February 29, 2024 • 37 mins
Today, we're joined by Taylor Briggs, CDLP. Taylor is the Vice President of Peoples Mortgage Company from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who's been in the industry for over 10 years. Taylor has been featured in the Scotsman Guide and also was in the 2021 Top 100 People in Real Estate Magazine.
Taylor is here to discuss: → The importance of prospecting, time blocking, and social media. → How he grew a referral based business and cut his teeth on harder files. → And how to build a team and achieve work/life balance and avoid burnout.
People's Mortgage Website: www.peoplesmortgage.com
Taylor Briggs' Facebook: @TaylorBriggs
Taylor Briggs' LinkedIn: @TaylorBriggs
Taylor Briggs' Instagram: @gbrig005
Learn more about the Direct to Consumer LO Accelerator here.
Loans On Demand Website: www.loansondemand.io
Loans On Demand YouTube: @LoansOnDemand
Loans On Demand Instagram: @loansondemand
Luke Shankula's Facebook: @LukeShankula
Luke Shankula's LinkedIn: @LukeShankula
Luke Shankula's Instagram: @lukeshankula
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
podcast, the show where we flipthe real estate status quo on its
head and put loan officers intothe driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,strategies, resources, and mindset
needed to modernize your mortgagebusiness and thrive.
My name is Luke Shankula, akaLongform Luke, and this is the
Loans On Demand podcast.
going on?
Welcome to the Loans On DemandPodcast, the show where we help
(00:25):
loan officers flip the status quoon real estate agents, put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And we're going to have a good one
today.
My good friend, Taylor Briggs over
at People's Mortgage.
She's the vice president over
there and he runs a team.
I think it's the Briggs team.
So welcome to the show, man.
Excited.
We've been friends on socialmedia, I think for a couple of
years now and just kind of seeingthe evolution and the growth over
the years.
And, you know, I know you're doing
(00:46):
some big things.
So excited to have you on, man.
Welcome to the so much.
I appreciate you having me.
I'm looking forward to it.
man.
So let's get a little backgroundon who you are.
Obviously, I gave you the littlespiel, but, you know, kind of walk
us through who you are, what kindof got you into the industry?
What's that all looking like rightnow in terms of your business?
sure.
So I've been in the industry about
10 years total in variouscapacities, started my career in
operations, working in thefinance, like back of the house,
(01:07):
dealing with airlines kind ofstuff, moved over into the lock
desk for a couple of years and hada bunch of LOs asking us if we
could beat other companies andwith sure we were profitable.
And I slowly realized they weremaking more in a month or two than
I made in a whole year.
So I've been dealing with that for
a couple of years.
I realized I just wanted to move
to sales.
Worst case scenario, I can always
(01:27):
go back to the lock desk.
Moved into sales and been
originating since then.
And each year I've grown my
pipeline or my closed business byat least 5% regardless of market
conditions.
So it's been fun.
I really enjoy it.
I'm glad I took the leap.
man.
Well, that's crazy because locked
desk, secondary market type stuff,let's just call it nerdy work,
right?I mean, I guess so as being a loan
officer to a certain extent, butusually the people that are sort
(01:48):
of like good at the details, thatwould be someone that would be
good at something like a lockeddesk and secondary market type
stuff is going to be thatdetail-oriented person that's
maybe not going to be so good atsales.
So the fact that you were able totransition from a operations role
to a sales role and actually excelis a testament to the fact that
you're one of the unicorns outthere that can kind of do both
well.
And one thing that I talk about a
lot with some of my buddies thatare loan officers is like, being a
(02:09):
loan officer is a pretty uniquerole because you really have to be
good at two things that generallydon't come in the same person.
Be good at sales and marketing,which is generally the person
that's less detail oriented, stufflike that.
And then you also have to be goodat like structuring loans and the
details of getting a loan closed.
So like, tell me a little bit
about how do you sort of combineboth of those into like a coherent
business?Because, you know, again, I mean,
I don't think most people can kindof do that.
And why most people kind of go dothese ups and downs, they'll
(02:31):
prospect and they'll kind of falloff.
So how have you set your businessup for that success and growth
over those Yeah.
So, you know, definitely over
time, I dealt with the same thingmost loan officers deal with where
you'll have one or two really goodmonths and then something happens
with that pipeline where you'rejust, you know, micromanaging and
focusing on that.
And then the next couple of months
suck because the last 60, 90 daysof activity really predict what's
going to happen in the next monthor two.
So for me, the biggest thing thatI focused on was time blocking
(02:54):
that no matter what happened, if afile was completely going sideways
or somebody called off and I hadto hop in, I still made sure every
day, at least Monday throughThursday, I blocked out two to
three hours of green time orprospecting time to where I had a
theme each day that I wasprospecting.
So no matter what I knew at theend of every week, I had at least
eight to 10 hours of prospecting.
And I know a lot of loan officers
(03:14):
weren't doing that.
So last year when the market, you
know, the average LO was down 40to 50%, I was actually up 6.2%
over the year before.
And a lot of the team is having
success doing kind of the samethings as well.
So really just trying to puttogether, you know, a foundation
and a game plan to where no matterwhat happens, you can kind of fall
back on that.
And then just making sure that
those agents that I do work with,that it's more of a partnership
(03:37):
versus just, hey, the me deals.
It's transactions.
I really try and pour into them orhelp them work their database
because that's a majority of mybusiness is past time referral.
So it's not even agents that sendme a lion's share of what close.
Man, that's pretty impressive.
So I want to get into some of
those details, kind of skip pastthe part that I normally get
through, which is, you know, talkabout the journey a little bit,
right?I mean, you said you grew, but
(03:58):
it's hard, right?I mean, you know, I think getting
into it is hard.
Like, what did that journey look
like from the beginning, you know,where there's some hard times that
you had to go through to sort of,you know, learn the lessons?
Was it kind of smooth sailing?I mean, you know, I've heard of a
few unicorns that kind of hadsmooth sailing, but I feel like
most people that have accomplishedanything have had some pitfalls
along the way.
And especially in markets like we
just haven't been through,sometimes it's good to hear the
struggles and the hard stories.
(04:18):
So kind of walk through that and
then we can kind of get back tothe structures and stuff like that
of been day.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I was very fortunate.
The very first company that I
worked for in the marketplace thatI'm in, they were more flexible on
some underwriting guidelines andcredit scores than some of the
other local lenders.
So like my first two years in the
business, I went to any agent thatwould talk to me and really just
kind of asked for their turndown.
So I think, you know, my first two
years, I probably closed betweenthe two, 110, 120 loans total
(04:40):
across the two.
I think the average credit score
that I did was a 600, a 602.
So it was everyone probably filled
the files that nobody wanted.
But when I did close those, it
built that foundation that if Ican do this really well, imagine
what I can do on the cookie cutterloans that everybody I think
probably able to use that to kindof leverage new relationships.
Or even if I didn't pick up brandnew agents that were new to me, it
(05:01):
was still in their office that,hey, Taylor can get this done.
If he can't get it done, no oneelse can.
And then as I built thatrelationship with those agents, I
had more of a bargaining chip oflike, hey, kind of stop sending me
the garbage.
I'll still do it.
But let's see if we can dosomething else with some of these
loans you're sending other places.
(05:21):
And then use that to kind of build
my business from there.
And now I was looking last year
with all the loans I closed, myaverage credit score was like a
730.
So over time, it's definitely
gotten better.
Loan amounts have increased
because of inflation, but itwasn't smooth sailing.
Jokes that I got about 20 years ofexperience in the first two years
because pre-loan, I was like thefifth lender they talked to.
My background in lock desks andthe operations side, I think
really helped me understand theguidelines and profitability of
(05:41):
loans.
So that way, when I had to go to
management for something, Ialready had everything figured out
and I could just send it to them.
Here's why I think we should do
it.
And 90% of the time they'd sign
off.
Nice.
That's cool, man.
And what's interesting, something
that I've learned in doing a lotof these podcasts, I mean, I think
there's going to be episode maybe1, 12, 13, 14, somewhere around
there.
So I've done a lot of episodes and
(06:02):
a pretty interesting, I guess,similarity between most of these
people that I have on the show,people that are producing at a
high level is they started outkind of doing something hard,
right?Whether it be consumer direct sort
of like call center, whether itbe, you know, what you just talked
about, which is, Hey, I took allthe turndowns, man, I took the
crap.
You know, you probably had to work
twice as hard to close the sameamount of loans because every
single loan was probably just hadto babysit across the line.
(06:24):
You had to look at every scenario.
You had to fight underwriters, all
that kind of stuff.
And so it's interesting to see the
people that seem to have successin any market and even markets
that are hard.
It's like, because they started
when it was hard, they're like,yeah, it's just kind of normal for
me.
Versus the people that maybe
started in 2020 or 21 are probablygetting their butt kicked because
they're like, they started when itwas easy.
They never had to do the hardstuff, right?
They did just a bunch of refis,closed a bunch of deals.
(06:46):
This is pretty interesting to seea pretty common thread across most
of the people that are sort ofachieving at a high level.
They started in the trenches andthe hard stuff.
And honestly wasn't even reallyout of design.
It was just something as I startedtaking a bunch of meetings with
the agents that would sit downwith me, like one of the first
questions they would ask is what'sthe lowest credit score that you
can do or like what are yourprograms?
So I figured, you know, at leastfor the first year or two, I was
getting my feet wet.
(07:06):
I should lead with that.
And then as I build that book ofbusiness, I don't have to leave
that nearly as much.
But like last month, I closed
probably three deals that werebelow 620.
But that's still not my major bookof business, but it's still there.
It brings me a couple deals everymonth with agents that, you know,
I've been working with for fiveyears at you know, yeah, that's
impressive.
And so one thing that I'll say is
that, you know, so many timespeople think that those down
(07:27):
payment assistance deals or thoselower credit scores are like, Oh,
well, you know, if you take those,those are the only things are
going to send you right, that'skind of like the perceived thing
from that.
Talk me through how did you shift
out of only being the guy that gotthe turndowns and became the guy
that got the 730s and the A paperand stuff like that?
Because most loan officers, theywant those A paper.
But the truth is, everybody can dothose A paper loans.
Like it doesn't make you anydifferent.
(07:48):
If you could do those, anybody cando them and they can do them
quickly.
They can close on time, they're
going to get everything donebecause those are easy.
Yeah.
So it's one of those things that I
was very fortunate when I started.
I had a mentor that I knew that
had been in the industry a verylong time and said, regardless of
marketing conditions, there'salways a subset of the community
that no matter what happens isgoing to buy.
And that can be military, which isa big book of my business because
(08:09):
we're constantly moving becausethey get new orders, divorces,
things like that.
Her, she did a bunch of mobile
homes.
She called herself the queen of
wheel estate.
So that was something that she did
a ton of.
But it's something that, for me, I
found because I focus so heavilyon the client experience, not all
of their friends had bad credit orno money.
That may have just been them.
They were in a tough spot, maybe
(08:30):
they were going through a divorce,or something that impacted them.
So as I did a good job on theirloan and asked for referrals, I
started getting referrals forbetter clients, and I was able to
give that back to the agent.
So I ended up being a loan officer
that not only was doing deals thatother people couldn't do, I was
also a loan officer that wasgiving back good amount of
business to agents that didn'thave representation.
So, I mean, this year alone, Imean, it's for February 2nd, and
(08:50):
I've already given back six dealsto my agents already this year.
And last year, I think I gave back22.
And as a team, I think we gaveback 46 when I looked at it.
So like our team actively worksthose referrals.
So for me, finding thoserelationships, pulling referrals
and leveraging them with newpartners, but also knowing that
because they've probably heard nomultiple times, they're probably
going to be the biggest advocatefor you if you can get that deal.
And so for me, everybody wants theA paper, but you might not be in
(09:14):
an area where there's a lot of Apaper That's another thing.
People live in places likeGeorgia, New Orleans or places
like that.
And there's like, I think 11 or 12
States that like 40% of thepopulation is considered subprime.
Right.
And so you're like, okay, so you
want the eight paper stuff, butyou realize you live in a market
where there's maybe 60% that arefalling into the bucket.
And of course, then they have tobe a percentage of those that are
(09:36):
actually are actively into so yougot to understand some of these
people need credit repair.
Some of these people, you got to
think about it from a long-termperspective.
So I love the fact that, you know,you work with those people because
a lot of people are like, nah, Idon't want it.
They're not ready to buy now.
They're not ready to buy in the
next 90 days.
Like, man, they're tire kickers.
And I'm like, you're always goingto be spinning your wheel because
(09:58):
you're not building a pipeline forthe future, right?
Like, I mean, I think most of thetop producers, they know there's
people out there that are going tobe 12 months out, right?
There's going to be people thatare six months out.
There's going to be people thatare 18 months out.
Just keep jumping them, callingthem, following up with them.
And I know you said a lot of yourbusiness comes from past clients.
You're able to give back to youragents, man.
That's the whole point of thispodcast is helping loan officers
(10:19):
with the status quo.
Our whole business is around
generating leads and helping themget in front of consumers so they
can give those back to real estateagents.
So that's a freaking awesome pointof leverage.
How are you doing that six thisyear already?
So it sounds like you're going toblow 22 out of water this year.
For me, I mean, I think thebiggest thing that we do a really
good job is asking referrals andmaking sure that our process
regardless of the product that weget.
So it doesn't matter if it's a 580credit score VA loan or an 800
credit score jumbo doesn't matterwhat it is.
We have everything done the sameway every time.
(10:39):
So my assistant is trained to askfor referrals and kind of gauge
the clients, you know, with howthat's going.
Same thing with real estateagents, trying to get feedback.
So if there's things that we canimplement and adapt, that we do
that.
So for us, it's constantly making
sure that we stay in touch withthem.
So for me personally, everyTuesday, I do an update to all
parties involved in thetransaction.
And at the end of that, we kind ofjokingly ask for referrals to see
if they know anybody and we'lljoke with them and be like, hey, I
know you're probably sick of measking, but we just want to make
(11:02):
sure that, you know, we workappointment only, referral only,
past clients are our bread andbutter, you know, who gives us
business.
And for our agents too, the
company I work for is able to dobusiness in 39 states.
I think maybe now because we'veonboarded some more branches.
But with that, I do about fivestates myself.
But because we have a companyprogram to where I can put it with
the back of the house to do it, Ican do technically 40 states.
(11:22):
So my agents, when we havesomebody relocating somewhere, I
always try and get thempre-approved because then I can
help them control the referral feeprocess because I hear all the
time from agents.
Oh, I sent them to so-and-so in
Kansas.
I didn't even know they closed.
I never heard anything.
And I lost out on my 20%, 25%
referral fee, whatever it is.
We try and control that entire
process for the agents.
So even though we're not actively
working with them, we're stillworking for them because our
(11:44):
biggest thing is other than clientsatisfaction, we want to help the
agents make more money and savetime while doing it.
And if we can do all three ofthose things between the client
satisfaction and those two thingsfor the agent, we have found that
gives us quite a bit of dealsback, especially on the past
client side of things.
all that's brilliant, man.
I talk about this all the time.
It's like, let's be honest, real
estate agents want one of twothings.
They want more time or they wantmore money.
(12:05):
And so many people are like, ohyeah, I close on time and I answer
my phone and I, you know,whatever, I got good rates.
It's like, the truth is like, thatshould be standard.
Like that should not be your valueproposition.
That should be the standard.
And so I love that you're doing a
lot more than that, you know, oneto give back to your agents, but
also to help control thatsituation.
And I brought this up a lot on thepodcast lately, because I feel
(12:28):
like retention is one of the worstparts of this industry is that,
you know, according toMonitorbase, the average loan
officer is retaining about 19%,right?
So 81% of the people that theywork with are going and working
with another loan officer in thefuture.
How are you managing that?Do you have like a cadence?
Are you working with anysoftwares?
Like what does that sort of looklike in terms of making sure that
you're staying in front of yourpast clients regularly?
Ultimately, I mean, you'reprobably in this industry another
(12:48):
10, 20, 30 years, right?So it's like, that's a lot of
transactions that if you don'tfollow up with them, you're gonna
lose out on.
absolutely.
So the way that I manage and myteam, I kind of have them manage
it same way.
But what has really worked for me
is, like I said, this Tuesdayupdates during the transaction are
huge.
After they close within seven
days, they get thank you cards,they get follow-ups from me.
I make sure the move wentsmoothly.
Do they need any vendors of anytype?
Was there repairs that needed tobe done?
(13:10):
Did the movers back out lastsecond?
I try and give them a lot morethan I get from them within the
first two weeks after closing.
I have it set up to where I call
them about 30 days in becausetypically their first payment
letter has gone out.
And then after that, it's usually
about once a quarter.
I'm big on client appreciation
events because I am so past clientheavy for referrals.
So I do appreciation events aboutonce a quarter as well some of
those individually just with allof my clients that are in the area
(13:31):
and then if I have an agent whoI've done ideally about six to
eight deals with we'll do one withthem especially if it's recent we
try and do something fun for thembut I have one agent that we've
been doing one once a quarter andwe normally have 30 40 people come
in nice breweries will go to thegun range, all those kind of
things.
So I think doing things like that
to stay in front of those pastclients and having it set up to
where I have alerts in my systemthrough my CRM.
I have it set up that homeanniversaries, birthdays, things
(13:52):
like that automatically go out.
Then obviously like social media,
I keep tabs on that.
So if I see some major life event,
I always make sure I reach outlike they had a kid or something
like that.
And a lot of them, you know,
forget about you.
I mean, I have people I went to
high school and college with thatI've known damn near 20 years that
will message me because I postedsome video.
Hey, I forgot you did this.
Can you take a look at this?
(14:14):
I was like, dude, I've beenposting stuff five times a week
for the last five years.
I'm happy to take a look.
And a lot of times I end upworking with them.
But it's one of those things thathave to stay top of mind or I'm
pretty sure that business is goingto change.
I Yeah, that makes sense, man.
And I actually have a YouTube
video dropping on Monday this nextweek that talks about that.
(14:36):
Like add your past clients onsocial media because like what's a
better way for them to stay intouch with you and you stay in
touch with them, you know, versuslike calling them and being kind
of awkward and like, hey, what'sgoing on?
I'm your loan officer.
How's it going?
Like, you know, it's like, that'salmost more awkward than just
being able to follow them onsocial media, like a couple of
their posts here and there and,you know, and congratulate them.
And then you can call them for areason, right?
(14:56):
Same thing with realtors, right?You can do the same thing with
realtors.
Look at their posts.
All of a sudden, it's not a coldcall.
It's a warm call because like, Heyman, I just saw that post was
freaking sick.
Like, I really love what you're
doing with the content that you'reputting out there.
Super easy, super warm, such avaluable thing, man.
One of the I think really helpedme last year is I hired a coach
and got in a coaching group ofsome really high producing people.
(15:17):
But one of the biggest things thatthey preach is being owned before
being known.
So social things like that.
And I thought honestly it was acrock of shit, but I figured I'd
give it a try.
And it's been huge.
Just doing these staying constanton social the amount of deals that
are starting to come in ormeetings from agents when I reach
out.
videos, media, Like you it's not
cold at all.
said, It's much more warm.
They're much more receptive.
So like you adding the past
clients said, is huge.
Staying in front of agents on
(15:38):
social is huge.
And agents love to complain about
when things don't go well.
You'll see them complain about
title companies, insurance, youknow, contractors, or even lenders
on there.
And that's a good time for you to
step in with, you know, vendorrecommendations, or you just pop
in with, you know, this is what wedo differently in that situation.
Social It is, man.
And, you know, I think people look
at social in a way it's like theshort term thing.
And it's not like this is a longgame, right?
It's going to be 6 months or moreof consistency before you start to
see the returns.
(15:58):
And I pretty much built my whole
entire marketing agency off ofsocial media.
Before I started doing any paidads, I pretty much grew entirely
organically.
Just posting results, mostly as
being myself and then partiallyposting results of our clients and
things like that.
And I probably generated millions
of dollars over the last 5 yearsin just organic social media, not
including the you know, the paidstuff, but it's hugely valuable.
And that's if you're consistentover an extended period of time.
So loan officers, I'm seeing a lotof loan officers do that too.
And, you know, there's sort of theold brigade of the, you know, even
(16:22):
the core and stuff like that,what's his name actually just got
on social media the other day.
I saw that he got on social media,
but it's kind of funny because alot of those guys will be like,
ah, yeah, all these guys are onsocial media, not doing any deals.
And I'm like, well, how many ofthese guys that aren't on social
media and are cold calling aren'tgetting any deals too?
Like, I mean, come on, dude.
(16:43):
Like, you know, yeah, there's some
people that are doing great, butthere's also a lot of people that
are using YouTube channels.
You know, it doesn't have to be
the short TikToks, right?And dancing around like everybody
thinks you're doing, right?It's like, how are you providing
value to your audience in a waythat is relevant to where we're
at, right?I mean, this is a modern society,
right?Like people don't want to freaking
have a phone call.
They want to text.
No, call.
They want to text.
No, that's something too.
Like so easy to say top of mind,
(17:03):
if you're actively, you know, takean application and having success.
I just keep a notepad in myclients that ask me questions
during the week that I seem to bea recurring question.
I'll do a video about it, make itlike a minute long, do a video,
put it on social media.
And those get a lot of good
feedback.
It doesn't have to be super
complicated.
You just have to be consistent.
(17:24):
Yeah, man, that's awesome.
Going back to your events, talk to
me about that.
Are you just strictly like going
to have fun?Are you kind of having a pitch at
any point?Or they're just purely like, hey,
come have fun.
We're Yeah, absolutely.
So it depends on the event we aredoing.
So I'll do leveraged events.
So lunch and learns, things like
that with agents.
But if it's just past clients,
because we do so many VA loans asa team, I found that it's a little
bit of a pitch because obviouslyyou'll talk to all of them and
things like that.
We have a lot of military clients
that want to use their VA to builda rental portfolio.
(17:46):
So I feel like every time I havean event, I'm having like five or
six different conversations ofremaining entitlement.
Can they buy again?How long do they have to wait?
Cash flow, you know, things likethat.
time So it's not a hard pitchwhere we stand in front and talk
to them about all these differenttopics, but we gauge the room, you
know, we follow up any things thatthey have issues with.
But we honestly, because I thinkit's so laid back and we pick a
fun environment, whether it's axethrowing, the shooting range,
(18:06):
drinking, cornhole,hole whateverit is people are way less you know
on the defensive because they'rejust by families so they have
their kids whatever it is and itgoes really well we usually pull a
couple referrals and then we'll dolike a little raffle or something
so that way if anything's changedemail wise or whatever we can stay
up to date with that and then wecan you know give us a reason to
follow up with everybody forentering the raffle and all that
fun stuff thank you man.
That's awesome, dude.
Obviously, that's an expense.
But at the same time, like, you
know, clearly it's worth theinvestment.
(18:27):
And, you know, thinking about thatfrom the perspective, like, yeah,
you're going to have to spend somemoney to make some money.
And now you've built a team.
I mean, you were solo as of 2020,
I think you said.
Yeah, so I've solo up until last
year.
Started with two of us and then it
was four of us.
And now since I switched over to a
new company in August, we've hitthe ground running.
(18:47):
It was just two people, myself andone other person when we started.
And now we're seven LOs that we'vebrought on here personally total.
And we've got a couple more thatwe met with this week that I think
will probably come on.
So my goal for 2024 is to be a
$100 million a year team, which ifeveryone hits their numbers, we're
going to be right at it or alittle bit over it.
nice.
Nice.
Well, that's if there's not a bigrefi boom here in the next.
(19:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's cool, man.
That's what's fun is, you know,Amir probably he talks about that
refis are the bonus, right?Yeah.
You know, purchases are yoursalary and refis are the bonus.
And so that's a cool sort of wayto look at it is, hey, you know
what?Never be too good for refis.
I saw it during the 2020 and 21markets.
Yeah.
Some people love the virtue signal
about, I was still 90% purchase.
So that means you're missing out
(19:28):
on 50% of the business that youshould have been doing because you
were too proud to freaking do therefis.
Or you were so priced out of themarket that you couldn't do the
refis.
I mean, who knows?
But I think that's wild, man.
From the perspective of social,
what do you find to be yourbiggest driver of new deals?
Talking about past clients mostly,what's the biggest driver you
think of that?I So the past client, I think it's
the consistency and the follow-up.
So we're big on asking for
reviews, staying in touch withthem on a regular basis.
(19:50):
And from that, when they do referus people, we make sure that we
thank them.
We send them a thank you card.
And we do everything we can toknock it out of the park for that
client.
And even on the off-ch options
they don't work with us eitherthey're shopping us like crazy and
the parents phase them to gosomewhere else or the market's not
for them right now we still thankthem for their time we think
they're like we kind of lead withgratitude there but right now i
(20:11):
would say outside of past clientsi've been going after financial
advisors super heavily they aredefinitely underrepresented for
sure with how they work loanofficers.
And right now, because ofinflation, I'm finding they want a
mortgage partner that can helpthem strategically, especially if
you do reverses or any of thoseniche projects, really help them
free up some cash to put some moreassets under management for these
financial advisors.
That's been huge recently.
I've picked up a couple of those.
I've got a reverse that I put
(20:32):
under contract today.
That'll close this month as well.
So that's starting to be probablyabout 15% of my business and the
rest is a mix of social media andreal estate agents.
to man.
So you're doing the heck up for
purchase for that?Yeah.
Oh, nice, man.
That's pretty cool.
I mean, with that product,obviously, it feels like it's a
smaller percentage of the reverseproduct as those purchase.
And a lot of people don't evenknow those exist.
I used to be an AE for reversemortgage company.
So I have a pretty good backgroundin reverses and the fact that loan
(20:53):
officers are unaware of theproduct or they have the negative
connotations around the product.
To me, that's like, are you even a
professional?If like you like, Oh yeah,
reverses are a scam.
You're like, do you know anything
about the reverse?I saw a guy that like commented on
someone's post saying, Oh yeah,like your reverses are predatory.
I was like, how many reverses doyou close a year?
It didn't respond.
You're wrong, bro.
You don't understand.
(21:14):
The amount of people that I saw,
it changed their life.
It changed their life.
And yet we're going to say it'spredatory because, oh cool, the
rates are whatever.
Dude, you can give this away to
your kids or you can live out therest of your life in relative
comfort.
If The one we have right now it's
a rather large house and she has abunch of money from a life
insurance from her i guess widowedhusband or she's a widow and she
just doesn't want a mortgagepayment and she'd get pretty run
(21:35):
out of an annuity and all thatstuff so doing the reverse she is
not going to have a mortgagepayment she's gonna get a monthly
annuity every month to helpsupplement her retirement and she
still has all these other thingsinvested with a financial advisor.
She just wanted to make sure shedidn't have to worry about ever
having to pay a mortgage payment.
(21:56):
She got sick and bills started up.
Sure.
Yeah, man, that's huge.
And I know that a lot of peopletalk about, you know, going to
financial planners and advisorsfor the reverse mortgage
referrals.
Like how do you approach that
conversation?Or do you sort of approach it from
a different angle?And then, hey, by the way, I also
do reverses.
Because obviously, again, even in
that financial advisor space,there's that negativity around the
reverse mortgage product as well.
How do you sort of approach those
(22:17):
financial advisors from thatperspective?
as absolutely.
So I mean, with any vendor that I
try and recommend, so like I havefinancial advisors to recommend
estate planning, attorneys,contractors, whatever it is.
So typically, what I do is if Ifind out it's a financial advisor
that I think would fit some of theclients that I have always asked
her to take a new referrals and99% of the time they say yes.
So that usually gets my foot inthe door.
And I learned a little bit moreabout their process, which is
obviously any kind of sales callthat you do.
(22:39):
But as I've met with morefinancial advisors, I found a lot
of them just sell insurance.
Like they say they're financial
advisors, but they're but they'reselling whole life insurance or
Right.
Right.
Term, all that stuff.
Yeah, kind of use that.
Like, I don't even know if I wantto work with them yet.
Cause I'm waiting for that pitchfor them to try and have me buy
life insurance from them.
And then if that's not how it
goes, they actually have, youknow, private net worth, you know,
(23:00):
wealth clients, things like that.
I feel like they're going to kind
of match how we handle themortgage consultation on our end
because we're big on the financialliteracy and education force.
And that's why we are so pastclient heavy.
I don't care about the number oftransactions.
I want to just make sure theclients have a good experience
because if that goes the way thatwe hope it does, the numbers are
going to take care of themselves.
And we want the same thing as a
(23:21):
financial advisor.
So we figure out, do they have a
fiduciary responsibility?Do they get paid as assets under
management?What is their financial advisor
fee look like?Because if we have clients, we're
sending them and they're takingone and a half percent of whatever
they have under, you know,management, they're not really
making the returns that they'rehopefully making.
We want to make sure that we havesomebody in line with what our
client's goals are.
So we kind of find that we can
(23:42):
refer, it works out.
And then on the reverse side of
things, we kind of go over ourprocess, what we have seen.
So like we do also a decent amountof asset depletion loans because
we do have financial advisors.
So I kind of just go over a couple
of things that I have seenpersonally from my clients that
have worked out that other lendersmay not have known how to do or
offer.
Like some lenders in my market
don't do reverses and just seewhat their lending relationship
(24:04):
looks like and see if we cansupplement it.
And just kind of stay in touchwith them.
It's something that I may pull oneor two deals a year from that
particular financial advisor, butthey're usually pretty solid
clients.
Right?
a good thing about typicallyfinancial advisor type of
referrals, you're not probablydealing with someone who's broke
and, you know, for 80 credit scoreand all that kind of stuff, you're
probably dealing with someone thathas, you know, some decent money
and all that kind of, which isagain, why I think they are
(24:24):
underserved.
But I think again, because they
are a little more sophisticated,the average loan officers,
probably a little less apt to havethat conversation because they're
worried, like, how do I have thisconversation with them?
What do I say to them?What do I pitch them?
Like, what's the thing of valuethat I give them?
So I love that you're doing that,man.
I wanted to talk because I knowthat you're a big surfer.
So for anybody who is listening,Taylor works.
I mean, he works a but lot, healso gets to play a lot so talk a
(24:47):
little about how you've structuredyour team so that you're able to
take these vacations i know you gosurfing you gallivant around the
world maybe bliss i livevicariously but yeah i'm gonna
talk about that yeah absolutelysomeone What do just kind of give
a rundown of what i was able to dolast year while still bringing a
bunch of people on the team andgrowing my personal production by
5% last year.
I did surf trips to Florida,
Mexico, Costa Rica, Portugal,Spain, and I feel like there's one
(25:07):
country that I'm missing.
So we travel a lot.
I think my wife and I did likeseven or eight trips last year,
and all of them were at leastfive, six days at a time.
And the way that we've been ableto do that is really focusing and
trusting our back-end operationspeople.
So I have an assistant, Rachel,she's been with me for about three
years now, jokingly call her radarbecause she picks up on everything
that the underwriters would hate,and she just kind of makes it
disappear and makes it superclean.
(25:28):
And so for her and the other opsteam that we have, I mean, other
people on the ops team that wehave, we've just kind of set
non-negotiables.
Like they know what my role is as
a loan officer, that I'm going totake a clean 1003.
I'm going to get a couple of upfront just so I know when I run
AUS and the pre-approval, it'stight.
After that, and it goes in thecontract, it's all Rachel.
It's all processing.
It's everybody else.
If I need to step in, I will, butI don't have to.
(25:48):
With that being the case, I wentfrom working 80 plus hours a week
doing the volume I was doing todoing more volume.
I think I'm averaging maybe 35.
It's probably closer to 30.
And it's just the way that we'vereally structured our team,
knowing that it's going to suckthe first like two or three months
of you saying, I'm not doing thisanymore.
These are my roles.
This is what my team's going to
do.
And it's going to be some growing
pains.
And we've had to hire and fire to
(26:10):
find people to fit.
But every LO that I've hired
recently is doing more productionthan they've done in a very long
time.
They're working less hours.
And the hardest part for them,they said, is letting my And as
soon as they decided to let go, Idon't care if they do more volume
or not.
They're not working nearly as
much.
They're spending time with their
family and they're way happier.
At the end of the day, as a
manager and as somebody that has afamily myself, that's all I care
(26:30):
about at the end of the day.
The money and the clients will
take care of themselves, but thefamily is the most important
thing.
that's Yeah, all I care about at
the end of the the money day, andthe clients will take care of
themselves, but the family's mostimportant soon as Yeah, 100%.
And I think the industry as awhole, and that's not just the
mortgage industry.
I mean, any sort of
entrepreneurial sort of placewhere you can make good money.
There's sort of this hustlementality around, oh, you got to
(26:51):
hustle, hustle, hustle.
And I mean, there's even this one
particular person that loves tovirtue signal about how much
business they do.
And they do great business, but
it's like, it's them and like anassistant or two.
And it's like, cool.
So you're working a hundred hour
weeks and you want to poopoo onanybody else that has teams that
maybe, yeah, maybe their marginsare less, maybe they're making
less per loan, but enjoying theirlife.
Right.
Like who cares how many people are
on the team if they're profitableand they're having a good life.
(27:13):
I mean, you know, again, peoplelike to say, I did Oh, a hundred
million by myself.
a good I life.
you mean, know, again, people liketo say, I did oh, 100 million by
myself.
Yeah.
Well, I don't care.
And it's one of those things, too,
that, you know, you see a lot inthis industry.
I assume, you know, really anyhigh income earning industries
that so many people push you tohustle for the sake of hustling
and not being as dedicated withyour time.
But, you know, I've definitelyheard from multiple mentors.
(27:34):
That's cool and all until yousacrifice the family portion and
get a divorce.
And now you have to make double
because you're giving up 50percent.
Right.
When you could have just taken the
time to focus on your family andmake sure, you know, your work
still moves when it needs to move.
But you don't need to hustle for
the sake of hustling.
You just need to be dedicated with
your time.
up 50 percent.
Yeah.
Well, and that's the other thing,
(27:55):
too, is people think that, youknow, hey, I'm going to get more
done in 12 hours than I do ineight.
And the truth is, most likelyyou're getting the same amount of
work done because you're noteffective for four to six for
pretty wild.
But, you know, I think it's
important for anybody who'slistening to this and maybe you're
getting started or maybe you arealready successful in
understanding that like, there's away to do this without having to
sacrifice that.
And I mean, I've even seen it for
myself.
(28:15):
I mean, in 2020, I was like, I'm
doing this for you.
I'm doing this for you.
And she's like, you haven't evenbeen here for two years.
So like, Oh, that hurts.
Right.
And it's like, you see that a lotin this industry.
And it's like, I'm doing this fromfamily, we're gonna do this, you
know, and then next thing youknow, their kids are 18 years old,
they're like, you just grindedthrough their whole childhood.
And now they're 18.
You're never gonna see them again.
And that's the thing with thisindustry is we have to wear a
million different hats, we have toknow the processor job, closure
job, underwriter job, andhopefully, it a little bit better
than they do because we have tofix things all the time.
(28:37):
But you need to be able to justgive up the reins a little bit.
You need to be able to put peoplein place that if they can do it
like 70 to 80 percent as good asyou can, like just send it.
And if you are new, you know, thisis what I did when I started when
I was doing two, three deals amonth.
But you as you me and another LOin my branch that were doing two,
three deals a month.
We pulled our resources and had a
(28:58):
team LOA.
You may not be able to afford one
yourself, but there might bepeople in your branch willing to
split it with you until you startgrowing your volume.
But the biggest thing is you justhave to get out there and sell.
Make sure you're doing the activeprospecting.
And as long as you're doing that,the operations stuff will take
care of it.
You don't get paid to do the
processing or the closing.
You get paid to do sales and
Right, right.
Well, you know, the concept that
people always say, well, no onecan do it as good as me, right?
Oh, I'm the best at this.
(29:20):
The amount of people that I've
heard say that I'm like, dude,there's got to be someone that is
actually the best and everybodyelse is a liar, you know, or they
got overinflated self-worth orwhatever.
But I get it.
Like, you know, I dealt with the
same thing is like to a certainextent of control freaks.
And then it's hard to give upcontrol because one, you think I
can do better, but two, you think,and if they mess up or whatever?
Like, it's also hard to give it upbecause you have to work a lot to
(29:42):
replace that.
Right.
It's like, do you take thetemporary pain of bringing someone
on, training them up, goingthrough the whole process of maybe
having to fire them, stuff likethat?
Or do you continue to grindyourself?
Yeah, sure, you're going to get itdone.
You're going to get it done in aquicker time.
But now all of a sudden you'redoing this across hundreds of
transactions, thousands oftransactions.
And now the time that would havetaken you to train someone up is
much larger because you've takenall this time to just do it
(30:02):
yourself.
And I love what you're doing with
the team.
If you were to get started today,
man, what is like one or twothings that you would go out there
today in this market and go getYeah, I had to start from scratch
with no book of business, thebiggest thing that I would do is
trying to one leverage any kind ofrelationships that I already have.
So whether it's social media orjust friends or family that I'm
close, if they have bought ahouse, ask them who they use.
If they had a loan officer, askthem who they use.
Cause maybe that loan officer, notevery loan officer is going to be
(30:24):
a pain to try and help you out.
Some of them will give, give,
give.
I've gotten way more from LOs that
I've never worked with, butthey've just been good people than
I have from some managers thatI've had.
Having them recommend the realestate agents, that's an easy way
for you to get a meeting.
Hey, I was talking to a good
friend of mine from college.
She said, you're an amazing real
estate agent.
I just got into the industry.
Can I pick your brain on what hasmade you successful?
Things like trying to makewhatever you can as warm as
(30:44):
possible.
that, And if you're in any kind of
leverage that.
communities, Like for like you me,
I surf.
said, So anyone that I know
through the surfing I've leveragedthat.
community, I also wrestled in highschool and leveraged that.
college, And then I also competein jujitsu currently.
So I have different areas of mylife outside of work that I still
get loans from.
So if there's something that
you're actively doing, or youknow, your kids play t ball or
whatever it is, like, that'ssomething that gives you a chance
(31:04):
to be around other people toleverage, you don't have to do
what I did and call 150 realestate agents to try and meet with
you to see they can give youturndowns.
Because I mean, right now, a lotof companies are approving a lot
of things they normally wouldn'tbecause volume's down with people.
Just find a couple good people totry and make those warm
introductions for you.
And it's going to take time.
But if you stay on top of meetingwith those people, following up,
someone's going to drop the ballat some point and give you a shot.
(31:25):
Yeah, that's what it is, man.
And I don't know if you know Alex
Ramosi, but Alex Ramosi alwaystalks about a lot of it comes down
to effort, right?Like sometimes you think that you
need to like two or three X youreffort and you may have to a
hundred extra effort, right?Maybe you got to do what Taylor
does 150.
Maybe you got to have, you know,
20 conversations a day, whateverit takes, right?
Like it doesn't matter.
(31:45):
The market's going to tell you
what to do.
But I will say is this as a
marketing person, I don'trecommend if you're brand new to
the industry, don't buy leads.
And I know that's weird for a
marketing person to say, don't buyleads probably the first year or
two.
It's a different ball game.
It takes a whole lot of adifferent style of sales.
You just go grind it out.
I mean, people come to me all the
time and they're brand new andthey're like, Hey, should I buy
leads?I'm like, no, don't buy leads.
(32:05):
The unfortunate thing is whenyou're first getting started, part
of it is a grind.
You're just going to have to grind
it out because one, you probablysuck at doing think Yeah.
Like figure out how to do loansfirst, figure out the fundamentals
of being a good loan officerbefore you've spent a bunch of
money on things that may or maynot work.
But I think that's huge, what youtalked about.
Like leverage your network anddon't make it weird.
Like don't be like super salesy.
(32:26):
Like I think a lot of times people
are worried about doing thatbecause like they don't want to be
that MLM, the person that you hadin high school that are trying to
pitch you on their newest MLM.
Like, oh yeah, you want to go have
lunch?I'm like, dude, I haven't talked
to you in six years.
What are you hitting me up about
lunch for?Oh, of course, you're going to
pitch me on, you know, whateverthe next thing is.
in final thoughts before we sortof check out here?
I mean, not really.
(32:48):
I think this year is going to be a
really good year for a lot ofpeople if they keep their head
down and just keep grinding.
I know we've got some big goals as
a team from a recruitingstandpoint and a volume
standpoint, but our motto in theoffice is doing more in 24.
So I hope everyone has a goodyear.
And anyone ever has questions, I'malways available.
I'm happy to help I possibly can.
Awesome, man.
Well, and just to kind of shoutthat out, if someone wanted to
reach out to you, connect withyou, what's the best way to find
(33:11):
you?Yeah, so the easiest way is
probably finding me on Facebook.
So it's Taylor Briggs.
You'll see me.
There's a picture of a beer in my
hand and surfboard at the airportin Cabo San Lucas.
Or you can find me on Instagram atGBRIG005.
Awesome, man.
so much for your time, man.
My big takeaways from this, whichis pretty cool, is you can get a
lot of referrals from your pastclients.
Work your past clients.
I know I bring up this stat a lot
with MonitorBase, but it just kindof blew me away when I had that
(33:33):
interview with William LeBaron.
It was like 19% and someone was
like, I actually thought it waslower.
That still blows my mind.
Cause I'm like, man, you're
missing out on so manytransactions, not even including
referrals, like what you're ableto pull.
It's like, you're just missing outon their transactions of people
that you've already done businesswith.
And instead of that, what do theycall it?
They step in over a dollar to pickup pennies, right?
Like so many people get so stuckon this sort of mentality of like,
I need to go get business that'sfor today.
And while yes, that's important,you do need business today in
(33:55):
order to get off the treadmill,the hamster wheel of, you know,
doing two, three loans and thenfalling off and not doing a loan
for a month and then kind ofprospecting again, like you have
to consistently prospect over anextended period of time.
And one of my favorite books,fanatical Prospecting talks about
the 30 day rule.
And so what I like about what
you've done is you basicallyimplemented that in your business.
Like, Hey, I'm consistently goingto do the actions eight hours a
week.
And it's funny is that's about the
number that I tell people.
I'm like, if you can just spend
(34:15):
two hours per day prospecting,you're going to be better than 95%
of salespeople out there.
This applies to any industry,
right?if you're getting started, Really,
you should be spending eight hoursa day prospecting.
But if you can at least spend twohours a day, you're going to be
better than just about everysalesperson out there.
So thank you so much for your timetoday.
man, It has been a huge man.
huge, pleasure, What a great
episode.
I love what you're doing, man.
Reach out to Taylor.
Good you can tell he's a guy.
(34:35):
Obviously, So if you I love whatsurfer.
you're episode.
Reach out to Good doing, guy.
man.
Taylor.
you can tell he's Obviously, asurfer.
So if you you'll surf, hit him upright?
too, See how he's doing.
I'm always down for a surf trip,
so.
Man, he's, I mean, he goes on
seven, eight trips a year, man.
I have four kids, so I don't know
that I can of eight trips.
probably in El Salvador in
February for a Yeah, man, that'sso much fun.
So thank you so much for your timetoday, man.
And for anybody who is listeningto this and is, you know is
(34:56):
looking for ways to flip thestatus quo on real estate agents,
go to flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for listening
and have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
Loans On Demand podcast onloansondemandpodcast.com.
podcast, the show where we flipthe real estate status quo on its
head and put loan officers intothe driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,strategies, resources, and mindset
needed to modernize your mortgagebusiness and thrive.
My name is Luke Shankula, akaLongform Luke, and this is the
Loans On Demand podcast.
going on?
Welcome to the Loans On DemandPodcast, the show where we help
(00:25):
loan officers flip the status quoon real estate agents, put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And we're going to have a good one
today.
My good friend, Taylor Briggs over
at People's Mortgage.
She's the vice president over
there and he runs a team.
I think it's the Briggs team.
So welcome to the show, man.
Excited.
We've been friends on socialmedia, I think for a couple of
years now and just kind of seeingthe evolution and the growth over
the years.
And, you know, I know you're doing
(00:46):
some big things.
So excited to have you on, man.
Welcome to the so much.
I appreciate you having me.
I'm looking forward to it.
man.
So let's get a little backgroundon who you are.
Obviously, I gave you the littlespiel, but, you know, kind of walk
us through who you are, what kindof got you into the industry?
What's that all looking like rightnow in terms of your business?
sure.
So I've been in the industry about
10 years total in variouscapacities, started my career in
operations, working in thefinance, like back of the house,
(01:07):
dealing with airlines kind ofstuff, moved over into the lock
desk for a couple of years and hada bunch of LOs asking us if we
could beat other companies andwith sure we were profitable.
And I slowly realized they weremaking more in a month or two than
I made in a whole year.
So I've been dealing with that for
a couple of years.
I realized I just wanted to move
to sales.
Worst case scenario, I can always
(01:27):
go back to the lock desk.
Moved into sales and been
originating since then.
And each year I've grown my
pipeline or my closed business byat least 5% regardless of market
conditions.
So it's been fun.
I really enjoy it.
I'm glad I took the leap.
man.
Well, that's crazy because locked
desk, secondary market type stuff,let's just call it nerdy work,
right?I mean, I guess so as being a loan
officer to a certain extent, butusually the people that are sort
(01:48):
of like good at the details, thatwould be someone that would be
good at something like a lockeddesk and secondary market type
stuff is going to be thatdetail-oriented person that's
maybe not going to be so good atsales.
So the fact that you were able totransition from a operations role
to a sales role and actually excelis a testament to the fact that
you're one of the unicorns outthere that can kind of do both
well.
And one thing that I talk about a
lot with some of my buddies thatare loan officers is like, being a
(02:09):
loan officer is a pretty uniquerole because you really have to be
good at two things that generallydon't come in the same person.
Be good at sales and marketing,which is generally the person
that's less detail oriented, stufflike that.
And then you also have to be goodat like structuring loans and the
details of getting a loan closed.
So like, tell me a little bit
about how do you sort of combineboth of those into like a coherent
business?Because, you know, again, I mean,
I don't think most people can kindof do that.
And why most people kind of go dothese ups and downs, they'll
(02:31):
prospect and they'll kind of falloff.
So how have you set your businessup for that success and growth
over those Yeah.
So, you know, definitely over
time, I dealt with the same thingmost loan officers deal with where
you'll have one or two really goodmonths and then something happens
with that pipeline where you'rejust, you know, micromanaging and
focusing on that.
And then the next couple of months
suck because the last 60, 90 daysof activity really predict what's
going to happen in the next monthor two.
So for me, the biggest thing thatI focused on was time blocking
(02:54):
that no matter what happened, if afile was completely going sideways
or somebody called off and I hadto hop in, I still made sure every
day, at least Monday throughThursday, I blocked out two to
three hours of green time orprospecting time to where I had a
theme each day that I wasprospecting.
So no matter what I knew at theend of every week, I had at least
eight to 10 hours of prospecting.
And I know a lot of loan officers
(03:14):
weren't doing that.
So last year when the market, you
know, the average LO was down 40to 50%, I was actually up 6.2%
over the year before.
And a lot of the team is having
success doing kind of the samethings as well.
So really just trying to puttogether, you know, a foundation
and a game plan to where no matterwhat happens, you can kind of fall
back on that.
And then just making sure that
those agents that I do work with,that it's more of a partnership
(03:37):
versus just, hey, the me deals.
It's transactions.
I really try and pour into them orhelp them work their database
because that's a majority of mybusiness is past time referral.
So it's not even agents that sendme a lion's share of what close.
Man, that's pretty impressive.
So I want to get into some of
those details, kind of skip pastthe part that I normally get
through, which is, you know, talkabout the journey a little bit,
right?I mean, you said you grew, but
(03:58):
it's hard, right?I mean, you know, I think getting
into it is hard.
Like, what did that journey look
like from the beginning, you know,where there's some hard times that
you had to go through to sort of,you know, learn the lessons?
Was it kind of smooth sailing?I mean, you know, I've heard of a
few unicorns that kind of hadsmooth sailing, but I feel like
most people that have accomplishedanything have had some pitfalls
along the way.
And especially in markets like we
just haven't been through,sometimes it's good to hear the
struggles and the hard stories.
(04:18):
So kind of walk through that and
then we can kind of get back tothe structures and stuff like that
of been day.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I was very fortunate.
The very first company that I
worked for in the marketplace thatI'm in, they were more flexible on
some underwriting guidelines andcredit scores than some of the
other local lenders.
So like my first two years in the
business, I went to any agent thatwould talk to me and really just
kind of asked for their turndown.
So I think, you know, my first two
years, I probably closed betweenthe two, 110, 120 loans total
(04:40):
across the two.
I think the average credit score
that I did was a 600, a 602.
So it was everyone probably filled
the files that nobody wanted.
But when I did close those, it
built that foundation that if Ican do this really well, imagine
what I can do on the cookie cutterloans that everybody I think
probably able to use that to kindof leverage new relationships.
Or even if I didn't pick up brandnew agents that were new to me, it
(05:01):
was still in their office that,hey, Taylor can get this done.
If he can't get it done, no oneelse can.
And then as I built thatrelationship with those agents, I
had more of a bargaining chip oflike, hey, kind of stop sending me
the garbage.
I'll still do it.
But let's see if we can dosomething else with some of these
loans you're sending other places.
(05:21):
And then use that to kind of build
my business from there.
And now I was looking last year
with all the loans I closed, myaverage credit score was like a
730.
So over time, it's definitely
gotten better.
Loan amounts have increased
because of inflation, but itwasn't smooth sailing.
Jokes that I got about 20 years ofexperience in the first two years
because pre-loan, I was like thefifth lender they talked to.
My background in lock desks andthe operations side, I think
really helped me understand theguidelines and profitability of
(05:41):
loans.
So that way, when I had to go to
management for something, Ialready had everything figured out
and I could just send it to them.
Here's why I think we should do
it.
And 90% of the time they'd sign
off.
Nice.
That's cool, man.
And what's interesting, something
that I've learned in doing a lotof these podcasts, I mean, I think
there's going to be episode maybe1, 12, 13, 14, somewhere around
there.
So I've done a lot of episodes and
(06:02):
a pretty interesting, I guess,similarity between most of these
people that I have on the show,people that are producing at a
high level is they started outkind of doing something hard,
right?Whether it be consumer direct sort
of like call center, whether itbe, you know, what you just talked
about, which is, Hey, I took allthe turndowns, man, I took the
crap.
You know, you probably had to work
twice as hard to close the sameamount of loans because every
single loan was probably just hadto babysit across the line.
(06:24):
You had to look at every scenario.
You had to fight underwriters, all
that kind of stuff.
And so it's interesting to see the
people that seem to have successin any market and even markets
that are hard.
It's like, because they started
when it was hard, they're like,yeah, it's just kind of normal for
me.
Versus the people that maybe
started in 2020 or 21 are probablygetting their butt kicked because
they're like, they started when itwas easy.
They never had to do the hardstuff, right?
They did just a bunch of refis,closed a bunch of deals.
(06:46):
This is pretty interesting to seea pretty common thread across most
of the people that are sort ofachieving at a high level.
They started in the trenches andthe hard stuff.
And honestly wasn't even reallyout of design.
It was just something as I startedtaking a bunch of meetings with
the agents that would sit downwith me, like one of the first
questions they would ask is what'sthe lowest credit score that you
can do or like what are yourprograms?
So I figured, you know, at leastfor the first year or two, I was
getting my feet wet.
(07:06):
I should lead with that.
And then as I build that book ofbusiness, I don't have to leave
that nearly as much.
But like last month, I closed
probably three deals that werebelow 620.
But that's still not my major bookof business, but it's still there.
It brings me a couple deals everymonth with agents that, you know,
I've been working with for fiveyears at you know, yeah, that's
impressive.
And so one thing that I'll say is
that, you know, so many timespeople think that those down
(07:27):
payment assistance deals or thoselower credit scores are like, Oh,
well, you know, if you take those,those are the only things are
going to send you right, that'skind of like the perceived thing
from that.
Talk me through how did you shift
out of only being the guy that gotthe turndowns and became the guy
that got the 730s and the A paperand stuff like that?
Because most loan officers, theywant those A paper.
But the truth is, everybody can dothose A paper loans.
Like it doesn't make you anydifferent.
(07:48):
If you could do those, anybody cando them and they can do them
quickly.
They can close on time, they're
going to get everything donebecause those are easy.
Yeah.
So it's one of those things that I
was very fortunate when I started.
I had a mentor that I knew that
had been in the industry a verylong time and said, regardless of
marketing conditions, there'salways a subset of the community
that no matter what happens isgoing to buy.
And that can be military, which isa big book of my business because
(08:09):
we're constantly moving becausethey get new orders, divorces,
things like that.
Her, she did a bunch of mobile
homes.
She called herself the queen of
wheel estate.
So that was something that she did
a ton of.
But it's something that, for me, I
found because I focus so heavilyon the client experience, not all
of their friends had bad credit orno money.
That may have just been them.
They were in a tough spot, maybe
(08:30):
they were going through a divorce,or something that impacted them.
So as I did a good job on theirloan and asked for referrals, I
started getting referrals forbetter clients, and I was able to
give that back to the agent.
So I ended up being a loan officer
that not only was doing deals thatother people couldn't do, I was
also a loan officer that wasgiving back good amount of
business to agents that didn'thave representation.
So, I mean, this year alone, Imean, it's for February 2nd, and
(08:50):
I've already given back six dealsto my agents already this year.
And last year, I think I gave back22.
And as a team, I think we gaveback 46 when I looked at it.
So like our team actively worksthose referrals.
So for me, finding thoserelationships, pulling referrals
and leveraging them with newpartners, but also knowing that
because they've probably heard nomultiple times, they're probably
going to be the biggest advocatefor you if you can get that deal.
And so for me, everybody wants theA paper, but you might not be in
(09:14):
an area where there's a lot of Apaper That's another thing.
People live in places likeGeorgia, New Orleans or places
like that.
And there's like, I think 11 or 12
States that like 40% of thepopulation is considered subprime.
Right.
And so you're like, okay, so you
want the eight paper stuff, butyou realize you live in a market
where there's maybe 60% that arefalling into the bucket.
And of course, then they have tobe a percentage of those that are
(09:36):
actually are actively into so yougot to understand some of these
people need credit repair.
Some of these people, you got to
think about it from a long-termperspective.
So I love the fact that, you know,you work with those people because
a lot of people are like, nah, Idon't want it.
They're not ready to buy now.
They're not ready to buy in the
next 90 days.
Like, man, they're tire kickers.
And I'm like, you're always goingto be spinning your wheel because
(09:58):
you're not building a pipeline forthe future, right?
Like, I mean, I think most of thetop producers, they know there's
people out there that are going tobe 12 months out, right?
There's going to be people thatare six months out.
There's going to be people thatare 18 months out.
Just keep jumping them, callingthem, following up with them.
And I know you said a lot of yourbusiness comes from past clients.
You're able to give back to youragents, man.
That's the whole point of thispodcast is helping loan officers
(10:19):
with the status quo.
Our whole business is around
generating leads and helping themget in front of consumers so they
can give those back to real estateagents.
So that's a freaking awesome pointof leverage.
How are you doing that six thisyear already?
So it sounds like you're going toblow 22 out of water this year.
For me, I mean, I think thebiggest thing that we do a really
good job is asking referrals andmaking sure that our process
regardless of the product that weget.
So it doesn't matter if it's a 580credit score VA loan or an 800
credit score jumbo doesn't matterwhat it is.
We have everything done the sameway every time.
(10:39):
So my assistant is trained to askfor referrals and kind of gauge
the clients, you know, with howthat's going.
Same thing with real estateagents, trying to get feedback.
So if there's things that we canimplement and adapt, that we do
that.
So for us, it's constantly making
sure that we stay in touch withthem.
So for me personally, everyTuesday, I do an update to all
parties involved in thetransaction.
And at the end of that, we kind ofjokingly ask for referrals to see
if they know anybody and we'lljoke with them and be like, hey, I
know you're probably sick of measking, but we just want to make
(11:02):
sure that, you know, we workappointment only, referral only,
past clients are our bread andbutter, you know, who gives us
business.
And for our agents too, the
company I work for is able to dobusiness in 39 states.
I think maybe now because we'veonboarded some more branches.
But with that, I do about fivestates myself.
But because we have a companyprogram to where I can put it with
the back of the house to do it, Ican do technically 40 states.
(11:22):
So my agents, when we havesomebody relocating somewhere, I
always try and get thempre-approved because then I can
help them control the referral feeprocess because I hear all the
time from agents.
Oh, I sent them to so-and-so in
Kansas.
I didn't even know they closed.
I never heard anything.
And I lost out on my 20%, 25%
referral fee, whatever it is.
We try and control that entire
process for the agents.
So even though we're not actively
working with them, we're stillworking for them because our
(11:44):
biggest thing is other than clientsatisfaction, we want to help the
agents make more money and savetime while doing it.
And if we can do all three ofthose things between the client
satisfaction and those two thingsfor the agent, we have found that
gives us quite a bit of dealsback, especially on the past
client side of things.
all that's brilliant, man.
I talk about this all the time.
It's like, let's be honest, real
estate agents want one of twothings.
They want more time or they wantmore money.
(12:05):
And so many people are like, ohyeah, I close on time and I answer
my phone and I, you know,whatever, I got good rates.
It's like, the truth is like, thatshould be standard.
Like that should not be your valueproposition.
That should be the standard.
And so I love that you're doing a
lot more than that, you know, oneto give back to your agents, but
also to help control thatsituation.
And I brought this up a lot on thepodcast lately, because I feel
(12:28):
like retention is one of the worstparts of this industry is that,
you know, according toMonitorbase, the average loan
officer is retaining about 19%,right?
So 81% of the people that theywork with are going and working
with another loan officer in thefuture.
How are you managing that?Do you have like a cadence?
Are you working with anysoftwares?
Like what does that sort of looklike in terms of making sure that
you're staying in front of yourpast clients regularly?
Ultimately, I mean, you'reprobably in this industry another
(12:48):
10, 20, 30 years, right?So it's like, that's a lot of
transactions that if you don'tfollow up with them, you're gonna
lose out on.
absolutely.
So the way that I manage and myteam, I kind of have them manage
it same way.
But what has really worked for me
is, like I said, this Tuesdayupdates during the transaction are
huge.
After they close within seven
days, they get thank you cards,they get follow-ups from me.
I make sure the move wentsmoothly.
Do they need any vendors of anytype?
Was there repairs that needed tobe done?
(13:10):
Did the movers back out lastsecond?
I try and give them a lot morethan I get from them within the
first two weeks after closing.
I have it set up to where I call
them about 30 days in becausetypically their first payment
letter has gone out.
And then after that, it's usually
about once a quarter.
I'm big on client appreciation
events because I am so past clientheavy for referrals.
So I do appreciation events aboutonce a quarter as well some of
those individually just with allof my clients that are in the area
(13:31):
and then if I have an agent whoI've done ideally about six to
eight deals with we'll do one withthem especially if it's recent we
try and do something fun for thembut I have one agent that we've
been doing one once a quarter andwe normally have 30 40 people come
in nice breweries will go to thegun range, all those kind of
things.
So I think doing things like that
to stay in front of those pastclients and having it set up to
where I have alerts in my systemthrough my CRM.
I have it set up that homeanniversaries, birthdays, things
(13:52):
like that automatically go out.
Then obviously like social media,
I keep tabs on that.
So if I see some major life event,
I always make sure I reach outlike they had a kid or something
like that.
And a lot of them, you know,
forget about you.
I mean, I have people I went to
high school and college with thatI've known damn near 20 years that
will message me because I postedsome video.
Hey, I forgot you did this.
Can you take a look at this?
(14:14):
I was like, dude, I've beenposting stuff five times a week
for the last five years.
I'm happy to take a look.
And a lot of times I end upworking with them.
But it's one of those things thathave to stay top of mind or I'm
pretty sure that business is goingto change.
I Yeah, that makes sense, man.
And I actually have a YouTube
video dropping on Monday this nextweek that talks about that.
(14:36):
Like add your past clients onsocial media because like what's a
better way for them to stay intouch with you and you stay in
touch with them, you know, versuslike calling them and being kind
of awkward and like, hey, what'sgoing on?
I'm your loan officer.
How's it going?
Like, you know, it's like, that'salmost more awkward than just
being able to follow them onsocial media, like a couple of
their posts here and there and,you know, and congratulate them.
And then you can call them for areason, right?
(14:56):
Same thing with realtors, right?You can do the same thing with
realtors.
Look at their posts.
All of a sudden, it's not a coldcall.
It's a warm call because like, Heyman, I just saw that post was
freaking sick.
Like, I really love what you're
doing with the content that you'reputting out there.
Super easy, super warm, such avaluable thing, man.
One of the I think really helpedme last year is I hired a coach
and got in a coaching group ofsome really high producing people.
(15:17):
But one of the biggest things thatthey preach is being owned before
being known.
So social things like that.
And I thought honestly it was acrock of shit, but I figured I'd
give it a try.
And it's been huge.
Just doing these staying constanton social the amount of deals that
are starting to come in ormeetings from agents when I reach
out.
videos, media, Like you it's not
cold at all.
said, It's much more warm.
They're much more receptive.
So like you adding the past
clients said, is huge.
Staying in front of agents on
(15:38):
social is huge.
And agents love to complain about
when things don't go well.
You'll see them complain about
title companies, insurance, youknow, contractors, or even lenders
on there.
And that's a good time for you to
step in with, you know, vendorrecommendations, or you just pop
in with, you know, this is what wedo differently in that situation.
Social It is, man.
And, you know, I think people look
at social in a way it's like theshort term thing.
And it's not like this is a longgame, right?
It's going to be 6 months or moreof consistency before you start to
see the returns.
(15:58):
And I pretty much built my whole
entire marketing agency off ofsocial media.
Before I started doing any paidads, I pretty much grew entirely
organically.
Just posting results, mostly as
being myself and then partiallyposting results of our clients and
things like that.
And I probably generated millions
of dollars over the last 5 yearsin just organic social media, not
including the you know, the paidstuff, but it's hugely valuable.
And that's if you're consistentover an extended period of time.
So loan officers, I'm seeing a lotof loan officers do that too.
And, you know, there's sort of theold brigade of the, you know, even
(16:22):
the core and stuff like that,what's his name actually just got
on social media the other day.
I saw that he got on social media,
but it's kind of funny because alot of those guys will be like,
ah, yeah, all these guys are onsocial media, not doing any deals.
And I'm like, well, how many ofthese guys that aren't on social
media and are cold calling aren'tgetting any deals too?
Like, I mean, come on, dude.
(16:43):
Like, you know, yeah, there's some
people that are doing great, butthere's also a lot of people that
are using YouTube channels.
You know, it doesn't have to be
the short TikToks, right?And dancing around like everybody
thinks you're doing, right?It's like, how are you providing
value to your audience in a waythat is relevant to where we're
at, right?I mean, this is a modern society,
right?Like people don't want to freaking
have a phone call.
They want to text.
No, call.
They want to text.
No, that's something too.
Like so easy to say top of mind,
(17:03):
if you're actively, you know, takean application and having success.
I just keep a notepad in myclients that ask me questions
during the week that I seem to bea recurring question.
I'll do a video about it, make itlike a minute long, do a video,
put it on social media.
And those get a lot of good
feedback.
It doesn't have to be super
complicated.
You just have to be consistent.
(17:24):
Yeah, man, that's awesome.
Going back to your events, talk to
me about that.
Are you just strictly like going
to have fun?Are you kind of having a pitch at
any point?Or they're just purely like, hey,
come have fun.
We're Yeah, absolutely.
So it depends on the event we aredoing.
So I'll do leveraged events.
So lunch and learns, things like
that with agents.
But if it's just past clients,
because we do so many VA loans asa team, I found that it's a little
bit of a pitch because obviouslyyou'll talk to all of them and
things like that.
We have a lot of military clients
that want to use their VA to builda rental portfolio.
(17:46):
So I feel like every time I havean event, I'm having like five or
six different conversations ofremaining entitlement.
Can they buy again?How long do they have to wait?
Cash flow, you know, things likethat.
time So it's not a hard pitchwhere we stand in front and talk
to them about all these differenttopics, but we gauge the room, you
know, we follow up any things thatthey have issues with.
But we honestly, because I thinkit's so laid back and we pick a
fun environment, whether it's axethrowing, the shooting range,
(18:06):
drinking, cornhole,hole whateverit is people are way less you know
on the defensive because they'rejust by families so they have
their kids whatever it is and itgoes really well we usually pull a
couple referrals and then we'll dolike a little raffle or something
so that way if anything's changedemail wise or whatever we can stay
up to date with that and then wecan you know give us a reason to
follow up with everybody forentering the raffle and all that
fun stuff thank you man.
That's awesome, dude.
Obviously, that's an expense.
But at the same time, like, you
know, clearly it's worth theinvestment.
(18:27):
And, you know, thinking about thatfrom the perspective, like, yeah,
you're going to have to spend somemoney to make some money.
And now you've built a team.
I mean, you were solo as of 2020,
I think you said.
Yeah, so I've solo up until last
year.
Started with two of us and then it
was four of us.
And now since I switched over to a
new company in August, we've hitthe ground running.
(18:47):
It was just two people, myself andone other person when we started.
And now we're seven LOs that we'vebrought on here personally total.
And we've got a couple more thatwe met with this week that I think
will probably come on.
So my goal for 2024 is to be a
$100 million a year team, which ifeveryone hits their numbers, we're
going to be right at it or alittle bit over it.
nice.
Nice.
Well, that's if there's not a bigrefi boom here in the next.
(19:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's cool, man.
That's what's fun is, you know,Amir probably he talks about that
refis are the bonus, right?Yeah.
You know, purchases are yoursalary and refis are the bonus.
And so that's a cool sort of wayto look at it is, hey, you know
what?Never be too good for refis.
I saw it during the 2020 and 21markets.
Yeah.
Some people love the virtue signal
about, I was still 90% purchase.
So that means you're missing out
(19:28):
on 50% of the business that youshould have been doing because you
were too proud to freaking do therefis.
Or you were so priced out of themarket that you couldn't do the
refis.
I mean, who knows?
But I think that's wild, man.
From the perspective of social,
what do you find to be yourbiggest driver of new deals?
Talking about past clients mostly,what's the biggest driver you
think of that?I So the past client, I think it's
the consistency and the follow-up.
So we're big on asking for
reviews, staying in touch withthem on a regular basis.
(19:50):
And from that, when they do referus people, we make sure that we
thank them.
We send them a thank you card.
And we do everything we can toknock it out of the park for that
client.
And even on the off-ch options
they don't work with us eitherthey're shopping us like crazy and
the parents phase them to gosomewhere else or the market's not
for them right now we still thankthem for their time we think
they're like we kind of lead withgratitude there but right now i
(20:11):
would say outside of past clientsi've been going after financial
advisors super heavily they aredefinitely underrepresented for
sure with how they work loanofficers.
And right now, because ofinflation, I'm finding they want a
mortgage partner that can helpthem strategically, especially if
you do reverses or any of thoseniche projects, really help them
free up some cash to put some moreassets under management for these
financial advisors.
That's been huge recently.
I've picked up a couple of those.
I've got a reverse that I put
(20:32):
under contract today.
That'll close this month as well.
So that's starting to be probablyabout 15% of my business and the
rest is a mix of social media andreal estate agents.
to man.
So you're doing the heck up for
purchase for that?Yeah.
Oh, nice, man.
That's pretty cool.
I mean, with that product,obviously, it feels like it's a
smaller percentage of the reverseproduct as those purchase.
And a lot of people don't evenknow those exist.
I used to be an AE for reversemortgage company.
So I have a pretty good backgroundin reverses and the fact that loan
(20:53):
officers are unaware of theproduct or they have the negative
connotations around the product.
To me, that's like, are you even a
professional?If like you like, Oh yeah,
reverses are a scam.
You're like, do you know anything
about the reverse?I saw a guy that like commented on
someone's post saying, Oh yeah,like your reverses are predatory.
I was like, how many reverses doyou close a year?
It didn't respond.
You're wrong, bro.
You don't understand.
(21:14):
The amount of people that I saw,
it changed their life.
It changed their life.
And yet we're going to say it'spredatory because, oh cool, the
rates are whatever.
Dude, you can give this away to
your kids or you can live out therest of your life in relative
comfort.
If The one we have right now it's
a rather large house and she has abunch of money from a life
insurance from her i guess widowedhusband or she's a widow and she
just doesn't want a mortgagepayment and she'd get pretty run
(21:35):
out of an annuity and all thatstuff so doing the reverse she is
not going to have a mortgagepayment she's gonna get a monthly
annuity every month to helpsupplement her retirement and she
still has all these other thingsinvested with a financial advisor.
She just wanted to make sure shedidn't have to worry about ever
having to pay a mortgage payment.
(21:56):
She got sick and bills started up.
Sure.
Yeah, man, that's huge.
And I know that a lot of peopletalk about, you know, going to
financial planners and advisorsfor the reverse mortgage
referrals.
Like how do you approach that
conversation?Or do you sort of approach it from
a different angle?And then, hey, by the way, I also
do reverses.
Because obviously, again, even in
that financial advisor space,there's that negativity around the
reverse mortgage product as well.
How do you sort of approach those
(22:17):
financial advisors from thatperspective?
as absolutely.
So I mean, with any vendor that I
try and recommend, so like I havefinancial advisors to recommend
estate planning, attorneys,contractors, whatever it is.
So typically, what I do is if Ifind out it's a financial advisor
that I think would fit some of theclients that I have always asked
her to take a new referrals and99% of the time they say yes.
So that usually gets my foot inthe door.
And I learned a little bit moreabout their process, which is
obviously any kind of sales callthat you do.
(22:39):
But as I've met with morefinancial advisors, I found a lot
of them just sell insurance.
Like they say they're financial
advisors, but they're but they'reselling whole life insurance or
Right.
Right.
Term, all that stuff.
Yeah, kind of use that.
Like, I don't even know if I wantto work with them yet.
Cause I'm waiting for that pitchfor them to try and have me buy
life insurance from them.
And then if that's not how it
goes, they actually have, youknow, private net worth, you know,
(23:00):
wealth clients, things like that.
I feel like they're going to kind
of match how we handle themortgage consultation on our end
because we're big on the financialliteracy and education force.
And that's why we are so pastclient heavy.
I don't care about the number oftransactions.
I want to just make sure theclients have a good experience
because if that goes the way thatwe hope it does, the numbers are
going to take care of themselves.
And we want the same thing as a
(23:21):
financial advisor.
So we figure out, do they have a
fiduciary responsibility?Do they get paid as assets under
management?What is their financial advisor
fee look like?Because if we have clients, we're
sending them and they're takingone and a half percent of whatever
they have under, you know,management, they're not really
making the returns that they'rehopefully making.
We want to make sure that we havesomebody in line with what our
client's goals are.
So we kind of find that we can
(23:42):
refer, it works out.
And then on the reverse side of
things, we kind of go over ourprocess, what we have seen.
So like we do also a decent amountof asset depletion loans because
we do have financial advisors.
So I kind of just go over a couple
of things that I have seenpersonally from my clients that
have worked out that other lendersmay not have known how to do or
offer.
Like some lenders in my market
don't do reverses and just seewhat their lending relationship
(24:04):
looks like and see if we cansupplement it.
And just kind of stay in touchwith them.
It's something that I may pull oneor two deals a year from that
particular financial advisor, butthey're usually pretty solid
clients.
Right?
a good thing about typicallyfinancial advisor type of
referrals, you're not probablydealing with someone who's broke
and, you know, for 80 credit scoreand all that kind of stuff, you're
probably dealing with someone thathas, you know, some decent money
and all that kind of, which isagain, why I think they are
(24:24):
underserved.
But I think again, because they
are a little more sophisticated,the average loan officers,
probably a little less apt to havethat conversation because they're
worried, like, how do I have thisconversation with them?
What do I say to them?What do I pitch them?
Like, what's the thing of valuethat I give them?
So I love that you're doing that,man.
I wanted to talk because I knowthat you're a big surfer.
So for anybody who is listening,Taylor works.
I mean, he works a but lot, healso gets to play a lot so talk a
(24:47):
little about how you've structuredyour team so that you're able to
take these vacations i know you gosurfing you gallivant around the
world maybe bliss i livevicariously but yeah i'm gonna
talk about that yeah absolutelysomeone What do just kind of give
a rundown of what i was able to dolast year while still bringing a
bunch of people on the team andgrowing my personal production by
5% last year.
I did surf trips to Florida,
Mexico, Costa Rica, Portugal,Spain, and I feel like there's one
(25:07):
country that I'm missing.
So we travel a lot.
I think my wife and I did likeseven or eight trips last year,
and all of them were at leastfive, six days at a time.
And the way that we've been ableto do that is really focusing and
trusting our back-end operationspeople.
So I have an assistant, Rachel,she's been with me for about three
years now, jokingly call her radarbecause she picks up on everything
that the underwriters would hate,and she just kind of makes it
disappear and makes it superclean.
(25:28):
And so for her and the other opsteam that we have, I mean, other
people on the ops team that wehave, we've just kind of set
non-negotiables.
Like they know what my role is as
a loan officer, that I'm going totake a clean 1003.
I'm going to get a couple of upfront just so I know when I run
AUS and the pre-approval, it'stight.
After that, and it goes in thecontract, it's all Rachel.
It's all processing.
It's everybody else.
If I need to step in, I will, butI don't have to.
(25:48):
With that being the case, I wentfrom working 80 plus hours a week
doing the volume I was doing todoing more volume.
I think I'm averaging maybe 35.
It's probably closer to 30.
And it's just the way that we'vereally structured our team,
knowing that it's going to suckthe first like two or three months
of you saying, I'm not doing thisanymore.
These are my roles.
This is what my team's going to
do.
And it's going to be some growing
pains.
And we've had to hire and fire to
(26:10):
find people to fit.
But every LO that I've hired
recently is doing more productionthan they've done in a very long
time.
They're working less hours.
And the hardest part for them,they said, is letting my And as
soon as they decided to let go, Idon't care if they do more volume
or not.
They're not working nearly as
much.
They're spending time with their
family and they're way happier.
At the end of the day, as a
manager and as somebody that has afamily myself, that's all I care
(26:30):
about at the end of the day.
The money and the clients will
take care of themselves, but thefamily is the most important
thing.
that's Yeah, all I care about at
the end of the the money day, andthe clients will take care of
themselves, but the family's mostimportant soon as Yeah, 100%.
And I think the industry as awhole, and that's not just the
mortgage industry.
I mean, any sort of
entrepreneurial sort of placewhere you can make good money.
There's sort of this hustlementality around, oh, you got to
(26:51):
hustle, hustle, hustle.
And I mean, there's even this one
particular person that loves tovirtue signal about how much
business they do.
And they do great business, but
it's like, it's them and like anassistant or two.
And it's like, cool.
So you're working a hundred hour
weeks and you want to poopoo onanybody else that has teams that
maybe, yeah, maybe their marginsare less, maybe they're making
less per loan, but enjoying theirlife.
Right.
Like who cares how many people are
on the team if they're profitableand they're having a good life.
(27:13):
I mean, you know, again, peoplelike to say, I did Oh, a hundred
million by myself.
a good I life.
you mean, know, again, people liketo say, I did oh, 100 million by
myself.
Yeah.
Well, I don't care.
And it's one of those things, too,
that, you know, you see a lot inthis industry.
I assume, you know, really anyhigh income earning industries
that so many people push you tohustle for the sake of hustling
and not being as dedicated withyour time.
But, you know, I've definitelyheard from multiple mentors.
(27:34):
That's cool and all until yousacrifice the family portion and
get a divorce.
And now you have to make double
because you're giving up 50percent.
Right.
When you could have just taken the
time to focus on your family andmake sure, you know, your work
still moves when it needs to move.
But you don't need to hustle for
the sake of hustling.
You just need to be dedicated with
your time.
up 50 percent.
Yeah.
Well, and that's the other thing,
(27:55):
too, is people think that, youknow, hey, I'm going to get more
done in 12 hours than I do ineight.
And the truth is, most likelyyou're getting the same amount of
work done because you're noteffective for four to six for
pretty wild.
But, you know, I think it's
important for anybody who'slistening to this and maybe you're
getting started or maybe you arealready successful in
understanding that like, there's away to do this without having to
sacrifice that.
And I mean, I've even seen it for
myself.
(28:15):
I mean, in 2020, I was like, I'm
doing this for you.
I'm doing this for you.
And she's like, you haven't evenbeen here for two years.
So like, Oh, that hurts.
Right.
And it's like, you see that a lotin this industry.
And it's like, I'm doing this fromfamily, we're gonna do this, you
know, and then next thing youknow, their kids are 18 years old,
they're like, you just grindedthrough their whole childhood.
And now they're 18.
You're never gonna see them again.
And that's the thing with thisindustry is we have to wear a
million different hats, we have toknow the processor job, closure
job, underwriter job, andhopefully, it a little bit better
than they do because we have tofix things all the time.
(28:37):
But you need to be able to justgive up the reins a little bit.
You need to be able to put peoplein place that if they can do it
like 70 to 80 percent as good asyou can, like just send it.
And if you are new, you know, thisis what I did when I started when
I was doing two, three deals amonth.
But you as you me and another LOin my branch that were doing two,
three deals a month.
We pulled our resources and had a
(28:58):
team LOA.
You may not be able to afford one
yourself, but there might bepeople in your branch willing to
split it with you until you startgrowing your volume.
But the biggest thing is you justhave to get out there and sell.
Make sure you're doing the activeprospecting.
And as long as you're doing that,the operations stuff will take
care of it.
You don't get paid to do the
processing or the closing.
You get paid to do sales and
Right, right.
Well, you know, the concept that
people always say, well, no onecan do it as good as me, right?
Oh, I'm the best at this.
(29:20):
The amount of people that I've
heard say that I'm like, dude,there's got to be someone that is
actually the best and everybodyelse is a liar, you know, or they
got overinflated self-worth orwhatever.
But I get it.
Like, you know, I dealt with the
same thing is like to a certainextent of control freaks.
And then it's hard to give upcontrol because one, you think I
can do better, but two, you think,and if they mess up or whatever?
Like, it's also hard to give it upbecause you have to work a lot to
(29:42):
replace that.
Right.
It's like, do you take thetemporary pain of bringing someone
on, training them up, goingthrough the whole process of maybe
having to fire them, stuff likethat?
Or do you continue to grindyourself?
Yeah, sure, you're going to get itdone.
You're going to get it done in aquicker time.
But now all of a sudden you'redoing this across hundreds of
transactions, thousands oftransactions.
And now the time that would havetaken you to train someone up is
much larger because you've takenall this time to just do it
(30:02):
yourself.
And I love what you're doing with
the team.
If you were to get started today,
man, what is like one or twothings that you would go out there
today in this market and go getYeah, I had to start from scratch
with no book of business, thebiggest thing that I would do is
trying to one leverage any kind ofrelationships that I already have.
So whether it's social media orjust friends or family that I'm
close, if they have bought ahouse, ask them who they use.
If they had a loan officer, askthem who they use.
Cause maybe that loan officer, notevery loan officer is going to be
(30:24):
a pain to try and help you out.
Some of them will give, give,
give.
I've gotten way more from LOs that
I've never worked with, butthey've just been good people than
I have from some managers thatI've had.
Having them recommend the realestate agents, that's an easy way
for you to get a meeting.
Hey, I was talking to a good
friend of mine from college.
She said, you're an amazing real
estate agent.
I just got into the industry.
Can I pick your brain on what hasmade you successful?
Things like trying to makewhatever you can as warm as
(30:44):
possible.
that, And if you're in any kind of
leverage that.
communities, Like for like you me,
I surf.
said, So anyone that I know
through the surfing I've leveragedthat.
community, I also wrestled in highschool and leveraged that.
college, And then I also competein jujitsu currently.
So I have different areas of mylife outside of work that I still
get loans from.
So if there's something that
you're actively doing, or youknow, your kids play t ball or
whatever it is, like, that'ssomething that gives you a chance
(31:04):
to be around other people toleverage, you don't have to do
what I did and call 150 realestate agents to try and meet with
you to see they can give youturndowns.
Because I mean, right now, a lotof companies are approving a lot
of things they normally wouldn'tbecause volume's down with people.
Just find a couple good people totry and make those warm
introductions for you.
And it's going to take time.
But if you stay on top of meetingwith those people, following up,
someone's going to drop the ballat some point and give you a shot.
(31:25):
Yeah, that's what it is, man.
And I don't know if you know Alex
Ramosi, but Alex Ramosi alwaystalks about a lot of it comes down
to effort, right?Like sometimes you think that you
need to like two or three X youreffort and you may have to a
hundred extra effort, right?Maybe you got to do what Taylor
does 150.
Maybe you got to have, you know,
20 conversations a day, whateverit takes, right?
Like it doesn't matter.
(31:45):
The market's going to tell you
what to do.
But I will say is this as a
marketing person, I don'trecommend if you're brand new to
the industry, don't buy leads.
And I know that's weird for a
marketing person to say, don't buyleads probably the first year or
two.
It's a different ball game.
It takes a whole lot of adifferent style of sales.
You just go grind it out.
I mean, people come to me all the
time and they're brand new andthey're like, Hey, should I buy
leads?I'm like, no, don't buy leads.
(32:05):
The unfortunate thing is whenyou're first getting started, part
of it is a grind.
You're just going to have to grind
it out because one, you probablysuck at doing think Yeah.
Like figure out how to do loansfirst, figure out the fundamentals
of being a good loan officerbefore you've spent a bunch of
money on things that may or maynot work.
But I think that's huge, what youtalked about.
Like leverage your network anddon't make it weird.
Like don't be like super salesy.
(32:26):
Like I think a lot of times people
are worried about doing thatbecause like they don't want to be
that MLM, the person that you hadin high school that are trying to
pitch you on their newest MLM.
Like, oh yeah, you want to go have
lunch?I'm like, dude, I haven't talked
to you in six years.
What are you hitting me up about
lunch for?Oh, of course, you're going to
pitch me on, you know, whateverthe next thing is.
in final thoughts before we sortof check out here?
I mean, not really.
(32:48):
I think this year is going to be a
really good year for a lot ofpeople if they keep their head
down and just keep grinding.
I know we've got some big goals as
a team from a recruitingstandpoint and a volume
standpoint, but our motto in theoffice is doing more in 24.
So I hope everyone has a goodyear.
And anyone ever has questions, I'malways available.
I'm happy to help I possibly can.
Awesome, man.
Well, and just to kind of shoutthat out, if someone wanted to
reach out to you, connect withyou, what's the best way to find
(33:11):
you?Yeah, so the easiest way is
probably finding me on Facebook.
So it's Taylor Briggs.
You'll see me.
There's a picture of a beer in my
hand and surfboard at the airportin Cabo San Lucas.
Or you can find me on Instagram atGBRIG005.
Awesome, man.
so much for your time, man.
My big takeaways from this, whichis pretty cool, is you can get a
lot of referrals from your pastclients.
Work your past clients.
I know I bring up this stat a lot
with MonitorBase, but it just kindof blew me away when I had that
(33:33):
interview with William LeBaron.
It was like 19% and someone was
like, I actually thought it waslower.
That still blows my mind.
Cause I'm like, man, you're
missing out on so manytransactions, not even including
referrals, like what you're ableto pull.
It's like, you're just missing outon their transactions of people
that you've already done businesswith.
And instead of that, what do theycall it?
They step in over a dollar to pickup pennies, right?
Like so many people get so stuckon this sort of mentality of like,
I need to go get business that'sfor today.
And while yes, that's important,you do need business today in
(33:55):
order to get off the treadmill,the hamster wheel of, you know,
doing two, three loans and thenfalling off and not doing a loan
for a month and then kind ofprospecting again, like you have
to consistently prospect over anextended period of time.
And one of my favorite books,fanatical Prospecting talks about
the 30 day rule.
And so what I like about what
you've done is you basicallyimplemented that in your business.
Like, Hey, I'm consistently goingto do the actions eight hours a
week.
And it's funny is that's about the
number that I tell people.
I'm like, if you can just spend
(34:15):
two hours per day prospecting,you're going to be better than 95%
of salespeople out there.
This applies to any industry,
right?if you're getting started, Really,
you should be spending eight hoursa day prospecting.
But if you can at least spend twohours a day, you're going to be
better than just about everysalesperson out there.
So thank you so much for your timetoday.
man, It has been a huge man.
huge, pleasure, What a great
episode.
I love what you're doing, man.
Reach out to Taylor.
Good you can tell he's a guy.
(34:35):
Obviously, So if you I love whatsurfer.
you're episode.
Reach out to Good doing, guy.
man.
Taylor.
you can tell he's Obviously, asurfer.
So if you you'll surf, hit him upright?
too, See how he's doing.
I'm always down for a surf trip,
so.
Man, he's, I mean, he goes on
seven, eight trips a year, man.
I have four kids, so I don't know
that I can of eight trips.
probably in El Salvador in
February for a Yeah, man, that'sso much fun.
So thank you so much for your timetoday, man.
And for anybody who is listeningto this and is, you know is
(34:56):
looking for ways to flip thestatus quo on real estate agents,
go to flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for listening
and have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
Loans On Demand podcast onloansondemandpodcast.com.
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