Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Mic'd Up Show. This is the season four where every mortgage has a story. We call ourselves the ultimate hub for the hidden stories behind the mortgage industry. And we bring them to life. My name is Michael Kelleher.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Good afternoon. My name is Michael Zhao.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: And in every episode we dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirits, the strategic insights and the breakthrough innovations that build the world's greatest mortgage companies.
So listeners, whether you're advancing your career or scouting for industry leaders, exploring opportunities, maybe you're in that fintech prop tech world. Come on over, you're in the right place. Let's get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage lender. Let's dive in today with Gene Thompson III, President and CEO of InterLink Mortgage.
Gene has a large or is a large IMB out of Texas. I think specifically Houston will hear a lot more during the show today. And Gene, you have one of those rare stories.
Your career, when we do hear this from time to time, but it comes out of one of the tougher markets and sometimes somehow you, you turn that into a blueprint for leadership.
I think you once said you invest in people, not markets. And so that's clearly worked out well for you.
Maybe we could start with one of those stories and actually to give some background, I guess. First, welcome to the show. Is there anything you want to introduce about yourself for our listeners as they join us in this journey?
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I mean, first of all, I appreciate you guys having me on. Great, great, great show. And, and you know, it's a honor to be a part of it. Look forward to having a spirited conversation with you guys and hopefully someone out there can take something away from and help them in their day to day.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: We had an opportunity up in Boston where I was working with this gentleman, Mark Treckenberg, and he has a title company, Silk Title, and he's doing some other things where he has Wade Boggs on his, on the board of a couple companies he has. And so I reached out to your coo, Aaron D. And I said, you know, you're already going to be here for the conference. You should come to the dinner.
She's like, I'll see. You know, we do a lot of things. Every, every time we go, she gets back to me. She's like, Jean said, if I don't go see Wade Boggs. And so that's what we did. And you know, one of the cool things about Wade is you can either hear stories about football, I'm sorry, baseball, you either stories about baseball or his hunting I think he said he has about 200 something animals in, in his house. And so he was talking about all the different animals that he has hunted.
The only one that he doesn't have is the rhino. You, you, you get it. And then it's allowed to get back, you know, tranquilizer. And they, they count it for you. And then Monroe Thrower, who I'll see out of the NBA annual, a big name not just in mortgage, but in the advocacy part of the world too, he started talking about Gene Thompson. And I'm not even sure if Aaron was there at the time, but he said he has a friend and he started telling him this grizzly bear story. So I'm, I'm taking a left turn here on what I originally was going to ask you. Could you maybe share with the audience this incredible story about resiliency and kind of facing adversity in, in a way that many of us wouldn't be able to handle?
[00:03:32] Speaker C: Yeah, you bet. So, you know, to, to your point, the, the gentleman that you're referring to is the founder of Interlink and my partner for many, many years and the majority owner for many, many years, a gentleman by the name of Jim Bastianhaus, brother of mine, dear friend of mine, mentor of mine.
And he was attacked by a grizzly, physically attacked by a grizzly bear on a moose hunt. They were bow hunting.
I believe it was in 2016. 2014 or 2016. I believe it's 2016.
And I was supposed to be on the trip with him. He and I do a lot of hunting together. You mentioned Wade Bogs. Baseball and hunting, those are two extreme passions of mine.
Boggs is a grinder. It's why I love him. But.
So I was supposed to go on this trip with Jim. We do, we did one big trip together every year hunting moose, sheep, elk, etc.
I didn't go this year because I was extremely out of shape. And it was a, it was a pretty grueling hunt.
He'd been gone about three, three or four days and I get a phone call from his wife and all I got was Jim's been attacked by a bear and the phone cut off.
Well, comes to find out the phone got cut off. I was here at the office, the phone got cut off because there was an emergency breakthrough coming into her line from a satellite phone.
And the first thing that went through my mind was, he's moose hunting.
Like, did you mean a moose?
So start making phone calls and calling outfitters and kind of piecing it all together. And the Long and the short of it is that that he was sitting up on a, on top of a big knoll if you will, a knob in the mountains.
And he and his guide and a grizzly bear flanked them.
They never even saw coming and, and he, he, he heard something. They were sitting down glassing for moose and he, he heard, he heard a rustle and when he looked to his left, grizzly bear was like six feet from him and it pounced on him and basically walked him down this knoll biting at him. If you think about, you know, a dog, you know, a dog tries to bite and chases a ball.
That was the way he explained it.
And you know, are taught when, when, when hunters are attacked not to shoot the animal for fear of ricochet off of a bone to hit your hunter.
And the guy had had a rifle. Jim only had a bow.
And, and so I guess it was getting to a point where the guy had felt that the grizzly wasn't going to let go and so he started shooting around the bear to try to get him to release Jim and it wasn't working. And, and you know this, this sounds like a tv, TV movie but the guy actually had one round left in his rifle. It's a true story kid and kid's 20. I think he's 28 years old.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Time.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: And put one in the, in the, in the grizzly bear's hump right behind his neck and he released Jim and ended up walking off into the woods. And then the chaos started. Right.
But so kind of fast forward, you know, he had multiple staples in his head, he had puncture wounds on his back and his bottom, multiple lacerations but, but survived it and, and that basically set him on a path to, to, to deepening his faith and, and, and making a commitment that he was going to use that, that experience to bring others either to Jesus or closer to Jesus. And, and he, that's what he retired to do. He's got a, the Bear Man Ministries.
It is, it is a, it is fantastic. He travels around the country.
Probably if I, I may be getting this completely, I mean not completely wrong, I may be a little bit off, but it's 180 days ish a year that he travels giving his testimony in churches, men's groups.
This year he was actually fortunate enough for, for any Clemson fans. He went and, and Clemson had the football team had him come out and, and prior to preseason. I don't know if they'll have him back because they haven't started out too well, but that nonetheless he Got a chance to go hang out with Dabo. I guess it is. And so he's been some pretty cool places. It is a fantastic story and, and he delivers it well and, and, and has, has used that opportunity to bring a lot of people to know. Jesus Christ, it's awesome. And that's what he does today and he funds it himself. I mean he is 100% committed and he is an outstanding individual.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Wow. I don't even know how to follow. That's a story like story.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: I got off on a total tangent. I think the question was using that to oh, you know, how do you overcome tough scenarios?
You know what's interesting about Jim and lessons that I learned from him over the years. He and I started working together in 1997.
We had a small time apart from of about four years and then joined back up together here at Interlink in 2007.
When I joined Jim back at Interlink, neither one of us had any equity.
We were doing $60 million, $70 million a year.
And you know, we, we've invested in people over the years and been very fortunate and have grown the company to, to what I would consider, you know, a world class organization, but doing it with, with the right hires and the right people over time.
But, but you know, Jim is a, Jim, Jim's a get it done guy, loves challenges.
We've been through plenty. You know, you mentioned you start a company in 2007, then you hit 8, 9 and 10, which was, which was extremely tough. But you know, you get past that and, and, and, and then you get into, you know, the standard business situations and then you, you know, you see him face a personal situation like this and to use it the way he used it to, to motivate the organization, to motivate himself to, to dedicate his life to be in the hands and feet of Jesus. You know, you can't help but be inspired by those kind of things and learn and a lot of it's about learning perspective, you know, things that apply to this market. Perspective. Right. You know, the last three and a half years for those of us that have been in the business 20 plus years has been extremely difficult.
I would venture it's, it's more difficult than 8, 9 and 10 and, and I've heard that emulated by, by others that have been around a while as well. But you know, I, I try to continue to, to, to, to remember, to remind people to maintain perspective. Right.
You know, we, we had a 20 and 21. I hate talking about it because, you know, it was unicorn years. But, but, but, but you, you got to remember that, you know, there's consequences to everything, good times and bad times.
And, and we've all been extremely blessed in this business. And, and these tough times are, are really kind of ways to redefine the, the next four to five years, in my opinion. But it all, it all kind of wraps itself together.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Gene, in the, in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, there's a portion in a chapter talks about the Apostle Paul. He's in a storm. And if you, if you think about someone just traveling on a boat, you know, 2,000 years ago, right, there's no, there's no travelocity or Internet or, or ATMs or online banking. There's none of those creature comforts that we have today. So when you're traveling from city to city, say, for example, you want to travel from Greece to Rome on a boat.
You're traveling through boats, and you're not just bringing yourself. The Apostle Paul, in order to support his ministry, had the business of being a tent maker. So he needed someone to hold his money in Roman currency, in Greek currency, in Assyrian currencies, because he was selling tents. He needed people who were going to be able to sell the tents. He needed the salespeople, he needed ops people and the sailors to travel from city to city.
And so in one of the journeys, the Apostle Paul is traveling, and there's a huge storm. And as the leader and as the, as the apostle of the age, he began to throw things, food, supplies, rope.
And the people who are looking at him, all his support people looking at him going, you're crazy. You're nuts. What are you guys doing? And the impossible goes and says, cheer up.
In spite of that storm, he began to tell people to tear up because of his faith, of what God was not only accomplishing in his ministry and also what he was looking in the big picture of. God's got my back.
Okay, Gene, can you give us some experience right now, especially over the course of the last three years, of where your faith had a larger picture of you? You might have had to do things in your business life that were uncomfortable where your faith carried you, especially over the last three years, where IMBs are having issues fiscally in business, sales, so on and so forth. What, what's, what's the type of big experience mindset that you have, and how did you overcome that in. Over the course of the last few years, if you can give us that experience?
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you making those references, Michael. And we're not, not shy about our beliefs around the organization.
And I think the easiest kind of correlation to what you're referring to would be I bought the majority stake, I bought Jim out the majority stake in this organization.
I was a minority partner and bought the majority stake in the organization two years ago.
Right, so, so you've got this, you know, you got July of 22 is when it was, when is when everything went to hell in a handbasket from a rate perspective, right. Things got extremely difficult very quickly and, and, and then I turn around six months later and push All In.
And, and the only reason, the only reason that I pushed all in is because I had been praying about that decision and I felt led that was the right decision by the Holy Spirit, 100%.
Because on the surface, right, logically it may not make the most sense timing, you know, maybe going in all in at a different time, trying to buy Jim out at a different time and, and all the things aligned, he was willing to do it. He didn't have to sell me the organization at the time. And, and you know, you've got big companies swallowing up smaller mid sized organizations. You've got consolidation and here, here, you know, the, the, the, the, the David is, is saying hey, we're gonna, we're gonna fight this, we're gonna fight this fight, we're gonna ride this storm out. We believe in what we're doing, we believe in the people that we have.
This too shall pass. Give us an opportunity to get better and pursue excellence and be ready, be, be, be ready to strike when the opportunity is there.
And, and that's, that's what we've done and will continue to do as an organization.
And, and, and to your point, you know, conventionally I don't know that, that everybody looks at that. You know, I'm 50 years old, I guess about to be 52.
I've had, I've had, I've been extremely blessed to be in the mortgage business and, and had some really good years as a lot of us had.
And, and, and instead of, of coasting that second half and taking what the market gives you, etc. You know, we made a decision to, to double down and get after it. And, and that was 100% what I felt led to do by the Holy Spirit, period. End story.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: I respect, oh, you're such a fighter. You have this phrase like that you have visions in the down markets. But for the audience that maybe knows what I do or many that ask what I do, I, I think I meet with more leaders in lending at the C level than anybody in mortgage.
And I do want to point out to any loan officer listening, Interlink has positioned itself especially with the builder market.
We don't want to give the perception it's a down market there. In fact, the optimism there, the amount of units per loan officer or the production you're doing with the amount of loan officers you're, you have is exceptional. It, it's, it's far exceeding the majority, if not all the conversations I am having. So I can see why loan officers would be attracted to going to where this, this green, this green world is. I don't want to get confused with the other green, but you know, there's an energy there where it's growing. And it reminds me of a podcast that you had and I, it was, might have been your guest, but talked about knowing a taxidermist and it was cool because you mentioned like the taxidermist is so skillful and it's such a niche, like famous people are calling them up all the time to do it. And I know, I think you guys talked about how loan officers are like the ultimate relationship business.
But this little niche, like this person's clearly built around relationships and one of the guests or your partner was, was at this party and famous people so sort of off in the, in the side speaking to the, the taxiderm's father who said this quote that stood out. Down markets are where visionaries visions get executed so they can become realities in the up markets. Your builder business kind of reminds me of that your market share capture that you're able to do even in this market, like what's to come. I'm sure you have ideas on that, but what could you teach the next up and comers, the, the down versus the up about perspective or humility or, or timing or maybe luck.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Sure.
You said one key word. You know, I, I believe that, that the mountaintop teaches you humbleness and the valleys teach you humility. Right. And, and, and, and there are times where, where they're, where they're both pretty, pretty close to one another in meaning. And growth doesn't happen without valleys. Right. Mountains have two sides. There's no such thing as a mountain that goes straight up and doesn't have another side to it.
And so, you know, we spent a lot of time talking to our managers and our originators over the last three and a half years about number one, controlling the controllables. Right. You control your efforts every single day irrespective of what the market does.
Right. So control the controllables, just because the market's tough, your leads are down, your real estate agents are struggling, you've got to find ways to adapt, right? To continue to expand your net. Right? Those are your actions. Help people, right?
Be a giver, not just a taker, right? A lot of people talk about, when they talk about origination and going out making sales calls and developing relationships, that conversation is about what can you give me?
Right? I provide a service, but what can you give me? Can you give me deals? Right?
Turn that into a conversation about, with, with a referral partner, about what can we do to help increase your business so that my business can get better as well. What can we do together, right? How can I help you?
And in return, how can you help me? Right? That's a partnership.
And so let's, let's be a, let's be a giver and not just a taker.
And, and, and understand that, you know, I say this all the time, and I mean it with sincerity, is I believe that people make markets. Markets don't make people, right? It's quotes on our wall here. We've got a T shirt we give away at our annual meeting that says it.
And I say it all the time because I'm a firm believer in that. And what I mean by that perspective is, is that people make markets, meaning that you are going to go out and create, right? You're going to go out and create the momentum that, that of the efforts that you put in, right? If there's, if, if you need 10 loans a month and there's only 20 loans available, then you better increase your market share to 50%.
Make your market.
Don't accept, right? Don't accept what the quote unquote market is doing. Well, the market's down, so the market's down 40%. So my business is down 40%. So that's okay. That's a mindset, right? It's not okay. It's only okay if you allow it to be okay, right? Change the narrative. Do something different and go out there and create your market.
And you know, it's, it's easier to say than do right, but it, but if you wake up with that mentality on a daily basis, you find yourself falling into that routine versus accepting the cards that you were dealt, right? If you don't like them, rebuild the cards.
Do something different.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: When you say create the market, or we talk about mountains and peaks, just focusing on that mountain piece and we say every loan has a story.
Can you just talk about the builder business? The optimism behind build their businesses. And like, what's the story of consumers that choose new builds over consumers up here in the Northeast, where there's not much of it.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, the new construction business obviously is a, it's a niche market and it is, it's an extreme blessing to be a part of.
You know, people ask a lot of times like, how do you, how do you get involved in doing builder business? How do you, how do you make those relationships?
And there's multiple ways to do that. But our story has been bootstraps on the ground, right? A relationship starting at the salesperson level. You get an opportunity on a deal that goes sideways, you figure out a way to make it happen.
And then that relationship turns into a conversation with a sales manager, sales manager to a vice president of sales. Because those decisions are made at the, at the top of the house. Right. If you want to be a preferred lender, the salesperson out in the field of a builder is not, does not have the ability to make that decision.
They have the ability to help you get a conversation.
Right.
But, but new construction over the last few years when, when the resale business has taken a hit has obviously been a bright spot in our industry for a couple reasons. You know, number one is, is they have the ability to control their inventory, right?
They're making the determination of the investment that they're going to make and the amount of houses they're going to put on the ground.
Number two is, is that with, with the rate changes they, they've had the ability or the ability through, as an example, bulk forward commitments to artificially incentivize sales through bought down, in bought down permanent interest rates, which you guys are well aware of, and has been a, has been a huge boost for them to be able to generate sales.
So, so those two pieces have, have allowed them to continue to, to keep, keep a lot of the momentum that has been lost in the resale in the resale part of the industry.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Gene in, in the builder market, builders such as Lennar or Pulte, they have their own lending capacity. And what I, I read, what I've read a lot on group message boards and social media is that a lot of originators on the retail or even broker, they, they commiserate together on how builders have been unfair in pricing, how they lose out and how the originator can do better. It reminds me of how when the Apostle Paul was in jail in Rome, he, you know, he could have been lamenting over I don't have enough business or I can't do this. I can't lead my people. I can't do this. But out of. During that time period, he also wrote two letters to Timothy. Timothy was a young person for those who don't know that book, and a young person back then, he could have been anywhere between 13 to 20 years old.
And I think that if you are young in the business and you feel like that you've been put into business jail and you don't know what to do. Gene, you're a leader in this industry. What can you speak as a word of encouragement? Because everybody's in the same situation when it comes to the business, but you've been able to use builder business, you've been able to encourage your people. What is some of the encouraging words that you would say in order to, number one, as a, as a C suite leader, and then number two, to the originators that are out there, that, that would be considered an interlink. That would encourage them to not only be better versions of themselves, but do better because the implementation of doing is just as important about the being and the mindfulness of it.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Sure. You know, I've, I've had conversations with individuals, you know, young and young people that, that have, have asked me, you know, should I get into the mortgage business or, you know, I heard it's a terrible time to get into the mortgage business.
And I believe that's completely opposite.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: First of all, this business, the mortgage industry needs, needs younger individuals that, that want to choose this as a career and quite frankly, as an industry. I don't think we do a good job of that, myself included.
As you all know, y' all talk to a lot of people, and I don't know what the percentage is, but it's extremely high the amount of people that fell into to being in the mortgage business. They knew somebody, they got started in a refi boom because they had, you know, they, somebody convinced them that they can make a bunch of money, whatever the case may be. They didn't, they didn't go to school and you know, start out as they're young, saying, I want to be a mortgage banker. You know, like people talk about being a firefighter or a police office, so we got to do a better job. But, but getting into the business today, you've got to learn how to sell, you've got to learn how to grind.
Right? You've got to learn how to, how to, how to get your audience. You've got to learn how to capture the attention of someone when you do get an AUDIENCE Right. And if you got into this business in 20 and 21, 2019, 2018 even, right, we ran 15 years off of, off of a government funded monetary policy that we all benefited from, right. You know, those of us that have been in the business a long time, we love 20 and 21, but we all knew that it wasn't sustainable, right? We did five years worth of business in two years. All you gotta do is look at the history, right? And, but, but this business is going to continue to improve and we're going to get back to standard cycles that we've seen up and you know, prior to 15, 18 years ago where you, where you go on a three to five year run and then you have a little bit of a downturn which I. E Ability to grow and then you go on another, on another growth cycle.
But, but learning, learning though learning that in today's environment, from my perspective is going to set individuals up when things start to turn for extreme success versus learning the business.
When, when things are at a peak or close to a peak, you, you get drawn into that. This is the way that it always is.
And that's just, that's a farce. It's just not true. And I think you lose a lot of the valuable lessons that, that you have to learn, especially in a cyclical business like ours, without going through these valleys. And the sooner you can learn, learn those lessons and overcome those challenges, the better equipped you are for when they happen again, because it will happen again. History repeats itself.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: We all know that as history repeats itself, this is a great opportunity to reset sometimes, to get ready for that next splash, to get ready to scale. I always say you keep doing what you've always done, you're going to get what you've always got.
So we want to go to our great sponsors to show some of the new technology people and lenders can use going into these new markets. And we'll be back on the other end to ask Gene some more questions about his company and himself.
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[00:32:01] Speaker A: Gene, I have to say I love your podcast. And one of the episodes was Halloween episode. It was from 2024. Stood out because that's about Halloween right now. And you guys were talking about trap season. Not like a, almost like a trap game in, in football, right? Like in the schedule in another week. And you were specifically saying the fourth quarter. We have a lot of holidays coming up, a lot of coffee cake coming into the office.
Can you say now what maybe you feel is different about this year? We just talked about a possible valley going into a peak and maybe how you personally balance strategy versus culture in Q4 to prepare for Q1.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. When we just had a, we just had a meeting earlier this week, you know, one of our monthly scheduled meetings and with, with, with some of our leadership and, and what I spent time talking to them about was, you know, the fact that we are in, in, in Q4 and there's really two pieces to Q4. We got to finish strong and we got a plan for 2026. We're big on measurements here. We're big on budgets, we're big on goals. Knowing where you're going, right? What gets measured gets done.
And, and, and that's a lot to juggle because you've also got holidays, right? And, and everyone, everyone deserves to spend time with their family and enjoy those, those seasons in Q4. And which, which makes it that much more important that when, when you are, when you're not enjoying those, those holidays with your family and you're at the office, you gotta be extremely focused because you gotta juggle two pieces.
And so, you know, I encouraged individuals to number one, start thinking about what they want to accomplish in 2026.
You can't wait till January to document that.
So, so where are you, where are you in your goals today? What do you have, what do you, you got two and a half months left to, to, to, to finish the year strong. Where do you need to move the needle and then what do you want to accomplish next year?
And, and, and, and, and start focusing on both of those. And as you start having conversations, you know, when you're setting goals as a producer, right. A lot of that's going to depend on the amount of referrals that you get from your referral partners, right? Especially if you're a referral based loan officer. You're not dealing with strictly business to consumer, which is how we are based as an organization. We are a referral based organization, B2B. And so you know, I encourage them to get their referral partners in as a part of that goal setting conversation, right? Because as we discussed earlier in the podcast, it's a partnership, right? What can I do to help you with what are your goals for 26? If, if, if you don't, if you don't, if you don't have them. Let me kind of, let me talk through that with you where we can set some and encourage them to set goals and, and, and how can I be a part of that? How can I help you achieve your goals in 26? And then let me tell you how you can help me achieve mine, right? Where, where that provides that, that piece of accountability to a referral partner. And a lot of salespeople right, Originators specifically are, are almost timid about holding referral partners accountable.
But, but I think it's, it's essential but, but it's hard to hold them accountable if you don't have a commitment, right?
So I think, you know, what I encourage them is to make, make their referral, referral partners a part of that goal setting conversation as it relates to, to setting the goals for 2026. It also gives you an opportunity to, to, to talk to them about that Q4 push, right? What can we do to close the year strong together?
But, but when you're home, man, be, be, be present, be intentional, recharge your batteries and come back to the office ready to go.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Gene in I'm going to refer back to the Book of acts. It's chapter 21, verse one. And when I read this to a lot of people it seems it's so inconsequential but yet very meaningful to me as a business person.
And it says and when we parted from them and set sail, we took a straight course and came to Kos and on the next day two Rhodes and from there to Patara.
There's no these or thou's or go and do things or anything like that. But the significance of the apostle Paul traveling as a tent maker was twofold. Number one, he had a business to run and but his business was for, was for the larger purpose in order to spread the Gospel of God.
And when in the first part says we we parted from them and like I mentioned before, he had his bankers with them with the currencies of the Roman, the Grecian and the Assyrians. He also had to bring his the people who are selling tents and the people and the bodyguards because you can't have all that material and not have people protect you. So you had a security, you had security people, you had sailors and you had all kinds of people. And what I often tell other salespeople that are in the business is that not only is it important for us to be able to sell, it's also important for us to remember ancillary partners that are protecting us whether it's title or escrow, not just the realtor referrals or financial advisors that are taking us from point A to point B.
And secondary for you as a leader in this verse, the the author of this book is actually Luke and I've sailed on a cruise ship, a modern cruise ship from cost to Rhodes and that took me two days on a. On my king size bed and and plenty of all you can eat foods on the cruise. But yet still very meaningful to me because I understand what was the actual journey watching the the Mediterranean ocean from. From place to place.
Can you, you know in that bigger picture journey there's a story of how you actually had a pastor as a mentor and, and in that we have all kinds of people, not only referral partners but also the ancillary partners that that bring us through including people of face. So we have a bigger picture journey. Can you, can you help us understand what is it like for you to. To build your culture in the way of not just having business but having the bigger picture journey and how it's affected the overall culture of operations inside of your business.
[00:38:41] Speaker C: So it's a lot to unpack. So let's start with we'll start with, with the bigger picture from a culture perspective. Right.
You know, I think culture is something that you have to feel. Right right? Everybody talks about it, we talk about it. We're extremely proud of the culture that we have.
We're very intentional about what we do and, and how we do it. We're very intentional about building relationships with, with, with our team members, giving them platforms to express themselves, recognition, all the things. Right. We are, I told you earlier in the, in the podcast, we, we are not shy about what we believe and, and who we believe in.
We, we don't have a problem starting a meeting with a prayer or closing with a prayer. But, but I'm also a, a firm believer and you got to meet people where they are.
So from a bigger picture perspective, I have a platform. There are some people that believe their business isn't their ministry and some people believe that their ministry is their business.
I believe that we have an opportunity to, to, to lead by example.
We, you know, we all have faults. We, we, we, we make mistakes.
But but, but being humble and being, being, showing humility and just being real with, with the individuals that, that work at your organization and giving them a platform to express their, to their faith. They giv them a platform to ask questions should they want to ask questions.
You know, we're not, we're not going to force anyone to believe what we believe, but we're going to give them an opportunity to understand why we believe what we believe to, to, to, to, to, to plant the monster steed and, and let God do the rest. Right?
We don't save people. He does.
Our job is, is to, is to introduce, is to introduce him. Right?
And, and we're not shy above that. And, and ultimately, you know, when, when, when you asked about our mentor, so there's a gentleman by the name of Sal Saberna, Pastor Sal Saberna.
I was introduced to him by Jim many, many years ago.
He was a big part of, of helping Jim get his ministry off off the, off the ground in the early years. And, and he is, he's continued to be a part of this organization.
He, he participates in our annual meeting. He's a, he's a personal mentor to myself and James Durham and, and Caleb, a handful of us here that we, we meet with them every other week.
He's a very smart businessman to boot, in addition to being a pastor and a strong man of faith. And, and so it, it helps us with, you know, it helps us business wise, it helps us spiritually. It helps the combination of the two which, which from our perspective is extremely important.
And, and, and it is a, it is a big part of, of of I think the foundation of this organization and, and helping us lead in the way that. That we lead from a leadership team, which once again, from our perspective is, is extremely important.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: You listening to you, you clearly have an old soul, which I think a lot of us that were grown up with, with parents that still, that certainly respect that. But you do have this modern aspect to your mortgage company that stands out to me.
I actually, there's actually a book coming out. I haven't really told anybody, but I got to write a chapter in it. So now technically I'm an author. Right. But my chapter was called Winning your zip code the modern mortgage Company. And I said to get market share, you have to create a. Part of my plan is you need your own podcast. That's what this has taught me. It's not about the, the vanity metrics. It's actually about the guests. I believe you have sweatpants and neckties. Can you just share with us what it maybe what you've learned by building an authentic audience or just a micro brand within your brand and your view of podcasts in zip codes or in, in local areas.
[00:43:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So sweatpants and neckties came out of the COVID era, right? That's where the name came from. Right. Because everybody's wearing a necktie and they got sweatpants underneath and you just can't. Just can't see them. Right.
I can't take credit for the name.
That's, that's my partner, James Durham. He came up with it. But we started utilizing video in 2020 when everybody, you know, mortgage business with. If you weren't an underwriter or a closer, you're in the office. Right. So we're seeing everybody every day. You know, loan officers obviously were out and about, but my point is, is you. Everybody got dispersed and disconnected very quickly. And so we started using a live stream.
Jim and I did. At the time, he was a CEO, I was a coo, and we were giving up. We were doing a live stream every other day to our organization so that people could tune in and under and hear what's going on in the market. Cause if you guys recall, man, things were changing fast. Investors were, were start, you know, every day. We're not taking locks. I'm not taking this fico.
When are we going back to work? How are we closing loans? All those things and emails weren't going to cut it. Right. So we started doing a live stream.
Didn't know what we were really doing, but we went out and bought a camera and we made it work.
And that's really kind of evolved into.
We still do a recording that we released to the organization once a month. James and I do it. James Durham and I do it today.
It's just not live anymore. It's, it's taped. But we do the, the podcast came out of it Sweatpants and neckties and, and, and we've had multiple seasons of, of the sweatpants and neckties. You know, there was a point where he was interviewing different individuals throughout the real estate industry and business leaders.
Like you've done yourself.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Didn't.
[00:45:15] Speaker C: Don't quite have the following that you have. Mike Michael.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: But.
[00:45:20] Speaker C: And then we, then we, we transitioned into he and I really sitting down and talking about topics in the industry, some of which, you know, they're really kind of back room conversations lo comp and, and, and this whole new, you know, translating. I think you mentioned at one point, you know, I've said multiple times, the mortgage business created the transfer portal way before the NCAA did. Right. With you see people jump from company to company and I'll pay you this. No, I'm here two years and I'll pay you that. And a lot of people don't want to talk about that openly. Right. So we've attacked some of those topics.
But to your point, it's about reaching people and this is the platform to do it your type show in, in building relationships and letting people get a glimpse of who you are that you can't display in an email. I don't care how, you know, beautiful your picture is and how great the caption is. Right.
You can't get personality from a piece of paper. And so I think those things obviously are extremely important and will continue to be more important as we move forward.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: I think that one of the things that, that really helps us understand your business, especially as we go ahead into the holidays, is how to appreciate the journey that you've been on.
And I think that as a part of this journey, faith has been a large part of it. Religion is when man tells us what. What to do.
Faith is allowing God to not necessarily have us do what is right, but establishing the right kind of testimony for growth for the kingdom of God.
And I think that when you're allowing your faith to dictate you that and that's your value system. When your values are clear, your decisions are easy.
What are the things that you're trying to do at the moment in order to expand the capacity of growth in your organization.
You know, it's hard to recruit and it's hard to even do business. But especially during this time in November, December and then just after with that, with that lull.
So what is, how do you establish yourself for the growth, not only by faith, but in recruiting and expansion, especially during this time when people are actually beginning to look even more.
[00:47:49] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, I, I, my personal opinion is there is a, there is a season coming that we have not really gotten into yet. With all of the consolidation in our business that, that there are, there's going to be an extreme opportunity coming. I thought it would have already shown itself to be honest with you, but it hasn't. With the, with this lag that we've seen in the industry longer than I think anyone expected it to be, certainly me, but, but you know, the realization, I believe, and what, what I continue to tell people is we finally gotten to the point where we have figured out that the light at the end of the tunnel is a light and it's not a train. Right. We're, I believe we're, we're on the other side of this. Right. We still have a, we still have some tough months in front of us, don't get me wrong. And there's a lot of factors in the market that are, that, that need some adjustment to really get back to that pinnacle that, that we all want to see. But, but we are going to continue to see things get better and better and better. And I think it's going to be a slow return to the top of the mountain which, which allows for sustainability. Right. I'm an instant grant guy. We all are. We're in the mortgage business. But, but we're not getting that this time. But the truth of the matter is is that that is going to be good for the industry long term.
Hard to say that but, but that's the truth.
But, but preparing for that and, and, and continuing to understand and keep that, that, that in your forefront that look, things are going to continue to get better.
I think the attitude of the industry in itself has gotten better.
I think people are starting to get excited about the business again. At least that's the way that I, that I feel when I talk to others. And so, so, you know, we've had this consolidation, lots of acquisitions and that, that will work for some individuals that, that got, that were part of that merger, got caught up in that and got caught up in the acquisition. It won't work for everybody, right. For some it was a great thing. Right. For Some it's just not.
And so I think there's a segment of those originators and branch managers into the future as, as the, as the market, as the market continues to, to, to strengthen right that confidence of okay, this may have worked for, for, for, for Bob down the street when when we merged. It's, it's just, just does. It's just not for me.
They'll be looking for opportunities at this particular moment. I think a lot of individuals are whether whether it's where they want to be long term for the next 10 years or not, they're comfortable and, and they feel, and they feel safe in the environment.
And so, so looking to make a move isn't necessarily in from a timing perspective, but that individual will be looking for opportunities in the future.
And, and, and what we are doing at interlink is putting ourselves in a position to, to, to, to be able to take advantage of that for the individuals that, that, that see InterLink obviously as an opportunity for them to further their career and, and, and, and make a home here.
You know, we, we tell people all the time we, we, we are positioned and we're an organization that is big enough to have what you need and small enough to care about what you want. That, that, that kind of sums up who we are.
It's a, it's a, it's a very intentional organization and, and with, with a very strong supreme execution.
And, and that, that, that is going to, that is going to be appealing to individuals from, from our perspective at least, that's our plan as we move forward into the, to the end of the year and, and into 20, 26 and beyond.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: I think that's a great story or perspective. I haven't heard yet that I always end up with boat quotes, but I always like the one.
A boat's always safest in the harbor, but that's not where it's meant to be. I do feel similar. The industry. We got a bunch of boats in the harbor and you can look over and people are partying on the back of that one, but it may not be worth the move. But once everybody starts to go out of the harbor in the next year or two and you start to see this boat moves faster or this boat seems to have, then I think people are really going to want to move for what suits them the best or what they feel is the best for their journey or maybe it's the people on the boat like Michael was talking a lot about today.
So that's a really great way of putting a cherry on the top of why any loan officer who listen to this all the way through can see that this is a boat that we endorse. You should get on. And that's why we really appreciate you joining us here.
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Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and uncovering the stories that drive our industry forward.
