November 18, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, I discuss the inefficiencies in the mortgage pre-approval process, and share the best practices to streamline it, emphasizing the importance of understanding the client journey, optimizing lead intake, and conducting effective discovery calls. I also highlight the significance of following-up, presenting proposals, and the necessity of having a structured approach to client communication.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to the mortgage game.
I truly, truly believe that
building a mortgage business, asuccessful one is like playing a
game.
There's winners, there's losers.
There's certain things you try.
Some of us are playing checkers
while others are playing chess.
I've had the ability to coach and
mentor hundreds of mortgagebrokers.
I myself built a very nicebusiness.
(00:26):
So now I want to distill all thatinformation, all the things I've
learned from that and bring itdirectly to you in a simple to
understand way.
I hope you enjoy.
All right.
Welcome to Mortgage Game Podcast.
Whiteboard Wiley here coming fromthe Dodge Ram Studio at the beach.
Let's get into it.
So this is a little different one.
(00:48):
This isn't like motivational andgets you jacked up.
Maybe it is.
I don't know.
I just got out of some pre-approval training and I know
you're like, ah, pre -approvals.
Brian, I need files to work on.
I don't need to learn how, no, no,no, no. Hear me out.
This 20 minute, I mean, this willbe 20 minute podcast, give or
take.
If I can save you 15 minutes on
every single pre -approval you domoving forward over the next five
(01:08):
years, that's like weeks ofvacation.
I just came up with best practicesusing in the pre -approval
journey.
I'm going to go through, I'm going
to give you an overview.
you know, with what that looks
like.
And then I'm going to go into each
section.
I'm going to share best practices.
And this is me.
I did this with a bunch of
brokers.
Some of them seasoned, some of
them not so much.
There were big takeaways from
(01:28):
everybody on that training.
So I wanted to bring that in here
live to you.
Okay.
That's what we're going to do.
And in my opinion, the pre
-approval process is the mostinefficient process in a mortgage
broker's client journey.
I see top mortgage brokers
spending three, four hours on pre-approvals.
It's just...
Insane.
Absolutely insane.
And when I get in there and I
(01:49):
break it down, I'm like, oh myGod, like it should be an hour and
a half, two hours tops.
And it's like, and then you start
seeing layers to the onion.
You're like, well, no shit,
because you're working witheverybody.
You're doing B and private, A andmulti.
And you're trying to like solveevery problem, like pull a rabbit
of a hat and be a magician toeverybody.
And like, then you have, and howmany times do you have clients?
I know I'm talking to a bunch ofhere where they're like, you're
(02:10):
like, yeah, I'll find a thing foryou.
They're like, okay, cool.
And you don't even know if they're
going to work with you yet.
But you don't have a lot else
going on.
So you start working on that deal.
And then all of a sudden you'resending out emails to BDMs, you're
phone calling, you're puttingposts in Facebook groups.
You're just spending so much timeand energy.
And then you run into brick wallsand then you get exhausted.
And then you sort of push it tothe side because something else
that sounds easier comes up.
(02:31):
So you work on that.
And then the client reaches out toyou three days later and they're
like, hey.
that pre -approval, like, how are
we doing?And you're like, oh shit.
And you're like, deep down, you'relike, oh yeah, I don't really want
to do this anymore.
I don't have the answers.
It's not easy anymore.
It's hard and blah, blah, blah.
And then you have to brush themoff or you have to go, I'm working
on it.
I'm coming back.
I got some feelers out there.
That whole game, right?
That's what happens.
(02:52):
We saw that in the training.
That sort of came out to somepeople.
That's not what we're talkingabout today.
Okay.
That was just like a sidebar.
So I'm just going to go throughthe pre -approval process.
I think there is, we have clientjourneys as, mortgage brokers and
i don't think we have one bigclient journey i think we have two
i think we have a pre -approvaljourney and an approval journey
because clients come into yourworld you might pre -approve them
send them off they might not buyfor eight months so you're just
(03:16):
saying the journey picks back uplike it never stopped i think we
all need two and can it be mappedout on the same one sure so i
think you have to look at itdifferently pre -approval approval
okay and there's a one call methodthere's a two call method and i'm
going to walk through that andthen there is a taken application
over the phone method and thenthere's a no doc no talk method
(03:36):
which is so old school brokering idon't know who does that anymore
and there's like a lot of thingswe're going to break down here
okay um and we'll give you sometidbits we'll give some software
to use we'll give you some bestpractices from top brokers and so
the cool thing is with this I getto take everything I did as a
broker and I get to takeeverything I've done from coaching
hundreds and hundreds.
And we're probably close to like
five, six, 700 agents, maybe morethat we've coached that I can take
(03:59):
all their models.
And I get to go and I get to be
like a rain man.
And I have to come out here and go
74, 83.
And let's do this.
It's so cool.
I get all these perspectives and
then I like to bring it here andjust share it with you.
Okay.
So standard pre -approval process.
You've got the lead intake.
I'm going to go just do a quick
overview and then we'll dig intoeach one with a couple of best
(04:19):
practices.
You got lead intake.
And then we go to typicallydiscovery call.
Now, some, there's an old schoolway of brokering used to be no
doc, no talk.
I will not jump on our discovery
call.
And yes, I'm doing a fake yell
until I have all the docs.
And I just think it's such an old
method.
It's such a broken philosophy.
It's such like, think about it.
Someone gets introduced to you.
Hey, My neighbor said to talk.
Okay, cool.
(04:40):
Send me an app in Docs.
It's like, excuse me?
You want my SIN number?And I don't even know who the fuck
you are?Okay.
Let's just assume some people dothat.
Now, let's just say they're like,yeah, my neighbor says I should
talk to you.
So what do I do next?
Well, me, I say book a call.
Some other brokers say, no doc, no
doc.
Here's an app in Docs.
(05:00):
And then we'll get this thing on.
And now you send all the docs in
the app in.
And then I look at it and my team
processes and we go back andforth.
And then all of a sudden we have ajump in the call.
And then on the call, I tell you,Hey, yeah, you make 60 grand a
year and you have 8 ,000 bucks.
Can't do anything.
So thanks for sending all thatstuff in though.
(05:20):
Cause I have a no doc, no talkpolicy.
Like it says bullshit.
It's just such a, it's just, you
create so much work and energy upfront.
I'd rather have a 15 minute.
You triage the call and go and
you.
crush your discovery call and
decide, okay, am I going to letthem in the club?
Remember you're the bouncer.
Do I let them in the club to hang
out to party in the club?Or do I kick them out?
Like you're not here.
You're not ready for the club.
(05:41):
You're not even old enough.
Right.
So let's go back.
We've got lead.
Then we go discovery call afterdiscovery call.
If you decide to partner, thenwe're going to go to apps and
docs.
And then after apps and docs, we
go to underwrite the file.
After underwrite the file, we go
to, um, present.
the pre -approval in whatever
form.
And then after that, we go to
follow up, right?And when you're presenting the pre
-approval, this is where the onecall versus two call strategy, and
(06:05):
this is like talking politics inour broker world.
I see agents doing both.
I done both.
There's one I like drasticallymore than the other, but I get the
pre -approval done.
And then we present the video, we
record the budget, the numbers.
If you're not giving, this is a
broken record here, but if you'renot giving numbers, broken down
(06:25):
with closing costs and appraisaland transfer tax and, and pay out
of debt.
And if you're not doing that, I
don't know what you're doing forpre -approvals.
You're letting your clients down.
You're letting your business down.
It is a massive value.
I'm just going to assume
everybody's doing it because I'vebeen talking about for so long and
you need to be doing that.
So you can present it with a
video.
(06:45):
You can jam it all into a long
email where people are just goingto read paragraph on top
paragraph, or you can put it intoa three, four, five minute video,
walking them through the budget.
that is recorded, or you can jump
on a strategy call.
And so I've done all three of
those.
I'm going to let you do what you
do.
The recorded video, I like it
because I'm not going back andforth with scheduling the strategy
(07:07):
call.
I'm making sure the decision
makers are good to see it.
It's recorded.
It covers my ass on a lot ofthings.
It also lets them rewatch it.
It answers all their questions.
If they have others, they can comeback.
Usually answers 90, 95 % of thequestions.
The strategy call is very clunky.
I think the strategical is more if
you want to hear the sound of yourown voice and you want to, it
could be sticky.
Sure.
Not my jam though.
(07:28):
Now, depending on how many files
you're doing, it kind of makes ita little, but I'm not going to
debate that.
That's not what we're talking
about.
Okay.
That's the overview.
So let's go into each category.
Okay.
And I'll give you some value adds
in there, some best practices.
And these just, these aren't all
mine.
These are ones I've picked up from
other people that's working.
Before I do that though, this
podcast is brought to you byMocha.
(07:48):
Yeah.
Mocha.
It's like.
Two o 'clock in the afternoon.
Oh, nothing like a lukewarm mocha.
Man, why don't they make that
hotter?It's not even Starbucks.
It's some other shop.
Okay, let's go.
Lead.
Lead comes in.
Some best practices around that.
Okay, we had a one -hour
turnaround time.
We respond within one hour.
Okay, we had a wow email.
The wow email going back has... a
recorded video in there it has alink to the calendar it has all
your google reviews in your inyour email signature so you're
(08:11):
wowing them you give them socialproof you can quick turnaround you
have the recorded video we used todo custom videos hey tom nice to
meet you man i can't wait to workwith you the next call it's just
to book a call below my calendarbut uh i stopped doing it because
i was the bald neck then we wentto recorded eight different videos
(08:33):
for refinance investment property,property ladder, sell, first time,
like all this thing, and it's justtoo much.
So we went to new client, pastclient, right?
So with two recorded videos, youjust drop it in with a template,
boom, boom, boom, and you go here.
So that's the next step.
The only thing I'm doing in thatvideo is telling them, book a
call.
I'm not going, hey, and then we'll
get documents and application andthen instructions will be sent
later.
No, no, no, no. I'm just going,
(08:54):
hey, this is who I am.
Can't wait to talk to you.
Book a call on my calendar.
Let's get, let's get going.
You'll direct access to mycalendar.
I can't wait to talk to you.
This is a super efficient way of
setting this up.
Let's just go.
Okay.
So there's that, that lead comes
in.
Um, now what happens if you send
that and you don't get a responseback, right?
What's your followup?So some of us will tag it in a CRM
(09:16):
and the CRM will automaticallyfollow up, which I don't
necessarily like that setup, butokay.
sure because then you have to shutit off okay some of you are dialed
in and that's awesome some of youyou create it you add like a lead
tag to it new lead throws in yourcrm and then it creates a task for
you and this is what drives mebonkers about crms is i'm just
like building this never -endingto -do list of over and over and i
(09:38):
guess it doesn't fall through thecracks but it's like i hate the
idea of waking up every day andlooking at this never -ending task
list that just creates all thesetasks and some of you geek out on
it and you love xing out the taskor putting a checkbox done done
done for me it gives me massivestress i'm like this is not my
life i am not i if i'm here justwaking up looking at a fucking
(09:59):
task list all day of all thesemundane things i can't do it
that's why i would rather haveautomation in And I just, it's a
mental thing.
I don't like someone giving me a
list.
It just never ends.
Rant over.
It works for many of you.
And I respect that.
We're just wired differently.
So what do we do?Well, we use Boomerang.
(10:19):
Boomerang is a, you can use it inOutlook.
You can use it in Gmail.
Super awesome, easy concept
software.
You load in the widget.
Super easy.
Boomerang.
Go check it out.
So we send out the lead.
Hey.
Great.
Here you go.
Here's our wow email.
And then we boomerang it torespond.
If they don't respond to thisemail, I'm going to boomerang back
in 24 or 40 hours.
(10:40):
I get to say, and what does that
mean?It means when I wake up the next
day or 24 hours later, it's goingto pop back up to my inbox.
It's just going to go, Hey, thisperson never responded.
What do you want to do?That way your assistant could be
notified and you could just boom,fire back.
Okay, cool.
Hey, I'm just following up on
(11:00):
this, pushing it to the top ofyour inbox.
You still want to book a call.
You should use Boomerang in a lot
of different ways because there'sa lot of stuff that you can't go.
You send emails out askingquestions to people that you can't
put in the CRM or you have to gocreate a fucking task.
So what if you use Boomerang whenyou reach out to the lawyer and
(11:21):
you go, hey, confirming you gotinstructions, right?
Boomerang it to 24 hours.
If it doesn't, if it shows back
up, go follow up.
But what am I going to do?
I'm going to send that and I'mgoing to go into my CRM and create
a task to follow.
Like it's like so backwards to me
to do that.
Use boomerang.
It'll just keep all the times youreach out to people asking
questions where it's not in theclient journey specifically.
Put a boomerang on it.
Fire it back in a week, three
days, two days, one day.
(11:42):
I don't know.
If you send a boomerang to arealtor to meet for lunch, to
break bread, put a boomerang ofthree days.
And then it's going to come backto the top.
And then you're going to reachout.
Hey, I just wanted to reach out.
Send you a text.
Send you a text, right?This is a software that very
underutilized.
The people I know who are using it
(12:03):
absolutely love it.
So that's part of the lead side.
That's some best practice.
This podcast is brought to you by
Mocha.
I'm sorry, I got to drink this
thing because it's so lukewarmright now.
It's like, if this goes cold, Ican't do it.
And I paid $7 for this because Itipped.
They guilted me into the tip.
They didn't say anything.
but they like looked at you.
It wasn't Starbucks.
It was like one of those boutiqueshops.
(12:24):
It was six bucks for this tinything.
And then they like look at you andthey pass the thing over and they
just like stare at you with liketheir granola sweater on.
And I'm like, fuck, I'll give youa dollar.
I got, I got looped into that.
So anyways, let's carry on.
Okay.
So lead practice, follow up,
right?It's pretty simple.
You get back within an hour, yougive them a wow email, ability to
(12:44):
book and follow up.
That's it.
Next discovery call, but I'm goingto say booking the discovery call.
Okay.
So now the client clicks the link
and it goes to my calendar bookingsoftware.
Okay.
Here's some best practices for
that.
And like, this was an aha moment
for a lot of top brokers in thetraining.
It was like, number one, bunch ofbrokers, me included when I
brokered was you could not getaccess to me that day.
(13:05):
There's nothing you need from metoday.
I don't care if my calendar iswide open.
It's a filter.
I'm going to allow you to book
tomorrow and I will have the timeslots because I don't want your
stress on me.
I don't want your pressure on me.
I don't want you skipping the linefrom other clients just because
you need me today.
That's not the energy I wanted in
my book.
(13:25):
So I make it the other day.
So I set that up in the calendar.
Next, I time block out each day.
two to three hours where I willtake discovery calls.
And so it might be 10 to one oneday.
It might be nine to 12 one day.
It might be two to five another
day.
It doesn't matter.
But what you do is your timeblocking.
(13:46):
So when they go to click, they'regoing to have 15, 20, 30 minute
increments within a compact two,three hours.
And it's not even about them.
this is about you this is about
you protecting your time so youcan stay disciplined and focused
on other areas of your business ifyou are constantly going from oh
an 8 30 call just booked in a 1 30call of 4 30 5 15. 10 .45, and
you're just all over the place,and you just switch gears from
(14:06):
satisfying conditions,prospecting, social media,
discovery call, and you're weavingdiscovery calls all within there?
Do you think you're going to be atyour best?
Do you think it's going to keepyou distracted from the other
things in your business you needto do to make money?
Hell to the yeah.
So you book out the times.
Some people don't even havecertain calls on certain days.
I know some brokers work Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday.
They're like, I'm not doing adiscovery call on Friday.
I'm not doing one on Monday.
I'm going to work on the other
(14:27):
areas of my business.
It fits here.
Make it work type thing.
And so it's a scarcity mentality.
You feel like you're going to missout on stuff, but I promise you,
you don't.
You set the rules, right?
You run the daycare.
Don't let the inmates run the
asylum, right?That's what happens when you just
go, my calendar is open.
Come whenever.
And I'm even available right now.
(14:49):
I'm even available right now.
Because I promise if you trackedall this.
I didn't track it.
I did a mental track, but over my
career, the people who wanted meaccess to me right then and there,
it never worked out.
And when it did, it was horrible
and it wasn't worth the money.
And you're like, fuck that.
I don't want to do that anymore.
I want this to be a business where
it's like, you know, there'salways one off.
(15:10):
So I get it.
So you time block your calendar,
you make it so they can't bookthat day.
And then last but not least.
Why do your discovery calls are
too long?And you're on there.
So what do you want to do?You want to do refinance?
Are you employed?All the stuff you could already
have info for by just addingquestions into the calendar
software.
So when they go to book a call and
they put name, phone number,email, or whatever they're putting
(15:34):
in there, you have questions belowof the things you're going to ask
them anyways.
Put it there.
Just don't click the requiredbutton.
Make it so there's no asterisk.
Make it so they just put it.
And guess what?They will.
Majority of people will fill out abunch of it.
So what did you just do?You shaved off four, five, 10, 12
minutes off the discovery callbecause you have the info.
Promise you way better.
(15:54):
Just do that.
It's already in the softwareyou're using.
And then you're going to want touse the software to follow up.
There's four things we're talkingabout scheduling discovery call.
So now you click it on and it'sgot these follow -ups built in.
And if you have SMS, sure.
If you have email, whatever, I'm
just going to follow up for you.
So. Just turn it on and set it to,
I don't know, 24 hours, 48 hours,72 hours before.
And it starts hitting them.
(16:16):
We all have this people following
up with us.
Does it annoy you?
Well, they're taking your time forlike a half.
They want a half a milliondollars.
Like, it's not like we're talkingabout, like, give me a quote to
clean my barbecue.
Like, and you're taking it.
It's it's this is like real dealstuff here.
So if you can't do that and youwant to hit people, like, then
(16:37):
you're not valuing your timeenough.
Right.
We're running a business.
This is a business.
This isn't a hobby.
A lot of you are running, this ishobby to you.
And you're just trying to dip inyour, I'm running a fucking
business, right?The essence of business is to make
profit.
That's what we're doing, right?
With the least amount of timespent.
And so do this, turn that on.
That's it.
Okay, that's how you set that up.
Now we go discovery calls.
(16:58):
So you jump on the discovery call.
And some of you do a Zoom.
Some of you do a phone.
Fill your boots.
They're both awesome.
I can pros and cons to both.
Love it.
We're not going to break that
down.
But discovery call, there are
certain things you want to hit ondiscovery calls.
I'm just going to share a coupleof things here out of the gate.
Number one, I've talked about thisbefore, but there's some
(17:18):
additional.
I'm going to ask who referred you
and what they say.
I already know.
Or I'll be like, if I knew it wasTom referred me, I'd be like, hey,
it's like Tom referred you to me.
Mentioned my name.
What did he say?Why do you say we need to talk?
And I want them to say like, oh,Tom said you're good at this and
that.
I want them to like.
Say it out loud.
It just sets the tone for the
(17:40):
call.
There's some psychology there.
I want to take control of thecall.
And I know this is a bigdifference.
We found this in the training.
Some people want to build a
rapport and build an awesome.
I'm going to build that within my
questioning and small talk.
And I find that more women want to
build more of a rapport and a warmand fuzzy and hug, hug it out.
and build that relationship.
(18:00):
And more guys want to go a little
more like, Hey, let's just get tous, stick the numbers.
I'm going to keep us on pace.
We're going to go.
And there's no wrong answer there.
That's awesome.
That's just, we're wireddifferent.
Right.
And some of you will cross over
and do the other one.
And that's cool.
But I always like to take controlof it and just set the
expectation.
It should take 20 minutes.
I'm going to ask you a bunch ofquestions.
I'm looking for red flags.
(18:21):
I want to really see if we can, if
it makes sense for us to partner.
Does that sound good?
Yeah.
And at the end of it.
If it makes sense, I'll walkthrough the next steps.
I'll answer some questions foryou.
Let's get into it.
Start asking questions.
Scale 1 to 10.
How good is your credit?
What are you trying to do?Blah, blah, blah.
Going to get into all that.
There's some questions that are
non -negotiable, though.
I want to ask, do you know how I
get paid?I'll explain.
(18:42):
I don't want bad information outthere around how I get paid as a
broker.
I don't want the banks telling
them lies.
I don't want past brokers screwing
up for me.
I don't want the peanut gallery
they're talking to getting intheir ear.
I want to just tell them, I earnon average 1 % of the mortgage
amount.
If your mortgage is half a million
dollars, that's $5 ,000 I earned.
I work really hard for it.
(19:03):
But it's not included in theinterest rate.
It's not baked in somewhere.
There's no hidden fees.
I represent only you.
So it's like that stuff.
I'm going to have that spiel down.
But I want to know that.
I'm going to ask him for acommitment at some point.
I'm not going to get you to signanything.
I'm not going to charge youanything.
I want to show you how I operateafter I pre -approve you and show
you your proposal.
Then I will ask you for a
commitment.
Does that sound fair?
I'm going to keep going.
(19:23):
If we partner, if we decide to
partner together, this is whatI'll do.
If we decide to partner together,I'd love to show you this.
If we decide to partner together,based on what we talked about, I
received some opportunities tosave you some money.
That could be from, hey, anincrease on your tax refund to,
hey, a prepayment strategy that'ssort of sitting in front of us
right now, but could shave four orfive years off your mortgage
without changing your quality oflife.
I'd love to present that to you.
How does that sound?
(19:44):
I'm always going to be mentioningif we decide to partner together.
It makes it so it's nottransactional and like it's a
partnership is what we're doing.
So I'm going to do that.
And then at the end, the call, ifI decide at some point, it just
makes sense for us to worktogether.
The next step, I'm always going togo.
I just want to let them know thenext step.
I'm going to do X, whatever thatis, but I'm going to need these
(20:05):
documents.
And I'll go through the documents.
And this was a big aha.
It was, I'm going to list out the
documents verbally.
If this takes an extra five
minutes, so be it, because I'vealready determined they're worth
my time.
So I will spend more time because
this will save me a lot on theback end with the back and forth.
If I just go, great, I'm going tosend you apps and docs I need, an
app and docs I need.
And then they get hit and there's
12 things on there.
And they're like, what the hell,
Ryan?I'm going to preface it.
(20:26):
I'm going to go, I'm going to needthis.
T1 General's statement of businessactivities, NOA.
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
Private tax statement, mortgagestatement.
I'm going to go through it all.
Does that all make sense?
Do you know where all that is?Yes.
They ask questions.
Okay.
That's cool.
Now they're not like caught off
guard.
And then at the end, before I
leave, I'm going to go, are youcrystal clear on the next step?
I want to know this.
(20:46):
I don't want it to be like this
gray area of like expectations andwhat I'm supposed to be doing.
Are they waiting for something?Are you crystal clear?
Yeah, cool.
You're going to get the email from
me.
It has the link to this.
And then by time I get everythingback, I'm going to give you.
Your pre -approval proposal customwithin 24 hours.
How does that sound?Wow.
That quick.
That sounds awesome.
That's my service.
Okay.
That's what I'm going to deliver.
That's the white glove concierge
style.
So my pre -approvals go to the top
(21:08):
of the list over live files.
Because a lot of files, I can like
play with the condition offinancing.
I can play with the documents.
I can play obviously the time on
that.
I'm telling them I'm still in the
audition stage, right?Just because they're say they're
going to work for me doesn't meanthey're going to.
And so I'm always auditioning.
I'm always earning the business.
I'm never taking for granted.
They're my client.
I'm always earning it.
I'm going to hold myself
accountable.
One hour turnaround on leads, 24
(21:28):
hour turnaround pre -approvals.
Non -negotiable in my head.
If I can't make it.
Because we get into it and
something's wrong.
I'm going to let them know.
I'm going to apologize.
I'm going to give them a reason
why.
And I'm going to tell them 48
hours now.
Okay.
That's that.
So we got to, that's discovery
call.
Now, after discovery call, we go
to apps and docs.
After apps and that's you
requesting apps and docs.
Everyone has a different system
for this different submissionplatform, different email scripts,
(21:48):
different, whatever.
I'm not going to get into that
because it's very specific on howyou're running your business
there, but essentially you'reasking for apps and docs.
The only thing I will say is wesit on our hands, right?
We sit on our hands until we don'tunderwrite the file until we get
all that stuff.
It should go without saying.
especially as new agent or peoplewithout stuff on your plate,
you're going to have to resist theurge to creep and get in there and
(22:11):
look at the stuff and startplugging it into the thing.
Cause they could just ghost youand you wasted 25 minutes, right?
Not going to do that.
I'm not going to go in until we
have everything.
Okay.
You have everything.
Now you're going to go in and
underwrite.
So underwrites file, pretty
standard stuff.
You're going in underwriting based
on the situation.
that they came to you with and
your lender or the notes you tookfrom the discovery call.
We just had a rule of thumb,especially on the A side was we
(22:35):
underwrite everything as if it'sgoing to Scotiabank because I can
go up to 50 TDS.
There is no GDS.
I don't need exceptions on 50 TDS.
It's just the standard now.
That's what I need.
As long as the credit's good, I
can go there.
They have the best non -subject
rental offset.
on the a side subject property
rental sure not as great now buti'm going to underwrite the files
because the guidelines are easy idon't need a spreadsheet and i can
(22:59):
it doesn't mean the deal is goingto go there i just want to give
them a rock solid a pre -approvalbut here's the thing when i pre
-approved them i'm not pre-approving them up to the 50.
i'm pre -approving them based on a44 44 if it's uninsured 44 39
insured insurable and if i know ican push it above that for the
uninsured stuff i'll go hey you'repre -approved at 500 000 for the
(23:20):
standard guidelines but i believewe can get you to 550 or 600 over
here we'll ask for an exceptionafter i see all the docs and
everything this is what we'regonna or sorry once you execute on
something we have a property youput your hand up this is what
we're going to look at doing overhere if that's something you're
interested in so i'm going to givethat back to them I'm going to
show them two.
I'm going to show them the
(23:41):
standard.
I'm going to show them what I
think we might be able to do.
And what that's going to do is
it's going to stand out.
So if they go talk to RBC, RBC is
going to give them the $500 ,000pre -approval.
I've given them the five, but I'vealso given them 575 because I can
push my ratios.
I know if we decide to go there.
So I'm dangling a carrot.
(24:01):
Okay.
So I go build, pull that up.
Different scenarios.
losing my train of thought here.
I got a mute.
We're going to, or not mute.
Mocha.
Mocha.
It's Mocha time.
Sorry.
There's this old couple in front
of me blowing up a paddleboard.
And I'm like, it's in November.
And I'm like, where are you going?Like, are they serious?
That's kind of caught me offtrack.
I'm like, that's the thing we dowith the podcast, the beach.
You get all these sites in thisold couple.
(24:22):
I have mad respect for them.
But like, man, oh man, like good
for you.
So we've underwritten the file.
We've built out the customproposal.
Um, we've showed them differentoptions based on, I'm always
showing, I'm not just being anorder taker.
I'm going to show them otherthings they might not have thought
of depending on the original call.
(24:42):
Right.
And all the questions I ask onthat discovery call, I'm looking
for opportunities to weave invalue.
I'm looking for opportunitieswhere they have $30 ,000 sitting
in a rainy day fund.
at a fricking high interest
savings account.
I know that's a debt swap move
where I can bring it in.
I don't need an accountant to tell
me how to do this.
I don't need an accountant to sign
off on this.
It's basic shit.
I'm going to weave that into myproposal and go, oh, I have a way
where we can do, I'm not going toshow them, but I'm going to, I
(25:04):
have a way where we can do X, Y,Z. If we decide to partner.
You give me your, like, and wemake a commitment to each other.
I'll help you execute that plan.
I'm going to weave that into my
proposal.
I'm going to look at any
opportunity, if it's paying outdebt, paying out a car, even if
it's a low interest rate, but wantto improve cashflow.
But depending on the situation,I'm building my proposal as such.
(25:25):
I'm not just coming back to, canyou pre -approve me?
Here's my thing, blah, blah.
I'm going to show you something.
I'm going to show you somethingyou haven't seen.
I might show you a 5, 10, 15, 20 %down payment.
I might show you that.
I might show you how you're at
10%.
I'm going to show you how to get
to 20 % and avoid the insurancepremium and extend the
amortization up a bit.
I'm going to show you something.
I'm not going to be an ordertaker.
(25:47):
And that proposal is going to comein because that's how I'm
different.
That's how I'm different than
everybody else.
So I'm different than the bank.
Okay, so now I've got thisproposal.
Then I present it back to them.
We talked about this already.
You can present it back and recorda video.
You can present it back in anemail, which please don't do that.
That's just...
No one wants to read eight
paragraphs of an email, nor do youwant to write one out.
(26:08):
The budget proposals are the best,in my opinion.
And then the other one is, hey,this is your pre -approved.
Let's book a strategy call now.
Okay.
I'm not going to argue that onthat.
I think it's a little clunky.
You do get more face time, but I
just think it's an unnecessarystep.
But it's only because I ran in myway to record a video for 10 plus
years.
And I saw how much success we had
and how much I could protect mytime.
Okay.
Now they get the proposal.
We're still in the period.
(26:28):
Now they go out shopping.
And so we're going to empower themto send us MLS listings for any
property.
We're going to empower them.
And then we're going to reevaluatethe numbers, readjust the numbers
for that specific property.
Give it back.
Go, here's a layout.
You're fully pre -approved.
Just want to show you the realnumbers for the properties you're
going to go look at.
Test a lot.
Okay.
So that's ongoing stuff.
Plus we have the ongoing dripcampaign.
As soon as they come into our CRM,we're throwing them into their
(26:50):
master drip campaigns.
They're getting nurtured that way.
Plus we have Monday follow -ups.
um we used to do every monday we
followed with everyone in ourworld plus you have the boomerang
follow up with pre -approvals oryou can boomerang it back to the
top of your inbox i know otherpeople that build up a drip
campaign a pre -approval dripcampaign and they throw people
into that to me we already haveour master drip and they get 70 80
(27:11):
emails so i don't want to layermore emails like that i let that
big master drip cover us in a lotof different ways it covers us so
we don't have to do post fundingemail drips, pre -approval drips.
It's a one drip that coverseverything and keeps us top of
mind.
And then my weekly follow -ups and
my boomerang follow -upssupplement everything else.
Now the clients are pre -approved.
They're out shopping.
I asked for the commitment.
I've seen a lot.
I'd love to get your commitment.
(27:31):
That's my pre -approval process.
So those are best practices onthat.
This is 29 minutes.
Man, that's long, but that's okay.
I talk fast.
There's a ton of value in there.
Top brokers are doing all of this.
So it's like the question is,
what's your takeaway?What's your one or two things you
can put in here?And obviously you need a master
template with all your scripts onit.
The last thing I'll say, we hadour journey mapped out like on a
board and each spot in the journeyhad a number associated to it
(27:52):
potentially.
So we had our master email script
over here.
We had all the email scripts we
use in our business and we justlabeled them one to whatever.
So let's just say one to 15.
All the emails we're going to send
at any point during our clientjourney.
Then in our, when we map out ourjourney, like at the beginning,
lead intro, well, we have emailone.
So we know that anyone on theteam, me included, can go in and
see the master drip or sorry, nota drip, the master script template
(28:16):
and it's email one.
And then throughout the journey,
there'll be a two.
Well, we know that means we go to
the template and it's email numbertwo.
So at every part in the journey,we knew what email to send.
And then some people build thatout in a client journey and put in
the CRM and they automate a lot ofit.
There you go.
That's it.
I have some thoughts on that, butI'm not going to get into it.
This is a little too long.
30 minutes.
That's it, kids.
(28:37):
I hope, I hope, I hope you got
some from that.
30 minutes of your life could save
you 10 to 15 minutes or increaseyour pre -approval to app ratio
and time will stop.
Okay.
That's it, kids.
Appreciate the support.
support.
Peace out.
Welcome to the mortgage game.
I truly, truly believe that
building a mortgage business, asuccessful one is like playing a
game.
There's winners, there's losers.
There's certain things you try.
Some of us are playing checkers
while others are playing chess.
I've had the ability to coach and
mentor hundreds of mortgagebrokers.
I myself built a very nicebusiness.
(00:26):
So now I want to distill all thatinformation, all the things I've
learned from that and bring itdirectly to you in a simple to
understand way.
I hope you enjoy.
All right.
Welcome to Mortgage Game Podcast.
Whiteboard Wiley here coming fromthe Dodge Ram Studio at the beach.
Let's get into it.
So this is a little different one.
(00:48):
This isn't like motivational andgets you jacked up.
Maybe it is.
I don't know.
I just got out of some pre-approval training and I know
you're like, ah, pre -approvals.
Brian, I need files to work on.
I don't need to learn how, no, no,no, no. Hear me out.
This 20 minute, I mean, this willbe 20 minute podcast, give or
take.
If I can save you 15 minutes on
every single pre -approval you domoving forward over the next five
(01:08):
years, that's like weeks ofvacation.
I just came up with best practicesusing in the pre -approval
journey.
I'm going to go through, I'm going
to give you an overview.
you know, with what that looks
like.
And then I'm going to go into each
section.
I'm going to share best practices.
And this is me.
I did this with a bunch of
brokers.
Some of them seasoned, some of
them not so much.
There were big takeaways from
(01:28):
everybody on that training.
So I wanted to bring that in here
live to you.
Okay.
That's what we're going to do.
And in my opinion, the pre
-approval process is the mostinefficient process in a mortgage
broker's client journey.
I see top mortgage brokers
spending three, four hours on pre-approvals.
It's just...
Insane.
Absolutely insane.
And when I get in there and I
(01:49):
break it down, I'm like, oh myGod, like it should be an hour and
a half, two hours tops.
And it's like, and then you start
seeing layers to the onion.
You're like, well, no shit,
because you're working witheverybody.
You're doing B and private, A andmulti.
And you're trying to like solveevery problem, like pull a rabbit
of a hat and be a magician toeverybody.
And like, then you have, and howmany times do you have clients?
I know I'm talking to a bunch ofhere where they're like, you're
(02:10):
like, yeah, I'll find a thing foryou.
They're like, okay, cool.
And you don't even know if they're
going to work with you yet.
But you don't have a lot else
going on.
So you start working on that deal.
And then all of a sudden you'resending out emails to BDMs, you're
phone calling, you're puttingposts in Facebook groups.
You're just spending so much timeand energy.
And then you run into brick wallsand then you get exhausted.
And then you sort of push it tothe side because something else
that sounds easier comes up.
(02:31):
So you work on that.
And then the client reaches out toyou three days later and they're
like, hey.
that pre -approval, like, how are
we doing?And you're like, oh shit.
And you're like, deep down, you'relike, oh yeah, I don't really want
to do this anymore.
I don't have the answers.
It's not easy anymore.
It's hard and blah, blah, blah.
And then you have to brush themoff or you have to go, I'm working
on it.
I'm coming back.
I got some feelers out there.
That whole game, right?
That's what happens.
(02:52):
We saw that in the training.
That sort of came out to somepeople.
That's not what we're talkingabout today.
Okay.
That was just like a sidebar.
So I'm just going to go throughthe pre -approval process.
I think there is, we have clientjourneys as, mortgage brokers and
i don't think we have one bigclient journey i think we have two
i think we have a pre -approvaljourney and an approval journey
because clients come into yourworld you might pre -approve them
send them off they might not buyfor eight months so you're just
(03:16):
saying the journey picks back uplike it never stopped i think we
all need two and can it be mappedout on the same one sure so i
think you have to look at itdifferently pre -approval approval
okay and there's a one call methodthere's a two call method and i'm
going to walk through that andthen there is a taken application
over the phone method and thenthere's a no doc no talk method
(03:36):
which is so old school brokering idon't know who does that anymore
and there's like a lot of thingswe're going to break down here
okay um and we'll give you sometidbits we'll give some software
to use we'll give you some bestpractices from top brokers and so
the cool thing is with this I getto take everything I did as a
broker and I get to takeeverything I've done from coaching
hundreds and hundreds.
And we're probably close to like
five, six, 700 agents, maybe morethat we've coached that I can take
(03:59):
all their models.
And I get to go and I get to be
like a rain man.
And I have to come out here and go
74, 83.
And let's do this.
It's so cool.
I get all these perspectives and
then I like to bring it here andjust share it with you.
Okay.
So standard pre -approval process.
You've got the lead intake.
I'm going to go just do a quick
overview and then we'll dig intoeach one with a couple of best
(04:19):
practices.
You got lead intake.
And then we go to typicallydiscovery call.
Now, some, there's an old schoolway of brokering used to be no
doc, no talk.
I will not jump on our discovery
call.
And yes, I'm doing a fake yell
until I have all the docs.
And I just think it's such an old
method.
It's such a broken philosophy.
It's such like, think about it.
Someone gets introduced to you.
Hey, My neighbor said to talk.
Okay, cool.
(04:40):
Send me an app in Docs.
It's like, excuse me?
You want my SIN number?And I don't even know who the fuck
you are?Okay.
Let's just assume some people dothat.
Now, let's just say they're like,yeah, my neighbor says I should
talk to you.
So what do I do next?
Well, me, I say book a call.
Some other brokers say, no doc, no
doc.
Here's an app in Docs.
(05:00):
And then we'll get this thing on.
And now you send all the docs in
the app in.
And then I look at it and my team
processes and we go back andforth.
And then all of a sudden we have ajump in the call.
And then on the call, I tell you,Hey, yeah, you make 60 grand a
year and you have 8 ,000 bucks.
Can't do anything.
So thanks for sending all thatstuff in though.
(05:20):
Cause I have a no doc, no talkpolicy.
Like it says bullshit.
It's just such a, it's just, you
create so much work and energy upfront.
I'd rather have a 15 minute.
You triage the call and go and
you.
crush your discovery call and
decide, okay, am I going to letthem in the club?
Remember you're the bouncer.
Do I let them in the club to hang
out to party in the club?Or do I kick them out?
Like you're not here.
You're not ready for the club.
(05:41):
You're not even old enough.
Right.
So let's go back.
We've got lead.
Then we go discovery call afterdiscovery call.
If you decide to partner, thenwe're going to go to apps and
docs.
And then after apps and docs, we
go to underwrite the file.
After underwrite the file, we go
to, um, present.
the pre -approval in whatever
form.
And then after that, we go to
follow up, right?And when you're presenting the pre
-approval, this is where the onecall versus two call strategy, and
(06:05):
this is like talking politics inour broker world.
I see agents doing both.
I done both.
There's one I like drasticallymore than the other, but I get the
pre -approval done.
And then we present the video, we
record the budget, the numbers.
If you're not giving, this is a
broken record here, but if you'renot giving numbers, broken down
(06:25):
with closing costs and appraisaland transfer tax and, and pay out
of debt.
And if you're not doing that, I
don't know what you're doing forpre -approvals.
You're letting your clients down.
You're letting your business down.
It is a massive value.
I'm just going to assume
everybody's doing it because I'vebeen talking about for so long and
you need to be doing that.
So you can present it with a
video.
(06:45):
You can jam it all into a long
email where people are just goingto read paragraph on top
paragraph, or you can put it intoa three, four, five minute video,
walking them through the budget.
that is recorded, or you can jump
on a strategy call.
And so I've done all three of
those.
I'm going to let you do what you
do.
The recorded video, I like it
because I'm not going back andforth with scheduling the strategy
(07:07):
call.
I'm making sure the decision
makers are good to see it.
It's recorded.
It covers my ass on a lot ofthings.
It also lets them rewatch it.
It answers all their questions.
If they have others, they can comeback.
Usually answers 90, 95 % of thequestions.
The strategy call is very clunky.
I think the strategical is more if
you want to hear the sound of yourown voice and you want to, it
could be sticky.
Sure.
Not my jam though.
(07:28):
Now, depending on how many files
you're doing, it kind of makes ita little, but I'm not going to
debate that.
That's not what we're talking
about.
Okay.
That's the overview.
So let's go into each category.
Okay.
And I'll give you some value adds
in there, some best practices.
And these just, these aren't all
mine.
These are ones I've picked up from
other people that's working.
Before I do that though, this
podcast is brought to you byMocha.
(07:48):
Yeah.
Mocha.
It's like.
Two o 'clock in the afternoon.
Oh, nothing like a lukewarm mocha.
Man, why don't they make that
hotter?It's not even Starbucks.
It's some other shop.
Okay, let's go.
Lead.
Lead comes in.
Some best practices around that.
Okay, we had a one -hour
turnaround time.
We respond within one hour.
Okay, we had a wow email.
The wow email going back has... a
recorded video in there it has alink to the calendar it has all
your google reviews in your inyour email signature so you're
(08:11):
wowing them you give them socialproof you can quick turnaround you
have the recorded video we used todo custom videos hey tom nice to
meet you man i can't wait to workwith you the next call it's just
to book a call below my calendarbut uh i stopped doing it because
i was the bald neck then we wentto recorded eight different videos
(08:33):
for refinance investment property,property ladder, sell, first time,
like all this thing, and it's justtoo much.
So we went to new client, pastclient, right?
So with two recorded videos, youjust drop it in with a template,
boom, boom, boom, and you go here.
So that's the next step.
The only thing I'm doing in thatvideo is telling them, book a
call.
I'm not going, hey, and then we'll
get documents and application andthen instructions will be sent
later.
No, no, no, no. I'm just going,
(08:54):
hey, this is who I am.
Can't wait to talk to you.
Book a call on my calendar.
Let's get, let's get going.
You'll direct access to mycalendar.
I can't wait to talk to you.
This is a super efficient way of
setting this up.
Let's just go.
Okay.
So there's that, that lead comes
in.
Um, now what happens if you send
that and you don't get a responseback, right?
What's your followup?So some of us will tag it in a CRM
(09:16):
and the CRM will automaticallyfollow up, which I don't
necessarily like that setup, butokay.
sure because then you have to shutit off okay some of you are dialed
in and that's awesome some of youyou create it you add like a lead
tag to it new lead throws in yourcrm and then it creates a task for
you and this is what drives mebonkers about crms is i'm just
like building this never -endingto -do list of over and over and i
(09:38):
guess it doesn't fall through thecracks but it's like i hate the
idea of waking up every day andlooking at this never -ending task
list that just creates all thesetasks and some of you geek out on
it and you love xing out the taskor putting a checkbox done done
done for me it gives me massivestress i'm like this is not my
life i am not i if i'm here justwaking up looking at a fucking
(09:59):
task list all day of all thesemundane things i can't do it
that's why i would rather haveautomation in And I just, it's a
mental thing.
I don't like someone giving me a
list.
It just never ends.
Rant over.
It works for many of you.
And I respect that.
We're just wired differently.
So what do we do?Well, we use Boomerang.
(10:19):
Boomerang is a, you can use it inOutlook.
You can use it in Gmail.
Super awesome, easy concept
software.
You load in the widget.
Super easy.
Boomerang.
Go check it out.
So we send out the lead.
Hey.
Great.
Here you go.
Here's our wow email.
And then we boomerang it torespond.
If they don't respond to thisemail, I'm going to boomerang back
in 24 or 40 hours.
(10:40):
I get to say, and what does that
mean?It means when I wake up the next
day or 24 hours later, it's goingto pop back up to my inbox.
It's just going to go, Hey, thisperson never responded.
What do you want to do?That way your assistant could be
notified and you could just boom,fire back.
Okay, cool.
Hey, I'm just following up on
(11:00):
this, pushing it to the top ofyour inbox.
You still want to book a call.
You should use Boomerang in a lot
of different ways because there'sa lot of stuff that you can't go.
You send emails out askingquestions to people that you can't
put in the CRM or you have to gocreate a fucking task.
So what if you use Boomerang whenyou reach out to the lawyer and
(11:21):
you go, hey, confirming you gotinstructions, right?
Boomerang it to 24 hours.
If it doesn't, if it shows back
up, go follow up.
But what am I going to do?
I'm going to send that and I'mgoing to go into my CRM and create
a task to follow.
Like it's like so backwards to me
to do that.
Use boomerang.
It'll just keep all the times youreach out to people asking
questions where it's not in theclient journey specifically.
Put a boomerang on it.
Fire it back in a week, three
days, two days, one day.
(11:42):
I don't know.
If you send a boomerang to arealtor to meet for lunch, to
break bread, put a boomerang ofthree days.
And then it's going to come backto the top.
And then you're going to reachout.
Hey, I just wanted to reach out.
Send you a text.
Send you a text, right?This is a software that very
underutilized.
The people I know who are using it
(12:03):
absolutely love it.
So that's part of the lead side.
That's some best practice.
This podcast is brought to you by
Mocha.
I'm sorry, I got to drink this
thing because it's so lukewarmright now.
It's like, if this goes cold, Ican't do it.
And I paid $7 for this because Itipped.
They guilted me into the tip.
They didn't say anything.
but they like looked at you.
It wasn't Starbucks.
It was like one of those boutiqueshops.
(12:24):
It was six bucks for this tinything.
And then they like look at you andthey pass the thing over and they
just like stare at you with liketheir granola sweater on.
And I'm like, fuck, I'll give youa dollar.
I got, I got looped into that.
So anyways, let's carry on.
Okay.
So lead practice, follow up,
right?It's pretty simple.
You get back within an hour, yougive them a wow email, ability to
(12:44):
book and follow up.
That's it.
Next discovery call, but I'm goingto say booking the discovery call.
Okay.
So now the client clicks the link
and it goes to my calendar bookingsoftware.
Okay.
Here's some best practices for
that.
And like, this was an aha moment
for a lot of top brokers in thetraining.
It was like, number one, bunch ofbrokers, me included when I
brokered was you could not getaccess to me that day.
(13:05):
There's nothing you need from metoday.
I don't care if my calendar iswide open.
It's a filter.
I'm going to allow you to book
tomorrow and I will have the timeslots because I don't want your
stress on me.
I don't want your pressure on me.
I don't want you skipping the linefrom other clients just because
you need me today.
That's not the energy I wanted in
my book.
(13:25):
So I make it the other day.
So I set that up in the calendar.
Next, I time block out each day.
two to three hours where I willtake discovery calls.
And so it might be 10 to one oneday.
It might be nine to 12 one day.
It might be two to five another
day.
It doesn't matter.
But what you do is your timeblocking.
(13:46):
So when they go to click, they'regoing to have 15, 20, 30 minute
increments within a compact two,three hours.
And it's not even about them.
this is about you this is about
you protecting your time so youcan stay disciplined and focused
on other areas of your business ifyou are constantly going from oh
an 8 30 call just booked in a 1 30call of 4 30 5 15. 10 .45, and
you're just all over the place,and you just switch gears from
(14:06):
satisfying conditions,prospecting, social media,
discovery call, and you're weavingdiscovery calls all within there?
Do you think you're going to be atyour best?
Do you think it's going to keepyou distracted from the other
things in your business you needto do to make money?
Hell to the yeah.
So you book out the times.
Some people don't even havecertain calls on certain days.
I know some brokers work Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday.
They're like, I'm not doing adiscovery call on Friday.
I'm not doing one on Monday.
I'm going to work on the other
(14:27):
areas of my business.
It fits here.
Make it work type thing.
And so it's a scarcity mentality.
You feel like you're going to missout on stuff, but I promise you,
you don't.
You set the rules, right?
You run the daycare.
Don't let the inmates run the
asylum, right?That's what happens when you just
go, my calendar is open.
Come whenever.
And I'm even available right now.
(14:49):
I'm even available right now.
Because I promise if you trackedall this.
I didn't track it.
I did a mental track, but over my
career, the people who wanted meaccess to me right then and there,
it never worked out.
And when it did, it was horrible
and it wasn't worth the money.
And you're like, fuck that.
I don't want to do that anymore.
I want this to be a business where
it's like, you know, there'salways one off.
(15:10):
So I get it.
So you time block your calendar,
you make it so they can't bookthat day.
And then last but not least.
Why do your discovery calls are
too long?And you're on there.
So what do you want to do?You want to do refinance?
Are you employed?All the stuff you could already
have info for by just addingquestions into the calendar
software.
So when they go to book a call and
they put name, phone number,email, or whatever they're putting
(15:34):
in there, you have questions belowof the things you're going to ask
them anyways.
Put it there.
Just don't click the requiredbutton.
Make it so there's no asterisk.
Make it so they just put it.
And guess what?They will.
Majority of people will fill out abunch of it.
So what did you just do?You shaved off four, five, 10, 12
minutes off the discovery callbecause you have the info.
Promise you way better.
(15:54):
Just do that.
It's already in the softwareyou're using.
And then you're going to want touse the software to follow up.
There's four things we're talkingabout scheduling discovery call.
So now you click it on and it'sgot these follow -ups built in.
And if you have SMS, sure.
If you have email, whatever, I'm
just going to follow up for you.
So. Just turn it on and set it to,
I don't know, 24 hours, 48 hours,72 hours before.
And it starts hitting them.
(16:16):
We all have this people following
up with us.
Does it annoy you?
Well, they're taking your time forlike a half.
They want a half a milliondollars.
Like, it's not like we're talkingabout, like, give me a quote to
clean my barbecue.
Like, and you're taking it.
It's it's this is like real dealstuff here.
So if you can't do that and youwant to hit people, like, then
(16:37):
you're not valuing your timeenough.
Right.
We're running a business.
This is a business.
This isn't a hobby.
A lot of you are running, this ishobby to you.
And you're just trying to dip inyour, I'm running a fucking
business, right?The essence of business is to make
profit.
That's what we're doing, right?
With the least amount of timespent.
And so do this, turn that on.
That's it.
Okay, that's how you set that up.
Now we go discovery calls.
(16:58):
So you jump on the discovery call.
And some of you do a Zoom.
Some of you do a phone.
Fill your boots.
They're both awesome.
I can pros and cons to both.
Love it.
We're not going to break that
down.
But discovery call, there are
certain things you want to hit ondiscovery calls.
I'm just going to share a coupleof things here out of the gate.
Number one, I've talked about thisbefore, but there's some
(17:18):
additional.
I'm going to ask who referred you
and what they say.
I already know.
Or I'll be like, if I knew it wasTom referred me, I'd be like, hey,
it's like Tom referred you to me.
Mentioned my name.
What did he say?Why do you say we need to talk?
And I want them to say like, oh,Tom said you're good at this and
that.
I want them to like.
Say it out loud.
It just sets the tone for the
(17:40):
call.
There's some psychology there.
I want to take control of thecall.
And I know this is a bigdifference.
We found this in the training.
Some people want to build a
rapport and build an awesome.
I'm going to build that within my
questioning and small talk.
And I find that more women want to
build more of a rapport and a warmand fuzzy and hug, hug it out.
and build that relationship.
(18:00):
And more guys want to go a little
more like, Hey, let's just get tous, stick the numbers.
I'm going to keep us on pace.
We're going to go.
And there's no wrong answer there.
That's awesome.
That's just, we're wireddifferent.
Right.
And some of you will cross over
and do the other one.
And that's cool.
But I always like to take controlof it and just set the
expectation.
It should take 20 minutes.
I'm going to ask you a bunch ofquestions.
I'm looking for red flags.
(18:21):
I want to really see if we can, if
it makes sense for us to partner.
Does that sound good?
Yeah.
And at the end of it.
If it makes sense, I'll walkthrough the next steps.
I'll answer some questions foryou.
Let's get into it.
Start asking questions.
Scale 1 to 10.
How good is your credit?
What are you trying to do?Blah, blah, blah.
Going to get into all that.
There's some questions that are
non -negotiable, though.
I want to ask, do you know how I
get paid?I'll explain.
(18:42):
I don't want bad information outthere around how I get paid as a
broker.
I don't want the banks telling
them lies.
I don't want past brokers screwing
up for me.
I don't want the peanut gallery
they're talking to getting intheir ear.
I want to just tell them, I earnon average 1 % of the mortgage
amount.
If your mortgage is half a million
dollars, that's $5 ,000 I earned.
I work really hard for it.
(19:03):
But it's not included in theinterest rate.
It's not baked in somewhere.
There's no hidden fees.
I represent only you.
So it's like that stuff.
I'm going to have that spiel down.
But I want to know that.
I'm going to ask him for acommitment at some point.
I'm not going to get you to signanything.
I'm not going to charge youanything.
I want to show you how I operateafter I pre -approve you and show
you your proposal.
Then I will ask you for a
commitment.
Does that sound fair?
I'm going to keep going.
(19:23):
If we partner, if we decide to
partner together, this is whatI'll do.
If we decide to partner together,I'd love to show you this.
If we decide to partner together,based on what we talked about, I
received some opportunities tosave you some money.
That could be from, hey, anincrease on your tax refund to,
hey, a prepayment strategy that'ssort of sitting in front of us
right now, but could shave four orfive years off your mortgage
without changing your quality oflife.
I'd love to present that to you.
How does that sound?
(19:44):
I'm always going to be mentioningif we decide to partner together.
It makes it so it's nottransactional and like it's a
partnership is what we're doing.
So I'm going to do that.
And then at the end, the call, ifI decide at some point, it just
makes sense for us to worktogether.
The next step, I'm always going togo.
I just want to let them know thenext step.
I'm going to do X, whatever thatis, but I'm going to need these
(20:05):
documents.
And I'll go through the documents.
And this was a big aha.
It was, I'm going to list out the
documents verbally.
If this takes an extra five
minutes, so be it, because I'vealready determined they're worth
my time.
So I will spend more time because
this will save me a lot on theback end with the back and forth.
If I just go, great, I'm going tosend you apps and docs I need, an
app and docs I need.
And then they get hit and there's
12 things on there.
And they're like, what the hell,
Ryan?I'm going to preface it.
(20:26):
I'm going to go, I'm going to needthis.
T1 General's statement of businessactivities, NOA.
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
Private tax statement, mortgagestatement.
I'm going to go through it all.
Does that all make sense?
Do you know where all that is?Yes.
They ask questions.
Okay.
That's cool.
Now they're not like caught off
guard.
And then at the end, before I
leave, I'm going to go, are youcrystal clear on the next step?
I want to know this.
(20:46):
I don't want it to be like this
gray area of like expectations andwhat I'm supposed to be doing.
Are they waiting for something?Are you crystal clear?
Yeah, cool.
You're going to get the email from
me.
It has the link to this.
And then by time I get everythingback, I'm going to give you.
Your pre -approval proposal customwithin 24 hours.
How does that sound?Wow.
That quick.
That sounds awesome.
That's my service.
Okay.
That's what I'm going to deliver.
That's the white glove concierge
style.
So my pre -approvals go to the top
(21:08):
of the list over live files.
Because a lot of files, I can like
play with the condition offinancing.
I can play with the documents.
I can play obviously the time on
that.
I'm telling them I'm still in the
audition stage, right?Just because they're say they're
going to work for me doesn't meanthey're going to.
And so I'm always auditioning.
I'm always earning the business.
I'm never taking for granted.
They're my client.
I'm always earning it.
I'm going to hold myself
accountable.
One hour turnaround on leads, 24
(21:28):
hour turnaround pre -approvals.
Non -negotiable in my head.
If I can't make it.
Because we get into it and
something's wrong.
I'm going to let them know.
I'm going to apologize.
I'm going to give them a reason
why.
And I'm going to tell them 48
hours now.
Okay.
That's that.
So we got to, that's discovery
call.
Now, after discovery call, we go
to apps and docs.
After apps and that's you
requesting apps and docs.
Everyone has a different system
for this different submissionplatform, different email scripts,
(21:48):
different, whatever.
I'm not going to get into that
because it's very specific on howyou're running your business
there, but essentially you'reasking for apps and docs.
The only thing I will say is wesit on our hands, right?
We sit on our hands until we don'tunderwrite the file until we get
all that stuff.
It should go without saying.
especially as new agent or peoplewithout stuff on your plate,
you're going to have to resist theurge to creep and get in there and
(22:11):
look at the stuff and startplugging it into the thing.
Cause they could just ghost youand you wasted 25 minutes, right?
Not going to do that.
I'm not going to go in until we
have everything.
Okay.
You have everything.
Now you're going to go in and
underwrite.
So underwrites file, pretty
standard stuff.
You're going in underwriting based
on the situation.
that they came to you with and
your lender or the notes you tookfrom the discovery call.
We just had a rule of thumb,especially on the A side was we
(22:35):
underwrite everything as if it'sgoing to Scotiabank because I can
go up to 50 TDS.
There is no GDS.
I don't need exceptions on 50 TDS.
It's just the standard now.
That's what I need.
As long as the credit's good, I
can go there.
They have the best non -subject
rental offset.
on the a side subject property
rental sure not as great now buti'm going to underwrite the files
because the guidelines are easy idon't need a spreadsheet and i can
(22:59):
it doesn't mean the deal is goingto go there i just want to give
them a rock solid a pre -approvalbut here's the thing when i pre
-approved them i'm not pre-approving them up to the 50.
i'm pre -approving them based on a44 44 if it's uninsured 44 39
insured insurable and if i know ican push it above that for the
uninsured stuff i'll go hey you'repre -approved at 500 000 for the
(23:20):
standard guidelines but i believewe can get you to 550 or 600 over
here we'll ask for an exceptionafter i see all the docs and
everything this is what we'regonna or sorry once you execute on
something we have a property youput your hand up this is what
we're going to look at doing overhere if that's something you're
interested in so i'm going to givethat back to them I'm going to
show them two.
I'm going to show them the
(23:41):
standard.
I'm going to show them what I
think we might be able to do.
And what that's going to do is
it's going to stand out.
So if they go talk to RBC, RBC is
going to give them the $500 ,000pre -approval.
I've given them the five, but I'vealso given them 575 because I can
push my ratios.
I know if we decide to go there.
So I'm dangling a carrot.
(24:01):
Okay.
So I go build, pull that up.
Different scenarios.
losing my train of thought here.
I got a mute.
We're going to, or not mute.
Mocha.
Mocha.
It's Mocha time.
Sorry.
There's this old couple in front
of me blowing up a paddleboard.
And I'm like, it's in November.
And I'm like, where are you going?Like, are they serious?
That's kind of caught me offtrack.
I'm like, that's the thing we dowith the podcast, the beach.
You get all these sites in thisold couple.
(24:22):
I have mad respect for them.
But like, man, oh man, like good
for you.
So we've underwritten the file.
We've built out the customproposal.
Um, we've showed them differentoptions based on, I'm always
showing, I'm not just being anorder taker.
I'm going to show them otherthings they might not have thought
of depending on the original call.
(24:42):
Right.
And all the questions I ask onthat discovery call, I'm looking
for opportunities to weave invalue.
I'm looking for opportunitieswhere they have $30 ,000 sitting
in a rainy day fund.
at a fricking high interest
savings account.
I know that's a debt swap move
where I can bring it in.
I don't need an accountant to tell
me how to do this.
I don't need an accountant to sign
off on this.
It's basic shit.
I'm going to weave that into myproposal and go, oh, I have a way
where we can do, I'm not going toshow them, but I'm going to, I
(25:04):
have a way where we can do X, Y,Z. If we decide to partner.
You give me your, like, and wemake a commitment to each other.
I'll help you execute that plan.
I'm going to weave that into my
proposal.
I'm going to look at any
opportunity, if it's paying outdebt, paying out a car, even if
it's a low interest rate, but wantto improve cashflow.
But depending on the situation,I'm building my proposal as such.
(25:25):
I'm not just coming back to, canyou pre -approve me?
Here's my thing, blah, blah.
I'm going to show you something.
I'm going to show you somethingyou haven't seen.
I might show you a 5, 10, 15, 20 %down payment.
I might show you that.
I might show you how you're at
10%.
I'm going to show you how to get
to 20 % and avoid the insurancepremium and extend the
amortization up a bit.
I'm going to show you something.
I'm not going to be an ordertaker.
(25:47):
And that proposal is going to comein because that's how I'm
different.
That's how I'm different than
everybody else.
So I'm different than the bank.
Okay, so now I've got thisproposal.
Then I present it back to them.
We talked about this already.
You can present it back and recorda video.
You can present it back in anemail, which please don't do that.
That's just...
No one wants to read eight
paragraphs of an email, nor do youwant to write one out.
(26:08):
The budget proposals are the best,in my opinion.
And then the other one is, hey,this is your pre -approved.
Let's book a strategy call now.
Okay.
I'm not going to argue that onthat.
I think it's a little clunky.
You do get more face time, but I
just think it's an unnecessarystep.
But it's only because I ran in myway to record a video for 10 plus
years.
And I saw how much success we had
and how much I could protect mytime.
Okay.
Now they get the proposal.
We're still in the period.
(26:28):
Now they go out shopping.
And so we're going to empower themto send us MLS listings for any
property.
We're going to empower them.
And then we're going to reevaluatethe numbers, readjust the numbers
for that specific property.
Give it back.
Go, here's a layout.
You're fully pre -approved.
Just want to show you the realnumbers for the properties you're
going to go look at.
Test a lot.
Okay.
So that's ongoing stuff.
Plus we have the ongoing dripcampaign.
As soon as they come into our CRM,we're throwing them into their
(26:50):
master drip campaigns.
They're getting nurtured that way.
Plus we have Monday follow -ups.
um we used to do every monday we
followed with everyone in ourworld plus you have the boomerang
follow up with pre -approvals oryou can boomerang it back to the
top of your inbox i know otherpeople that build up a drip
campaign a pre -approval dripcampaign and they throw people
into that to me we already haveour master drip and they get 70 80
(27:11):
emails so i don't want to layermore emails like that i let that
big master drip cover us in a lotof different ways it covers us so
we don't have to do post fundingemail drips, pre -approval drips.
It's a one drip that coverseverything and keeps us top of
mind.
And then my weekly follow -ups and
my boomerang follow -upssupplement everything else.
Now the clients are pre -approved.
They're out shopping.
I asked for the commitment.
I've seen a lot.
I'd love to get your commitment.
(27:31):
That's my pre -approval process.
So those are best practices onthat.
This is 29 minutes.
Man, that's long, but that's okay.
I talk fast.
There's a ton of value in there.
Top brokers are doing all of this.
So it's like the question is,
what's your takeaway?What's your one or two things you
can put in here?And obviously you need a master
template with all your scripts onit.
The last thing I'll say, we hadour journey mapped out like on a
board and each spot in the journeyhad a number associated to it
(27:52):
potentially.
So we had our master email script
over here.
We had all the email scripts we
use in our business and we justlabeled them one to whatever.
So let's just say one to 15.
All the emails we're going to send
at any point during our clientjourney.
Then in our, when we map out ourjourney, like at the beginning,
lead intro, well, we have emailone.
So we know that anyone on theteam, me included, can go in and
see the master drip or sorry, nota drip, the master script template
(28:16):
and it's email one.
And then throughout the journey,
there'll be a two.
Well, we know that means we go to
the template and it's email numbertwo.
So at every part in the journey,we knew what email to send.
And then some people build thatout in a client journey and put in
the CRM and they automate a lot ofit.
There you go.
That's it.
I have some thoughts on that, butI'm not going to get into it.
This is a little too long.
30 minutes.
That's it, kids.
(28:37):
I hope, I hope, I hope you got
some from that.
30 minutes of your life could save
you 10 to 15 minutes or increaseyour pre -approval to app ratio
and time will stop.
Okay.
That's it, kids.
Appreciate the support.
support.
Peace out.
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