February 25, 2025 • 28 mins
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode, Tom is joined by Alex Shanks. Alex is a Mortgage Professional at Designer Capital from BC, whose had exponential growth since becoming an agent in January of 2022. After closing 18 files in his first year (2022), he closed 50 files in his second year (2023), and then a whopping 189 files in his third year (2024). Initially chasing TikTok fame with multiple daily posts, Alex then utilized Instagram with valuable, expertise-driven content. Always putting value in coaching, Alex has been able to utilize advance strategies with referral partners, which has been a huge factor in his growth.
Alex is here to discuss: → How he utilized TikTok & Instagram, investing in coaching, and what he would do if he started over. → How he leverages advanced mortgage strategies to engage referral partners, when he started getting business from past clients, and why he doesn't do renewals. → How he balances work, family, & income priorities, the way his team is structured, and how he wants to grow moving forward.
Designer Capital Website: www.designercapital.ca
Designer Capital Instagram: @designer_capital_
Alex Shanks's LinkeTree: @AlexMortgageManagement
Alex Shanks's Instagram: @alexshanksmortgagemanagement
Alex Shanks's TikTok: @mortgagemanagement
***
TANGO ONTARIO
📧 Email Us → ontario@tangofinancial.ca
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CONNECT
📸 Connect on Instagram (Brandon)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, welcome back to anotherepisode of Commission Breath.
(00:02):
Your host, Tom Moffitt here, andI'm flying solo on the host side
of things.
Brandon's actually not going to be
able to make it today, but I'vegot Alex Shanks on today for a
really, really awesome episodebecause we were connecting over
Instagram DM and we've known eachother.
Probably for what, like in thelast two, three years going back
and forth and connecting?Yeah, Yeah, I mean, it's funny.
Well, I know we'll talk about it,Tom, but like, I mean, I think we
(00:24):
both probably started like closeto the same time.
But I mean, like we're both onTikTok at the same time back in
the heyday.
Yeah, we were like copying each
other's content.
I remember that.
That's the lovely thing aboutTikTok.
about TikTok.
It's just like, hey, just take a
piece of content and just make ityour own.
Exactly.
Because, you know, a day later,
it's going to be gone in theatmosphere.
But I really wanted to have you onbecause I forget how our
conversation started.
You just threw out this stat.
I had to like do a double take.
(00:47):
I'm like, what the fuck?
Are you serious?You went from 50 files funded to
189 in one year.
Blew my mind, man.
I didn't really expect it.
I knew like, so I started January
2022.
I got the tail end of some lower
rates, pretty much the worst timein history for mortgages.
I've always kind of got intothings at the worst time, but I
think I did.
18 deals that year working kind of
(01:08):
like what you used to do.
I did work shift work, which was
super lucky that way.
And then, yeah, the next year went
up to 50 deals.
And then it just went nuts.
That's a great start.
So I started, I want to say going
back to like 2021.
So I think I've got a year on you,
but like to have that quick of astart in year three now, 189
deals, like that's insane, man.
(01:29):
We can go in many different
directions with this episode, but.
We like to focus on the leads,
marketing and sales aspects, asI'm sure you're aware.
So I would love to really justbreak down what the big
differences were from that secondyear to the third year.
I mean, I think it's like, forone, nothing really different.
I think like everyone says, ittakes anywhere from three to five
(01:49):
years for like a business toreally start churning.
And I mean, we talk about TikTok,like when I started, I was like,
how can I get out to the mostamount of people as fast as
possible?And remember I did my first video,
it had a hundred views on it.
I'm like, holy shit.
This video has a hundred peoplethat just watched it.
I can't even like meet that manypeople that quickly.
I worked away.
So like, it was hard to always be
(02:11):
booking appointments with likepotential referral partners.
And it's pretty hard at first whenyou just start out, you're like,
Hey, I'm a mortgage broker.
I'm going to offer you the best
service.
I needed to show what I actually
had.
And that's where videos I think
really helped is like, Hey, I usedto do three to five videos a day.
it was like I was in every singleperson's face.
The problem with TikTok, and Imean, I got pushed to Ontario.
(02:32):
That's where like a lot of mycontent went.
And I'm like, shit, I should haveprobably focused more in my area,
really done like Instagram andeverything.
Because that's how I reallystarted to build my referral base.
Like actually targeting realtors,making a video for them.
Hey, this is what your propertycould sell for.
This is what you could get for abudget and stuff.
And that's what really started tobuild my center of influence was,
(02:53):
showing people that value I add.
Interesting.
Okay.
So let's go to square one.
You started on TikTok.
You're doing three to five videos
a day.
It sounds like you've scaled that
back to like maybe one video aday.
Maybe like one video a week.
If I'm lucky, I'm lucky, it's
like, yeah.
And I mean, TikTok is such a
different place now.
(03:13):
I mean, like on average for a
while, I used to get like anywherefrom 10 to 50 ,000 views.
I got very addicted to the vanity.
I'm not going to lie.
Like you get addicted to the viewaccount.
You're like, this is amazing.
I closed 10 deals the first year
from social media.
So I was like, hey, like this
could work.
I tried to go way too big.
I was like, I'm going to take overCanada.
(03:34):
I'm going to be the TikTokmortgage broker.
There's too much that way.
There's too much content.
And so that was hard, but it waslike, hey, I'm getting all these
views.
Oh my God, this is amazing.
But I wasn't getting deals fromit.
deals from it.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
I toy with that in my head too.
It's like, cause I'm going in themore general finance direction for
content and I've got a differentpoint of view as to why I want to
go that direction.
(03:55):
But then some days I'm like, man,
if I just like was more specific,like hyper local and just did the
content for.
realtor partners.
I'm sure I would probably get morebusiness now, but it's more of
like the long -term play that I'mtrying to build out.
But are you saying like, if wewent back to your actual lead
sources and closed deals fromsocial, would you say most of them
are direct to consumer or are theyfrom the referral partners that
(04:15):
you've built from posting?It's now from referral partners.
I mean, it's hard to go back andsay, is 80 % of my business from
social media?I probably would have to say yes.
It doesn't come from social medianow.
but it's the connections that Imade from social media to get my
business to where it is now.
And I would imagine that's from
Instagram, not TikTok.
Exactly.
A hundred percent.
I have a few people that still
(04:36):
like connect with me from TikTokand everything.
All I use TikTok for, and I thinkI even heard you say that it's my
thing because I know how to useit.
It's what I started in.
I make my video in there.
I post it.
I take it out.
I put it on Instagram andFacebook.
It's just the easiest way for meto like do it.
Yeah.
It's so easy to copy that link,
download it on Snapchat and thenjust, yeah.
(04:57):
And the Instagram is easier forreferral partner connections
because you can search people.
Well, you can't search people
easier.
I would probably say TikTok has a
better search algorithm now, butmore so like the DMs, the stories,
it's just more of that communityatmosphere versus TikTok.
Can we go back to, so now that youwent from like TikTok going hard
on that to focusing on Instagram,how did you make those
connections?Are they mostly realtors or who
are the referral partners?Yeah, most of my business is
(05:18):
referral partner.
And I mean, I will also say like,
so a year of doing that, businesswas like building.
It's like, hey, this is like, it'sgoing definitely that way.
But then also I started with 10loans a month.
I pretty much the day that I gotmy license, I like paid for that.
And I always find people are sohesitant to pay money, especially
(05:39):
in the mortgage world.
We're like, oh my God, I don't
want to pay for this.
It's like, man, every other
business out there costs like $100,000, even just to start.
And so it was like a no brainerfor me.
I jumped in with Ryan Wiley first.
That was my first one, which was a
meeting with the budgets andeverything.
I did some webinars.
It wasn't for me that way.
And so I still take the budgets.
That's part of my business.
(06:00):
The second one I did with Scottactually on like the four slide.
I'd been trying to replicate thefour slide just from his podcast
and try and be like, how do I dothis?
How do I actually pitch it to arealtor?
I got it.
I did it.
But it just didn't sit with me.
I'm like, hey, I'm just pitching
them like, hey, I have really goodservice.
Then I joined up with JasonHenneberry.
And this is before he had startedStrategy Hub and everything.
(06:22):
We started going over like theadvanced like strategies.
I'm like, holy shit.
This actually now gives me
something to go to a full realtoroffice.
So from there in year one, likeyear two, all I did was just pitch
to brokerage head offices.
I would just say, hey, I have this
cool presentation.
It was before like Jason even had
like the actual plans ready.
I just said, screw it.
I'm just going to pitch them.
I'm just going to go and talk
(06:44):
about this.
So for almost like six months, I
just did like full onpresentations with like offices.
like offices.
Interesting.
I love that.
And I know you said over DM, you
don't actually do a lot ofadvanced mortgage strategy.
It's more so just your foot in thedoor to create that conversation
and that connection.
So what were some of the advanced
strategies that you were teaching?The main one I did was just cash
(07:06):
damming.
did was just cash damming.
That was the one I wanted to solvea problem for realtors.
Like, hey, how do we go and getsomeone to buy a place today?
I had one person that took it.
The hardest thing I would say in
my area for realtors is...
There's a lot of lazy ones.
People aren't willing to go and dothings.
Like I could give them all theinformation, all the sources.
They just won't do it.
(07:27):
And so like I had one realtor that
actually took it, did it.
He got a deal from it in like a
week.
I'm like, holy shit.
Again, why won't other people?But like, I don't know.
They just, they almost think freestuff is like, oh, I'm not going
to do it.
It's like, man, like this would
help your business if you actuallydid this.
so like I had one realtor But theyjust don't want to do it.
Well, I mean, at the end of theday, it doesn't really matter if
(07:48):
they do it or not, because I wouldimagine it led to those.
partnerships right like you'regetting your business offices now
yeah it's built thoserelationships it was a long burn
like i did those it wasn't like ijust got a deal that day i i don't
know if i would say i'm likestubborn but like i definitely
like i don't take it of hey if itdoesn't work the first time
doesn't mean it's not going towork it's like till i've like
burnt the gas out of it like eventiktok i did it for probably five
(08:09):
months before i got a lead but i'mlike i can see it there's
something here that it is going towork your business now it's built
those relationships it was a longburn like i did those it wasn't
like i just got a deal that day ii don't know if i would say i'm
like stubborn but like idefinitely like i don't take it of
hey if it doesn't work the firsttime doesn't mean it's not going
to work it's like till i've likeburnt the gas out of it like even
(08:29):
tiktok i did it for probably fivemonths before i got a lead but i'm
like i can see it there'ssomething here that it is going to
work And that's the same thingwith doing presentation.
I did it for a year.
Every second Tuesday, didn't get a
single lead from it.
I finally, this year, I've gotten
six leads from it.
So I'm like, hey, it took me a
full year of doing stuff, but hey,it's paying off now.
Yeah, that's like anything in thisbusiness.
You can pick one avenue as long asyou stick to it and you do it over
a long period of time, it willwork.
Like TikTok, I'm sure if you justkept doing that three to five
posts every week or every day,even if the algorithm changed, you
would still get business from it.
It's just like which one fits more
naturally for you and which one ismore sustainable.
And it sounds like thepresentations gave you that
foundation.
And it's actually very timely for
me because I've been...
Reaching out, well, today was day
one.
I did reach out over video DMs to
realtors, specifically ones thatI've already connected with
(08:49):
through like my broadcast channel.
And I'm doing a hard ask, like in
the video, asking them to hop on ameeting.
But I think like going thedirection of what you did, where
you open up with, hey.
I have this presentation I'd like
to show you.
It's very unique.
Here's kind of like the basics ofit.
I think that would probably do abit better than just asking for a
meeting because like they getpitched all the time from other
mortgage groups.
That's the problem I had.
still I'm doing the problem I had.
(09:11):
I just like the way when I was
like messaging realtors, like,hey, I would always try to like
find a connection.
Like, hey, I know that you work
with this guy.
Try and find connections.
But like, it just didn't ever feelright to me.
I'm like, because what am I goingto provide them?
And hey, at that time, Iunderstand mortgages, investing
and everything.
But my knowledge level is now so
(09:31):
far advanced.
And now it's like, hey, I actually
provide you a service that like,hey, if you send someone to me,
you know, it's going to be areally good deal for one, my
communication, but it's like theother things I provide.
And so it's easy for me to sellmyself now because of what I had.
And I 100 % give that props toJason for doing that stuff because
it allowed me to be like, hey, Ihave something I can provide now.
I probably would have just keptgoing around saying, hey, I got
(09:53):
good communication, good service.
Like I know my business would have
grown, but it never wouldn't havegone like that.
Yeah, he's actually coming up withthis new breaking bank strategy.
I'm sure you know.
But for the listener, he's
essentially doing that same methodof outreach, but the value add is,
hey, I have this offer for you.
come write an article for this
Breaking Bank newsletter andyou'll be able to have your face
shown to thousands of eyeballs.
So I think he wants me to start
(10:14):
doing that, kind of test it outand see how that goes.
And I know he's launching that ifhe hasn't already.
I think he's launching that veryshortly.
He was doing a three -day thingtoday.
a three -day thing today.
I already have it.
And I'm like, I'm a partner on it.
Like I do that stuff again.
It's hardest thing for me is timemanagement now.
I don't have the time to keepreaching out.
And that's where I want thosetools so that...
(10:35):
For what I know, my referralpartners are always getting
upgraded services.
I don't ever want to just stop and
be like, hey, I have all thesepartners.
I have really good.
I need to make sure I'm always
providing another service forsomeone.
For one, for them, for theclients.
And so that's where you're at.
I mean, Jason pretty much has me
hooked for life on anything.
(10:55):
Yeah, I don't know like how shit
works in his brain, man.
He's just always one step.
It's nuts.
Cool, man.
So yeah, you've got your base ofrealtors, your foundation there.
So mostly referral partners wasthe original source of your
business.
I think you mentioned you get a
lot of business now from pastclients.
Yeah, exactly.
That was one thing is like the
first two years was all just likereferrals and maybe like friends
and family where now it's clientsthat are now referring back to me.
I have a couple of clients thatI've gone, I've done like six
(11:16):
deals with.
Just like, hey, boom, we've got
something we want to keep going.
So that's pretty awesome to have
that now.
I did my first actual renewal on a
deal.
I'm like, holy shit, three years
later, I'm getting anotherbusiness now.
All my stuff is mostly purchases.
I'm not even into the renewal and
refinance at the moment.
So was that your first renewal
from a past client or your firstrenewal in general?
renewal from a past client or yourfirst renewal in general?
(11:37):
First renewal from a past client.
Oh, okay, gotcha.
Yeah.
And I mean, I'd stay pretty far
away from renewals.
I know we've all talked about this
amazing.
what a billion mortgages coming up
and everything.
As soon as I saw them, I'm like,
these lenders are so aggressive.
I will have a call with someone
five minutes.
Hey, yeah, you definitely have
options.
Hey, figure out what your lender
is going to provide you.
(11:59):
I will help you if you don't need
anything.
I will help you get a lower rate
from them.
I'm not doing an application.
I'm not taking that.
I'm not going to try and beat them
when all they want is just a lowerrate.
They don't need me for anything.
So I'm not going to spend my time.
That's the model, man.
Squeeze a referral or review out
of them and have them win on rategoing back to the lender.
(12:20):
Squeeze the juice out of thatlender and away you go.
Yeah.
And that's what the referral
partners know.
Like I get realtors that send me
like, hey, I have a client thathas a renewal coming up.
They ask them like, hey, youalways send them to me.
I guarantee you that they'll getthe best advice.
Is it with me or just with theircurrent lender?
Sweet.
And your structure is very unique
in the sense that you're prettyhands off with your file.
Can you run us through thestructure of how your team is and
(12:42):
how the lead comes in andbasically from lead to close?
Totally.
It was for a couple of reasons.
For one, I definitely jumped intosomething at like lower volumes
because I'm like, hey, I don'tactually need this.
Like I could have kept doing stuffmyself, but I have family.
I have two kids.
I have a wife.
I want to be present there.
I want to do things.
I don't want to be working 10, 12hours a day.
And on the mortgage world, I mean,we always have to answer phone
calls.
So I needed to find a way to say,
(13:03):
hey, how do I keep answering callsfor the important things, but not
miss the small things?You basically have the
conversation with the client andthen you hand it off.
basically have the conversationwith the client and then you hand
it off.
Yeah.
So the way it works, like, so Ihave someone that like, if you
were a referral partner, you sendme an introduction, Tom, I'd send
them everything, either set themup with just like a phone call or
a Zoom.
I want to be the main person.
(13:26):
I'm like here, I want to do theplan.
I've always liked like a longerdiscovery call.
That's like where I personally getto sell myself.
I know like I think you guys havetalked about sometimes people try
and just rush through it.
But I'm like, hey, I'd rather
spend the upfront time on it.
Makes the rest of the deal a lot
easier.
And so at the end of the call,
it's like, hey, we're happy to beworking together on everything.
(13:47):
I'm going to send you a link to anapplication.
You're going to get anintroduction to some of my team.
They're here to support you withthe application and documents.
After that, I send my notes to myteam.
Someone's going to call thatclient to help them with the
application, get all thedocuments.
That's the intake person.
Once that done, we then send out,
hey, everything is done.
We're going to start making your
mortgage plan with our underwriterand Alex.
So it goes to my underwriter.
I got OCD.
I am always looking at stuff, eventhough like I'm hands off, but I
(14:09):
am still there.
So I know what's going on.
I just don't look at documentsanymore.
I don't really know what a paystub says.
I don't know what the down paymentsays.
Everything gets built onto oursheet for us.
My underwriter will kind of reviewit.
If I think I have questions, I'lleither just do it myself and say,
hey, send them out their custommortgage plan, sending that Loom
video.
Hey, these are all the different
options, breaking everything down.
Do you want to make a strategy
(14:30):
call?Hey, from there, they're pre
-approved.
I let them know, hey, this is your
budget.
I connect with their realtor.
If they weren't given to me rightaway, making sure that they know
everything's good to go.
Once I have an offer in, it then
goes again back to the underwriterso he can send everything into the
lender that we agreed upon.
And then from there, we have a
closing specialist as well.
Her job is just to take all the
(14:50):
final documents, closing packages,compliances.
I don't want to have to be dealingwith all that stuff.
I was telling a referral partnerlast night, like, hey, I think in
total, our brokerage, there's twoof us, there's two brokers.
We closed like 400 deals.
I still will pick up on like
second ring.
People are like blown away
sometimes.
They're like, Alex, I know I have
10 deals with you.
How are you answering the phone?
And I'm like, hey, that is becauseI have a team that can support me
(15:15):
so I can just answer the phone.
That's another timely piece
because we just hired anunderwriter as of yesterday.
Hearing that is pretty much thestructure we're looking for.
The only difference is we stillhaven't figured this out, whether
he's going to take the point ofcontact for discovery call,
because he's actually a mortgageagent.
He has the experience to do thecalls as well.
But when you're going through yourprocess, are you doing the budgets
and the loom review for everyclient?
(15:35):
Or did you say it's kind of like amix?
The underwriter sometimes saysthat too.
No. So I'm doing all that, but hewill help me figure out like, hey,
Alex, we got five differentproperties.
This is like what my thoughts ofhow we're going to have to
structure this.
It's nice.
We get to bounce ideas.
The hardest thing I find with
mortgages, it's a lonely place.
I mean, it's cool.
Like we get to connect talkingwith other mortgage brokers.
(15:57):
I love that.
A lot of people don't like to
share stuff.
And so for one underwriter we
have, he's probably the best inCanada without a doubt.
He has a lot of knowledge andeverything.
And so I get to pull on hisknowledge.
And hey, we also have Tyler, ourowner of the company.
Hey, he has crazy knowledge aswell.
We get to pull him if somethingseems really weird.
And so like, I mean, our fundingratios are like 99%.
If we send something in, it's goodto go.
(16:19):
It's not like, oh, I hope theunderwriter approves this.
approves this.
Gotcha.
So it's just the two of you, likeyou and Tyler and the brokers,
there's no other agents?There's no other agents, just us
as mortgage brokers.
Interesting.
And when you're going back andforth with the underwriter, how
are you guys communicating allthis?
Do they have one email?Have you ever heard of Front?
(16:40):
No. Is it like Slack?like Slack?
Yeah, I guess kind of like Slack.
So I use Outlook for my email, but
so we have Front.
And so this is where I get to
still send all my emails.
I have two emails accounts.
I have one, Alex at DesignerCapital.
That's only for me.
I then have an Alex .support.
When that one goes out, my teamgets to see the email.
So I always send what the clientswith that one, we then are able to
(17:01):
tag and like make comments.
We have an email thread with all
of our comments on it.
So I can say, Hey guys, this
client's coming in first time homebuyer.
This is what income should looklike.
This is what down payment shouldlook like.
So they can match everything up towhat the client said to me.
Cause we know that sometimes aclient might say, Hey, I make 200
K. And it's like, Hey, you made 50,000.
Yeah.
Is it connecting emails together?
(17:23):
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Like it allows us to do so manythings.
Again, it can be done from thephone.
Like I can manage my business froma phone.
I can be like, Hey, I got to gopick up my kids.
I know stuff's still happening.
If I have to jump in to say, Hey
guys, we need to make sure thatthis is going to go good with the
lawyers.
I can just take people in.
(17:43):
It's pretty slick that way.
So that's the real reason why
you're able to handle that manyfiles.
If I did what I did last year bymyself, I probably would have been
working 18 hour days.
I did what I did last year by
myself, I probably would have beenworking 18 hour days.
I think if we actually looked ataverage, maybe six hour days, like
kind of maximum, some days Iwouldn't even work at all.
And I mean, we had a one -year-old, we moved a house, we did
(18:04):
construction.
I was just like, Matt, if I didn't
have that set up, my life wouldhave just been all mortgages.
Yeah, there's no way, man.
I love that.
That's like the lifestyle mortgagebiz right there.
It's hard.
hard.
And I mean, Tyler is hands downway better than I am.
Like he doesn't look at anythinguntil it's like, hey, it's at the
planning meeting.
He'll then look at everything.
I have my hands still ineverything.
Like I know what's going on.
I sometimes have to jump in to
(18:25):
say, hey, how's it going withthose documents?
Do you need help with anything?I'm updating the referral partner.
So like I'm trying to find ways topull myself like slowly more and
more out.
But again, only being in it for
three years, I'm like, I need tobe there because I'm like, oh
shit, I need to make sure theclient's happy.
oh shit, I need to make sure theclient's happy.
For sure.
And you want to kind of learn from
different file situations too.
Like for us being like relatively
(18:45):
green, it is good to kind of be init too.
Yeah.
So like your dream outcome would
be pretty much you have theupfront call with the client and
you hand it off.
That's kind of it.
Like you might have like maybe oneor two quick touch points on
closing, but really that's thedream outcome is you're not
touching anything during theprocess.
Exactly.
That's what I mean.
I've never liked dealing withunderwriters, like having to argue
like, hey, I'm using this paystub.
It's missing hours because theywere on a vacation.
Like that's just stuff that Idon't want to get involved with.
(19:08):
It's like, hey, I just want tohelp people make plans, help them
save money, come up withstrategies.
And I mean, down payment.
I haven't looked at down payment
in forever.
Like that's the most amazing
thing.
I was joking with Brandon today.
was joking with Brandon today.
Our fulfillment specialist is off
today and she handles down paymentfor us and I haven't done it.
And probably like.
at least a year and a half, two
years.
And I was joking like, man, if I
(19:30):
had to touch a down paymentdocument today, we're all screwed.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, I can like still jump in.
It's hard now.
Sometimes clients will say, hey,
Alex, like, what does that looklike?
And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, itlooks good.
Like kind of have to say like, Idon't, but I prepare people like,
hey, this is what I'm really goodat.
This is what my team's really goodat.
It's making sure that theyunderstand why they're there.
It was a hard thing for myselfcoming in at first.
It's a learning curve of like, Whyis this person asking for these
(19:52):
documents, Alex?Why aren't you doing that?
It's like, hey, everyone is hereto support you.
This is so that, hey, if you callme, I can answer the phone.
Yeah.
And you're having that upfront
discussion on discovery call.
Like you're saying, hey, here's
our team structure.
Here's what I'm good at.
You're going to be introduced toso -and -so down the line.
Like that's how you're kind oflike teeing it up for them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't really like introduce eachperson.
(20:13):
And that's where something I'mtrying to make a better like
actual campaign of like, hey, I'vegot the introduction.
I've done the discovery call.
hey this is what it's going to
look like i want like a bit of afull email thing to come out that
way hey you're meeting the intakeperson this is what they're here
for hey you're going to meet thelike underwriter and everything i
like that to be a little bit moremapped out it's just finding the
(20:33):
time Yeah, time.
It's always like tonight there.
And so, okay, like in the nextforeseeable future, like some of
your goals are to map stuff likethat out.
So like maybe like polishing a bitof the client journey, digging
yourself out of the file a bitmore.
Do you have like a file or volumegoal that you want to hit?
Or are you just looking to likekeep the same amount of fundings,
but like less time?Yeah.
I mean, that one in my head, I'mscared to be hard on myself and
(20:54):
mortgages.
We talk about volume.
We talk about like the deal, likenumbers.
And so this year I really toldmyself, Hey Alex, like last year
was amazing.
This year I'm really trying to get
back to my family.
I was always there for my kids,
but me and my wife need to spendmore time together.
And so I've even said in my head,Hey Alex, even if the volume
drops, you're going to be able tobring that somewhere else.
I got to.
(21:14):
make sure I'm filling buckets
elsewhere.
My goal is to stick still above 50
million.
I hope that's easy.
I'm on trajectory for higher thanthat, but I want to make sure that
I'm not hard on myself that, Hey,if you don't do this, it's not
devastating.
Yeah.
You know, your number from like acommission's perspective, like how
much you need to live acomfortable life.
And I think that's one of thebiggest things in this industry is
like, There's so much ego involvedthat everyone just goes like based
(21:36):
off of volume.
But if you're spending a lot of
money on expenses or you're buyingdown rate, like at the end of the
day, volume doesn't matter.
It's how much you keep net revenue
and how many hours a day you'reworking on the file.
Yeah.
And that's where for me, like, I
mean, my split for everyone, it'squite a bit higher.
It's not the same as like, hey, ifyou were just working by yourself,
my net revenue could be higher,but my net time would be
(21:59):
substantially higher.
I've crunched the numbers.
Even if I hired, say, two peopleto help support me, I couldn't
make the cost the same and Iwouldn't get the level of service.
And so that's where I thinkmortgage brokers have a hard time.
We want the cheapest amount.
We don't want the client to get
the cheapest rate, though.
We want them to say, hey, our
service is worth it.
And so that's where for me, I've
looked at my numbers.
(22:19):
I'm happy with the split I get
because of what I get to provideand the service I get to provide
to people.
Yeah, that split that you're
paying for, you're basicallypaying for employees.
It sounds like you would be payingmore if you're on your own.
So 100 % well worth it.
It Yeah.
And that's where it's, I mean, andagain, yeah, talking about the
income, I have a company, my wifealso has her own business.
We try and just pay up myself aslittle as possible from my
(22:40):
company.
And I just leave it in there.
The job I used to do, I used towork away a lot.
I made really good money.
And then started working a week on
week off, made really bad money,started doing mortgages, made
really bad money.
It's only up from there.
So like, I don't need to make acrazy amount.
I'd like to, it feels good, but Ialso got to make sure that it's
planning with the family.
the family.
(23:01):
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm the same way.
Cool, man.
We'll always try to end theconversation with this one, just
because we have a lot of newerbrokers and agents listening to
this.
But also I think it's a value for
like more seasoned vets that aretrying to get back into like,
prospecting lead gen, if you hadto go back day one, what would the
structure be like in terms oflike, what are your daily non
-negotiables going to be?And what are you going to do to
(23:23):
drive that business in right away?No, I mean, I would definitely, if
I had strategy hub, I would bedoing that before TikTok.
Like I want social content outthere.
I just would have been makingmaybe content about that.
I would have wanted to providesomething so I could actually call
a realtor offices and say, Hey.
I have this to provide you.
Hey, I have financial planner.
Hey, this is what I have to
(23:43):
provide you.
You're kind of running in the
fish.
Like when you're learning, you're
just like, Hey, I do mortgages.
This is what I can provide you.
It's like actually having a valueor service to give someone like
that's going to help.
like that's going to help.
So learning advanced mortgagestrategy, whether you do them or
not, get it in your head from aknowledge perspective, reach out
to referral partners, get yourstable base there, sprinkle in
some social content.
Are those the three?
(24:04):
Love it.
Yeah, I agree.
Having the advanced mortgagestrategies, it can allow you to
stand out versus other 20 plusyear brokers that are still
pitching prepayment privileges andpenalties.
You hear that all the time.
It's like, man, the value you're
providing is not worth a 30. 40basis points spread.
No, exactly.
That's where you got to provide
other stuff.
And for one, I mean, I do, is the
bank going to pick up your call?I'm going to call.
And so like, we are worthsomething, but like if it's 0 .7 %
(24:27):
difference, if they're not evengoing to use the prepayment
privileges, it's like, Hey, Ican't even sell that.
I know you guys have had Matt onthere.
Like what he's done is amazing.
Like that's a value I can now
provide to clients.
To me, it's not really the clients
it's referral sources.
I get to go to them and say, Hey,
You have a bunch of database.
You could help show your clients
how they could save a lot ofmoney.
(24:49):
And that's where it's helpingprovide value that way.
provide value that way.
And that's why you're successful,
man.
Because I could see any topic we
talk about, your head goes in thedirection of like, how can I
leverage other people's databasesor their network?
And you can tell you've done thatthrough all of the different
things you've done in yourbusiness thus far as like
thinking, okay, how can I go toreferral partners with this?
So I love it.
(25:09):
I mean, I think it was actually
Scott Peckford's recent one, thatWally guy.
Like we all think about clients,but it's like, really, we have to
think about how do we provideservice to other people?
Tell you this, out of those likethe mortgages I did in my first
year, I did a lot of mortgages forfree.
But I did it because like, hey, Ijust want to do as many mortgages
as possible.
I took every single client.
I told them, hey, I'm going togive you all my commission back.
(25:29):
I don't care.
Again, I just wanted to touch my
hand on every single thing thatway.
I would 100 % do that again.
Be like, hey.
I want to get a bunch of deals.
Hey, I'm going to give you all my
money back.
Is that what you did?
Yeah, to clients and to likereferral partners.
I just said, hey, I want to do thedeal.
(25:51):
This is what you get.
Again, I had my other business.
I was still making moneyelsewhere.
And so obviously, I'm in a betterposition to do that.
But that's where I was able to goand get a bunch of deals.
I still made money.
I was still able to do deals and
not do that.
But I mean, I picked up every
deal, even if the credit was bad.
I ran through full applications.
I knew the deal wasn't going to goanywhere.
(26:12):
But I wanted to touch everything.
refine the process where now I can
say, Hey, Tom, sorry, your creditis bad.
We got to work on that.
You come back to me once you fix
that, here's everything you needto do.
I'm not going to spend my time onthat anymore.
Yeah.
It's like the same mindset as
maybe like going through some sortof mentorship for free, where
you're helping an experiencedbroker through files, but you're
doing it for free.
And it's like, I'm going to
butcher the quote, but basically Iheard yesterday in a podcast that
(26:34):
the mentor has a higher price topay than the person doing the work
for free.
A hundred percent.
Every business I've ever done,I've always tried to reduce the
workload that a mentor has to doso that I can give back to them.
And there's that like, Hey, I'lldo this for free.
Hey, I'll take stuff back into myoffice.
I'll do it on my own time.
And that's where like, I started
in my past role of what I used todo started as a trainee in two
years, I was managing the company.
(26:56):
And that was just because I took
every single thing that I coulddo.
I said yes to everything.
And I made sure that I understood
it all.
Beautiful.
Awesome, man.
Well, you threw a lot of value
bombs in this episode.
I'm probably going to listen back
to it because a lot of the stuffthat we're talking about, I'm in
the same situation too.
So I always love connecting with
you and thanks for coming on.
Yeah, thanks a lot, Tom.
It was fun.
All right, welcome back to anotherepisode of Commission Breath.
(00:02):
Your host, Tom Moffitt here, andI'm flying solo on the host side
of things.
Brandon's actually not going to be
able to make it today, but I'vegot Alex Shanks on today for a
really, really awesome episodebecause we were connecting over
Instagram DM and we've known eachother.
Probably for what, like in thelast two, three years going back
and forth and connecting?Yeah, Yeah, I mean, it's funny.
Well, I know we'll talk about it,Tom, but like, I mean, I think we
(00:24):
both probably started like closeto the same time.
But I mean, like we're both onTikTok at the same time back in
the heyday.
Yeah, we were like copying each
other's content.
I remember that.
That's the lovely thing aboutTikTok.
about TikTok.
It's just like, hey, just take a
piece of content and just make ityour own.
Exactly.
Because, you know, a day later,
it's going to be gone in theatmosphere.
But I really wanted to have you onbecause I forget how our
conversation started.
You just threw out this stat.
I had to like do a double take.
(00:47):
I'm like, what the fuck?
Are you serious?You went from 50 files funded to
189 in one year.
Blew my mind, man.
I didn't really expect it.
I knew like, so I started January
2022.
I got the tail end of some lower
rates, pretty much the worst timein history for mortgages.
I've always kind of got intothings at the worst time, but I
think I did.
18 deals that year working kind of
(01:08):
like what you used to do.
I did work shift work, which was
super lucky that way.
And then, yeah, the next year went
up to 50 deals.
And then it just went nuts.
That's a great start.
So I started, I want to say going
back to like 2021.
So I think I've got a year on you,
but like to have that quick of astart in year three now, 189
deals, like that's insane, man.
(01:29):
We can go in many different
directions with this episode, but.
We like to focus on the leads,
marketing and sales aspects, asI'm sure you're aware.
So I would love to really justbreak down what the big
differences were from that secondyear to the third year.
I mean, I think it's like, forone, nothing really different.
I think like everyone says, ittakes anywhere from three to five
(01:49):
years for like a business toreally start churning.
And I mean, we talk about TikTok,like when I started, I was like,
how can I get out to the mostamount of people as fast as
possible?And remember I did my first video,
it had a hundred views on it.
I'm like, holy shit.
This video has a hundred peoplethat just watched it.
I can't even like meet that manypeople that quickly.
I worked away.
So like, it was hard to always be
(02:11):
booking appointments with likepotential referral partners.
And it's pretty hard at first whenyou just start out, you're like,
Hey, I'm a mortgage broker.
I'm going to offer you the best
service.
I needed to show what I actually
had.
And that's where videos I think
really helped is like, Hey, I usedto do three to five videos a day.
it was like I was in every singleperson's face.
The problem with TikTok, and Imean, I got pushed to Ontario.
(02:32):
That's where like a lot of mycontent went.
And I'm like, shit, I should haveprobably focused more in my area,
really done like Instagram andeverything.
Because that's how I reallystarted to build my referral base.
Like actually targeting realtors,making a video for them.
Hey, this is what your propertycould sell for.
This is what you could get for abudget and stuff.
And that's what really started tobuild my center of influence was,
(02:53):
showing people that value I add.
Interesting.
Okay.
So let's go to square one.
You started on TikTok.
You're doing three to five videos
a day.
It sounds like you've scaled that
back to like maybe one video aday.
Maybe like one video a week.
If I'm lucky, I'm lucky, it's
like, yeah.
And I mean, TikTok is such a
different place now.
(03:13):
I mean, like on average for a
while, I used to get like anywherefrom 10 to 50 ,000 views.
I got very addicted to the vanity.
I'm not going to lie.
Like you get addicted to the viewaccount.
You're like, this is amazing.
I closed 10 deals the first year
from social media.
So I was like, hey, like this
could work.
I tried to go way too big.
I was like, I'm going to take overCanada.
(03:34):
I'm going to be the TikTokmortgage broker.
There's too much that way.
There's too much content.
And so that was hard, but it waslike, hey, I'm getting all these
views.
Oh my God, this is amazing.
But I wasn't getting deals fromit.
deals from it.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
I toy with that in my head too.
It's like, cause I'm going in themore general finance direction for
content and I've got a differentpoint of view as to why I want to
go that direction.
(03:55):
But then some days I'm like, man,
if I just like was more specific,like hyper local and just did the
content for.
realtor partners.
I'm sure I would probably get morebusiness now, but it's more of
like the long -term play that I'mtrying to build out.
But are you saying like, if wewent back to your actual lead
sources and closed deals fromsocial, would you say most of them
are direct to consumer or are theyfrom the referral partners that
(04:15):
you've built from posting?It's now from referral partners.
I mean, it's hard to go back andsay, is 80 % of my business from
social media?I probably would have to say yes.
It doesn't come from social medianow.
but it's the connections that Imade from social media to get my
business to where it is now.
And I would imagine that's from
Instagram, not TikTok.
Exactly.
A hundred percent.
I have a few people that still
(04:36):
like connect with me from TikTokand everything.
All I use TikTok for, and I thinkI even heard you say that it's my
thing because I know how to useit.
It's what I started in.
I make my video in there.
I post it.
I take it out.
I put it on Instagram andFacebook.
It's just the easiest way for meto like do it.
Yeah.
It's so easy to copy that link,
download it on Snapchat and thenjust, yeah.
(04:57):
And the Instagram is easier forreferral partner connections
because you can search people.
Well, you can't search people
easier.
I would probably say TikTok has a
better search algorithm now, butmore so like the DMs, the stories,
it's just more of that communityatmosphere versus TikTok.
Can we go back to, so now that youwent from like TikTok going hard
on that to focusing on Instagram,how did you make those
connections?Are they mostly realtors or who
are the referral partners?Yeah, most of my business is
(05:18):
referral partner.
And I mean, I will also say like,
so a year of doing that, businesswas like building.
It's like, hey, this is like, it'sgoing definitely that way.
But then also I started with 10loans a month.
I pretty much the day that I gotmy license, I like paid for that.
And I always find people are sohesitant to pay money, especially
(05:39):
in the mortgage world.
We're like, oh my God, I don't
want to pay for this.
It's like, man, every other
business out there costs like $100,000, even just to start.
And so it was like a no brainerfor me.
I jumped in with Ryan Wiley first.
That was my first one, which was a
meeting with the budgets andeverything.
I did some webinars.
It wasn't for me that way.
And so I still take the budgets.
That's part of my business.
(06:00):
The second one I did with Scottactually on like the four slide.
I'd been trying to replicate thefour slide just from his podcast
and try and be like, how do I dothis?
How do I actually pitch it to arealtor?
I got it.
I did it.
But it just didn't sit with me.
I'm like, hey, I'm just pitching
them like, hey, I have really goodservice.
Then I joined up with JasonHenneberry.
And this is before he had startedStrategy Hub and everything.
(06:22):
We started going over like theadvanced like strategies.
I'm like, holy shit.
This actually now gives me
something to go to a full realtoroffice.
So from there in year one, likeyear two, all I did was just pitch
to brokerage head offices.
I would just say, hey, I have this
cool presentation.
It was before like Jason even had
like the actual plans ready.
I just said, screw it.
I'm just going to pitch them.
I'm just going to go and talk
(06:44):
about this.
So for almost like six months, I
just did like full onpresentations with like offices.
like offices.
Interesting.
I love that.
And I know you said over DM, you
don't actually do a lot ofadvanced mortgage strategy.
It's more so just your foot in thedoor to create that conversation
and that connection.
So what were some of the advanced
strategies that you were teaching?The main one I did was just cash
(07:06):
damming.
did was just cash damming.
That was the one I wanted to solvea problem for realtors.
Like, hey, how do we go and getsomeone to buy a place today?
I had one person that took it.
The hardest thing I would say in
my area for realtors is...
There's a lot of lazy ones.
People aren't willing to go and dothings.
Like I could give them all theinformation, all the sources.
They just won't do it.
(07:27):
And so like I had one realtor that
actually took it, did it.
He got a deal from it in like a
week.
I'm like, holy shit.
Again, why won't other people?But like, I don't know.
They just, they almost think freestuff is like, oh, I'm not going
to do it.
It's like, man, like this would
help your business if you actuallydid this.
so like I had one realtor But theyjust don't want to do it.
Well, I mean, at the end of theday, it doesn't really matter if
(07:48):
they do it or not, because I wouldimagine it led to those.
partnerships right like you'regetting your business offices now
yeah it's built thoserelationships it was a long burn
like i did those it wasn't like ijust got a deal that day i i don't
know if i would say i'm likestubborn but like i definitely
like i don't take it of hey if itdoesn't work the first time
doesn't mean it's not going towork it's like till i've like
burnt the gas out of it like eventiktok i did it for probably five
(08:09):
months before i got a lead but i'mlike i can see it there's
something here that it is going towork your business now it's built
those relationships it was a longburn like i did those it wasn't
like i just got a deal that day ii don't know if i would say i'm
like stubborn but like idefinitely like i don't take it of
hey if it doesn't work the firsttime doesn't mean it's not going
to work it's like till i've likeburnt the gas out of it like even
(08:29):
tiktok i did it for probably fivemonths before i got a lead but i'm
like i can see it there'ssomething here that it is going to
work And that's the same thingwith doing presentation.
I did it for a year.
Every second Tuesday, didn't get a
single lead from it.
I finally, this year, I've gotten
six leads from it.
So I'm like, hey, it took me a
full year of doing stuff, but hey,it's paying off now.
Yeah, that's like anything in thisbusiness.
You can pick one avenue as long asyou stick to it and you do it over
a long period of time, it willwork.
Like TikTok, I'm sure if you justkept doing that three to five
posts every week or every day,even if the algorithm changed, you
would still get business from it.
It's just like which one fits more
naturally for you and which one ismore sustainable.
And it sounds like thepresentations gave you that
foundation.
And it's actually very timely for
me because I've been...
Reaching out, well, today was day
one.
I did reach out over video DMs to
realtors, specifically ones thatI've already connected with
(08:49):
through like my broadcast channel.
And I'm doing a hard ask, like in
the video, asking them to hop on ameeting.
But I think like going thedirection of what you did, where
you open up with, hey.
I have this presentation I'd like
to show you.
It's very unique.
Here's kind of like the basics ofit.
I think that would probably do abit better than just asking for a
meeting because like they getpitched all the time from other
mortgage groups.
That's the problem I had.
still I'm doing the problem I had.
(09:11):
I just like the way when I was
like messaging realtors, like,hey, I would always try to like
find a connection.
Like, hey, I know that you work
with this guy.
Try and find connections.
But like, it just didn't ever feelright to me.
I'm like, because what am I goingto provide them?
And hey, at that time, Iunderstand mortgages, investing
and everything.
But my knowledge level is now so
(09:31):
far advanced.
And now it's like, hey, I actually
provide you a service that like,hey, if you send someone to me,
you know, it's going to be areally good deal for one, my
communication, but it's like theother things I provide.
And so it's easy for me to sellmyself now because of what I had.
And I 100 % give that props toJason for doing that stuff because
it allowed me to be like, hey, Ihave something I can provide now.
I probably would have just keptgoing around saying, hey, I got
(09:53):
good communication, good service.
Like I know my business would have
grown, but it never wouldn't havegone like that.
Yeah, he's actually coming up withthis new breaking bank strategy.
I'm sure you know.
But for the listener, he's
essentially doing that same methodof outreach, but the value add is,
hey, I have this offer for you.
come write an article for this
Breaking Bank newsletter andyou'll be able to have your face
shown to thousands of eyeballs.
So I think he wants me to start
(10:14):
doing that, kind of test it outand see how that goes.
And I know he's launching that ifhe hasn't already.
I think he's launching that veryshortly.
He was doing a three -day thingtoday.
a three -day thing today.
I already have it.
And I'm like, I'm a partner on it.
Like I do that stuff again.
It's hardest thing for me is timemanagement now.
I don't have the time to keepreaching out.
And that's where I want thosetools so that...
(10:35):
For what I know, my referralpartners are always getting
upgraded services.
I don't ever want to just stop and
be like, hey, I have all thesepartners.
I have really good.
I need to make sure I'm always
providing another service forsomeone.
For one, for them, for theclients.
And so that's where you're at.
I mean, Jason pretty much has me
hooked for life on anything.
(10:55):
Yeah, I don't know like how shit
works in his brain, man.
He's just always one step.
It's nuts.
Cool, man.
So yeah, you've got your base ofrealtors, your foundation there.
So mostly referral partners wasthe original source of your
business.
I think you mentioned you get a
lot of business now from pastclients.
Yeah, exactly.
That was one thing is like the
first two years was all just likereferrals and maybe like friends
and family where now it's clientsthat are now referring back to me.
I have a couple of clients thatI've gone, I've done like six
(11:16):
deals with.
Just like, hey, boom, we've got
something we want to keep going.
So that's pretty awesome to have
that now.
I did my first actual renewal on a
deal.
I'm like, holy shit, three years
later, I'm getting anotherbusiness now.
All my stuff is mostly purchases.
I'm not even into the renewal and
refinance at the moment.
So was that your first renewal
from a past client or your firstrenewal in general?
renewal from a past client or yourfirst renewal in general?
(11:37):
First renewal from a past client.
Oh, okay, gotcha.
Yeah.
And I mean, I'd stay pretty far
away from renewals.
I know we've all talked about this
amazing.
what a billion mortgages coming up
and everything.
As soon as I saw them, I'm like,
these lenders are so aggressive.
I will have a call with someone
five minutes.
Hey, yeah, you definitely have
options.
Hey, figure out what your lender
is going to provide you.
(11:59):
I will help you if you don't need
anything.
I will help you get a lower rate
from them.
I'm not doing an application.
I'm not taking that.
I'm not going to try and beat them
when all they want is just a lowerrate.
They don't need me for anything.
So I'm not going to spend my time.
That's the model, man.
Squeeze a referral or review out
of them and have them win on rategoing back to the lender.
(12:20):
Squeeze the juice out of thatlender and away you go.
Yeah.
And that's what the referral
partners know.
Like I get realtors that send me
like, hey, I have a client thathas a renewal coming up.
They ask them like, hey, youalways send them to me.
I guarantee you that they'll getthe best advice.
Is it with me or just with theircurrent lender?
Sweet.
And your structure is very unique
in the sense that you're prettyhands off with your file.
Can you run us through thestructure of how your team is and
(12:42):
how the lead comes in andbasically from lead to close?
Totally.
It was for a couple of reasons.
For one, I definitely jumped intosomething at like lower volumes
because I'm like, hey, I don'tactually need this.
Like I could have kept doing stuffmyself, but I have family.
I have two kids.
I have a wife.
I want to be present there.
I want to do things.
I don't want to be working 10, 12hours a day.
And on the mortgage world, I mean,we always have to answer phone
calls.
So I needed to find a way to say,
(13:03):
hey, how do I keep answering callsfor the important things, but not
miss the small things?You basically have the
conversation with the client andthen you hand it off.
basically have the conversationwith the client and then you hand
it off.
Yeah.
So the way it works, like, so Ihave someone that like, if you
were a referral partner, you sendme an introduction, Tom, I'd send
them everything, either set themup with just like a phone call or
a Zoom.
I want to be the main person.
(13:26):
I'm like here, I want to do theplan.
I've always liked like a longerdiscovery call.
That's like where I personally getto sell myself.
I know like I think you guys havetalked about sometimes people try
and just rush through it.
But I'm like, hey, I'd rather
spend the upfront time on it.
Makes the rest of the deal a lot
easier.
And so at the end of the call,
it's like, hey, we're happy to beworking together on everything.
(13:47):
I'm going to send you a link to anapplication.
You're going to get anintroduction to some of my team.
They're here to support you withthe application and documents.
After that, I send my notes to myteam.
Someone's going to call thatclient to help them with the
application, get all thedocuments.
That's the intake person.
Once that done, we then send out,
hey, everything is done.
We're going to start making your
mortgage plan with our underwriterand Alex.
So it goes to my underwriter.
I got OCD.
I am always looking at stuff, eventhough like I'm hands off, but I
(14:09):
am still there.
So I know what's going on.
I just don't look at documentsanymore.
I don't really know what a paystub says.
I don't know what the down paymentsays.
Everything gets built onto oursheet for us.
My underwriter will kind of reviewit.
If I think I have questions, I'lleither just do it myself and say,
hey, send them out their custommortgage plan, sending that Loom
video.
Hey, these are all the different
options, breaking everything down.
Do you want to make a strategy
(14:30):
call?Hey, from there, they're pre
-approved.
I let them know, hey, this is your
budget.
I connect with their realtor.
If they weren't given to me rightaway, making sure that they know
everything's good to go.
Once I have an offer in, it then
goes again back to the underwriterso he can send everything into the
lender that we agreed upon.
And then from there, we have a
closing specialist as well.
Her job is just to take all the
(14:50):
final documents, closing packages,compliances.
I don't want to have to be dealingwith all that stuff.
I was telling a referral partnerlast night, like, hey, I think in
total, our brokerage, there's twoof us, there's two brokers.
We closed like 400 deals.
I still will pick up on like
second ring.
People are like blown away
sometimes.
They're like, Alex, I know I have
10 deals with you.
How are you answering the phone?
And I'm like, hey, that is becauseI have a team that can support me
(15:15):
so I can just answer the phone.
That's another timely piece
because we just hired anunderwriter as of yesterday.
Hearing that is pretty much thestructure we're looking for.
The only difference is we stillhaven't figured this out, whether
he's going to take the point ofcontact for discovery call,
because he's actually a mortgageagent.
He has the experience to do thecalls as well.
But when you're going through yourprocess, are you doing the budgets
and the loom review for everyclient?
(15:35):
Or did you say it's kind of like amix?
The underwriter sometimes saysthat too.
No. So I'm doing all that, but hewill help me figure out like, hey,
Alex, we got five differentproperties.
This is like what my thoughts ofhow we're going to have to
structure this.
It's nice.
We get to bounce ideas.
The hardest thing I find with
mortgages, it's a lonely place.
I mean, it's cool.
Like we get to connect talkingwith other mortgage brokers.
(15:57):
I love that.
A lot of people don't like to
share stuff.
And so for one underwriter we
have, he's probably the best inCanada without a doubt.
He has a lot of knowledge andeverything.
And so I get to pull on hisknowledge.
And hey, we also have Tyler, ourowner of the company.
Hey, he has crazy knowledge aswell.
We get to pull him if somethingseems really weird.
And so like, I mean, our fundingratios are like 99%.
If we send something in, it's goodto go.
(16:19):
It's not like, oh, I hope theunderwriter approves this.
approves this.
Gotcha.
So it's just the two of you, likeyou and Tyler and the brokers,
there's no other agents?There's no other agents, just us
as mortgage brokers.
Interesting.
And when you're going back andforth with the underwriter, how
are you guys communicating allthis?
Do they have one email?Have you ever heard of Front?
(16:40):
No. Is it like Slack?like Slack?
Yeah, I guess kind of like Slack.
So I use Outlook for my email, but
so we have Front.
And so this is where I get to
still send all my emails.
I have two emails accounts.
I have one, Alex at DesignerCapital.
That's only for me.
I then have an Alex .support.
When that one goes out, my teamgets to see the email.
So I always send what the clientswith that one, we then are able to
(17:01):
tag and like make comments.
We have an email thread with all
of our comments on it.
So I can say, Hey guys, this
client's coming in first time homebuyer.
This is what income should looklike.
This is what down payment shouldlook like.
So they can match everything up towhat the client said to me.
Cause we know that sometimes aclient might say, Hey, I make 200
K. And it's like, Hey, you made 50,000.
Yeah.
Is it connecting emails together?
(17:23):
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Like it allows us to do so manythings.
Again, it can be done from thephone.
Like I can manage my business froma phone.
I can be like, Hey, I got to gopick up my kids.
I know stuff's still happening.
If I have to jump in to say, Hey
guys, we need to make sure thatthis is going to go good with the
lawyers.
I can just take people in.
(17:43):
It's pretty slick that way.
So that's the real reason why
you're able to handle that manyfiles.
If I did what I did last year bymyself, I probably would have been
working 18 hour days.
I did what I did last year by
myself, I probably would have beenworking 18 hour days.
I think if we actually looked ataverage, maybe six hour days, like
kind of maximum, some days Iwouldn't even work at all.
And I mean, we had a one -year-old, we moved a house, we did
(18:04):
construction.
I was just like, Matt, if I didn't
have that set up, my life wouldhave just been all mortgages.
Yeah, there's no way, man.
I love that.
That's like the lifestyle mortgagebiz right there.
It's hard.
hard.
And I mean, Tyler is hands downway better than I am.
Like he doesn't look at anythinguntil it's like, hey, it's at the
planning meeting.
He'll then look at everything.
I have my hands still ineverything.
Like I know what's going on.
I sometimes have to jump in to
(18:25):
say, hey, how's it going withthose documents?
Do you need help with anything?I'm updating the referral partner.
So like I'm trying to find ways topull myself like slowly more and
more out.
But again, only being in it for
three years, I'm like, I need tobe there because I'm like, oh
shit, I need to make sure theclient's happy.
oh shit, I need to make sure theclient's happy.
For sure.
And you want to kind of learn from
different file situations too.
Like for us being like relatively
(18:45):
green, it is good to kind of be init too.
Yeah.
So like your dream outcome would
be pretty much you have theupfront call with the client and
you hand it off.
That's kind of it.
Like you might have like maybe oneor two quick touch points on
closing, but really that's thedream outcome is you're not
touching anything during theprocess.
Exactly.
That's what I mean.
I've never liked dealing withunderwriters, like having to argue
like, hey, I'm using this paystub.
It's missing hours because theywere on a vacation.
Like that's just stuff that Idon't want to get involved with.
(19:08):
It's like, hey, I just want tohelp people make plans, help them
save money, come up withstrategies.
And I mean, down payment.
I haven't looked at down payment
in forever.
Like that's the most amazing
thing.
I was joking with Brandon today.
was joking with Brandon today.
Our fulfillment specialist is off
today and she handles down paymentfor us and I haven't done it.
And probably like.
at least a year and a half, two
years.
And I was joking like, man, if I
(19:30):
had to touch a down paymentdocument today, we're all screwed.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, I can like still jump in.
It's hard now.
Sometimes clients will say, hey,
Alex, like, what does that looklike?
And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, itlooks good.
Like kind of have to say like, Idon't, but I prepare people like,
hey, this is what I'm really goodat.
This is what my team's really goodat.
It's making sure that theyunderstand why they're there.
It was a hard thing for myselfcoming in at first.
It's a learning curve of like, Whyis this person asking for these
(19:52):
documents, Alex?Why aren't you doing that?
It's like, hey, everyone is hereto support you.
This is so that, hey, if you callme, I can answer the phone.
Yeah.
And you're having that upfront
discussion on discovery call.
Like you're saying, hey, here's
our team structure.
Here's what I'm good at.
You're going to be introduced toso -and -so down the line.
Like that's how you're kind oflike teeing it up for them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't really like introduce eachperson.
(20:13):
And that's where something I'mtrying to make a better like
actual campaign of like, hey, I'vegot the introduction.
I've done the discovery call.
hey this is what it's going to
look like i want like a bit of afull email thing to come out that
way hey you're meeting the intakeperson this is what they're here
for hey you're going to meet thelike underwriter and everything i
like that to be a little bit moremapped out it's just finding the
(20:33):
time Yeah, time.
It's always like tonight there.
And so, okay, like in the nextforeseeable future, like some of
your goals are to map stuff likethat out.
So like maybe like polishing a bitof the client journey, digging
yourself out of the file a bitmore.
Do you have like a file or volumegoal that you want to hit?
Or are you just looking to likekeep the same amount of fundings,
but like less time?Yeah.
I mean, that one in my head, I'mscared to be hard on myself and
(20:54):
mortgages.
We talk about volume.
We talk about like the deal, likenumbers.
And so this year I really toldmyself, Hey Alex, like last year
was amazing.
This year I'm really trying to get
back to my family.
I was always there for my kids,
but me and my wife need to spendmore time together.
And so I've even said in my head,Hey Alex, even if the volume
drops, you're going to be able tobring that somewhere else.
I got to.
(21:14):
make sure I'm filling buckets
elsewhere.
My goal is to stick still above 50
million.
I hope that's easy.
I'm on trajectory for higher thanthat, but I want to make sure that
I'm not hard on myself that, Hey,if you don't do this, it's not
devastating.
Yeah.
You know, your number from like acommission's perspective, like how
much you need to live acomfortable life.
And I think that's one of thebiggest things in this industry is
like, There's so much ego involvedthat everyone just goes like based
(21:36):
off of volume.
But if you're spending a lot of
money on expenses or you're buyingdown rate, like at the end of the
day, volume doesn't matter.
It's how much you keep net revenue
and how many hours a day you'reworking on the file.
Yeah.
And that's where for me, like, I
mean, my split for everyone, it'squite a bit higher.
It's not the same as like, hey, ifyou were just working by yourself,
my net revenue could be higher,but my net time would be
(21:59):
substantially higher.
I've crunched the numbers.
Even if I hired, say, two peopleto help support me, I couldn't
make the cost the same and Iwouldn't get the level of service.
And so that's where I thinkmortgage brokers have a hard time.
We want the cheapest amount.
We don't want the client to get
the cheapest rate, though.
We want them to say, hey, our
service is worth it.
And so that's where for me, I've
looked at my numbers.
(22:19):
I'm happy with the split I get
because of what I get to provideand the service I get to provide
to people.
Yeah, that split that you're
paying for, you're basicallypaying for employees.
It sounds like you would be payingmore if you're on your own.
So 100 % well worth it.
It Yeah.
And that's where it's, I mean, andagain, yeah, talking about the
income, I have a company, my wifealso has her own business.
We try and just pay up myself aslittle as possible from my
(22:40):
company.
And I just leave it in there.
The job I used to do, I used towork away a lot.
I made really good money.
And then started working a week on
week off, made really bad money,started doing mortgages, made
really bad money.
It's only up from there.
So like, I don't need to make acrazy amount.
I'd like to, it feels good, but Ialso got to make sure that it's
planning with the family.
the family.
(23:01):
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm the same way.
Cool, man.
We'll always try to end theconversation with this one, just
because we have a lot of newerbrokers and agents listening to
this.
But also I think it's a value for
like more seasoned vets that aretrying to get back into like,
prospecting lead gen, if you hadto go back day one, what would the
structure be like in terms oflike, what are your daily non
-negotiables going to be?And what are you going to do to
(23:23):
drive that business in right away?No, I mean, I would definitely, if
I had strategy hub, I would bedoing that before TikTok.
Like I want social content outthere.
I just would have been makingmaybe content about that.
I would have wanted to providesomething so I could actually call
a realtor offices and say, Hey.
I have this to provide you.
Hey, I have financial planner.
Hey, this is what I have to
(23:43):
provide you.
You're kind of running in the
fish.
Like when you're learning, you're
just like, Hey, I do mortgages.
This is what I can provide you.
It's like actually having a valueor service to give someone like
that's going to help.
like that's going to help.
So learning advanced mortgagestrategy, whether you do them or
not, get it in your head from aknowledge perspective, reach out
to referral partners, get yourstable base there, sprinkle in
some social content.
Are those the three?
(24:04):
Love it.
Yeah, I agree.
Having the advanced mortgagestrategies, it can allow you to
stand out versus other 20 plusyear brokers that are still
pitching prepayment privileges andpenalties.
You hear that all the time.
It's like, man, the value you're
providing is not worth a 30. 40basis points spread.
No, exactly.
That's where you got to provide
other stuff.
And for one, I mean, I do, is the
bank going to pick up your call?I'm going to call.
And so like, we are worthsomething, but like if it's 0 .7 %
(24:27):
difference, if they're not evengoing to use the prepayment
privileges, it's like, Hey, Ican't even sell that.
I know you guys have had Matt onthere.
Like what he's done is amazing.
Like that's a value I can now
provide to clients.
To me, it's not really the clients
it's referral sources.
I get to go to them and say, Hey,
You have a bunch of database.
You could help show your clients
how they could save a lot ofmoney.
(24:49):
And that's where it's helpingprovide value that way.
provide value that way.
And that's why you're successful,
man.
Because I could see any topic we
talk about, your head goes in thedirection of like, how can I
leverage other people's databasesor their network?
And you can tell you've done thatthrough all of the different
things you've done in yourbusiness thus far as like
thinking, okay, how can I go toreferral partners with this?
So I love it.
(25:09):
I mean, I think it was actually
Scott Peckford's recent one, thatWally guy.
Like we all think about clients,but it's like, really, we have to
think about how do we provideservice to other people?
Tell you this, out of those likethe mortgages I did in my first
year, I did a lot of mortgages forfree.
But I did it because like, hey, Ijust want to do as many mortgages
as possible.
I took every single client.
I told them, hey, I'm going togive you all my commission back.
(25:29):
I don't care.
Again, I just wanted to touch my
hand on every single thing thatway.
I would 100 % do that again.
Be like, hey.
I want to get a bunch of deals.
Hey, I'm going to give you all my
money back.
Is that what you did?
Yeah, to clients and to likereferral partners.
I just said, hey, I want to do thedeal.
(25:51):
This is what you get.
Again, I had my other business.
I was still making moneyelsewhere.
And so obviously, I'm in a betterposition to do that.
But that's where I was able to goand get a bunch of deals.
I still made money.
I was still able to do deals and
not do that.
But I mean, I picked up every
deal, even if the credit was bad.
I ran through full applications.
I knew the deal wasn't going to goanywhere.
(26:12):
But I wanted to touch everything.
refine the process where now I can
say, Hey, Tom, sorry, your creditis bad.
We got to work on that.
You come back to me once you fix
that, here's everything you needto do.
I'm not going to spend my time onthat anymore.
Yeah.
It's like the same mindset as
maybe like going through some sortof mentorship for free, where
you're helping an experiencedbroker through files, but you're
doing it for free.
And it's like, I'm going to
butcher the quote, but basically Iheard yesterday in a podcast that
(26:34):
the mentor has a higher price topay than the person doing the work
for free.
A hundred percent.
Every business I've ever done,I've always tried to reduce the
workload that a mentor has to doso that I can give back to them.
And there's that like, Hey, I'lldo this for free.
Hey, I'll take stuff back into myoffice.
I'll do it on my own time.
And that's where like, I started
in my past role of what I used todo started as a trainee in two
years, I was managing the company.
(26:56):
And that was just because I took
every single thing that I coulddo.
I said yes to everything.
And I made sure that I understood
it all.
Beautiful.
Awesome, man.
Well, you threw a lot of value
bombs in this episode.
I'm probably going to listen back
to it because a lot of the stuffthat we're talking about, I'm in
the same situation too.
So I always love connecting with
you and thanks for coming on.
Yeah, thanks a lot, Tom.
It was fun.
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