This week, we're joined by Cindy Ertman. Cindy is the CEO & Founder of The Defining Difference, a mortgage coaching and training company, from Manhattan Beach, California, and also the Mortgage and Strategy Coach at RMP Mortgage Manhattan Beach. Over her 30+ years in the mortgage industry, Cindy has been a top 100 originator in the US for over a decade and a top 100 mortgage executive for 5 years, personal yearly production of over $200 million, and run a $1.2 billion branch and a region for a national mortgage bank. Also a success coach, speaker, trainer, and best-selling author, Cindy has now dedicated her life to empowering the growth of others and her coaching company, The Defining Difference, empowers leaders and originators to make outcome driven choices that result in increased production, greater income and better quality of life.
Cindy is here to discuss: → The pillars that have made her successful for over 30 years in the mortgage industry, including building systems and teams, adapting to market changes, and the importance of client and referral connection. → Multiple successful scripts for finding business with clients and referral partners, asking clarifying questions, leveraging existing networks (CRM), and expanding your market. → The importance of putting words to your expertise, systemizing your differentiator and value propositions, and her 10 step communication plan that has won her business.
Cindy Ertman's Website: www.cindyertman.com
Cindy Ertman's Facebook: @CindyErtmanNow
Cindy Ertman's Instagram: @cindyertman
Cindy Ertman's LinkedIn: @CindyErtman
Cindy Ertman's YouTube: @CindyErtman
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 put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And I'm excited because today we
have Cindy Ertman.
She has been a top 100 loan
originator for over a decade, andshe's also the founder and CEO of
The Defining Difference, amortgage coaching and training
company.
And man, this is going to be a
good one.
I'm super excited.
Cindy's got some cool things thatshe's launching.
Obviously, a ton of experiencehelping loan originators grow
(00:45):
their businesses.
So I'm so excited.
Welcome to the show, Cindy.
Thanks, Luke.
So great to be here.
Well, give us a little background
on who you are.
Obviously, I gave the flashy side
of it.
So give us a little background on
who you are, what keeps you inthis crazy industry that we're in,
especially in times like this.
And you know, what's going on in
you know, what's going on in yourlife?
Well, I was, you know, honestlyfell in as most people to mortgage
(01:06):
origination by accident.
Someone told me they thought it
was a great, you know, career forI I would give it a try.
And I guess it worked out okay.
So, you know, had a 30 plus year
run as not only an originator, butmy partner and I led a $1.2
billion branch here in SouthernCalifornia for many, many, many
years.
So we had a big team.
I had 32 loan officers and thestaff of 65.
(01:28):
And I was the top producer formany years.
I was in the top 100 originatorsin the country and, you know,
running a branch, ultimatelyrunning a region for a national
mortgage bank.
I've kind of seen all sides of
find this business just gets intoyour blood.
And if it does, there's reallynothing that beats it.
I found like later in my career,one of the things that I just
became so passionate about was,you know, establishing new ways of
(01:50):
doing business, building referralpartnerships, new ways to market
my database.
I developed systems and processes
to scale my business because toscale, you've got to shift how
you're doing business, right?So I started to build systems and
processes around kind of everypillar of what it took to build.
I became very focused initially.
I wanted to get to a hundred
(02:10):
million in production.
And then my next thing is I really
want to get to making a milliondollars a year.
Those were two main goals.
I did ultimately hit over 200
million in personal production,but that was never my goal.
In fact, after that happened, Iwasn't sure I ever wanted that to
happen again.
sure that's a lot of production to
do as a single person.
Well, I mean, I'm sure you had a
(02:30):
big team that helped you, butthat's a ton of production and
probably a little bit of stressthat goes along with that.
A a ton A a ton lot of productionof it and is probably stress.
a little bit of stress that goesalong with that, huh?
A lot of it is stress.
But the great thing you is, know,
when you build the systems andwhen you build the right team and,
you know, that's what wasfrustrating for me as a coach in
2020, because a lot of my clientsweren't prepared for that market
when all of a sudden all the starsof a sudden the first time that
happened to me, which was in 2003.
(02:50):
I remember in August of 2003, I
had 129 loans in process in onemonth and this was still hard
paper file so like they werestacked like everywhere and sure
but like the thing is i was soexcited because we had built the
right team we had a system inprocess this we were capable of
you know generating eight loans aday is what we were doing.
And it took a really well, justhummed machine to be able to make
(03:14):
that happen.
And so I got to see the fruits of
our labor of building the rightteam and getting everybody in
their lane so we could reallyoperate at very high levels.
So, and then when 2020 hit, it wassuch a recap of watching people go
through that and leads are likeflying through the door and, you
know, it had systems, not no one,but many did not have systems to
(03:34):
handle that level of volume.
And I just became aware of how
much we need to focus on buildingthe system in the process so that,
and the right team.
And it's been hard this last
couple of years with people losingtheir teams and not having support
any longer.
And, you know And how do you
rebuild from that?So that's a lot of what we spend
our time on as a mortgage coach ishelping people like redefine
(03:55):
success.
How do we expand our reach?
How do we create new pillars ofour business?
Because to be successful intoday's world, we can't wait for
the phone to ring.
We've got to go make it ring.
So it's about getting moreintentional about our practices.
Yeah, that's huge.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, you know, you're right.
I mean, I saw a lot of people talk
about that.
I remember even with what we were
(04:16):
doing, someone was like, oh, Iwish I would have done this.
You're like, when would you havedone that?
Like you literally were workinglike 15, 18 hour days.
Like when would you have done thething that you're saying you would
have done?Like, sure, like in retrospect, we
believe that we should have doneX, Y, and Z, but we don't have
that foresight a lot of times tosee into that.
And then on the flip side of that,you know, we saw everybody sort of
grow their business, includingmyself grew pretty well during
2020 and 21.
And then, you know, the market
(04:36):
turned and 22 was a little harder.
And then 23 was really hard.
And it was like, Oh crap.
Now what do I do?
Do we let people go?Do we, you know, and then all of a
sudden you're like, you thoughtyou were never going to have to do
this certain thing.
And now you're having to do that
thing again.
And it's like weird, you know,
like there's like a lot of thosesort of like shifts that have to
happen.
So kind of interesting, you
brought that up, because, youknow, it has been an interesting
(04:57):
sort of shift from like one of thecraziest high markets ever to like
one of the lowest markets ever.
It's just been a big swing.
So from that perspective, whatdoes that look like in terms of
like, when you're talking topeople now in this sort of market
that maybe grew a team or had bigproduction, like, how are you
getting people not prepared?Because I guess we've already been
through like two years of thiscraziness.
But like, how are you sort ofhelping people get through this
Well, I think the beauty of COVIDand what came from that is that it
did kind of level the playingfield is like, people weren't
(05:18):
coming to your office anymore,right?
Even before COVID, very few peopleI had some of my clients were
actually tracking how many clientsactually walked into their branch
over the course of a year.
I had several of my own coaching
clients shut down their brick andmortar prior to COVID and just
going, it's not worth the to thisvirtually.
And I have some very successfulclients that run completely
virtual businesses.
And so, you know, it's been really
fun to watch some of my mortgageclients actually start to really
(05:40):
expand their reach into othermarkets.
And it's also interesting becauseI talked to other people that are
like, oh no, you know, I justtalked to a woman yesterday and
she goes, I moved from NorthCarolina to Texas and now my North
Carolina people don't want to workwith me anymore because I'm not
physically there.
And I said, don't believe that
story.
That story just isn't true.
You just got to overperform anddeliver and stay in touch with
(06:04):
them and be intentional about yourpractices as to how you
communicate with them and get onwith them and create value for
them.
And there's so many different ways
you can create value from afar.
And one of my clients that I've
coached her for 10 years, and shemoved from San Clemente,
California to two hours outside ofDenver, lives on a horse ranch in
the middle of nowhere.
And she found $125 million last
(06:24):
year and kept all of her clientsin Southern California from three
and a half years ago, built asecondary market in Southern
California in Big Bear, and is nowstarting to grow Colorado, then
broke in to build a relationship.
She's now in six states with that
builder.
I mean, her brain doesn't allow
her to be in confinement.
She believes in possibility and
she's created it for herself.
So a lot of it is, I had a
(06:46):
conversation with a clientyesterday and she's in SoCal and
it's a very difficult market here.
I mean, it's is in a lot of
places, but it's more difficult ina few places in America right now.
Seattle's a tough market.
We've got a lot of markets right
now that are really struggling.
And so it's like, we've got to get
out of our little niche and we'vegot to expand our reach.
(07:09):
I mean, I did a training yesterdaygot looking at the sphere right
around us, because our sphere ispretty vast, and we don't tap into
it for business.
And so, you know, people are
looking at, okay, I don't haveloyal realtors anymore, or half of
them left the business, or they'renot doing any business, and
they're just stuck, and like kindof frozen.
It's like, well, okay, then let'sgo build a financial planner
(07:30):
pillar.
And let me teach you how to do
that.
I can get you in front of any
financial planner with myfinancial planner script.
It works a hundred percent of thetime, because it's not about you
asking for something.
It's about you offering to refer
them business and strategy to getin front of them.
And so that's, what's fun aboutthe coaching aspect is to take a
lot of things that I did to buildrelationship, the questions to
(07:52):
ask, you know, cause I find if yougive people the roadmap, Luke, you
actually give them the, here's thescript to get the meeting.
And I was in a very high endmarket, you know, in Manhattan
beach, California.
So it's very affluent.
So these are not cheesy scripts.
These are like, I was calling
really successful people to try toget meetings with them.
And my marketing had to be best inclass and I couldn't have mediocre
things going out.
(08:13):
So, and developing database
management strategies and buildingsystems to stay in front of
people.
I was using an example yesterday
because this is what I did, liketo build my business to really
significant proportions is Italked about what I did did like
everywhere I went and notobnoxiously so, but you know, I
would walk in to have my teethcleaned.
And of course they'd always say,well, what do you do?
(08:33):
I'm like, well, I run a mortgagecompany here in Manhattan beach.
And they always want to talk aboutreal estate and mortgage, right?
Everybody's interested in that.
I remember going to my
chiropractor and my face is downin the cradle and I look at him
and I said, hey, Vince, I go, youmust work with all kinds of
realtors here in the South Bay.
You must work on them constantly.
(08:54):
You've been around for a longtime.
I go, who do you like?And he starts rattling off names
of realtors.
I'm like, yeah, I know her.
Yeah, I know her.
And he gives me the name of this
guy, Charlie.
I didn't know Charlie.
And I said, well, tell me aboutCharlie.
He goes, well, he's newer.
He's up and coming.
He's having some great success.
You should know Charlie.
(09:15):
So that afternoon I picked up thephone and called Charlie and said,
you'll never guess where I gotyour name.
You know, my head was face down inthe cradle at Vince's office.
But within two days, I met thisguy for wine and I got a $1.4
million deal from him within aweek.
And that's just because I askedthe question.
So I really tapping into ournetwork in a bigger way, mean, I
now.
Yeah, I mean, it's just on
scripts.
I think there's a very big
(09:36):
aversion by people to scripts.
And interestingly enough, I mean,
I think scripts are life.
And I don't think you read a
script word for word verbatim,right?
Like that's not the point of ascript, right?
The point of a script is tounderstand frameworks and
understand the direction you wantto take a conversation, right?
And it's like, okay, well, yeah,you're not going to say word for
word this on every single callbecause people are people and
we're not selling a $20 widget,right?
We sell $20 widget, we canprobably get away with, you know,
(09:59):
talking word for word, but scriptsallow us to have a roadmap or
like, I guess we can call it likea bowling lane where like, you
know, you can only go so fareither way, but you're always
brought back into like, okay,well, we went off track a little
bit, but we're gonna get broughtback into where we are in the
conversation.
And the other thing you said is
questions.
I think the biggest mistake, this
(10:20):
is not just loan officers, this issalespeople in general.
I find it on my sales team.
It's people believe that the
valuable part of a salesconversation is the pitch, is the
thing that you do.
The truth is it's The valuable
not.
part of a sales conversation is
the is the pitch, thing that youThe truth do.
is it's not.
The valuable part of a sales
conversation is the questions, isunderstanding their situation,
finding out their pain points, andthen identifying the solution to
their pain points.
It might be your thing, it might
(10:41):
not be.
It sounds like that's the type of
scripts that you're talking aboutin terms of the outreach and those
sorts of conversations.
Well, the other thing it's like, I
think to the point of scripts,yes.
Did I ever like memorize them anduse them verbatim?
But some of the scripts that Iwrote, I didn't need the script.
I mean, I said it so many timesand you put it in your own words
so that it feels comfortable foryou, but at least to your point,
the roadmap of where we're goinghere.
(11:02):
So, you know, one of the scriptsthat I created tremendous success
around and everything that Iteach, I tested like as an
originator, because I wanted tomake sure I didn't want to teach
something that people didn't gettraction on, or that I personally
didn't get traction on.
But, and, you know, even though
some people have done this intheir own way, it's something you
can do over and over and overagain as an originator to gain
traction.
And it's just, you know, make a
list of the five realtors or thefive referral partners that know,
like, and trust you.
It's very simple.
And call those five people andjust go, hey, Luke, you know what?
(11:24):
I have loved working with you overthe years.
Like, it's so great to be inpartnership with you.
And we just know, like, and trustyou on such a deep level.
And we really want to expand ourbusiness this year in mortgage
because obviously it's been atough couple of years and we
really want to expand our reach.
And so who do you know?
Who's the name of a couple ofpeople that you know that might
benefit from what we do?Because we are not looking for
(11:46):
quantity.
We're looking for a couple of good
quality people to expand into ourteam and build a relationship
with.
It can be somebody in your office.
It can be somebody that you'vedone a transaction with in the
last year, but I'd love your helpto get a couple of names for
people that I could reach out tothat might benefit from our
service.
And honestly, when I first tested
that loop, the very first time Icalled a woman who is newer to
(12:09):
real estate and I had helped herwhen she first got started, which
is great because if you help themwhen they get started, then they
kind of, they're yours.
And I called her first.
She had moved to a Sotheby'soffice here in Manhattan Beach.
And I asked her that question.
She goes, oh my gosh.
She says, I'm sitting in a podwith three other amazing female
realtors.
And she goes, Sarah just closed
three deals this week.
And she goes, yeah, I can
(12:30):
introduce you.
I said, could I get their names
from you and phone numbers?She goes, absolutely.
I'll text them to you.
Then she calls me back 10 minutes
later.
So this is my first test call to
see if it me me back 10 minuteslater and says, well, why don't we
just all meet for lunch and I'llcome too.
And so I go, that would beamazing.
So I met with these four realtorsfor lunch.
My mortgage partner who took overmy production and my business 10
(12:52):
years ago, still works with threeof those realtors today.
And that was just because I madeone phone call and said, who do
you My was to call five people andget 10 different names.
I called five people and got 18names.
Of course, then you have to callthe people, you get the names from
got a call.
Yeah, yeah.
That part.
call because now someone that
says, hey, I really know, I cantrust this person has given you
their name.
And so then to be able to call
(13:14):
that, let's call it a realtor andsay, Hey, look at, I just hung up
with Luke and Luke told me that,you know, you're one of his
favorite realtors and he knows,likes and trusts you and thinks
you're really great at your craft.
And we're really looking to expand
our referral partner base, butwe're really particular about who
we work with.
We want to work with really great
people.
And even if we don't work
together, I think great leadersneed to know great leaders.
And I'd love to grab a cup ofcoffee and learn more about you
(13:35):
and your business.
And 90% of the people, Luke said,
yes.
And I built new partnerships like
so quickly.
And the great thing is you can do
it over and over and over again.
And I even do it to this day to
the same realtors once a year.
I'll be like, hey, I'm going to
ask you the question again.
Like, who do you know?
(13:56):
Who have you done a deal with thislast year that my team could
benefit?And so asking that question, and I
think even asking your clientswhen you close a transaction, it's
one thing to ask for a referralor, hey, remember, you know, I'm
all referral based.
But I think it's important to just
be I'd love to get a like, couplehey, referral you or, I'm Hey, all
remember, referral know, but Ithink it's important based, to
(14:17):
just be like, Hey, I'd love to geta couple of names from you, uh,
people that might benefit from myservice in the future.
So you're not just asking for alead right then, but Hey, do you
know a CPA or another greatrealtor or a financial planner or
a business person that you thinkcould benefit that?
I just love to expand my resourcesand my connections..
That would mean the world to me.
And people always have two names.
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
(14:40):
I mean, there's a, you said a
massive opportunity to tap intoyour people that you already know
to get your referrals.
And I think, again, a lot of times
people just don't ask.
I mean, salespeople, a lot of
times don't ask for the sale.
That's, I guess, the hardest parts
for people to do because they'reworried about rejection.
But you know, closed mouths don'tget fed.
So you got to ask for thebusiness.
So I know we talked about sort ofdifferent phases in the growth
(15:00):
trajectory that you went through.
So I'm curious, like, what are the
different stages look like?And how do you sort of, you know,
because obviously, what gets youto like 10 million a year is not
going to get you to 50 million isnot going to get you to 100
million.
So like, what are those sort of
different transitions look like?Do you have those broken into sort
of like segments?Or how do you look at that sort of
a growth trajectory?If maybe one of your clients wants
to grow like that?Or what different transitions look
like?Do you have those broken into sort
(15:22):
of like segments or how do youlook at that sort of a growth
trajectory if maybe one of yourclients wants to grow like that or
what does that look like?Yeah, and actually this last
couple of years, particularly withthe shift in the market and
business not being so plentiful, II created a new online training
program because not everybody canafford my high level mastermind
and private coaching.
You we have a big private coaching
practice.
I have 15 coaches that are all
boots on the ground, originatorsand leaders right now that coach
privately as well.
(15:42):
But I built an online training
program and I spent a couple ofyears creating it by really
digging deep as to what I did.
And I broke it into seven
different pillars.
It was called seven steps to seven
figure mortgage to seven success.
figure And mortgage I really
success.
went back And I really and okay,
went back how and do you okay,start?
how do you start, right?And part of it is getting really
clear on what your value is andthe value that that brings to your
referral partners and your clientbase because it's hard to convey
your value if you are not clearwhat your value is.
(16:03):
Right, 100%.
You're 100%.
their value is.
So I usually will start people
doing, we have a called mortgagesatisfaction assessment.
We will have them go through ourquick assessment to assess their
business.
And then it gets you clear on kind
of where do you need to focus ifyou're wanting to grow your
business?I would say like most of my
clients have been in the businessfor a fair number of years.
They've driven themselves to acertain amount of success.
And now they want to go to thatnext level.
And those are my favorite clientsbecause you've already done like
the hardest foundational work.
Right.
But even with those, so many ofthem are missing like real systems
(16:25):
for what happens when the leadcomes in the when you tracking
that lead?How are you communicating and
following up with that lead?What happens if they don't buy a
house for a while?Do they just fall off the radar?
Do you have technology thattriggers you that you need to
follow up with the leader?Do you have a system?
And then what's your processthrough the loan?
Like everybody has a process, butnot everybody has a process that's
defined.
And as you grow, you can start to
lean into creating a moreextraordinary customer experience.
(16:46):
You can add more bells andwhistles into your touch point.
So the better we got, the more wegrew, the more we could drill down
on like one of the things that Iteach is how to build an annual
marketing calendar becausemarketing is that elusive thing,
right?Like there's so many marketing is
so there's social media marketing,there's video marketing, there's
database marketing, there's hardmail marketing, there's ads,
(17:06):
there's so many different ways togo with marketing.
But the reality is a lot of peopledo very little marketing because
they don't have a system or aplan.
And I found that if you take 90minutes once a year to build out
your plan for the year and thenget it into your calendar, I
showed up for myself.
Like I had a plan for when I was
going to do lunch and learns orwhen I was going to have my
mastermind group.
(17:27):
It was already in the calendar a
year in advance.
And we just managed to the plan.
You know, how often are we goingto post on social media?
What does that look like?What does that posting schedule
look like?Are we going to do motivational
Monday?I think if you map out like a
simple plan, it just makeseverything so much more simple.
like a simple plan, it just makeseverything so much more simple.
Like I fully believe that if youdo not have a fully operational
(17:51):
CRM system and database that youknow how to use, it should be the
number one goal.
Everything else should become
secondary because my database wasresponsible from 20 to 30% of my
income every And I I have asystem.
I sent an email.
And this is another thing that for
me, it's something that I coach myclients around this.
Learn how to be able to write anemail to your entire database that
(18:11):
with a click of a button...
Because when I turned my business
over to my partner, I had 4,500past clients.
So I personally, Cindy Ertmanwrote an email to my past client
database on the first of everymonth that was in my calendar.
I showed up to it.
I had my hour of growth every
single day.
And that's what I did on the first
(18:33):
of the month.
And the 15th of the month, I also
sent an email to my realtordatabase and I marketed to about a
hundred realtors.
I probably only worked with 25 of
them, but I marketed to a hundred.
That was just a round number.
I had a business contacts databasefor CPAs, financial planners, my
dentist, my doctor, mychiropractor, you know, whoever is
in your sphere of business.
I had a separate database for, and
then I had a friends and familydatabase.
(18:53):
And I think people miss the boatbecause I lost a loan that my
sister-in-law did with bank ofAmerica because she didn't know I
did refinances.
And it's like my Christmas card
list, right?Like every friend and family
member was in my friends andfamily the Got remind people what
we do for a living, but having asystem around how you stay in
touch with people is big.
I'd mix it up between market human
interest information, because, youknow, you're going to hit people
on different levels.
(19:14):
So marketing for me was very, I
love marketing.
It's my background.
So it's my also a to have withyour partners because it's about
growth.
You know, so I have a training
that I give my clients around.
Here's the 12 questions to ask a
realtor in a meeting.
And every single time I do these
meetings, the thing they end withis, oh my gosh, when can we do
(19:37):
this again?Because it's about them and it's
about their growth.
And instead of talking about how
crappy the market is and how sloweverything is, talking about how
can we build and grow this thingtogether.
Or instead of saying that I closeon time, I answer my phone and,
you know, all the standard valuepropositions that, you know, I
would say the majority of loanofficers spout out there.
So you did touch briefly on thatat the beginning of this sort of
(19:59):
segment.
But I think that's one of the
things we deal with a lot with ourloan officer clients do is like,
okay, what is your value prop toreal estate agents?
Like when we're settingappointments for you with real
estate agents, like what is thething that you're going to tell
them?A lot of times they say that I'm
like, okay, well, you need to comeup with something that's different
(20:21):
than that.
Because what we typically talk
about is there's two differenttypes of offers, right?
There's like from a marketingperspective, there's the
improvement offer, which is a, I'mmarginally better at doing this.
I'm marginally better doing thisother thing.
I'm marginally better doing it.
It's like, it's much harder to get
someone to move.
But if you can create a new
opportunity offer, which is like,hey, I do these things differently
(20:43):
and better than everybody else,that's going to make you stand out
so much more and make you be ableto attract more business and
business that maybe has, you know,realtors that maybe already
working with someone else thatdoesn't do X, and Y, Z, right.
So one of the things we talkedabout is obviously being able to
give leads and pre approvals toagents.
(21:05):
But I think you should havemultiple things that you stand on
that are different than at leastfrom the outside appear different,
right?Creating unique mechanisms.
So I'm just curious, like, is thatsomething that at the beginning
they're doing is like, hey, if youdon't have a solid value prop, you
can spout off in a couple seconds.
That is not I do my job, right?
Is that something that they'reworking on right away?
(21:26):
Or what's kind of that lookinglike on your side?
interesting.
I have this exercise called
discover your why and greateststrengths.
on your side.
Very interesting.
I have this exercise calleddiscover your why and greatest
strengths.
And I remember presenting it on
the mastermind summit stage inVegas many years ago.
So there's 1500 originators there.
And one of the guys in the
audience was from the Seattlemarket.
And I knew him pretty well.
You know, so one of my thing is,
what are your three greateststrengths?
And he texts me later that day.
And he goes, Cindy, I actually
(21:46):
wanted to my room after yoursession.
He goes, I was very sad.
I'm like, you're sad.
Like that was not the way.
He goes, no, I, I don't know my
value.
And I've been in business for like
almost 20 years and I don't evenknow what my value is, you know?
And I said, well, the funny thingis I know your value, you know,
like I do, but it's interesting.
People really struggle with, you
know, what their value propositionreally is.
So having people really thinkabout that, but not just, I'll
give you an example because thiswas one of my value propositions,
(22:09):
but what I want people to do isgo, okay, what are you great at?
Whether it be just innately andyou're starting out and you don't
have all the skills of a greatoriginator yet, but you know, who
are you basically?What are you great at naturally?
So a lot of people will say, whichwas one of my strengths as well as
communication.
Well, that's great, but most
originators are pretty goodcommunicators.
So how is that really adifferentiator?
Right.
Right.
With the realtor and go, Oh, I'm agreat communicator.
(22:29):
Well, that's not going to be tooexciting.
Right.
What I did is I thought about how
do I use that ability tocommunicate well as a
differentiator?So what I did for myself is I
thought, well, we communicate onall these different milestones of
the loan.
We had a system around that,
right?A great LOA.
A She was responsible for callingout to the listing agent, selling
agent, and the buyer.
You know, every time there was a
milestone, your file just wentinto processing, you know,
appraisal came in at value, yourfile just went into underwriting,
congratulation, your loansapproved, all the different
(22:50):
stages.
And I said, what if we turn that
in to a communication system?So I developed the Cindy Ehrman 10
point milestone communicationplan.
So it's already what I did.
I just shined a much brighter
light on it.
And so when I go meet with a new
realtor, I would say, you know,Luke, one of the things that my
realtor partners love about ourteam is our 10 point milestone
communication plan, because wenotify you on these 10 points of
(23:12):
the loan.
And every Tuesday, you will never
have to call my team.
And I know it's a hot button for a
lot of realtors with lack ofcommunication with their lender.
But it's one of the things thathas created trust with my team is
because we're such greatcommunicators about all the
milestones of the loan.
We created a hard paper flyer.
We had it in our packet that wehanded out.
The funny thing is, Luke, Istarted coaching a new client
(23:33):
recently, runs a pretty big branchon the East Coast.
coaching a new client recently,runs a pretty big branch on the
East Coast.
He decided to go after a new
builder that he did not think hehad a shot to get, but he took my
communication plan and built itout for himself and delivered that
about three weeks ago to this.
And they've been working with the
same lender for 20 years.
And their number one frustration
is his lack of communication.
(23:53):
and their number one frustration
is his lack of communication.
And he won that builder as a
backup lender to start because ofhis dialed in communication plan.
So it became a valuable tool, eventhough you're a great
communicator.
So loan originators to really
think about their core strengthand how does it really benefit and
how can you shine a brighter lighton that strength?
(24:15):
If you're an expert atunderwriting guidelines,
wonderful.
Then speak to why that's valuable
for your realtor partners.
You know, I'm going to know
instantly when I talk to yourclient who the investor needs to
be.
I can get, you know, really
difficult loans through the systembecause I'm an expert at
guidelines.
So I can open up so many more
opportunities to serve your buyersthan your competition.
Put words to your expertise.
(24:36):
And most loan officers don't call
themselves experts.
Determine what you're an expert at
and call yourself And atrelationship development.
I'm going to build a relationshipwith a client.
I'm going to keep them in yourcourt, Mr. Realtor.
I'm going to shine a big, brightlight on you and tell them how
amazing you are so we make surethey buy with you and not somebody
else.
And then I'm going to follow up
(24:58):
with your client for the rest ofeternity.
And I'm going to report back tothe status when I call them every
single year.
So you're up to date on your Yeah.
So that's exactly kind of what Iwas saying is like, you know,
unique mechanisms is kind of whatwe call it in the marketing world,
but is essentially you name aprocess that you already have just
makes it sound sexier, right?It's like, okay, well, I
(25:18):
communicate well, every singleloan officer says they communicate
well.
There's not a single loan officer
that's like, I suck atcommunication, realtor, like give
me business.
Like, that's just not how that
works.
And so, yeah, I love that you did
that because, you know, one of mybuddies, he has a lead guarantee.
Hey, if you send me a lead, I'mgoing to call them seven times in
four days, right?Now, obviously, if you have these
guarantees, or if you have thesethings that you do, you actually
(25:40):
have to, yes, you have to executeon the things you promise.
Yeah, that's, that's the thingabout these guarantees and these
processes and things like that,like, like showing up and just
building relationships with peopleover long periods of time, you can
kind of stand behind a I'm a goodguy or whatever, and you build
relationships.
But if you really want to build
relationships quickly, and be ableto get in and like more of like a
sales environment where it's like,hey, like a brand new realtor that
(26:03):
you want to work with.
Like you can get into those
relationships a lot quicker thantaking them a coffee for six But
look, what you just said is such aperfect example of a great
communication value proposition isthis guy has a system, right?
All those people seven times, likeit's a system.
And to highlight that for arealtor is a big deal.
I'm going to stay on top of thisseven times over the next two
(26:27):
weeks i mean whatever that systemis but that is a on top well and
then he also has a similar thingto what you were talking about in
like hey and then you're nevergoing to have to reach out to us
we're going to communicate everysingle whatever i don't remember
what day is either monday ortuesday you're going to get an
update whether via text via emailvia phone call whatever is your
(26:47):
preferred method we're going toget in contact with you we're
going to tell you exactly what'shappening you never have to reach
out to me you're going to save xamount of time per file by not
having to call me and you knowwe're always going to practically
reach out so again that's two ofhis i think he's got like eight of
them right and they also closedalmost 700 loans last year so
there's a reason why these thingswork right it's because you sound
different like we talked aboutdifferentiator right and new
(27:07):
opportunity because everybody elselike let's be honest 90 of loan
officers are showing up andthey're saying the same thing.
And it's hard to stand out fromthe crowd.
You may be an amazing originator.
You probably are an amazing
originator.
But like you said, even with like
expertise, I'm an expert, youknow, I've got 30 years of
experience.
Truth is no one really cares if
you have 30 years of experience.
Now, what does that mean for them?
One of our LO clients said thattheir realtor came to them and
said, Hey, can we run some adsabout the fact I used to be an
(27:29):
attorney so I can negotiate.
I said, that doesn't matter.
No one cares.
What does that negotiation mean?
Can she tangibly prove that hernegotiation skills has helped her
clients achieve X amount more inlistings?
Or has she been able to negotiatelower prices for her buyers?
Otherwise, it doesn't matter.
No one cares that you were an
attorney in your past life.
Really, no one cares unless you
can tangibly prove what that meansfor them.
The what's in it for me 100%.
So amazing, right?
To me, it's a huge value bombbecause it's something I try to
(27:50):
communicate over and over and overagain.
In marketing, we learn how tocreate offers and how to create
value propositions, how to dothat.
Unfortunately, in the mortgageindustry, you get taught, go talk
to realtors.
Well, what do I say?
Just go talk to realtors.
What do I tell them?
Just go talk to realtors.
And that's just typically the
coaching that comes along with,you know, most branch managers.
(28:11):
And I don't want to say all branchmanagers are like that, but it
just seems like that's sort of thepervasive experience that most
loan officers get is like, Hey,how do I get business?
Go talk to more real estateagents.
And so they all show up the sameway.
know, even 20 year veterans in themortgage business will call me and
go like, what do I say?Like, I don't know what to call
them.
I mean, I do think you have to
have a purpose for the call.
I The other thing that I did, and
this was just really helpful tothink about if I was going to go
have a meeting, let's say with anew realtor, potential partner,
(28:31):
it's one thing to go have ameeting.
Most people, if they meet youlive, the meeting goes pretty
well, right?They agreed to be there, but then
there's the, then what, like howdo you build the relationship?
So I would go into every meetingwith an intention of what my next
step was.
And I would convey it at the
meeting.
I would tell them what our next
step was together.
And then, you know, I put systems
and processes together.
So there was a system for me.
(28:52):
First of all, I created myconnection to referral partner
conversion training, which teachespeople how to do the first
meeting.
It's 40 questions to ask a
realtor.
And there's a psychology behind
the questions and how they'reasked.
And even if you only have 15minutes, you can only ask five of
the questions, but it's all aboutthem.
And it's not about your price,your product, your service, it's
you.
I mean, I have so many stories,
Luke, of relationships that Ibuilt.
We never talked about me, mycompany, my pricing, my service.
We never had any conversation.
(29:13):
I made the whole conversation
around asking quality questionsabout them in a systematic way
that helped them open up.
And it's funny because even people
that I'm coaching that have, youknow, 10 great referral partners,
they don't know the answers tothese questions because they've
never asked their realtor thesequestions.
So that in and of itself is adifferentiator.
I had a guy last week who's inthis seven steps training.
He said, I did your connection toconversion training.
I took the script.
I studied it.
(29:33):
I took it to the meeting.
I met with this new realtor.
And he said, the guy said to me,oh my gosh, I've been in business
20 years.
No one has ever conducted this
kind of a meeting with me before.
Will you come in and present to my
office?And that's the kind of stuff
that's exciting because it givesyou new tools in your toolbox and
it differentiate you in the marketthat people notice because the way
you're showing up and you'remaking it about them and not about
you.
It's a very big shift.
And it's not intuitive for peopleto do that in a meeting.
(29:55):
It's interesting because I verymuch was resistant to the idea of
me being a salesperson for years.
And for whatever reason, I ended
up being good at it.
And I think part of it is I'm a
little ADHD and I love tounderstand the why.
So I always ask questions thatdon't really matter.
And then I'm kind of going througha lot of sales training over the
last probably 5-10 years.
I was like, oh, all right.
Okay, so that's what I was doing.
And that's why I was pretty good
at sales was because I just wasvery curious.
(30:16):
I like to ask questions.
And so one of the things we talk
about a lot with originators islike if they're talking to one of
the leads that we generate it'slike okay well ask second and
third and fourth level questionsas well a lot of times people will
get that surface level answer alsolike you know why are you looking
to buy a home or why are youlooking in that area oh we want to
(30:39):
move school districts okay coolwhat type of home are you looking
for instead you could asksomething like what's so
significant about moving to thatschool district and then all of a
sudden the person's like oh wellmy kid has down syndrome i don't
feel like the school that he's inright now has the support.
And so now all of a sudden, youhave such a much deeper why for
getting this consumer to moveforward on moving forward with
(31:02):
you.
And you go, hey, you know what, at
the end, you can say, oh, man,let's get you and your son into
this new school district.
Let's go find you and move on it
versus like, oh, yeah, let's gomove you in a new place.
Right.
And so many people miss out on
(31:22):
that opportunity to ask deeperquestions.
exactly what my train does.
It's like, it goes to that next
level.
Cause to your point, you ask a
question here, you get the topshelf answer that doesn't interest
me.
What interests me is I call it
clarifying questions.
I it.
I remember one of my realtors, hedidn't want to meet with me and he
was newer to our market, but hewas starting to get some traction.
(31:44):
I was noticing his numbers.
And so I kind of begged him to
meet with me.
I'm like, come on, it's a free
lunch.
It's one hour of your life.
I'll make it valuable for you.
And so he finally said, yes, he
goes, I'll give you one hour.
it at two hours, I had to excuse
myself.
But I remember one of the things I
asked him because he had movedfrom Manhattan, New York to
(32:06):
Manhattan Beach, California.
So those are very different
markets.
And he was a little rough around
the edges for our Manhattan Beach,you know, laid back beach
community.
But I remember asking him about
some of his biggest challenges ofbreaking into the market.
And he said, well, you guys dobusiness completely differently
here.
Like everything is different.
And he goes, I'm a New Yorkcommunicator.
I'm a very direct communicator.
I don't mince around.
And I he was a go deeper on thatwith me.
(32:27):
So I asked the next layerquestion, talk to me about how
you've been able to overcome that.
What have you had to actually
learn and how have you had toshift the way you show up with
people?And then he went more from here to
like the heart space of howdifficult that has been for him.
But the cool thing, Luke, is, andI kind of use my connection to
conversion quality questions withhim.
And when we finished that meeting,it was so profound.
I had never mentioned my company,what I do, my experience level,
nothing.
Now he knew of me.
(32:48):
So it's like, I wasn't a stranger.
But at the end of the meeting, he
goes, you know, Cindy, I wasn'tgoing to mention this at the
lunch, but I'm launching my ownreal estate company in 30 days.
I've already got 15 realtorscommitted to my new company.
And he said, I'd really like tohave a conversation with you about
being my preferred lender, myin-house lender.
We never talked about loans on anylevel, but we trust day.
And I ended up being theirpreferred lender from one lunch
where I never talked about loansor my product or service.
So it was then that I started toreally realize the power of
(33:08):
connection.
And I teach that.
It's a learnable skill to learnhow to connect at a deeper level.
And I give people the roadmap.
Here's the questions and here's
why you asked that question.
And this is what will unfold from
it.
And it's pretty magical.
So it's a different way ofbuilding relationship.
That's, it's a lot more satisfyingfor me too.
a That's fantastic.
And I think the reason why sales
has such a negative connotation isbecause traditionally sales is not
what we're talking about.
(33:28):
This is the type of sales I prefer
is understanding their situationand prescribing a solution to
their problem versus, hey, youknow what, I'm going to cookie cut
everybody.
I'm going to put pressure on them.
I'm going to be that greasysalesperson that's going to shame
people into buying that, you know,oh, well, you shouldn't rent
anymore.
Like there's better ways of doing
that.
That makes the decision kind of be
(33:48):
their decision, right?Yes, obviously, you can say
manipulate, but to a certainextent, you have guided the
conversation to that outcome.
But when they make the decision,
they're much less likely to havebuyer's remorse, right?
And that's what tends to happenwith the sort of like high
pressure sales conversations thatis kind of the I don't know what
you call the old school.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, because I just know that Igone through the Grant Cardone
type of trainings and I'm like,eh, that's not my thing.
(34:10):
Oh yeah.
You want to pray about it?
Okay.
Well let's pray right now.
Like, nah, I can do that.
I agree.
You're no nah, I can with us.
I agree.
I And there's still some of it outthere and it works to a certain
extent.
Right.
But I do believe that it createsdifferent outcomes.
And, and I think the way thatyou're training people is huge
because I think that allows formore longevity, relationship
(34:31):
building, future transactions,lifetime value for that particular
client over time.
You know, like that's how you
actually build real relationshipsis understanding their situation.
I also think that it's kind ofmalpractice not to run a mortgage
practice this way, because like alot of people just say, all right,
well, let's throw you in a 30 yearfixed FHA.
We don't know anything about theirfuture.
What are they going gonna do inthe future?
(34:52):
What if they wanna buy investmentproperties?
What if they wanna do?We don't know.
Like we have no idea because wedidn't ask those questions because
I don't know.
We just figured they'll just go in
a 30-year fixed FHA conventional,whatever.
Like I just think that there wassome opportunities for loan
officers to show up in a betterway to be an advisor, but also a
salesperson at the same time.
(35:12):
And I think those two things go
hand in hand.
So kind of like to wrap things up,
if there was like one strategy inthis market, obviously, we're not
tough market, you're doing a lotof coaching with clients, what are
the strategies that are working?Or what's like one in particular
that you would recommend someonego out there today to go get
(35:32):
business?Well, I just believe so
wholeheartedly in our database.
And I think there's so much gold
in our past client database.
And I just think a lot of people
don't nurture past clients as theyOne that people aren't talking
about right now, I'm talking aboutit with a lot of my clients was
talking to a national leader theother day.
And he said their number oneproduct right now that they're
(35:55):
closing loans is cash out refisbecause they've done a great job
of training their loan officers asto how to actually go after them.
And, you know, Barry Habib is oneof my closest friends and has been
for 25 years.
And Barry and I talk about this a
lot with his whole, you know, debtconsolidation program that he's
got through MBS Highway.
But the reality is no one is going
to call us because they have debtand they need to consolidate that.
(36:18):
So unless we're asking thequestion.
So one of the things that I trainmy people on is I created a call
script that asks all the rightquestions.
If you're calling your pastclients, and I really encourage
people, very few people pick upthe phone and actually call them.
I called 20 a week.
I called 10 on Tuesday and I
called 10 on Thursday.
And that was just part of my
follow-up system.
(36:38):
But if you've got the script where
you've got the questions in frontof you and to bring up the
conversation around debt and justsay, hey, one of the reasons that
even though no one wants to refioff their 3% rate, but we're
finding that not only is equity atan all-time high in America today,
but debt is also at an all-timehigh.
And what people aren't talkingabout is debt.
And a lot of people lost jobsduring COVID.
A lot of people have racked creditcard debt and car payments and
student loans.
And we've been able to, in some
(37:00):
cases, save people a tremendousamount of money in their monthly
cashflow.
So even if you're taking a 7%
rate, if it's saving you $1,500 amonth, flow.
So even if you're taking a 7%rate, if saving you $1,500 a
month, it really is life changingfor people.
So just want to mention that incase that were to be a
circumstance that either you oranybody else knows, but start to
plant the seeds of all thedifferent reasons people refinance
(37:21):
to actually purchase anotherproperty, you know, to diversify
their assets, to buy a secondhome.
I mean, but if we start plantingthe seeds, which is what I did
consistently.
And I would always ask, like, now
that you've been in your home fora while, how long do you
anticipate staying in your currentproperty?
Just that one question.
I created so many opportunities.
I remember a really favoriteclient of mine said to me, well,
you know, Sam, we thought we weregoing to be here for at least five
years, but we just had an accidentmaybe.
And now we're kind of short abedroom.
(37:43):
And now we're thinking we maybeonly can stay here for another
year because we're pretty tight.
And I said, well, Jack, I said,
why would you wait a year ifyou're tight?
The market's hot right now.
What could it hurt to just go look
to see what's on the market?And so I really encouraged him to
call his realtor.
She was a friend of mine.
I secretly called the realtor andsaid, I just hey, planted the seed
in Jack's him to call his Sherealtor.
(38:04):
was a friend of I secretly mine.
called the realtor and said, Hey,
I just planted the seed in Jack'smind to call you.
I think you should look at whathis house is worth.
And he was an escrow within twoweeks on a new house.
But I created that opportunitybecause I asked the question and
encouraged him like, if you'realready tight and you're short a
bedroom, why wouldn't you just golook right now?
(38:27):
But I And that realtor loved meforever for asking that question.
Yeah, I'm sure.
And that's huge.
I mean, being able to createbusiness for your realtors is one
of the biggest, I think, pieces ofvalue that loan originators tend
to overlook or say they don't getaccess to those type of people.
And to be honest, I think that'san excuse to not market to the
consumer, to not work yourdatabase, to not do those things
(38:48):
that do create business that canbe reciprocated to your partners.
Real quick, just to kind of toucha little bit on tactical, you said
20 a week.
Is this 20 conversations or 20
just total contacts like calls?I called 10 past clients on
Tuesday and 10 past clients.
It wasn't people that needed or
wanted to refinance.
It was literally started with
anybody.
And my assistant would literally
put the names on my desk and Iwould just call.
(39:09):
And on I called 10 realtors thatand trusted me.
Mondays, knew, like, That was mytouch base.
I had a list of 20.
I And my I didn't call 40.
I the core is great.
mean, And a lot of people call 40.
That's awesome.
But I'm more of the mindset of go
deeper with fewer and buildrelationships.
So I would take my list of 20 andI would call 10 on Monday and the
other 10.
So they were getting two live
(39:30):
calls.
My top 20 would get two live calls
from me monthly.
And those calls were more like
tell touch-based, me what's goingon in the market.
Did you have any open houses thisweekend?
Where are you finding challenges?What are you doing to market your
business?I would always have a question and
I would ask them.
And sometimes I had a hard time
getting them off the phone becausethey liked talking to me.
And then on Wednesdays, I had alist of 20 referral partners that
(39:51):
I wanted to build a relationshipwith.
And I built a lot of systemsaround how to get them to a
meeting.
So I'd call 10 with the intention
of getting a meeting.
So, I mean, I had real systems
around what I did.
And then on Fridays, I used to
write 10, you know, basicallythank you notes or notes of
gratitude for, I might send one toan underwriter.
I might send one to a realtor.
(40:12):
If I was doing it today, I do 10
one minute videos just to sayappreciation to people.
I would like to thank you notes,but I think it's having a system
makes it so much easier for you toshow up for yourself.
But the one thing is if you arenot like, I hate the word, you
know, time blocking, because mostpeople just won't do it.
And it sounds so ominous.
I called it my growth hour because
(40:33):
I wanted to grow.
And I knew that in any market, I
had to commit one hour a dayminimum to my own growth.
And I put a sign on the outsidethat said, do not disturb from 10
to 11.
Every single day I showed up.
And that's when I made my calls.
I did my reach out.
I scheduled meetings.
I got uncomfortable.
I got some no's, but I got a lotof yeses along the way as well.
And then I created systems forfollow-up.
So if you have a system, it makesit so much easier.
I had a system for connecting withlisting agents and building
partnership with them.
Because, you know, we all want to
(40:54):
have a relationship with them.
But if you don't have a system,
then it's harder to make thathappen.
And so created systems for all thedifferent kind of pillars for our
lead generation.
How do you stay in touch with the
leads?We have systems around that.
We have tracking in my coachingprogram.
So how to track your leads and howto track your customer experience
and how to ask for referrals andhow to build partnership.
And so yeah, if anybody wants anymore information regarding our
(41:15):
coaching, we have privatecoaching.
We have a high level mastermindgroup that I lead personally.
I've got my new online trainingprogram, seven steps to seven
figure mortgage success, which isyou can get started for three 97
is three payments of three 97.
And that thing will give you soup
to nuts, everything you need tobuild a seven figure business.
And I lead a live training callevery month to support the people
in that program.
(41:35):
Love it.
And so you can just go to CindyErtman.com and just go to mortgage
coaching.
And there's a pop up there for my
new seven steps.
And there's a great download on my
site too with kind of a checklistfor 2024 that might be helpful
too.
There's some free resources if you
go to the resource tab.
Awesome, awesome.
And I was just about to get intowhere can people connect with you?
So that's perfect.
Go to the website.
(42:00):
It says cindyertmint.com, Ibelieve is what you said.
Is there any other places thatpeople can connect with you?
Get some more content?I don't know if you do social.
I mean, absolutely.
My YouTube channel, we're doing
more and more with YouTube andtrying to build and grow that.
I post my trainings that I do ontoYouTube, definitely on Instagram
and connect with me on LinkedIntoo, because I think LinkedIn is a
highly disregarded sometimesresource for people.
And I think LinkedIn, I've spent alot more time personally on
LinkedIn lately.
It's funny because when Facebook
first launched, I was on thefaculty of Loan Toolbox when that
(42:25):
company was around.
And I was the national guinea pig
for Loan Toolbox to learn how touse Facebook like the first week
it launched.
So Facebook is still my jam
because I know how to use itbackwards and forwards because I'm
literally the guinea pig.
But I do think that we have to
have a social presence today.
It doesn't have to be overkill.
I train a lot of people how to dosocial media in 15 minutes a day,
but we've got to have a presence.
(42:47):
It is a relevancy factor.
The first thing I do when I talkto a new client is I go to their
social platforms.
I look them up.
I see if their name, their photo,what they do for a living is on
their header.
It's amazing how many people don't
even say what they do.
agents.
love to help anybody that needshelp.
It's a challenging season, I is.
originator in America needs some
kind of coaching right now to givethem new tools in the tool chest
(43:10):
to expand your reach because thereare people doing it and having
great success.
One of my clients funded 18
million last month because she'sexpanded her reach and it's to see
what's possible.
to see what's possible.
Yeah.
There's business being done out
there and you're right.
I mean, yeah, it's harder market
and most people are down, butthere is still money to be had and
there's still deals to be closed.
And if you do things like you've
(43:30):
always done, maybe there isn'tdeals to be had, but there is ways
that you can change the way you dobusiness, do more.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, Iguess, is we're in a market where
you got to do a little bit morethan you had to do in especially
2020 and 2021.
But you just got to do 4x the
amount of work and 4x the amountof outreach and stuff like that to
get a similar result.
(43:51):
So thank you so much for your time
today, Cindy.
It's been a pleasure.
I think we've dropped, well, I'llsay you've dropped bomb after bomb
after bomb.
It's been awesome.
Yeah, it's been super awesome.
So my biggest takeaways from this
is, I mean, a lot of what wetalked about is systemizing the
way you do business, right?I mean, from the value proposition
to the outreach to all of that.
(44:13):
So that was like a big takeaway.
And then also showing updifferently from everybody else.
So that was huge.
I think there is a lot of
opportunity in this market to showup and be different.
And I think that is really thething, right?
Really the key in this market isto get traction.
You have to be different.
And most people are walking around
seeing the same stuff andwondering why they're not getting
traction.
(44:33):
So again, go back, listen to this
podcast again, because there was aton of opportunities to learn.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for your time
today, Cindy.
And if you are listening to this
podcast and you are looking forsome help to get in front of more
realtors, get in front of moreconsumers, go to flip the status
quo.com.
Thank you so much for listening
and have a great day.
(44:53):
Thank you for tuning into the
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 put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And I'm excited because today we
have Cindy Ertman.
She has been a top 100 loan
originator for over a decade, andshe's also the founder and CEO of
The Defining Difference, amortgage coaching and training
company.
And man, this is going to be a
good one.
I'm super excited.
Cindy's got some cool things thatshe's launching.
Obviously, a ton of experiencehelping loan originators grow
(00:45):
their businesses.
So I'm so excited.
Welcome to the show, Cindy.
Thanks, Luke.
So great to be here.
Well, give us a little background
on who you are.
Obviously, I gave the flashy side
of it.
So give us a little background on
who you are, what keeps you inthis crazy industry that we're in,
especially in times like this.
And you know, what's going on in
you know, what's going on in yourlife?
Well, I was, you know, honestlyfell in as most people to mortgage
(01:06):
origination by accident.
Someone told me they thought it
was a great, you know, career forI I would give it a try.
And I guess it worked out okay.
So, you know, had a 30 plus year
run as not only an originator, butmy partner and I led a $1.2
billion branch here in SouthernCalifornia for many, many, many
years.
So we had a big team.
I had 32 loan officers and thestaff of 65.
(01:28):
And I was the top producer formany years.
I was in the top 100 originatorsin the country and, you know,
running a branch, ultimatelyrunning a region for a national
mortgage bank.
I've kind of seen all sides of
find this business just gets intoyour blood.
And if it does, there's reallynothing that beats it.
I found like later in my career,one of the things that I just
became so passionate about was,you know, establishing new ways of
(01:50):
doing business, building referralpartnerships, new ways to market
my database.
I developed systems and processes
to scale my business because toscale, you've got to shift how
you're doing business, right?So I started to build systems and
processes around kind of everypillar of what it took to build.
I became very focused initially.
I wanted to get to a hundred
(02:10):
million in production.
And then my next thing is I really
want to get to making a milliondollars a year.
Those were two main goals.
I did ultimately hit over 200
million in personal production,but that was never my goal.
In fact, after that happened, Iwasn't sure I ever wanted that to
happen again.
sure that's a lot of production to
do as a single person.
Well, I mean, I'm sure you had a
(02:30):
big team that helped you, butthat's a ton of production and
probably a little bit of stressthat goes along with that.
A a ton A a ton lot of productionof it and is probably stress.
a little bit of stress that goesalong with that, huh?
A lot of it is stress.
But the great thing you is, know,
when you build the systems andwhen you build the right team and,
you know, that's what wasfrustrating for me as a coach in
2020, because a lot of my clientsweren't prepared for that market
when all of a sudden all the starsof a sudden the first time that
happened to me, which was in 2003.
(02:50):
I remember in August of 2003, I
had 129 loans in process in onemonth and this was still hard
paper file so like they werestacked like everywhere and sure
but like the thing is i was soexcited because we had built the
right team we had a system inprocess this we were capable of
you know generating eight loans aday is what we were doing.
And it took a really well, justhummed machine to be able to make
(03:14):
that happen.
And so I got to see the fruits of
our labor of building the rightteam and getting everybody in
their lane so we could reallyoperate at very high levels.
So, and then when 2020 hit, it wassuch a recap of watching people go
through that and leads are likeflying through the door and, you
know, it had systems, not no one,but many did not have systems to
(03:34):
handle that level of volume.
And I just became aware of how
much we need to focus on buildingthe system in the process so that,
and the right team.
And it's been hard this last
couple of years with people losingtheir teams and not having support
any longer.
And, you know And how do you
rebuild from that?So that's a lot of what we spend
our time on as a mortgage coach ishelping people like redefine
(03:55):
success.
How do we expand our reach?
How do we create new pillars ofour business?
Because to be successful intoday's world, we can't wait for
the phone to ring.
We've got to go make it ring.
So it's about getting moreintentional about our practices.
Yeah, that's huge.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, you know, you're right.
I mean, I saw a lot of people talk
about that.
I remember even with what we were
(04:16):
doing, someone was like, oh, Iwish I would have done this.
You're like, when would you havedone that?
Like you literally were workinglike 15, 18 hour days.
Like when would you have done thething that you're saying you would
have done?Like, sure, like in retrospect, we
believe that we should have doneX, Y, and Z, but we don't have
that foresight a lot of times tosee into that.
And then on the flip side of that,you know, we saw everybody sort of
grow their business, includingmyself grew pretty well during
2020 and 21.
And then, you know, the market
(04:36):
turned and 22 was a little harder.
And then 23 was really hard.
And it was like, Oh crap.
Now what do I do?
Do we let people go?Do we, you know, and then all of a
sudden you're like, you thoughtyou were never going to have to do
this certain thing.
And now you're having to do that
thing again.
And it's like weird, you know,
like there's like a lot of thosesort of like shifts that have to
happen.
So kind of interesting, you
brought that up, because, youknow, it has been an interesting
(04:57):
sort of shift from like one of thecraziest high markets ever to like
one of the lowest markets ever.
It's just been a big swing.
So from that perspective, whatdoes that look like in terms of
like, when you're talking topeople now in this sort of market
that maybe grew a team or had bigproduction, like, how are you
getting people not prepared?Because I guess we've already been
through like two years of thiscraziness.
But like, how are you sort ofhelping people get through this
Well, I think the beauty of COVIDand what came from that is that it
did kind of level the playingfield is like, people weren't
(05:18):
coming to your office anymore,right?
Even before COVID, very few peopleI had some of my clients were
actually tracking how many clientsactually walked into their branch
over the course of a year.
I had several of my own coaching
clients shut down their brick andmortar prior to COVID and just
going, it's not worth the to thisvirtually.
And I have some very successfulclients that run completely
virtual businesses.
And so, you know, it's been really
fun to watch some of my mortgageclients actually start to really
(05:40):
expand their reach into othermarkets.
And it's also interesting becauseI talked to other people that are
like, oh no, you know, I justtalked to a woman yesterday and
she goes, I moved from NorthCarolina to Texas and now my North
Carolina people don't want to workwith me anymore because I'm not
physically there.
And I said, don't believe that
story.
That story just isn't true.
You just got to overperform anddeliver and stay in touch with
(06:04):
them and be intentional about yourpractices as to how you
communicate with them and get onwith them and create value for
them.
And there's so many different ways
you can create value from afar.
And one of my clients that I've
coached her for 10 years, and shemoved from San Clemente,
California to two hours outside ofDenver, lives on a horse ranch in
the middle of nowhere.
And she found $125 million last
(06:24):
year and kept all of her clientsin Southern California from three
and a half years ago, built asecondary market in Southern
California in Big Bear, and is nowstarting to grow Colorado, then
broke in to build a relationship.
She's now in six states with that
builder.
I mean, her brain doesn't allow
her to be in confinement.
She believes in possibility and
she's created it for herself.
So a lot of it is, I had a
(06:46):
conversation with a clientyesterday and she's in SoCal and
it's a very difficult market here.
I mean, it's is in a lot of
places, but it's more difficult ina few places in America right now.
Seattle's a tough market.
We've got a lot of markets right
now that are really struggling.
And so it's like, we've got to get
out of our little niche and we'vegot to expand our reach.
(07:09):
I mean, I did a training yesterdaygot looking at the sphere right
around us, because our sphere ispretty vast, and we don't tap into
it for business.
And so, you know, people are
looking at, okay, I don't haveloyal realtors anymore, or half of
them left the business, or they'renot doing any business, and
they're just stuck, and like kindof frozen.
It's like, well, okay, then let'sgo build a financial planner
(07:30):
pillar.
And let me teach you how to do
that.
I can get you in front of any
financial planner with myfinancial planner script.
It works a hundred percent of thetime, because it's not about you
asking for something.
It's about you offering to refer
them business and strategy to getin front of them.
And so that's, what's fun aboutthe coaching aspect is to take a
lot of things that I did to buildrelationship, the questions to
(07:52):
ask, you know, cause I find if yougive people the roadmap, Luke, you
actually give them the, here's thescript to get the meeting.
And I was in a very high endmarket, you know, in Manhattan
beach, California.
So it's very affluent.
So these are not cheesy scripts.
These are like, I was calling
really successful people to try toget meetings with them.
And my marketing had to be best inclass and I couldn't have mediocre
things going out.
(08:13):
So, and developing database
management strategies and buildingsystems to stay in front of
people.
I was using an example yesterday
because this is what I did, liketo build my business to really
significant proportions is Italked about what I did did like
everywhere I went and notobnoxiously so, but you know, I
would walk in to have my teethcleaned.
And of course they'd always say,well, what do you do?
(08:33):
I'm like, well, I run a mortgagecompany here in Manhattan beach.
And they always want to talk aboutreal estate and mortgage, right?
Everybody's interested in that.
I remember going to my
chiropractor and my face is downin the cradle and I look at him
and I said, hey, Vince, I go, youmust work with all kinds of
realtors here in the South Bay.
You must work on them constantly.
(08:54):
You've been around for a longtime.
I go, who do you like?And he starts rattling off names
of realtors.
I'm like, yeah, I know her.
Yeah, I know her.
And he gives me the name of this
guy, Charlie.
I didn't know Charlie.
And I said, well, tell me aboutCharlie.
He goes, well, he's newer.
He's up and coming.
He's having some great success.
You should know Charlie.
(09:15):
So that afternoon I picked up thephone and called Charlie and said,
you'll never guess where I gotyour name.
You know, my head was face down inthe cradle at Vince's office.
But within two days, I met thisguy for wine and I got a $1.4
million deal from him within aweek.
And that's just because I askedthe question.
So I really tapping into ournetwork in a bigger way, mean, I
now.
Yeah, I mean, it's just on
scripts.
I think there's a very big
(09:36):
aversion by people to scripts.
And interestingly enough, I mean,
I think scripts are life.
And I don't think you read a
script word for word verbatim,right?
Like that's not the point of ascript, right?
The point of a script is tounderstand frameworks and
understand the direction you wantto take a conversation, right?
And it's like, okay, well, yeah,you're not going to say word for
word this on every single callbecause people are people and
we're not selling a $20 widget,right?
We sell $20 widget, we canprobably get away with, you know,
(09:59):
talking word for word, but scriptsallow us to have a roadmap or
like, I guess we can call it likea bowling lane where like, you
know, you can only go so fareither way, but you're always
brought back into like, okay,well, we went off track a little
bit, but we're gonna get broughtback into where we are in the
conversation.
And the other thing you said is
questions.
I think the biggest mistake, this
(10:20):
is not just loan officers, this issalespeople in general.
I find it on my sales team.
It's people believe that the
valuable part of a salesconversation is the pitch, is the
thing that you do.
The truth is it's The valuable
not.
part of a sales conversation is
the is the pitch, thing that youThe truth do.
is it's not.
The valuable part of a sales
conversation is the questions, isunderstanding their situation,
finding out their pain points, andthen identifying the solution to
their pain points.
It might be your thing, it might
(10:41):
not be.
It sounds like that's the type of
scripts that you're talking aboutin terms of the outreach and those
sorts of conversations.
Well, the other thing it's like, I
think to the point of scripts,yes.
Did I ever like memorize them anduse them verbatim?
But some of the scripts that Iwrote, I didn't need the script.
I mean, I said it so many timesand you put it in your own words
so that it feels comfortable foryou, but at least to your point,
the roadmap of where we're goinghere.
(11:02):
So, you know, one of the scriptsthat I created tremendous success
around and everything that Iteach, I tested like as an
originator, because I wanted tomake sure I didn't want to teach
something that people didn't gettraction on, or that I personally
didn't get traction on.
But, and, you know, even though
some people have done this intheir own way, it's something you
can do over and over and overagain as an originator to gain
traction.
And it's just, you know, make a
list of the five realtors or thefive referral partners that know,
like, and trust you.
It's very simple.
And call those five people andjust go, hey, Luke, you know what?
(11:24):
I have loved working with you overthe years.
Like, it's so great to be inpartnership with you.
And we just know, like, and trustyou on such a deep level.
And we really want to expand ourbusiness this year in mortgage
because obviously it's been atough couple of years and we
really want to expand our reach.
And so who do you know?
Who's the name of a couple ofpeople that you know that might
benefit from what we do?Because we are not looking for
(11:46):
quantity.
We're looking for a couple of good
quality people to expand into ourteam and build a relationship
with.
It can be somebody in your office.
It can be somebody that you'vedone a transaction with in the
last year, but I'd love your helpto get a couple of names for
people that I could reach out tothat might benefit from our
service.
And honestly, when I first tested
that loop, the very first time Icalled a woman who is newer to
(12:09):
real estate and I had helped herwhen she first got started, which
is great because if you help themwhen they get started, then they
kind of, they're yours.
And I called her first.
She had moved to a Sotheby'soffice here in Manhattan Beach.
And I asked her that question.
She goes, oh my gosh.
She says, I'm sitting in a podwith three other amazing female
realtors.
And she goes, Sarah just closed
three deals this week.
And she goes, yeah, I can
(12:30):
introduce you.
I said, could I get their names
from you and phone numbers?She goes, absolutely.
I'll text them to you.
Then she calls me back 10 minutes
later.
So this is my first test call to
see if it me me back 10 minuteslater and says, well, why don't we
just all meet for lunch and I'llcome too.
And so I go, that would beamazing.
So I met with these four realtorsfor lunch.
My mortgage partner who took overmy production and my business 10
(12:52):
years ago, still works with threeof those realtors today.
And that was just because I madeone phone call and said, who do
you My was to call five people andget 10 different names.
I called five people and got 18names.
Of course, then you have to callthe people, you get the names from
got a call.
Yeah, yeah.
That part.
call because now someone that
says, hey, I really know, I cantrust this person has given you
their name.
And so then to be able to call
(13:14):
that, let's call it a realtor andsay, Hey, look at, I just hung up
with Luke and Luke told me that,you know, you're one of his
favorite realtors and he knows,likes and trusts you and thinks
you're really great at your craft.
And we're really looking to expand
our referral partner base, butwe're really particular about who
we work with.
We want to work with really great
people.
And even if we don't work
together, I think great leadersneed to know great leaders.
And I'd love to grab a cup ofcoffee and learn more about you
(13:35):
and your business.
And 90% of the people, Luke said,
yes.
And I built new partnerships like
so quickly.
And the great thing is you can do
it over and over and over again.
And I even do it to this day to
the same realtors once a year.
I'll be like, hey, I'm going to
ask you the question again.
Like, who do you know?
(13:56):
Who have you done a deal with thislast year that my team could
benefit?And so asking that question, and I
think even asking your clientswhen you close a transaction, it's
one thing to ask for a referralor, hey, remember, you know, I'm
all referral based.
But I think it's important to just
be I'd love to get a like, couplehey, referral you or, I'm Hey, all
remember, referral know, but Ithink it's important based, to
(14:17):
just be like, Hey, I'd love to geta couple of names from you, uh,
people that might benefit from myservice in the future.
So you're not just asking for alead right then, but Hey, do you
know a CPA or another greatrealtor or a financial planner or
a business person that you thinkcould benefit that?
I just love to expand my resourcesand my connections..
That would mean the world to me.
And people always have two names.
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
(14:40):
I mean, there's a, you said a
massive opportunity to tap intoyour people that you already know
to get your referrals.
And I think, again, a lot of times
people just don't ask.
I mean, salespeople, a lot of
times don't ask for the sale.
That's, I guess, the hardest parts
for people to do because they'reworried about rejection.
But you know, closed mouths don'tget fed.
So you got to ask for thebusiness.
So I know we talked about sort ofdifferent phases in the growth
(15:00):
trajectory that you went through.
So I'm curious, like, what are the
different stages look like?And how do you sort of, you know,
because obviously, what gets youto like 10 million a year is not
going to get you to 50 million isnot going to get you to 100
million.
So like, what are those sort of
different transitions look like?Do you have those broken into sort
of like segments?Or how do you look at that sort of
a growth trajectory?If maybe one of your clients wants
to grow like that?Or what different transitions look
like?Do you have those broken into sort
(15:22):
of like segments or how do youlook at that sort of a growth
trajectory if maybe one of yourclients wants to grow like that or
what does that look like?Yeah, and actually this last
couple of years, particularly withthe shift in the market and
business not being so plentiful, II created a new online training
program because not everybody canafford my high level mastermind
and private coaching.
You we have a big private coaching
practice.
I have 15 coaches that are all
boots on the ground, originatorsand leaders right now that coach
privately as well.
(15:42):
But I built an online training
program and I spent a couple ofyears creating it by really
digging deep as to what I did.
And I broke it into seven
different pillars.
It was called seven steps to seven
figure mortgage to seven success.
figure And mortgage I really
success.
went back And I really and okay,
went back how and do you okay,start?
how do you start, right?And part of it is getting really
clear on what your value is andthe value that that brings to your
referral partners and your clientbase because it's hard to convey
your value if you are not clearwhat your value is.
(16:03):
Right, 100%.
You're 100%.
their value is.
So I usually will start people
doing, we have a called mortgagesatisfaction assessment.
We will have them go through ourquick assessment to assess their
business.
And then it gets you clear on kind
of where do you need to focus ifyou're wanting to grow your
business?I would say like most of my
clients have been in the businessfor a fair number of years.
They've driven themselves to acertain amount of success.
And now they want to go to thatnext level.
And those are my favorite clientsbecause you've already done like
the hardest foundational work.
Right.
But even with those, so many ofthem are missing like real systems
(16:25):
for what happens when the leadcomes in the when you tracking
that lead?How are you communicating and
following up with that lead?What happens if they don't buy a
house for a while?Do they just fall off the radar?
Do you have technology thattriggers you that you need to
follow up with the leader?Do you have a system?
And then what's your processthrough the loan?
Like everybody has a process, butnot everybody has a process that's
defined.
And as you grow, you can start to
lean into creating a moreextraordinary customer experience.
(16:46):
You can add more bells andwhistles into your touch point.
So the better we got, the more wegrew, the more we could drill down
on like one of the things that Iteach is how to build an annual
marketing calendar becausemarketing is that elusive thing,
right?Like there's so many marketing is
so there's social media marketing,there's video marketing, there's
database marketing, there's hardmail marketing, there's ads,
(17:06):
there's so many different ways togo with marketing.
But the reality is a lot of peopledo very little marketing because
they don't have a system or aplan.
And I found that if you take 90minutes once a year to build out
your plan for the year and thenget it into your calendar, I
showed up for myself.
Like I had a plan for when I was
going to do lunch and learns orwhen I was going to have my
mastermind group.
(17:27):
It was already in the calendar a
year in advance.
And we just managed to the plan.
You know, how often are we goingto post on social media?
What does that look like?What does that posting schedule
look like?Are we going to do motivational
Monday?I think if you map out like a
simple plan, it just makeseverything so much more simple.
like a simple plan, it just makeseverything so much more simple.
Like I fully believe that if youdo not have a fully operational
(17:51):
CRM system and database that youknow how to use, it should be the
number one goal.
Everything else should become
secondary because my database wasresponsible from 20 to 30% of my
income every And I I have asystem.
I sent an email.
And this is another thing that for
me, it's something that I coach myclients around this.
Learn how to be able to write anemail to your entire database that
(18:11):
with a click of a button...
Because when I turned my business
over to my partner, I had 4,500past clients.
So I personally, Cindy Ertmanwrote an email to my past client
database on the first of everymonth that was in my calendar.
I showed up to it.
I had my hour of growth every
single day.
And that's what I did on the first
(18:33):
of the month.
And the 15th of the month, I also
sent an email to my realtordatabase and I marketed to about a
hundred realtors.
I probably only worked with 25 of
them, but I marketed to a hundred.
That was just a round number.
I had a business contacts databasefor CPAs, financial planners, my
dentist, my doctor, mychiropractor, you know, whoever is
in your sphere of business.
I had a separate database for, and
then I had a friends and familydatabase.
(18:53):
And I think people miss the boatbecause I lost a loan that my
sister-in-law did with bank ofAmerica because she didn't know I
did refinances.
And it's like my Christmas card
list, right?Like every friend and family
member was in my friends andfamily the Got remind people what
we do for a living, but having asystem around how you stay in
touch with people is big.
I'd mix it up between market human
interest information, because, youknow, you're going to hit people
on different levels.
(19:14):
So marketing for me was very, I
love marketing.
It's my background.
So it's my also a to have withyour partners because it's about
growth.
You know, so I have a training
that I give my clients around.
Here's the 12 questions to ask a
realtor in a meeting.
And every single time I do these
meetings, the thing they end withis, oh my gosh, when can we do
(19:37):
this again?Because it's about them and it's
about their growth.
And instead of talking about how
crappy the market is and how sloweverything is, talking about how
can we build and grow this thingtogether.
Or instead of saying that I closeon time, I answer my phone and,
you know, all the standard valuepropositions that, you know, I
would say the majority of loanofficers spout out there.
So you did touch briefly on thatat the beginning of this sort of
(19:59):
segment.
But I think that's one of the
things we deal with a lot with ourloan officer clients do is like,
okay, what is your value prop toreal estate agents?
Like when we're settingappointments for you with real
estate agents, like what is thething that you're going to tell
them?A lot of times they say that I'm
like, okay, well, you need to comeup with something that's different
(20:21):
than that.
Because what we typically talk
about is there's two differenttypes of offers, right?
There's like from a marketingperspective, there's the
improvement offer, which is a, I'mmarginally better at doing this.
I'm marginally better doing thisother thing.
I'm marginally better doing it.
It's like, it's much harder to get
someone to move.
But if you can create a new
opportunity offer, which is like,hey, I do these things differently
(20:43):
and better than everybody else,that's going to make you stand out
so much more and make you be ableto attract more business and
business that maybe has, you know,realtors that maybe already
working with someone else thatdoesn't do X, and Y, Z, right.
So one of the things we talkedabout is obviously being able to
give leads and pre approvals toagents.
(21:05):
But I think you should havemultiple things that you stand on
that are different than at leastfrom the outside appear different,
right?Creating unique mechanisms.
So I'm just curious, like, is thatsomething that at the beginning
they're doing is like, hey, if youdon't have a solid value prop, you
can spout off in a couple seconds.
That is not I do my job, right?
Is that something that they'reworking on right away?
(21:26):
Or what's kind of that lookinglike on your side?
interesting.
I have this exercise called
discover your why and greateststrengths.
on your side.
Very interesting.
I have this exercise calleddiscover your why and greatest
strengths.
And I remember presenting it on
the mastermind summit stage inVegas many years ago.
So there's 1500 originators there.
And one of the guys in the
audience was from the Seattlemarket.
And I knew him pretty well.
You know, so one of my thing is,
what are your three greateststrengths?
And he texts me later that day.
And he goes, Cindy, I actually
(21:46):
wanted to my room after yoursession.
He goes, I was very sad.
I'm like, you're sad.
Like that was not the way.
He goes, no, I, I don't know my
value.
And I've been in business for like
almost 20 years and I don't evenknow what my value is, you know?
And I said, well, the funny thingis I know your value, you know,
like I do, but it's interesting.
People really struggle with, you
know, what their value propositionreally is.
So having people really thinkabout that, but not just, I'll
give you an example because thiswas one of my value propositions,
(22:09):
but what I want people to do isgo, okay, what are you great at?
Whether it be just innately andyou're starting out and you don't
have all the skills of a greatoriginator yet, but you know, who
are you basically?What are you great at naturally?
So a lot of people will say, whichwas one of my strengths as well as
communication.
Well, that's great, but most
originators are pretty goodcommunicators.
So how is that really adifferentiator?
Right.
Right.
With the realtor and go, Oh, I'm agreat communicator.
(22:29):
Well, that's not going to be tooexciting.
Right.
What I did is I thought about how
do I use that ability tocommunicate well as a
differentiator?So what I did for myself is I
thought, well, we communicate onall these different milestones of
the loan.
We had a system around that,
right?A great LOA.
A She was responsible for callingout to the listing agent, selling
agent, and the buyer.
You know, every time there was a
milestone, your file just wentinto processing, you know,
appraisal came in at value, yourfile just went into underwriting,
congratulation, your loansapproved, all the different
(22:50):
stages.
And I said, what if we turn that
in to a communication system?So I developed the Cindy Ehrman 10
point milestone communicationplan.
So it's already what I did.
I just shined a much brighter
light on it.
And so when I go meet with a new
realtor, I would say, you know,Luke, one of the things that my
realtor partners love about ourteam is our 10 point milestone
communication plan, because wenotify you on these 10 points of
(23:12):
the loan.
And every Tuesday, you will never
have to call my team.
And I know it's a hot button for a
lot of realtors with lack ofcommunication with their lender.
But it's one of the things thathas created trust with my team is
because we're such greatcommunicators about all the
milestones of the loan.
We created a hard paper flyer.
We had it in our packet that wehanded out.
The funny thing is, Luke, Istarted coaching a new client
(23:33):
recently, runs a pretty big branchon the East Coast.
coaching a new client recently,runs a pretty big branch on the
East Coast.
He decided to go after a new
builder that he did not think hehad a shot to get, but he took my
communication plan and built itout for himself and delivered that
about three weeks ago to this.
And they've been working with the
same lender for 20 years.
And their number one frustration
is his lack of communication.
(23:53):
and their number one frustration
is his lack of communication.
And he won that builder as a
backup lender to start because ofhis dialed in communication plan.
So it became a valuable tool, eventhough you're a great
communicator.
So loan originators to really
think about their core strengthand how does it really benefit and
how can you shine a brighter lighton that strength?
(24:15):
If you're an expert atunderwriting guidelines,
wonderful.
Then speak to why that's valuable
for your realtor partners.
You know, I'm going to know
instantly when I talk to yourclient who the investor needs to
be.
I can get, you know, really
difficult loans through the systembecause I'm an expert at
guidelines.
So I can open up so many more
opportunities to serve your buyersthan your competition.
Put words to your expertise.
(24:36):
And most loan officers don't call
themselves experts.
Determine what you're an expert at
and call yourself And atrelationship development.
I'm going to build a relationshipwith a client.
I'm going to keep them in yourcourt, Mr. Realtor.
I'm going to shine a big, brightlight on you and tell them how
amazing you are so we make surethey buy with you and not somebody
else.
And then I'm going to follow up
(24:58):
with your client for the rest ofeternity.
And I'm going to report back tothe status when I call them every
single year.
So you're up to date on your Yeah.
So that's exactly kind of what Iwas saying is like, you know,
unique mechanisms is kind of whatwe call it in the marketing world,
but is essentially you name aprocess that you already have just
makes it sound sexier, right?It's like, okay, well, I
(25:18):
communicate well, every singleloan officer says they communicate
well.
There's not a single loan officer
that's like, I suck atcommunication, realtor, like give
me business.
Like, that's just not how that
works.
And so, yeah, I love that you did
that because, you know, one of mybuddies, he has a lead guarantee.
Hey, if you send me a lead, I'mgoing to call them seven times in
four days, right?Now, obviously, if you have these
guarantees, or if you have thesethings that you do, you actually
(25:40):
have to, yes, you have to executeon the things you promise.
Yeah, that's, that's the thingabout these guarantees and these
processes and things like that,like, like showing up and just
building relationships with peopleover long periods of time, you can
kind of stand behind a I'm a goodguy or whatever, and you build
relationships.
But if you really want to build
relationships quickly, and be ableto get in and like more of like a
sales environment where it's like,hey, like a brand new realtor that
(26:03):
you want to work with.
Like you can get into those
relationships a lot quicker thantaking them a coffee for six But
look, what you just said is such aperfect example of a great
communication value proposition isthis guy has a system, right?
All those people seven times, likeit's a system.
And to highlight that for arealtor is a big deal.
I'm going to stay on top of thisseven times over the next two
(26:27):
weeks i mean whatever that systemis but that is a on top well and
then he also has a similar thingto what you were talking about in
like hey and then you're nevergoing to have to reach out to us
we're going to communicate everysingle whatever i don't remember
what day is either monday ortuesday you're going to get an
update whether via text via emailvia phone call whatever is your
(26:47):
preferred method we're going toget in contact with you we're
going to tell you exactly what'shappening you never have to reach
out to me you're going to save xamount of time per file by not
having to call me and you knowwe're always going to practically
reach out so again that's two ofhis i think he's got like eight of
them right and they also closedalmost 700 loans last year so
there's a reason why these thingswork right it's because you sound
different like we talked aboutdifferentiator right and new
(27:07):
opportunity because everybody elselike let's be honest 90 of loan
officers are showing up andthey're saying the same thing.
And it's hard to stand out fromthe crowd.
You may be an amazing originator.
You probably are an amazing
originator.
But like you said, even with like
expertise, I'm an expert, youknow, I've got 30 years of
experience.
Truth is no one really cares if
you have 30 years of experience.
Now, what does that mean for them?
One of our LO clients said thattheir realtor came to them and
said, Hey, can we run some adsabout the fact I used to be an
(27:29):
attorney so I can negotiate.
I said, that doesn't matter.
No one cares.
What does that negotiation mean?
Can she tangibly prove that hernegotiation skills has helped her
clients achieve X amount more inlistings?
Or has she been able to negotiatelower prices for her buyers?
Otherwise, it doesn't matter.
No one cares that you were an
attorney in your past life.
Really, no one cares unless you
can tangibly prove what that meansfor them.
The what's in it for me 100%.
So amazing, right?
To me, it's a huge value bombbecause it's something I try to
(27:50):
communicate over and over and overagain.
In marketing, we learn how tocreate offers and how to create
value propositions, how to dothat.
Unfortunately, in the mortgageindustry, you get taught, go talk
to realtors.
Well, what do I say?
Just go talk to realtors.
What do I tell them?
Just go talk to realtors.
And that's just typically the
coaching that comes along with,you know, most branch managers.
(28:11):
And I don't want to say all branchmanagers are like that, but it
just seems like that's sort of thepervasive experience that most
loan officers get is like, Hey,how do I get business?
Go talk to more real estateagents.
And so they all show up the sameway.
know, even 20 year veterans in themortgage business will call me and
go like, what do I say?Like, I don't know what to call
them.
I mean, I do think you have to
have a purpose for the call.
I The other thing that I did, and
this was just really helpful tothink about if I was going to go
have a meeting, let's say with anew realtor, potential partner,
(28:31):
it's one thing to go have ameeting.
Most people, if they meet youlive, the meeting goes pretty
well, right?They agreed to be there, but then
there's the, then what, like howdo you build the relationship?
So I would go into every meetingwith an intention of what my next
step was.
And I would convey it at the
meeting.
I would tell them what our next
step was together.
And then, you know, I put systems
and processes together.
So there was a system for me.
(28:52):
First of all, I created myconnection to referral partner
conversion training, which teachespeople how to do the first
meeting.
It's 40 questions to ask a
realtor.
And there's a psychology behind
the questions and how they'reasked.
And even if you only have 15minutes, you can only ask five of
the questions, but it's all aboutthem.
And it's not about your price,your product, your service, it's
you.
I mean, I have so many stories,
Luke, of relationships that Ibuilt.
We never talked about me, mycompany, my pricing, my service.
We never had any conversation.
(29:13):
I made the whole conversation
around asking quality questionsabout them in a systematic way
that helped them open up.
And it's funny because even people
that I'm coaching that have, youknow, 10 great referral partners,
they don't know the answers tothese questions because they've
never asked their realtor thesequestions.
So that in and of itself is adifferentiator.
I had a guy last week who's inthis seven steps training.
He said, I did your connection toconversion training.
I took the script.
I studied it.
(29:33):
I took it to the meeting.
I met with this new realtor.
And he said, the guy said to me,oh my gosh, I've been in business
20 years.
No one has ever conducted this
kind of a meeting with me before.
Will you come in and present to my
office?And that's the kind of stuff
that's exciting because it givesyou new tools in your toolbox and
it differentiate you in the marketthat people notice because the way
you're showing up and you'remaking it about them and not about
you.
It's a very big shift.
And it's not intuitive for peopleto do that in a meeting.
(29:55):
It's interesting because I verymuch was resistant to the idea of
me being a salesperson for years.
And for whatever reason, I ended
up being good at it.
And I think part of it is I'm a
little ADHD and I love tounderstand the why.
So I always ask questions thatdon't really matter.
And then I'm kind of going througha lot of sales training over the
last probably 5-10 years.
I was like, oh, all right.
Okay, so that's what I was doing.
And that's why I was pretty good
at sales was because I just wasvery curious.
(30:16):
I like to ask questions.
And so one of the things we talk
about a lot with originators islike if they're talking to one of
the leads that we generate it'slike okay well ask second and
third and fourth level questionsas well a lot of times people will
get that surface level answer alsolike you know why are you looking
to buy a home or why are youlooking in that area oh we want to
(30:39):
move school districts okay coolwhat type of home are you looking
for instead you could asksomething like what's so
significant about moving to thatschool district and then all of a
sudden the person's like oh wellmy kid has down syndrome i don't
feel like the school that he's inright now has the support.
And so now all of a sudden, youhave such a much deeper why for
getting this consumer to moveforward on moving forward with
(31:02):
you.
And you go, hey, you know what, at
the end, you can say, oh, man,let's get you and your son into
this new school district.
Let's go find you and move on it
versus like, oh, yeah, let's gomove you in a new place.
Right.
And so many people miss out on
(31:22):
that opportunity to ask deeperquestions.
exactly what my train does.
It's like, it goes to that next
level.
Cause to your point, you ask a
question here, you get the topshelf answer that doesn't interest
me.
What interests me is I call it
clarifying questions.
I it.
I remember one of my realtors, hedidn't want to meet with me and he
was newer to our market, but hewas starting to get some traction.
(31:44):
I was noticing his numbers.
And so I kind of begged him to
meet with me.
I'm like, come on, it's a free
lunch.
It's one hour of your life.
I'll make it valuable for you.
And so he finally said, yes, he
goes, I'll give you one hour.
it at two hours, I had to excuse
myself.
But I remember one of the things I
asked him because he had movedfrom Manhattan, New York to
(32:06):
Manhattan Beach, California.
So those are very different
markets.
And he was a little rough around
the edges for our Manhattan Beach,you know, laid back beach
community.
But I remember asking him about
some of his biggest challenges ofbreaking into the market.
And he said, well, you guys dobusiness completely differently
here.
Like everything is different.
And he goes, I'm a New Yorkcommunicator.
I'm a very direct communicator.
I don't mince around.
And I he was a go deeper on thatwith me.
(32:27):
So I asked the next layerquestion, talk to me about how
you've been able to overcome that.
What have you had to actually
learn and how have you had toshift the way you show up with
people?And then he went more from here to
like the heart space of howdifficult that has been for him.
But the cool thing, Luke, is, andI kind of use my connection to
conversion quality questions withhim.
And when we finished that meeting,it was so profound.
I had never mentioned my company,what I do, my experience level,
nothing.
Now he knew of me.
(32:48):
So it's like, I wasn't a stranger.
But at the end of the meeting, he
goes, you know, Cindy, I wasn'tgoing to mention this at the
lunch, but I'm launching my ownreal estate company in 30 days.
I've already got 15 realtorscommitted to my new company.
And he said, I'd really like tohave a conversation with you about
being my preferred lender, myin-house lender.
We never talked about loans on anylevel, but we trust day.
And I ended up being theirpreferred lender from one lunch
where I never talked about loansor my product or service.
So it was then that I started toreally realize the power of
(33:08):
connection.
And I teach that.
It's a learnable skill to learnhow to connect at a deeper level.
And I give people the roadmap.
Here's the questions and here's
why you asked that question.
And this is what will unfold from
it.
And it's pretty magical.
So it's a different way ofbuilding relationship.
That's, it's a lot more satisfyingfor me too.
a That's fantastic.
And I think the reason why sales
has such a negative connotation isbecause traditionally sales is not
what we're talking about.
(33:28):
This is the type of sales I prefer
is understanding their situationand prescribing a solution to
their problem versus, hey, youknow what, I'm going to cookie cut
everybody.
I'm going to put pressure on them.
I'm going to be that greasysalesperson that's going to shame
people into buying that, you know,oh, well, you shouldn't rent
anymore.
Like there's better ways of doing
that.
That makes the decision kind of be
(33:48):
their decision, right?Yes, obviously, you can say
manipulate, but to a certainextent, you have guided the
conversation to that outcome.
But when they make the decision,
they're much less likely to havebuyer's remorse, right?
And that's what tends to happenwith the sort of like high
pressure sales conversations thatis kind of the I don't know what
you call the old school.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, because I just know that Igone through the Grant Cardone
type of trainings and I'm like,eh, that's not my thing.
(34:10):
Oh yeah.
You want to pray about it?
Okay.
Well let's pray right now.
Like, nah, I can do that.
I agree.
You're no nah, I can with us.
I agree.
I And there's still some of it outthere and it works to a certain
extent.
Right.
But I do believe that it createsdifferent outcomes.
And, and I think the way thatyou're training people is huge
because I think that allows formore longevity, relationship
(34:31):
building, future transactions,lifetime value for that particular
client over time.
You know, like that's how you
actually build real relationshipsis understanding their situation.
I also think that it's kind ofmalpractice not to run a mortgage
practice this way, because like alot of people just say, all right,
well, let's throw you in a 30 yearfixed FHA.
We don't know anything about theirfuture.
What are they going gonna do inthe future?
(34:52):
What if they wanna buy investmentproperties?
What if they wanna do?We don't know.
Like we have no idea because wedidn't ask those questions because
I don't know.
We just figured they'll just go in
a 30-year fixed FHA conventional,whatever.
Like I just think that there wassome opportunities for loan
officers to show up in a betterway to be an advisor, but also a
salesperson at the same time.
(35:12):
And I think those two things go
hand in hand.
So kind of like to wrap things up,
if there was like one strategy inthis market, obviously, we're not
tough market, you're doing a lotof coaching with clients, what are
the strategies that are working?Or what's like one in particular
that you would recommend someonego out there today to go get
(35:32):
business?Well, I just believe so
wholeheartedly in our database.
And I think there's so much gold
in our past client database.
And I just think a lot of people
don't nurture past clients as theyOne that people aren't talking
about right now, I'm talking aboutit with a lot of my clients was
talking to a national leader theother day.
And he said their number oneproduct right now that they're
(35:55):
closing loans is cash out refisbecause they've done a great job
of training their loan officers asto how to actually go after them.
And, you know, Barry Habib is oneof my closest friends and has been
for 25 years.
And Barry and I talk about this a
lot with his whole, you know, debtconsolidation program that he's
got through MBS Highway.
But the reality is no one is going
to call us because they have debtand they need to consolidate that.
(36:18):
So unless we're asking thequestion.
So one of the things that I trainmy people on is I created a call
script that asks all the rightquestions.
If you're calling your pastclients, and I really encourage
people, very few people pick upthe phone and actually call them.
I called 20 a week.
I called 10 on Tuesday and I
called 10 on Thursday.
And that was just part of my
follow-up system.
(36:38):
But if you've got the script where
you've got the questions in frontof you and to bring up the
conversation around debt and justsay, hey, one of the reasons that
even though no one wants to refioff their 3% rate, but we're
finding that not only is equity atan all-time high in America today,
but debt is also at an all-timehigh.
And what people aren't talkingabout is debt.
And a lot of people lost jobsduring COVID.
A lot of people have racked creditcard debt and car payments and
student loans.
And we've been able to, in some
(37:00):
cases, save people a tremendousamount of money in their monthly
cashflow.
So even if you're taking a 7%
rate, if it's saving you $1,500 amonth, flow.
So even if you're taking a 7%rate, if saving you $1,500 a
month, it really is life changingfor people.
So just want to mention that incase that were to be a
circumstance that either you oranybody else knows, but start to
plant the seeds of all thedifferent reasons people refinance
(37:21):
to actually purchase anotherproperty, you know, to diversify
their assets, to buy a secondhome.
I mean, but if we start plantingthe seeds, which is what I did
consistently.
And I would always ask, like, now
that you've been in your home fora while, how long do you
anticipate staying in your currentproperty?
Just that one question.
I created so many opportunities.
I remember a really favoriteclient of mine said to me, well,
you know, Sam, we thought we weregoing to be here for at least five
years, but we just had an accidentmaybe.
And now we're kind of short abedroom.
(37:43):
And now we're thinking we maybeonly can stay here for another
year because we're pretty tight.
And I said, well, Jack, I said,
why would you wait a year ifyou're tight?
The market's hot right now.
What could it hurt to just go look
to see what's on the market?And so I really encouraged him to
call his realtor.
She was a friend of mine.
I secretly called the realtor andsaid, I just hey, planted the seed
in Jack's him to call his Sherealtor.
(38:04):
was a friend of I secretly mine.
called the realtor and said, Hey,
I just planted the seed in Jack'smind to call you.
I think you should look at whathis house is worth.
And he was an escrow within twoweeks on a new house.
But I created that opportunitybecause I asked the question and
encouraged him like, if you'realready tight and you're short a
bedroom, why wouldn't you just golook right now?
(38:27):
But I And that realtor loved meforever for asking that question.
Yeah, I'm sure.
And that's huge.
I mean, being able to createbusiness for your realtors is one
of the biggest, I think, pieces ofvalue that loan originators tend
to overlook or say they don't getaccess to those type of people.
And to be honest, I think that'san excuse to not market to the
consumer, to not work yourdatabase, to not do those things
(38:48):
that do create business that canbe reciprocated to your partners.
Real quick, just to kind of toucha little bit on tactical, you said
20 a week.
Is this 20 conversations or 20
just total contacts like calls?I called 10 past clients on
Tuesday and 10 past clients.
It wasn't people that needed or
wanted to refinance.
It was literally started with
anybody.
And my assistant would literally
put the names on my desk and Iwould just call.
(39:09):
And on I called 10 realtors thatand trusted me.
Mondays, knew, like, That was mytouch base.
I had a list of 20.
I And my I didn't call 40.
I the core is great.
mean, And a lot of people call 40.
That's awesome.
But I'm more of the mindset of go
deeper with fewer and buildrelationships.
So I would take my list of 20 andI would call 10 on Monday and the
other 10.
So they were getting two live
(39:30):
calls.
My top 20 would get two live calls
from me monthly.
And those calls were more like
tell touch-based, me what's goingon in the market.
Did you have any open houses thisweekend?
Where are you finding challenges?What are you doing to market your
business?I would always have a question and
I would ask them.
And sometimes I had a hard time
getting them off the phone becausethey liked talking to me.
And then on Wednesdays, I had alist of 20 referral partners that
(39:51):
I wanted to build a relationshipwith.
And I built a lot of systemsaround how to get them to a
meeting.
So I'd call 10 with the intention
of getting a meeting.
So, I mean, I had real systems
around what I did.
And then on Fridays, I used to
write 10, you know, basicallythank you notes or notes of
gratitude for, I might send one toan underwriter.
I might send one to a realtor.
(40:12):
If I was doing it today, I do 10
one minute videos just to sayappreciation to people.
I would like to thank you notes,but I think it's having a system
makes it so much easier for you toshow up for yourself.
But the one thing is if you arenot like, I hate the word, you
know, time blocking, because mostpeople just won't do it.
And it sounds so ominous.
I called it my growth hour because
(40:33):
I wanted to grow.
And I knew that in any market, I
had to commit one hour a dayminimum to my own growth.
And I put a sign on the outsidethat said, do not disturb from 10
to 11.
Every single day I showed up.
And that's when I made my calls.
I did my reach out.
I scheduled meetings.
I got uncomfortable.
I got some no's, but I got a lotof yeses along the way as well.
And then I created systems forfollow-up.
So if you have a system, it makesit so much easier.
I had a system for connecting withlisting agents and building
partnership with them.
Because, you know, we all want to
(40:54):
have a relationship with them.
But if you don't have a system,
then it's harder to make thathappen.
And so created systems for all thedifferent kind of pillars for our
lead generation.
How do you stay in touch with the
leads?We have systems around that.
We have tracking in my coachingprogram.
So how to track your leads and howto track your customer experience
and how to ask for referrals andhow to build partnership.
And so yeah, if anybody wants anymore information regarding our
(41:15):
coaching, we have privatecoaching.
We have a high level mastermindgroup that I lead personally.
I've got my new online trainingprogram, seven steps to seven
figure mortgage success, which isyou can get started for three 97
is three payments of three 97.
And that thing will give you soup
to nuts, everything you need tobuild a seven figure business.
And I lead a live training callevery month to support the people
in that program.
(41:35):
Love it.
And so you can just go to CindyErtman.com and just go to mortgage
coaching.
And there's a pop up there for my
new seven steps.
And there's a great download on my
site too with kind of a checklistfor 2024 that might be helpful
too.
There's some free resources if you
go to the resource tab.
Awesome, awesome.
And I was just about to get intowhere can people connect with you?
So that's perfect.
Go to the website.
(42:00):
It says cindyertmint.com, Ibelieve is what you said.
Is there any other places thatpeople can connect with you?
Get some more content?I don't know if you do social.
I mean, absolutely.
My YouTube channel, we're doing
more and more with YouTube andtrying to build and grow that.
I post my trainings that I do ontoYouTube, definitely on Instagram
and connect with me on LinkedIntoo, because I think LinkedIn is a
highly disregarded sometimesresource for people.
And I think LinkedIn, I've spent alot more time personally on
LinkedIn lately.
It's funny because when Facebook
first launched, I was on thefaculty of Loan Toolbox when that
(42:25):
company was around.
And I was the national guinea pig
for Loan Toolbox to learn how touse Facebook like the first week
it launched.
So Facebook is still my jam
because I know how to use itbackwards and forwards because I'm
literally the guinea pig.
But I do think that we have to
have a social presence today.
It doesn't have to be overkill.
I train a lot of people how to dosocial media in 15 minutes a day,
but we've got to have a presence.
(42:47):
It is a relevancy factor.
The first thing I do when I talkto a new client is I go to their
social platforms.
I look them up.
I see if their name, their photo,what they do for a living is on
their header.
It's amazing how many people don't
even say what they do.
agents.
love to help anybody that needshelp.
It's a challenging season, I is.
originator in America needs some
kind of coaching right now to givethem new tools in the tool chest
(43:10):
to expand your reach because thereare people doing it and having
great success.
One of my clients funded 18
million last month because she'sexpanded her reach and it's to see
what's possible.
to see what's possible.
Yeah.
There's business being done out
there and you're right.
I mean, yeah, it's harder market
and most people are down, butthere is still money to be had and
there's still deals to be closed.
And if you do things like you've
(43:30):
always done, maybe there isn'tdeals to be had, but there is ways
that you can change the way you dobusiness, do more.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, Iguess, is we're in a market where
you got to do a little bit morethan you had to do in especially
2020 and 2021.
But you just got to do 4x the
amount of work and 4x the amountof outreach and stuff like that to
get a similar result.
(43:51):
So thank you so much for your time
today, Cindy.
It's been a pleasure.
I think we've dropped, well, I'llsay you've dropped bomb after bomb
after bomb.
It's been awesome.
Yeah, it's been super awesome.
So my biggest takeaways from this
is, I mean, a lot of what wetalked about is systemizing the
way you do business, right?I mean, from the value proposition
to the outreach to all of that.
(44:13):
So that was like a big takeaway.
And then also showing updifferently from everybody else.
So that was huge.
I think there is a lot of
opportunity in this market to showup and be different.
And I think that is really thething, right?
Really the key in this market isto get traction.
You have to be different.
And most people are walking around
seeing the same stuff andwondering why they're not getting
traction.
(44:33):
So again, go back, listen to this
podcast again, because there was aton of opportunities to learn.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for your time
today, Cindy.
And if you are listening to this
podcast and you are looking forsome help to get in front of more
realtors, get in front of moreconsumers, go to flip the status
quo.com.
Thank you so much for listening
and have a great day.
(44:53):
Thank you for tuning into the
loans on demand podcast on loanson demand podcast.com.
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