June 20, 2024 • 43 mins
This week, we're joined by Skylar Wallace. Skylar is a Senior Mortgage Banker at Flat Branch Home Loans from Seneca, Missouri, and is one half of the Level Up Lenders Team with previous guest, Sam Hickey. Skylar and Sam have been partners since 2019, with the goal to close 850-1000 loans this year.
Skylar is here to discuss: → Soul searching to find his "why" in the mortgage industry, the "lack of hunger" in the community banking sector, and trying to build $1B in wealth through home ownership in rural America. → Splitting the LO role for efficiency, gaining trust with Realtors, and finding their business pain point. → Lead guarantees you can use with Realtors to gain their trust - lead follow-up guarantee, levels of pre-approval for leads, and finding Realtors more inventory.
Skylars's 1st Loans on Demand Appearance in Episode 67:
https://loansondemand.podbean.com/e/67-skylar-wallace/
Flat Branch Home Loans Website: www.fbhl.com
Skylar Wallace's Personal Email: sky8632@gmail.com
Skylar Wallace's Facebook: @SkylarWallace
Level Up Your Business Facebook Group: @LevelUpYourBusiness
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
Mark as Played
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 today I'm excited because for
the second time, we have SkylarWallace.
He is the co-founder of The Levelof Lenders, all around badass, and
a good friend of mine.
Funny enough, we had him on the
podcast roughly 60 somethingepisodes ago back in November of
Funny 2022.
enough, we had him on the podcast
roughly 60 something episodes agoback in November of 2022.
A lot has changed.
We've become great friends since
(00:46):
that day.
So just wanted to bring it back on
here and get a little update onhow everything's going in the
business, how things have changed,but also just to give a bunch of
value.
His team is growing in this
market.
So really excited to have him
here.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, man.
It's good to be back.
Yeah, man, let's go, bro.
I'm excited.
So, you know, for anybody whohasn't listened to that episode,
(01:07):
and I do recommend going back andlistening to that episode because
Skylar does go a lot throughtraction, which is how they've
built a lot of their business.
There's a book called Traction,
and they talk a lot about processand how they've done that.
So I really highly recommend goingback and listening to that
episode.
But give a little background for
anybody who hasn't listened tothat one.
Who are you?How long have you been in the
business?All that fun stuff.
And then we can jump into the meatand Yeah, for sure.
(01:28):
Got into the industry full-time in2019.
I was in banking prior to that.
I had a little mortgage
background, actually got a job forWells Fargo financial out of
college, did mortgage for a coupleof years, did some refi stuff, but
nothing at all like what it isnow.
And then got into communitybanking.
So I did commercial lending andagriculture lending, a bunch of
that stuff, and then moved overfull-time to the company I'm at
now, Flat Branch Home Loans.
(01:49):
In 2019, my partner, Sam Hickey,
recruited me and didn'tnecessarily want to build a great
big team, but had a proposition.
He said, I either want to work the
same and make more money or workless and make the same amount of
money.
That was pretty much it.
I made a move over, just flatbranch, had a lot more products
(02:10):
than what I had at a communitybank and just thought it would be
interesting to learn more aboutmortgage.
And so when I moved, the only rulewas that I wanted to build
everything intentionally on asystem.
And so that's where that tractioncame in.
We get into details deep on thaton the last podcast.
But I started in June of 2019.
We officially launched as a team,
the Level Up Lenders in January of2020.
(02:31):
And so that first year, I don'tknow, we funded 408 loans, I
think, decided to start likerecruiting and hiring other loan
officers.
And over time, have just been
gradually chipping away at what itmeans to grow a team.
Unfortunately, the market did whatit did made it harder.
But we've consistently grown byabout 30% year over year since
then.
It's kind of a fun stat.
(02:53):
When we started in 2020, we set abig goal.
We wanted to close 300 loans in2020.
And 300 was just like a randomnumber we pulled out of the air.
We, at the time we're readingGrant Cardone's 10X book that he
had.
And it's like, you know, like set
these goals so big.
And like, we're like, well, we did
(03:13):
a hundred last year.
So that'd be a thousand.
And like, that was too big.
Like we're not closing a thousand.
So 300 was a good spot.
And so like every year since then
I've tracked when we close our300th loan.
And like that particular year, weactually hit 300 at the very end
of October, like October the 22nd,we closed our 300th loan.
This year, we closed our 300thloan on May 14th, which is pretty
(03:34):
long.
So yeah, it's changed a lot.
We've got 26 people on our teamnow.
We've got 10 producing loanofficers at different points in
their business.
We have very, very experienced
folks that have been doing it for15 years.
We have brand new people that juststarted two months ago, all across
the spectrum.
So still running on traction.
We still have systems andprocesses in place.
(03:55):
It's just getting harder as itgets bigger.
Sure.
new At a level, it becomes you're
then managing the managers, right?At some point, right?
Maybe you're not quite therebecause you're probably still
managing most of the people thatare in your team, but there's
probably a point where there ismanager.
Well, maybe you do have, I mean,you probably do have managers on
the ops Yeah, we do.
(04:16):
Our ops manager, she is
impressive.
In 2020, she actually started at
FlatBranch then as well.
And she was the receptionist, just
sitting at the desk, answeringphones.
And we got so busy, we neededhelp.
And so have you ever thought aboutbeing an LOA?
And so like she was brand new tothe industry.
I think she joined our team inMarch or April of that year.
And now she's running ouroperations department.
(04:36):
She has, I think 11 people underher.
And so yeah, when a loan breaksnow, I don't do anything.
It's all her.
I mean, if I'm going to be honest,
I don't know if I could fix a loananymore.
It's been so And does all of thatstuff now.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So you guys, I mean, you guys areon pace to what close about a
thousand transactions this yearshould.
(04:58):
Yeah.
We'll see how it shakes out
somewhere between eight 50 and athousand, depending on what
happens.
We've got this month volume wise
will be our biggest, we have smallloans.
So historically our average loansize, $161,000.
We've got right now for June 85units on the books for 17 and a
half million.
So it's not bad, not our highest
unit month, not volume month ever.
So that's good.
and we're cruising along.
(05:19):
So 85 units in California would
probably yeah, be closer to like45 million.
40, So bro.
yeah, sorry, But you know, again,
a ton of volume.
And I know you have a mission and
a why behind that and why you guysdo what you do and why you serve
the communities you do.
So I know you want to talk a
(05:40):
little bit about that.
Let's kind of walk through
understanding.
And I do think we touched on this
a little bit in that first call,but I know things have changed
since then.
So what does that look like?
And sort of like the new versionof the why.
bro.
yeah, sorry, Yeah.
So there's two versions of thewhy.
(06:00):
There's like your personal whybehind what you're doing.
And then there's like your likeprofessional mission, like what is
your team or even just yourself inyour business trying to
accomplish?And like for me personally, I can
kind of hit on that first.
There has been like a lot of soul
searching.
I had really great success like
out of the gate.
Like, I mean, I did in my first
full year as an LO, I funded 150units from nothing.
And so I could have kept going onthat, but there wasn't a lot of
(06:21):
satisfaction.
Like I was making more money than
I ever made.
You know, it was all the things.
And I was like pretty miserable,really.
And so it caused like a lot ofsoul searching for me.
And so like the personal why, I'vegone through like a series of
ideas.
And like it started off Jim
Collins good to great has thehedgehog concept which is about
businesses it got me thinkingabout internal whys and it's what
(06:43):
can you be the best in the worldat what drives the economic engine
like you know how do you makemoney and what are you deeply
passionate about and that led medown this like thought experiment
of like what in in the world, youknow, why am I not happy crushing
it?Like, I don't understand.
And led me to a book, VictorFrankel's book, Man's Search for
Meaning.
I mean, it's kind of a hard read,
(07:06):
you know, he was in aconcentration camp and dealing
with, and it's literally like hisautobiography of that experience.
But out of that, he createdsomething called
logotherapyotherapy whichbasically digs into the primary
motivation in life like hebelieves that as humans the
primary motivator is to findmeaning in what you're doing and
so from there there's a japaneseidea called like ikigai ikigai is
cool i-k-i-g-a-i and it's thisidea that there's a motivating
(07:26):
force that gives a person like asense of purpose.
And so I'm like reading all ofthis stuff and doing all this
research and trying to figure outwhy am I closing all these loans
and making all this money?And like, honestly, I was happier
when I was making 55,000 a yearworking at the bank.
Like it's a weird thing.
And so ultimately I came up with
this idea, ideal output, which iskind of like combining all these
(07:50):
different things.
And it's similar to hedgehog
concept.
But it's like, what do you enjoy?
Like, what are the types of workthat you enjoy?
What brings satisfaction to yourlife?
So it's like, when you complete aproject, you have like goosebumps,
and it's like really, reallygratifying.
And the third is stability.
So as I've gone through all of
(08:11):
this, what are some skill setsthat I've developed that provide a
stable income for me?For example, sales, right?
Having the ability to sell.
You having the ability to market.
Like you'll always be able to makemoney marketing.
That's a stable skill that youhave.
And so that a of where I figuredout for me, what I love the most
is when I help somebody else findsuccess in this business.
(08:32):
And so like my, you know, businesslife crisis is what I called it
was like, okay, I got to get outof doing loans.
And we got to go all in on thisteam, so that I can help support
other people achieve greatness,because that's, for me, my ideal
output is helping other people.
And so in order to do that, we
have to look at the team and givepeople a compelling reason to come
(08:53):
work for us.
And so that's where the like
professional why came in, isthere's all kinds of loan
officers.
And when you join a team like
ours, one of the things that youhave to sacrifice is personal
income, because along with ourteam comes with resources and
resources cost money.
So LOs that join our team
naturally make less than if theywere working independently because
they're giving up basis pointsbasically to help pay for all the
(09:15):
team that we This is on a per unitbasis if they were to, you know,
technically close equal.
I assume they typically are
closing more deals.
And making I assume they typically
are closing more deals.
And making more money ultimately.
That's the bet.
Yeah.
And so for us, it was like, youknow, why do we want to build a
team?Like, what do we want to
(09:37):
accomplish?And so we chose to focus on like
making impact in rural America.
And so when I was a community
banker, I noticed that like I gotto meet a lot of community bankers
and got to know that industryreally well, and they are not
hungry to get loans closed.
And so I started thinking like,
what does that do for a community?If the only outlet for people
(09:58):
living in that community is thecommunity bank and the community
bank is not bending over backwardsto get deals done, like, does that
impact that community?And ultimately what I've started
figuring out is that, yeah, itdoes.
And communities whose only outletis a small community bank have
lower home ownership rates thancommunities that have more lending
options.
And so that told me like, we need
to figure out a way to bring ahigh quality, like professional
mortgage experience to smalltowns.
And if we can do that, then morepeople will have access to
(10:20):
financing and then more peoplewill become homeowners.
And you push that homeownershiprate up in a community, lots of
cool things happen.
The economy as a whole starts
going up.
The town gets cleaned up.
People have pride of ownership.
Crime rates drop, employment rates
go up, everything benefits fromthat.
And so our why that we ultimatelydecided to do was number one, we
want to bring a professional levelof mortgage to rural America.
(10:41):
And then in addition to that, wewant to focus on wealth creation.
And so I had a really hard timefiguring out how to measure the
impact that we're making.
And so finally, I just did like
basic math.
Every time we close a loan, I was
like, what happens to that personwhen we close that loan?
(11:02):
And so like on an average loan,it's open like six years.
It's a little over six years rightnow.
It's misleading right now becauseit's actually going up because
everybody did all these 3% loansand 21 that they're holding onto.
And so that's causing the averagelife of the loan to increase.
But I look at over that six-yearperiod, what's the amortization
say on average?How much does that debt pay down?
(11:24):
And so there's debt pay down.
And then at a 4% home appreciation
rate, which is pretty conservativeover the last five years, how much
does that home go up over thatsame six-year period?
And basically what happens for uson an average is every time we
close a loan, that person orfamily generates about $95,000 of
equity in that home.
And so now we have a metric to
(11:45):
measure wealth creation.
And it's an average metric.
I could probably employ sometechnology like HomeBot or
something and get it exactly.
But it's more about the spirit of
the goal, you know?And so we decided we're going to
see if we can create a billiondollars worth of wealth primarily
in rural America through homeownership.
And now Level Up Lenders has awhy.
And so for me personally, likemanaging the team and empowering
(12:06):
loan officers to do well, and alsoletting them be a part of a
mission driven team in thisindustry.
Like that is all for me, like mypersonal ideal output, like
satisfaction and happiness hasgone way up.
So the icky guy is, is good.
Now I have a sense of purpose,
right?But then the team, they all get to
come together and all ofoperations and support and
everybody gets to buy into that.
(12:27):
And so they have a sense of
purpose in what they're doing aswell, because like we say, you
know, every file's a family andevery single person that comes
across our desk is an opportunityto educate about how homeownership
can impact a life, you know, it'sa big deal.
And so for us, that's been thedriving force.
And I think it's probably the mainreason why we continue to grow is
(12:49):
because we have a mission.
So it's a tough thing.
Figuring out the why is not easy,both personally and professionally
is really, really, reallydifficult to do.
yeah, that makes sense, man.
And I think that's the biggest
thing that allows you and the teamto continue to grow is like
knowing that, yeah, things arehard right now, or they're harder
to get, you know, business orwhatever it is, but you have a
(13:13):
mission and you have a missionthat's not just, hey, I want to
make a bunch of money because ifit's just about making a bunch of
money, we've seen how many peoplelike came in for the money and
left because the money kind ofdried weren't passionate about the
work they were doing.
They were just like literally
interested in the income that theywere earning.
And so like everybody is like outthere chasing their passion, you
know, you don't have to be superpassionate when the paychecks are
(13:36):
huge.
And the money's easy, you know,
but when it gets harder, that'sthe trick.
Like Alex Ramosi has a quote, youknow, people want to find their
passion.
But like passion isn't something
that you find, like you create itby getting good at something.
And so that's the problem, right?Is that in order to have real
passion about your work, you haveto be good at it.
(13:56):
But the only way you get good atit is if you do the work.
And so it's kind of hard to getgood at mortgage not easy.
100%.
And there's a lot of things you
have to be as a loan officer thatis not just, you know, A, I'm
going to go learn theseguidelines.
Because yeah, there's guidelines.
And then there's marketing.
and then there's marketing andthen there's sales and then
there's taking a 1003 and thenthere's submitting files and then
there's, you know, gatheringconditions and there's having
conversations.
There's, you know, all this stuff
that you have to deal with as aloan officer.
(14:18):
It's not super like, you know, cutand dry.
And I know you've talked aboutthis before, but you know, a lot
of people kind of, they're tryingto fill these two roles that
typically don't fall into oneperson.
I mean, you guys have the loandoers and the loan getters because
of that fact that people typicallyaren't great at both sales and
also the details that come alongwith, you know, structuring a
(14:41):
loan.
That was the big thing that we did
differently on our team.
And like I coach some now.
And so like I was trying to coachpeople on how to build a team the
way that we do.
people on how to build a team the
way that we And do.
so I had to figure out like, what
do I call these split roles?Because a loan officer is kind of
a unicorn because they're able togo out and sell and get business.
But then they're also able to thenreel it back in and be analytical
(15:04):
and sit behind a computer and likecrunch out the loans and do the
business.
And that person is pretty unique
to be able to be good at both ofthose things.
Because one of those is more oflike an extroverted skill set.
The other is very much anintroverted skill set.
And so what we ultimately did iswe split the role and I make
things as easy as I can.
And so I just called the people
that go out and get loans, I callthem loan getters.
And then the people that sitbehind the computer and actually
(15:25):
work up the loans, I call themloan doers.
And so we have loan getters andloan doers.
And so we have loan getters andloan doers, and they're two
separate roles.
And so yeah, our LOs go out and
make partnerships with realtors orwhoever, and they bring in the
business, but then they don't thenhave to sit behind a computer and
actually do the business.
We have a whole ops team that does
(15:46):
all of that.
And it's, I think, easier to find
talent that way.
And it's cheaper.
I mean, a great all-star LO makesa lot of money, whereas a great
loan getter and a great loan doermake good money, but it's not the
same.
You know what I mean?
Like those are more jobs.
They're less Just to kind I get
into that whole idea of gettingmore agent partners and things
like Obviously we're in a marketwhere the majority of loan
officers you So, Let's right.
just Yep.
call it I of, mean, real estateagents and loan I we are in a time
where volume I think that.
(16:07):
is down to levels in like the So
and that's obviously are,population know, struggling.
has So there is a limited that.
amount mean, of transactions that
are happening officers.
and there's mean, people that are
still your team's still winning1970s.
Right.
in this market.
like, grown.
winning.
Obviously, So there is business tobe had.
a lot of people have exited thebusiness as well.
Obviously, And so that opens upsome market share as well to be
had.
So I mean, obviously, I know a lot
(16:28):
about what you guys do, but give alittle sort of like synopsis as to
like, how have you structured yourbusiness from a perspective to
like go out and find more agentpartners?
What does that sort of look like?So the trick that you have to
consider with realtors that like,I kind of had an epiphany when I
thought of this is that a lot ofloan officers are going all in on
(16:49):
getting business from realtors,which, you know, I get makes
sense.
But what if the realtors aren't
actually good at lead generation?So like, we're making an
assumption that just because theyclose, you know, some units and
(17:25):
have whatever it means to be aqualified realtor that they can
continue to bring leads in.
And so I started like thinking
about that.
I'm like, well, I've met some of
these people and like, I don'treally know how good they are at
lead generation.
And so when it gets harder, what
if their business starts to dryup?
So a couple of things that westarted doing to see is that the
first one is like, we have starteddoing some door knocking campaigns
with realtors.
And the reason why we're doing
that isn't to go out, you know,with a notepad, knock on a door
and get an application.
Like we don't expect to go door
knocking and find a loan.
but we invite realtors to go and
we make co-branded door hangers togo.
And really what's happening thereis it's an audition for the
realtor.
And I want to know, is this person
actually skilled?Do they have the art of sales?
Because it is tough and those homebuyers are fewer and far between
and the inventory is less.
So if I'm going to trust this
realtor to be able to go out thereand get a deal done, I need to
(17:47):
know that they can sell.
So I want to see how they act when
they knock on a door of a totalstranger and see what they do.
And what happens from thataudition is that number one, you
find realtors that maybe theydon't have the numbers on MMI, but
they haven't been in it that long,but guess what?
They can sell.
(18:08):
Like, you know.
I bet on that horse over timebecause they've got the skillset.
They've got the gift of gab andthey know what they're doing.
Number two is if a realtor iswilling to do that with me, that
tells me they're willing to dowhat it takes to get leads.
It's naturally easier for arealtor to get a homebuyer lead
than it is for a lender.
They're just one step up funnel
(18:28):
than we are, but you have to makesure that they're willing to
hustle.
That's a's a big thing that we do.
But then from there, theconversation with a realtor, I
actually bring it all the way backto this idea of ideal output.
And if I'm talking to a buyer'sagent, I make an assumption, but I
will test that assumption on themis that I'll explain what ideal
(18:48):
output is.
And I'll say, hopefully for you as
a buyer's agent, you get enjoymentfrom just walking around and
looking at houses.
I'm going to assume that you got
into real estate because you likehouses.
That's probably fair, right?I'm hoping that satisfaction for
you is when you have a tough buyerand they've looked at 15 houses
and you finally walk them into oneand their jaw drops and they're
like, this is it.
(19:08):
This is the one.
Like, I'm going to hope that youget some satisfaction from that.
Like that is probably in yourwheelhouse.
And the other is, you know,closing day with the first time
home buyer.
Like I'm hoping that that is what,
you know, gets you out of bed.
And number three is I really,
really hope that you can sell likethat stability skill.
And so what we do is we talk torealtors that way.
And we get them to see eye to eyethat like, hey, your best use is
(19:30):
to be showing properties toqualified buyers, right?
Like, that's ultimately what youneed to be doing.
And so we designed an entireprocess around taking as much off
of your plate as possible, so thatyou can spend as much time as
possible doing the ideal outputwork.
So what that means, number one, isthat you'll be happier because
hopefully you're spending lesstime with the crap that you don't
like doing and the parts of yourjob that you hate because our
(19:51):
team's able to do a lot of thosefor you.
But also you'll make more moneybecause you spend more time doing
the income earning activity.
And so that's kind of the value
proposition that we make to arealtor is that we will do a lot
of the busy work for you.
We will sit down in front of a
computer and make the weeklyupdate calls.
We'll call the listing agents andlet them know what's going on.
(20:12):
We'll call the buyers and let themknow what's going on.
We'll make sure that the titlecompanies are aware of what's
going on so that you can befocused on getting more leads and
showing more properties.
Another thing that we'll do is we
will pre-screen people.
There's a lot of realtors that
still think that the way that theysecure a client is to spend time
with them.
And so they're willing to go show
(20:33):
properties to people that theyhave no idea if they're qualified
or not.
And they're afraid to ask them
because it's an awkward questionif you ask somebody if they've
been pre-qualified by a lender.
So they'll just start showing
properties to strangers.
And so we explain to them, number
one, that's a waste of your time.
Because what if they can't
actually buy?What if they're three years away
from buying?It's just not a good use of your
(20:55):
time.
And so we coach them through a
process of how they can refer moreof their leads over to us.
And then we will screen thoseleads and we rate them and we let
them know, hey, this one is readyto buy today, go show them
property.
This one is going to be three
months.
If you have a drip campaign, put
them in there.
Otherwise, we will take care of
(21:15):
the heavy lifting.
And once they are ready to buy,
we'll refer them back to you andthen you can go show them
property.
So it's all about optimizing the
realtor's schedule.
That's what we're trying to do.
And the right realtors that havebusiness and understand that,
appreciate it and send thebusiness to Yeah, that makes
sense.
And so obviously what you're doing
is you're providing a bunch ofvalue in ways that most loan
(21:36):
officers are not doing.
And I know one of your big
principles as well is you havewhat, seven or eight guarantees,
right?When I talk to loan officers on a
regular basis, I mean, we'vetalked to 1000s of loan officers
over the years.
Most loan officers say one of the
three things, right?I answer the phone, I have good
rates, I close on time, like, youknow, those types of things,
right?I work on the weekends, like that
is the thing that people provideas value or like, oh, I've worked
(21:59):
for this broker for 10 years.
It's like, who cares, right?
Like, no one really cares that youwork for a broker.
No one cares that you're local,right?
They do care, right?I'm not saying they don't care
about those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But from the perspective of this
is not valuable to gaining newbusiness from these people, like
that is the thing that most peoplefail at.
And so when someone's looking togo out and get more agent
partners, like how do youstructure your unique value prop?
(22:20):
How do you structure your offer orwhat you do for them?
Yeah.
So everybody has a natural level
of trust.
And so some people, myself, I make
a decision in life to just trusteveryone on the surface.
I do that because it's actuallynot as common as you think to get
screwed over.
For the most time, people tend to
be good and it makes my life moreenjoyable, but not everybody lives
that way.
And there are some people out
there that are highly, highlyskeptical and trust has to be
(22:41):
earned.
And so every realtor has this
trust level where when you achievethat amount of trust with that
person, they will send you a lead.
And so the trick is like, you
know, it's the trust bucket.
How do I fill the trust bucket up
enough so that they will trust mewith a lead?
Why are leads a big deal?If you think about it, if they're
a buyer's agent, like what doesthat lead represent?
(23:01):
Like it's their kid's collegeeducation.
Like it's the money that pays forthe roof over their family's head.
Like it's actually, it gets reallyserious really fast.
If you start thinking about thevalue of the lead that loan
officers are calling up randomlyon the phone and asking for, like,
if you really think about whatyou're asking for, it's pretty
wild.
Like it's Like it's that also
Yeah.
Here's the other thing too.
It's like, yeah, you know, maybethat deal won't close because not
every deal closes, but still thatis their reputation.
(23:21):
What you're asking them to do isput their reputation on the line
for you, Mr. Loan Officer, youbuild zero trust with they don't
have any idea how you work.
They have no idea if you call the
leads, you have no idea if ittakes you 48 hours to answer the
phone, like, we don't know any ofthose things, right.
And so by as like, a lot of timespeople like, you know, and
obviously, we do the marketing, wego direct to consumer.
And so like, a lot of times whatloan officers will do is like, Oh,
(23:46):
yeah, I got a referral for you.
So like, I want all your business,
you have to give me all yourbusiness.
I'm like, Oh, you don't get to dothat, man.
Like it's not like you go with areal estate.
It's like you give them a deal andyou say, Hey, you know what?
I am looking for a reciprocalrelationship.
I'll take a deal back.
Then we can figure out if we want
(24:07):
to work together.
Right.
It's not going to like be crazyand like be super cocky about
like, I'll give you one referralafter you gave me 15.
Like now you owe me all yourbusiness.
That's crazy talk.
Yeah.
The problem though, is thatoccasionally a realtor will do
that.
And so there's these one-offs that
then make people think, well, it'spossible.
So I'll just keep calling until Ifind those people.
The reality is that like trust isearned through small kept
(24:29):
promises.
And so the way that I create the
value proposition is how can westructure this in a way where I
can continually deliver thesesmall kept promises over and over
and over until they think, okay,this person's legit.
And so the first guarantee that Iencourage loan officers to make is
a lead follow-up guarantee.
The thing is, is that our lead
follow-up guarantee is kind ofintense.
So we guarantee to reach out seventimes in four days.
(24:51):
If you send me a lead, we willreach out to that lead seven times
over the period of four days.
If at any point along that we
connect and get an application,we'll let you know in real time
and we'll get you the initialdecision within 24 hours.
If we get to the end and we'vedone our seventh reach out, we
will follow back up with you andask you how you want us to proceed
with that lead.
And so by doing it that way, what
(25:12):
that tells them is that everysingle lead that you send to us
will be worked to completion,whether we don't hear from them
and we follow up with you and letyou know, or we do hear from them
and they tell us to buzz off, thenwe'll let you know, or we get an
application, right?And so the mistake that people
make is they hear me say thatseven times in four days and they
say, Ooh, that sounds good.
I'm going to do that.
But maybe that's too much work foryou right now.
Like you don't have to paintyourself into this corner and make
your life miserable.
You could say, Hey, if you send me
a lead, I guarantee I'll try toreach them three times that day.
(25:33):
And guess what?Like that's a guarantee.
And then if you do it and theysend a lead over, you call them,
you text them, you call themagain, you don't hear back.
And then you just let the realtorknow, Hey, I haven't heard from
him.
You know, you don't have to make
these guarantees complicated.
The reason why you're doing it is
to start And And so realtor sendsthe lead, you do what you say,
guess what?You just established trust, the
trust bucket filled up some,right?
(25:54):
And so from there, like the nextguarantee we make is we'll give
you the initial decision within 24hours.
So the application comes in, welet them know, Hey, we got an
application.
We're working on it within 24
hours.
That's when we give our rating.
And so we're the level up lenders.
So we have level one, two or three
approval, or we have a mortgageaction plan.
(26:15):
So there's four outcomes.
Level one is like, Hey, these
people are ready to roll, youknow, incomes verified.
Everything's good.
They can buy their approved
conventional up to 400,000.
Here we go.
Level Right.
two is like, these hey, people are
ready to You roll.
income's know, verified,
everything's They good.
can buy their approved
conventional up to 400,000.
Here we go, right?
Level two is like on the initial24 hour period, if it's a level
(26:35):
two, what that means is that thiscould take up to seven days for us
to get this approved.
So maybe there's variable income
and we have to get verificationsof employment.
Maybe we need tax returns, youknow, whatever it is, right?
And so when I call a realtor atthe end of that 24-hour period,
and I say, hey, this one's a leveltwo, I have just bought myself
seven more days to get this fileapproved because I've set the
expectation that way up front.
The next one is a level three.
(26:56):
If it's a level three, it can takeup to 30 days.
So maybe we're going to do arescore.
Like they're going to pay a creditcard down.
We're going to rescore them.
To do this loan, we have to have
this credit score.
And again, when we call them up
and say, Hey, this one's levelthree, the realtor partners trust
us.
Okay.
Yeah.
There's not a deal right now, but
we just bought ourselves 30 daysto do that.
And so again, it's just doing whatwe said we were going to do 24
(27:18):
hours after the application, we'regoing to call you and tell you
where we're at.
And then if it's a level two, that
means that in as long as sevendays, I'll have this person ready
to go.
And so we set all these
expectations and we just,throughout the process, we just
build those guarantees.
And we've got, I think, 11
guarantees now that we make as wemove through the process, but it's
all designed to build trust.
(27:38):
And so all our loan officers have
to do, we do the presentation.
We've got like a 45 minute long
presentation that we give thatwalks through and does the
guarantee stack.
You know, we guarantee this, we
guarantee that, we do this, we dothat, blah, blah, blah.
Then we just do what we say.
And that's literally it.
We do what we say.
And guess what?
If you do what you say, now therealtor can manage their business
(28:00):
because they know what they'regetting out of your business.
Right.
And so now like we all have
structured processes because weall approach things the same way.
We're on the same page, right?The trust is there.
And especially I'm in your programright now, learning how to become
a great online marketer, right?And the things that you guys do to
get leads is amazing.
And like the technology that you
use and all of this work and allof this psychology and all these
amazing things, literally all wedo is we call a realtor, we give
them our pitch, and then we dowhat we say.
And we just do that over and overand over and it.
(28:22):
Yeah, but here's what I'll say isone thing that I think you're
taking away from that is youfollowed the process, which was,
again, we talked about this a lotin the traction book that we had
talked about in the last episode,but what you essentially did, and
you know, I'm going to use alittle bit of marketing speak is
you created an offer, which is,Hey, this is an irresistible
offer, which gets people to wantto work with you.
And this is not an irresistibleoffer.
That sounds like everybody else.
(28:42):
You sound different, right?
And there's this concept of newopportunity versus an improvement
offer, right?And so what most loan officers are
doing is they're using animprovement offer.
I'm marginally better at answeringthe phone.
I have marginally better rates.
I have marginally better service,
right?Cool.
Like you can close in one dayless, you know, you answer the
phone on the weekends or whateverit is, right?
Like you're just a little bitbetter, but most people are very
(29:03):
resistant to change unless theyfeel like there's a new
opportunity.
And so a way to create a new
opportunity is to create somethingthat sounds completely different
than everybody else.
Now, does Skylar communicate?
Sure.
But instead of saying, Hey, we
communicate well, he says, no,here's what we're going to do.
Here's the plan.
You know, we have a guarantee that
we're going to follow up with youon whatever Monday, Tuesday.
(29:23):
I don't know what is.
That's the pipeline guarantee.
We guarantee an update before noonon Monday, every week for every
deal that's active in the Right.
And so that's again, so you've
structured it in a way that'slike, it sounds like a new
opportunity because every singleloan officer says I communicate
well.
Now, whether they execute on that
or not, that's one thing, but wehave a tangible way that Skylar
(29:44):
and his team communicate.
And it's outlined in a way that's
like, Hey, like this is whatyou're going to get.
You don't have to guess as to whatgood communication means to this
loan officer.
What it means to this loan officer
is that it's on Mondays by noon,you're going to have an update,
right?Like regardless, you're going to
have an update.
Like that's how clear those offers
(30:05):
need to be.
And so while, you know, I agree
that all you do is this is like,it's because you have created it
in a way that's actually, we callit sexy, right?
It's a offer that makes peoplewant to make a change.
And a lot of times people go andthey're banging their heads
against the walls or they don'twant to call agents because like,
they've never sat down andthought, how can I show up in a
different way than every otherloan officer?
(30:26):
Because it's hard.
I mean, I get it.
Like I wouldn't want to call realestate agents on Mondays and
basically say my job description,like that sucks.
Like I understand why loanofficers don't want to call
agents, but it's really not thatdifficult.
Like you said, like you have tocreate something that sounds
different than everybody else andthen deliver on it.
it's That's exactly right.
Yep.
And then the other thing toconsider is that the best
realtors, if their business isoperating on all cylinders and
they have as much business as theywant and life is good, those are
(30:50):
the ones that they aren't actuallygoing to talk to you because they
don't have any reason to, but therest of them have something wrong.
And so when I was in businessschool, I got an MBA with a focus
in entrepreneurship.
And so I had like a year of
classes about entrepreneurship.
And at the start of every single
class, we were launching fakebusinesses.
And the key that our instructorwould say at the beginning of
(31:11):
every class is where's the pain.
And so if you're going to launch
this business, it needs to solve aproblem for someone.
So where's the pain?What problem are you solving?
And so when you sit down with arealtor, the reason that they did
take the meeting is becausesomething in their business is
broken and they have a pain point.
The issue is that they won't tell
you what it is.
And so our job is like, we kind of
(31:33):
throw out like this giant net aswe're going through the process
and stacking all of theguarantees.
Like, well, we do this and we dothis and we do this, we guarantee
this and that and whatever.
And then at the end, it's like, so
out of all of that stuff, is anyof that interesting to you?
And what we're trying to get themto do is to reveal to us, well,
actually, I love that you do thisthing.
Like, ding, ding, there's probablysomething there.
I need to ask them more about whythat matters.
(31:53):
And the goal is to uncover thelittle piece of their business
that's broken.
Something's There's a reason that
we're sitting across from eachother having broken.
coffee, like something is notgreat for you.
Once I figure out what it is, I'mgoing to dig into it.
And I'm going to agitate that painpoint over and over and over and
eventually convince them, maybe Ican solve that for you.
We don't know for sure.
And you're not a crazy person to
just take me on face value andtrust me completely.
But if I can do what I say, do youagree that your business would be
(32:15):
better?Yeah, of course.
Okay.
So send me one lead and let's find
out.
Right.
Again.
And that's the thing.
And that's the thing is likepeople expect to get like all this
business.
Like I had a great conversation,
like give me all your business.
Like, no, give me one And that's
the suck and we and we hate eachother, like perfectly fine.
I have so much work that I have todo to build your trust to win all
of your business, but give me ashot.
Give me one.
And if I can't do what I say, at
(32:38):
least now, you know, you know,worst case I violate your trust.
I waste a lead for you.
I don't do what I say.
So if you have a listing and seemy pre-qualification letter come
across the desk, you know, maybethat's not the right off.
Maybe you can advise your sellers,you know, I know him and he
doesn't always do what he says.
Right.
So there's value there.
(32:59):
At least, you know, my true
character at that point.
Right.
And that's how it starts.
And then when they send the lead,
you do what you say.
I love it.
That's the key.
Not easy, but super simple.
Right.
You just got put the in place.
You got to make sure it'ssystematic.
You got to make sure you deliveron it every single time.
Yeah, there's a lot.
(33:20):
So yeah, so we've got now 10 loan
officers.
We're processing roughly 375
applications, you know, creditpoll applications every month.
We're in six different geographicmarkets across the Midwest, and
we're executing 11 differentguarantees on all of that.
So if you start thinking about allthe moving pieces and with a staff
of 26 people total, so it'scertainly not easy to do.
It's a simple thing to do, but theamount of structure that has to go
(33:42):
into doing that.
But if you're a one-off LO just
doing your thing, then the onlyperson you have to manage is
yourself, which that's a wholeother set of issues.
That's why I tell people, like thebest thing that you could do for
your life is to create a leadguarantee and force yourself to
stick to it.
Because it proves that you can do
something consistently over time.
Because it Yeah, I love that, man.
So real quick to just close outhere.
If there was like one thing thatyou could do, I know there's a
(34:03):
couple cool strategies that youguys have been doing recently.
Like what's one way that you wouldgo out and recommend someone in
this market to go out and get somebusiness, to build trust or any of
those things, right?Really just get business.
Oh, a unique value add that we'vestarted doing that is working
pretty well.
So we wanna give value, right?
We wanna create value.
And one really good way to do that
(34:24):
is there is an entire inventorylist out there that agents don't
necessarily have access to.
And it's becoming more common as
technology makes it easier.
I call them solo sellers just
because it sounds cool, but forsale by owner, right?
And so through things like Zillow,it's easier than ever to sell your
own home.
And so what's happening is that
there's more of these propertiesthat are popping up that don't
appear on the MLS.
Therefore, realtors have to do a
little bit of extra work to findthose properties.
And then what happens if thosepeople aren't willing to pay?
(34:47):
Like they don't necessarily wantto show their buyers those
properties.
So what I've started doing is I
pay a company to get me the data,but you don't have to do that.
You can just put a setting up onZillow and every single day that a
new listing pops up in your littlearea, you can see.
And I call the for sale by ownersand I make an offer to them
completely free.
What I tell them is that, hey, I
(35:08):
run one of the biggest teams inthis market.
We're actively working with over100 realtors.
If you're open to the idea ofpaying a finder's fee to a buyer's
agent that brought a buyer in tobuy your home, I would be more
than happy to send your propertyout to my list of realtors.
I can help you market it for free,not asking for anything in
exchange.
And then on the other side of
things, I tell realtors, I amdoing the legwork of building out
access to this new inventory.
(35:29):
And I'm pre-screening them to see
if they're willing to pay somesort of a commission to you if you
bring them a buyer.
And if you're interested in that,
I can put you on an email list andI can send those out as they come.
So I have a software that I usethat does it.
(35:51):
And I get about two to three aweek that come online.
Takes me about 10 minutes to callthose people.
So far, I've not had any peopletell me, no, I don't want you to
email my house to a hundred localrealtors.
Don't do that.
The general consensus is that,
look, I don't want to pay somebodyto sell my house.
Why would I do that?I don't have any problem paying
(36:11):
somebody that brings me a buyer,right?
Like they don't mind thatgenerally.
I stay out of the commissionrates.
I don't get into it.
It's not my business.
I just get them to say, hey, yeah,I'll pay a finder's fee.
And then I'm emailing those overto I just the get realtors.
them to say, hey, yeah, I'll pay afinder's fee.
And then I'm emailing those overto the realtors.
So when I tell the realtor, hey,it's tough out there right now,
we're doing all we can.
One of the value adds that we do
is we're trying to help you findmore inventory for your buyers.
(36:33):
How do we do that?Mail out these for sale by owner,
you know, every single week.
And then they consistently get
those emails.
They open them, they read them.
And so I'm staying top of mind ina way that is completely different
from what everybody else is doing.
Because I'm delivering real value
two to three times a week to them.
(36:53):
Hey, here's a three, two in this
area.
You know, they're wanting 195 guy
says he'll pay if you got anybodylike that's valuable to that
realtor.
It saves them a lot of time,
right?They don't have to mess with it.
And so it's a simple thing to do.
It's free to do if you invest an
hour a day or set up some filterson Zillow to find them, but it
adds tremendous value.
It's just another way to prove
(37:14):
that you're trying.
And if you're the guy that says
you're hustling and you want theirbusiness and you're doing that
over and over and over and over,eventually they're going to
believe it, right?Because what are the other lenders
doing to try and help them?So that's a little thing.
That's just like one little tinyrandom thing that I've started
doing.
And it's actually pretty fun.
Like I enjoy it and it seems towork and it actually gives you a
(37:34):
reason to call realtors.
Hey, I'm putting together this new
thing, you know, for sale by ownerlist.
Love to put you on the email listif you're Always having a reason
to call someone is, I mean, again,that's why so many people don't
make the calls is because there'sno actual reason for the call.
It's like, oh, did you play or didyou work this weekend?
Like, that's a crappy question,right?
Like, who cares?That's like, oh, do you, I want
(37:55):
your leads, right?Like, that's basically what you're
saying by that making that call isI want your leads.
then getting to email them two tothree times a week and not be a,
you know, pain.
Right.
It's an email they're excited forbecause it's like, oh, I've been
looking for, you know, this exactproperty.
I got these buyers that arepre-approved and I just can't find
anything.
Like it's a good email.
It's a positive email.
It's a good experience.
It also, one thing I do is Iremind them to save me in their
(38:17):
address book so that my emailsdon't go to spam because these are
valuable emails.
So now I know that they're getting
all my emails, right?I love it.
So it's a little thing, but itdoes work.
Ultimately, just do what you say,like build a real process, figure
out some ways to add real value,you know, through the process of
doing a mortgage loan that solvessome pain points for the realtors
and then execute on Kind of crazy,huh?
That's our whole secret.
That's literally what we do.
(38:38):
So that's wild saying what you'reto do do.
our whole That's secret.
literally what we That's do.
wild.
Saying what you're going to do and
then doing what you say you'regoing to do.
Yeah.
That's the secret.
I know.
Love it.
Anyway, Anyway, that's it.
Awesome, man.
Well, thank you so much for yourtime today.
Appreciate everything.
My big takeaway from this is that
you got to have a reason for whyyou're doing this, but also
creating processes, man.
I think there's a big missing
hole.
Coming from someone who's also not
very process oriented, I'velearned as I grew my business that
not having processes is a pain.
Fixing bad processes is much
(39:00):
harder than building it the rightway the first time.
So, you know, just kind oflistening to what you talk about
is like, hey, from the beginning,we built out processes.
That's huge, right?I do think that it's much easier
to build processes as you'rebuilding than it is to not build
processes or have kind of crappyprocesses when you start and then
having to go back and fix all thatstuff is a lot more work coming
(39:21):
from someone who had to do thatover the last couple of years has
completely transformed the way ourprocesses ran and, you know, still
working through that.
It's much easier to just start
from the beginning and doing itthe right way.
It is important.
It is important.
It does allow you to scale andgrow and, you know, deliver on the
promises you make, right?If someone's, you know, want to
connect with you online,interested in learning more about
what you do, or, you know, I knowyou do coaching as well.
(39:43):
So how can people connect withyou, learn a little bit more about
doing?Pretty active on Facebook.
It's public, you know, they canfind me can send me an email as
well.
My personal email is fine.
If they want to connect and learna little bit more, SKY8632 at
Gmail.
And I'm happy to connect and talk
more.
I run training classes.
My classes are affordable.
My coaching is not a commitment.
It is the opposite.
So I'm designing my program to be
the complete opposite ofcommitment and I'm trying to make
(40:03):
it as affordable as possible.
So all my classes are only four
weeks long and you pay per week.
And if you don't like the content,
then you just quit paying and quitgoing.
And that's pretty much it there.
And I've got a number of different
things that I coach on in thatworld.
But if somebody just wants toconnect, me up on Facebook.
And it's Skylar with an A,S-K-Y-L-A-R, just so if you're
looking up with an E. a veryfamous female softball player at
the University of Florida namedSkylar Wallace, unfortunately.
(40:23):
And she's an Olympic level talent.
And if you Google it, she comes
up.
So good for her.
Man, you got to work on your SEO,bro.
You got to work on your SEO.
to work on your SEO.
I get crushed.
Yep.
Awesome, man.
Well, appreciate your time today.
And for anybody who is listeningto this and is looking for some
help on flipping the status quo onreal estate agents, then go to
flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for listening
(40:44):
and have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
Loans On Demand podcast onloansondemandpodcast.com.
podcast, the show where we flipthe real estate status quo on its
head and put loan officers intothe driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,strategies, resources, and mindset
needed to modernize your mortgagebusiness and thrive.
My name is Luke Shankula, 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 today I'm excited because for
the second time, we have SkylarWallace.
He is the co-founder of The Levelof Lenders, all around badass, and
a good friend of mine.
Funny enough, we had him on the
podcast roughly 60 somethingepisodes ago back in November of
Funny 2022.
enough, we had him on the podcast
roughly 60 something episodes agoback in November of 2022.
A lot has changed.
We've become great friends since
(00:46):
that day.
So just wanted to bring it back on
here and get a little update onhow everything's going in the
business, how things have changed,but also just to give a bunch of
value.
His team is growing in this
market.
So really excited to have him
here.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, man.
It's good to be back.
Yeah, man, let's go, bro.
I'm excited.
So, you know, for anybody whohasn't listened to that episode,
(01:07):
and I do recommend going back andlistening to that episode because
Skylar does go a lot throughtraction, which is how they've
built a lot of their business.
There's a book called Traction,
and they talk a lot about processand how they've done that.
So I really highly recommend goingback and listening to that
episode.
But give a little background for
anybody who hasn't listened tothat one.
Who are you?How long have you been in the
business?All that fun stuff.
And then we can jump into the meatand Yeah, for sure.
(01:28):
Got into the industry full-time in2019.
I was in banking prior to that.
I had a little mortgage
background, actually got a job forWells Fargo financial out of
college, did mortgage for a coupleof years, did some refi stuff, but
nothing at all like what it isnow.
And then got into communitybanking.
So I did commercial lending andagriculture lending, a bunch of
that stuff, and then moved overfull-time to the company I'm at
now, Flat Branch Home Loans.
(01:49):
In 2019, my partner, Sam Hickey,
recruited me and didn'tnecessarily want to build a great
big team, but had a proposition.
He said, I either want to work the
same and make more money or workless and make the same amount of
money.
That was pretty much it.
I made a move over, just flatbranch, had a lot more products
(02:10):
than what I had at a communitybank and just thought it would be
interesting to learn more aboutmortgage.
And so when I moved, the only rulewas that I wanted to build
everything intentionally on asystem.
And so that's where that tractioncame in.
We get into details deep on thaton the last podcast.
But I started in June of 2019.
We officially launched as a team,
the Level Up Lenders in January of2020.
(02:31):
And so that first year, I don'tknow, we funded 408 loans, I
think, decided to start likerecruiting and hiring other loan
officers.
And over time, have just been
gradually chipping away at what itmeans to grow a team.
Unfortunately, the market did whatit did made it harder.
But we've consistently grown byabout 30% year over year since
then.
It's kind of a fun stat.
(02:53):
When we started in 2020, we set abig goal.
We wanted to close 300 loans in2020.
And 300 was just like a randomnumber we pulled out of the air.
We, at the time we're readingGrant Cardone's 10X book that he
had.
And it's like, you know, like set
these goals so big.
And like, we're like, well, we did
(03:13):
a hundred last year.
So that'd be a thousand.
And like, that was too big.
Like we're not closing a thousand.
So 300 was a good spot.
And so like every year since then
I've tracked when we close our300th loan.
And like that particular year, weactually hit 300 at the very end
of October, like October the 22nd,we closed our 300th loan.
This year, we closed our 300thloan on May 14th, which is pretty
(03:34):
long.
So yeah, it's changed a lot.
We've got 26 people on our teamnow.
We've got 10 producing loanofficers at different points in
their business.
We have very, very experienced
folks that have been doing it for15 years.
We have brand new people that juststarted two months ago, all across
the spectrum.
So still running on traction.
We still have systems andprocesses in place.
(03:55):
It's just getting harder as itgets bigger.
Sure.
new At a level, it becomes you're
then managing the managers, right?At some point, right?
Maybe you're not quite therebecause you're probably still
managing most of the people thatare in your team, but there's
probably a point where there ismanager.
Well, maybe you do have, I mean,you probably do have managers on
the ops Yeah, we do.
(04:16):
Our ops manager, she is
impressive.
In 2020, she actually started at
FlatBranch then as well.
And she was the receptionist, just
sitting at the desk, answeringphones.
And we got so busy, we neededhelp.
And so have you ever thought aboutbeing an LOA?
And so like she was brand new tothe industry.
I think she joined our team inMarch or April of that year.
And now she's running ouroperations department.
(04:36):
She has, I think 11 people underher.
And so yeah, when a loan breaksnow, I don't do anything.
It's all her.
I mean, if I'm going to be honest,
I don't know if I could fix a loananymore.
It's been so And does all of thatstuff now.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So you guys, I mean, you guys areon pace to what close about a
thousand transactions this yearshould.
(04:58):
Yeah.
We'll see how it shakes out
somewhere between eight 50 and athousand, depending on what
happens.
We've got this month volume wise
will be our biggest, we have smallloans.
So historically our average loansize, $161,000.
We've got right now for June 85units on the books for 17 and a
half million.
So it's not bad, not our highest
unit month, not volume month ever.
So that's good.
and we're cruising along.
(05:19):
So 85 units in California would
probably yeah, be closer to like45 million.
40, So bro.
yeah, sorry, But you know, again,
a ton of volume.
And I know you have a mission and
a why behind that and why you guysdo what you do and why you serve
the communities you do.
So I know you want to talk a
(05:40):
little bit about that.
Let's kind of walk through
understanding.
And I do think we touched on this
a little bit in that first call,but I know things have changed
since then.
So what does that look like?
And sort of like the new versionof the why.
bro.
yeah, sorry, Yeah.
So there's two versions of thewhy.
(06:00):
There's like your personal whybehind what you're doing.
And then there's like your likeprofessional mission, like what is
your team or even just yourself inyour business trying to
accomplish?And like for me personally, I can
kind of hit on that first.
There has been like a lot of soul
searching.
I had really great success like
out of the gate.
Like, I mean, I did in my first
full year as an LO, I funded 150units from nothing.
And so I could have kept going onthat, but there wasn't a lot of
(06:21):
satisfaction.
Like I was making more money than
I ever made.
You know, it was all the things.
And I was like pretty miserable,really.
And so it caused like a lot ofsoul searching for me.
And so like the personal why, I'vegone through like a series of
ideas.
And like it started off Jim
Collins good to great has thehedgehog concept which is about
businesses it got me thinkingabout internal whys and it's what
(06:43):
can you be the best in the worldat what drives the economic engine
like you know how do you makemoney and what are you deeply
passionate about and that led medown this like thought experiment
of like what in in the world, youknow, why am I not happy crushing
it?Like, I don't understand.
And led me to a book, VictorFrankel's book, Man's Search for
Meaning.
I mean, it's kind of a hard read,
(07:06):
you know, he was in aconcentration camp and dealing
with, and it's literally like hisautobiography of that experience.
But out of that, he createdsomething called
logotherapyotherapy whichbasically digs into the primary
motivation in life like hebelieves that as humans the
primary motivator is to findmeaning in what you're doing and
so from there there's a japaneseidea called like ikigai ikigai is
cool i-k-i-g-a-i and it's thisidea that there's a motivating
(07:26):
force that gives a person like asense of purpose.
And so I'm like reading all ofthis stuff and doing all this
research and trying to figure outwhy am I closing all these loans
and making all this money?And like, honestly, I was happier
when I was making 55,000 a yearworking at the bank.
Like it's a weird thing.
And so ultimately I came up with
this idea, ideal output, which iskind of like combining all these
(07:50):
different things.
And it's similar to hedgehog
concept.
But it's like, what do you enjoy?
Like, what are the types of workthat you enjoy?
What brings satisfaction to yourlife?
So it's like, when you complete aproject, you have like goosebumps,
and it's like really, reallygratifying.
And the third is stability.
So as I've gone through all of
(08:11):
this, what are some skill setsthat I've developed that provide a
stable income for me?For example, sales, right?
Having the ability to sell.
You having the ability to market.
Like you'll always be able to makemoney marketing.
That's a stable skill that youhave.
And so that a of where I figuredout for me, what I love the most
is when I help somebody else findsuccess in this business.
(08:32):
And so like my, you know, businesslife crisis is what I called it
was like, okay, I got to get outof doing loans.
And we got to go all in on thisteam, so that I can help support
other people achieve greatness,because that's, for me, my ideal
output is helping other people.
And so in order to do that, we
have to look at the team and givepeople a compelling reason to come
(08:53):
work for us.
And so that's where the like
professional why came in, isthere's all kinds of loan
officers.
And when you join a team like
ours, one of the things that youhave to sacrifice is personal
income, because along with ourteam comes with resources and
resources cost money.
So LOs that join our team
naturally make less than if theywere working independently because
they're giving up basis pointsbasically to help pay for all the
(09:15):
team that we This is on a per unitbasis if they were to, you know,
technically close equal.
I assume they typically are
closing more deals.
And making I assume they typically
are closing more deals.
And making more money ultimately.
That's the bet.
Yeah.
And so for us, it was like, youknow, why do we want to build a
team?Like, what do we want to
(09:37):
accomplish?And so we chose to focus on like
making impact in rural America.
And so when I was a community
banker, I noticed that like I gotto meet a lot of community bankers
and got to know that industryreally well, and they are not
hungry to get loans closed.
And so I started thinking like,
what does that do for a community?If the only outlet for people
(09:58):
living in that community is thecommunity bank and the community
bank is not bending over backwardsto get deals done, like, does that
impact that community?And ultimately what I've started
figuring out is that, yeah, itdoes.
And communities whose only outletis a small community bank have
lower home ownership rates thancommunities that have more lending
options.
And so that told me like, we need
to figure out a way to bring ahigh quality, like professional
mortgage experience to smalltowns.
And if we can do that, then morepeople will have access to
(10:20):
financing and then more peoplewill become homeowners.
And you push that homeownershiprate up in a community, lots of
cool things happen.
The economy as a whole starts
going up.
The town gets cleaned up.
People have pride of ownership.
Crime rates drop, employment rates
go up, everything benefits fromthat.
And so our why that we ultimatelydecided to do was number one, we
want to bring a professional levelof mortgage to rural America.
(10:41):
And then in addition to that, wewant to focus on wealth creation.
And so I had a really hard timefiguring out how to measure the
impact that we're making.
And so finally, I just did like
basic math.
Every time we close a loan, I was
like, what happens to that personwhen we close that loan?
(11:02):
And so like on an average loan,it's open like six years.
It's a little over six years rightnow.
It's misleading right now becauseit's actually going up because
everybody did all these 3% loansand 21 that they're holding onto.
And so that's causing the averagelife of the loan to increase.
But I look at over that six-yearperiod, what's the amortization
say on average?How much does that debt pay down?
(11:24):
And so there's debt pay down.
And then at a 4% home appreciation
rate, which is pretty conservativeover the last five years, how much
does that home go up over thatsame six-year period?
And basically what happens for uson an average is every time we
close a loan, that person orfamily generates about $95,000 of
equity in that home.
And so now we have a metric to
(11:45):
measure wealth creation.
And it's an average metric.
I could probably employ sometechnology like HomeBot or
something and get it exactly.
But it's more about the spirit of
the goal, you know?And so we decided we're going to
see if we can create a billiondollars worth of wealth primarily
in rural America through homeownership.
And now Level Up Lenders has awhy.
And so for me personally, likemanaging the team and empowering
(12:06):
loan officers to do well, and alsoletting them be a part of a
mission driven team in thisindustry.
Like that is all for me, like mypersonal ideal output, like
satisfaction and happiness hasgone way up.
So the icky guy is, is good.
Now I have a sense of purpose,
right?But then the team, they all get to
come together and all ofoperations and support and
everybody gets to buy into that.
(12:27):
And so they have a sense of
purpose in what they're doing aswell, because like we say, you
know, every file's a family andevery single person that comes
across our desk is an opportunityto educate about how homeownership
can impact a life, you know, it'sa big deal.
And so for us, that's been thedriving force.
And I think it's probably the mainreason why we continue to grow is
(12:49):
because we have a mission.
So it's a tough thing.
Figuring out the why is not easy,both personally and professionally
is really, really, reallydifficult to do.
yeah, that makes sense, man.
And I think that's the biggest
thing that allows you and the teamto continue to grow is like
knowing that, yeah, things arehard right now, or they're harder
to get, you know, business orwhatever it is, but you have a
(13:13):
mission and you have a missionthat's not just, hey, I want to
make a bunch of money because ifit's just about making a bunch of
money, we've seen how many peoplelike came in for the money and
left because the money kind ofdried weren't passionate about the
work they were doing.
They were just like literally
interested in the income that theywere earning.
And so like everybody is like outthere chasing their passion, you
know, you don't have to be superpassionate when the paychecks are
(13:36):
huge.
And the money's easy, you know,
but when it gets harder, that'sthe trick.
Like Alex Ramosi has a quote, youknow, people want to find their
passion.
But like passion isn't something
that you find, like you create itby getting good at something.
And so that's the problem, right?Is that in order to have real
passion about your work, you haveto be good at it.
(13:56):
But the only way you get good atit is if you do the work.
And so it's kind of hard to getgood at mortgage not easy.
100%.
And there's a lot of things you
have to be as a loan officer thatis not just, you know, A, I'm
going to go learn theseguidelines.
Because yeah, there's guidelines.
And then there's marketing.
and then there's marketing andthen there's sales and then
there's taking a 1003 and thenthere's submitting files and then
there's, you know, gatheringconditions and there's having
conversations.
There's, you know, all this stuff
that you have to deal with as aloan officer.
(14:18):
It's not super like, you know, cutand dry.
And I know you've talked aboutthis before, but you know, a lot
of people kind of, they're tryingto fill these two roles that
typically don't fall into oneperson.
I mean, you guys have the loandoers and the loan getters because
of that fact that people typicallyaren't great at both sales and
also the details that come alongwith, you know, structuring a
(14:41):
loan.
That was the big thing that we did
differently on our team.
And like I coach some now.
And so like I was trying to coachpeople on how to build a team the
way that we do.
people on how to build a team the
way that we And do.
so I had to figure out like, what
do I call these split roles?Because a loan officer is kind of
a unicorn because they're able togo out and sell and get business.
But then they're also able to thenreel it back in and be analytical
(15:04):
and sit behind a computer and likecrunch out the loans and do the
business.
And that person is pretty unique
to be able to be good at both ofthose things.
Because one of those is more oflike an extroverted skill set.
The other is very much anintroverted skill set.
And so what we ultimately did iswe split the role and I make
things as easy as I can.
And so I just called the people
that go out and get loans, I callthem loan getters.
And then the people that sitbehind the computer and actually
(15:25):
work up the loans, I call themloan doers.
And so we have loan getters andloan doers.
And so we have loan getters andloan doers, and they're two
separate roles.
And so yeah, our LOs go out and
make partnerships with realtors orwhoever, and they bring in the
business, but then they don't thenhave to sit behind a computer and
actually do the business.
We have a whole ops team that does
(15:46):
all of that.
And it's, I think, easier to find
talent that way.
And it's cheaper.
I mean, a great all-star LO makesa lot of money, whereas a great
loan getter and a great loan doermake good money, but it's not the
same.
You know what I mean?
Like those are more jobs.
They're less Just to kind I get
into that whole idea of gettingmore agent partners and things
like Obviously we're in a marketwhere the majority of loan
officers you So, Let's right.
just Yep.
call it I of, mean, real estateagents and loan I we are in a time
where volume I think that.
(16:07):
is down to levels in like the So
and that's obviously are,population know, struggling.
has So there is a limited that.
amount mean, of transactions that
are happening officers.
and there's mean, people that are
still your team's still winning1970s.
Right.
in this market.
like, grown.
winning.
Obviously, So there is business tobe had.
a lot of people have exited thebusiness as well.
Obviously, And so that opens upsome market share as well to be
had.
So I mean, obviously, I know a lot
(16:28):
about what you guys do, but give alittle sort of like synopsis as to
like, how have you structured yourbusiness from a perspective to
like go out and find more agentpartners?
What does that sort of look like?So the trick that you have to
consider with realtors that like,I kind of had an epiphany when I
thought of this is that a lot ofloan officers are going all in on
(16:49):
getting business from realtors,which, you know, I get makes
sense.
But what if the realtors aren't
actually good at lead generation?So like, we're making an
assumption that just because theyclose, you know, some units and
(17:25):
have whatever it means to be aqualified realtor that they can
continue to bring leads in.
And so I started like thinking
about that.
I'm like, well, I've met some of
these people and like, I don'treally know how good they are at
lead generation.
And so when it gets harder, what
if their business starts to dryup?
So a couple of things that westarted doing to see is that the
first one is like, we have starteddoing some door knocking campaigns
with realtors.
And the reason why we're doing
that isn't to go out, you know,with a notepad, knock on a door
and get an application.
Like we don't expect to go door
knocking and find a loan.
but we invite realtors to go and
we make co-branded door hangers togo.
And really what's happening thereis it's an audition for the
realtor.
And I want to know, is this person
actually skilled?Do they have the art of sales?
Because it is tough and those homebuyers are fewer and far between
and the inventory is less.
So if I'm going to trust this
realtor to be able to go out thereand get a deal done, I need to
(17:47):
know that they can sell.
So I want to see how they act when
they knock on a door of a totalstranger and see what they do.
And what happens from thataudition is that number one, you
find realtors that maybe theydon't have the numbers on MMI, but
they haven't been in it that long,but guess what?
They can sell.
(18:08):
Like, you know.
I bet on that horse over timebecause they've got the skillset.
They've got the gift of gab andthey know what they're doing.
Number two is if a realtor iswilling to do that with me, that
tells me they're willing to dowhat it takes to get leads.
It's naturally easier for arealtor to get a homebuyer lead
than it is for a lender.
They're just one step up funnel
(18:28):
than we are, but you have to makesure that they're willing to
hustle.
That's a's a big thing that we do.
But then from there, theconversation with a realtor, I
actually bring it all the way backto this idea of ideal output.
And if I'm talking to a buyer'sagent, I make an assumption, but I
will test that assumption on themis that I'll explain what ideal
(18:48):
output is.
And I'll say, hopefully for you as
a buyer's agent, you get enjoymentfrom just walking around and
looking at houses.
I'm going to assume that you got
into real estate because you likehouses.
That's probably fair, right?I'm hoping that satisfaction for
you is when you have a tough buyerand they've looked at 15 houses
and you finally walk them into oneand their jaw drops and they're
like, this is it.
(19:08):
This is the one.
Like, I'm going to hope that youget some satisfaction from that.
Like that is probably in yourwheelhouse.
And the other is, you know,closing day with the first time
home buyer.
Like I'm hoping that that is what,
you know, gets you out of bed.
And number three is I really,
really hope that you can sell likethat stability skill.
And so what we do is we talk torealtors that way.
And we get them to see eye to eyethat like, hey, your best use is
(19:30):
to be showing properties toqualified buyers, right?
Like, that's ultimately what youneed to be doing.
And so we designed an entireprocess around taking as much off
of your plate as possible, so thatyou can spend as much time as
possible doing the ideal outputwork.
So what that means, number one, isthat you'll be happier because
hopefully you're spending lesstime with the crap that you don't
like doing and the parts of yourjob that you hate because our
(19:51):
team's able to do a lot of thosefor you.
But also you'll make more moneybecause you spend more time doing
the income earning activity.
And so that's kind of the value
proposition that we make to arealtor is that we will do a lot
of the busy work for you.
We will sit down in front of a
computer and make the weeklyupdate calls.
We'll call the listing agents andlet them know what's going on.
(20:12):
We'll call the buyers and let themknow what's going on.
We'll make sure that the titlecompanies are aware of what's
going on so that you can befocused on getting more leads and
showing more properties.
Another thing that we'll do is we
will pre-screen people.
There's a lot of realtors that
still think that the way that theysecure a client is to spend time
with them.
And so they're willing to go show
(20:33):
properties to people that theyhave no idea if they're qualified
or not.
And they're afraid to ask them
because it's an awkward questionif you ask somebody if they've
been pre-qualified by a lender.
So they'll just start showing
properties to strangers.
And so we explain to them, number
one, that's a waste of your time.
Because what if they can't
actually buy?What if they're three years away
from buying?It's just not a good use of your
(20:55):
time.
And so we coach them through a
process of how they can refer moreof their leads over to us.
And then we will screen thoseleads and we rate them and we let
them know, hey, this one is readyto buy today, go show them
property.
This one is going to be three
months.
If you have a drip campaign, put
them in there.
Otherwise, we will take care of
(21:15):
the heavy lifting.
And once they are ready to buy,
we'll refer them back to you andthen you can go show them
property.
So it's all about optimizing the
realtor's schedule.
That's what we're trying to do.
And the right realtors that havebusiness and understand that,
appreciate it and send thebusiness to Yeah, that makes
sense.
And so obviously what you're doing
is you're providing a bunch ofvalue in ways that most loan
(21:36):
officers are not doing.
And I know one of your big
principles as well is you havewhat, seven or eight guarantees,
right?When I talk to loan officers on a
regular basis, I mean, we'vetalked to 1000s of loan officers
over the years.
Most loan officers say one of the
three things, right?I answer the phone, I have good
rates, I close on time, like, youknow, those types of things,
right?I work on the weekends, like that
is the thing that people provideas value or like, oh, I've worked
(21:59):
for this broker for 10 years.
It's like, who cares, right?
Like, no one really cares that youwork for a broker.
No one cares that you're local,right?
They do care, right?I'm not saying they don't care
about those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But from the perspective of this
is not valuable to gaining newbusiness from these people, like
that is the thing that most peoplefail at.
And so when someone's looking togo out and get more agent
partners, like how do youstructure your unique value prop?
(22:20):
How do you structure your offer orwhat you do for them?
Yeah.
So everybody has a natural level
of trust.
And so some people, myself, I make
a decision in life to just trusteveryone on the surface.
I do that because it's actuallynot as common as you think to get
screwed over.
For the most time, people tend to
be good and it makes my life moreenjoyable, but not everybody lives
that way.
And there are some people out
there that are highly, highlyskeptical and trust has to be
(22:41):
earned.
And so every realtor has this
trust level where when you achievethat amount of trust with that
person, they will send you a lead.
And so the trick is like, you
know, it's the trust bucket.
How do I fill the trust bucket up
enough so that they will trust mewith a lead?
Why are leads a big deal?If you think about it, if they're
a buyer's agent, like what doesthat lead represent?
(23:01):
Like it's their kid's collegeeducation.
Like it's the money that pays forthe roof over their family's head.
Like it's actually, it gets reallyserious really fast.
If you start thinking about thevalue of the lead that loan
officers are calling up randomlyon the phone and asking for, like,
if you really think about whatyou're asking for, it's pretty
wild.
Like it's Like it's that also
Yeah.
Here's the other thing too.
It's like, yeah, you know, maybethat deal won't close because not
every deal closes, but still thatis their reputation.
(23:21):
What you're asking them to do isput their reputation on the line
for you, Mr. Loan Officer, youbuild zero trust with they don't
have any idea how you work.
They have no idea if you call the
leads, you have no idea if ittakes you 48 hours to answer the
phone, like, we don't know any ofthose things, right.
And so by as like, a lot of timespeople like, you know, and
obviously, we do the marketing, wego direct to consumer.
And so like, a lot of times whatloan officers will do is like, Oh,
(23:46):
yeah, I got a referral for you.
So like, I want all your business,
you have to give me all yourbusiness.
I'm like, Oh, you don't get to dothat, man.
Like it's not like you go with areal estate.
It's like you give them a deal andyou say, Hey, you know what?
I am looking for a reciprocalrelationship.
I'll take a deal back.
Then we can figure out if we want
(24:07):
to work together.
Right.
It's not going to like be crazyand like be super cocky about
like, I'll give you one referralafter you gave me 15.
Like now you owe me all yourbusiness.
That's crazy talk.
Yeah.
The problem though, is thatoccasionally a realtor will do
that.
And so there's these one-offs that
then make people think, well, it'spossible.
So I'll just keep calling until Ifind those people.
The reality is that like trust isearned through small kept
(24:29):
promises.
And so the way that I create the
value proposition is how can westructure this in a way where I
can continually deliver thesesmall kept promises over and over
and over until they think, okay,this person's legit.
And so the first guarantee that Iencourage loan officers to make is
a lead follow-up guarantee.
The thing is, is that our lead
follow-up guarantee is kind ofintense.
So we guarantee to reach out seventimes in four days.
(24:51):
If you send me a lead, we willreach out to that lead seven times
over the period of four days.
If at any point along that we
connect and get an application,we'll let you know in real time
and we'll get you the initialdecision within 24 hours.
If we get to the end and we'vedone our seventh reach out, we
will follow back up with you andask you how you want us to proceed
with that lead.
And so by doing it that way, what
(25:12):
that tells them is that everysingle lead that you send to us
will be worked to completion,whether we don't hear from them
and we follow up with you and letyou know, or we do hear from them
and they tell us to buzz off, thenwe'll let you know, or we get an
application, right?And so the mistake that people
make is they hear me say thatseven times in four days and they
say, Ooh, that sounds good.
I'm going to do that.
But maybe that's too much work foryou right now.
Like you don't have to paintyourself into this corner and make
your life miserable.
You could say, Hey, if you send me
a lead, I guarantee I'll try toreach them three times that day.
(25:33):
And guess what?Like that's a guarantee.
And then if you do it and theysend a lead over, you call them,
you text them, you call themagain, you don't hear back.
And then you just let the realtorknow, Hey, I haven't heard from
him.
You know, you don't have to make
these guarantees complicated.
The reason why you're doing it is
to start And And so realtor sendsthe lead, you do what you say,
guess what?You just established trust, the
trust bucket filled up some,right?
(25:54):
And so from there, like the nextguarantee we make is we'll give
you the initial decision within 24hours.
So the application comes in, welet them know, Hey, we got an
application.
We're working on it within 24
hours.
That's when we give our rating.
And so we're the level up lenders.
So we have level one, two or three
approval, or we have a mortgageaction plan.
(26:15):
So there's four outcomes.
Level one is like, Hey, these
people are ready to roll, youknow, incomes verified.
Everything's good.
They can buy their approved
conventional up to 400,000.
Here we go.
Level Right.
two is like, these hey, people are
ready to You roll.
income's know, verified,
everything's They good.
can buy their approved
conventional up to 400,000.
Here we go, right?
Level two is like on the initial24 hour period, if it's a level
(26:35):
two, what that means is that thiscould take up to seven days for us
to get this approved.
So maybe there's variable income
and we have to get verificationsof employment.
Maybe we need tax returns, youknow, whatever it is, right?
And so when I call a realtor atthe end of that 24-hour period,
and I say, hey, this one's a leveltwo, I have just bought myself
seven more days to get this fileapproved because I've set the
expectation that way up front.
The next one is a level three.
(26:56):
If it's a level three, it can takeup to 30 days.
So maybe we're going to do arescore.
Like they're going to pay a creditcard down.
We're going to rescore them.
To do this loan, we have to have
this credit score.
And again, when we call them up
and say, Hey, this one's levelthree, the realtor partners trust
us.
Okay.
Yeah.
There's not a deal right now, but
we just bought ourselves 30 daysto do that.
And so again, it's just doing whatwe said we were going to do 24
(27:18):
hours after the application, we'regoing to call you and tell you
where we're at.
And then if it's a level two, that
means that in as long as sevendays, I'll have this person ready
to go.
And so we set all these
expectations and we just,throughout the process, we just
build those guarantees.
And we've got, I think, 11
guarantees now that we make as wemove through the process, but it's
all designed to build trust.
(27:38):
And so all our loan officers have
to do, we do the presentation.
We've got like a 45 minute long
presentation that we give thatwalks through and does the
guarantee stack.
You know, we guarantee this, we
guarantee that, we do this, we dothat, blah, blah, blah.
Then we just do what we say.
And that's literally it.
We do what we say.
And guess what?
If you do what you say, now therealtor can manage their business
(28:00):
because they know what they'regetting out of your business.
Right.
And so now like we all have
structured processes because weall approach things the same way.
We're on the same page, right?The trust is there.
And especially I'm in your programright now, learning how to become
a great online marketer, right?And the things that you guys do to
get leads is amazing.
And like the technology that you
use and all of this work and allof this psychology and all these
amazing things, literally all wedo is we call a realtor, we give
them our pitch, and then we dowhat we say.
And we just do that over and overand over and it.
(28:22):
Yeah, but here's what I'll say isone thing that I think you're
taking away from that is youfollowed the process, which was,
again, we talked about this a lotin the traction book that we had
talked about in the last episode,but what you essentially did, and
you know, I'm going to use alittle bit of marketing speak is
you created an offer, which is,Hey, this is an irresistible
offer, which gets people to wantto work with you.
And this is not an irresistibleoffer.
That sounds like everybody else.
(28:42):
You sound different, right?
And there's this concept of newopportunity versus an improvement
offer, right?And so what most loan officers are
doing is they're using animprovement offer.
I'm marginally better at answeringthe phone.
I have marginally better rates.
I have marginally better service,
right?Cool.
Like you can close in one dayless, you know, you answer the
phone on the weekends or whateverit is, right?
Like you're just a little bitbetter, but most people are very
(29:03):
resistant to change unless theyfeel like there's a new
opportunity.
And so a way to create a new
opportunity is to create somethingthat sounds completely different
than everybody else.
Now, does Skylar communicate?
Sure.
But instead of saying, Hey, we
communicate well, he says, no,here's what we're going to do.
Here's the plan.
You know, we have a guarantee that
we're going to follow up with youon whatever Monday, Tuesday.
(29:23):
I don't know what is.
That's the pipeline guarantee.
We guarantee an update before noonon Monday, every week for every
deal that's active in the Right.
And so that's again, so you've
structured it in a way that'slike, it sounds like a new
opportunity because every singleloan officer says I communicate
well.
Now, whether they execute on that
or not, that's one thing, but wehave a tangible way that Skylar
(29:44):
and his team communicate.
And it's outlined in a way that's
like, Hey, like this is whatyou're going to get.
You don't have to guess as to whatgood communication means to this
loan officer.
What it means to this loan officer
is that it's on Mondays by noon,you're going to have an update,
right?Like regardless, you're going to
have an update.
Like that's how clear those offers
(30:05):
need to be.
And so while, you know, I agree
that all you do is this is like,it's because you have created it
in a way that's actually, we callit sexy, right?
It's a offer that makes peoplewant to make a change.
And a lot of times people go andthey're banging their heads
against the walls or they don'twant to call agents because like,
they've never sat down andthought, how can I show up in a
different way than every otherloan officer?
(30:26):
Because it's hard.
I mean, I get it.
Like I wouldn't want to call realestate agents on Mondays and
basically say my job description,like that sucks.
Like I understand why loanofficers don't want to call
agents, but it's really not thatdifficult.
Like you said, like you have tocreate something that sounds
different than everybody else andthen deliver on it.
it's That's exactly right.
Yep.
And then the other thing toconsider is that the best
realtors, if their business isoperating on all cylinders and
they have as much business as theywant and life is good, those are
(30:50):
the ones that they aren't actuallygoing to talk to you because they
don't have any reason to, but therest of them have something wrong.
And so when I was in businessschool, I got an MBA with a focus
in entrepreneurship.
And so I had like a year of
classes about entrepreneurship.
And at the start of every single
class, we were launching fakebusinesses.
And the key that our instructorwould say at the beginning of
(31:11):
every class is where's the pain.
And so if you're going to launch
this business, it needs to solve aproblem for someone.
So where's the pain?What problem are you solving?
And so when you sit down with arealtor, the reason that they did
take the meeting is becausesomething in their business is
broken and they have a pain point.
The issue is that they won't tell
you what it is.
And so our job is like, we kind of
(31:33):
throw out like this giant net aswe're going through the process
and stacking all of theguarantees.
Like, well, we do this and we dothis and we do this, we guarantee
this and that and whatever.
And then at the end, it's like, so
out of all of that stuff, is anyof that interesting to you?
And what we're trying to get themto do is to reveal to us, well,
actually, I love that you do thisthing.
Like, ding, ding, there's probablysomething there.
I need to ask them more about whythat matters.
(31:53):
And the goal is to uncover thelittle piece of their business
that's broken.
Something's There's a reason that
we're sitting across from eachother having broken.
coffee, like something is notgreat for you.
Once I figure out what it is, I'mgoing to dig into it.
And I'm going to agitate that painpoint over and over and over and
eventually convince them, maybe Ican solve that for you.
We don't know for sure.
And you're not a crazy person to
just take me on face value andtrust me completely.
But if I can do what I say, do youagree that your business would be
(32:15):
better?Yeah, of course.
Okay.
So send me one lead and let's find
out.
Right.
Again.
And that's the thing.
And that's the thing is likepeople expect to get like all this
business.
Like I had a great conversation,
like give me all your business.
Like, no, give me one And that's
the suck and we and we hate eachother, like perfectly fine.
I have so much work that I have todo to build your trust to win all
of your business, but give me ashot.
Give me one.
And if I can't do what I say, at
(32:38):
least now, you know, you know,worst case I violate your trust.
I waste a lead for you.
I don't do what I say.
So if you have a listing and seemy pre-qualification letter come
across the desk, you know, maybethat's not the right off.
Maybe you can advise your sellers,you know, I know him and he
doesn't always do what he says.
Right.
So there's value there.
(32:59):
At least, you know, my true
character at that point.
Right.
And that's how it starts.
And then when they send the lead,
you do what you say.
I love it.
That's the key.
Not easy, but super simple.
Right.
You just got put the in place.
You got to make sure it'ssystematic.
You got to make sure you deliveron it every single time.
Yeah, there's a lot.
(33:20):
So yeah, so we've got now 10 loan
officers.
We're processing roughly 375
applications, you know, creditpoll applications every month.
We're in six different geographicmarkets across the Midwest, and
we're executing 11 differentguarantees on all of that.
So if you start thinking about allthe moving pieces and with a staff
of 26 people total, so it'scertainly not easy to do.
It's a simple thing to do, but theamount of structure that has to go
(33:42):
into doing that.
But if you're a one-off LO just
doing your thing, then the onlyperson you have to manage is
yourself, which that's a wholeother set of issues.
That's why I tell people, like thebest thing that you could do for
your life is to create a leadguarantee and force yourself to
stick to it.
Because it proves that you can do
something consistently over time.
Because it Yeah, I love that, man.
So real quick to just close outhere.
If there was like one thing thatyou could do, I know there's a
(34:03):
couple cool strategies that youguys have been doing recently.
Like what's one way that you wouldgo out and recommend someone in
this market to go out and get somebusiness, to build trust or any of
those things, right?Really just get business.
Oh, a unique value add that we'vestarted doing that is working
pretty well.
So we wanna give value, right?
We wanna create value.
And one really good way to do that
(34:24):
is there is an entire inventorylist out there that agents don't
necessarily have access to.
And it's becoming more common as
technology makes it easier.
I call them solo sellers just
because it sounds cool, but forsale by owner, right?
And so through things like Zillow,it's easier than ever to sell your
own home.
And so what's happening is that
there's more of these propertiesthat are popping up that don't
appear on the MLS.
Therefore, realtors have to do a
little bit of extra work to findthose properties.
And then what happens if thosepeople aren't willing to pay?
(34:47):
Like they don't necessarily wantto show their buyers those
properties.
So what I've started doing is I
pay a company to get me the data,but you don't have to do that.
You can just put a setting up onZillow and every single day that a
new listing pops up in your littlearea, you can see.
And I call the for sale by ownersand I make an offer to them
completely free.
What I tell them is that, hey, I
(35:08):
run one of the biggest teams inthis market.
We're actively working with over100 realtors.
If you're open to the idea ofpaying a finder's fee to a buyer's
agent that brought a buyer in tobuy your home, I would be more
than happy to send your propertyout to my list of realtors.
I can help you market it for free,not asking for anything in
exchange.
And then on the other side of
things, I tell realtors, I amdoing the legwork of building out
access to this new inventory.
(35:29):
And I'm pre-screening them to see
if they're willing to pay somesort of a commission to you if you
bring them a buyer.
And if you're interested in that,
I can put you on an email list andI can send those out as they come.
So I have a software that I usethat does it.
(35:51):
And I get about two to three aweek that come online.
Takes me about 10 minutes to callthose people.
So far, I've not had any peopletell me, no, I don't want you to
email my house to a hundred localrealtors.
Don't do that.
The general consensus is that,
look, I don't want to pay somebodyto sell my house.
Why would I do that?I don't have any problem paying
(36:11):
somebody that brings me a buyer,right?
Like they don't mind thatgenerally.
I stay out of the commissionrates.
I don't get into it.
It's not my business.
I just get them to say, hey, yeah,I'll pay a finder's fee.
And then I'm emailing those overto I just the get realtors.
them to say, hey, yeah, I'll pay afinder's fee.
And then I'm emailing those overto the realtors.
So when I tell the realtor, hey,it's tough out there right now,
we're doing all we can.
One of the value adds that we do
is we're trying to help you findmore inventory for your buyers.
(36:33):
How do we do that?Mail out these for sale by owner,
you know, every single week.
And then they consistently get
those emails.
They open them, they read them.
And so I'm staying top of mind ina way that is completely different
from what everybody else is doing.
Because I'm delivering real value
two to three times a week to them.
(36:53):
Hey, here's a three, two in this
area.
You know, they're wanting 195 guy
says he'll pay if you got anybodylike that's valuable to that
realtor.
It saves them a lot of time,
right?They don't have to mess with it.
And so it's a simple thing to do.
It's free to do if you invest an
hour a day or set up some filterson Zillow to find them, but it
adds tremendous value.
It's just another way to prove
(37:14):
that you're trying.
And if you're the guy that says
you're hustling and you want theirbusiness and you're doing that
over and over and over and over,eventually they're going to
believe it, right?Because what are the other lenders
doing to try and help them?So that's a little thing.
That's just like one little tinyrandom thing that I've started
doing.
And it's actually pretty fun.
Like I enjoy it and it seems towork and it actually gives you a
(37:34):
reason to call realtors.
Hey, I'm putting together this new
thing, you know, for sale by ownerlist.
Love to put you on the email listif you're Always having a reason
to call someone is, I mean, again,that's why so many people don't
make the calls is because there'sno actual reason for the call.
It's like, oh, did you play or didyou work this weekend?
Like, that's a crappy question,right?
Like, who cares?That's like, oh, do you, I want
(37:55):
your leads, right?Like, that's basically what you're
saying by that making that call isI want your leads.
then getting to email them two tothree times a week and not be a,
you know, pain.
Right.
It's an email they're excited forbecause it's like, oh, I've been
looking for, you know, this exactproperty.
I got these buyers that arepre-approved and I just can't find
anything.
Like it's a good email.
It's a positive email.
It's a good experience.
It also, one thing I do is Iremind them to save me in their
(38:17):
address book so that my emailsdon't go to spam because these are
valuable emails.
So now I know that they're getting
all my emails, right?I love it.
So it's a little thing, but itdoes work.
Ultimately, just do what you say,like build a real process, figure
out some ways to add real value,you know, through the process of
doing a mortgage loan that solvessome pain points for the realtors
and then execute on Kind of crazy,huh?
That's our whole secret.
That's literally what we do.
(38:38):
So that's wild saying what you'reto do do.
our whole That's secret.
literally what we That's do.
wild.
Saying what you're going to do and
then doing what you say you'regoing to do.
Yeah.
That's the secret.
I know.
Love it.
Anyway, Anyway, that's it.
Awesome, man.
Well, thank you so much for yourtime today.
Appreciate everything.
My big takeaway from this is that
you got to have a reason for whyyou're doing this, but also
creating processes, man.
I think there's a big missing
hole.
Coming from someone who's also not
very process oriented, I'velearned as I grew my business that
not having processes is a pain.
Fixing bad processes is much
(39:00):
harder than building it the rightway the first time.
So, you know, just kind oflistening to what you talk about
is like, hey, from the beginning,we built out processes.
That's huge, right?I do think that it's much easier
to build processes as you'rebuilding than it is to not build
processes or have kind of crappyprocesses when you start and then
having to go back and fix all thatstuff is a lot more work coming
(39:21):
from someone who had to do thatover the last couple of years has
completely transformed the way ourprocesses ran and, you know, still
working through that.
It's much easier to just start
from the beginning and doing itthe right way.
It is important.
It is important.
It does allow you to scale andgrow and, you know, deliver on the
promises you make, right?If someone's, you know, want to
connect with you online,interested in learning more about
what you do, or, you know, I knowyou do coaching as well.
(39:43):
So how can people connect withyou, learn a little bit more about
doing?Pretty active on Facebook.
It's public, you know, they canfind me can send me an email as
well.
My personal email is fine.
If they want to connect and learna little bit more, SKY8632 at
Gmail.
And I'm happy to connect and talk
more.
I run training classes.
My classes are affordable.
My coaching is not a commitment.
It is the opposite.
So I'm designing my program to be
the complete opposite ofcommitment and I'm trying to make
(40:03):
it as affordable as possible.
So all my classes are only four
weeks long and you pay per week.
And if you don't like the content,
then you just quit paying and quitgoing.
And that's pretty much it there.
And I've got a number of different
things that I coach on in thatworld.
But if somebody just wants toconnect, me up on Facebook.
And it's Skylar with an A,S-K-Y-L-A-R, just so if you're
looking up with an E. a veryfamous female softball player at
the University of Florida namedSkylar Wallace, unfortunately.
(40:23):
And she's an Olympic level talent.
And if you Google it, she comes
up.
So good for her.
Man, you got to work on your SEO,bro.
You got to work on your SEO.
to work on your SEO.
I get crushed.
Yep.
Awesome, man.
Well, appreciate your time today.
And for anybody who is listeningto this and is looking for some
help on flipping the status quo onreal estate agents, then go to
flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for listening
(40:44):
and have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into the
Loans On Demand podcast onloansondemandpodcast.com.
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