Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season four of the Mic'd up show, where every mortgage has a story.
This is the ultimate hub where the hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. We don't take a Thursday off. This is right near July 4th. I'm Michael Kelleher.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: And I am Michael Zhao. Good morning to y'.
[00:00:19] Speaker C: All.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: And in every episode, Michael and I dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit, strategic insights, breakthrough innovations that built the world's greatest mortgage companies.
So whether you're advancing your career, scouting for industry leaders and we have a couple on this show, or exploring opportunities in fintech and prop tech, you're in the right place.
So get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage. Let's dive in. Today we have from Real Fridays.
I guess I'll be Trace host. I was trying to do the Trace laches. Is that. Is that what it is over there in the fever, But I couldn't come up with something clever enough. Either way, we only have uno number one, Brock Cassidy from New Zip here.
Brock, I do want to go into the show when we at least have one of your. Your counterparties. But you came from the thread of Rocket Mortgage. We had Justin Presser on from Prosperity and he came from Rocket. There is a lot of alumni these days that comes from Rocket.
What do you feel like your early days were there and how has that shaped you as you've advanced and really branded yourself as this fintech prop technology, but obviously deep in the mortgage channels as well.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. Good to be back. I think I came on the show when you guys were first starting up, like a year or so ago. Yeah, maybe longer, but yeah, thanks for having me. Rick and Jeremy will be leaking in here at some point. They're not very timely.
[00:01:49] Speaker D: But.
[00:01:49] Speaker C: But yeah, I got started. So it's just over 10 years ago now. So my 11th year in the industry. I just counted because I like to joke. Rick likes to joke about me being new to the industry. So I, you know, keep count when I can tell him certain milestones.
So 10, 10 years and change ago, I got a job that I'd never done anything related to the mortgage industry. I was an analyst that, like a venture capital company actually in. In New England and mostly in Maine, where I'm originally from, and in the New England area. And so moving to Detroit to join Rocket was a pretty big leap. I did it part of. As part of like an entrepreneurship program where certain companies were advertising certain openings to, you know, people with, with like, startup site backgrounds, analyst type Backgrounds that you know at companies that maybe don't normally hire a lot of people with that background or things like that.
So I got sort of like this strange job process that worked out really well that matched me with relatively early days of what became Rocket Homes and is now a lot going on with the Redfin acquisition of course, but since when I got there it was known as in house Realty. It was I don't know, 80 people, 70 people. When I left it was Rocket Homes. It was, it was 500 plus employees and it was this huge real estate company that was deeply integrated with Rocket Mortgage so basically did all, every different job there just about as they were building up their really integrations from a product standpoint between Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Homes as well as some industry partnerships with like Proptech and fintech companies. That's part of where I acquired more of that background and got to know our friend Jeremy Potter who was doing the same thing from the mortgage side and yeah generally helps with, with different strategy on how to position real estate mortgage industry strategy at Rocket. So it was a cool job.
There are a lot of different phases of it. At first it was like really hands on, like you know, product analyst type work.
And then I ended up being kind of a chief staff role to the CEO of Rocket Homes at the time, Doug Siebel, who is kind of like board level at Rocket Companies as well.
So we did a couple different acquisitions of real estate companies much smaller than the Redfin one more recently.
But I ended up working there about seven years and over the course of time helped a lot of different strategic efforts of industry partnerships. Acquisitions was part of a lot of really cool meetings on things that didn't happen and a lot of things that did happen and a lot of those tentacles that Rocket has today with buying Rocket money, buying and building out from there Rocket Money, Redfin, you know, I wasn't as involved in the servicing side but Cooper is like all strategy that Rocket has been, you know, driving down those lanes since I got there in 2015. So it's you know, from a distance fun to see that where it's reached. But that's what my experience looked like. Showed up to a small, small channel of Rocket related to the real estate side.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: One relevant question yesterday to see if I maybe have a broken lens, I posted on how the lending industry does need to change. I I believe for these Gen Z to show a better career growth in lending until they can figure out how to make it residual income meaning if you're a loan officer and you come in today, what's the plan 25 years from now? You still hunting to a degree, right? It sounds like Rocket does a great job at allowing for career growth. Would loan officers be able to grow or is it almost just like a different pool of lawyers like Jeremy, venture capital capital markets like Justin?
[00:05:37] Speaker C: No. Yeah. Potter and I have, have the weirdest backgrounds of, of anyone. Everyone else everyone else started as a, as a loan officer.
We, we both came in in super weird ways. I think that's part of what we bonded about. But no, almost all the executives at Rocket Homes that built out the real estate side were, were top producing ellos, team leaders, regional vice presidents, etc.
Within Quicken Loans Rocket Mortgage at some point in their career, just about all of them. Sam Vita, who is a good friend and mentor of mine, who was one of the kind of original founders of of in house realty Rocket Homes, he, he was the one that. I don't know if it was his idea partly at least, but he, he started building out the real estate network for Rocket from day one and he literally left the purchase, you know, mortgage banking floor to do it. And I think he sat in the same office as them while they were figuring it out. So it was a very hands on culture of, of loan officer becomes loan officer, leader becomes, you know, you can either keep going up there. Obviously there's certain people that, that love producing themselves and so there was some, some really high end loan officers that built their own channels but for the most part tons of tons of growth from loan officer to either sales leader, client client success leaders, you know, offshoot with a little, with a little less crazy hours and a little less hunting.
So yeah, Rocket had had, you know, a tremendous growth for loan officers and they would bring in when I started in 2015, the, the week that I started every week at the time maybe still rock Rocket had an onboarding meeting where Dan Gilbert and, and Bill Emerson and all the, all the guys that had had built a company for so long would come and speak. Probably now Varun is part of it. Whoever else would come and speak to all the new folks and every week there would be a hundred plus 200 new folks coming in mostly as like loan officer trainees, mostly having not passed their exams yet, mostly not having all their state licenses yet maybe probably a max, I don't know. But they had really good kind of like junior loan officer type opportunities to come in, be sort of, you know, pass your exams, be on the phones as like client support or overflow, things like that. So a lot of people, a lot of friends of mine that came in around the same time I did were doing that and they, you know, slowly be passing their exams, getting more of their own, becoming more of like their own producer, while still sort of like phasing out of the education side, although there's always continuing education. So I suppose that was good to have anyway. So, yeah, I always thought that was cool. The sort of like accelerator they built behind the scenes of how to, how to turn, you know, a ton of. Ton of folks with no mortgage background into their, you know, top producing los.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Brock, I want to go back just a little bit. You said you were chief of staff, right, over at Rocket under the CEO. So that gives you not only the insight of what it's like, you know, for, to talk to the, the various components over at Rocket, but also you got a, you have a chance to meet the various experienced mortgage originators. If I'm a mortgage originator and I want to, and I want to be able to listen to you, I talk about how do I make it? Because you've, you've talked to those at the ground level, not even licensed yet, to those who basically have launched independent mortgage banks right now, as well as, as well as the leadership over at Rocket Mortgage, giving you some insight not only, not only from starting the mortgage company, but also taking, taking a company like Rocket to, to a different level. So if I'm a beginning originator and, and I want to sit there and go, well, yeah, I want to. My big hairy audacious goal is I'm going to get my licenses, I'm going to go do 50 loans a month.
I'm just saying. And then I'm going to be, and then I'm going to start my own mortgage bank mortgage company. I'm going to be just like Rocket.
And I think that, you know, today's show is about being an industry mouthpiece in weekly shows. And I want to be able to ask you the question with your background, if we, you know, I think a lot of people, they just listen bits and pieces. But how much continuity, Brock, with all the experience that you have gleaned in your experience, how much continuity do you think someone needs to listen to your shows or even our show on a consistent basis to say, okay, these are the shows I need to watch or listen to?
And how does someone take it? I mean, is it continuous for three weeks, four weeks? How does someone listen to your shows to glean that from you and Rick, from Jeremy?
I mean, what kind of continuity do you guys have to, to bring that to an originator.
[00:10:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I think our show I think is a little unique where to some extent we, we talk about like news and like deals in the industry and things like that that may not affect a day to day originator every day. Right. So I never like, I don't really present our show as like something that originators have to have to listen to or they're going to miss out.
We obviously love, love to have, have people supporting the show, but I really don't think our show is where you'd start. I think.
Yeah, I look to listen to people that have, that have done it directly. I had kind of a strange path in this industry. I've never originated myself.
But like you guys were mentioning like Justin Messer came on the show recently. Like people like that, that, that you know, got. Got trained up at Rocket and now as a CEO somewhere else. Like there are, there are really amazing people to follow in the industry. I got to hang out with him at a conference not too long ago so I can say with confidence he's a good one. But you know, there's probably a dozen other people that, that we can think about or maybe leave some comments of people I recommend on the show when I have a minute to think about it. But yeah, I would say, you know, a lot of it's figuring out the. Well I know Mike, both of you guys have, you know, started out producing yourself and built up all different industry careers from there. So to some extent I think I'm kind of the wrong person to answer that. But what I will say is having met a ton of I guess the best producers in the country, especially in like the CD type model, there's a ton of attention to detail on the data, the numbers. So you. I, I really do think like it's, there's been a lot of glorification of like the marketing of, of yourself as a loan officer. I think, I think about the guys that I. And part of the benefit of being somewhere like Pocket is, is that you, you had deal flow and you didn't have to generate your own as much.
But I think just becoming a really competent loan officer with as many, you know, licenses as you can, as many designations as you can, as many expertises as you can to, to. To be a tr. To be that trusted advisor is, is what I saw across all those guys that ended up being licensed maybe in all 50 states and then becoming a leader of a team and then.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: And.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Then ultimately building out their own companies maybe or building out a region. So you know, I think it's like focusing on, on your day to day craft from, from the beginning and the education is a huge part of it. I don't think I'm a great person to supply that actually.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: So the next question is then how do, how does that translate for news app for you guys in, in your relationships and real estate in the industry itself?
I think, I think originators don't even, I don't think they understand how, how your experience actually translates. So how you can help them. Can you give me a little bit of insight with newsip actually on how, on how you, how you've been able to utilize your experience at Rocket into news it and what you guys do and now how are you guys are presenting yourselves thusly?
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Yeah yeah. I mean it's, you know, it's similar story too in a lot of other industries where a few of the largest players have spent billions and billions of dollars on developing these ecosyste. Right. Rocket spent over a billion dollars on Rocket money, over a billion dollars on, on Redfin, much more on Cooper. All these things they built internally. Even you know, building out rockethomes.com was I would say, you know, tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in the, in the late 2010s when I was there.
So most lenders don't want to do that. Most lenders don't have the ability to do that.
As tech accelerates, as the product kind of roadmaps in the industry of, of both, of both lenders and vendors accelerate in the industry, there's a lot of things that can be done a lot faster and a lot cheaper and a lot better actually, because there's not all the, the legacy, not to say that Rocket's doing it badly, but a lot faster and a lot simpler than how Rocket had to build it, you know, back in the 90s and early 2000s. So we, we think of Newsip as not so much like an inventor of this model. There's been, there's been very relocation companies. There's been, you know, JB partnerships for a really long time that, that connect real estate, real estate age agents and originators.
But we just think, and have begun to prove, always still proving, we think that we're just kind of like the newest iteration of the model in terms of the tech, in terms of the data, in terms of our ability to play nice with all our integration partners.
We integrate with all kinds of different real estate data providers, mortgage data providers. We've integrated with about every CRM in the industry. Several times, several ways losses.
So you know, we, we just want to supply that connective tissue between whatever a lender's existing tech stack and workflow is to build out better agent partnerships. So that's how it works, that's how, that's how it works for news. If and loan officers know that even if you have a handful of trusted agents, if you're building out new markets, if you're licensed in more than a couple of states, you're not going to have a consistent stable of every agent you need for every situation. So that's what, that's what news it does for a lot of our partners. We act as overflow. We have local real estate agents in all 50 states, all 3,100 counties that we have just a ton of data on third party and first party data to, to say and to show that they're going to be a good match for your deal and they're going to give savings to your client there and they're going to communicate with you in a way that you're not used to much more than what you're used.
So that's where we, that's where we come in. That's the connectivity we provide.
We have begun hiring account management and partnership folks at newspaper who have origination backgrounds or one of our account managers has a really deep background as like a processor and ops person.
That's that, that, that's played really well for the, in transaction, you know, conversations we have to have with, with, with lenders and processors.
But yeah, we just want to meet lenders where they are. We want to meet originators where they are and be their real estate partner. However they want us for overflow or for everything or for certain situations, whatever it might be.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: I believe now more than ever leading with something like your own podcast and then having a new zip to a lot of these forward softwares out there are key right now. I want to dive a little bit more into your show on the other half of this break but we'll give our audience a real quick glimpse on some of the other providers out there and we are always looking for providers. We have a great package. You get it all the way till the end of the year. Can't beat it, just reach out. We're pushing that hard. But for now check out some of the winning ones in our stable.
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[00:18:44] Speaker G: Year where the company can do the configurability so we have no code on this. So they can go in their settings, they can set it up all the way down to loan officer if they want to. We also have a customer support team that's assigned to each account if they want. They can overhaul everything if they wanted to. They have a new product especially dynamic apps. With dynamic apps we can fit multiple, we can fix the Fannie Freddie loans, we can new construction one time close HELOCs, you know whatever those workflows are, they can design that workflow for each individual app. So it's not a static app. And plus two is as they're answering those questions, it'll ask them specifically what they need. So the borrower has everything at their fingertips right then and there. You know when a question gets answered certain documents are required and we have that engine that handles that. So if uploads directly into flow fi pushes it automatically into the los. If the loan officer they are able to set it up where it looks like if the processor needs something they can communicate as a team. So it looks like it's coming directly from the loan officer that they're already used and have that relationship with. So it's not somebody that they never talk to. Now what's going to take it to the next level is the AI and the OCR part piece.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: I was saving.
Thank you again to all of our sponsors. If you're listening, subscribe, like especially on our audio podcasts. I want to talk about podcast. So the Real Friday show came out in the same genre as. Or I should say the same time period as our show.
The hard part is getting beyond episode 10. Statistically, I think 97 of people don't go beyond 10, let alone start.
What can you take us into the conversation? The text chain, the room where you were at episode 10, 11, 12? What do you think? Which one of you.
What chemistry do you have? What do you think got you guys from 10 to 20 and then just kept going?
[00:20:44] Speaker C: Yeah, from, from the, The. The preamble to us doing this was that we had.
Jeremy and I, I should say, did an unrelated podcast for maybe 10, 15 episodes a couple years back.
And it was. We thought it was good. We thought it was fine. We lost steam and we. We really like the live format and the interview format that we saw. I think you guys may have started just before us or, you know, a few other people as well, that we really like the formats they were doing. So I think Jeremy and I had.
Jeremy and I had a conversation about doing something along these lines. I think Jeremy and Rick had a conversation about doing something along these lines and. And connected us all. Rick and I had worked together for a couple for a long period of time doing a really large strategic partnership when I was at my last company and he was still at New American Funding as the head of partnerships over there. So Rick and I had a really good working relationship, but nothing like what we have after doing the show for a long time. You know, we just been on opposite sides of the table for. For a bit and got it. And got a huge deal done, and it was fun, but a good guy to work with in the industry. But, you know, Jeremy and him have been friends for a decade at least. So Jeremy tied it together. And I think we like that.
We like the, The. The three. Three heads of it. Right thing. Because, you know, everyone's. We're not as good as you guys at keeping on task where we have one of us miss it pretty often. We're on the road and doing it live pretty often doing it. We joke about Jeremy always doing it from an airport lounge. So we like the flexibility of having three of us so that if, you know, if one of us is a little bit unreliable that day for. For whatever reason, that the other two can pick it up.
And we've done a lot of good shows, just one on one between any two of us.
So I think that's Fun. And we also liked the angle of it being Rick is a, you know, really decorated mortgage banker, partnerships guy. M and a guy in the industry. And Jeremy and I kind of have these unique paths through the industry that we both. We both saw a lot of scale at Rocket and we're in like, strategy roles there.
So we, you know, Jeremy and I sometimes maybe think too similarly. Rick brings a different perspective.
And then, you know, my real estate background, Potter's legal background, we think it rounds out to be a cool. A cool triad.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's.
[00:23:09] Speaker D: It's.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Look, I watched every single episode for a long time and I still do on. On YouTube more than actual live, but I try to get in there live. It is more fun interacting with a live show. We did start before you audio, but you guys started first video so you could take.
That's what always confuses people.
And it's interesting. We have a different audience on video than we did on audio, but LinkedIn just did not promote audio the way it does video. So we made that pivot. Opportunities have come because of the podcast. For me, I actually had a recruiter reach out about head of sales or with 500 loan officers and could I just run it and motivate it. And the example was they were talking like Rick Rock, like they're looking for somebody like Rick Rock. And. And what they meant was the show.
So there is a pathway to perception of thought leadership and having a voice, which is the topic today.
Do you think that voice. We think our voice comes actually from our guests. That's actually one of the pivots we made.
Where do you think your voice comes from?
[00:24:23] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, we only have guests on probably a third of our shows.
That's again, part of the nature of there being three of us is sometimes we treat one of us like a guest and the other two like the interviewers.
So I'd say it comes from that, that blended background where Rick, Jeremy and myself have each kind of done business with one another, respect each other in the industry, see each other's places in the industry, but they're all very different.
So we, you know, we liked that. Again, I said it a second ago. I think like, Jeremy and I did a show and it was like, fun for us, probably not for that wide of an audience.
And, and so I really like bringing in and, you know, Rick's positions at this way a lot as him being like the experienced mortgage, you know, industry exec across so many top 10 lenders and top 20 lenders. So I think he really rounds Out Otter and I's kind of like desire to talk more about innovation, desire to talk more about the tech side, desire to talk more about like the partnership based stuff. So yeah, I think it's a, it's a mix of the three of us. We've had some incredible guests and we want to get better at hosting guests. But I would say the, the core voice is from, from the three of us. It's not like per se, always an interview format from a loan officer perspective.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Or real estate agent, because you work with both.
[00:25:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: What do you think should be their guest profile and do you think it should change over time?
[00:25:51] Speaker C: Their guest profile?
What do you mean?
[00:25:54] Speaker A: So in the beginning we were doing hot topics of the week, so our guests were trying to just be thought leaders. In this space, we have pivoted more to, from lasting power of our podcast. For all those listeners out there who've been listening. Thank you.
This is probably 150th episode.
[00:26:14] Speaker C: You guys have great, great sponsors. By the way. I was listening to that role was these are all companies I really like.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Thank you. And we help them with the video. So. And we're looking for more. It's a pretty good, it's a pretty good deal.
Shout out.
Now we've pivoted to where we want to hear the story. So it has lasting power behind the leaders in mortgage.
I guess I'll give you an example. If I was a loan officer, I would use one of the intelligence tools. Since none sponsor us, I won't. And everybody's so nice. I won't throw one out. I'd find the top real estate agents. I would get them on and I would start with just their story in their town. How did they get to this town? What do they think of this town? What's their favorite street in this town?
That's where I would go. But like, what, what do you guys look at when you're looking at an ideal, you know, guest? Maybe when you first started, what are you thinking going forward?
[00:27:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we've, we've had a lot of, a lot of different types of folks on. But yeah, in terms of trailed a.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Little bit there, I guess I should say if you're giving advice to a realtor or a loan officer, what type of guests do you think they should have?
[00:27:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's twofold. Right. I think it's like if, if I'm a retail loan officer particularly or focused in a certain region as a loan officer and certainly if I'm a real Estate agent. You know, by definition you're, you're going to be very focused in an area. Not a lot of like consumer direct national agents. There's a couple but I, I would go really geographically specific.
I have a guy consider a friend, you know, industry connection but friend as well in Maine who I think does a really good job doing, doing a mix of main content and real estate content, Christopher Davis.
And he I think has been a good example of someone that like really leans into to showing interesting content about the, about the area but also he, he gets the deals there because of it. So I think there I would go super regionally specific if I'm in that seat and I would try to get on the local shows, the local radio.
You know, I, I know like, like Jason Mitchell who's the number one Realtor team lead in the country and is someone I've in the past he's not affiliated with News it but someone I've worked with in the past always talks about how he got his start on an Arizona radio show giving like real estate updates. He's literally the number one, you know, Realtor team in America now. So Rick, probably who's joining us from the beach, it looks like probably has has more stories of, of originators and agents that have built up regional expertise. But I would definitely go that way in terms of getting on more national stages. I do think you have to develop like a real, a deeper expertise or, or a more specific view sometimes when there's hot industry news or when there's something like the NAR settlement last year, some of the clear cooperation stuff if you're affiliated with Compass or Zillow right now like you can if you can develop a view on those things. But I don't think it helps the average originator to be like the hot take news person of the day.
I would focus regionally of my footprint, my expertise and, and and create content with the people out there in my, in my area and then slowly expand from there.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Rick, we've done a great job, Brock and I and Michael out at least on the west coast.
[00:29:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Having these podcasts and then showing up in person to conferences where we have really where you get your guests from.
You've been able to actually parlay it into you were already speaking but more speaking opportunities. If someone going to write out their one three year plan.
What's your advice to to parlay a successful podcast like Real Fridays into actually getting on stage?
[00:30:09] Speaker D: You have to really have. Well number one, you have to have something to say.
I think you know, I think you really have to find something that is, is that you're passionate about, but that really carries traction in the industry. I think part of what's made you guys successful on the Mike and Mike side of things is that you guys talk about things that are very interesting in that, in that you try to sort of keep your finger on the pulse of the originators on the field, which makes what you say relevant. It's an attractive for people to listen to.
So, so it's a combination of like finding the right, the right message and then also sort of being a passionate about it because you can't put the work that you guys have put into what you guys are doing without having a lot of passion because it requires that there's a lot of off camera and off.
Off like, like show work, creative work and design work and planning and messaging and trying to figure it out.
Then that's kind of where on the, on the Real Friday's podcast, like we, we aren't as sophisticated as you guys are. I wish we were, quite frankly, but I, I wish we didn't have the, like the, we don't have like the post video, like the, the video, like the post creation or the post production after the, after we record a show.
And we really need to do that I think to really sharpen what it is that we're doing.
And, but that would be one thing that we, we would just need to do, you know, but, but we, I think we've been reasonably successful because of our consistency.
We're relevant.
We, we apply our, our, we apply our, I think our experience it provide to add commentary that tries to be as raw and unfiltered as possible.
And then, and then we're just consistent in that messaging, consistent in that commentary. And I think that's just made it somewhat interesting to people.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: What is it that you think that, what keeps you going together? I mean, we just talked about, you know, getting, getting past that 10th episode and you know, when Mike and I, when we have our midweek talks, sometimes it's, it's unbelievable to me, right, because for me it's like nine or ten at night. But he's on the east coast, so it's like, it's almost like one or two o'clock in the morning for him. We're having these conversations.
I mean, do you have these midweek conversations, planning meetings, things like that? Or is it literally Ron unfiltered on Friday?
[00:32:40] Speaker D: It's literally wrong on Philippine. You know, part of you guys, you guys probably remember Regis And Kathy Lee back in the 80s and 90s, it's like they made a point that today shows the same way they make a point not to talk. And the time you actually talk is the time when the camera starts rolling because that's when things become the most relevant and the most raw. Once you start rehearsing it, you end up sort of, I think, dulling you dull the edge a little bit.
And, and that's why, like, from, from the initial reaction to, to the actual subject matter, I just think that that first initial comment or, or reaction to a certain subject is, is way more authentic and way more informative than having to scrub it and kind of figure out, like, should I say it in this way, what's going to be better for my company? What's going to be. Get better for my. You know, that's why having Real Fridays be as unfiltered as possible is really the most.
It's the most real.
[00:33:41] Speaker C: You guys will appreciate this. I often, Rick and I often will talk to each other during the week, you know, not, not a ton, maybe once and, and start talking about something and he's, he's like, no, no, let's save this for the show.
And, and so we'll like, hang out. Okay, cool. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it live.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: When we had people on for. Because you guys wouldn't be Real Fridays if you weren't real. When we were trying to do that variety format, we never rehearsed. As we've segued into this interview of people, we're. We get a lot of requests. Like, they want the questions ahead of time, especially depending on the guest. I, I know you guys had Chad Smith from Better. I don't know if that was the case there, but, you know, when they, especially if they're publicly traded. But as we're starting to tell their story, I think them having the questions and we're not Real Fridays, you know, we're Mike miked up.
So they do answer the personal part a lot better with the rehearsed part. And I would say that's actually the hardest part because.
And that's where not having it as full time, it does get stressful where that Wednesday night, they're like, when are you going to send over the questions?
And that's something I don't necessarily want to outsource because that's.
That's us. That's our DNA. Like, we're the ones asking. Otherwise we're just this like, Manchurian Candidate for, for podcasts.
[00:35:05] Speaker C: So.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: But I don't think anybody, like, listening needs to have that. Like, we. We went up a whole year without doing. Without having questions ahead of time. Right.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: They're shooting from the hip quite a.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Bit, but I guess with three of you, do you have any cues on when to talk and when to not talk over? It doesn't seem like it. But is that something that would eventually, like, if you guys that went on Spotify, do you think that would have to be part of the.
The next evolution of the show? Because even Mike and I have trouble, like, who's gonna ask the next question?
[00:35:37] Speaker D: I don't know what's gonna. What is the ingredients for Spotify? What do you think would make us ready for Spotify?
[00:35:43] Speaker A: I think you would want to have that down if you were getting, like, $38 million and had 100,000 listeners. Like, I don't know. That's where Mike and I kind of struggle. We don't know who's going to actually ask the next question.
[00:35:53] Speaker H: Sometimes we have no idea. But I think the thing that I always think about with Real Fridays is can you make our work entertaining?
I think what you guys do on Mic'd up is whether you prepare it or shoot from the hip, as Michael was saying. Either way, I think you're going for insights, and I think you're going for things that you wouldn't hear anywhere else but for the conversation you're having. I think the thing I'm going for with Real Fridays, and I can't speak for the other guys, but for me is to just add a little entertainment value to what we do.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: We. We.
[00:36:32] Speaker H: We laugh a lot and we joke a lot when we're all together off camera or in a event or working together. And sometimes that doesn't translate enough to podcasts, in my opinion. And I wanted just one of these shows a week to be one where we could actually kind of be more informal and joke around. So I don't know that it lends itself to more of the scripting, because I kind of like the more like, casual, irreverent, informal for that show in particular for Real Fridays, because I think it's helpful to have at least something you can kind of laugh at or make fun of each other.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Man.
[00:37:10] Speaker C: Show.
[00:37:14] Speaker H: I kind of thought the Pat McAfee show of mortgage is how I always thought.
[00:37:17] Speaker C: McAfee show is a good one. We got. We. Because we sometimes Mike.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Or you've come on a bunch of times randomly for half the show. We. We invite our friends to pop on if they have Something to say in the live comments. And yeah, so I think we try to keep it kind of open format like that.
[00:37:34] Speaker H: Kelleher could be our Aaron Rodgers. He can come on and say whatever he wants to say.
[00:37:39] Speaker C: Say, say some crazy stuff he doesn't want to say on his own show. Exactly.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Yeah. How have you guys seen the conferences change since Real Fridays have come out? And what number episode you talked about? Consistency.
What number episode do you think it really started to change?
[00:37:56] Speaker H: It's a good question. I think we, I think we needed to get at least two months, 10, maybe 10 episodes, two and a half months kind of under our belts. And then we started to get really comfortable. Then I think there were times where I got too comfortable, which is fine.
Showing up whenever, you know, walking around a beach house in a hat like some people might, might be doing.
And then Mike, I don't know what your experience is with Mike Dub. I think a lot of people see us do the show each week, but I don't know how many people listen to 80, 90% of the minutes each week. Right. So they know we're doing it, they see it posted. But I think the conferences, we get a lot of credit like, oh, I saw you guys. Oh, I know you guys. Oh, I see. I think they see us repeatedly post about it. I don't know how many people were watching it every single week in and out. But that was a lot more probably six months in, so six months ago where it became like, oh, we see you guys all the time.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: I think one of the things that, that you, I, I, I've seen in some of the commentary for your guys show, and I think we need to do it more on our show is, is putting in like placeholders like one of our guests. Like sometimes I've seen our guests say things, I'm like, oh, that's really good. I got to retype that one because I want to go back to the show, re listen to that part because of what I typed out, and then go listen to it again. And I've done the same thing. When listening to your real Friday show is sometimes I'll see a comment like, oh, I want to fast forward to that remark and, and listen to that part for maybe 5, 10, 15 minutes. I think if we did more of that, more reviews would come on. More, more re listens would come on, especially if those placeholders would put there kind of like when, you know, when I used to open up my cassette tapes, when I had cassettes back in the day, and there'd be A list of like, oh, I want to go to like Mark428 or. Or I want to go to like 1015 or. Or 2038 or something like that. I think if we had more of those placeholders on our show, we might get a little bit more listens.
[00:40:07] Speaker H: I think pulling those out and making those.
The one thing that we don't have I don't think primer expertise for too is. Is snippets of those Michael, where you can bring back a show two, three weeks later or even like months later and just play that 30 seconds, 90 seconds, two minutes, whatever it is that you said. I think that can also be really effective because those sound bites do land and sometimes people hear them differently a month later or something.
[00:40:35] Speaker D: I do think that if we cut up our show into reels copper shows so that the more salient points are able to be more the representation of the show so that way people don't have to sit through a whole show. They could pretty much see. They could pretty much see the most important points that were made.
I think that would might. That might draw people in to go deeper into the show itself.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Going back to the original question that I don't think I answered at all about like the weather conferences and showing up in person look different after the show.
Yeah, I think it did.
I.
I think yeah, Maybe it was 10 episodes in, maybe it was 30 episodes in. I don't know. It's probably been a slow roll of a slow linear build. But yeah, I've one of our. I had a really funny one. I was at the Lending Tree Summit, which is a small specialty event with a really senior audience. I had two different CEOs, one from a partner of Newsips and one from not a partner of Newsips.
[00:41:37] Speaker H: Both.
[00:41:38] Speaker C: Both ask about either coming on the show or, or just say they listen to the show and he's like, hey, I didn't know that CEOs of these. Of these really large lenders that are my so happen for news it to be the target audience but I'm sure plenty that aren't are are listening. So I think there's a lot more just recognition. I think the first conversation's a lot, a lot easier. I think, you know, the people planning the conferences seem to know us better.
We have more at bats to be invited to the invite only things, you know, things like that that aren't the most important thing at the conference. You can, you can do it just fine without it, but it makes everything easier.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And so the purpose of this, as we hit it home here, you know, our listeners in the lending industry focusing on how to remain relevant against the portals. Right. I think one thing the portals can't do is create these. These podcasts and video casts. And just starting is obviously the hard part. Getting through the 10 episode. We talked about. We talked about some frustrations of wishing we could do more and who to partner with. But anything you guys want to touch on Rick or Jeremy coming in late on who to partner with, how to choose the right guests to bring in more business to. To how you could do that, move in, any advice that you would give. Because I. I think that's. Now it's one of those things, after you do it, you realize, boy, I wish I could tell everybody back then, like, they would. They would love to be at this place a year later. It's unlocked so much.
[00:43:11] Speaker D: I. I would say. Well, two. Two things I've learned from you, Michael, is that you're.
You focus only on lenders. I would say that that's been impressive because we've really focused on any kind of industry players, right? Some lenders, but I think probably the majority of what we've had have been vendors or different, like, leaders in the business.
So I do like the concentration of lenders on your end.
The second thing I'd say is the.
I think the mistake people make is they don't think big enough.
You know, I think.
I don't think there's a single leader in housing or real estate or tech that we should not be trying to call. Could be the founder of Airbnb. Right?
I think we could be. I don't think we should think small. I think we should be reaching out to absolutely anyone and everyone who's a leader in the space.
They should know who we are. We should know who they are. We should have them on our show.
[00:44:10] Speaker H: Yeah, I was going to say something, Mike, that is pretty similar, which is, uh, I do. I've been having more and more conversations lately with people, and the thing that I have been talking about is know who you are and the more honest you can be and the more candid you can be about who you are as an organization and what you're trying to accomplish, the more focused your goals can be. So Rick's right to point out that being really focused on who your audience is and what guests you want to have on makes it that much more successful. And I think we've all agreed, but I definitely learned that lesson the hard way in the startup space is like, you can't be everything to everyone.
It's just not as valuable. And so the more focused you can be on this is who I Am. And for your point of view, the point of view of your question was like, what else could you do to get your name out there? I think just being really authentic and candid of here's who I am and here's why I'm doing this goes a really long way with the audience or whoever you're trying, business partners recruits, whoever you're trying to talk to.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: One of my favorite preparation shows that we prepared for was when we, when we had Stan Littleman on our show, we read his. We had read his book and, and, or it was around about two months prior to that, I started listening to, to a podcast called Acquired about companies like Role. I just listened to the Rolex show and I think the one that came out on Google last week, this past week. And I really appreciated that because we got a chance to. Not we, you know, we talk about. It's the story within the story on our podcast.
And I like listening to finding out what is it that's making everybody tick. I mean, when we have a guest on there, I'm not only AM I on LinkedIn, I'm trolling any news article and background work that I can find in order to try and figure out the types of questions, the backgrounds, hobbies, so on and so forth to see what's out there.
And it's fun for me. I feel like that when we get that type of background on our guests, then we also, you know, we can, we can ask some, I don't know, interesting questions because I'm interested in finding out, not just in about what the lending story is, but what is it that makes them tick so that, you know, they're hot. You know, why is it that you, you know, you know, you were selling Tchotkas on the streets of Philadelphia and then this brought you into be knowing how to go and sell. For example, that was part of Stan Middleman's story. And I think that, you know, that, that that's the part that when we don't shoot from the hip, when we actually go and do that background work on, on our guests, it brings that insight so we can have that story within the story. I think if we had more other like you talked about, Rick, if we had more real estate professionals on here, we probably might even find out more information on them because the Internet's full of, you know, the Internet of things just full of so much that's. That's out there. And if I think if I'm a realtor or a loan officer and I want to be out on a podcast to get my, to be the mouthpiece to get on a weekly show, you know, going past 10, 20, 30 episodes.
There, there's a, there's a lot of work that comes into that. But it, I think that just like you said, Rick, when you have that passion about the industry, it's easier just it's just more fun doing all the work that's behind it.
[00:47:21] Speaker D: I agree. I, I sorry for the background. Like, do you. But I would say that the like I've had the idea of trying to interview like the number one realtor in every state in the country to have 50 interviews, 50 realtors and to talk about what makes them unique and special.
And also what's the common theme across all 50 of the top realtors in the United States? Or talking to the number one loan officer in every company in the country and asking them, you know, the same kind of question.
I do think that kind of common threads valuable and interesting and it's just a matter of trying to just execute and do it.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: It adds up too. Like once you're at number 40, you'll say, why didn't I think of this earlier? Like, I just tend to go, I've done them all. That's how I feel with and as I prepare by watching their other YouTubes and other podcasts, generally some of them don't have any. So it's go out there and tell them like you should be on a podcast, that you should be jumping on it no matter who you are. Like, work hard at it. Figure out why a lot of these leaders are don't have any.
Any final thoughts? Brock? Jeremy, it's July 3rd. I'm gonna take us home here, but I just wanted to see if you guys had any thoughts for I think just the industry in general on how podcasts and video cast can do things that rocket and lower and others maybe buying portals can't do.
[00:48:47] Speaker H: Yeah, I think that's a. So thank you for having us on it and really great to see you talk to you as well. Hope you have a great long weekend. I would say YouTube is the most underutilized resource. YouTube is the most underutilized resource in the industry. If you look right now at rocket mortgage on YouTube, I will bet you it's 22,000 subscribers.
That is a huge weak spot that you as a competitor to them, as a competitor to a portal, wanting to be authentic and reach people in New and different ways. Making creative content is where the search is going. SEO in the future will be on video. SEO will not be Google in the future. It'll be a Google owned platform like YouTube. And, and I think Spotify is actually moving to video too. So it's actually a good point you brought up earlier Mike, about Spotify. They're making all their podcast video as well. Video is search is my opinion And I think YouTube is where you need to be, especially if you're trying to find a spot that Rocket's not good at. It's YouTube.
[00:49:51] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree with that. I'll just dovetail that in my concluding comments.
The number one BA Realtor or a loan officer in the country that Greg Share interviewed who works with guaranteed rate, she gets 100% of her leads from YouTube.
She's got half a million subscribers and she gets 100% of her leads From YouTube.
Consumer based VA driven leads on YouTube. She doesn't network with a single Realtor at all. Hundred percent from consumers. So it's an incredible, incredible opportunity in YouTube that we don't take advantage of but we should and I'm hoping to as we expand the concept of video sort of engagement with consumers and consumer engagement with, with professionals of any type. So great point, Jeremy and Happy 4th of July to all you guys. This is good stuff, man. I love it.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: Real Fridays, we'll give a shout out that's at 12:30 FinTech Fridays with Brian. He has a show actually Saturday morning on LinkedIn.
Brock, final thoughts here?
[00:50:56] Speaker C: Yeah, sure, I'll, I'll end it here. I think what, what's worked with our show is it was conversations that we were having anyway that we thought would be interesting to folks.
It's, we, we've kept it as authentic as possible and you know, I encourage people to, to do that when they, when they go on the show. You don't have to sound like, you know, Brian View. You don't have to sound like Greg Sher. They've got their own shows. You know, everyone should develop something that's, that's, you know, makes sense for them and their audience. And so that's, that's where we started and that's where that's where we can finish.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: That's great. Tell your story, people.
[00:51:32] Speaker E: Thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart of, of mortgage innovation.
Remember, every mortgage has a story and we're here to help you write yours. If you enjoyed today's insights, please subscribe, share 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.
