March 21, 2024 • 42 mins
Today, we're joined by Brian Vieaux, CMB. Brian is the President and COO at FinLocker from Novi, Michigan, with over 28 years of executive experience in mortgage banking. Brian hosts his own podcast, "FinTech Friday", and co-hosts a second podcast with Kyle Draper, called "Mortgages and More". Brian and Kyle also co-authored a book called "Rethink Everything You Know About Being A "Next Gen" Loan Officer".
Brian is here to discuss: → The power of data and how FinLocker helps Loans Officers nurture their pipeline and give value adds to Realtors. → How he has been able to grow his LinkedIn profile to over 30,000 followers and harness the power of social media. → And why he would make first-time homebuyers his avatar client if he was starting over in the industry today.
FinLocker Website: www.finlocker.com
FinLocker LinkedIn: @FinLocker
FinLocker YouTube: @FinLocker
Brian Vieaux's LinkedIn: @BrianVieaux
Brian Vieaux's Facebook: @BrianVieaux
Brian Vieaux's Instagram: @brianvieaux
Buy Brian's Book "Rethink Everything" here.
Listen to Brian's Podcast "FinTech Friday" here.
Listen to Brian's Podcast "Mortgages and More" here.
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, aka LongForm 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 and loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And today I'm excited because we
have Brian View.
He is the President and Chief
Operating Officer at Finlocker.
Man, he's doing some pretty cool
things.
He is, I'm going to call him an
influencer on LinkedIn, you know,someone I look up to on that
space.
So I do want to touch a little bit
about your strategies there.
But in addition to that, man,
you're doing some cool things withFinlocker.
(00:47):
So man, welcome to the show.
I'm excited to you.
Thanks, Luke.
I've been following you as well
and looking forward to learningfrom you even closer now.
I was a stalking learner justfollowing your content.
Now I get to like dig in deep.
So that's cool.
man.
Awesome.
Well, give us a little insight asto who you are.
What kind of got you into thisspace?
And I guess give us a backgroundof who you are.
Yeah, sure.
So I spent 30 years in the primary
(01:07):
mortgage origination space.
So I started as a loan officer in
the early 90s, did that for awhile, moved into sales management
and spent the last 10 years of mymortgage production career
managing the third partyorigination business at Flagstar
Bank.
Four and a half years ago, I
decided to place a bet, placed abet on myself and on this
racehorse called Finlocker andleft the production side of the
(01:28):
world to move to the mortgage techside.
And so I came over as president,chief operating officer four and a
half years ago.
We've been really focused on
growing the business and reallyenhancing and reshaping of the
product, which I'm excited to talkabout.
But what I saw, you know, call itfive-ish years ago, was an
opportunity with this technologyto help originators of all shapes
and sizes, you know, kind of flipthe script a little bit and go up
(01:51):
the funnel as far as possible toreach, assist, engage, and nurture
early journey home buyers.
And as we think about the
generations of first-time homebuyers, they're all digital first.
Everything's got to be on thephone.
And our product is a native mobileapp that helps lenders get up the
funnel and engage much earlier.
(02:12):
I'm sure we can go deep into Yeah,
for sure, man.
I think that's going to be
something we'll touch on.
But before we get there, man, just
talk a little about the journey,man.
Was it always easy?I'm kind of a sucker for the sort
of the journey to come up storybecause, you know, generally when
I talk to people that have had anysemblance of success in their
life, there were struggles, therewas downs, there was ups and all
that kind of stuff.
(02:32):
So talk about that and what sort
of kept you, I mean, a long timein the mortgage industry, man,
it's a tough industry to survivein.
And obviously there's a lot ofmoney in this industry, but
there's also a lot of bad timeslike we just came through.
So talk about what's kept you herefor this time.
And, you know, were there anytimes where you felt like maybe
you did want to get know, So,yeah, of course these gray hairs
were all earned, you know, yearover year, decade over decade.
So, you know, I really lucked intothe business, or at least in my
(02:53):
era, nobody grew up saying I'mgoing to, you know, become a
mortgage loan officer.
Right, right.
So I, you know, got married andneeded to find a job that had
benefits because that's what mynow father-in-law told me.
And so, you know, I went and didthe pre-LinkedIn version of
networking.
I went door to door, handing my
resume into place and applying forjobs.
So totally, you know, backed in,lucked into the mortgage industry.
1991, the par rate in 91 wassomewhere, you know, with a 10
(03:14):
handle.
And we started to see a dip of 50
bips, 75 bips, a hundred bips, butthe team of five that we had grew
to 50, like in the first fourmonths.
So, you know, again, lucky beingat the right place at the right
time because I was one of theearly hires in, I became a team
lead.
And so just over time was able to
kind of grow into leadership rolesas our business grew.
(03:37):
And yeah, totally wanted to be outof the business.
And I was exiled out of thebusiness because I was at a little
bank called IndyMac in 2008 thatwas seized by the FDIC.
And so I didn't leave though, youknow, even though our business was
shut down, a few friends of minethat were with us at IndyMac, we
formed a little consultancy andhelped companies that were, you
know, dealing with the fallout ofthat meltdown.
(03:58):
We did that for a couple of yearsand then that propelled me back
into direct production.
Then I ended up at Flagstar right
around 2012.
So yeah, I mean, those were dark
days, 2008, seven, eight, right,nine, 10, 11, with very little
income coming in.
But it was the people in this
industry that kind of kept meconnected.
So having really spent my entire,you know, professional career in
(04:19):
one industry, many of my bestfriends are people that are in
this industry.
And so it's the people that kept
me here and kept me in it.
And frankly, some of them kept me
paid over time.
And so that's what it's all about
is it's the people sure.
Sure, sure.
No, that makes a ton of sense,man.
And I know it's an up and downindustry.
(04:42):
Like I said, there's a lot ofupside potential, but just like
the upside, there's also thedownside.
Typically, anywhere there, there'sa lot of money to be made.
There's also a lot of money to belost.
Yeah.
I mean, just like starting a
business, right?Like one of my favorite quotes
that I just recently heard from myexecutive coach is that success is
not a very good teacher.
You know, it's something that I've
kind of known that, you know, Ilearned a lot more from my
(05:04):
failures than I do from like beingsuccessful.
But like you said, the rightplace, right time.
I'm sure there was a period oftime that you felt invincible.
And just like, I mean, I wouldthink most people, and I know most
loan officers during the 2020 and2021, they just thought they were
the best loan officer ever.
Like, man, I doubled my business.
I'm the bomb.
I know exactly what to do.
And then boom, you just getsmacked in the face when rates go
up and buyer sentiment goes crazy.
And like, you know, so I do think
(05:25):
that the hard times are a lot ofthe foundations that lead us to
where we are.
And so I appreciate you sharing
that journey.
Let's move on a little bit to
Finlocker, man.
I mean, talk a little bit about
that.
What does that platform do?
Man, we were talking a little bitbefore we jumped on the recording,
but I wanted you to sort of sharesort of at a high level.
What does it do?How does it serve loan officers
(05:46):
and said, in this space?A great descriptor for us is if
you think of the typical call toaction that most loan officers
have either in their landing page,their website, on their social
content, on any of their outboundmarketing, typically it's what?
Apply here.
Right.
Start now.
Right.
And that's fine.
And I'm not saying you shouldn't
have that because obviously ifyou're a loan officer, you want
people to get into thatapplication funnel.
saying you shouldn't have that.
I'm saying what you should have is
you should have, I mean, if you'regoing to do apply now, you should
(06:09):
have a survey funnel before youhave an apply now because you want
to capture the data first.
There you go.
But let's go ahead to your Lovethat.
And so using your survey funnel,typically there's going to be two
desired paths off that funnel.
The number one path is the apply
now button.
Right.
And let's just say for math's sakethat, you know, the typical loan
(06:30):
officer that's in the, you know,referral business, maybe six,
seven, eight of the 10 that comethrough that funnel are ready now.
Right.
Right.
They're qualified.
They know they're qualified.
The loan officer knows they'requalified.
Get them into that, you know,point of sale and get them into
the underwriting queue.
Sure.
Of course.
But what do you do for the other
two, three, four today in thismarket?
It's probably like five or sixthat aren't ready right now.
Right.
Most loan officers, the strategy
(06:50):
for those is they put them into asequencing campaign on their CRM
and And every Thanksgiving, theyget their great pumpkin pie recipe
and life goes on.
We think differently.
We think that path is, if they'renot ready now, let's give that
consumer a reason to stay engagedwith a loan officer in a
meaningful way with a set ofdigital personal financial tools
that will help address what'sholding them back from being
ready.
So that's what FinLocker is.
(07:11):
We are this mashup, if you will,of Mint.com meets Credit Karma
meets Rocket Money meets Zillow,Redfin.
We bring all those consumer-facingfeatures into one native mobile
app, and then we private label it.
It's a white label solution for
our enterprise clients.
So lenders basically have their
own version of Rocket money thatRocket Mortgage is using as a top
of funnel kind of lead magnet.
(07:32):
So a movement mortgage or a loan
deep or a direct rate, they couldtheoretically have their own.
Here, this is our G rate thing,but it's really Finlocker that's
powering that.
That's pretty powerful.
I think white labeling is a prettypowerful tool to have as a lender
because that keeps it kind of moresticky for them and also provides
that value in a way that, hey, I'mactually valuable.
(07:54):
So that's pretty cool, man.
From that perspective, you may
have data on this.
How long is it typically taking?
How long are the drips going out?Or is there a way for you to track
from the time that they enter thissystem until the time that they
become approvable or evenapprovable, but ready to buy.
(08:14):
Do you kind of have any data onthat by chance?
We a ton of data.
The challenge is if you boiled it
down to kind of an average, it'snot really going to mean anything
because a lot of the engagement isreally dependent on where the
consumer came in.
What funnel did they come in?
Right.
That makes sense.
As a good example, we have clientsthat use the product as a tool for
(08:35):
all of their turndowns right thoseare going to probably take on
average longer than someone that'scoming in and they're just not
ready for whatever reason sure sowhat we measure is engagement
right so activity we focus on howoften our consumers logging into
the app right and so we look atthat on a monthly basis.
We run in the low 20% range forthat.
Not bad.
Yeah, it's a really good stat for
a Not bad.
Yeah, it's a really good stat for
a product like ours.
Sure.
(08:55):
I mean, 20% engaged.
I mean, you got to think about
like, what's an engagement in anemail generally, like generally
going to get a lower amount,unless you have a really warm,
warm list.
But, you know, that's going to be
considerably lower probably.
But, So the question I often get
after I'll talk about engagementis that monthly active user
percentages.
How do you do that?
What's engaging the consumer tolog back in?
(09:17):
So the features in the app allow aconsumer to connect to their
credit and see their credit score,see their entire credit report.
We take the data and make itactually user-friendly.
So we show them their pay historyin one view.
We show them their utilizationacross all of their accounts and
in aggregate in another view.
We have a credit simulator that
allows the user, the consumer toactually simulate impacts to their
score if they take certain actionslike paying off, paying down
credit cards as an example.
(09:37):
Sure.
So that credit score is a criticalengagement.
It updates every seven days.
So we don't necessarily ping the
user every seven days when theirscore changes, but if it changes
by more than five points, eitherway, that's an automatic alert to
the user.
It goes out via email, but it also
is a push notification right totheir phone from the app itself.
And so that's an example of ourdata-driven engagement that's
happening based on things that arehappening and changing inside the
(09:59):
consumer's locker, we call it.
That's awesome, man.
In that regard, for someone who isdoing that, this could
theoretically be a tool for a loanofficer to say, hey, let's go
ahead and jump in here.
We'll show you this system.
Based off of what this simulatorsays, here's some of the things
you can do to get your score to680 or get you to 620 so you can
(10:20):
qualify for whatever X program or640 or 660 to get into a down
payment assistance or whateverthat looks like.
And you can kind of simulate as apretty cool tool.
And then obviously, you know, youtalked about it.
It's going to depend a lot onwhere you're getting the leads
from.
I mean, referrals, the journey is
probably going to be a lot quickerthan, you know, someone that's
maybe fully direct to consumer,right?
(10:41):
That they're doing all marketingto cold leads.
But I see that as a hugeopportunity to throw every single
one of your cold leads intosomething like this, right?
You know, throw them into asequence and just say, hey, like,
here's this free tool that'savailable to log into.
But I see like a certain amount ofpeople, users that can use that?
Do you have thresholds on that?I'm assuming.
It on, you know, how we structurethe enterprise license with the
lender itself.
(11:01):
Most of our enterprise
relationships have a loan officerkind of license component to it.
relationships have a loan officerkind of license component to So
it.
kind of a monthly fee per loan
officer.
And that's built based on the
total number of LOs at the companyat the enterprise level, but work
with the enterprise and kind ofunderstand the use case and then
structure the license model in away that makes real economic sense
with a strong ROI for the product.
One other thing I thought of is
you were kind of talking about thelead management kind of strategy.
(11:21):
One of the cool things that we'veseen happen from a use case
perspective is, you know, there'sa ton of loan officers out there
that are building their ownpersonal brand on social and
they're doing awesome becausethey're leading with education,
which I love.
Those are people that understand
that you have to get up the funnelif you want to control your
destiny.
Right, right.
And so what we found is some ofthese loan officers are having
great success creating contentthat is leading people to download
(11:44):
the app and create an account inthe app.
And so, you know, as an example,you know, just credit monitoring
as a single use case.
Credit monitoring is a single use
case.
One of our loan officers has a
great kind of sequencing of poststhat talks about the importance of
monitoring your especially ifyou're early planning for buying a
right?credit, home, And just off of
those kind of single we're posts,seeing hundreds of consumers for
this particular loan officerdownload the app and create an And
(12:05):
account.
you talk about the power of data.
When someone creates an account,you know, first name, last name,
email address, of When someonecreates an you first last email
data.
address, account, know, mobile
name, name, number.
mobile number, depending on how
much they do in the app, you startto know where they are on their
journey to buying a home becausethe app asks the consumer, where
are you on your homeownershipjourney?
And all of that data becomesavailable on the backend for the
(12:27):
loan officer to leverage andreally hyper-personalize their
engagement with that And so Inthat use case, the lead generation
tool, you know, I kind of go backto my statement around not having
the apply button on your websiteand not saying that you shouldn't
have it on there, but you shouldhave an easier way for people to
(12:50):
submit their information.
Because the truth is, if someone
doesn't know, like, or trust you,like expecting them to fill out
whatever 30 question questionnairewith their social security and the
date of birth and stuff like that,honestly, is crazy, right?
Like, and I say this all the time,and loan officers hate me for
this.
And they, you know, but I just
think it's funny because I thinkthat the online application is one
of the worst things to happen inthe mortgage industry, not because
of the tool, but because of thehabits that have been created by
loan officers, right?They got so lazy, they just send
(13:10):
out the link.
And I'm like, you're probably
missing out on hundreds ofthousands, if not millions of
dollars a year in income becauseyou are unwilling to have a
conversation with someone beforethey do that.
Or you're unwilling to have a leadgen funnel that, you know, let's
say 10 people come to you that arereferrals or just go to your
website, you know, maybe eight ofthose come, but then you don't
have two of those people's data.
Right.
like, if you were able to get likea shorter funnel, it doesn't have
(13:31):
all that information that justgives them some additional
information.
You might capture all 10 of those
people.
Yeah.
Maybe two or four or six of themaren't ready right now, but you
have all their information and youcan nurture them using a tool like
finlocker so man i think that's ahuge tool and so yeah from that
perspective man let's talk alittle bit about that man one of
the things we talk about a lot isthat the average buyer journey is
like six to 24 months right likesomeone doesn't wake up in the
morning and like i'm gonna buy ahouse today right that just
doesn't happen they don't do thatright they start looking on zillow
(13:53):
they talk to their parents theytalk to their friends.
They see someone else post thatthey just bought a house.
they bought a house.
Man, I should be able to buy a
house.
Let me start looking into it.
I've seen them.
who's your loan officer?
Hey, Who's your real estate agent?we Oh, should talk.
da. Da, da, da, And then all of ahere's sudden, like six months
goes by.
And then so many people are
especially like, loan officers,because I think loan officers are
used to referrals.
(14:14):
They get so stuck in this idea
that people buy in 90-day windows.
And people do not buy in 90-day
windows.
Not a $400,000, $500,000 house.
They might buy a $50 widget in themorning, but they're not buying a
$500,000 house like that.
They go through a buyer journey.
So talk a little bit about thatand how can Finlocker support that
journey?Just even just talking about that
from a more buyer journeyexperience and getting a funnel.
just doesn't I love that you paintthe picture of somebody waking up
and just saying, oh, I'm going togo buy a house today.
(14:34):
It doesn't happen.
It never happens.
It's never happened.
It just, it's not real.
I do believe there is a 90 daybuyer journey.
Everyone ignores is the 18 monthsthat happened before that 90 Yes,
yes, exactly.
That's what I say too.
Once they start the process, itcan be 90 days, but there's a
whole decision-making process thathappens And part of what's
happening in that 90 days is theanalysis and shopping, right?
That the consumer is going to do.
So my thesis around the power of
loan officers truly getting upfunnel is that if you are one of,
if not the trusted source offinancial education and
(14:56):
preparation as it relates toupcoming home That think you'll be
in position A to earn the businessinside of the 90-day buying
window, right?And so all things set aside, if
you've been the provider of a toollike Finlocker, I'm not saying
that's the only way to do it, ifyour tool is helping your
prospective home buyer, you know,understand and improve their
credit over six, 12, 18 months andcreate tracking mechanism to start
a plan to save for a down paymentand actually track their progress
(15:16):
towards that, et cetera, etcetera.
And you're not just relying on thetech alone, but actually adding
personal value on top of it asthat trusted advisor, I think you
do earn the right to win more thannot.
I sincerely believe that the localloan officer is best positioned to
be that trusted source offinancial advice for aspiring
homeowners.
And one of the main reasons is
most young homeowners, homebuyers,they don't have enough assets in
their life yet to matter to afinancial planner.
(15:38):
Right.
Of course, they're not going to
have a private banker.
Their private banker is typically
the ATM.
Right.
Right.
Right.
That loan officer really is, youknow, in position A. And if you're
doing that at scale in yourcommunity, and I say community,
not just physical local community,but you can have this digital
community.
You're doing that at scale as a
(15:59):
loan officer.
You're now making introductions
from your nurtured pipeline toother professionals in the space,
realtors and other.
And so I'm passionate about it,
but I honestly do believe thatthat is the best source for that
early journey homebuyer is to finda loan officer that leads with
education.
I the status of like 60 or 70% of
(16:19):
people go with the first loanofficer they talk to.
So like get earlier in theprocess, be the first person they
talk to.
And yeah, it might take them six
or 12 months to buy, but you'rethat person that has given them
the education you talked about.
And I think, you know, that's a
huge opportunity.
And like you said, as well as like
(16:41):
traditionally, I mean, this wholepodcast is about flipping the
status quo on real estate agents.
Not that I think that, you know,
loan officers need to be abovereal estate agents, but the truth
is for far too long, loan officershave brainwashed real estate
agents into believing that loanofficers doing their job well is
what should receive referrals.
(17:01):
And the truth is that should be
the expectation and you should doyour job well, but you should also
give them more value than that.
Right.
And I think that comes from like,how can you help them save time or
make more money?Can you get them referrals?
Cause like loan officers say thisall the time, like, well, you
know, consumers don't go to loanofficers.
(17:23):
Yes.
Consumers don't go to loan
officers because loan officersdon't freaking market their
business.
Right.
Real estate agents.
When you start as a real estate
agent, what do they tell you todo?
Go work your sphere of influence.
Right.
When you start as a loan officer,what do they tell you to do?
Go find a realtor.
(17:43):
Yes, that's it.
That's the sales marketingtraining is go talk to a realtor.
I'm cool with referrals, right?Like if you've built a referral
machine, that's awesome.
But most people don't have a
referral machine.
They have three or four referral
partners.
And that's scary because we saw
what happened with the people thathad four or five referral
partners.
All of a sudden, production
dropped 60%.
And instead of needing four or
(18:04):
five, now you need 15 or 20.
And if you don't have a systemized
process to go get more referralpartners, you're dead in the
water.
What is your value proposition to
these people, right?And so that's a big thing that we
talked about.
I was like, what is your value
prop?Finlocker, to me, it sounds like a
pretty dang good value prop to beable to give, you know, as even
for agents.
That could be one of your parts of
your offers.
(18:24):
Like, hey, we have this technology
that allows you to do this.
I mean, I know people talk about
things like Homebot and productslike that as part of their stack.
Finlocker feel like sits rightalongside something like a Homebot
or a Home IQ, right?It's just a real good product that
can get people into the rightspace and educate people for that.
I love the things And I business.
with that, man.
Just to tie the bow on the lastcomment, one of the enhancements
we built out from feedback fromour clients, from the loan
(18:46):
officers that work with us wasaround the ability to partner with
their referral partners andcreate, I don't like to call it
co-branding, but like acoexistence in the app where the
consumer who's invited into theapp will see both the loan officer
and the agent.
And so you talk about the power of
UpFunnel.
Now as a loan officer who leads
with education, you go into yourreferral partners and you set up
community-based, you know, homebuying, webinars, seminars, et
cetera, that are all centeredaround the technology of
Finlocker.
And it just, it creates a really
(19:07):
interesting dynamic.
Get excited about it because I can
see the potential at that top ofthe funnel at a hyper local level
as well, really just drivingpositive results for the loan
officer and the realtor, butequally, if not more important,
driving real value to thatconsumer.
exciting because realistically,like again, I mean, I talk with
hundreds, if not thousands of loanofficers over the last five, six
years, you know, everybody kind ofsounds the same.
Everybody sounds the same.
They all say the same three
things.
I answer my phone, I work on the
weekends, I close on time, I havegood rates, right?
(19:28):
Like, I guess that's four things.
But really, that's the same thing.
I work a lot, like I call mewhenever.
And it's like, cool, like thosethings are not really like, yes,
like those are things that arevaluable to retain an existing
relationship, but it's not reallysomething that's going to start
new relationships.
And again, most people don't have
a systemized process to prospect.
And interestingly enough, one of
the things we started doingrecently is setting five to 10
appointments with realtors for ourloan officers, right?
(19:49):
Thinking like these guys are allreferral.
Like they should know how to dothis.
Like they struggle with theconsumer direct.
So we have to teach them that cometo find out, we actually have to
teach them how to sell to realestate agents too.
Because like, right.
It's like, people think that the
pitch is the most important part.
And like, oh, well, like, this is
(20:09):
what I do.
And it's like, first of all, what
part of your pitch has anything todo with the realtor and their
specific situation?Right.
And they're like, oh, yeah, you'reright.
It's like, okay, well, think aboutit.
Like if you were able tounderstand what their problem is,
again, sales, people think salesis a bad word.
Sales is not a bad word.
(20:30):
It's leadership.
And I don't just so, funny thatknow, people really kind of shy
away from this idea that they'resalespeople.
You're like, dude, you don't getpaid $4,000, $5,000, $10,000,
$15,000 on a deal because you'rean educator and advisor.
You get paid because you're asalesperson.
You're a salesperson first.
And second, you're an advisor and
an educator and all those otherthings that you want to call
yourself.
But that's not a bad word.
(20:51):
Anyway, that's me getting on mysoapbox.
Let's talk a little aboutLinkedIn, man.
I know you're passionate onLinkedIn.
So let's give some strategies forloan officers on how they can
leverage a platform like LinkedInto grow.
And obviously, I'm looking at you.
I saw you made an awesome post
two, three days ago about yourstrategy and what you've done.
I'm a Facebook guy.
I've built my business mostly on
Facebook.
And so I'm trying to get on the
LinkedIn.
I've used LinkedIn for years.
I have like 20,000 connections,but like I posted and get like one
(21:13):
like, and I'm like, what the heck?You know, just seeing your post
was like, all right, well, youknow what?
I need to be a lot moreintentional.
So talk a little bit about like,what were the strategies you've
employed?What are the lessons you've
learned over the time that you'vebeen, you know, being consistent?
I think you've been And so thatfor about a year or more.
Yeah, I mean, I've talked aboutthe IndyMac, you know, bank
failure back in 2008.
Early that year was the first time
I ever heard of LinkedIn.
And inside the company, you know,
the signs were there that therewas trouble, right?
So somebody sent a company-wideemail and said, hey, we should all
(21:35):
get on this platform so we don'tlose track of each other when this
thing finally blows up.
Okay.
So it started as just a way tokeep tabs on people.
And then, you know, so I had acouple hundred people, big deal.
When I got back to kind of directlending, you know, production
management, I found that a lot ofpeople that I was connected with
were still in the business.
And so back in like 2012, I
started just dabbling withgrowing, you know, my connections.
(21:57):
And it was just me reaching outand connecting with people, but
never added never did any value,content.
That's kind of what I did.
I kind of just banned people.
it's like you're a right?Yeah, lurker, Okay.
And then in like 2018 and 19, Istarted to dabble with content and
putting content out.
You know, being at a startup, you
know, FinTech bootstrap type, youknow, company.
Sure.
We don't have a big budget for
marketing and brand awareness.
(22:17):
And honestly, I had built a
LinkedIn following of over 20,000people, which is now like 31,000,
which is bigger than our companyfollowing is ever going to be.
So right.
I figured if we're going to be
successful, more people have toknow who we are, what we do and
why we do it and how it benefitsthem.
Yeah.
And so in January of 2023, what
I'll say, I went all in onLinkedIn.
I'm not saying this is the rightrecipe.
This is what I did, but Icommitted to create content, four
posts per day, Monday throughFriday, three posts a day,
(22:38):
Saturdays and Sundays.
Some of that was recycled, reused,
you know, et cetera, et cetera.
But a lot of it was original
content.
And so first thing I wanted to do
was be consistent, show upconsistently.
And so I scheduled everything,8.30 AM, 11.45 AM, 3 PM, 6 PM,
that type of thing.
So people that were following me,
they kind of knew, okay,something's coming out at this
time.
Didn't see a ton of, you know,
immediate benefit.
I did see that my following
(22:58):
started to grow slightly, youknow, in the kind of one of 2023.
And so then you start testing andlearning and doing things
differently.
I launched a podcast and the
podcast gives me a ton ofopportunities to create content,
much like this conversationprobably you.
And that became part of my contentstrategy.
So fast forward, the post I didthis last week, it talked about
that journey and, you know,growing the followers to over
31,000, creating 1,440 pieces ofcontent in a calendar year, having
1.6 million views of my content.
(23:19):
I don't remember the engagement
stats, but the most tellingstatistic for me wasn't what I saw
on LinkedIn, it was what I sawhappening in our pipeline.
Sure.
Inbound demo requests were like
250% up year over year.
Contracts were, I mean, all the
things that you would want to haveet started to happen.
Didn't happen right away.
Didn't happen in three, six, nine
months.
It was really a process.
(23:39):
And so I'm more bullish on theplatform today than I ever was
because I've seen the benefits ofit.
Of course.
And now I'm kind of focused on how
do I help other people?I'm not going to be a LinkedIn
coach, by the way.
That's not what I'm doing.
By the 297 course here?Not doing that.
Nobody wants to learn from me thatway.
I want to help others in ourindustry build a stronger network
(24:00):
for themselves.
And guess what will happen?
It'll make my network that muchstronger by doing that.
So that's kind of where I'mstarting to pivot the message is
to help others make meaningfulconnections.
It's how you and I are doing thisright now is through the platform.
Yeah.
power of social media, man.
And interestingly enough, like alot of what you talk about is I
wasn't ever as consistently, youknow, 830, whatever.
(24:22):
But that's what I did on Facebook.
Right.
It was like I consistently showedup every single day and you're
right.
I mean, it was probably six
months.
And honestly, the first content
that I put out was probably notvery good.
And I probably wasn't very good.
And I laugh all the time because I
look back at like a YouTube videothat I posted.
(24:42):
Yeah, this was 2017 probably.
I think it was like, yeah, mayor
somewhere in 2017, I posted aYouTube video that I posted.
Yeah, this is 2017.
Probably I think it was like,
yeah, mayor somewhere in 2017.
I posted a YouTube video, my very
first YouTube video ever posted.
And I was like, holy crap, I was
so bad.
I was so shy.
I was so nervous.
(25:03):
I know anyone I'm talking about.
But hey, you know what, like,progress happens when you take
action.
And one of my favorite sayings is
repetition is the mother of allskill, right.
And so doing these things over andover and over again, you start to
learn what works and what doesn'twork.
And so that is something in itselfis like you're learning as you're
(25:27):
making each post, okay, well, thispost didn't really hit.
Maybe I'll do less of that type ofpost, maybe more of this type of
post.
And then what I loved is like, you
did those posts, but I thinkprobably missed out on a key
piece.
What was your engagement strategy?
Because I feel like most of theseplatforms, a lot of people talk
about the content, but then peopledon't really talk as much about
(25:49):
the engagement strategy.
And what I mean by engagement
strategy is like the reciprocaleffect, like comment and like and
thoughtful comments.
I'm assuming you had some sort of
a strategy or maybe that just cameorganically, but talk a little bit
about that, man.
Like what was your strategy in
terms of engaging with otherpeople's So when I first started
the 2023, you know, journey, ifyou will, I wasn't thinking about
that at all.
(26:10):
That was a mistake.
And it wasn't until probably Mayor June that someone kind of
thumped me in the side of the headand said, hey, moron.
And that's what I love about theplatform is you learn from
everybody.
And someone was talking about
their strategy had nothing to dowith the content they were
creating.
It was all about how they were
engaging with others.
So call it May or June of last
year, I actually went onto mycalendar.
(26:30):
These meetings still sit there.
I have three scheduled 15 minute
blocks every day.
It just says engage with others.
And then I'm an Excel geek.
So I've created this massive Excel
spreadsheet of people that I'mconnected with on the platform.
And then I color code them by whothey are.
They're a client, they're aprospect, they're a partner,
they're just a friend, they'resomeone I learned from.
And so then every day in those 15minute blocks, I just pick five or
10 in each group and just go onand make meaningful comments.
I'm not just doing thumbs up orliking it and trying to add some
(26:52):
value.
And then of late, what I've been
doing is reposting and sharingpeople's content that I think is
super powerful.
So that's the magic.
It's in the engagement becausepeople see that and then guess
what they want to do?They want to give back to you,
right?Yeah.
It's a lot of reciprocity, right?I mean, at the end of the day,
that's what social media is for.
It's funny, we talk about this on
other platforms a lot but onlinkedin to me has always felt
like the very stuffy sort of likevery overly corporatey and i'm
(27:13):
just not like no i'm wearing ashirt that says call the leads on
you know i came out of corporate iused to you know wear the suits
and stuff like that but i hated itright and i even remember when i
first got started doing themarketing stuff my videos would be
like me wearing either like ajacket i don't know if i was
wearing pants or not but i waswearing a jacket because that was
in the shot.
And I was like, man, I just feel
(27:34):
so uncomfortable.
And so it's just like, but anyway,
like what I've learned is there'sa lot more authenticity happening
on the platform.
If you sort of find the right
people and they're putting outgood content, there is a lot of
that sort of like just brownnosing type of content as well.
It's kind of annoying, but youjust have to sort of filter
through that.
And I'm just kind of like creeping
and finding people as I'm goingright now.
(27:56):
I'm just kind of looking, allright, who are the people that are
active on this platform that aregetting good engagement?
What are the type of content theyput out?
One thing I've noticed withFacebook is you used to be able to
tag people and it used to give youextra reach.
Now I found you tag people givesyou less reach.
I'm seeing on LinkedIn that a lotof people are doing the tagging
stuff and it's still giving peoplereach and links and their stuff.
(28:19):
It doesn't seem to affect it asmuch as maybe something like a
Facebook platform.
So interestingly enough, all these
different platforms have differentalgorithms and things like that.
So I think those are some littlethings that I'm picking up as I
engage more on the platform, as Isort of scroll through and see
stuff.
I'm like, okay, well, this person
got this many likes.
I wonder what all their content
(28:41):
looks like.
Oh, cool.
Like they engage with other peoplepretty regularly.
Okay.
All right.
That makes sense.
So it's pretty interesting i came
see.
So there's a guy that I follow,
Darren McKee, M-C-K-E-E, Darren,first name.
He's not in the mortgage business,but he's become kind of my
LinkedIn mentor.
The dude understands the
algorithm, studies it, lives it.
He's got 110,000 followers.
He's one of those guys that'scoaching on the platform.
And so I've been part of a cohortthat he's running and he's helped
(29:03):
me a ton just in two weeks time tounderstand what works, what
doesn't work, what's a myth that'sreally a myth that doesn't matter.
And so I'd encourage people tofollow Darren and you're going to
learn from him.
And if you are so compelled, dive
into one of his cohorts because hegoes deep into what works for him.
One other thing I was thinkingabout is, you know, you and I
meeting on the platform and we'redoing this great podcast.
I'm going to have you on mine, bythe way, as well.
You just don't know that yet.
Now I do.
I met this guy, Kyle Draper.
(29:24):
I met him social media too, not
through LinkedIn, but throughFacebook.
So funny enough, interesting howsocial media works.
He's right?You know, you're experiencing his
stuff.
And yeah, so he and I are
co-authoring a book.
Did you read his first book?
Rethink everything about it?I bought I bought it.
I've read some of it.
I haven't read the whole thing.
I love Kyle.
I always mess with him.
I troll him pretty much on everyplatform.
I actually messaged him one timebecause I was like, Hey, is it
okay if I do this?Cause like, I feel like sometimes
I go a little far.
(29:44):
He's like, dude, I love it.
Keep doing it.
Okay, perfect.
Just want to make sure that youdidn't get and I are in the final
stages of publishing a booktogether.
Yeah.
Using the rethink everything kind
of moniker.
And so our book is rethink
everything you know about being anext gen loan officer.
I love it.
I have to put this out there
because I'm 55.
So I'm not next gen.
I'm like old gen age doesn't comeinto being a next gen loan
officer's mindset.
And it's understanding what
resonates with the next gen homebuyer.
And so we've got this crazy 38experts that each have volunteered
(30:06):
to write a chapter of this bookand going through final edits
right now, it's freaking amazing.
If I was a loan officer, I'd be
all over this thing because evenif you only got four nuggets out
of it, the value is immense.
And Kyle's strategy with his first
book was to have an immersivereader experience.
Sure.
Anything to read words on a page.
I don't know about you.
I think we talked about this
before we jumped in.
Each of us has 400 tabs open on
our computers.
(30:26):
We get easily distracted.
So the book, not only are yougoing to learn in writing from an
expert, but then using a QR code,the reader can actually meet the
expert, see them on video, connectwith them, build community,
engage.
So super excited about what's
going on.
March 1st is the publishing date
of that.
(30:47):
So on And I love Kyle.
I mean, he's like a kindred spiritto me because I've always been
pretty authentic on social mediaand just kind of told my truth and
told my stories and told mystruggles.
And like, I get a lot of peoplethat are like, man, I love that
you share that kind of stuff.
Most people are showing up on
social media and trying to sharetheir best self, right?
Only their best self.
And obviously like to a certain
(31:07):
extent, so am I, but like, I'm notlike using social media as a
diary.
Cause that's something I'll tell
people.
Like I saw somebody the other day
was like, Oh man, people messagingme.
Like, I guess you can't share yourthoughts on social media.
I'm like, all right, dude.
Like the truth is all you do is
complain on social media.
So like, yes, you can't do that.
But lessons learned.
I mean, I talk about, you know,
(31:28):
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof loss in bad decisions in the
past, getting sued, you know,getting fired, stuff like that.
Like all those like sort of thingsthat happen.
I don't have to talk about itwhile I'm going through it, but I
can talk about the lessons learnedfrom those situations.
I mean, a lot of people don't wantto do that.
In marketing, it's this termpositioning, right?
Oh, you got a positioning.
I'm like, my positioning is I am
who I am.
And I want to show up as an
authentic dude.
And if you see me in person, I'm
gonna be the same damn dude.
(31:50):
Actually, probably gonna be more
raw with you in person than Iwould be on social media, just
because, you know, it's notbroadcasting to the world.
So, but that's one thing that Kyletalks about.
I was like, dude, just beyourself.
If you drop F-bombs, drop F-bombs.
If you don't, then don't, right?
Like, you know, if you love Jesus,you'll love Jesus.
Talk about it, right?Like it's just whoever you are, do
(32:13):
that.
And I think that applies across
all the platforms.
I do think sort of the delivery of
those messages changes a littlebit from platform to platform
because I've been trying to justrepurpose my stuff from Facebook
to LinkedIn.
It hasn't been so as, you know,
but maybe it's just also because Idon't have an engaged following on
LinkedIn like I do on Facebookbecause I haven't built
relationships with people onLinkedIn.
So, you know, maybe that contentwill work as long as I start to
(32:36):
continue to engage on thatplatform.
So. I it does work.
You nailed it on the head.
You have to invest in the platformlike you invest in Facebook.
Same thing.
Yep.
Yeah.
And I spend far too much time on
Facebook.
I'm not going to lie.
It has made me, you know, aconsiderable amount of money and
built my business and built a lotof connections.
And I will say, the book thatyou're talking about, it's one of
(32:58):
the things I love the most aboutthis podcast is I get to learn
from really cool people once,twice, three times a week because
it's like, man, I get to learn newstrategies, new tactics, new ways
of thinking about things, mindset,high-level strategic thinking to
tactical strategies that can beimplemented.
And you know, I've even beenthanked before because they're
like, I love your podcast.
Because while you do go over some
of the high level stuff, youalways try to deliver one nugget,
one tactic, one strategy.
I've always been wanting to do
that.
Because like, I know that like,
(33:19):
really, what most people need isjust to understand strategy at a
high level.
But what they want is they want
that tactic to go out and dothings.
And so it's like, okay, I'll giveyou a little bit of both.
Learn like the mindsets around howyou should really look at life.
But here's a tactic you can takeand implement, right?
So let's go to that, man.
Any suggestions around if you were
to go back to being a loan officertoday, like, what would you do to
go out and get business in themarket we're currently in?
(33:39):
Obviously, it's a tougher market.
What would you do to generate some
So the first thing I would do islike you do in any kind of, you
know, sales roles, identify andcreate the persona of the client
that you want to pursue and dobusiness with, right?
So for me, personally, I would bethinking about the first time
homebuyer, right?They don't have a current
relationship with a lender becausethey never had a loan before.
Right.
So, you know, that first time
homebuyer segment is where I wouldbe focused on as a loan officer.
And so then based on that,starting to create the persona, I
(34:02):
would say, OK, who is the firsttime homebuyer?
Well, we know that NAR said theaverage age of a first time
homebuyer was 37 in Q4 of 2023.
But we know that that segment is,
you know, anyone between call it24 and 35 years old, something
like that.
It's going to be moving around a
little based on inventory andaffordability.
So where do those people exist?Guess what?
This is where they exist, right?So if they exist here, then how do
I get there?So it's everything we've been
(34:22):
talking about is it's, I'm goingto build a persona for myself.
That's going to be focused oneducating prospective first-time
homebuyers on the importance ofthe value of homeownership and
what it does for wealth buildinglong-term, and then turn that back
into content that I can create tobuild an audience, build a
following, and get more of thosepeople paying attention to me,
just like I would do if it was astorefront, putting signage in
your storefront that tracks theideal customer.
So I would be going all in on thesocial platforms, whether it's
(34:42):
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,YouTube, and creating short and
long form content that addressesthe questions that this next gen
home buyer segment has today,because we know they have it.
They're asking a ton of questionsout there, getting answers on
these Yeah, absolutely, man.
And I think that's huge.
I also think that from thatperspective, if you are putting
out content, you're engaging withpeople consistently, you don't
really have to cold call anymore,right?
So like what you talked about, youcreated a list, right?
You can do the same thing, let'ssay with real estate agents,
(35:06):
right?Like, hey, you know what, here's
the 30 real estate agents in myarea that I want to reach out to.
So what I'm going to do is I'mgonna go follow them on all their
socials.
You maybe don't follow them on
every single one of their socialsat the same exact time.
Cause that gets a little creepy,but go follow them on one of the
socials, whatever they're mostactive on, start to like, start to
comment, start to sort of engagewith them all of a sudden, two,
three, four weeks, a month, twomonths, three months down the
(35:27):
line, you reach out and just say,Hey man, love your content.
We'd love to chat sometime, youknow, no pressure, you know, just
something simple like that.
And it's like, all of a sudden you
don't have to pick up the phoneand call 40 realtors on Monday.
You can maybe call 10 realtors andthey're going to pick up the phone
because like, Oh yeah, dude, I'vebeen seeing your content.
You got this content.
You've been engaging with my
stuff.
Thank you so much.
You're awesome.
(35:47):
I would love to have a
conversation.
And I'm a big fan of call.
I mean, I, again, I'm wearing ashirt that says call the leads.
Like I believe you should bepicking up the freaking phone
every single day and havingcreepy, but go ways to warm up
those conversations where you'renot having to hold all and say,
Hey, did you have a good weekend?Like, no, I didn't have a good
(36:07):
weekend because you're calling meright now.
Shut up.
Right.
And so I do, man, I think that's ahuge, huge way of doing that.
And the truth is too, you're goingto suck at first, which okay okay
because no going to see your stuffanyway.
That's right.
That's the thing.
Once you get over that, it's like,okay, yesterday's post is
yesterday's post.
No one sees it today.
Yeah.
A hundred percent, man.
So if someone wanted to learnmore, I know we've talked about
(36:29):
the book, we've talked aboutFinlocker, we've talked about your
LinkedIn stuff.
What's the best way to connect
with you?And then maybe drop some of those
links so they can find thoseplatforms, Finlocker.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So whatever.
Definitely LinkedIn is where I'mat.
So it's first name, last name,Brian View, V-I-E-A-U-X on
LinkedIn.
I have a Finlocker page out there,
(36:49):
F-I-N Locker, Finlocker.
We do have a LinkedIn page for the
book, Rethink Everything AboutBeing a Next Gen Loan Officer.
Obviously you can go tofinlocker.com.
We have some self-serve demos andton of information on how our
clients are using our product indifferent use cases.
But DM me, message me.
I'd love to have conversations.
If someone's interested inlearning more about what I'm doing
with this LinkedIn strategy, I'dlove to share it because every
(37:13):
time I share it, I learn thelittle tweak I could as I go.
that's Man, freaking awesome.
Appreciate your I've time.
learned a lot, Obviously man.
loving what you guys are doing
with Finlocker.
I think there's opportunities
there for loan officers that arelistening to this to use a tool
like Finlocker.
I mean, whether it's Finlocker or
something, but provide value, givethem education.
(37:34):
Obviously, you know, we're goingto be partial to Finlocker because
Brian's on here, but giveeducation, give some form of
value, right?And so many people get so stuck up
in this idea that like peopleshould buy in 90 days and they
should be ready to buy.
And if they're not, they're a tire
kicker.
If they're not ready to pull their
credit right away, they're a tirekicker.
And it's like, that's just not thereality.
The truth is like, they're just ahuman being that has a need.
That's not quite ready to moveforward with you right now.
But if you treat them like trash,guess what?
(37:54):
Those people aren't going to comeback to you.
You throw them in the trash.
Someone else is going to take that
lead.
So, I mean, just think about it
from that perspective.
These are human beings on the
other end.
whether or not they qualify,
whether or not they ever qualify,whether they're going to be
forever renters, treat them likehuman beings, not like trash, not
like, Hey, well, it's a lead.
It's a bunk lead, right?
I'm just wasting my time.
That's a crappy way to view
talking to other humans, to behonest.
So I don't know why I got on mysoapbox about I mean, So I for
(38:15):
your time today, man.
And another takeaway for me today
was, you know, LinkedIn, right?Is consistency.
Again, I mean, I know this becauseI saw it on Facebook.
It takes probably six months ormore of consistently putting out
content and consistently engagingwith people where you start to get
that momentum.
All of a sudden, people start to
DM you.
You talked about, you know, the
starting to see the momentum withpeople starting to book
appointments and stuff like that.
And I started a YouTube channel,
what a month ago, a couple monthsago, really, and 90 days ago,
(38:36):
technically, but started goinghard, like the last like four
weeks, I'm already starting to seemomentum from that.
But that comes, I think a lot fromthe fact that I've built social
media following, I can drop thelinks in there, I could have
people, you know, go that arealready warm people that are
watching it driving up the views,which then starts to get more
organic reach.
So I mean, it's a powerful,
powerful tool, but it takes timeand it takes consistency, man.
So thank you so much for your timetoday.
(38:57):
Thanks Any last words, man?No, I love what you're doing.
My last words are you're coming onmy podcast sooner than later.
So we'll get that at Any Awesome.
Sounds good, man.
And for everybody who is listeningto this and they are looking for
some help on flipping the statusquo on real estate agents, go to
flip the status quo.com.
Thank you so much for your time.
Have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
(39:19):
loans on demand podcast on loanson demand podcast.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, aka LongForm 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 and loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And today I'm excited because we
have Brian View.
He is the President and Chief
Operating Officer at Finlocker.
Man, he's doing some pretty cool
things.
He is, I'm going to call him an
influencer on LinkedIn, you know,someone I look up to on that
space.
So I do want to touch a little bit
about your strategies there.
But in addition to that, man,
you're doing some cool things withFinlocker.
(00:47):
So man, welcome to the show.
I'm excited to you.
Thanks, Luke.
I've been following you as well
and looking forward to learningfrom you even closer now.
I was a stalking learner justfollowing your content.
Now I get to like dig in deep.
So that's cool.
man.
Awesome.
Well, give us a little insight asto who you are.
What kind of got you into thisspace?
And I guess give us a backgroundof who you are.
Yeah, sure.
So I spent 30 years in the primary
(01:07):
mortgage origination space.
So I started as a loan officer in
the early 90s, did that for awhile, moved into sales management
and spent the last 10 years of mymortgage production career
managing the third partyorigination business at Flagstar
Bank.
Four and a half years ago, I
decided to place a bet, placed abet on myself and on this
racehorse called Finlocker andleft the production side of the
(01:28):
world to move to the mortgage techside.
And so I came over as president,chief operating officer four and a
half years ago.
We've been really focused on
growing the business and reallyenhancing and reshaping of the
product, which I'm excited to talkabout.
But what I saw, you know, call itfive-ish years ago, was an
opportunity with this technologyto help originators of all shapes
and sizes, you know, kind of flipthe script a little bit and go up
(01:51):
the funnel as far as possible toreach, assist, engage, and nurture
early journey home buyers.
And as we think about the
generations of first-time homebuyers, they're all digital first.
Everything's got to be on thephone.
And our product is a native mobileapp that helps lenders get up the
funnel and engage much earlier.
(02:12):
I'm sure we can go deep into Yeah,
for sure, man.
I think that's going to be
something we'll touch on.
But before we get there, man, just
talk a little about the journey,man.
Was it always easy?I'm kind of a sucker for the sort
of the journey to come up storybecause, you know, generally when
I talk to people that have had anysemblance of success in their
life, there were struggles, therewas downs, there was ups and all
that kind of stuff.
(02:32):
So talk about that and what sort
of kept you, I mean, a long timein the mortgage industry, man,
it's a tough industry to survivein.
And obviously there's a lot ofmoney in this industry, but
there's also a lot of bad timeslike we just came through.
So talk about what's kept you herefor this time.
And, you know, were there anytimes where you felt like maybe
you did want to get know, So,yeah, of course these gray hairs
were all earned, you know, yearover year, decade over decade.
So, you know, I really lucked intothe business, or at least in my
(02:53):
era, nobody grew up saying I'mgoing to, you know, become a
mortgage loan officer.
Right, right.
So I, you know, got married andneeded to find a job that had
benefits because that's what mynow father-in-law told me.
And so, you know, I went and didthe pre-LinkedIn version of
networking.
I went door to door, handing my
resume into place and applying forjobs.
So totally, you know, backed in,lucked into the mortgage industry.
1991, the par rate in 91 wassomewhere, you know, with a 10
(03:14):
handle.
And we started to see a dip of 50
bips, 75 bips, a hundred bips, butthe team of five that we had grew
to 50, like in the first fourmonths.
So, you know, again, lucky beingat the right place at the right
time because I was one of theearly hires in, I became a team
lead.
And so just over time was able to
kind of grow into leadership rolesas our business grew.
(03:37):
And yeah, totally wanted to be outof the business.
And I was exiled out of thebusiness because I was at a little
bank called IndyMac in 2008 thatwas seized by the FDIC.
And so I didn't leave though, youknow, even though our business was
shut down, a few friends of minethat were with us at IndyMac, we
formed a little consultancy andhelped companies that were, you
know, dealing with the fallout ofthat meltdown.
(03:58):
We did that for a couple of yearsand then that propelled me back
into direct production.
Then I ended up at Flagstar right
around 2012.
So yeah, I mean, those were dark
days, 2008, seven, eight, right,nine, 10, 11, with very little
income coming in.
But it was the people in this
industry that kind of kept meconnected.
So having really spent my entire,you know, professional career in
(04:19):
one industry, many of my bestfriends are people that are in
this industry.
And so it's the people that kept
me here and kept me in it.
And frankly, some of them kept me
paid over time.
And so that's what it's all about
is it's the people sure.
Sure, sure.
No, that makes a ton of sense,man.
And I know it's an up and downindustry.
(04:42):
Like I said, there's a lot ofupside potential, but just like
the upside, there's also thedownside.
Typically, anywhere there, there'sa lot of money to be made.
There's also a lot of money to belost.
Yeah.
I mean, just like starting a
business, right?Like one of my favorite quotes
that I just recently heard from myexecutive coach is that success is
not a very good teacher.
You know, it's something that I've
kind of known that, you know, Ilearned a lot more from my
(05:04):
failures than I do from like beingsuccessful.
But like you said, the rightplace, right time.
I'm sure there was a period oftime that you felt invincible.
And just like, I mean, I wouldthink most people, and I know most
loan officers during the 2020 and2021, they just thought they were
the best loan officer ever.
Like, man, I doubled my business.
I'm the bomb.
I know exactly what to do.
And then boom, you just getsmacked in the face when rates go
up and buyer sentiment goes crazy.
And like, you know, so I do think
(05:25):
that the hard times are a lot ofthe foundations that lead us to
where we are.
And so I appreciate you sharing
that journey.
Let's move on a little bit to
Finlocker, man.
I mean, talk a little bit about
that.
What does that platform do?
Man, we were talking a little bitbefore we jumped on the recording,
but I wanted you to sort of sharesort of at a high level.
What does it do?How does it serve loan officers
(05:46):
and said, in this space?A great descriptor for us is if
you think of the typical call toaction that most loan officers
have either in their landing page,their website, on their social
content, on any of their outboundmarketing, typically it's what?
Apply here.
Right.
Start now.
Right.
And that's fine.
And I'm not saying you shouldn't
have that because obviously ifyou're a loan officer, you want
people to get into thatapplication funnel.
saying you shouldn't have that.
I'm saying what you should have is
you should have, I mean, if you'regoing to do apply now, you should
(06:09):
have a survey funnel before youhave an apply now because you want
to capture the data first.
There you go.
But let's go ahead to your Lovethat.
And so using your survey funnel,typically there's going to be two
desired paths off that funnel.
The number one path is the apply
now button.
Right.
And let's just say for math's sakethat, you know, the typical loan
(06:30):
officer that's in the, you know,referral business, maybe six,
seven, eight of the 10 that comethrough that funnel are ready now.
Right.
Right.
They're qualified.
They know they're qualified.
The loan officer knows they'requalified.
Get them into that, you know,point of sale and get them into
the underwriting queue.
Sure.
Of course.
But what do you do for the other
two, three, four today in thismarket?
It's probably like five or sixthat aren't ready right now.
Right.
Most loan officers, the strategy
(06:50):
for those is they put them into asequencing campaign on their CRM
and And every Thanksgiving, theyget their great pumpkin pie recipe
and life goes on.
We think differently.
We think that path is, if they'renot ready now, let's give that
consumer a reason to stay engagedwith a loan officer in a
meaningful way with a set ofdigital personal financial tools
that will help address what'sholding them back from being
ready.
So that's what FinLocker is.
(07:11):
We are this mashup, if you will,of Mint.com meets Credit Karma
meets Rocket Money meets Zillow,Redfin.
We bring all those consumer-facingfeatures into one native mobile
app, and then we private label it.
It's a white label solution for
our enterprise clients.
So lenders basically have their
own version of Rocket money thatRocket Mortgage is using as a top
of funnel kind of lead magnet.
(07:32):
So a movement mortgage or a loan
deep or a direct rate, they couldtheoretically have their own.
Here, this is our G rate thing,but it's really Finlocker that's
powering that.
That's pretty powerful.
I think white labeling is a prettypowerful tool to have as a lender
because that keeps it kind of moresticky for them and also provides
that value in a way that, hey, I'mactually valuable.
(07:54):
So that's pretty cool, man.
From that perspective, you may
have data on this.
How long is it typically taking?
How long are the drips going out?Or is there a way for you to track
from the time that they enter thissystem until the time that they
become approvable or evenapprovable, but ready to buy.
(08:14):
Do you kind of have any data onthat by chance?
We a ton of data.
The challenge is if you boiled it
down to kind of an average, it'snot really going to mean anything
because a lot of the engagement isreally dependent on where the
consumer came in.
What funnel did they come in?
Right.
That makes sense.
As a good example, we have clientsthat use the product as a tool for
(08:35):
all of their turndowns right thoseare going to probably take on
average longer than someone that'scoming in and they're just not
ready for whatever reason sure sowhat we measure is engagement
right so activity we focus on howoften our consumers logging into
the app right and so we look atthat on a monthly basis.
We run in the low 20% range forthat.
Not bad.
Yeah, it's a really good stat for
a Not bad.
Yeah, it's a really good stat for
a product like ours.
Sure.
(08:55):
I mean, 20% engaged.
I mean, you got to think about
like, what's an engagement in anemail generally, like generally
going to get a lower amount,unless you have a really warm,
warm list.
But, you know, that's going to be
considerably lower probably.
But, So the question I often get
after I'll talk about engagementis that monthly active user
percentages.
How do you do that?
What's engaging the consumer tolog back in?
(09:17):
So the features in the app allow aconsumer to connect to their
credit and see their credit score,see their entire credit report.
We take the data and make itactually user-friendly.
So we show them their pay historyin one view.
We show them their utilizationacross all of their accounts and
in aggregate in another view.
We have a credit simulator that
allows the user, the consumer toactually simulate impacts to their
score if they take certain actionslike paying off, paying down
credit cards as an example.
(09:37):
Sure.
So that credit score is a criticalengagement.
It updates every seven days.
So we don't necessarily ping the
user every seven days when theirscore changes, but if it changes
by more than five points, eitherway, that's an automatic alert to
the user.
It goes out via email, but it also
is a push notification right totheir phone from the app itself.
And so that's an example of ourdata-driven engagement that's
happening based on things that arehappening and changing inside the
(09:59):
consumer's locker, we call it.
That's awesome, man.
In that regard, for someone who isdoing that, this could
theoretically be a tool for a loanofficer to say, hey, let's go
ahead and jump in here.
We'll show you this system.
Based off of what this simulatorsays, here's some of the things
you can do to get your score to680 or get you to 620 so you can
(10:20):
qualify for whatever X program or640 or 660 to get into a down
payment assistance or whateverthat looks like.
And you can kind of simulate as apretty cool tool.
And then obviously, you know, youtalked about it.
It's going to depend a lot onwhere you're getting the leads
from.
I mean, referrals, the journey is
probably going to be a lot quickerthan, you know, someone that's
maybe fully direct to consumer,right?
(10:41):
That they're doing all marketingto cold leads.
But I see that as a hugeopportunity to throw every single
one of your cold leads intosomething like this, right?
You know, throw them into asequence and just say, hey, like,
here's this free tool that'savailable to log into.
But I see like a certain amount ofpeople, users that can use that?
Do you have thresholds on that?I'm assuming.
It on, you know, how we structurethe enterprise license with the
lender itself.
(11:01):
Most of our enterprise
relationships have a loan officerkind of license component to it.
relationships have a loan officerkind of license component to So
it.
kind of a monthly fee per loan
officer.
And that's built based on the
total number of LOs at the companyat the enterprise level, but work
with the enterprise and kind ofunderstand the use case and then
structure the license model in away that makes real economic sense
with a strong ROI for the product.
One other thing I thought of is
you were kind of talking about thelead management kind of strategy.
(11:21):
One of the cool things that we'veseen happen from a use case
perspective is, you know, there'sa ton of loan officers out there
that are building their ownpersonal brand on social and
they're doing awesome becausethey're leading with education,
which I love.
Those are people that understand
that you have to get up the funnelif you want to control your
destiny.
Right, right.
And so what we found is some ofthese loan officers are having
great success creating contentthat is leading people to download
(11:44):
the app and create an account inthe app.
And so, you know, as an example,you know, just credit monitoring
as a single use case.
Credit monitoring is a single use
case.
One of our loan officers has a
great kind of sequencing of poststhat talks about the importance of
monitoring your especially ifyou're early planning for buying a
right?credit, home, And just off of
those kind of single we're posts,seeing hundreds of consumers for
this particular loan officerdownload the app and create an And
(12:05):
account.
you talk about the power of data.
When someone creates an account,you know, first name, last name,
email address, of When someonecreates an you first last email
data.
address, account, know, mobile
name, name, number.
mobile number, depending on how
much they do in the app, you startto know where they are on their
journey to buying a home becausethe app asks the consumer, where
are you on your homeownershipjourney?
And all of that data becomesavailable on the backend for the
(12:27):
loan officer to leverage andreally hyper-personalize their
engagement with that And so Inthat use case, the lead generation
tool, you know, I kind of go backto my statement around not having
the apply button on your websiteand not saying that you shouldn't
have it on there, but you shouldhave an easier way for people to
(12:50):
submit their information.
Because the truth is, if someone
doesn't know, like, or trust you,like expecting them to fill out
whatever 30 question questionnairewith their social security and the
date of birth and stuff like that,honestly, is crazy, right?
Like, and I say this all the time,and loan officers hate me for
this.
And they, you know, but I just
think it's funny because I thinkthat the online application is one
of the worst things to happen inthe mortgage industry, not because
of the tool, but because of thehabits that have been created by
loan officers, right?They got so lazy, they just send
(13:10):
out the link.
And I'm like, you're probably
missing out on hundreds ofthousands, if not millions of
dollars a year in income becauseyou are unwilling to have a
conversation with someone beforethey do that.
Or you're unwilling to have a leadgen funnel that, you know, let's
say 10 people come to you that arereferrals or just go to your
website, you know, maybe eight ofthose come, but then you don't
have two of those people's data.
Right.
like, if you were able to get likea shorter funnel, it doesn't have
(13:31):
all that information that justgives them some additional
information.
You might capture all 10 of those
people.
Yeah.
Maybe two or four or six of themaren't ready right now, but you
have all their information and youcan nurture them using a tool like
finlocker so man i think that's ahuge tool and so yeah from that
perspective man let's talk alittle bit about that man one of
the things we talk about a lot isthat the average buyer journey is
like six to 24 months right likesomeone doesn't wake up in the
morning and like i'm gonna buy ahouse today right that just
doesn't happen they don't do thatright they start looking on zillow
(13:53):
they talk to their parents theytalk to their friends.
They see someone else post thatthey just bought a house.
they bought a house.
Man, I should be able to buy a
house.
Let me start looking into it.
I've seen them.
who's your loan officer?
Hey, Who's your real estate agent?we Oh, should talk.
da. Da, da, da, And then all of ahere's sudden, like six months
goes by.
And then so many people are
especially like, loan officers,because I think loan officers are
used to referrals.
(14:14):
They get so stuck in this idea
that people buy in 90-day windows.
And people do not buy in 90-day
windows.
Not a $400,000, $500,000 house.
They might buy a $50 widget in themorning, but they're not buying a
$500,000 house like that.
They go through a buyer journey.
So talk a little bit about thatand how can Finlocker support that
journey?Just even just talking about that
from a more buyer journeyexperience and getting a funnel.
just doesn't I love that you paintthe picture of somebody waking up
and just saying, oh, I'm going togo buy a house today.
(14:34):
It doesn't happen.
It never happens.
It's never happened.
It just, it's not real.
I do believe there is a 90 daybuyer journey.
Everyone ignores is the 18 monthsthat happened before that 90 Yes,
yes, exactly.
That's what I say too.
Once they start the process, itcan be 90 days, but there's a
whole decision-making process thathappens And part of what's
happening in that 90 days is theanalysis and shopping, right?
That the consumer is going to do.
So my thesis around the power of
loan officers truly getting upfunnel is that if you are one of,
if not the trusted source offinancial education and
(14:56):
preparation as it relates toupcoming home That think you'll be
in position A to earn the businessinside of the 90-day buying
window, right?And so all things set aside, if
you've been the provider of a toollike Finlocker, I'm not saying
that's the only way to do it, ifyour tool is helping your
prospective home buyer, you know,understand and improve their
credit over six, 12, 18 months andcreate tracking mechanism to start
a plan to save for a down paymentand actually track their progress
(15:16):
towards that, et cetera, etcetera.
And you're not just relying on thetech alone, but actually adding
personal value on top of it asthat trusted advisor, I think you
do earn the right to win more thannot.
I sincerely believe that the localloan officer is best positioned to
be that trusted source offinancial advice for aspiring
homeowners.
And one of the main reasons is
most young homeowners, homebuyers,they don't have enough assets in
their life yet to matter to afinancial planner.
(15:38):
Right.
Of course, they're not going to
have a private banker.
Their private banker is typically
the ATM.
Right.
Right.
Right.
That loan officer really is, youknow, in position A. And if you're
doing that at scale in yourcommunity, and I say community,
not just physical local community,but you can have this digital
community.
You're doing that at scale as a
(15:59):
loan officer.
You're now making introductions
from your nurtured pipeline toother professionals in the space,
realtors and other.
And so I'm passionate about it,
but I honestly do believe thatthat is the best source for that
early journey homebuyer is to finda loan officer that leads with
education.
I the status of like 60 or 70% of
(16:19):
people go with the first loanofficer they talk to.
So like get earlier in theprocess, be the first person they
talk to.
And yeah, it might take them six
or 12 months to buy, but you'rethat person that has given them
the education you talked about.
And I think, you know, that's a
huge opportunity.
And like you said, as well as like
(16:41):
traditionally, I mean, this wholepodcast is about flipping the
status quo on real estate agents.
Not that I think that, you know,
loan officers need to be abovereal estate agents, but the truth
is for far too long, loan officershave brainwashed real estate
agents into believing that loanofficers doing their job well is
what should receive referrals.
(17:01):
And the truth is that should be
the expectation and you should doyour job well, but you should also
give them more value than that.
Right.
And I think that comes from like,how can you help them save time or
make more money?Can you get them referrals?
Cause like loan officers say thisall the time, like, well, you
know, consumers don't go to loanofficers.
(17:23):
Yes.
Consumers don't go to loan
officers because loan officersdon't freaking market their
business.
Right.
Real estate agents.
When you start as a real estate
agent, what do they tell you todo?
Go work your sphere of influence.
Right.
When you start as a loan officer,what do they tell you to do?
Go find a realtor.
(17:43):
Yes, that's it.
That's the sales marketingtraining is go talk to a realtor.
I'm cool with referrals, right?Like if you've built a referral
machine, that's awesome.
But most people don't have a
referral machine.
They have three or four referral
partners.
And that's scary because we saw
what happened with the people thathad four or five referral
partners.
All of a sudden, production
dropped 60%.
And instead of needing four or
(18:04):
five, now you need 15 or 20.
And if you don't have a systemized
process to go get more referralpartners, you're dead in the
water.
What is your value proposition to
these people, right?And so that's a big thing that we
talked about.
I was like, what is your value
prop?Finlocker, to me, it sounds like a
pretty dang good value prop to beable to give, you know, as even
for agents.
That could be one of your parts of
your offers.
(18:24):
Like, hey, we have this technology
that allows you to do this.
I mean, I know people talk about
things like Homebot and productslike that as part of their stack.
Finlocker feel like sits rightalongside something like a Homebot
or a Home IQ, right?It's just a real good product that
can get people into the rightspace and educate people for that.
I love the things And I business.
with that, man.
Just to tie the bow on the lastcomment, one of the enhancements
we built out from feedback fromour clients, from the loan
(18:46):
officers that work with us wasaround the ability to partner with
their referral partners andcreate, I don't like to call it
co-branding, but like acoexistence in the app where the
consumer who's invited into theapp will see both the loan officer
and the agent.
And so you talk about the power of
UpFunnel.
Now as a loan officer who leads
with education, you go into yourreferral partners and you set up
community-based, you know, homebuying, webinars, seminars, et
cetera, that are all centeredaround the technology of
Finlocker.
And it just, it creates a really
(19:07):
interesting dynamic.
Get excited about it because I can
see the potential at that top ofthe funnel at a hyper local level
as well, really just drivingpositive results for the loan
officer and the realtor, butequally, if not more important,
driving real value to thatconsumer.
exciting because realistically,like again, I mean, I talk with
hundreds, if not thousands of loanofficers over the last five, six
years, you know, everybody kind ofsounds the same.
Everybody sounds the same.
They all say the same three
things.
I answer my phone, I work on the
weekends, I close on time, I havegood rates, right?
(19:28):
Like, I guess that's four things.
But really, that's the same thing.
I work a lot, like I call mewhenever.
And it's like, cool, like thosethings are not really like, yes,
like those are things that arevaluable to retain an existing
relationship, but it's not reallysomething that's going to start
new relationships.
And again, most people don't have
a systemized process to prospect.
And interestingly enough, one of
the things we started doingrecently is setting five to 10
appointments with realtors for ourloan officers, right?
(19:49):
Thinking like these guys are allreferral.
Like they should know how to dothis.
Like they struggle with theconsumer direct.
So we have to teach them that cometo find out, we actually have to
teach them how to sell to realestate agents too.
Because like, right.
It's like, people think that the
pitch is the most important part.
And like, oh, well, like, this is
(20:09):
what I do.
And it's like, first of all, what
part of your pitch has anything todo with the realtor and their
specific situation?Right.
And they're like, oh, yeah, you'reright.
It's like, okay, well, think aboutit.
Like if you were able tounderstand what their problem is,
again, sales, people think salesis a bad word.
Sales is not a bad word.
(20:30):
It's leadership.
And I don't just so, funny thatknow, people really kind of shy
away from this idea that they'resalespeople.
You're like, dude, you don't getpaid $4,000, $5,000, $10,000,
$15,000 on a deal because you'rean educator and advisor.
You get paid because you're asalesperson.
You're a salesperson first.
And second, you're an advisor and
an educator and all those otherthings that you want to call
yourself.
But that's not a bad word.
(20:51):
Anyway, that's me getting on mysoapbox.
Let's talk a little aboutLinkedIn, man.
I know you're passionate onLinkedIn.
So let's give some strategies forloan officers on how they can
leverage a platform like LinkedInto grow.
And obviously, I'm looking at you.
I saw you made an awesome post
two, three days ago about yourstrategy and what you've done.
I'm a Facebook guy.
I've built my business mostly on
Facebook.
And so I'm trying to get on the
LinkedIn.
I've used LinkedIn for years.
I have like 20,000 connections,but like I posted and get like one
(21:13):
like, and I'm like, what the heck?You know, just seeing your post
was like, all right, well, youknow what?
I need to be a lot moreintentional.
So talk a little bit about like,what were the strategies you've
employed?What are the lessons you've
learned over the time that you'vebeen, you know, being consistent?
I think you've been And so thatfor about a year or more.
Yeah, I mean, I've talked aboutthe IndyMac, you know, bank
failure back in 2008.
Early that year was the first time
I ever heard of LinkedIn.
And inside the company, you know,
the signs were there that therewas trouble, right?
So somebody sent a company-wideemail and said, hey, we should all
(21:35):
get on this platform so we don'tlose track of each other when this
thing finally blows up.
Okay.
So it started as just a way tokeep tabs on people.
And then, you know, so I had acouple hundred people, big deal.
When I got back to kind of directlending, you know, production
management, I found that a lot ofpeople that I was connected with
were still in the business.
And so back in like 2012, I
started just dabbling withgrowing, you know, my connections.
(21:57):
And it was just me reaching outand connecting with people, but
never added never did any value,content.
That's kind of what I did.
I kind of just banned people.
it's like you're a right?Yeah, lurker, Okay.
And then in like 2018 and 19, Istarted to dabble with content and
putting content out.
You know, being at a startup, you
know, FinTech bootstrap type, youknow, company.
Sure.
We don't have a big budget for
marketing and brand awareness.
(22:17):
And honestly, I had built a
LinkedIn following of over 20,000people, which is now like 31,000,
which is bigger than our companyfollowing is ever going to be.
So right.
I figured if we're going to be
successful, more people have toknow who we are, what we do and
why we do it and how it benefitsthem.
Yeah.
And so in January of 2023, what
I'll say, I went all in onLinkedIn.
I'm not saying this is the rightrecipe.
This is what I did, but Icommitted to create content, four
posts per day, Monday throughFriday, three posts a day,
(22:38):
Saturdays and Sundays.
Some of that was recycled, reused,
you know, et cetera, et cetera.
But a lot of it was original
content.
And so first thing I wanted to do
was be consistent, show upconsistently.
And so I scheduled everything,8.30 AM, 11.45 AM, 3 PM, 6 PM,
that type of thing.
So people that were following me,
they kind of knew, okay,something's coming out at this
time.
Didn't see a ton of, you know,
immediate benefit.
I did see that my following
(22:58):
started to grow slightly, youknow, in the kind of one of 2023.
And so then you start testing andlearning and doing things
differently.
I launched a podcast and the
podcast gives me a ton ofopportunities to create content,
much like this conversationprobably you.
And that became part of my contentstrategy.
So fast forward, the post I didthis last week, it talked about
that journey and, you know,growing the followers to over
31,000, creating 1,440 pieces ofcontent in a calendar year, having
1.6 million views of my content.
(23:19):
I don't remember the engagement
stats, but the most tellingstatistic for me wasn't what I saw
on LinkedIn, it was what I sawhappening in our pipeline.
Sure.
Inbound demo requests were like
250% up year over year.
Contracts were, I mean, all the
things that you would want to haveet started to happen.
Didn't happen right away.
Didn't happen in three, six, nine
months.
It was really a process.
(23:39):
And so I'm more bullish on theplatform today than I ever was
because I've seen the benefits ofit.
Of course.
And now I'm kind of focused on how
do I help other people?I'm not going to be a LinkedIn
coach, by the way.
That's not what I'm doing.
By the 297 course here?Not doing that.
Nobody wants to learn from me thatway.
I want to help others in ourindustry build a stronger network
(24:00):
for themselves.
And guess what will happen?
It'll make my network that muchstronger by doing that.
So that's kind of where I'mstarting to pivot the message is
to help others make meaningfulconnections.
It's how you and I are doing thisright now is through the platform.
Yeah.
power of social media, man.
And interestingly enough, like alot of what you talk about is I
wasn't ever as consistently, youknow, 830, whatever.
(24:22):
But that's what I did on Facebook.
Right.
It was like I consistently showedup every single day and you're
right.
I mean, it was probably six
months.
And honestly, the first content
that I put out was probably notvery good.
And I probably wasn't very good.
And I laugh all the time because I
look back at like a YouTube videothat I posted.
(24:42):
Yeah, this was 2017 probably.
I think it was like, yeah, mayor
somewhere in 2017, I posted aYouTube video that I posted.
Yeah, this is 2017.
Probably I think it was like,
yeah, mayor somewhere in 2017.
I posted a YouTube video, my very
first YouTube video ever posted.
And I was like, holy crap, I was
so bad.
I was so shy.
I was so nervous.
(25:03):
I know anyone I'm talking about.
But hey, you know what, like,progress happens when you take
action.
And one of my favorite sayings is
repetition is the mother of allskill, right.
And so doing these things over andover and over again, you start to
learn what works and what doesn'twork.
And so that is something in itselfis like you're learning as you're
(25:27):
making each post, okay, well, thispost didn't really hit.
Maybe I'll do less of that type ofpost, maybe more of this type of
post.
And then what I loved is like, you
did those posts, but I thinkprobably missed out on a key
piece.
What was your engagement strategy?
Because I feel like most of theseplatforms, a lot of people talk
about the content, but then peopledon't really talk as much about
(25:49):
the engagement strategy.
And what I mean by engagement
strategy is like the reciprocaleffect, like comment and like and
thoughtful comments.
I'm assuming you had some sort of
a strategy or maybe that just cameorganically, but talk a little bit
about that, man.
Like what was your strategy in
terms of engaging with otherpeople's So when I first started
the 2023, you know, journey, ifyou will, I wasn't thinking about
that at all.
(26:10):
That was a mistake.
And it wasn't until probably Mayor June that someone kind of
thumped me in the side of the headand said, hey, moron.
And that's what I love about theplatform is you learn from
everybody.
And someone was talking about
their strategy had nothing to dowith the content they were
creating.
It was all about how they were
engaging with others.
So call it May or June of last
year, I actually went onto mycalendar.
(26:30):
These meetings still sit there.
I have three scheduled 15 minute
blocks every day.
It just says engage with others.
And then I'm an Excel geek.
So I've created this massive Excel
spreadsheet of people that I'mconnected with on the platform.
And then I color code them by whothey are.
They're a client, they're aprospect, they're a partner,
they're just a friend, they'resomeone I learned from.
And so then every day in those 15minute blocks, I just pick five or
10 in each group and just go onand make meaningful comments.
I'm not just doing thumbs up orliking it and trying to add some
(26:52):
value.
And then of late, what I've been
doing is reposting and sharingpeople's content that I think is
super powerful.
So that's the magic.
It's in the engagement becausepeople see that and then guess
what they want to do?They want to give back to you,
right?Yeah.
It's a lot of reciprocity, right?I mean, at the end of the day,
that's what social media is for.
It's funny, we talk about this on
other platforms a lot but onlinkedin to me has always felt
like the very stuffy sort of likevery overly corporatey and i'm
(27:13):
just not like no i'm wearing ashirt that says call the leads on
you know i came out of corporate iused to you know wear the suits
and stuff like that but i hated itright and i even remember when i
first got started doing themarketing stuff my videos would be
like me wearing either like ajacket i don't know if i was
wearing pants or not but i waswearing a jacket because that was
in the shot.
And I was like, man, I just feel
(27:34):
so uncomfortable.
And so it's just like, but anyway,
like what I've learned is there'sa lot more authenticity happening
on the platform.
If you sort of find the right
people and they're putting outgood content, there is a lot of
that sort of like just brownnosing type of content as well.
It's kind of annoying, but youjust have to sort of filter
through that.
And I'm just kind of like creeping
and finding people as I'm goingright now.
(27:56):
I'm just kind of looking, allright, who are the people that are
active on this platform that aregetting good engagement?
What are the type of content theyput out?
One thing I've noticed withFacebook is you used to be able to
tag people and it used to give youextra reach.
Now I found you tag people givesyou less reach.
I'm seeing on LinkedIn that a lotof people are doing the tagging
stuff and it's still giving peoplereach and links and their stuff.
(28:19):
It doesn't seem to affect it asmuch as maybe something like a
Facebook platform.
So interestingly enough, all these
different platforms have differentalgorithms and things like that.
So I think those are some littlethings that I'm picking up as I
engage more on the platform, as Isort of scroll through and see
stuff.
I'm like, okay, well, this person
got this many likes.
I wonder what all their content
(28:41):
looks like.
Oh, cool.
Like they engage with other peoplepretty regularly.
Okay.
All right.
That makes sense.
So it's pretty interesting i came
see.
So there's a guy that I follow,
Darren McKee, M-C-K-E-E, Darren,first name.
He's not in the mortgage business,but he's become kind of my
LinkedIn mentor.
The dude understands the
algorithm, studies it, lives it.
He's got 110,000 followers.
He's one of those guys that'scoaching on the platform.
And so I've been part of a cohortthat he's running and he's helped
(29:03):
me a ton just in two weeks time tounderstand what works, what
doesn't work, what's a myth that'sreally a myth that doesn't matter.
And so I'd encourage people tofollow Darren and you're going to
learn from him.
And if you are so compelled, dive
into one of his cohorts because hegoes deep into what works for him.
One other thing I was thinkingabout is, you know, you and I
meeting on the platform and we'redoing this great podcast.
I'm going to have you on mine, bythe way, as well.
You just don't know that yet.
Now I do.
I met this guy, Kyle Draper.
(29:24):
I met him social media too, not
through LinkedIn, but throughFacebook.
So funny enough, interesting howsocial media works.
He's right?You know, you're experiencing his
stuff.
And yeah, so he and I are
co-authoring a book.
Did you read his first book?
Rethink everything about it?I bought I bought it.
I've read some of it.
I haven't read the whole thing.
I love Kyle.
I always mess with him.
I troll him pretty much on everyplatform.
I actually messaged him one timebecause I was like, Hey, is it
okay if I do this?Cause like, I feel like sometimes
I go a little far.
(29:44):
He's like, dude, I love it.
Keep doing it.
Okay, perfect.
Just want to make sure that youdidn't get and I are in the final
stages of publishing a booktogether.
Yeah.
Using the rethink everything kind
of moniker.
And so our book is rethink
everything you know about being anext gen loan officer.
I love it.
I have to put this out there
because I'm 55.
So I'm not next gen.
I'm like old gen age doesn't comeinto being a next gen loan
officer's mindset.
And it's understanding what
resonates with the next gen homebuyer.
And so we've got this crazy 38experts that each have volunteered
(30:06):
to write a chapter of this bookand going through final edits
right now, it's freaking amazing.
If I was a loan officer, I'd be
all over this thing because evenif you only got four nuggets out
of it, the value is immense.
And Kyle's strategy with his first
book was to have an immersivereader experience.
Sure.
Anything to read words on a page.
I don't know about you.
I think we talked about this
before we jumped in.
Each of us has 400 tabs open on
our computers.
(30:26):
We get easily distracted.
So the book, not only are yougoing to learn in writing from an
expert, but then using a QR code,the reader can actually meet the
expert, see them on video, connectwith them, build community,
engage.
So super excited about what's
going on.
March 1st is the publishing date
of that.
(30:47):
So on And I love Kyle.
I mean, he's like a kindred spiritto me because I've always been
pretty authentic on social mediaand just kind of told my truth and
told my stories and told mystruggles.
And like, I get a lot of peoplethat are like, man, I love that
you share that kind of stuff.
Most people are showing up on
social media and trying to sharetheir best self, right?
Only their best self.
And obviously like to a certain
(31:07):
extent, so am I, but like, I'm notlike using social media as a
diary.
Cause that's something I'll tell
people.
Like I saw somebody the other day
was like, Oh man, people messagingme.
Like, I guess you can't share yourthoughts on social media.
I'm like, all right, dude.
Like the truth is all you do is
complain on social media.
So like, yes, you can't do that.
But lessons learned.
I mean, I talk about, you know,
(31:28):
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof loss in bad decisions in the
past, getting sued, you know,getting fired, stuff like that.
Like all those like sort of thingsthat happen.
I don't have to talk about itwhile I'm going through it, but I
can talk about the lessons learnedfrom those situations.
I mean, a lot of people don't wantto do that.
In marketing, it's this termpositioning, right?
Oh, you got a positioning.
I'm like, my positioning is I am
who I am.
And I want to show up as an
authentic dude.
And if you see me in person, I'm
gonna be the same damn dude.
(31:50):
Actually, probably gonna be more
raw with you in person than Iwould be on social media, just
because, you know, it's notbroadcasting to the world.
So, but that's one thing that Kyletalks about.
I was like, dude, just beyourself.
If you drop F-bombs, drop F-bombs.
If you don't, then don't, right?
Like, you know, if you love Jesus,you'll love Jesus.
Talk about it, right?Like it's just whoever you are, do
(32:13):
that.
And I think that applies across
all the platforms.
I do think sort of the delivery of
those messages changes a littlebit from platform to platform
because I've been trying to justrepurpose my stuff from Facebook
to LinkedIn.
It hasn't been so as, you know,
but maybe it's just also because Idon't have an engaged following on
LinkedIn like I do on Facebookbecause I haven't built
relationships with people onLinkedIn.
So, you know, maybe that contentwill work as long as I start to
(32:36):
continue to engage on thatplatform.
So. I it does work.
You nailed it on the head.
You have to invest in the platformlike you invest in Facebook.
Same thing.
Yep.
Yeah.
And I spend far too much time on
Facebook.
I'm not going to lie.
It has made me, you know, aconsiderable amount of money and
built my business and built a lotof connections.
And I will say, the book thatyou're talking about, it's one of
(32:58):
the things I love the most aboutthis podcast is I get to learn
from really cool people once,twice, three times a week because
it's like, man, I get to learn newstrategies, new tactics, new ways
of thinking about things, mindset,high-level strategic thinking to
tactical strategies that can beimplemented.
And you know, I've even beenthanked before because they're
like, I love your podcast.
Because while you do go over some
of the high level stuff, youalways try to deliver one nugget,
one tactic, one strategy.
I've always been wanting to do
that.
Because like, I know that like,
(33:19):
really, what most people need isjust to understand strategy at a
high level.
But what they want is they want
that tactic to go out and dothings.
And so it's like, okay, I'll giveyou a little bit of both.
Learn like the mindsets around howyou should really look at life.
But here's a tactic you can takeand implement, right?
So let's go to that, man.
Any suggestions around if you were
to go back to being a loan officertoday, like, what would you do to
go out and get business in themarket we're currently in?
(33:39):
Obviously, it's a tougher market.
What would you do to generate some
So the first thing I would do islike you do in any kind of, you
know, sales roles, identify andcreate the persona of the client
that you want to pursue and dobusiness with, right?
So for me, personally, I would bethinking about the first time
homebuyer, right?They don't have a current
relationship with a lender becausethey never had a loan before.
Right.
So, you know, that first time
homebuyer segment is where I wouldbe focused on as a loan officer.
And so then based on that,starting to create the persona, I
(34:02):
would say, OK, who is the firsttime homebuyer?
Well, we know that NAR said theaverage age of a first time
homebuyer was 37 in Q4 of 2023.
But we know that that segment is,
you know, anyone between call it24 and 35 years old, something
like that.
It's going to be moving around a
little based on inventory andaffordability.
So where do those people exist?Guess what?
This is where they exist, right?So if they exist here, then how do
I get there?So it's everything we've been
(34:22):
talking about is it's, I'm goingto build a persona for myself.
That's going to be focused oneducating prospective first-time
homebuyers on the importance ofthe value of homeownership and
what it does for wealth buildinglong-term, and then turn that back
into content that I can create tobuild an audience, build a
following, and get more of thosepeople paying attention to me,
just like I would do if it was astorefront, putting signage in
your storefront that tracks theideal customer.
So I would be going all in on thesocial platforms, whether it's
(34:42):
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,YouTube, and creating short and
long form content that addressesthe questions that this next gen
home buyer segment has today,because we know they have it.
They're asking a ton of questionsout there, getting answers on
these Yeah, absolutely, man.
And I think that's huge.
I also think that from thatperspective, if you are putting
out content, you're engaging withpeople consistently, you don't
really have to cold call anymore,right?
So like what you talked about, youcreated a list, right?
You can do the same thing, let'ssay with real estate agents,
(35:06):
right?Like, hey, you know what, here's
the 30 real estate agents in myarea that I want to reach out to.
So what I'm going to do is I'mgonna go follow them on all their
socials.
You maybe don't follow them on
every single one of their socialsat the same exact time.
Cause that gets a little creepy,but go follow them on one of the
socials, whatever they're mostactive on, start to like, start to
comment, start to sort of engagewith them all of a sudden, two,
three, four weeks, a month, twomonths, three months down the
(35:27):
line, you reach out and just say,Hey man, love your content.
We'd love to chat sometime, youknow, no pressure, you know, just
something simple like that.
And it's like, all of a sudden you
don't have to pick up the phoneand call 40 realtors on Monday.
You can maybe call 10 realtors andthey're going to pick up the phone
because like, Oh yeah, dude, I'vebeen seeing your content.
You got this content.
You've been engaging with my
stuff.
Thank you so much.
You're awesome.
(35:47):
I would love to have a
conversation.
And I'm a big fan of call.
I mean, I, again, I'm wearing ashirt that says call the leads.
Like I believe you should bepicking up the freaking phone
every single day and havingcreepy, but go ways to warm up
those conversations where you'renot having to hold all and say,
Hey, did you have a good weekend?Like, no, I didn't have a good
(36:07):
weekend because you're calling meright now.
Shut up.
Right.
And so I do, man, I think that's ahuge, huge way of doing that.
And the truth is too, you're goingto suck at first, which okay okay
because no going to see your stuffanyway.
That's right.
That's the thing.
Once you get over that, it's like,okay, yesterday's post is
yesterday's post.
No one sees it today.
Yeah.
A hundred percent, man.
So if someone wanted to learnmore, I know we've talked about
(36:29):
the book, we've talked aboutFinlocker, we've talked about your
LinkedIn stuff.
What's the best way to connect
with you?And then maybe drop some of those
links so they can find thoseplatforms, Finlocker.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So whatever.
Definitely LinkedIn is where I'mat.
So it's first name, last name,Brian View, V-I-E-A-U-X on
LinkedIn.
I have a Finlocker page out there,
(36:49):
F-I-N Locker, Finlocker.
We do have a LinkedIn page for the
book, Rethink Everything AboutBeing a Next Gen Loan Officer.
Obviously you can go tofinlocker.com.
We have some self-serve demos andton of information on how our
clients are using our product indifferent use cases.
But DM me, message me.
I'd love to have conversations.
If someone's interested inlearning more about what I'm doing
with this LinkedIn strategy, I'dlove to share it because every
(37:13):
time I share it, I learn thelittle tweak I could as I go.
that's Man, freaking awesome.
Appreciate your I've time.
learned a lot, Obviously man.
loving what you guys are doing
with Finlocker.
I think there's opportunities
there for loan officers that arelistening to this to use a tool
like Finlocker.
I mean, whether it's Finlocker or
something, but provide value, givethem education.
(37:34):
Obviously, you know, we're goingto be partial to Finlocker because
Brian's on here, but giveeducation, give some form of
value, right?And so many people get so stuck up
in this idea that like peopleshould buy in 90 days and they
should be ready to buy.
And if they're not, they're a tire
kicker.
If they're not ready to pull their
credit right away, they're a tirekicker.
And it's like, that's just not thereality.
The truth is like, they're just ahuman being that has a need.
That's not quite ready to moveforward with you right now.
But if you treat them like trash,guess what?
(37:54):
Those people aren't going to comeback to you.
You throw them in the trash.
Someone else is going to take that
lead.
So, I mean, just think about it
from that perspective.
These are human beings on the
other end.
whether or not they qualify,
whether or not they ever qualify,whether they're going to be
forever renters, treat them likehuman beings, not like trash, not
like, Hey, well, it's a lead.
It's a bunk lead, right?
I'm just wasting my time.
That's a crappy way to view
talking to other humans, to behonest.
So I don't know why I got on mysoapbox about I mean, So I for
(38:15):
your time today, man.
And another takeaway for me today
was, you know, LinkedIn, right?Is consistency.
Again, I mean, I know this becauseI saw it on Facebook.
It takes probably six months ormore of consistently putting out
content and consistently engagingwith people where you start to get
that momentum.
All of a sudden, people start to
DM you.
You talked about, you know, the
starting to see the momentum withpeople starting to book
appointments and stuff like that.
And I started a YouTube channel,
what a month ago, a couple monthsago, really, and 90 days ago,
(38:36):
technically, but started goinghard, like the last like four
weeks, I'm already starting to seemomentum from that.
But that comes, I think a lot fromthe fact that I've built social
media following, I can drop thelinks in there, I could have
people, you know, go that arealready warm people that are
watching it driving up the views,which then starts to get more
organic reach.
So I mean, it's a powerful,
powerful tool, but it takes timeand it takes consistency, man.
So thank you so much for your timetoday.
(38:57):
Thanks Any last words, man?No, I love what you're doing.
My last words are you're coming onmy podcast sooner than later.
So we'll get that at Any Awesome.
Sounds good, man.
And for everybody who is listeningto this and they are looking for
some help on flipping the statusquo on real estate agents, go to
flip the status quo.com.
Thank you so much for your time.
Have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
(39:19):
loans on demand podcast on loanson demand podcast.com.
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