Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to arguably one of the longest running live shows on LinkedIn and also refurbished or republished onto every available podcast. We film every Thursday live at 2pm Eastern.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: And of course Happy New Year to you guys. 11:00am Pacific Time in sunny San Diego.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: The Mic Duff show has been designed for anybody in the mortgage industry to see behind the curtain, reveal the cloak of mystery of what type of decision making happens when you go from the street to the boardroom and along the way. And we do that by finding guests from every part of the spectrum and ones that relate well with us and we think have a great message and we're able to bring them here as guests on the show. Our show is sponsored by by some adopt the brand clients, but we are now looking out the word for sponsorship across all of the different digital ways we deliver. Not just here on our audio, but if you can search on LinkedIn, we do have a newsletter with over 2000 subscribers we will have a external newsletter coming to substack plus a lot of different audio options on our podcasts. We're excited about we with that said, Silver Work Solutions, which offers agentic process automation. I think it's the next frontier. I know it's the next frontier from a lot of people in RPA. Yesterday's war is what the CTO founder of HubSpot, who's right about almost everything said is one of his 2025 predictions. RPA is yesterday's news, which is important for our listeners because I think the mortgage industry is always far behind. We start to say hey yeah, we're getting ahead, we got some tech going here. It's finally coming together and then I think just make different chess moves than some of these people that were just born with that natural talent and that's why they're over there in companies like HubSpot Create and Things like that.
So I think you're going to see a lot of investment in RPAs here in the new year and that's going to be found three years from now that that might have been wasted internal resources. With that said and that's why you should consider a company like Silverwork Solutions also Sapiens decisioning. If you don't have decisioning models yet, you will in the future. I would highly suggest you look into it today. Most of your decisioning is done in your los your point of sale and your secondary does their decisioning in their ppe. It'd be better to own it and have it autonomous of the different niches of software. You have to and then Astra key which is on a pioneer to bring data protection to the consumer and allow lenders to begin to, and this is my words for all of these sponsors, but begin to really brand yourself as the trust, the real trust brand in mortgage. And the best way to trust is let consumers control their data for as long as they can. And he will continue with his patents to get further and further into the process. But every journey step starts with one step. So with that said.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Well, I got sick during the holiday and just getting over it right now. However, you know, anytime you get together with, with your adult kids and you don't have their and they're all single, so they're not married yet. So we don't have girlfriends and boyfriends over. So for us to gather around the fireplace and television and have actual intelligent conversation without killing each other over politics is actually a good thing. So we're, we're, we came out unscathed. And to kick it off on New Year's Day, we went to Downtown Disney. So it was a fun, it was definitely a fun holiday time.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: That's a very special answer and I'll give a little segue there before I do. We have a guest today who really speaks to who we speak to, which is the loan officers. And we wanted to make sure we didn't get too far away from them and be speaking from the mountaintops without actually having skin in the game, which is a great book. Stephen Moy, and I pronounce your last name correctly.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Just absolutely.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yes.
Is a top producer in the mortgage industry, which has, we'll get into this, has gotten a lot of focus on what is a top producer. But I think the, that's always been where people's heads are at the Scotsman's Guide, which Stephen is up there in every year, year after year. But there's been a real focus this past year not on who the top producer is, but what the makeup of is of not the top producer and what maybe is considered an operational cost at the expense of trying to just bring up your, your unit numbers for mortgage companies. Before we get into that though, my segue would be I was talking with an entrepreneur in the mortgage space who is single and I said enjoy it. When I had easy mortgage apps, I was up till 2am you know, I was flying everywhere, bootstrap and grinding it. And now that I have a family, that, that obviously is harder to do. I saw this quote that you posted, Steven. So we'll start with this by Cody Johnson. It says if you get a chance, take it Take it while you got a chance.
It could mean anything is my point. I, you know, I don't have the same chances I did then. But when you first read that, what made you repost that on LinkedIn the other day?
[00:05:36] Speaker C: It was a song lyric from a woman by the name Nikki Ria, who, if you follow, she has a podcast. If you follow her on LinkedIn, she's had quite a year and she posted that and I was very moved by her post. But I think, you know, it's important to seize opportunity and, but not to, you know, but to be smart about things. You know, we die when we. It's important to still dream and kind of think about what the future can be like so you can mold it. Like when you talk about like technology, the space of technology is not where six months from now, but what's it going to look like when the, you know, the whole environment has changed because of that tech. And that's a, that's a space that the, the industry is really wrestling with because of, you know, AI and security, cybersecurity. You know, so many large companies have, have, you know, are right. Ripe targets for, you know, cyber attacks and even how we're able to market to clients because of possible legislation against trigger leads and things like that.
You know, it's important to, to dream in a way that the future will come to you and not happen to you.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: And on the music side, going out there, getting it, being unique, you've stood out on my LinkedIn. I mean, that was a big reason. Hey, get you up here as a guest.
And I could never describe exactly what it is about any digital talent that that, you know, attracts me to it, but it's really standing out. Right. And so when, how long have you. Because I, I'll admit I haven't followed you since your origin story, but how long have you been doing the music?
[00:07:29] Speaker C: About three years.
I had always been kind of a. I understood social media, but I also knew that for me to have an impact, that I needed to have something that was going to be unique to me. I wasn't always comfortable. Just I thought that a lot of people that are on social media would be. Were really coached or there was kind of a generic format and I knew that for me that wasn't going to work. And I have an identical twin brother who is a journalist. But no, he plays ukulele. But so like 15 years ago he was doing goofy songs on the Internet with ukulele stuff. And so, you know, I thought a statute of limitations had planned. So I kind of co opted his idea and just started doing it and it got a really good response. Particularly what was interesting with New American Funding's metrics, it performed really well with Gen Z client. And that's kind of the, you know, that's the Chupacabra right now that the mortgage industry is chasing because the demographics is Gen Z stuff. And surprisingly the, the goofy ukulele stuff performed pretty well. And it was also something that didn't take a lot of time for me to prepare. But the, you know, I play guitar, but I'm like guitar. But if you play the ukulele, nobody's. If I played the guitar, I would get DMs. Hey, why did you voice that chord that way? Or you know, I really would have played a, A mode in scale that like literally there would be that. But if it's a ukulele, nobody cares. And so it allowed me to just do it. Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: And Mike, I don't want to pivot, take away from your questions, but just want to ask Stephen real quick. When you talk to me, I see it as more than just talking to a potential client. When I'm listening, you're giving advice macro on, on mortgage advice. Do you do it on different channels? What has been your audience like as far as you make different videos for different channels? And is your audience your peers in the mortgage industry or is it like consumers in your zip code, like owning your zip code and getting great response? When you go out and like see people in person, they say, oh you're, you're the one who does the songs.
[00:09:58] Speaker C: Well, a lot of the stuff like I, I have a song that I've talked about the Fed that I do every quarter called Happy Dot Plot Day and it talks about. And so that tends to be more focused to people in the mortgage industry because you know, the, you know the, a lot of consumers aren't necessarily following the minutiae of what the Fed statement's going to be or even know what the dot plot is.
Other songs that I've done tend to be more consumer focused in terms of like education or understanding. Like we did one on our five year rate protection plan and that, that was, that New American had and that was geared towards the consumer.
But because in my, I have a large LinkedIn database and a lot of them are people in the industry but I do have a lot of people who were previous clients and stuff. I'm sure it reached that way. And then you know, the goofier stuff, you know, TikTok or Instagram link. TikTok's a little bit easier because they allow for a longer format and sometimes with Instagram it's really hard to do the setup and get the song. So, so Instagram is more of a challenge in terms of timing because I, I really need, you know, like 120 seconds and, and Instagram has said 90, you know, so that's how it works.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Are those things that you can just edit though? I mean you could play a three minute song and, and pick and choose where you want to start and begin.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: So I, I don't, I, I try but a lot of times it means that leaving like a crucial chorus or a bridge and sometimes, you know, you wanted the song to be, you know, as far as like mortgage professionals playing ukulele based in San Diego County, I'm, I'm as good as there is. And so I do have like some integrity in wanting my songs to at least be, you know, you know, at least hold, hold up a little bit. So I don't want to edit something and leave out some crucial vow, some crucial rhyme or something. But yeah, I mean, going forward, timing has been more of a consideration. Plus you kind of need to jump to the point so that people will watch it longer because, you know, I am competing against like, you know, Ukrainian women who sell crypto. So, you know, I got to keep something to keep the eyeballs on.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's that first, it's, it's really that first four seconds and they. Gary Vee says this Instagram's only going to share it with your audience. TikTok actually was the first platform to broadcast it for you and go find you an audience.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: Yes. And it's interesting the audience that it finds, but different things work different way. I look at it more as like a collective, but it does get some engagement. And the, the thing with LinkedIn is that it scores very high video on LinkedIn, scores very high on search engines. And if you couple that with like experience.com, which also if people are searching me, my experience.com reviews always are very high on the search engine.
You know, it sort of gives a gravitas on there. And that's the toughest thing about the toughest thing for an experienced loan officer with social media is that you can have a loan officer who's really good at content but have no experience. And because a lot of really experienced loan officers don't want to do social media or like, I'm not going to waste my time, they leave a vacuum.
So loan officer that does 50 million in production and maybe, you know, has some really good stories and advice to tell. Leaves a vacuum to loan officer who's done 12 loans and you know, and for, you know, 9 million. Because they're not wanting to tell their stories or get out there. And that's, that's the, that's why experienced loan officers have to be there. And that's, that was my get it moment. And Raquel Boris, who is our social media and brand advisor, she did a post that really like, really made sense to me when I heard that because we used to do this little back and forth. Like she would say, oh, that loan officer has great content. And I would look up their production and be like four loans in the last year. They got plenty of time to do content. But I mean, she kind of came around that, you know, great content with, but with no closings. It's, it's, we can't leave a vacuum if we care about our profession. Loan officers who have stories and experience, they, they, it's, they're obligated if they care about the future of the industry to be sharing their stories and their narratives. And whether that's with the ukulele or, you know, with however you tell your story, the stories need to be told.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: What's the type of feeling, Stephen, that you're trying to initiate when producing your material? Because like, for example, when I remember there was a commercial that was out, I think it was out 30, 40 years ago, and it was like some western music and it was a steak, it's what's for dinner. And so you would, you know, you would listen to the 50s type music and you see a picture of a steak. And social media has effectively changed the way that people want to be able to be brought in and in order to get the phone call to ring with, whether it's your music or what it is, what is the feeling that you, that is part of your brand that you're trying to initiate to make that phone ring.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: What's really important is I have a, you know, like with the videos that we do, people will know I have a dry sense of humor and that I don't take myself too seriously, but I take the business very seriously. And that's the, the most important thing. And also that there's a lot of, you know, there's a library, but that also that the content is current and consistent.
You know, I use LinkedIn differently because LinkedIn, you know, I don't just do video. There's a lot of posting and reposting of articles Sharing of stuff like that. If I'm doing Instagram, it's gonna, or TikTok. There'll be mortgage information, but they'll also be like stuff that I'm interested in or that I think is, is kind of important. And also with Instagram, there's probably more pop culture type stuff that I'll be kind of bringing in so that if people are kind of immersed in it, they'll at least they get a sense of who I am. And so they, they'll either be really disappointed or. But they only have themselves to blame.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: So can you. Is it possible to ask for the ask without asking for the ask? For example, like, if it's so blatant, it'll say, you know, call below or it'll say like, subscribe or whatever. But is there a way to ask without asking?
[00:17:22] Speaker C: There's a couple songs where I've put the ask right in the lyrics. We just did a Christmas song that we posted and you know, the line was, you know, I wish you tons of, you know, Christmas cheer. And when you need a loan, well, you know, I'm here and you know, so you just, you, you build that in there. But you know, you have to, that's why you have to hit the, you have to use the old technology in order for the ask.
Very few loans come because of social media. Like I've had very. If, if it's had. It's been someone that's known me for a long time and they, they, they saw that. But what you have to look at is, is that if someone gets a call from me or we're referred and they look me up, there's plenty of confirmation that I, that I have experience, that I'm well thought of and a sense of my personality. But I'm not getting calls because of social media in. And I don't, I don't expect. But it does, Being there does solidify that. And so a lot of my calls, you know, so San Diego is a weird area because the inventories, oh, you know, very minimal. So I'm marketing throughout the entire state.
So the challenge is that how do I compete with, you know, you know, Joe's Bait and Tackle. It's a true story like Joe's Bait and Tackle, Oil Change and Mortgage Emporium. There's this, there's this place up in Amador county and Joe was the, Joe was the guy.
But Joe liked to go fishing and take long weekends off. And so because of the Internet, some leads came through. I started doing a lot of loans and For a time I became the local lender there because I'd answer a. I had good results but I answered my phone. But also it was very easy. You know, I want to deal with Joe but it's like well look at you know you can look up Joe's reviews but you know, hey, here's a link to my over 255 five star reviews on google and experience.com and here's my social media stuff if you kind of want to, you know do that. And so it's it gives that stuff is where it kind of solidifies it. And the thing is it's the demographics of home buyers. They're going to you know we have a whole generation of home buyers who've never not known the Internet and it's never been their. Their stop, their first stop. So in a lot of cases I end up getting the lead before they even thought of a realtor. A so this is an interesting thing. So in 2015 I attended sales seminar and the guy said that in 2015 this is actually 2016 that I attended it but it's 2015. 65% of all purchase transactions were referred by a realtor. Now that number is less than 30% now still important but because of COVID and not having open houses and because you have a demographic shift in how people look for things if you're on the Internet and people will and the fact that the mortgage business has done a much better job with Internet leads than the real estate industry ever has. The real estate industry is paying major catch up right now and and it may be they may never catch up as far as the advantage that a you know mortgage companies have plus you know just the advantage of having call centers and servicing and I could go on but what's that number's still less and so a lot of times I'm kind of controlling the transaction anyway because I get to have some say on what Realtor, you know the client. If they need a realtor I have people I can refer them to and he or she controls the lead controls alone. And so and this also with NAR because of the changes there, you know you're the realtors that are left or once it did a lot of you're going to see a lot more dual agency and you're also where I'm really concerned about that one thing is that even though I'm experienced and I could probably write a check, I write a contract for a client I don't want to help a first time home buyer write their contract.
It's, you know, that's not, I don't think you can serve two masters on that but I think you're going to start seeing where you know mortgage companies realize especially with first time homebuyers that they need to be represented and with all this nar. So what I would guess going future is that you'll start seeing some of the larger companies having buyer's agents on retainer. So if you get like someone who's found a house but doesn't have a real estate agent that you know that they can on a fee for service, you know, use utilize an in house buyer's agent, all they do is negotiate contracts for a fee for service. That would be, you know, that's where I think that part of the industry and I know I got sidetracked but it's just something that kind of came on that's they should do.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: But we talked about this yesterday and we can get further into it in the show because I think viewers always are curious about this part because the industry is still stuck on recruiting and not making decisions enterprise wide. Even if that's the right answer. If they find out they're missing out on a good group of loan officers because they are afraid that their realtor agents aren't going to work with them anymore because they heard you have an in house buyer's agent scrap the deal to get that group. And, and that is what stunts or why the mortgage industry doesn't play in a level playing field. And it never has been too much of a problem but it will start to be as more of these tech companies come in. I want to take a step back because that was some good stuff in there to digest. I know you said nothing directly from social media but I think just like we deal with the vanity metrics might not be there meaning the click from the comment said I want a mortgage now. But I would guess people run into you that trust you now that you've never met because they've seen a bunch of your videos and ended up doing a deal with you or, or the.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: Yes, that's and that's exactly what happens.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: So there's never been a better opportunity and I don't think loan officers have completely taken advantage of it yet. But it will happen to go back to their own sign up on the wall right like their own brand within the brand and you working with a, a larger company with an unbelievable track record of servicing so you know when you close they're serviced by you.
Where do you see the advantages of having the back of a big company versus having the, you know, still the operation of new American funding but having this, you know, mo homes are better garden loans and, and you know, working under that branch and starting to build that up now that you can, you don't need them anymore for distribution of media. You have a free TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
And if you moved companies you could take that brand with you and tell the new company, yeah, I'll take all your tech and your PNL but not your. I'm going to keep my name. Do you see that pendulum swinging back or is that just the broker world?
[00:25:24] Speaker C: No, you're seeing that because you're seeing a lot of companies that are doing the powered by.
But like the whole thing with P Ls is that a lot of. If you were to get a hundred loan officers in a room, 98 of them couldn't do a P and L on their own. And so there's a, he knows I'm right.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: He's our finance guy.
[00:25:44] Speaker C: And so the whole thing with the P and L is that it's, it's, there's a bit of like we're gonna, it's, it's a bit of bullshit. And then I've spoken with companies over the years who wanted me to do a P and L and I don't have a ton of. And at this time I had, didn't have a ton of experience own P and L. So I'm saying, okay, well let's put in the contract that we have set aside a certain couple days each month where I can ask you questions and we can go over it. And this is separate from when you beat me over the head because I'm not spending enough money or doing stuff in the pinot. And they were, they were offering me a lot of money and this was before New American was, was ever in there. But they were, they objected that I wanted like, I wanted some input on managing the P and L because I wanted to do it better. And I was just talking about something for 12 months. I just wanted to, to. I felt that that was important because if you're going to give me that type of money, like, you know, let's, let's, let's get on the same page. And, and you know, I want to, I want to be able to make sure that it's successful. And they were, they, they kind of thought that that was a little, you know, something that they weren't prepared to do. And it was a, it's, it becomes a litmus test. But you know, I think that you know, just like the whole, you know, like I think that like if companies, it's a good litmus test that if companies are too quick, don't have any barriers to who gets a P and L, it's probably a company that you shouldn't be thinking about.
Now the whole powered by stuff, the one thing that I would say is servicing is becoming really important. Like there's, there's a reason that Mr. Cooper bought all of Flagstar Servicing is that over the, you know, if we do get these long promised, you know, rate drops and remember from you know, June of 2022 to now, you know, we've got a ton, you know we have over $6 trillion in servicing. That's six and a half plus. So if we get any kind of movement in rates, we got a nice little refi boom going. Well, you know the, the hardest one of the, you know, things generating a loan is so much more expensive. So it's much easier to buy servicing and you know, take you know, and, and offer existing clients refinances so you can keep stuff on the deals. But also you can get ahead of it. Like new American Funding has a huge retention. They, they already are using the, the. Because the servicing is so well regarded, they're already using that as an advantage to create opportunities for loan officers working there.
So just you know, just doing it on. And there's a lot of these companies, there's a well known broker company that you know, it's is well regarded amongst the broker community. But you know, the word is that they have a 12 month EPM, you know, early payoff where the standard, you know, is 120 to 180 days, 210 for, for govy. And you know, you might love being a broker but if you refinance and now you can't refinance them because of that epo, you know, is broker. Is it, is it a better situation? I'm, I'm not sure. I just think that, you know the advantage with servicing is it's cash flow. For the companies that kept servicing have more access to cash flow because you have a, you know, you have a lot of like 2 to 3% interest rate loans that are unlikely to pay off en masse and you have the ability to get ahead of people who might be needing a refi in the next six to 18 months. If you know, but we've been waiting for that, you know, for the last, you know, 18 to 20 months.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: I think that there's two things I want to unpack here. The first I'm going to touch is servicing.
I think servicing has been in when, when I first started in the business service back solicitation is what we used to call it, right? Someone gets a payoff and then you're, you know, you've been originating a loan and you wait till whatever 14 days until you're about to fund or seven days prior to the loan docs and then. Because as soon as they get the, as soon as the escrow orders the payoff, then they're getting a phone call from whoever is servicing that mortgage loan. This is like, this is like what 25 years ago. Whether, whether it was an FDIC bank or XYZ mortgage company or whatever. And it was always the, the bane of a lot of originators existence because it's just like I, I don't want to deal with all of a sudden, oh well, they got this teaser rate or they're telling them something they might not be. They probably can't do.
So but really what it comes down to is your relationship as the originator to the actual client that you've originated. So do you really think that it's, that this is not actually not. This is not a rhetorical question. This is a real question. I'm asking you. Do you think that for the average originator that they can actually overcome the back solicitation or the telemarketing calls from the servicing companies so that they can actually keep the originations and the refinances when it does come? And do you think that there should actually just should be a more proactive way? For example, like you're a top originator, so you're just going to go out and go out to your database. Let's say you hammer out 200 phone calls in a week and a half. Meanwhile, the average originator is not going to do that.
So what are you going to do to, to fight that? Are you just going to like hammer the phones and you know, and do that or social media way back into it? What are you going to do, Steven, in order to, to combat the solicitation of the.
[00:31:57] Speaker C: Because, because we service so much of it. We already have our, we already have a department like I have a really huge database. Database is the biggest blind spot for most loan officers anyway. But I, I have a ton. So we did a, in a 2024, I did 59 units. 25% of those loans had what we called an ancillary benefit. We, I keep track of this. It was either it Resulted in a Realtor referral to a deal. It resulted in one of our NAF cash loans or using one of our referral products, like if they do a solar security system. It was a previous client just, you know, so a quarter percent of my business had an ancillary benefit to myself or the company.
Now if we had had a refi boom, that would have been higher because when it was in, in 2021, my ancillary, you know, was about 35 to 40%.
Volume was there. But so, but New American funding now is their servicing department makes scheduled calls. Hey, we just want to check in on the, you know, servicing. And then they have a call that's reaching out to say, hey, by the way, is there anything you need to talk to Steve about? Yeah, that Steve's great. And so they're doing that. So they're. Those calls are going out. Even if someone's like at, you know, five and a half percent where it doesn't make sense. But, you know, they may, it may make sense. You know, I got a couple like where people needed renovation loans or they needed a home equity line of credit or they needed. Or they wanted to buy another house. So companies, you know, that's the advantage that servicing has. But yes, most loan officers don't keep track of their previous clients in a way that's tangible because spending in literally you need to devote an hour a day minimum in a. Basically. And most loan officers would rather spend an hour a day doing a Facebook live at an open house where four people, one of the four being the dude's wife. Seeing that. And it's not to say the social media isn't good, but really your money your is in your database. And that's the biggest blind spot originators have.
I send out a weekly newsletter and in fact, none of this, any of what I do would be nothing if I wasn't being really intentional with my database. I have a weekly newsletter that goes out to my clients. I already have.
I have trigger points where I'm going to call them just to check in because it always. If you contact them when they, when you don't need something from them, then they're more likely to take your call when you have something for them.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Are they. Are they still picking up their cell phones these days or do you find any. Is it more difficult? I know it's kind of a real granular question, but everyone wants to.
[00:35:08] Speaker C: Always wants to take my call. I mean, you know, like, yeah, they're just waiting on bated breath. Yeah.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Because they Know you. So you're in their phone or at least it's not robo blocked, right? Yes.
[00:35:22] Speaker C: And loan officers should be, should be putting closed clients into their phones and putting notes like, while it's fresh and it's less so now. But one of the things that the industry really sucks at is bringing new people into the business. And we tend to rely on retreads just because they have licensing and you know, some people think I can change them. But you know, if you got in the business before, you know, before Brexit and during the greatest refi boom of, of mankind, and you didn't think like, oh, maybe I these people had a good experience with me. Maybe I should save this information. If you didn't think about that, it's kind of like you, you kind of cancel yourself out because it's like, that's just the basic thing. Because there's nothing worse than calling someone, oh, you know, I forgot you did loans and you know, three, you know, and they, I just refinanced three weeks ago. Like, I never want that to happen again if I can avoid it.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: What's the fastest growth you've. You've seen of a beginner? There's that beginner's luck. Or did you see somebody that got a lucky, lucky relationship? Like, is there a way you can grow overnight in this industry?
[00:36:37] Speaker C: Is. I have seen it. There was a guy that I remember, he wasn't in the business. He was a friend of my nephews and he called me and I knew right away from the talking to him that he was going to be good. And, and he was, he was, he was good pretty much right away.
You know, he, he's kind of more of a stay at home dad. So he's kind of, you know, he's not doing as much, but like he could turn on. He was just very, very good initially. I think the problem with our industry is we don't.
You know, when I started out, like, numbers weren't public and so a company could invest in coaching people up because it would be pretty hard to find out how someone's production was and to get promoted out of something like that. But then when it becomes public, you know, so now you know, Michael, you've invested in, you know, Jimmy, and Jimmy's a kick ass loan officer and for some reason he gets it. But now you're having to deal with, you know, oh, dude, you killed it. You did four loans in the last two months. You should p L. You should go. They're ripping you off. You should Go on, be on a P. L and be your own boss. And I've seen that happen a million times. And the thing is, is that it. So what? It. It does two things. A, the loan officer's stupid because he's. You need a little bit of maturity in the business before you make that next step on whatever that is. But you also. Now, Company A is less inclined to coach up somebody new.
Like, you know, I, I remember during the, you know, during the pandemic, I had to go and buy a. Pick up a. A shirt for my son at Nordstrom's. And, you know, I'm talking to the person, you know, and she. Nordstrom salesperson are great. And she. She upsells me into like a, you know, $40 t shirt. And I'm, you know, I'm like, Old Navy, you know, do I got the coupon and stuff? Like, it's a T. But I mean, you know, I'm thinking like, okay, she's got the Nordstrom's training.
She was Vietnamese and she spoke fluent Vietnamese. And like, you know, you don't think that would be helpful in San Diego and in Southern California. But the industry doesn't, you know, we care so much about licenses that we hire retreads rather than thinking about soft skills that would be, you know, for the future. Like, obviously, if. If you have someone who's had sales training, success in another field and maybe has soft skills, maybe they're good at event planning. Maybe their social media is really good. Maybe they speak another language. Maybe all three. But we're not. We don't have the ability to do that because the investment is so high. And then, you know, recruiters are going to, you know, oh, you're killing it. Yeah, they're ripping you off. Well, I'll just look real quick. The.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: The origin story of this. One of the origin stories for me personally, we each have our own for this podcast was actually that even as somebody that was a loan officer participate at the state level, so you'll hear us talk a lot about the NBA and CMBS and growth.
I didn't ever get exposed to what I do now. I'm on the board of the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers. Ben. Love it. But I never even got exposed to an event by the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers association when I was a loan officer for 10 years in Massachusetts because there was that Wall Garden and people were afraid to have somebody that had good talent, you know, go out there and somebody else make a proposal. And that's why we just. When you see the guests for our Listeners that are on this podcast, it's not just the lesson of that hour, but it's the story from A to Z. If you listen to all of them, this is the world. These are the people from Jim Clap to Chuck Iverson to Stephen White here today, like, this is the growth of the people you talk to that you should be talking to, but often don't get to talk to because the sponsorship, the money, the investment to have you go to one of these events, they're afraid some of these people might find a better career for you. I just, I just want to point that out, lona.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: A lot of times, like I'll see people who, you know, I'm all for people making a better move. You know, the guy that I told you that struck lightning, he found himself a better, what he saw was a better opportunity and we're still friends and you know, I'd love to work with him again. Like, I'm not going to begrudge someone having a better opportunity. But there are also a lot of people who will, who basically, it's like the blind men trying to identify an elephant by just grabbing its tail. The thing is that like a lot of times, you know, company might be offering you a lot of money because they're being set to sell or they don't understand that the role that, you know, servicing is going to affect your cash flow. Like, you know, a lot of, you know, or just that maybe you're not ready to run a P and L on your own, you know, because a lot of times you can get plenty of sales training, but how are you going to handle re human resource or how to manage people? And sometimes a great player is not a great manager. Like, you know, it's, it's hard to have some self awareness if you're, you know, like. So I would tell, you know, anyone starting out, you need to follow LinkedIn. You know, you didn't have LinkedIn when you started to follow that. Now if you spend enough time following the right people, you can at least get an idea on, you know, what the influencers, you know, the people that are influencing the industry are saying. And you know how that's going. And not just rumor and conjecture, but certainly the, the battle between broker and banker, which hopefully I think they've done a good job realizing that we have some major common interest and you know, the trigger leads and there's a lot of, you know, you need to kind of understand and you know, the fact is, is that like it's cheaper companies are investing in AI but the cost of loans hasn't come down yet. And that's having a big. That's having a big effect on where the industry's going to go in.
You know, obviously technology is part of the piece, but the thing with technology is that, you know, in certain markets, it doesn't make sense to have six loan officers doing one loan a piece. You know, technology can make, you know, someone who's doing five loans do 12 loans and you're not paying that. In healthcare, fewer desk costs, fewer utilities, you know, fewer polo shirts with logos on them. You know, all sorts of cost covering savings.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: When you're getting recruited, Steven, I'm gonna change topics, but it is related to all, all that you just talked about. Do you actually touch these topics when you're talking to either the recruiter or if the recruiter gets you in front of a regional? I don't know if you've gone that far before, but like, it's been a while. Yeah, I'm sure. But still, I mean, these are all questions that, you know, if that retail recruiters or headhunters might be looking at. And I think that there was a point in time where even secondary marketing was getting involved. Like, I mean, there.
Do you think that originators should get informed more so that they can prepare for the transition from broker to retail or even vice versa? Because just because you're a good broker doesn't mean you're going to be a great retail originator. And just because you're a good retail originator does not mean you're going to be a broker.
[00:44:43] Speaker C: Right. Self awareness makes a big difference there. Well, so the thing with recruiting, I. I'm very pro recruiter.
I think that recruiting gets bashed in a way that's really unfair. The, the fact is, is that in the world that I live in, I need people to be receptive when I call them, when they're not being expected.
So if someone calls me and we have time to talk, I certainly want to. To do that. And I also think that sometimes talking to people from other companies can tell you more about your situation, but also sometimes what people is. So I had. My son was 16 and we needed to buy some dress shoes at Macy's and I had a coupon and all of this stuff. And you know, with Macy's, sometimes they just have the one shoe and they have to go to the back. And it was, you know, the register broke and it was just a disaster. So. And they f. When my son finally got the shoes he wanted, the register broke down. And the closest register was in women's lingerie. And my son just didn't want to be risk being seen buying something in women's lingerie when he was 16. So we ended up going to Nordstrom's and the experience was completely different. So when we're driving home, something came up. He's like, oh, salesman. I'm like, here's the thing.
How was your experience at Macy's? Like, it was awful. How was your experience in Nordstrom's? It was great. And they say it's not that people don't like salespeople, because if you're in the hands, they don't like bad salespeople. It's the same with the recruiters.
They're great recruiters who understand that it's important about relationships. But I think that a lot of where the recruiting process gets screwed up is by branch managers or regionals who, who don't listen to the recruiters because part of a good, you know, they. They will. They will undermine the recruiter. I had one or was a good conversation, but, like, after the phone call, I ended up getting a shotgun offer. And this was, this was like, just to call, like, you know, oh, you're a drummer, but you don't like Steve. He was a drummer. And, you know, like, oh, you're the only drummer I've ever met who doesn't like Steely Dan. And so we kind of, kind of laughed about that, but it wasn't anything. And then as soon as we. We get the.
As soon as we get off the phone, I get a shotgun offer.
And it, it was turn off because it made it all about him instead of about me. Like, why, you know, why. Why should I be impressed? We didn't, you know, there wasn't anything that showed that I was heard. And I think sometimes, you know, the mistake that loan officers make when they're making a company is they don't know enough about what's going on in the business to know, like, where their company exists.
Like, if, you know, I was, you know, I was recruited pretty hard by Cherry Creek Mortgage, you know, at the end of 2021. And then, you know, three months later, they're bought by Guild. Imagine if I had, you know, you know, that wouldn't have been a great decision because I was making it all towards, you know, it would have been, you know, it's the Cherry Creek people that I knew. Guild's a completely different company.
So you, you need to, you know, loan officers need to do the work, and that means they need to be on LinkedIn and they need to talk with different people but also be honest with themselves that, you know, some company, like if someone's recruiting to San Diego, I don't, you know, and they say, oh, we want you to build a team of five to 10 loan officers. And you know, no, that won't work. A Right now 90% of the production is being done by the top 10% loan officers. So anybody that I would recruit very likely would be, you know, sixth and seventh round draft picks. Like I'm not going to be recruiting a $2 million producer, a $2 million a month producer. If I do some other place because a $2 million producer has more options than working for me.
So then it's a matter of so you. But also it's not necessarily cost effective. You know, the desk cost of having 6 onesie twosie loan officers. And the whole fact is, is that if you're only doing one loan a month, you're not, you're. That loan is going to have problems because the only way you get good at doing loans is by doing a lot of loans because you develop processes to be smooth. And so some companies, you know, need to realize that your business model may not work in the areas that you want to be. And maybe you need to, you know, not be one size fits all. And, and companies are kind of getting, are getting better about that. But I do think that I've met a lot of great recruiters, but sometimes, a lot of times they're undermined by their area managers who think they know more.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: It's interesting to say that because that, that's, there's a sense of gratitude that you have, Stephen, in mentioning that when, when there's a lot of originators I've spoken to and they say I'm sorry about xyz and then the ones that, that knock that bring it up another level, they don't say I'm sorry. They actually tend to say thank you for doing that. I want to see what I can do. And the difference between saying I'm sorry and thank you is when you say I'm sorry, it becomes self centered. Now I would say self centered. Well, this, it, it's self serving. But saying thank you is more directed to the person you're speaking to so that you can figure out how to help that person rather than saying I'm sorry, it's all about me. And so when, so when being recruited, you're just saying, you know what, thank you for, thank you for bringing these points up because I want to be able to figure out how I can be a better originator, number one, how I could be a better servant to my community, number two, and then number three, what am I going to do to, to, to help not just myself, but the community that's, that's surrounding my.
[00:51:07] Speaker C: That also includes the industry. How do we make the end. How do we leave the industry better?
And because it's, it's a, it's a weird time, you know, we're going to have to make do more with, you know, make do with fewer loan officers. The, the opportunity is a little bit different. Um, you know, and part of that and, but a lot of these issues are cyclical and have been around since 2018 and only because we got a little bit of a Prague Spring with interest rates. You know, it's far, it's still far too cyclical. There's too much margin compression.
Technology has not helped our industry do it cheaper. But part of that is, is the technology that's available.
Like, you know, we have technology available to make so that 30, 30 to 35% of our loans could get a, a full approval and go to docs within, you know, within about two hours. Because you could use, you could pull up, you know, job hit, you can pull up verifications of employment, you could verify assets, you could verify the appraisal. But companies don't want to invest in that because it's, it's expensive. And the reps and warrants on the companies that are providing this are not, don't protect the lender enough.
And so, you know, until they kind of get around that little issue, you know, we can't keep the cost down. Plus, you know, the, you know, we're still dealing with the fact that like, you know, with what's going on with like the bond market and the fact that mortgage spreads are at a higher width than normal. And that's, that's something that, you know, we can't make people buy bonds unless, you know, you're doing quantitative easing. And I'm not sure I, you know, I'm not sure we wanted to do that anymore.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: I think people keep saying tech's going to bring down the, the cost. The, the mortgage industry has two major problems I see right now. One is the adoption. And when you're only using 30% of a technology that you pay for, you're, you're going to not be able to get the lift that from an ideology perspective, it's just not going to be what's supposed to be. Two is way too many lenders build in house and it really only benefits you.
I, I believe truly to build in house right now in this world with AI and supercomputer coming along the way if you plan on going public. So we know the companies going public.
[00:53:49] Speaker C: Does not help because the mortgage industry, it's first into recession, it's first out, it's basically moves counter to the business cycle in most cases. Now I think that that would be different if you hadn't had basically under build for the last 30 to 35 years and if we had some type of infrastructure bank so that builders had an incentive, you know, longer term incentive to be able to, to finance, you know, lower middle class housing and also, you know, build in more, you know, 3D printing to build houses faster. But the, the, absolutely. The, the industry is so like counter business cycle that it makes it, that it makes it really, you know, difficult to, to be public because you're getting money when you don't want it and you're paying money when you don't want to. Yeah.
[00:54:54] Speaker A: And so to get back to the basics for Mike takes us home. What I have been telling the lenders I work with here. Coming around the turn, I've been combining the Jeff Bezos axiom with unconditional hospitality which I read, which is an unbelievable book, shout out to Alcova for actually doing a workshop on it. But now that I've read it, I would recommend it to everybody as the first read you should read going into 2025 in the mortgage industry, Jeff Bezos axiom is work on everything that makes the beer taste better and outsource everything else. Companies, 70% of companies have muck he calls it, which are routine tasks that don't touch the customer, that don't make the beer taste better. And so really look inward as a mortgage company and say what makes our mortgages taste better? And even though we're obsessed with trying to make manufacturing more efficient, that's part of the 70% Bezos which is outsource. And we need to work on every single part of that customer experience which if you go with unconditional hospitality, how can you be different? I, I think in the future it's starting to be different up front in those data aggregation tools. How can you.
The industry is very lazy about showing a argyle, a true, an account check and putting it on the consumer to fill out in a uniform way. I think you got to get outside the box. You, you have to find ways to maybe send them some instructions wrapped in a big gift, you know, be in unconditional hospitality. See, what I think is if you outsource and save enough money. They had at their restaurant, Dream Weavers, which were like arts and crafts world class artists that the waiter or they would call them captains in the middle of the meal would hear a story, something personal to the table and they would either paint or build a basket or something or come up with something just so unique because that's what, that's how their brain works. And they were able to bring it to every single table during that. And it was a high class meal. But I think loan officers could save enough money to have one or two Dream Weavers on staff and really start standing out and delivering to customers things that even, you know, my brain can't comprehend. That would just absolutely stick. Absolutely special. Even one of my clients, Silver Work Solutions, sent me a beautiful basket for, for Christmas.
[00:57:24] Speaker C: They should send a $50 Uber Eats card once you've fully completed an application and uploaded the the paperwork.
Just as a thank you for spending 30 minutes doing the application and providing the paperwork. But a lot of times, I mean I get it. Yes, there's a lot of stuff we're not.
Yeah, the industry could do well in every, you know, but, but you know.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: Stephen, you know, Stephen, one of those people in the cost of their arts, you know, to paint, it's probably the same price as a JavaScript developer that in three years you're going to be able to go into chat GPT that would have done the same thing. So I guess that's my point. People are paying a lot for sunk cost today. That is part of the muck that Jeff Bezos would outsource. With that said, Mike, do you want to just not so much in a recap but take us home maybe a final question for, for Stephen. Stephen, we appreciate you coming on the show here.
[00:58:22] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: We'd love to get a final thought from you. But before we do that, we'll have Mike provoke your mind with his final thoughts.
[00:58:31] Speaker B: Thanks team for coming up onto the show. A lot of times when you hear interviews with other more top mortgage originators, it's about how many phone calls, how many realtors, how many, how many emails, how many text messages or how many the numbers that you are going to be able to be here in order for the actionable thing that needs to happen to be a top originator. However, today, very interesting podcast today is we didn't die deep into the what are the things that you're going to be doing in order to how many phone calls you're going to going to make in order to be a top originator. It was about proud to be a servant of the industry and the branding in itself behind it. And I have found this particular episode to be insightful, interesting, engaging, a lot of the things that are not self serving. And the characteristic that I find today about interviewing Stephen Moy, it was not about him, which totally actually caught me off guard.
It was really about the servant attitude about serving the industry in itself. And I'm, I'm grateful that we had a chance to get together and, and talk about a lot of different topics. Not about phone calls, but really about how is it that we can talk about recruiting, can we talk about PNLs, can we talk about AI, can we talk about technology and so on and so forth and what does it take in order to not just be the things that you're doing, but in the state of just being of in servant to the industry itself. Stephen, thanks for being on the show today. I know that we definitely appreciate it and if there's anything that you want to say coming off to this, we're going to have, we're going to have our mic'd up show in a minute, but I'm grateful that you had the willingness to come onto our show and really go deeper into how you can be a better servant as a top originator.
[01:00:23] Speaker C: Thank you so much. It's been my pleasure. I hope you all have a happy new year for sure.
