Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Mike Dub show, season five revamp season where every mortgage has a story. We are the ultimate hub where hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. I am Michael Kelleher.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: And I am Michael Zao.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Get ready, unlock the story behind every mortgage. Today we are, we have a very special guest which I'm sure everybody always says when they have Kevin Baranio on from, he's chief lending officer, he's partner at prmg and typically we go over, you know, how people got into mortgage and what they're doing in leadership in mortgage and we ask those questions. But we are fortunate enough he's a repeat guest on our show. So what we're going to talk about today is something I think is very important. I just went to speak because of what we do on podcast to at a sales summit for IMBs and you know they say not only 9, 90% of people quit by the fifth episode and then only 1% make it to the 21st on any type of podcast. I had them raise their hand and out of the 75 loan officers KP0 have been are at five or more episodes. So I thought if zero there, you know, maybe it's a lot lower than I expected at many of the different lenders. And so I think our goal of what I spoke about is by the time you get to the 25th, you realize you overthought it on the 1st, the first 10 or 15 to get started and once you get started it's about your why. So if you just want to give a quick introduction about yourself and maybe just about when people think of you, what are they talking about in the content that you do put out?
[00:01:43] Speaker C: Well, I think I tripped ass backwards into this industry like most people.
So you know, a buddy of mine's like, hey, I'm doing this thing. I'm starting off as a wholesale account executive at first Magnus and I think you would dig it. Why don't you try it out? So gave it a shot and I've been hooked and just working my way through all the craziness over the last 25 plus years and so yeah, that's how I got in. I'm part of a privately owned independent mortgage banker, Paul Roseau and Robert Holiday, our founder and co founder actually 25 years PRMG, Paramount Residential Mortgage Group has been around and then Gary Malice is our cap markets and strategy partner. Privately owned Good spot multi channel.
Really tough to keep multiple channels going but we do it and it really keeps them all sharp. And the reason we do it is because we're here to serve originators. We're built by originator for originators. So we want to make sure that they get served no matter how they want to be served. And it's exciting. It's a lot going on in our business and you know, it's also, you know, for what it's worth, you know, as opposed to just being retail, you know, there's some diversification, having multiple channels, you know, or just being wholesale, you know, there's some diversification there. So yeah, you know, we're grinding like everybody else. I'm pretty positive on the year second half of your outlook.
You know, some, some, some bets are off, not all bets.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: So to, to set the table, you have that reach because you do have a, a great number of loan officers on your retail plus wholesale. For those listening means brokers reach out to KP's company and KP's company will actually fund the loan, but they are the ones in the streets. And so you have that whole reach plus I think it will get into the content you do. But you're also physically on the board of different organizations, different companies, different startups. You attend a lot of the conferences.
So I think your presence is in a lot of places and that gave it a lot of momentum. But we would be remiss to say, I think you have established a brand at least by putting out these videos that are now at a cadence.
I don't, I don't know how Mike and I got into this. I'm not sure if I remember the opening episode and I should, but do you remember your first video or maybe the first time you started to say, I'm going to do this regularly?
[00:04:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I, you know, it's very interesting. I, I, I'm not like a LinkedIn, like super fan, you know, like, like this is how we do business and this is how I do business and I'm going to put all this effort into it. But, but I like LinkedIn. I think it's amazing. I know there are people that build their whole business around influence, right?
Me and my team, we're owner operators. We have to run a business. So I think the challenge is very similar to what real estate agents and originators face every day, is they have to run their business. They have to, their business is getting loans and helping serve the communities and putting people in houses and fostering the American dream.
And so getting on video is like, you know, it's accretive to that. So it doesn't surprise me that, you know, when you were talking about originators doing podcasts that, you know, they didn't make it past five because it in itself could be a full time job. Right. As you guys know.
So for me, I think it kind of evolved in a couple different ways.
You know, we, we have to protect our, our brand and we have to tell our story.
And if we didn't get out here and do that, I mean, at least someone from the company, anyone else could tell our story for us. And, and that actually happened one time. Someone, someone called us like quote, some retail lender, right. And well, more than that, we're a multiple channel lender and you know, gosh darn it, my buddy Matt Ishbia, he got me motivated to get off my ass by calling my company out.
So iron sharpens iron in this business and they're such a great company and a good story. So I want to make sure that someone told our story. But then it really evolved into more than self promotion and it really was like we give advice and I think people that resonate the most with other people are those that are will give you advice. You know, the good, bad and ugly, you know, even if it's not self serving. And so, and that, that takes, you know, it takes a different mindset, an abundance mindset. So yeah, I like helping people. I think there's plenty of business to go around. We're doing just fine.
Of course, you know, would love to grow and, and be larger than that, but you know, we're, we got steady growth and, and so my videos took on this weird thing in Covid because people were freaking out in March of 20. And so instead of getting like a million questions, I just put out a video talking about what's going on to help everybody as opposed to I got to make 100 phone calls to people every day or answer all these text messages. It was getting overwhelming because people were asking for my advice or PRMG's advice or how are we navigating through the fact that non QM just blew up. There's zero yield spread.
My lender's pricing is horrendous. What happened?
Are we going to die? You know, like, I mean this, this is the stuff we're dealing with, right? So I was doing like four videos a week during COVID and, and that was simply just for a modern method of communication.
So now it's just Monday, Thursdays. I'll do one tonight.
That's my typical cadence. We're here Thursday in Vegas, the mortgage mastermind. And I'll probably wait until USA beats Turkey tonight as of this taping.
And then get out there and get it done.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: A lot of realtors and loan officers are out there. They try and get online, and whether it's our show that's reached many shows or whether it's your postings, they're trying to do things, whether it's better graphics or some kind of hook and tail. But for some reason, maybe they can't seem like they are the expert. But yet here we are, we're talking about podcasting, and you talk about what's going on in the market, and we get questions that are asked. How do you do this? And how do you get to. How do you get to the point, Kevin, for you to where you're the expert? What do you tell originators just to. Instead of seemingly being, like, an expert, what do you tell them so that they can be an expert?
[00:08:43] Speaker C: You know, it's not for everybody because some people literally look at what we're doing as, like, public speaking, which is. Which is a fear. And so, you know, there are some people, it's harder to get online than others.
But I think, you know, to kind of, you know, allay those fears, you're just like, okay, look, I mean, if you were standing next to someone in the grocery line and they came up with conversation that you're trying to give them advice of being a real estate agent or originator, would you just not talk to them?
And so, you know, you know, so you talk to strangers, right? And so, like, or else you're just not going to make it in this business. So all video is. Is just a more scalable, modern way to communicate. And I think people, you know, look at it like TV or the movies, like, I have to be perfect and pretty, and it's got to resonate. And I don't know what to say. And you're like, just say what you say every day in the grocery line. You know, like, you know, just. Just, you know, we know Josh Pitts. He's been in business a long time. I think him. His family is still selling around the world, but he used to say, document, don't create it. Doesn't. Doesn't need to be this amazing motion picture thing. Just, Just. That's what I do. I just stick my freaking phone out in front of my face, and I'm like, hey, I'm at the mastermind. Here's what we talked about. Bear Habib was awesome yesterday. You know, he's really encouraging and, you know, shared his personal battle with cancer. And then we talked about, you know, where the market's going and we're all generally pretty positive and oh, by the way, here's what's going on the market and oil prices down and rates are down and the 10 year treasury is under 440 and who knew it? So that's it.
I could just hit pause. Done, we're done.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: So I just think people just need to talk about what they know and not try and overthink it or overproduce it.
Just get going, just stick your phone in front of your face or people like that stuff.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: You answered my next question there. But I'll ask it in a different way. Do you, you, you have a very good cadence, I feel, where you talk about just what's happening in your environment or your world, then you talk about the markets and then you might touch on some current events. But is that as someone's starting to think of what they should put out there, do you think they overthink what they're doing or do you think there should at least be some sort of bullet point in their head so they're not rambling?
[00:11:12] Speaker C: I, I think it depends on what you're trying to do because, you know, a lot, a lot of times, you know, people just talk about, hey, here's, here's what I'm doing in my life. Like, here's what's going on with me and my kids this weekend. Here's how we're celebrating July 4th. So you connect like on a human level, right?
And then, you know, it doesn't have to be in the same post or the same video, but then, you know, sprinkling some stuff that's, you know, maybe content related. Did you know that today is the lowest rate since May 13? And it looks like it's trending lower.
I mean, like this, that's it. Just that one little nugget should, you know, get people. Oh, I didn't know that. You know, very informative.
I thought we were at war and rates were horrible and look at the gas pump, you know, and so, you know, you know, you can be a breaking news person, you know, and it doesn't have to be, it could just be anything that's going on today. You just read the trade racks. I mean, I see a lot, I see some LinkedIn creators, like, all they're doing is just, you know, repurposing what they read in the news that day, you know, and, and that, and that's okay. I mean, that's what all the news outlets do, right? You know, that's that's kind of how media works. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you see someone else's content that you like, you know, glean some nuggets from here and there and make it your own. Just be yourself. So I, I, I think people really get stuck on that and it's just, it's just, just keep it simple.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Kevin. I don't know if you're a fan of personal development or not, but definitely when we're, when we're out there speaking. I don't know if you've heard this before, but I heard one professional speaker say that he listens to music that's at 54 beats a minute. There's even a channel on Spotify at 54 beats a minute that you can listen to prior to being a public speaker.
And, and I've begun to start to do that when I'm on in front of a public audience.
Anything that you do to hone being online as a speaker, whether it's equipment or whether it's trying to improve your capacity of being a speaker, or do
[00:13:10] Speaker C: you, I mean, clearly not look at my lighting, look at this room.
I mean, you know, I, I, I don't, I, look, I just threw my cell phone here, you know, in front of a water bottle at this hotel room. And you know, I don't know, you know, you know, the only, the only real prep work I do is I kind of, I kind of take notes when I read something interesting that I find interesting.
So I'll, I'll write some nuggets down and you know, for example, the 10 year treasury being below 440 is, it's kind of a big deal. I read that rates are the lowest they've been since May 13th.
You know, I think that's kind of interesting, you know, and, and so I keep, I do keep like a little thing of notes for my Monday and then my Thursday video. And then, and then I'm telling you, like, I'll be like, oh shoot. Like I've had, I'm three cocktails in at this conference, it's late Thursday night. I've got to get this video out. Like, I just, it's not like I have like a counter thing that pops up. It's like now's recording time. Like I'm, it's so just organic.
And, and I think that's part of why, you know, mine kind of resonates is like, you know, I almost got hit by a car, like in three different videos, you know, just walking to the street, you know, so, you know, I almost got smoked by a Lambo in Nashville one year.
It was kind of cool. And so, yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I don't, I don't do the beats. I don't get. Get fired up. I'll, I'll check that out. That sounds kind of cool. I think I've had my arm twisted to do karaoke each of last two nights. I'm glad I resisted.
So, you know. Yeah, the prep is just more a couple notes here and there, but then finally realizing like, oh, it's Monday or it's Tuesday, I gotta get out. When I'm in my office, it's easy. There's a. There's a like half. More than half my life. I'm on the road, but if I'm in at my desk on Monday or Thursday, it is. Do all my work, every single thing that has to do with my company, and then read my notes. I'm exhausted, I'm probably hungry, it's probably late. And then I do my video. So it's always like some of my worst work, but it's a little more structured. Right. Because I've got like a little ring light in the background and my camera and it's, it's, it's a different vibe. So that's about the structure that I add to all this.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
They say Walter Cronkite didn't become the most trusted because he used complicated words. He just was trusted because he could explain difficult or complicated ways in that people felt were less confusing. Or they could tune in every night and over little pieces they could bite it and start to consume it and really understand it. So you do this obviously in kp does it in the mortgage world is life, but the financial markets is in the current news and how it will impact. Maybe rate fluctuation is one of the reasons, you know, we tune in and by tuning in we learn a lot about what is happening in our economics. Whether it's CPI or basically inflation or how much we're selling as a country.
So whether a loan officer is. Wants to go that route or they want to be the best fix and flip knowledge person or pick up a phone and just know their area like you said, and drive around to different stores. How much of it do you think is becoming a domain expert? Like that's the knowledge or how much of it is just to the viewer, just repetition of keep doing it and over time they take you as that trustworthy source.
[00:16:55] Speaker C: I definitely think it's both. I'm more of a jack of all trades kind of guy because I have to be.
We're an independent mortgage banker and we need to know what's going on across many spectrums. And so I think it's very popular to talk about rates and the data that comes out from labor data and inflation data and what the Fed is saying.
It's a little bit of a parlor game to guess what they're doing.
But remember, we're, we're, we're, I'm not, you know, we're a relationship business, but it is, it is highly transactional. So I'm not trying to say we just do transactions. Right. Don't get roasted in the comments, but because it's so transactional, especially on the mortgage side, you know, you're literally logging day to day. And so what, what are rates like? Should I float this week?
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: You know, I mentioned Barry having his team have made a living off of helping guide originators, how to navigate the markets and when to lock. And for me that's just part of what excites me. But the flow of money is very interesting. I mean, why did the 10 year treasury stay up when oil was rocketing down under $75 a barrel, down $72 a barrel? Why did that happen? It's supposed to go down. I thought inflation is being whipped. And so, you know, I do a lot of research, I pay for a lot of subscription services to stock analysis that people don't. And I share really that information in my head when I kind of filter through what's going on. And you know, my conclusion is that the bond market wasn't quite believing this oil price yet. And now that there's more ships coming through the straits, you see the ten year treasury come down and rates have improved, that could easily go back the other way or it could keep trending. So predicting the future is a little tougher.
But, but you know, I talk about stocks, you know, I talk about the Space X ipo, which is on everyone's mind. I mean, what does it really have to do with doing a mortgage, you know, but it's something, it's, it's like this is the largest IPO ever, you know, and, and some people, you know, ask me for my stock advice, you know, and I'm not a financial advisor, remember, I'm not loss, I'm not responsible for your losses on your profits.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: So, so people, people want to know, you know, what, what's going on with all that.
And, and I, and I think that's, I think it's Interesting. I mean, people are interested in it
[00:19:28] Speaker B: and, you know, I, they definitely are interested. Is there any pieces that you would say for the, the average common person who's not necessarily into reading technical analysis or necessarily reading into all the subscription broad pieces, is there anything that you would say, hey, stick to whether it's Financial Times, Wall Street Journal or Housing Wire for that matter. Trying to just get just a snippet of the tip of that iceberg that you've definitely seen, the second and potentially third of that iceberg on. What would you recommend reading?
[00:20:07] Speaker C: I really lean heavily into stock analysts that have assets under management.
So, like, you can watch CNBC and see some of the talking heads. There's two that I particularly like. Tom Lee from Funstrat. I subscribe to all of his stuff. It's really good because he really parses through the noise. I think the media is noise, doesn't matter where it come from. I mean, it's there to generate clicks and it does a good job at it. That doesn't make you money.
It doesn't set your mind right. And by the way, you talked about mindset, I, you know, every other week, you know, I'm with, meeting for an hour with Steve Scanlon from Rewire. We just talk about metacognition and we talk about what do I anchor my mindset to? Like, if I want to make money and rates go low, I make money as an originator or even a realtor.
But does that, like, does that fluctuate your emotions every day? That's not what we should be anchoring, you know, our mindset to, you know, it should be, you know, to activities and habits and, and things that are a little more long term.
Having said that, we still pay attention to all the stuff that can be a source of anxiety and so learning how to like, quell that. Right. So, you know, I, I, I, I'm a big fan of that. Josh Downtown, Josh Brown, he has a podcast called the Compound. I listen to it, you know, you know, snippets of it here and there. I'm, I, I don't have a lot of time to like, watch stuff and, but I like that one because those guys have billions of dollars under management. And so it's really important for them to understand what's going on with macro and the flow of money. I like, obviously Barry Habib and team. I like Logan Motorshami. These guys are just into data and they just parse through all the BS and the noise. And there's one other guy I really love, Louis Navalier Platinum Growth Club.
He, he is such a calming force. You know, hey, don't worry. Today the selling pressure is just market mechanics. The market makers are doing mean reversion. They got to get their money back. But these stocks have great earnings. Look at Micron, they just reported earnings. It's stocks of great earnings are going to bounce back like fresh tennis balls. That's what he always said. You know, and so, and it's a calming effect. You know, is this a bull market over? Are we going to see a 50% sell off on the stock market? You know, is home prices going to correct? 20%? You know, those are, those are really fear based things. Are we going to have 7% rates, 5%, 10 year treasury? You know, all this stuff is kind of like, you know, fear based and not factual based. And so it gives me a platform to debunk a lot of it and just give people a calming effect.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Well, we are, I think, by the way, I was hoping we would get that intel kind of into the mind of where the sources come from.
I think nobody has enough time to go through it all themselves and twice a week you can tune in and get all that information siphoned right to you. And probably the most entertaining, I mean I, I think there's a lot of people putting out content these days on LinkedIn and yours is one of the few I go to. We're trying to break down why that is. If it was as easy as and people knew the recipe on what made people come and watch, you know, everybody would be doing it or be selling it for a lot of money in special bottles. But we will try and figure out more of maybe where to go from here for loan officers on what they learned. Maybe get a couple answers from you on AI because you are involved in AI as much as anybody in mortgage. And I'm sure Michael will have some questions about motivation after what you just said. And we'll try and wrap it all up on the second half of our show, the final 1012 minutes of it. But we first want to give thank you to our sponsors.
This has become kind of a full time job. So please subscribe to our different areas of on LinkedIn and on audio on Apple. But we couldn't get it there without our producers and we couldn't have our producers without these special sponsors. So we'll ask KP some questions and let him get back to one of the many conferences he's at on the other side of this break.
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[00:27:31] Speaker B: Interesting that we would have our last sponsor talking about AI as we lead into the next question we have for Kevin and Kevin. We've been talking the majority of the show about how you've been able to produce content and it's interesting because you do a lot of research into that what originators today and even Other potential executives, as they begin to post information, I think they would like to have some kind of reliance potentially or some kind of usage for AI. AI is all the rage and talk. They're, you know, there's data systems and managers and energy usage and so on and so forth. But in the matter of AI for content creation, what is it that, that that makes a difference as a human advisor versus what you produce, right? And, and what you produce right now versus what the originator, salesperson can do in Utiliz without making them sound fake because you're very real. But AI is going to be very much more real in the upcoming years.
[00:28:36] Speaker C: I don't use AI any of my posts and I'm sure people can tell and I think that will stand out as content.
When people are.
AI can just crank out so much stuff. I just can't read everything it's cranking out. It's just too much. You know what I mean?
I'm not the matrix writer. Plug it in the back of my head and just download everything, you know, I gotta like read it and understand it and come up with my own independent thought.
And by the way, like, I, I cringe like I'm at the show and like, you know, some people come up to me like, oh, you're like a deal, like a, like a LinkedIn celebrity or influencer. And I'm just like cringe like that. Like, like no, no, no, like, so I always humor him. Like I'm like a D list. A D list LinkedIn celebrity, right?
You know, but you know, the, the reality is like, I don't try and like get maximum follower count. I don't boost my posts, I don't have a production team. You know, it's just all my connections, like I've personally read who they are, you know, are, you know, most of my connections are in America, you know, which I like. So I want to make sure that like, you know, it's, it's, it's our network, you know, that we see.
And so I don't even know if I even have 14,000 followers. And then I see some of these posts sometimes, like, look how many followers so and so has. And I just like, do you even know those people are, you know, and I mean, it's hard to keep track of it. So that's not my bag at all. Like, I like, if people want to watch my content, great. I'm doing two videos a week and that's it. And they're going to fall in land where they land. And I hope it makes a difference to someone's day and, and gives them something, some nugget they can take away and, and embed in their, their thought process. And so that's it. I mean, that's all, that's all I do. I got. I mean, I mean, not to sound like, kind of crazy, but, like, if I just disappeared off this planet and freaking was never on LinkedIn ever again, like, that's okay. I'm totally okay with that.
It's like, not my, not my jail.
So good.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: So I've follow up to that. So then, I mean, we're on our fifth season, going on six, and you produce two content pieces of content per week.
So when Mike and I first started, we had a lot of mistakes. And, you know, I, I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm even putting myself out there. This is ridiculous.
Especially with some of the content we had at the very beginning of our show.
But we just didn't.
[00:31:08] Speaker C: Those are great. You guys always have thoughtful questions like, you're, you're, you're. You're now discouraging those, Those people didn't get to five. Yeah.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Well, that being said, I would say that we were, we, we were unquitable. In other words, like, there were times where, like, I, I don't know, like, my wife would be on the side saying, why are you on this show?
[00:31:28] Speaker C: He's like, no one.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Nobody cared, I think. But I'd be like, no. And we, I would be unquitable in the same sense. Kevin, you are unquitable. You put the content out there. You're very real. And you just do it because you want to be able to. Because you, you're, you're doing this at a genera out of the generosity to make the industry better. But it has to be more than that. Or maybe, maybe it's not. I don't know.
[00:31:52] Speaker C: It's as simple as that, buddy. That's it. I love helping people. Yeah, I love helping people. There's no angle.
I hardly talk about our company, you know, and, you know, there are people that sprinkling posts talking about their company. You know, it's like, I don't know. I just.
And I, I don't. And it's not like, because I don't talk about my company. Ooh, that's the hook for your company. Like, that's not even how I think. There's just so much business.
I'm playing the long game. And so this is, this is who, you know, who I am. This is what our company's about you can see what we're thinking and we're opening, you know, and sharing it freely. I'm in a lot of collaborative events and groups and closed door meetings and like you said, advisory boards and it's great to talk about that kind of stuff. And I, and I, and so I think, you know, if there's anything monetarily or that ever came is that I've had a lot of investment opportunities and venture capital opportunities or first look at tech when it's very early because I think people do see me as, you know, one of the, one of the sources of the industry of just kind of making things happen for technology companies.
And, and there's so many, there's no shortage of them. Right.
And, and by the way, if it could help get an early look at something and help our company at prmg, that's a, that's a benefit of it, you know, to make sure that we're a future proof platform in a place that people don't want to leave and then maybe want to come to. But I don't talk about it like that. I think every company is trying to do that.
I just don't see a lot of owners out there, you know, doing videos on LinkedIn and in speaking their minds. And I wish more of them would, you know. Another shout out to Matt Ishville. He does his three points at that. He gets out there. He's pretty disciplined about putting out videos and he's got an audience and you know, he's, he's definite inspiration I think, for any owner that wants to get on camera. But most owners are not like me, you know, or him, you know, young and energetic and trying to be at the forefront of everything that's going on in our industries. And you know, they, they, they, they maybe are behind the scenes.
You know, we're have people like that behind the scenes and so, but someone's gotta, someone's gotta talk and communicate in a modern way. And that is one advantage of LinkedIn and these kinds of podcasts you guys do. It's really, it's really thoughtful to, you know, get stuff out there so people can be like, all right, I'm better for listening to Mike and Mike today.
This is a good takeaway for me.
[00:34:23] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: I think for those listening in the general public, our industry has a very intimate way of existing. So to get 3,000 listeners or viewers in an addressable market, that's a $6 trillion volume business going through it.
[00:34:44] Speaker C: Two this year, four plus on Covid years. Right.
Which is a Lot, which is a significant amount of business. And, and to your point, you're kind of making. There's this customer contact week going on here in Vegas same time. I went by there Tuesday and I had dinner with Capacity, which used to be Jane AI and we've been on them over six years.
There's this whole other conference that like, I bet there's almost no mortgage people there and there's all this AI in there.
And because they're not at our trade shows and they're not in our sphere, like we don't even know who they are. I went over there, I checked it out. There's a lot of cool stuff over there, some great tech out there. You know, Cisco's there, Amazon Connect, you know, all your, your IP phone providers, eight by eight five nine, all this stuff. Fiverr. There's so many companies there, there's a huge trade show and there's no one there from our business. And so I think it's kind of interesting, you know, just to talk about that on my video. Like, hey, I went to this thing and it was, it was, you know, it was great. I sat down with, I sat down in a workshop with 11 labs and here's a book, how to build your own AI voicebot. Now, we're not a build shop. We use cella brought to us by Total Expert. And we love it, we think it's fantastic. And they're very mortgage specific.
But I know, for example, uwm to give them a hat tip, they built their own ava voice on 11 labs.
Most people don't even know that. I mean, here I am in a room and they're like, here's how you can do it too, you know, and some people may go in there and do that, you know, or maybe they start the time and they're just going to buy one. Like how we are, which still takes a lot of work like we did with seller. And now we're cranking out 2500 calls a week on just 3500 contacts. Wait till we open it up on a million contacts. And we're converting live transfers and you know, Microsoft calendar bookings appointments at 4.15 to 4 1/2 percent. Almost 2500 calls a week, which my humans cannot make. They're not making. So then we give it to them. We're just giving them business with this AI virtual assistant. Do sell up.
And we're starting with sales first because I will tell you, AI absolutely has power to eliminate jobs.
So I think it's probably fair to start in sales.
If salespeople aren't good enough to keep up with the activities, that AI could make them rendered useless.
It really should be from sales. Then load. Like we're intentional about doing sales. First load up that business to the fulfillment team, then come from behind and give our fulfillment teams a lift from AI. I don't want to fire them. I want to load them up and have them be busy and then give them a productivity boost.
And that way I keep as many people on our team as possible because AI is very powerful. I mean, look at, look at the hyperscalers.
Oh, Amazon just wiped out 10,000 jobs and Meta did 20 and stock price goes up. That's 20,000 people, right?
There's like 42,000 loan officers that actually do more than two loans a month.
And there's a bunch of others, obviously, that are not at that level. And so AI is going to be very disruptive. But I think ultimately it's going to enhance productivity across the board.
And if you're not in that race, it's not too late to jump in, but you got to jump in that race because the bigger competitors are in it. And they're seeing ROI last year. We are last year and this year. And so that ROI is going to create margin compression, working for less. And you see some originators will go to a lender where they think they can scale and do a lot more and work for less per loan. That's been happening for years without AI. So I think those are probably the most general thoughts I can give on just AI with a couple specific examples. And what we're doing intentionally at prmg.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's such as what AI is doing.
It's like what it's not what it's replacing. That's not being done. So think about all those phone calls where you're just leaving voicemails, not actually reaching anybody. And now you can set up your system where your people don't have to call somebody that's not listening and then you can transfer it over and actually get to selling. So, yeah, huge lift there all the way across. I'll have you get out your crystal ball as one of my final questions, if not my final one is and sort of bring this all together.
So, yeah, I believe you are extremely authentic in that you don't chase the followers. And I actually think those people out there, now that they're popping up more, if anything helped that brand, because now we know how that. Now I know how they act.
And so you can tell like somebody that really cares about their following and, and how many people are listening to them and their view on the market. So when you run into someone like you, you're like, oh, okay, maybe that's why you're getting so many compliments. Because I'm sure they're not getting as. When you can tell somebody's trying too hard, they get less compliments. So you're very authentic. You don't use any AI. And I think that is the last mile. That's what I've been trying to say. Like the last thing AI is going to replace for that local loan officer is if you go out there and do a podcast like and you're authentic and you're consistent no matter what that subject is. That's the one thing AI cannot replace. And it's the last frontier for loan officers for decades to still stay in business and do plenty of business in their zip code. Otherwise, I think at some point the PRMGs of the world are going to be the ones that can scale the technology you need. So if you haven't found a way to be authentic, you, you're going to want to go either join a company like that or be a broker and sell into that wholesale setup and that whether it's good or bad for the ecosystem, I think the bigger companies are going to get the huge lift from scale. How do you see, do you think we stay with the same channels in, in the same way it is today or do you see like a dissipating of like a lack of a, a middle class as far as like a lender size in the future because of AI?
[00:40:52] Speaker C: I, I think, I think the channel mix is fairly balanced right now. I think it's probably where it's going to be for some time.
You know, one or the other could, I mean, you know, don't sleep on servicers and retention teams. You know, you get a refi boost, you know they're going to crush. Right.
You know, you see rocket buying, you know, Mr. Cooper, they own one in six loans now. You know, that's a, that's a nice cheap customer acquisition cost, you know, advantage and, and you know, maybe calling AI is not something that resonates with you. We use Cindy C I N D I E Cindy AI for texting. We're testing that out.
A multi billion dollar originator, Ben Anderson put that together in his voice, like in the voice of someone that closes deals and there's a lot of texting platforms. I saw a bunch this week, you know, customer contact week. But what voice do they speak in some tech team from the Bay Area. You know, you know, this one, you know, we use our first week we got 36 real estate appointments. You know, just one, one branch in New Jersey using it, one producing branch manager in a week. And so, so, you know, Dave Savage hosted a panel yesterday. I was on with Steven Jerus and Larry Wagner and Ryan Grant and you know, like, what's going to happen to loan officers? And we all overwhelmingly agree that loan officers are going to continue to be needed. This AI texting and AI voice platform just tees up more conversations so the person who's an expert can work with that consumer and drive that relationship. And so yeah, having podcasts, having social media presence is another way to pull things because you got to get the, you got to get the lead in the contact to begin with. So you got to pull them into the funnel, you know, and a podcast is a great way to do it, or social media, just content is a great way to do it. So yeah, I think the scalability of companies is getting just nuts.
And so you see some MA activity out there.
I think some people are saying get big or go home. The good news for all of us is we're still financial services and the balance sheet is the limiting factor. There is no one lender that can just own it all.
So you can only do what your cash and your balance sheet will let you do.
And that's a handcuff and then there's a regulatory handcuff and there'll be more regulatory handcuffs on AI. And so that is going to provide a moat that keeps it from being like, all right, these five are it. That's it.
You work with them or you're out. It's not like that. There's still in fact most originators and realtors that work at the local level, regardless of what type of company they work for, are getting more consumer direct esque and they are able to have guerrilla warfare and guerrilla tactics and fight and win and scale. And again, in a two trillion dollar year, there's a lot of business to go around.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: We appreciate all your time. For those that were listening, KP is actually at a conference right now built with some of the top producers, actually the top producers in the entire country that are out there helping families get into home, helping veterans get into better financial situations, helping first time homebuyers get onto the American dream.
Just for a final sound clip, kp, last question of the hour. We appreciate your time. Loan officer is listening.
Driving around or on their walk to this podcast. The Mic'd up show on Apple Play. They hear all this, they got the phone in their hands. What's the next thing they should do?
[00:44:22] Speaker C: Well, I will tell you, just be confident. Even if you're brand new, if you're a month in, you know, more than most borrowers already, so you're an expert, so have that confidence. And then I think, you know, making sure you have a good immediate manager that really cares about your development that is big. I mean that doesn't matter what type of company you work or what channel you work in. You need someone to help invest in you and, and then, you know, just, you know, have discipline on the daily activities because I think AI is going to create a lot more opportunities and so you have to be even. You know, some people don't want to work that hard. That's why they're in this business, you know, and that's okay, you know, but you know, the more you put in this business, I think over time the more we're going to get out of it, you know, because of AI and all the other scaling things that are going on. So yeah, just stay confident in your expertise and make sure you have good, you know, daily disciplines. I think non QM is great. It's a good little niche. Equity lending is a good little niche. Those are two little product lines that are a great floor when spring purchase season peaks out or when there's not a little refi boom that going on. You know, you need to have a floor that's consistent and it's out there to go get.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Go get it. Loan officers, you heard it here first. Thank you KP for your time.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:45:40] Speaker C: Thanks guys.
[00:45:42] Speaker I: Thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart of mortgage innovation. Every mortgage has a story and we're here to help you write yours. If you enjoyed today's insights, please subscribe, leave a comment, share it with your network and connect with us on social media.
Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and uncovering the stories that drive our industry forward.
