May 23, 2024 • 32 mins
This week, we're joined by Mike Hajjar, CMPS. Mike is a Mortgage Advisor and Branch Manager at Landmark Mortgage Planners DBA (a division of American Financial Network Inc.) from the Detroit Metropolitan Area in Michigan, who's been in the industry since 2005. Mike is a mortgage planning specialist that's built his business on integrity, transparency, and trust.
Mike is here to discuss: → Transitioning from consumer direct to a more referral based business, and creating a successful hybrid mortgage business model. → How you need to have both sales skills, ethical practices, and genuine interactions to have long term success and growth. → Blending traditional sales approaches with digital/social media to stay current and deliver a faceted approach.
Mike Hajjar's Website: www.afncorp.com/web/mikehajjar
Mike Hajjar's Facebook: @MikeHajjar
Mike Hajjar's LinkedIn: @MikeHajjar
Mike Hajjar's Instagram: @mikehajjar_mortgage
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.
(00:00):
to 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.
And my name is Luke Shankula, akaLong Form Luke, and this is the
Loans On Demand podcast.
Hey, what's going on?
Welcome to the Loans On A ManPodcast, the show where we help
(00:25):
loan officers flip the status quoon real estate agents and put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
I'm excited because I have my
friend, Mike Hajar, on thepodcast.
We've been friends on social for afew years, and he does some cool
things on social media.
He's grown.
I mean, he came out of ConsumerDirect round back in what, 2016,
2017, I think somewhere aroundthere.
And he's gone on to do some reallybig things, both with Realtors,
(00:45):
but also some other referralsources.
So we're going to dive into someof that stuff, but welcome to the
show, Mike.
Excited to have you, pleasure to
be here, brother.
I really appreciate you having me
Awesome, man.
Well, I guess give us a little
background as to who you are, whatgot you into the industry and what
keeps you in this crazy industry.
Obviously, still a little bit of
an interesting market.
So give us a little rundown.
What does look like?Yeah, I got into the business
(01:06):
October 2005.
I was 18 years old.
I was in college at the time and acousin of mine had a mortgage
shop, Consumer Direct.
I started working there.
I worked for him for about fiveyears.
Very grateful for that model.
I definitely picked up some
things.
I think what we were talking about
before, right?Sort of that relentlessness on
phone calls, right?Sitting there two, 300 calls a
(01:27):
day.
That was just the way that I
learned, right?I didn't know a different way.
And then I started probably, likeyou said, around 2016, I started
to shift out to a little bit moreof a mix of consumer direct and
then started to work with somerealtor partners.
And, you know, I was trying towork with a hundred realtors and,
you know, that wasn't the rightway.
So over the years, we reallystarted to nurture very strong
(01:49):
relationships with the few, let'ssay 10 realtors that I do work
with.
And our Florida office works with
a lot more, but then myself andRob Zbar, which is my mentor, my
business partner, we both run amortgage planning model, right?
So I'm in Michigan, he was inFlorida.
We actually know each other priorto AFN.
So last year, Rob and I do, likewe were talking about, a lot of
(02:10):
the heck comes together, a lot ofthe retirement planning, Rob helps
with that.
So we had to make a decision, you
know, were we stronger offtogether or apart?
And we tried to do it apart forabout a year.
And he's been at AFN one yearlonger than me.
I've been there going on fiveyears.
But then with that combination, Isort of veered off into over the
last, I'd say, three to four yearsbecause of the mortgage planning
(02:32):
model, a lot of financialadvisors, CPAs, estate planning
attorneys, life insurancespecialists, because that's who we
surround our client with.
So as we talked about last year,
it was humbling.
Thank God we still ended up number
one at AFN, our branch, but it wasstill a rough one.
It was in all rainbows andbutterflies but that's just kind
(02:53):
of a high level overview of thelast 19 years and kind of where my
career started and where we're atand it's crazy to think 19 years
man 2005 really 19 ago yeah manholy i wasn't gray back then would
have been like a sophomore in highschool i think something like that
so it's what did graduate 2007 ohokay so i'm 05 so yeah i'm right
out in school, I think somethinglike So that.
(03:15):
it's where you Oh, 2007.
okay.
So I'm all five.
So yeah, I'm right out of high
school jump into more crazy, man.
Well, I mean, that's a long time
and straight out of high school.
Obviously, you have the background
in consumer direct.
Obviously, you know, we talked a
lot about direct to consumer onthe podcast, and everywhere I talk
about direct consumer, because,you know, we talked about the idea
of the hybrid loan officer, theloan officer that can understand
both how to generate their ownleads, whether that be from paid
ads, whether that be from creatingreels and TikToks and short form,
(03:36):
whether it be YouTube channels,stuff like that, right?
How can you get direct to theconsumer first?
You can give those out to referralpartners.
But on the other side of that, thehybrid loan officer, like I talked
about, is the consumer direct,plus the person that also
understands the other side,working with referral partners,
working with agents, working withfinancial advisors, which I love
is kind of what you've done atthis point is you've become that,
again, that hybrid loan officerthat I think is the future of this
(03:57):
industry because I do think thatas the SNAR lawsuit rolls out, as
new sort of things roll out, it'simperative that loan officers get
in front of consumers early on inthe process.
So just kind of walk through, likewhat does it look like when you
are working with, you know, thesefinancial advisors and things like
that?Like, are you able to then take
those sometimes and then referthem out to your referral partners
or something like that, which is,again, another cool model, another
(04:18):
way to get kind of consumerdirect, kind of, I mean, you get
in front of them in a differentway, but.
Yeah, it definitely creates dealsfor our real estate agents.
And we've done a great job of, andI got to give my partner a lot of
credit on it, is that we do a lotof putting them in the same room,
right?So it's tough.
Like we do a housing wealth andstrategic equity workshop.
The one I did maybe like threemonths ago was rough because I was
talking to advisors, estateplanning attorneys, CPAs, and
realtors all at the same time,right?
(04:39):
So the advisors were getting alittle bit bored in the you having
to explain it to everybody else.
But at the end, everybody was able
to connect, meet with each other.
So sort of that connector mindset.
So they do deals, you know, evenoutside of me.
And sometimes it's from thefinancial advisor to the CPA or
whatever it may be.
But yes, definitely creating
business for really everybodythat's part of that client
advisory team that we surround theOf course, which is huge.
(05:02):
I mean, I think that's a massiveopportunity that most loan
officers are not touching on,right?
I mean, most people are getting itfrom realtors.
I think there is, again, a smallsegment of people that are
starting to understand goingdirect to consumers is important.
But I feel like there's a massivemissing opportunity as well within
these other realms of, okay, nowyou get a, let's call it a
(05:22):
consumer direct lead or a referralfrom a real estate agent.
Hey, do they have a CPA?Do they have a financial advisor?
Do they have whatever else theyneed and having all these people?
So now you can refer the same leadto three or four people and you're
creating these reciprocalrelationships built on value, but
built on, you know, also givingdeals to each other, which is
hugely probably valuable.
And what's helped you guys grow?
(05:43):
And I mean, being the number onebranch at AFN last year, that's
not small, right?I mean, you know, obviously, we
had a tough year.
But so you're doing these sort of
literacy, where did you learn thisinformation from?
Like, how did you get to the pointwhere you felt comfortable
presenting to all these differentsort of people?, you know,
obviously very differentideologies when you're talking
about financial advisors and CPAsand stuff like that to We're going
to thank again, Rob Zbart forthat, but I'll tell you how he did
(06:05):
it to me.
Rob spent a lot of time with me,
like read this book, you know,that obviously I've been to his
workshops multiple times justbecause we've been close friends
before we were even doing businesstogether.
But one of the first classes thatI taught, Rob was supposed to zoom
in from Florida, like pull him inon Zoom.
And he was supposed to help meteach the class.
And, you know, we had some sort ofemergency down there.
And he's like, Mike, I'm sorry todo this to you, but you got to
(06:29):
teach the class solo.
And I think the good part about
that was so nervous, right?I was It sweating.
was definitely nerve But wracking.
then I realized the good part
about I was so that, right?nervous, I was sweating.
It was definitely nerve wracking,but then I realized I knew a lot
more than I was giving myselfcredit for just from really being
a student, right?Just obsessing over, I'm in an
(06:50):
area, you know, I've got theRockets, the UWMs, the loan depots
around me.
So a lot of these trigger lead
shops, a lot of these people whoare taking advantage of clients.
And I think for me, a lot of thatcame from the empathy and just
obsessing and being a student tobe able to share that with all
these different sorts of Yeah, Ilove it, man.
And you're right.
I mean, Michigan has got to be
interestingly enough.
I mean, it's not a high cost
market.
It's not like California where,
you know, your average loan amountis huge, right?
(07:11):
It's small $200,000 loan amounts,but yet it's probably one of the
most competitive markets in thecountry because of the fact that
we got UWM and Rocket whobasically churn out superstar
salespeople.
And whether you like them or not,
what they do is they createpowerful salespeople that
understand how to convert.
Whether you like their ethics or
not doesn't really matter, butthey understand sales psychology.
And for the most part, they aregoing to eat most, let's call it
(07:31):
advisors lunch because they'remuch better at sales.
Now, that's why I'm a big believerin you're an advisor, but you're
also a salesperson and you're kindof a salesperson first.
And sales is not a bad word.
I think maybe sales in the wrong
capacity is a bad word.
If you're pushing someone into
something they shouldn't be in,but sales and leadership and sales
is something that I think, again,why a lot of these consumer direct
background people tend to do somuch better once they understand
(07:55):
referral relationships is becausethey understand sales at a high
level.
From that perspective, man, like
how do you compete in thosemarkets and what is sort of the
approach that you take?Because that's tough out there,
right?I mean, how do you compete in a
market like that?That's super saturated with, you
know, a bunch of real killers inthe sales room.
no, that's a great question.
It took a lot of years of
(08:16):
differentiation, right?It didn't happen overnight.
And I think what we did well waswe didn't lose sight of the
purchase side during the refi.
A lot of that was me planning a
lot of seeds and our whole teamdid a great job of it.
Now, did I definitely pushconsumer direct during that time?
Yeah, I'm still a huge fan ofdirect mail, you know, all these
things because they work, right?Of course.
Doing a boatload of PMI removal,like appraisal waivers on all
these.
So obviously I got the rockets in
(08:37):
my backyard.
So I was able to easily bring in a
team to your point of people whoreally know how to convert those
sorts of leads while the otherhalf of us were still out building
those relationships.
But my coach, Anthony Casillas
asked me years ago, what do youwant to be known as, right?
What do you want your reputationto be?
And I said, I want to be known asthe lender with the most
(08:57):
integrity, right?I'm tired of seeing all these
people around us take advantage ofveterans and seniors.
And I just got zero tolerance forthat.
And if I had to give up multipleseven figures in the refi boom
because of that, that was okay.
But it gave us the longevity play
of being able to say, well, wait aminute, we're some of the ones who
are still here.
Everything around us was more of,
(09:17):
we would say no, probably morethan we would say yes.
Just to make sure that what wewere doing was within integrity of
what we believe with Yeah, no,that makes a lot of sense.
Because the reason why people havea bad sort of connotation around
sales is because of thetraditional used car salesman
approach.
I mean, let's be honest, even a
lot of the strategies that Rocketpushes are not of the highest
integrity, right?They're just kind of pushing
everybody possible intoprocessing.
And that's sort of their strategy,which again, it works from that
(09:39):
perspective.
But I do think, especially when it
comes to stuff like cash outrefis, like, you know, there is a
sort of like, all right, well,when does it really make sense for
the borrower and almost sayinglike, Hey, it doesn't make sense
right now to do this.
You know, when it comes to
purchase, if they have thecapacity to buy, even in a high
rent market, I think you need tobelieve as a loan officer, that is
(10:00):
a good time to buy.
And you have to, you know, to a
certain extent, convince them, youknow, obviously you can't make
them do anything.
You can't push them to do
something they don't want to do,but you can present a good case
for why it makes sense to buy in amarket like this.
I think right now, being a strongsalesperson is what's keeping
people alive, but also havingintegrity.
Cause you're right.
Reputations get built over years,
(10:20):
but they can be torn down in anight.
Right.
So it's like you make one bad move
and you know, it can be a bigproblem.
So I love that you did that.
I love that you built that
reputation, but also, I mean, alot of sales does come down to say
no to people because sometimesit's the right thing to do.
And it may cost you, you know,short-term revenue, but you know,
coming from the long-termperspective, and we were talking
before this, a lot of loanofficers look at business very
(10:40):
transactionally.
And despite what they might think,
they think they're relationshipdriven.
But stats tell us otherwise,right?
Stats tell us that according toMonitorbase, 81% of consumers work
with a new loan officer on theirnext transaction.
And that means only 19% arestaying with the same person,
mostly probably because they'renot staying in contact with the
person.
And one thing that I see all the
time is loan officers only wantingto work with people that are ready
to buy in the next 90 days, right?That to me is very transactional.
(11:02):
You only want people that areready to buy, otherwise they're
fire kickers.
No, they're people that are not
ready to buy yet or refinance yetor whatever, right?
So how do you sort of approachthat?
Because you're talking aboutlongevity, you're talking about
building this sort of long termplan.
And I think, again, so many peopleare so short sighted, in terms of
longevity, right?They don't think about the LTV of
future transactions, they don'tthink about the LTV of building
relationships in the right way.
And like these types of things,
(11:23):
it's just like, how do I close asmuch business today?
What does that look like, man?Like, I mean, you know, I know,
it's kind of a broad question, butno, a great question.
I think one of the things yousaid, right, is probably,
unfortunately, most lenders, ifyou say LTV, they think you're
talking about loan to value.
They don't know what a lifetime
(11:43):
value is.
Right.
So I put out a video maybe twoweeks ago and they were asking me,
they said, which clients do yousee that have the most success?
And it's truly the clients thatcome to us that are six, 12, 18
months out because we can put agame plan together.
Now, does that mean we only worktop of the funnel?
Absolutely not, right?We've got a mix.
Otherwise we wouldn't make anymoney if it was always top of the
funnel.
But what I said in the video is
that I think a lot of lendersdon't have the systems nor the
(12:06):
empathy, right?To look that far out when, you
know, people do need to look thatfar out.
And Neil Dingris, that's a mentorof mine on the video, said a great
thing.
One time he said, human beings
have a problem with depthperception.
So they may think they're 18months out, but they don't know
they're more like 12, four, youknow, again, we got 43% of
first-time homebuyers who thinkyou need 20% or more as a down
payment, right?So these are people that they're
probably like, oh, I'm never goingto be able to buy.
(12:28):
Well, it's a 10-minuteconversation.
And, you know, we start to saylike, hey, 3% is $7,500, right?
You know, and that just starts tochange things.
So I think really just puttingthese game plans in place for
people and realtors appreciatethat, right?
Because a lot of them, they wantthat long-term relationship with
the client, but a lot of themnever knew how to build it
without, like I have one of myrealtors is like, Mike, I'm not
(12:50):
going and giving out pies everyyear, right?
I'm just not going to do that.
I want to add value with the
things that we talk about.
So we do a, you know, workshop for
them every year, wealth buildingand just all these different
strategies.
So yeah, man, I think again, back
to that mortgage planning model isthere's the before, the during and
the after.
And I think we've done a great job
with the before and during andobviously the after.
(13:10):
I love it, man, because you saiddepth perception.
I actually really love that.
I've never said it that way, but I
talk about that all the time islike the average consumer doesn't
know, right?If they say they're six months
out, why?Why are they six months out?
Right?Like, I mean, if they have income,
they have the credit, they havethe down payment.
Why are they six months out?Right?
(13:31):
And again, so many loan officersare so scared to call them out on
that kind of stuff.
Because here's the thing, like as
a loan officer, you see how manytransactions a month in a year,
the average consumer, the averagehome buyer, buys one home every 11
years, according to data, and theyrefinance twice in those 11 years,
right?So that's four transactions in 11
years that you can capture if youunderstand lifetime value.
(13:52):
Most people aren't.
They're not capturing one of those
four deals, right?And so what's wild is if you just
understand it from thatperspective, like consumers don't
know what's good for them a lot oftimes.
And again, this comes down tobeing an ethical salesperson and
why sales is powerful, but it'salso kind of scary because you can
get into the, you know, hey,pushing someone into a product
they shouldn't be in or doing itat the wrong time or things like
(14:13):
that.
But I think there is also an
ability as a salesperson to say,hey, like we need to get you
moving now.
And, you know, we talk about
objects arrest, stay at rest.
And so sometimes you just need to
get them off there, but ask themfor the freaking application, get
the credit pool.
All of a sudden they're out
shopping and they're like, Oh,actually I can buy a home.
And we see that all the time.
People say six months out, give
them a pre-approval in theirpocket and show them some houses.
(14:35):
All of a sudden they're like, Oh,I can actually afford to buy some
stuff.
Cool.
Right.
And next thing you know, two,
three months later, they're incontract and buying a home.
Right.
And I think again, so many people
are so scared.
Oh, you're six months out.
OK, handle the damn objection.
Do teach your team this?
Do you guys train on some of thissort of stuff around having those
conversations and showcasing whyit makes sense to buy?
single week.
So our region and our branch is
(14:56):
landmark mortgage planners.
Right.
So every one of our sales meetingsis a lot of these sorts of
conversations around.
It becomes unlimited.
This happens to be one of thoseexamples.
But I think a lot of it has beenaround bringing on the right
people because we could teachstrategy all day long.
This and that.
I can't teach integrity and
empathy.
Right.
Of course.
Right.
So I think when a lot of thehiring has been around that, it's
easy to teach strategy at thatpoint to people who care.
(15:18):
I think probably in regards to thetraining, absolutely.
But, you know, we're blessed tohave people in the industry like
the Dave Savages and ReneRodriguez and this and that.
And we put our guys through thatstuff because we're in those
meetings.
Right.
And nutting out on mortgage coach.
were in those meetings, right?
And nutting out on mortgage coach.
And so it is mandatory that back
to the Tim Brahim days of the page51003.
I mean, that's where we startgetting into asking for their
financial advisor, their CPA.
Yeah, so we train on that all up
front.
Good.
I mean, that's a good thing.
(15:39):
Because again, you know, depth
perception, man, I love thatstatement.
Because the truth is, they don'tknow.
I worked mortgage industry for, Ithink, five years.
So when I bought my house, I couldhave bought a home two or three
years earlier.
And obviously, you know, at the
time, it would have been maybe acouple hundred thousand dollars
cheaper, maybe not quite thatmuch, but you know, maybe a
hundred thousand cheaper.
California, probably.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, cause we bought, you
(15:59):
know, a home for 390 in 2015.
And, you know, I could have
qualified probably even for like aCalHFA or like a down payment
assistance or, you know, somethinglike that earlier on, or I would
have just known that I didn't need20% down.
And I could have easily broughtup, whatever, 10, 15 grand for a
down payment.
And I didn't understand that.
(16:19):
And this is working for a mortgagecompany.
I work for a reverse mortgagecompany.
So it's a little bit different,but still like all it took was
asking a loan officer there.
I'm like, hey, so what do I need
to do to buy a home?And he's like, oh no, you don't
need 20%.
Now what are you talking about?
And I work for a mortgage company.
So like, think about the average
(16:40):
consumer, they're thinking thesame thing, you know?
So I like to leave some tangiblesort of like strategies for people
on the podcast as well.
So I know you guys are attracting
a lot of these people.
You're doing these classes.
How do you get people into theseclasses?
Like, what does that look like?Do you have a marketing strategy
for that?If you're open to sharing, what
does that look like in terms oflike getting people into a room?
(17:02):
And then from that perspective, doyou have any sort of ways of, and
then engaging them after thoseclasses?
Cause I think a lot of timespeople are like, well, I'll do
these classes.
Then they don't send me anything.
Well, it's like, okay.
Yeah.
We struggled with that.
And I'm not dropping names.
Like, because I know people dropnames to drop names.
This is more really me givingcredit to a lot of I'm like, so
grateful for names to drop names.
This is more really me giving
credit to a lot of like, I'm sograteful for a lot of these
(17:23):
people.
Andrew Pollack, Lead Pops, there
are funnels for after the classes.
So we just drive them to
housingwealthmastermind.com.
And that does, you know, the
newsletter.
And then, but what we love is that
typically we don't see somebodycome to the class one time.
It's a lot of information.
So my top producers and referral
partners, I mean, some of themhave been in the class five, six,
seven times, but getting them intothose seats, it's funny, man, I'm
a digital guy, right?So I was doing all this marketing
and ads and I'm like, why am Igetting like five people?
(17:44):
So I was like, you know what?Let me truly tell the truth
because I do believe how importantthis information is.
Then I just I went back to justold school, picking up the phone
and really making it invite only.
And it was not open to, you know,
every not because I didn anywherefurther back in the room, you
can't see, you know, when westarted trying to show the tax
free line of credit on the heck,if they can't see these colors on
the lines and whatnot, they'relosing the visual.
(18:04):
Right.
So it is funny that this happened
to be how we're filling thoserooms, whether it be here in
Michigan or down in our Floridaoffice, it's been a lot of
intentional.
I think intentionality is the
biggest one and calling peoplethat say, okay, well, I know that
this person would benefit frombeing there.
So I know it's not the fanciestthing in the world, but just like
you tell people, call the leads,man.
Sales is a contact sport, It is,man.
I have a couple of hot takes.
One of my hot takes is the online
(18:24):
application is one of the worstthings that's ever happened to the
mortgage industry.
And I say that because just like
automation in CRMs, people aresolving for something that they
probably shouldn't solve for interms of automation, right?
They want an automated way toclose a couple more loans, right?
They want an easy way to getsomeone to fill out an
application.
That's great, right?
You do want to have options forpeople, but more likely than not,
(18:45):
most people are having a 10 or 15minute conversation, sending an
application link and missing outon a massive opportunity to have
an in-depth discovery call.
In addition to that, right?
We're talking about using the CRMfor automations, right?
Like I talk about calling theleads.
Like you have to pick up thephone.
Like these other mediums are greatfor conversations and starting the
conversation.
They're not great for conversion,
right?And so when it comes down to it,
(19:09):
you use text message to start aconversation.
You use emails to start theconversation.
They're not great for conversion,right?
And so when it comes down to youuse it, text message to start a
conversation, you use emails tostart a conversation, you use
voicemail jobs, going to start aconversation, but then you have to
pick up the phone and have theactual conversation because that
(19:30):
is where the sales are going tohappen.
And that's our preferred medium asa salesperson.
That being said, when you arecommunicating with people,
sometimes they prefer to starttexting and then eventually you
can get them into a call.
But again, I mean, I'm a big
believer in picking up the phone,making the dials because sometimes
that's what it is.
I mean, people will be like, Oh,
(19:51):
can you run ads for real stages?I'm like, well, yeah, we could,
but it's like a hundred andsomething dollars an appointment
for us.
Are you willing to spend $10 a
month on ads?Oh, probably not.
Okay, cool.
Pick up the damn phone and call
them.
Right?
Like that's the easiest way to doit.
And yeah, you're going to getbetter show rates and stuff like
that as well if you have thoseconversations.
But if you are running digital,you also can't just expect them to
(20:13):
show up.
One of the things we talk about
with seminars and webinars andstuff like that is you will get
probably a 30% show up rate if youdon't have a robust automated
follow-up and manual check-inprocess and also create scarcity
and urgency on why they should bethere.
Those are some of the elementsthat need to be in place, whether
you're doing a consumer direct,right?
If you're doing like a seminar forveterans or first time homebuyers,
whatever, like there has to be areason for them to show up, right?
(20:34):
There has to be a hook.
There has to be some sort of way
that people can actually do that.
So yeah, man, that's cool that you
said, I mean, calling people,that's really it, you know, it's
the manual process of callingpeople.
So you finding people like on myare these people that you've
worked with in the past?are Like, you using tools like
that?Or just kind of calling people.
So are you finding people like onMMI?
Are these people that you'veworked with in the past?
are Like, you using tools likethat?
Or just kind of calling people inthe area that can meet up?
warm outreach on some of thebigger events.
I did a lot of cold and I probablyleft out an important part on
(20:58):
social media is that's kind of howI've identified, oh, this person
would be when I sayintentionality.
So as much as it is technically acold call when I call them, and
even though I tell them, hey, youdon't know who I am, by the time I
start talking to them, they'relike, yeah, I know you from
Instagram or Facebook, but that'sbecause I'm thoughtfully engaging
with them, right?It's not like people think like,
oh, I'm going to hire this socialmedia person.
And no, if right now somebody tookover my social media and started
(21:20):
talking to you, you'd be like,this isn't Mike.
I instantly.
You you would And I know on your
end.
know, know.
Yeah.
social Man, media, just again,
another right?medium, Just another way to, yes,
MMI is a match to that.
And then we'll look at some of
those numbers and then start tolook at them on social media.
They start posting negative stuff,things like that.
And that's just kind of not thepeople we want to be around.
So on top of just the numbers,it's more about like one of the
agents that's had major successwith this was I would see her
(21:41):
always talking about client first,client first, client first.
And I called her, I said, I knowyou're one of the top producers in
the state, but when somebody saysclient first that many times, that
like warms my heart.
It was genuine.
I didn't do you want to go tocoffee?
say, hey, Whatever they say.
And of I ended up landing the
meeting and getting that.
course, But it was truly from
intentionality.
But I was able to get a lot of
that from social.
Powerful, right?
I mean, this is one thing I tellpeople as well as like, I'm a big
(22:03):
fan of cold calling, but there'smuch better ways to cold call,
right?I mean, you can use social media
to pretty much never have a coldcall again.
Right.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, like adding new people onsocial media, following them,
liking it, commenting on theirstuff, slide into their DMs,
right?Or even just give them a call, but
you can slide into their DMsfirst, have a couple conversations
and then call them.
Hey, you know what?
I'm loving your content recently.
So there's so many ways that you
can warm up a prospect.
And I'm personally not someone
that I would love to cold callmyself, but I have built pretty
(22:23):
much my entire business off oforganic social media, creating
that, and then having theseconversations.
These are technically strangersthat I've never talked to before,
but a lot of times me and you,like, I don't think we've ever met
in person.
We've talked via social for years
and years and years.
Right.
And so, I mean, I don't know, Ican't remember if we met in Miami
or not, but I don't even know ifyou were I know at the Miami event
(22:44):
anyway.
So it's, you know, it's like, we
probably have never even met inperson and yet here we are, you
know, talking like we've beenfriends forever, right?
We don't know that if we have orYeah.
Yeah.
We don't even know if we've met in
person.
So, Hey, we probably haven't, I'm
assuming.
So yeah, man, I really, you know,
I appreciate kind of you sharingyour wisdom with us.
I like to leave it with onetangible strategy tactic,
(23:06):
something that loan officers cantake and implement today to go out
and get business.
So like, is there any one or two
or whatever, a couple of differentideas or one idea that someone
could implement today to go outand find some more business,
whether it be from real estateagents, consumer direct, I mean,
you know, whatever got.
Yeah, because I was guilty of
this.
I got so caught up in the tech
(23:27):
side of it that I had to get backto the fundamentals.
So I think this mixture of techand getting back to the
fundamentals, we got to shakehands.
We got to start to continue tomeet people.
But I think getting back into somesort of mix of exactly what you
were just saying of, yes, we canuse these things, social media,
email this and that, but pickingup the phone with intentionality.
And then on the advisor peopleside, call me all the time and but
picking that, up the phone withintentionality.
And then on the advisor side,people call me all the time and
(23:49):
say, well, how do we get in frontof advisors?
I wish the easy answer was, youknow, just tell them you'll help
them grow their assets undermanagement because that's truly
what we do.
But then they need to actually
know how to do that.
Right.
So it's really just becoming astudent, man.
I wish there was some sort ofshortcuts and things like that.
But I think it really comes downto let's not forget about the
fundamentals because I did.
I was so caught up in the tech
(24:09):
that I'm like, man, I'm not doingthe daily activities and just
simplifying it to am I having 10voice to voice conversations a
day?Because the sales math I've got on
that board will tell me that forevery 25 quality conversations I
have, I'll fund one loan.
That's good.
And I will say that I'm a big fanof Zoom.
If you're not the type of personthat loves to meet in person, you
know, at least on the first time,use Zoom because it's as close as
you can get to being face to face.
But, you know, phone calls are
great.
Zoom calls are great.
(24:30):
I mean, what I literally tellpeople too is like, if you're
meeting someone for the very firsttime, I personally am a fan of
meeting them via zoom because theysuck by that i mean like if
they're like a realtor that you'retrying to talk with it's like if
they suck like you're gonna findthat out pretty quickly right you
gotta go take them to like somecoffee day you don't gotta waste
30 minutes driving there 30minutes driving back you know hour
(24:50):
there whatever it is like you canhave a conversation for 30 minutes
oh cool you're a good person let'smeet again let's go actually have
coffee let Let's go have lunch,whatever.
Because I'm a big believer in thatbecause I find that one that also
creates more efficiencies.
Let's be honest.
Yeah.
Belly to belly is ultimately going
to be your best bet in terms ofthat.
But Zoom, I think is the next bestthing and also a hell of a lot
(25:11):
more efficient when it comes tothat too.
So man, I appreciate that becauseI do think that people forget the
fundamentals and think that, youknow, they're just going to go
post on social media and a wholebunch of stuff's going to come
from that.
And the truth is it's yes.
And right.
It's not just, you know, Oh, you
do that one thing, especiallynowadays.
I think that there is a shiftwhere well, not just kind of have
to do everything.
You kind of have to do the
fundamentals of calling everybody,you know, doing the updates.
You kind of have to be on socialmedia and posting content
(25:34):
regularly.
You have to be out there, you
know, marketing, you have to go toevents, I mean, you just kind of
have to do everything these days,right?
You know, I don't think it's nolonger the time where you can kind
of sit behind a desk and just dopre approvals, because someone
else is going to come and get yourbacon, right?
They're going to come and takeyour deals, because they're out
there doing those things.
But then also, they're doing the
(25:56):
stuff on social media.
And they're also good at
structuring deals, right?You know, so I don't know, that's
just my belief.
And I think that maybe it's, you
know, unfortunately orfortunately, I guess for the
people that are willing to do thework, it takes more these days
with social and all that stuff toshow up.
And I think doing the fundamentalsis fine as well.
But I think then there's the oldschool guys are like, Oh yeah,
screw social media.
(26:16):
Like I get all this stuff from
this, that, and it was like, Ohcool.
But how much business are youmissing out on?
Because you aren't willing to dothat other stuff.
how long are they going to be inthree to five years?
Right.
Right.
And you're going to be able to befound.
Exactly.
A hundred percent.
I don't remember who it was on thepodcast, but someone said that
their kid was like, mom, you needto get on social media.
I'm not going to refer people toyou via text or via email.
Like you have to be on socialmedia.
(26:37):
So that was like a, just kind offunny.
It's still stuck with me that thekid was like, yeah, you need to be
on social media because that'sjust how people do business these
days.
And it was like, okay, cool.
Like there's a mix of everybody.
You should do everything, I think.
So anyway, man, thank you so muchfor your time today, Mike.
Any parting thoughts before we go?Yeah, Well, definitely.
Thanks for having me on.
I think one thing and one other
takeaway, right, for people is Italked about being that student.
And I think one of the things youhit and you said very well was
(27:00):
that people are, you know,somebody just tells them six
months or whatever, and they'rejust like, oh, OK, they don't know
how to handle that objection.
So I think one thing that in
regards to some of theseobjections and not being order
takers, I'm part of a group calledCircle of Wealth, which is like, I
don't know, 1500 financialadvisors.
There's only me and my businesspartners.
We're the only mortgage guys, butthey just talk about mortgages all
day long.
And when I started to understand
(27:20):
why is because real estate is thenumber one place that people lose
money unknowingly andunnecessarily.
How they acquire real estate, likecash, right?
Or massive down payments.
And then how they pay for their
mortgage, the 15 years, the thingslike that.
So whether you're going to workwith financial advisors or not,
when we start talking about thebest of the best are going to make
it, the ones who have to doeverything, I think knowledge is
going to always be power.
I think right now, being able to
explain to somebody, hey, maybeyou shouldn't put 50% down or 20%
down, you or, we know, could lookat three or 5% and being able to
(27:42):
explain to somebody, maybe hey,you shouldn't put 50% down or 20%
down or, you know, we could lookat three or 5% and being able to
explain why, even in a very simpleway, I think is the difference
maker of how they're going to grabdeals and relationships versus
them just, you know, if I justwanted to get that information,
I'll just go online to one ofthese websites and fill out a
form.
Well, and to your point, you said
even in a simple way, I think ithas to be in a simple way because
(28:02):
I mean, unless you're talking to afinancial advisor who understands
this thing, like you don't want totalk down to people.
So you want to speak in typicalperson's language.
And a lot of times I think we endup speaking, I mean, even for
myself as a marketer, I startedtalking about pixels and stuff
like that.
And loan officers like, what is he
talking about?Offers, unique value propositions,
right?You know, unique mechanisms, the
words like that, that if I startusing those words, people start to
zone out, right?And it's the same thing with the
(28:23):
consumer.
If you make them feel stupid,
like, but if you can present it inan easy way, you know, the cost of
waiting or, you know, like thingslike that, or why it makes sense
to put less down.
And so many people, again, Dave
Ramsey, we were like, oh, put 20%down, put 50% down.
I was like, well, now you have allthis cash That's not liquid that
you can't get out of your houseand it's not doing anything.
And, you know, I don't know.
It's, there's so many ways that
(28:43):
you can frame that, but back toobjection.
Sorry, man.
You said the whole, like, you
know, waiting six months.
One of the things we tell people
too, is like, instead of saying,what's your timeline, say
something like, if we were able tofind you the right house at the
right price and right payment,like how soon would you want to
move in?Now, all of a sudden, instead of
saying six months, they're goingto say right away.
(29:03):
And I listen.
Yeah.
Because instead of asking them,what's your timeline?
They think they're six months out.
But if you put the scenario in
front of them, if you find theright house at the right price,
the right payment, and everythingworked for you, how soon would you
want to move?It's the same question, right?
We were talking pre getting onhere, tonality and talking and
(29:25):
scripting and stuff is reallypowerful.
Part of that comes down to, youknow, understanding human
psychology and understanding howpeople react to certain things.
And also that people have thissort of defense mechanism or
natural responses to things.
So again, man, thank you so much
for your That was incredibly wellframed.
Good job, man.
Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's been doing
this for a little bit.
So yeah, I know a little bit about
a little bit.
So appreciate your time today, my
man.
Thank you so much for everything
you brought.
I mean, today, obviously, my
biggest takeaways for loanofficers that are listening to
(29:45):
this is you got to diversify,right?
I mean, you know, you talked abouthaving your realtor partners, but
also finding other avenues thatyou can generate leads and pre
approvals from, you know, alsobeing able to reciprocate those
people is powerful as well.
So, you know, getting out there
learning at the end of the day,there is no hacks.
It's one thing that seems to beapparent in every single one of
these podcasts that I do is thatthere is no shortcut.
The shortcut is the process.
(30:05):
The shortcut is the fundamentals
stick to the fundamentals andeverything good will happen.
It's going to take longer than youwant it to, but if you stick to it
and you look at it from along-term perspective, it's all
going to work out in the end.
Thank you so much for your time
today.
And for anybody who is listening
and is looking for some help ongetting direct to the consumer and
flipping the status quo on realestate agents, go to flip the
status quo.com.
(30:26):
Thank you so much for listening.
Have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
loans on demand podcast on loanson demand podcast.com.
to 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.
And my name is Luke Shankula, akaLong Form Luke, and this is the
Loans On Demand podcast.
Hey, what's going on?
Welcome to the Loans On A ManPodcast, the show where we help
(00:25):
loan officers flip the status quoon real estate agents and put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
I'm excited because I have my
friend, Mike Hajar, on thepodcast.
We've been friends on social for afew years, and he does some cool
things on social media.
He's grown.
I mean, he came out of ConsumerDirect round back in what, 2016,
2017, I think somewhere aroundthere.
And he's gone on to do some reallybig things, both with Realtors,
(00:45):
but also some other referralsources.
So we're going to dive into someof that stuff, but welcome to the
show, Mike.
Excited to have you, pleasure to
be here, brother.
I really appreciate you having me
Awesome, man.
Well, I guess give us a little
background as to who you are, whatgot you into the industry and what
keeps you in this crazy industry.
Obviously, still a little bit of
an interesting market.
So give us a little rundown.
What does look like?Yeah, I got into the business
(01:06):
October 2005.
I was 18 years old.
I was in college at the time and acousin of mine had a mortgage
shop, Consumer Direct.
I started working there.
I worked for him for about fiveyears.
Very grateful for that model.
I definitely picked up some
things.
I think what we were talking about
before, right?Sort of that relentlessness on
phone calls, right?Sitting there two, 300 calls a
(01:27):
day.
That was just the way that I
learned, right?I didn't know a different way.
And then I started probably, likeyou said, around 2016, I started
to shift out to a little bit moreof a mix of consumer direct and
then started to work with somerealtor partners.
And, you know, I was trying towork with a hundred realtors and,
you know, that wasn't the rightway.
So over the years, we reallystarted to nurture very strong
(01:49):
relationships with the few, let'ssay 10 realtors that I do work
with.
And our Florida office works with
a lot more, but then myself andRob Zbar, which is my mentor, my
business partner, we both run amortgage planning model, right?
So I'm in Michigan, he was inFlorida.
We actually know each other priorto AFN.
So last year, Rob and I do, likewe were talking about, a lot of
(02:10):
the heck comes together, a lot ofthe retirement planning, Rob helps
with that.
So we had to make a decision, you
know, were we stronger offtogether or apart?
And we tried to do it apart forabout a year.
And he's been at AFN one yearlonger than me.
I've been there going on fiveyears.
But then with that combination, Isort of veered off into over the
last, I'd say, three to four yearsbecause of the mortgage planning
(02:32):
model, a lot of financialadvisors, CPAs, estate planning
attorneys, life insurancespecialists, because that's who we
surround our client with.
So as we talked about last year,
it was humbling.
Thank God we still ended up number
one at AFN, our branch, but it wasstill a rough one.
It was in all rainbows andbutterflies but that's just kind
(02:53):
of a high level overview of thelast 19 years and kind of where my
career started and where we're atand it's crazy to think 19 years
man 2005 really 19 ago yeah manholy i wasn't gray back then would
have been like a sophomore in highschool i think something like that
so it's what did graduate 2007 ohokay so i'm 05 so yeah i'm right
out in school, I think somethinglike So that.
(03:15):
it's where you Oh, 2007.
okay.
So I'm all five.
So yeah, I'm right out of high
school jump into more crazy, man.
Well, I mean, that's a long time
and straight out of high school.
Obviously, you have the background
in consumer direct.
Obviously, you know, we talked a
lot about direct to consumer onthe podcast, and everywhere I talk
about direct consumer, because,you know, we talked about the idea
of the hybrid loan officer, theloan officer that can understand
both how to generate their ownleads, whether that be from paid
ads, whether that be from creatingreels and TikToks and short form,
(03:36):
whether it be YouTube channels,stuff like that, right?
How can you get direct to theconsumer first?
You can give those out to referralpartners.
But on the other side of that, thehybrid loan officer, like I talked
about, is the consumer direct,plus the person that also
understands the other side,working with referral partners,
working with agents, working withfinancial advisors, which I love
is kind of what you've done atthis point is you've become that,
again, that hybrid loan officerthat I think is the future of this
(03:57):
industry because I do think thatas the SNAR lawsuit rolls out, as
new sort of things roll out, it'simperative that loan officers get
in front of consumers early on inthe process.
So just kind of walk through, likewhat does it look like when you
are working with, you know, thesefinancial advisors and things like
that?Like, are you able to then take
those sometimes and then referthem out to your referral partners
or something like that, which is,again, another cool model, another
(04:18):
way to get kind of consumerdirect, kind of, I mean, you get
in front of them in a differentway, but.
Yeah, it definitely creates dealsfor our real estate agents.
And we've done a great job of, andI got to give my partner a lot of
credit on it, is that we do a lotof putting them in the same room,
right?So it's tough.
Like we do a housing wealth andstrategic equity workshop.
The one I did maybe like threemonths ago was rough because I was
talking to advisors, estateplanning attorneys, CPAs, and
realtors all at the same time,right?
(04:39):
So the advisors were getting alittle bit bored in the you having
to explain it to everybody else.
But at the end, everybody was able
to connect, meet with each other.
So sort of that connector mindset.
So they do deals, you know, evenoutside of me.
And sometimes it's from thefinancial advisor to the CPA or
whatever it may be.
But yes, definitely creating
business for really everybodythat's part of that client
advisory team that we surround theOf course, which is huge.
(05:02):
I mean, I think that's a massiveopportunity that most loan
officers are not touching on,right?
I mean, most people are getting itfrom realtors.
I think there is, again, a smallsegment of people that are
starting to understand goingdirect to consumers is important.
But I feel like there's a massivemissing opportunity as well within
these other realms of, okay, nowyou get a, let's call it a
(05:22):
consumer direct lead or a referralfrom a real estate agent.
Hey, do they have a CPA?Do they have a financial advisor?
Do they have whatever else theyneed and having all these people?
So now you can refer the same leadto three or four people and you're
creating these reciprocalrelationships built on value, but
built on, you know, also givingdeals to each other, which is
hugely probably valuable.
And what's helped you guys grow?
(05:43):
And I mean, being the number onebranch at AFN last year, that's
not small, right?I mean, you know, obviously, we
had a tough year.
But so you're doing these sort of
literacy, where did you learn thisinformation from?
Like, how did you get to the pointwhere you felt comfortable
presenting to all these differentsort of people?, you know,
obviously very differentideologies when you're talking
about financial advisors and CPAsand stuff like that to We're going
to thank again, Rob Zbart forthat, but I'll tell you how he did
(06:05):
it to me.
Rob spent a lot of time with me,
like read this book, you know,that obviously I've been to his
workshops multiple times justbecause we've been close friends
before we were even doing businesstogether.
But one of the first classes thatI taught, Rob was supposed to zoom
in from Florida, like pull him inon Zoom.
And he was supposed to help meteach the class.
And, you know, we had some sort ofemergency down there.
And he's like, Mike, I'm sorry todo this to you, but you got to
(06:29):
teach the class solo.
And I think the good part about
that was so nervous, right?I was It sweating.
was definitely nerve But wracking.
then I realized the good part
about I was so that, right?nervous, I was sweating.
It was definitely nerve wracking,but then I realized I knew a lot
more than I was giving myselfcredit for just from really being
a student, right?Just obsessing over, I'm in an
(06:50):
area, you know, I've got theRockets, the UWMs, the loan depots
around me.
So a lot of these trigger lead
shops, a lot of these people whoare taking advantage of clients.
And I think for me, a lot of thatcame from the empathy and just
obsessing and being a student tobe able to share that with all
these different sorts of Yeah, Ilove it, man.
And you're right.
I mean, Michigan has got to be
interestingly enough.
I mean, it's not a high cost
market.
It's not like California where,
you know, your average loan amountis huge, right?
(07:11):
It's small $200,000 loan amounts,but yet it's probably one of the
most competitive markets in thecountry because of the fact that
we got UWM and Rocket whobasically churn out superstar
salespeople.
And whether you like them or not,
what they do is they createpowerful salespeople that
understand how to convert.
Whether you like their ethics or
not doesn't really matter, butthey understand sales psychology.
And for the most part, they aregoing to eat most, let's call it
(07:31):
advisors lunch because they'remuch better at sales.
Now, that's why I'm a big believerin you're an advisor, but you're
also a salesperson and you're kindof a salesperson first.
And sales is not a bad word.
I think maybe sales in the wrong
capacity is a bad word.
If you're pushing someone into
something they shouldn't be in,but sales and leadership and sales
is something that I think, again,why a lot of these consumer direct
background people tend to do somuch better once they understand
(07:55):
referral relationships is becausethey understand sales at a high
level.
From that perspective, man, like
how do you compete in thosemarkets and what is sort of the
approach that you take?Because that's tough out there,
right?I mean, how do you compete in a
market like that?That's super saturated with, you
know, a bunch of real killers inthe sales room.
no, that's a great question.
It took a lot of years of
(08:16):
differentiation, right?It didn't happen overnight.
And I think what we did well waswe didn't lose sight of the
purchase side during the refi.
A lot of that was me planning a
lot of seeds and our whole teamdid a great job of it.
Now, did I definitely pushconsumer direct during that time?
Yeah, I'm still a huge fan ofdirect mail, you know, all these
things because they work, right?Of course.
Doing a boatload of PMI removal,like appraisal waivers on all
these.
So obviously I got the rockets in
(08:37):
my backyard.
So I was able to easily bring in a
team to your point of people whoreally know how to convert those
sorts of leads while the otherhalf of us were still out building
those relationships.
But my coach, Anthony Casillas
asked me years ago, what do youwant to be known as, right?
What do you want your reputationto be?
And I said, I want to be known asthe lender with the most
(08:57):
integrity, right?I'm tired of seeing all these
people around us take advantage ofveterans and seniors.
And I just got zero tolerance forthat.
And if I had to give up multipleseven figures in the refi boom
because of that, that was okay.
But it gave us the longevity play
of being able to say, well, wait aminute, we're some of the ones who
are still here.
Everything around us was more of,
(09:17):
we would say no, probably morethan we would say yes.
Just to make sure that what wewere doing was within integrity of
what we believe with Yeah, no,that makes a lot of sense.
Because the reason why people havea bad sort of connotation around
sales is because of thetraditional used car salesman
approach.
I mean, let's be honest, even a
lot of the strategies that Rocketpushes are not of the highest
integrity, right?They're just kind of pushing
everybody possible intoprocessing.
And that's sort of their strategy,which again, it works from that
(09:39):
perspective.
But I do think, especially when it
comes to stuff like cash outrefis, like, you know, there is a
sort of like, all right, well,when does it really make sense for
the borrower and almost sayinglike, Hey, it doesn't make sense
right now to do this.
You know, when it comes to
purchase, if they have thecapacity to buy, even in a high
rent market, I think you need tobelieve as a loan officer, that is
(10:00):
a good time to buy.
And you have to, you know, to a
certain extent, convince them, youknow, obviously you can't make
them do anything.
You can't push them to do
something they don't want to do,but you can present a good case
for why it makes sense to buy in amarket like this.
I think right now, being a strongsalesperson is what's keeping
people alive, but also havingintegrity.
Cause you're right.
Reputations get built over years,
(10:20):
but they can be torn down in anight.
Right.
So it's like you make one bad move
and you know, it can be a bigproblem.
So I love that you did that.
I love that you built that
reputation, but also, I mean, alot of sales does come down to say
no to people because sometimesit's the right thing to do.
And it may cost you, you know,short-term revenue, but you know,
coming from the long-termperspective, and we were talking
before this, a lot of loanofficers look at business very
(10:40):
transactionally.
And despite what they might think,
they think they're relationshipdriven.
But stats tell us otherwise,right?
Stats tell us that according toMonitorbase, 81% of consumers work
with a new loan officer on theirnext transaction.
And that means only 19% arestaying with the same person,
mostly probably because they'renot staying in contact with the
person.
And one thing that I see all the
time is loan officers only wantingto work with people that are ready
to buy in the next 90 days, right?That to me is very transactional.
(11:02):
You only want people that areready to buy, otherwise they're
fire kickers.
No, they're people that are not
ready to buy yet or refinance yetor whatever, right?
So how do you sort of approachthat?
Because you're talking aboutlongevity, you're talking about
building this sort of long termplan.
And I think, again, so many peopleare so short sighted, in terms of
longevity, right?They don't think about the LTV of
future transactions, they don'tthink about the LTV of building
relationships in the right way.
And like these types of things,
(11:23):
it's just like, how do I close asmuch business today?
What does that look like, man?Like, I mean, you know, I know,
it's kind of a broad question, butno, a great question.
I think one of the things yousaid, right, is probably,
unfortunately, most lenders, ifyou say LTV, they think you're
talking about loan to value.
They don't know what a lifetime
(11:43):
value is.
Right.
So I put out a video maybe twoweeks ago and they were asking me,
they said, which clients do yousee that have the most success?
And it's truly the clients thatcome to us that are six, 12, 18
months out because we can put agame plan together.
Now, does that mean we only worktop of the funnel?
Absolutely not, right?We've got a mix.
Otherwise we wouldn't make anymoney if it was always top of the
funnel.
But what I said in the video is
that I think a lot of lendersdon't have the systems nor the
(12:06):
empathy, right?To look that far out when, you
know, people do need to look thatfar out.
And Neil Dingris, that's a mentorof mine on the video, said a great
thing.
One time he said, human beings
have a problem with depthperception.
So they may think they're 18months out, but they don't know
they're more like 12, four, youknow, again, we got 43% of
first-time homebuyers who thinkyou need 20% or more as a down
payment, right?So these are people that they're
probably like, oh, I'm never goingto be able to buy.
(12:28):
Well, it's a 10-minuteconversation.
And, you know, we start to saylike, hey, 3% is $7,500, right?
You know, and that just starts tochange things.
So I think really just puttingthese game plans in place for
people and realtors appreciatethat, right?
Because a lot of them, they wantthat long-term relationship with
the client, but a lot of themnever knew how to build it
without, like I have one of myrealtors is like, Mike, I'm not
(12:50):
going and giving out pies everyyear, right?
I'm just not going to do that.
I want to add value with the
things that we talk about.
So we do a, you know, workshop for
them every year, wealth buildingand just all these different
strategies.
So yeah, man, I think again, back
to that mortgage planning model isthere's the before, the during and
the after.
And I think we've done a great job
with the before and during andobviously the after.
(13:10):
I love it, man, because you saiddepth perception.
I actually really love that.
I've never said it that way, but I
talk about that all the time islike the average consumer doesn't
know, right?If they say they're six months
out, why?Why are they six months out?
Right?Like, I mean, if they have income,
they have the credit, they havethe down payment.
Why are they six months out?Right?
(13:31):
And again, so many loan officersare so scared to call them out on
that kind of stuff.
Because here's the thing, like as
a loan officer, you see how manytransactions a month in a year,
the average consumer, the averagehome buyer, buys one home every 11
years, according to data, and theyrefinance twice in those 11 years,
right?So that's four transactions in 11
years that you can capture if youunderstand lifetime value.
(13:52):
Most people aren't.
They're not capturing one of those
four deals, right?And so what's wild is if you just
understand it from thatperspective, like consumers don't
know what's good for them a lot oftimes.
And again, this comes down tobeing an ethical salesperson and
why sales is powerful, but it'salso kind of scary because you can
get into the, you know, hey,pushing someone into a product
they shouldn't be in or doing itat the wrong time or things like
(14:13):
that.
But I think there is also an
ability as a salesperson to say,hey, like we need to get you
moving now.
And, you know, we talk about
objects arrest, stay at rest.
And so sometimes you just need to
get them off there, but ask themfor the freaking application, get
the credit pool.
All of a sudden they're out
shopping and they're like, Oh,actually I can buy a home.
And we see that all the time.
People say six months out, give
them a pre-approval in theirpocket and show them some houses.
(14:35):
All of a sudden they're like, Oh,I can actually afford to buy some
stuff.
Cool.
Right.
And next thing you know, two,
three months later, they're incontract and buying a home.
Right.
And I think again, so many people
are so scared.
Oh, you're six months out.
OK, handle the damn objection.
Do teach your team this?
Do you guys train on some of thissort of stuff around having those
conversations and showcasing whyit makes sense to buy?
single week.
So our region and our branch is
(14:56):
landmark mortgage planners.
Right.
So every one of our sales meetingsis a lot of these sorts of
conversations around.
It becomes unlimited.
This happens to be one of thoseexamples.
But I think a lot of it has beenaround bringing on the right
people because we could teachstrategy all day long.
This and that.
I can't teach integrity and
empathy.
Right.
Of course.
Right.
So I think when a lot of thehiring has been around that, it's
easy to teach strategy at thatpoint to people who care.
(15:18):
I think probably in regards to thetraining, absolutely.
But, you know, we're blessed tohave people in the industry like
the Dave Savages and ReneRodriguez and this and that.
And we put our guys through thatstuff because we're in those
meetings.
Right.
And nutting out on mortgage coach.
were in those meetings, right?
And nutting out on mortgage coach.
And so it is mandatory that back
to the Tim Brahim days of the page51003.
I mean, that's where we startgetting into asking for their
financial advisor, their CPA.
Yeah, so we train on that all up
front.
Good.
I mean, that's a good thing.
(15:39):
Because again, you know, depth
perception, man, I love thatstatement.
Because the truth is, they don'tknow.
I worked mortgage industry for, Ithink, five years.
So when I bought my house, I couldhave bought a home two or three
years earlier.
And obviously, you know, at the
time, it would have been maybe acouple hundred thousand dollars
cheaper, maybe not quite thatmuch, but you know, maybe a
hundred thousand cheaper.
California, probably.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, cause we bought, you
(15:59):
know, a home for 390 in 2015.
And, you know, I could have
qualified probably even for like aCalHFA or like a down payment
assistance or, you know, somethinglike that earlier on, or I would
have just known that I didn't need20% down.
And I could have easily broughtup, whatever, 10, 15 grand for a
down payment.
And I didn't understand that.
(16:19):
And this is working for a mortgagecompany.
I work for a reverse mortgagecompany.
So it's a little bit different,but still like all it took was
asking a loan officer there.
I'm like, hey, so what do I need
to do to buy a home?And he's like, oh no, you don't
need 20%.
Now what are you talking about?
And I work for a mortgage company.
So like, think about the average
(16:40):
consumer, they're thinking thesame thing, you know?
So I like to leave some tangiblesort of like strategies for people
on the podcast as well.
So I know you guys are attracting
a lot of these people.
You're doing these classes.
How do you get people into theseclasses?
Like, what does that look like?Do you have a marketing strategy
for that?If you're open to sharing, what
does that look like in terms oflike getting people into a room?
(17:02):
And then from that perspective, doyou have any sort of ways of, and
then engaging them after thoseclasses?
Cause I think a lot of timespeople are like, well, I'll do
these classes.
Then they don't send me anything.
Well, it's like, okay.
Yeah.
We struggled with that.
And I'm not dropping names.
Like, because I know people dropnames to drop names.
This is more really me givingcredit to a lot of I'm like, so
grateful for names to drop names.
This is more really me giving
credit to a lot of like, I'm sograteful for a lot of these
(17:23):
people.
Andrew Pollack, Lead Pops, there
are funnels for after the classes.
So we just drive them to
housingwealthmastermind.com.
And that does, you know, the
newsletter.
And then, but what we love is that
typically we don't see somebodycome to the class one time.
It's a lot of information.
So my top producers and referral
partners, I mean, some of themhave been in the class five, six,
seven times, but getting them intothose seats, it's funny, man, I'm
a digital guy, right?So I was doing all this marketing
and ads and I'm like, why am Igetting like five people?
(17:44):
So I was like, you know what?Let me truly tell the truth
because I do believe how importantthis information is.
Then I just I went back to justold school, picking up the phone
and really making it invite only.
And it was not open to, you know,
every not because I didn anywherefurther back in the room, you
can't see, you know, when westarted trying to show the tax
free line of credit on the heck,if they can't see these colors on
the lines and whatnot, they'relosing the visual.
(18:04):
Right.
So it is funny that this happened
to be how we're filling thoserooms, whether it be here in
Michigan or down in our Floridaoffice, it's been a lot of
intentional.
I think intentionality is the
biggest one and calling peoplethat say, okay, well, I know that
this person would benefit frombeing there.
So I know it's not the fanciestthing in the world, but just like
you tell people, call the leads,man.
Sales is a contact sport, It is,man.
I have a couple of hot takes.
One of my hot takes is the online
(18:24):
application is one of the worstthings that's ever happened to the
mortgage industry.
And I say that because just like
automation in CRMs, people aresolving for something that they
probably shouldn't solve for interms of automation, right?
They want an automated way toclose a couple more loans, right?
They want an easy way to getsomeone to fill out an
application.
That's great, right?
You do want to have options forpeople, but more likely than not,
(18:45):
most people are having a 10 or 15minute conversation, sending an
application link and missing outon a massive opportunity to have
an in-depth discovery call.
In addition to that, right?
We're talking about using the CRMfor automations, right?
Like I talk about calling theleads.
Like you have to pick up thephone.
Like these other mediums are greatfor conversations and starting the
conversation.
They're not great for conversion,
right?And so when it comes down to it,
(19:09):
you use text message to start aconversation.
You use emails to start theconversation.
They're not great for conversion,right?
And so when it comes down to youuse it, text message to start a
conversation, you use emails tostart a conversation, you use
voicemail jobs, going to start aconversation, but then you have to
pick up the phone and have theactual conversation because that
(19:30):
is where the sales are going tohappen.
And that's our preferred medium asa salesperson.
That being said, when you arecommunicating with people,
sometimes they prefer to starttexting and then eventually you
can get them into a call.
But again, I mean, I'm a big
believer in picking up the phone,making the dials because sometimes
that's what it is.
I mean, people will be like, Oh,
(19:51):
can you run ads for real stages?I'm like, well, yeah, we could,
but it's like a hundred andsomething dollars an appointment
for us.
Are you willing to spend $10 a
month on ads?Oh, probably not.
Okay, cool.
Pick up the damn phone and call
them.
Right?
Like that's the easiest way to doit.
And yeah, you're going to getbetter show rates and stuff like
that as well if you have thoseconversations.
But if you are running digital,you also can't just expect them to
(20:13):
show up.
One of the things we talk about
with seminars and webinars andstuff like that is you will get
probably a 30% show up rate if youdon't have a robust automated
follow-up and manual check-inprocess and also create scarcity
and urgency on why they should bethere.
Those are some of the elementsthat need to be in place, whether
you're doing a consumer direct,right?
If you're doing like a seminar forveterans or first time homebuyers,
whatever, like there has to be areason for them to show up, right?
(20:34):
There has to be a hook.
There has to be some sort of way
that people can actually do that.
So yeah, man, that's cool that you
said, I mean, calling people,that's really it, you know, it's
the manual process of callingpeople.
So you finding people like on myare these people that you've
worked with in the past?are Like, you using tools like
that?Or just kind of calling people.
So are you finding people like onMMI?
Are these people that you'veworked with in the past?
are Like, you using tools likethat?
Or just kind of calling people inthe area that can meet up?
warm outreach on some of thebigger events.
I did a lot of cold and I probablyleft out an important part on
(20:58):
social media is that's kind of howI've identified, oh, this person
would be when I sayintentionality.
So as much as it is technically acold call when I call them, and
even though I tell them, hey, youdon't know who I am, by the time I
start talking to them, they'relike, yeah, I know you from
Instagram or Facebook, but that'sbecause I'm thoughtfully engaging
with them, right?It's not like people think like,
oh, I'm going to hire this socialmedia person.
And no, if right now somebody tookover my social media and started
(21:20):
talking to you, you'd be like,this isn't Mike.
I instantly.
You you would And I know on your
end.
know, know.
Yeah.
social Man, media, just again,
another right?medium, Just another way to, yes,
MMI is a match to that.
And then we'll look at some of
those numbers and then start tolook at them on social media.
They start posting negative stuff,things like that.
And that's just kind of not thepeople we want to be around.
So on top of just the numbers,it's more about like one of the
agents that's had major successwith this was I would see her
(21:41):
always talking about client first,client first, client first.
And I called her, I said, I knowyou're one of the top producers in
the state, but when somebody saysclient first that many times, that
like warms my heart.
It was genuine.
I didn't do you want to go tocoffee?
say, hey, Whatever they say.
And of I ended up landing the
meeting and getting that.
course, But it was truly from
intentionality.
But I was able to get a lot of
that from social.
Powerful, right?
I mean, this is one thing I tellpeople as well as like, I'm a big
(22:03):
fan of cold calling, but there'smuch better ways to cold call,
right?I mean, you can use social media
to pretty much never have a coldcall again.
Right.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, like adding new people onsocial media, following them,
liking it, commenting on theirstuff, slide into their DMs,
right?Or even just give them a call, but
you can slide into their DMsfirst, have a couple conversations
and then call them.
Hey, you know what?
I'm loving your content recently.
So there's so many ways that you
can warm up a prospect.
And I'm personally not someone
that I would love to cold callmyself, but I have built pretty
(22:23):
much my entire business off oforganic social media, creating
that, and then having theseconversations.
These are technically strangersthat I've never talked to before,
but a lot of times me and you,like, I don't think we've ever met
in person.
We've talked via social for years
and years and years.
Right.
And so, I mean, I don't know, Ican't remember if we met in Miami
or not, but I don't even know ifyou were I know at the Miami event
(22:44):
anyway.
So it's, you know, it's like, we
probably have never even met inperson and yet here we are, you
know, talking like we've beenfriends forever, right?
We don't know that if we have orYeah.
Yeah.
We don't even know if we've met in
person.
So, Hey, we probably haven't, I'm
assuming.
So yeah, man, I really, you know,
I appreciate kind of you sharingyour wisdom with us.
I like to leave it with onetangible strategy tactic,
(23:06):
something that loan officers cantake and implement today to go out
and get business.
So like, is there any one or two
or whatever, a couple of differentideas or one idea that someone
could implement today to go outand find some more business,
whether it be from real estateagents, consumer direct, I mean,
you know, whatever got.
Yeah, because I was guilty of
this.
I got so caught up in the tech
(23:27):
side of it that I had to get backto the fundamentals.
So I think this mixture of techand getting back to the
fundamentals, we got to shakehands.
We got to start to continue tomeet people.
But I think getting back into somesort of mix of exactly what you
were just saying of, yes, we canuse these things, social media,
email this and that, but pickingup the phone with intentionality.
And then on the advisor peopleside, call me all the time and but
picking that, up the phone withintentionality.
And then on the advisor side,people call me all the time and
(23:49):
say, well, how do we get in frontof advisors?
I wish the easy answer was, youknow, just tell them you'll help
them grow their assets undermanagement because that's truly
what we do.
But then they need to actually
know how to do that.
Right.
So it's really just becoming astudent, man.
I wish there was some sort ofshortcuts and things like that.
But I think it really comes downto let's not forget about the
fundamentals because I did.
I was so caught up in the tech
(24:09):
that I'm like, man, I'm not doingthe daily activities and just
simplifying it to am I having 10voice to voice conversations a
day?Because the sales math I've got on
that board will tell me that forevery 25 quality conversations I
have, I'll fund one loan.
That's good.
And I will say that I'm a big fanof Zoom.
If you're not the type of personthat loves to meet in person, you
know, at least on the first time,use Zoom because it's as close as
you can get to being face to face.
But, you know, phone calls are
great.
Zoom calls are great.
(24:30):
I mean, what I literally tellpeople too is like, if you're
meeting someone for the very firsttime, I personally am a fan of
meeting them via zoom because theysuck by that i mean like if
they're like a realtor that you'retrying to talk with it's like if
they suck like you're gonna findthat out pretty quickly right you
gotta go take them to like somecoffee day you don't gotta waste
30 minutes driving there 30minutes driving back you know hour
(24:50):
there whatever it is like you canhave a conversation for 30 minutes
oh cool you're a good person let'smeet again let's go actually have
coffee let Let's go have lunch,whatever.
Because I'm a big believer in thatbecause I find that one that also
creates more efficiencies.
Let's be honest.
Yeah.
Belly to belly is ultimately going
to be your best bet in terms ofthat.
But Zoom, I think is the next bestthing and also a hell of a lot
(25:11):
more efficient when it comes tothat too.
So man, I appreciate that becauseI do think that people forget the
fundamentals and think that, youknow, they're just going to go
post on social media and a wholebunch of stuff's going to come
from that.
And the truth is it's yes.
And right.
It's not just, you know, Oh, you
do that one thing, especiallynowadays.
I think that there is a shiftwhere well, not just kind of have
to do everything.
You kind of have to do the
fundamentals of calling everybody,you know, doing the updates.
You kind of have to be on socialmedia and posting content
(25:34):
regularly.
You have to be out there, you
know, marketing, you have to go toevents, I mean, you just kind of
have to do everything these days,right?
You know, I don't think it's nolonger the time where you can kind
of sit behind a desk and just dopre approvals, because someone
else is going to come and get yourbacon, right?
They're going to come and takeyour deals, because they're out
there doing those things.
But then also, they're doing the
(25:56):
stuff on social media.
And they're also good at
structuring deals, right?You know, so I don't know, that's
just my belief.
And I think that maybe it's, you
know, unfortunately orfortunately, I guess for the
people that are willing to do thework, it takes more these days
with social and all that stuff toshow up.
And I think doing the fundamentalsis fine as well.
But I think then there's the oldschool guys are like, Oh yeah,
screw social media.
(26:16):
Like I get all this stuff from
this, that, and it was like, Ohcool.
But how much business are youmissing out on?
Because you aren't willing to dothat other stuff.
how long are they going to be inthree to five years?
Right.
Right.
And you're going to be able to befound.
Exactly.
A hundred percent.
I don't remember who it was on thepodcast, but someone said that
their kid was like, mom, you needto get on social media.
I'm not going to refer people toyou via text or via email.
Like you have to be on socialmedia.
(26:37):
So that was like a, just kind offunny.
It's still stuck with me that thekid was like, yeah, you need to be
on social media because that'sjust how people do business these
days.
And it was like, okay, cool.
Like there's a mix of everybody.
You should do everything, I think.
So anyway, man, thank you so muchfor your time today, Mike.
Any parting thoughts before we go?Yeah, Well, definitely.
Thanks for having me on.
I think one thing and one other
takeaway, right, for people is Italked about being that student.
And I think one of the things youhit and you said very well was
(27:00):
that people are, you know,somebody just tells them six
months or whatever, and they'rejust like, oh, OK, they don't know
how to handle that objection.
So I think one thing that in
regards to some of theseobjections and not being order
takers, I'm part of a group calledCircle of Wealth, which is like, I
don't know, 1500 financialadvisors.
There's only me and my businesspartners.
We're the only mortgage guys, butthey just talk about mortgages all
day long.
And when I started to understand
(27:20):
why is because real estate is thenumber one place that people lose
money unknowingly andunnecessarily.
How they acquire real estate, likecash, right?
Or massive down payments.
And then how they pay for their
mortgage, the 15 years, the thingslike that.
So whether you're going to workwith financial advisors or not,
when we start talking about thebest of the best are going to make
it, the ones who have to doeverything, I think knowledge is
going to always be power.
I think right now, being able to
explain to somebody, hey, maybeyou shouldn't put 50% down or 20%
down, you or, we know, could lookat three or 5% and being able to
(27:42):
explain to somebody, maybe hey,you shouldn't put 50% down or 20%
down or, you know, we could lookat three or 5% and being able to
explain why, even in a very simpleway, I think is the difference
maker of how they're going to grabdeals and relationships versus
them just, you know, if I justwanted to get that information,
I'll just go online to one ofthese websites and fill out a
form.
Well, and to your point, you said
even in a simple way, I think ithas to be in a simple way because
(28:02):
I mean, unless you're talking to afinancial advisor who understands
this thing, like you don't want totalk down to people.
So you want to speak in typicalperson's language.
And a lot of times I think we endup speaking, I mean, even for
myself as a marketer, I startedtalking about pixels and stuff
like that.
And loan officers like, what is he
talking about?Offers, unique value propositions,
right?You know, unique mechanisms, the
words like that, that if I startusing those words, people start to
zone out, right?And it's the same thing with the
(28:23):
consumer.
If you make them feel stupid,
like, but if you can present it inan easy way, you know, the cost of
waiting or, you know, like thingslike that, or why it makes sense
to put less down.
And so many people, again, Dave
Ramsey, we were like, oh, put 20%down, put 50% down.
I was like, well, now you have allthis cash That's not liquid that
you can't get out of your houseand it's not doing anything.
And, you know, I don't know.
It's, there's so many ways that
(28:43):
you can frame that, but back toobjection.
Sorry, man.
You said the whole, like, you
know, waiting six months.
One of the things we tell people
too, is like, instead of saying,what's your timeline, say
something like, if we were able tofind you the right house at the
right price and right payment,like how soon would you want to
move in?Now, all of a sudden, instead of
saying six months, they're goingto say right away.
(29:03):
And I listen.
Yeah.
Because instead of asking them,what's your timeline?
They think they're six months out.
But if you put the scenario in
front of them, if you find theright house at the right price,
the right payment, and everythingworked for you, how soon would you
want to move?It's the same question, right?
We were talking pre getting onhere, tonality and talking and
(29:25):
scripting and stuff is reallypowerful.
Part of that comes down to, youknow, understanding human
psychology and understanding howpeople react to certain things.
And also that people have thissort of defense mechanism or
natural responses to things.
So again, man, thank you so much
for your That was incredibly wellframed.
Good job, man.
Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's been doing
this for a little bit.
So yeah, I know a little bit about
a little bit.
So appreciate your time today, my
man.
Thank you so much for everything
you brought.
I mean, today, obviously, my
biggest takeaways for loanofficers that are listening to
(29:45):
this is you got to diversify,right?
I mean, you know, you talked abouthaving your realtor partners, but
also finding other avenues thatyou can generate leads and pre
approvals from, you know, alsobeing able to reciprocate those
people is powerful as well.
So, you know, getting out there
learning at the end of the day,there is no hacks.
It's one thing that seems to beapparent in every single one of
these podcasts that I do is thatthere is no shortcut.
The shortcut is the process.
(30:05):
The shortcut is the fundamentals
stick to the fundamentals andeverything good will happen.
It's going to take longer than youwant it to, but if you stick to it
and you look at it from along-term perspective, it's all
going to work out in the end.
Thank you so much for your time
today.
And for anybody who is listening
and is looking for some help ongetting direct to the consumer and
flipping the status quo on realestate agents, go to flip the
status quo.com.
(30:26):
Thank you so much for listening.
Have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
loans on demand podcast on loanson demand podcast.com.
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