, a consumer expectation around

(28:55):
a digital experience as it relates tomortgage that has raised the bar for the
hire industry to kind of go atleast get close to it. And I
think that's been good. It's beenfrustrating for a lot of the lenders that
didn't have, you know, didn'thave the army of dev that Rocket had
and has, but it's raised thebar. It's raised that expectation from the

(29:15):
consumers, so everyone's had to kindof step up and you and then we've
seen technology platforms like Blend and simpleNexus and fin Locker kind of come in
as a result to help, youknow, support and bring that experience.
And then you have United Wholesale Mortgageon the other side that have allowed the
smallest of originators mortgage brokers to competein a digital manner with the biggest of

(29:41):
the big because UWM's raised the baron how a mortgage broker gets alone through
the manufacturing process with a digital experience. So those two companies have done a
ton in my opinion, and Icompeted against them both when I was at
Flagstar, so yeah, I couldsay this. They in my opinion,
they they've frustrated a lot of us, but they've forced us all to be

(30:03):
better at our game, and Ithink that ultimately is best for the consumer.
Right, It's ultimately made We stillhave a long way to go in
mortgage as an industry around kind ofthe technology experience, the digital experience,
but we've come a long way aswell. So good. I really appreciate
that response. I am a Michiganderby the way, Yeah, and you

(30:23):
said it right. Yes. AndI'm a Wolverine however, which I know
is potentially a point of contention,But you know, I'm rooming from Michigan
State every week but one in footballseason in Michigan State every week but two
in basketball season. I also lovethe contrast between those two organizations, and
I really like the way you drewout the way that they have equipped and

(30:45):
leveled up the industry on whole.You don't have to get super specific,
but when you say, like,there's still some ways to go, what
do you think are a couple ofthe impediments there to that industry, in
particular leveling up customer experience through thedigital aspect of the experience. Yeah,
so it's a real timely question.So last week, I don't know exactly

(31:08):
when we're publishing this, but inmid July, the Federal Housing Finance Administration
FHFA conducted their inaugural Velocity Tech Sprinttwenty twenty three, and the tech Sprint
brought together ninety mortgage industry professionals acrosslending and credit and technology and regulatory All

(31:32):
these folks came together for a weekand we're tasked. We were divided into
ten teams and we were tasked withproviding at the end of the week a
proposal to solve for a couple ofproblems or problems that we see in the
space. And so fundamentally the problemsthat kind of were addressed were around consumer

(31:56):
experience. Did specifically digital consumer experiencetrust, the lack of trust or that
consumers still have with you know,finance or financial institutions. And then cost,
you know, the cost to producealone has gone over thirteen thousand,
you know, per transaction. It'scrazy. So not to go into all
the detail of the tech sprint,but I do want to, you know,

(32:19):
tip my hat to f h A. Jason Cave in particular, who
headed at his group, headed upthe initiative, you know, to bring
all these people in and actually listento the industry and want the industry participants
to be part of this solution waspretty cool, pretty energizing. What it
came away with is our industry.The mortgage industry is a series of checks,

(32:43):
re checks and checkers checking the checkers, and so what that often leads
to It goes back to consumer experiencebecause most consumers when they talk about the
horror stories of getting more mortgage wasI kept having to give more information,
I kept getting asked for this pieceof paper, this documentation, over and
over and over again. And sowhat if instead a consumer in a mobile

(33:08):
app had direct access to their identityverification, all their credit data, had
the ability to link to all oftheir assets that they're going to use to
qualify for a mortgage, could linkdirectly to their payroll and bring in the
data from their payroll direct to source, which also would be a verification that

(33:28):
they're employed and how long they've beenemployed. And so you imagine this consumer
on these five dimensions of identity,credit, assets, income, and employment,
who now are in control of thatdata, can actually use that data
months or years before they're actually readyto buy a home, and then use
the same data in the context ofgetting their mortgage. And then potentially maybe

(33:52):
that data stays connected to the servicerafter the fact, and now the servicer,
because they're still connected to this consumersdata, could tell them when when's
the best time to optimize their availableequity to either consolidate deck or take cash
out or perhaps buy their move uphome or in some cases they're moved down
home or on the other side.Potentially, if if the servicer is seeing

(34:16):
in this data that a consumer's incomeis changed negatively, and maybe it's changed
so much that there's a good chancethey're going to have a problem making their
payments, maybe the servicer can beproactive in working with the consumer before there's
a risk of losing their home.So all this is within the art of

(34:36):
the possible. When you think aboutthe data that I described, We as
an industry have to connect the datain a way that it can be used
up and down the value chain andnot you know, not put so much
burden on the consumer to go getthat other bank statement, or go get
this this updated pay stub and thingslike that. So, you know,
I think it's really we're there,We're on the cusp. It's just,

(34:59):
you know, we need all ofthe industry to kind of come together and
try to think about how we usethis data set through the entire experience ultimately
to better serve and bring better transparencyto consumers. Exactly right. That's why
you're here on the Customer Experience Podcast, Brian. I'll also add too that
like this, you know, ifwe do it in the customer's best interest

(35:21):
and we do it in a waythat is a good experience for them,
where they have you on our side, we can trust the identity and verification
layer on their side, they feelthat there is privacy and security that they
are in control of at some level. I can see this because so much
of the ongoing conversation over the pastfour and a half years on this show
has been around and you mentioned itoff the top, like meeting expectations,

(35:43):
but in this case, it's alsomanaging expectations and engaging proactively on a common
set in the consumer's best interest.Yeah, really well said in Yeah,
that is timely. I would beremiss if I did not ask you to
talk about video messages. I knowthat you send video messages on a regular
basis a little bit of a changingtopic, but I guess, to make

(36:05):
it a segue, it's this,how do I create more trust and awareness
and relationship. How do I providesome advisement from a distance physically but still
build that psychological proximity. That's whatvideo messages help us do. When did
you get turned onto it? Andwhat are some of the ways that you're
using videos and why? Yeah,so I'd say it's six to eight months

(36:28):
at like real serious. I meanI've done, you know, some video
stuff before, and of course podcastslike this and other stuff, but you
know, November December of twenty twentytwo, I was challenged by an industry
friend who is basically going to dothe dive himself into creating content, and
so I started by just basically,first, just I want to do one,

(36:51):
you know, original organic piece ofvideo content each week, thirty seconds
to three minutes long, talking aboutsome thing. And it was tough,
man. It was the first likefive weeks of doing it. I stressed
out on every little video. I'mlike, what this is? Like,
what am I going to talk about? It was like four you know,
four takes four different recordings. Itwas taking me an hour and twenty minutes

(37:14):
to create a sixty second video.And something clicked like right after the first
of the year. Actually, itwas the week between Christmas and the New
Year, and I kind of said, I'm getting a little more comfortable,
you know, talking to that stupidmy phone, right talking into my phone,
and you know, I had thatdowntime, and I'm like, well,
what if I got a little bitahead of what if I went from

(37:35):
one a week to I went Iwent right at it. I said,
I'm gonna do five a week,Monday through Friday, five unique pieces of
content a week. And so thatweek between the holidays, I actually recorded
the first week of the year allright there. And when I was doing
it originally I was doing up frommy you know, the camera app in
my iPhone. And that first weekwhen I, you know, I went

(37:58):
out every morning and published him onlink I didn't know then you could schedule
ahead. I've since learned that allof a sudden, that first week,
I had like, over the courseof the week, like twelve thousand impressions,
which for me was good because beforethat it was like five hundred or
whatever in a week. And I'mlike, oh, okay, and I
got some affirmative feedback, right,it was like, oh that was that
was cool. That was informative.And so fast forward to today, so

(38:21):
we're in again mid July. Ihave four posts, seven days a week
that go out on LinkedIn, youknow, from eight am dell eight pm.
And every day I have one newvideo and it's me recording that video.
I've gotten much smarter. I foundgreat tools. I use bomb Bomb

(38:42):
and I have the bomb Bomb appon my phone, so wherever I'm at
during the week, I can recordcontent. It just boom stores it off.
But typically every Saturday morning, I'llspend about an hour and I'll record
a theme for the week, andI pull out my phone, opened up
the bomb by Matt and I juststart talking and I create five to seven

(39:04):
unique videos, no editing. Idon't do any editing, and then usually
on Sunday morning, I'll schedule themall out now because you can go into
LinkedIn and schedule ahead of time.But what's cool is I've got this repository
now of content that I've been creatingover the last six to eight months,
and I've gotten better organized on howto store it and you know, catalog
it, and so I can goback in and now reuse some stuff that

(39:28):
I've done in the past. SoI'm getting smarter about being more efficient and
reusing stuff because not everybody saw thefirst post. So I'm a big believer
in video and it's where it's reallycome to, where the rubbers meet met
the road. Last I talked aboutthe FHFA event, you know I was
at last week. When I wasthere, people came up to me who

(39:50):
I had not met prior, whosadly I didn't feel the same way about
them because I hadn't seen as muchas them, but they saw me,
and so there was like this connection. And so I think video definitely is
a way for you, and it'shelped me build a brand, not just
for me personally, but for Finlockerand for our company, and the theme
that I talk about over and overand over is financial education, financial literact,

(40:14):
financial fitness, and homeownership as anoutcome. And I'm not necessarily always
promoting Finlocker blatantly, but people nowhave connected financial education and Finlocker because every
day there's I'm out there talking aboutit and I'm on video, and it's
created some interesting connections. I thinkyou and I connected, frankly, through

(40:36):
through LinkedIn and through through the videothat each of us has done there so
and I know we didn't set thisup because I'm a bomb bomb user.
I'm the one little user in yourmassive ecosystem. But it is an awesome
platform and it's actually been game changingfor me, frankly awesome. I love
the story about showing up at anevent and being greeted by people. I

(40:57):
actually warned people about this SubTime islike, if you do this consistently,
whether it's one to one or oneto many, if you start doing this
consistently, you're gonna have people walkup to you. They're gonna start talking
to you like they know you,right, and You're like, who is
this person? And then after youlike after you get a little bit over
the kind of the weird dynamic there, because it's it's very unique in the

(41:19):
human experience. Very typically well,we will either just walk by each other.
For me, it was we usedto do a ton of business in
the real estate community, and Idid all of our customer webinars, I
did all of our video emails,I did all of our newsletters, special
offers, promotions, blog posts,et cetera. And I put video in
everything. And so I'll never forgetthe first I forget whether it was a

(41:43):
Remax or Keller Williams conference, butI remember getting into an elevator and someone
greeting me by name, and Ididn't have my badge on at the time.
I'm like, oh, hell yeah. At first that's a little unnerving.
Then you're like, oh, thisis actually the benefit of this thing.
And then I referred to it aslike you know, the local weather
person or the local news anchor,not that anyone really watches as much of

(42:06):
that anymore, but you know,getting greeted in the produce section at the
neighborhood grocery store. They're like they'reused to it because it happens all the
time, But that can really happenfor all of us. I call it
Internet famous in your own sphere ofinfluence. And so again it's his psychological
proximity. Even in the absence ofphysical proximity. We've maybe never been in
the same room before, we've neverconnected, we never even been on a

(42:28):
zoom call or whatever together, butyou feel like you know me, And
so that comes through in a againslightly unnerving way sometimes. Any quick notes
on Fintech Fridays, Why did thatget started? How's it going for you?
Yeah? So I started it asa favor to a friend who had
developed a platform. The platform wascalled mort Flix. I'm not even sure

(42:49):
if it's around anymore, but hewas trying to be the Netflix for mortgage
with all, you know, allkinds of content, and I was part
of its kind of founding board orwhatever. And he's like, well,
we have to create our own contentfirst before we can go seek content to
bring on here. So I wasjust as sign a task. And because
I was at Finlocker, they're like, oh, we'll do Fintech Fridays as

(43:13):
a content weekly content piece. Brian, you can be that's yours to go
do. And so that was Idon't know, like almost three years ago.
I just checked this morning. I'vepublished seventy five episodes of Fintech Fridays,
and everything's changed since then. Ofcourse, I is another extension of
kind of my personal brand, butit's also an extension of Finlocker. But

(43:36):
I do believe I'm providing a serviceto the industry because I approach every conversation
as if I don't know this person, product or service, and in twenty
minutes, we're going to learn whothe heck these people are and what they
do and why they're good for ourindustry. So I do that for the
most part, that's what we do. We talk. We talked to different
technology folks around what they offer,and so it's just you know, fifteen

(44:00):
to twenty minute, you know,high level, who are you, what
do you do, why is itgood for the industry, How can people
get a hold of you? Andthen it's it's kind of morphed into We
talk a lot about technology Fintech Prize, but now we're we're almost equally talking
about financial literacy, financial education,how loan officers can use the various technology

(44:22):
tools like bomb bomb and fin Lockerand their CRM to scale locally their message.
And so it's been pretty cool.It's been fun. It's not easy.
What you do is not easy.It's you know, I don't do
a lot of prep and pre work. I do know editing. I'm a
it's a one person show. I'vegot Diana who helps me create the thumbnails

(44:44):
and then we push it out andit's on you know, all the all
the platforms. But it's been fun, it's been cool. It's and again
I've met people that I probably otherwisewouldn't have talked to and had a chance
to meet, and some have turnedinto relationships as a bet, you know,
customers of ours, and we becamecustomers of some folks beat based on
those conversations. So many benefits topodcasting. By the way, if anyone

(45:06):
is interested in this topic and theydon't know where how to start, hit
me up on LinkedIn. It's EthanButte. Last name is b eut.
Brian's last name is spelled v ie au x y Brian view. Hit
us up. I call it.I picked this language up from a friend
of mine who I hosted on anotherpodcast that I host. Podcasting is a
cheat code for life. And withthat, if you've enjoyed this conversation on

(45:29):
this podcast. I've got two morethat we're released really close to one another.
One I would like to point youtwo is episode one ninety one with
Sue Woodard, a mutual friend ofBrian's and mine and a fellow fintech of
Angelist. We called that episode oneninety one operationalizing love for customers and employees.
You know love and you use delightearlier. These are not nice to

(45:52):
have. These are need to haveelements, and we can't operationalize them.
So I talked with Sue about thaton episode one ninety one, and I
fished this one out while you weretalking, Brian. I felt like I
was distracting myself. I hate todo that, but I had to pull
out episode one ninety three with LeeJelinik, the chief innovation officer at UWM,
because you talked about United Wholesale Mortgagein an innovation context, and so

(46:14):
that was what we talked about,of course with Lee one ninety three,
and we called that one the cultureof innovation and the work of innovation.
It needs to be a cultural component. But again we need to structure operationalized.
We need to build it into whatwe're doing if we are to be
successful. So we talk about theculture and the work itself on episode one
ninety three before I let you go, Brian and I know we're pushing up

(46:36):
on the top of the hours werecord this. I would love for you
to do three things for us.The first is to think or mentioned someone
who's had a positive impact on yourlife or career. The second is to
shout out a company or brand thatdelivers you a great customer experience. And
the third is to tell people whereto go to learn more about you Finlocker,
Fintech Fridays, or wherever else peopleshould go if they've enjoyed this time

(46:57):
together. I love it, soI'll go fast rapid fire. Sandro Danello
was the former CEO of Flagstar Bank. I had the pleasure of working with
him for eight years. He reallygave me a keen understanding of how to
effect impact and change culture, butalso maintain the change and did great things

(47:20):
up into his retirement at Flagstar.So thank you, Sandro. So there's
a local restaurant here that we liketo frequent, formerly known as Steven Rockies.
Now they just change their name anddrawn a blank on their new name,
There'll always be Steven Rockies. Butthey know us. They know,
you know, when we book ourreservation. That kind of flags it we
have the same weight or same table. They know the wine we like to

(47:40):
drink. It's always there when whenwe came in, when we come to
the table, and we oftentimes bringour my mother in law and so she
has her special you know, cocktail. So she gets such a kick out
of that experience that what they doreally is meaningful for us and how they
make her feel when we're dining thereon a weekly basis. And then lastly,

(48:01):
follow me on LinkedIn Brian View.You could follow Finlocker on LinkedIn.
You can also follow Fintech Friday's podcaston LinkedIn. And if you're in the
front lines working with consumers and wantingto improve your ability to bring value through
financial education to consumers, subscribe tofinn Talk, which is a newsletter that

(48:25):
we started publishing in May. Youcan find Fintalk on my LinkedIn. You
can also go to the Finlocker websiteunder resources, scroll down the bottom and
I think it says fintalk and yousubscribe. We've got sixteen or seventeen industry
experts who are contributors who are focusedon helping loan officers better serve their consumers,

(48:45):
leading with financial education. Really welldone, I've loved this conversation.
He is Brian view v I ea u X I am Ethan, butte
b eute well done by the waythat that reservation piece just reminds me about
why, even though it feels likeit's not fun, you need to put
notes in your CRM right like that'swhat that is and it just makes people

(49:08):
feel awesome. So really, well, don I've enjoyed this so much,
Brian. I hope you have agreat rest of your day and I appreciate
you spending this time with us allthanks, Ethan, appreciate it. Man.
Every single day you're entrusting some ofyour most important and most valuable messages
to plain black text on a plainwhite screen, to faceless, typed out

(49:30):
text. It doesn't differentiate you,it doesn't build trust and rapport, and
it doesn't convey feelings, thoughts,arguments, ideas or details nearly as well
as you do. As a result, your customer experience, employee experience,
and business outcomes suffer. So it'stime to put you back into your digital

(49:52):
communication it's time to restore human connectionacross the digital divide. With bomb bomb
video messages. They have the clarityand richness of in person meetings and video
calls, and the convenience of asynchronousemails, text messages, LinkedIn messages,
and Slack messages. For clearer communication, human connection, and higher conversion.

(50:15):
Try bomb bomb record, screen record, send and track videos in Gmail,
Outlook, LinkedIn, Salesforce Outreach,zendesk, iPhone, Android, and beyond.
Try bombomb absolutely free or learn howit works for your team or your
entire company. Check it out atbombomb dot com.