Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Mike Dub show, where every mortgage has a story.
We are the ultimate hub where the hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. I am Michael Kelleher and good morning.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: I am Michael Zhao.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: And in every episode, the Mike's dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit, the strategic insights and the breakthrough innovations that built the world's greatest mortgage companies.
So whether you're advancing your career or scouting for industry leaders or exploring opportunities in fintech, prop tech, mortgage and real estate, you're in the right place. Get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage.
Today, let's dive in with Brandon Durham, who has been on fire on the mortgage conference scene because not only does he engage, he has the pictures and then he actually writes a recap which we should all be sort of required to do to share in this community. So we say to our listeners out there, this is in case, you know, eight years from now, the world's completely AI and then electricity goes out and you have to go back to originating loans the old way with paper. You can come here and hear how our leaders did it and how they maybe saw all this coming. So Brandon is empowering growth through innovation. His title is Director of Training and Business Technology, which really means finding the right technology for the mortgage company, helping make sure it gets adopted, and then helping the sales team and operations get a lift from it. So with all that said, Brandon, thank you for joining us. You have a unbelievable role. I think it's where a lot of people would like to be a mortgage, where they have some say in the innovation in the future.
And how you got here is a similar story. Where you, you were at Countrywide. Can you maybe start with why Countrywide was able to have these universities or these ways of people to learn the whole life cycle of a loan, whether that was intentional or not. And why you think there's so many Countrywide alumni today even though that model seems to be needed in, in the market.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Well, first and foremost, thank you both. Love being here with the Michaels, so appreciate the opportunity and the time. This is going to be fantastic. So getting to the point, you hit it very clearly. Countrywide, I think was like innovator number one in this space.
You know, I cut my teeth on clues for, for those that have been doing it as long as we have. When I say clues, we all know that it's not blues clues. That's what your kids know. It was the original aus, Right. That was the thing that, you know, we, we used and, and leverage and it was new and, and innovative. And instead of sitting down with the paper file like you just talked about Michael, and sitting down with your de underwriter at their desk, you, you punch things into the keyboard and, and you pull the credit in an automated way and leverage technology to render the same decision as you know, those that I dare I say humans were doing for so much time prior to that.
And, and so that's really the lead in, you know, when I first got into the business, Cluze was ultimately new. It was innovative, it was exciting.
For someone like me, I, I was aware of the prior way of doing things and stepped immediately into the technology and I think that kind of hyperdrive, the last, you know, 20 plus years of my career was really all kind of foundationally built on my first step into the business.
As you pointed out in the question of why are there so many Countrywide alumni? I think it's really because of that there was an ability to be innovative in the mortgage space and the premise on knowledge and education and teaching, educating people how to leverage technology to be more efficient in their day to day job in, in their, their you know, place in the factory line and manufacturing loans.
Being able to see the end to end picture which you touched on. I think, you know, the Countrywide Academy I think they called it University was really focused on that opportunity to see how a loan is set up and processed and underwritten and funded and post closed and all the different elements. And you, you had a really clear opportunity to take that full picture and then define what your successful path was going to be. And I think it really opened up and allowed a lot of us to excel in that way.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: When people talk about Countrywide, you either hear about a personal triumph they had with their growth or expansion of their role or you hear about a market turbulence or a market share gain they overcame. That's more time based. What was your biggest moment that you remember at Countrywide and was it personal growth or was it just navigating through a time period?
[00:05:10] Speaker C: I would, I would very much say the personal growth, my, my initial, you know, employment in, in any type of financial banking. I was a bank teller.
And the, the next day to, to speed up that timeline, I was employed by Countrywide as a wholesale account executive. You know, handed a rate sheet and a ph and said go do this job.
And the personal growth, allowing technology as an enablement, something I was inherently familiar with. I believe I had already a knowledge or a skill set to take that on and really speed through the learning activity. I was able to learn more about LTVs and FICOs and risk assessment through just the day to day leverage of in that case, again, clues being able to know and understand how positive and negative factors impacted the transaction which ultimately impacts the families we're serving every day and what we do at a, you know, much larger capacity.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Would you say that?
Well, and I don't know, but could you say that starting off as a wholesale accounting executive that you were somewhat thrown into the fire and you had to learn by failure as well as success
[00:06:30] Speaker C: A hundred percent and more by failure than success, at least in the initial period.
And I think that's where, you know, just kind of talking about things in general, the ability to leverage technology to bridge gaps in some cases. So there could have been multiple failures in which it was like, hey, I'm, I'm not as knowledgeable or experienced in this part of the loan world, but I can leverage technology to help me learn or understand or do it better.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: I was never going to be able to sit down and underwrite a file, but I knew that I could plug things into a decisioning engine in Aus and in 10 to 12 minutes have a rendered decision that was, you know, basically stamped right at that point forward to be able to move that loan forward, close the deal and then progress with the successes to in the business.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: So then, you know, there was a time literally 20 years ago when, when we were able to fail our way into success.
And with AI today, it, it's actually when we plug something into the AI, we actually don't expect to fail and then learn, we actually expect success and then, oh, it's not working or I don't get the answer that I want because we want immediate gratification.
So how do we train or learn or experience our way into greater amounts of success when our expectations have changed based upon technology?
[00:07:59] Speaker C: But it's a great question because I think we've even taken it a step further, Michael, in that we leverage and rely and just base so much truth and accuracy on the response. With AI entities, whatever your flavor or variety of choices, we just assume everything to be right.
And, and, and so that is doing us all a disservice. Not just in the industry, I would say in life, but that's for a different podcast. Sure.
Recognizing the efficiencies and the gains and also understanding that all of us as individuals have blind spots and being able to understand. And we use this a lot in our own education and our own learning throughout Homer's financial group, which is the trust and verify concept. And I think that is no more greater statement today than it, than it was even in 2025. You know, the technology and its advancements have sped up so much that those have to be critically clear elements. Trust and verify. It's not trust but verify. It's trust and verify. And I think that and is a really important nuance to that three word statement.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: I always enjoy talking to you. I think one of your talents, if no one's told you is you could take complex type of thought and you make it really easy to follow. And so we'd work well together because I could tell you my complex idea in my head right now as a question and then you'll easily kind of say so. One of my frustrations is it seems somewhere along the line the technology now in this industry is almost these providers, you were saying earlier, find a gap, find a problem, solve it. It's almost like they're coming along and they're telling you your problem, they're telling you your gap and then before you have a chance to think about it, they're giving you an exciting demo. They're saying here's our discount. It's only good through the end of the month. Here's our DocuSign. Okay, let's do this. Launch email training session six months later People are now working around the system because it never solved a gap in the in the first place.
So I guess I have two questions. One is how do we get here? And then I think what you're hinting at as we've been talking about is AI might be the solution in the simplest form of Loan officers can now go out and vibe and solve their real gaps rather than being told by someone in a T shirt that that has no mortgage. It didn't work at country wide that this is your problem and I just solved it for you.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think, you know, technology providers are doing what they're supposed to do, which is create the problem and then immediately present the solution. So just basically restating what you just did and not all of them are wrong in the solution. I think where lenders become in a difficult position is just taking, taking what's presented as factual and not recognizing that the solution from a technology standpoint might meet the industry if you were to look at an average. Right. Like the everyday lender deals with this problem. It doesn't mean that every lender deals with that problem or if there's not a variation of it. Right. So solving a problem for document recognition or data extraction, well, it, that that may not be a pressing area because you may have the best OPS admin team on the planet that may not need assistance in that way.
And so it's like, here's this great thing. We're going to teach and train and we're going to get everybody up to speed and it's going to save you 100 hours a minute, which doesn't exist. You didn't know that. And we're going to save you a million dollars a day.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Right?
[00:11:51] Speaker C: Well, I don't, I don't have that need to save that money because it's not a current spend of mine. So, you know, you're introducing again a problem that I may or may not have a variation of it, and then the solution is either larger or smaller or not fitting to us organizationally. And I think that goes to kind of the demo pitch is, you know, AI is out there and it can do so many things. Right, that is true.
Do you need all those things? And are you really addressing the need for AI as a competitive statement, as in we're doing AI too, or is it actually solving a workflow situation that you have internally or externally? Being on the origination side is, is a solution. Solving a communication problem, a relationship problem. Are you looking at AI to solve problems? It should not. Which are relationship problems. AI should not be solving problems, issues that you have, communicating with customers for relationship purposes or driving additional rel. Relationship or development.
And I know we'll, we'll, we'll talk a little bit deeper about that.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Do you think that a high has made us, in, as far as sales in concern is concerned, in this context, emotionally lazy?
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Well, if, if I could, I would, I would actually back up and say lazy. Right. Like, not even the emotional part.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: I just wanted to bring it into context because if you say laziness in its broadest sense, oh, write me a script. Oh, make my phone call. Make, you know, speak my voice. I mean, there's a lot of lazy involved and so, and we can talk to that later as well. But why don't you speak to your definition of why we are lazy in the industry so that we can address that first and then if we need to address the emot, we can.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: And, and I, I'm going to shy away from the blanket statement of laziness in that. I don't believe inherently that that. And I think we're talking about sales originators, loan officers, whatever we want to call them here. I don't think inherently it's laziness. It is with the intent of trying to find ways to make parts of the role more efficient.
It does. Error on the side of write me an email that sounds like this.
There are intelligent ways of doing that. There are intelligent ways of leveraging AI to restate a needs list or a condition letter so that it's at a human conversational level. To me, that's not lazy, that's efficient.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: And I know that's not the question, but that kind of prefaces a little bit more of what I'm talking about.
The, the lazy element are generally focused at things I don't want to do.
And so CRMs forever have done things like communicating milestone emails, right? Congratulations, your loan's approved, you're clear to close, etc. Those have been improved by AI in terms of their ability to deliver in more of the real time basis.
The lazy quality is reliant on that automated email notification solely where the loan officer or the relationship, whoever is the front and center to the customer or client should leverage both the technology that delivers simple static news, but engage with the relationship element that drives the communication that continues the referral business that we know to be so pivotal in today's market.
So again, I, I don't think it's all in the form of laziness.
I also think that there's a lot of targeted use where we can take the repetitive mundane and replace it with intelligent technology solutions.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Or you spent seven minutes writing an email and you say write me an email that's lazy. If you spent five minutes doing the proper prompting, then that is still saving you two minutes and doing it the right way.
We had talked about it's just practice and rep. So when you understand that it is prompting, you're going to get a better output. When you write examples, that's actually when you get the best output.
So say a loan officer starts Vibe coding and they actually I'm at a conference right now, a broker conference, and I'll give you an example. Somebody Vibe coded a mortgage calculator that articulated in their head how they present a target rate and at the end they have a special word that they use about here's the reality, like if you're waiting, this is how long you would have to wait and it converts for them. So is that something that works for everybody? No. So is it really a commercial solution or is it perfect for them? So the loan officer becomes the builder is the foundation of whatever term you're. Whether that's going to be yours, Brandon, or something that comes out of it. But can you tell me we've always gone back On Build Verse Buy, is there going to be a third round now of attracting loan officers as builders and somehow allowing them to port into your, your enterprise infrastructure?
[00:17:27] Speaker C: I believe we're already there, Michael. The Build Verse buy has been a conversation for, for ages.
Whether we want to call them shadow processes or shadow platforms, originators today are already doing the vibe coding whether their current employer knows about it or not. That's not for this conversation either. We'll leave that part on the side, but. Right, but it's happening. And exactly what you said I see all the time in the marketplace. And another example came up about temporary buy downs.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: They're a complex product that require a lot more education, a lot more training, teaching consumers, real estate agents, et cetera. And good and strong loan officers have their own way of explaining it to where it sticks. That's where you know, your way of delivering your word choice, et cetera is important. But I see that as being a critical component where loan officers want to take what works for them in their market, what their dominated community or whatever their sphere of influence is. And if you want the units and volume that I bring, you're going to have to accept the way in which I bring that business to us.
And so that's where the third of the build by builder as the loan officer comes into play is I do these things that allows me to generate volume at a, an exponential level. And this is going to be the most attractive way of getting me to the new organization through recruiting, recruiting, whatever that part is.
I, I think we're there. I don't think it's as prevalent as obviously the, the compensation element which, which is clearly important, but, but I believe it's already there. Whether it's out in the forefront or not, it's happening. Loan officers are being intelligently creative in generating business and they're going to be asking their lender, whether it's current or
[00:19:25] Speaker A: future,
[00:19:27] Speaker C: how they can port their known proven methods at their new organization.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: I've often been troubled as an industry that originators, when they're building their businesses, they, they don't really have training or practice sessions when it comes to either scripting or selling or developing their, their team trades or, or whatever.
And my question to you is how do we utilize technology today to build the business that we want in creating more mock up situations in practicing? Because the good originators, what I've noticed is that they'll say the same things over and over again because it's inherent to them. But the ones that maybe don't have the same amount of, of vocabulary or information or education. They don't, but they're not practicing because they're literally, they're going into, they're going into game day without any practice. And, and I think that training is important. Mockups are important. What is it that you think that we could utilize better in AI or even without AI to create more mockup situations so we can have a better quality originator to put out into the game?
[00:20:45] Speaker C: Yeah, and I'm pretty passionate about this because I think there are both of the solutions. You just noted leveraging AI to be your counterpart to be able to not only build your script but, but to sell against your script.
And those that are familiar with AI, you know, again, whatever your platform of choice is, you can prompt your AI to come back to you with, you know, whatever your negatives or, you know, sell against me or give me the objections and have that role play in a technology based environment.
And I think that's a really good refinement area. Take what you know and refine and try it again. And try it again.
However, and the other part of that secondary element is I think there is no replacement for the live interaction scripting.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:39] Speaker C: Whether it's in front of the mirror or grabbing, you know, a spouse or a colleague or somebody at your office and just say, hey, five minutes. Can, can we just chat? Let me approach you with something and then we'll just have a dialogue and see how it goes from there. I believe there is zero replacement for that. Just like I believe there is zero replacement for technology in building and delivering on a consistent relationship.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Interesting.
And there are, we can talk about is SAS dead right after this break, but there are. You don't want to fall for the trap of trying to build something that's already out there because not only is it could it be a distraction like the opportunity cost, but they might actually know all the outliers that you don't have the time to encounter.
We are fortunate enough to have some great technology providers on our show. These are the type of ones you probably don't want to build around. So we'd be happy to show it. We have four new sponsors coming up. So if you're a technology vendor out there and you've been trying to get into industry leaders like Rick Rock last week and Brandon Durham this week, this is one of the only places I know that it makes it easy for you. On that note, let's show where you could be. And for all our listeners out there, if you're in the mortgage industry, you can't work without some of these vendors.
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[00:26:19] Speaker A: All right, we are back and the question is, is SAS dead? I have a new term since you have a new term here, Brandon, we're going to be in that. I mean we basically just announced it.
I think it's Was I call it Windfall. As a service where you don't need to make a software for the sake of thinking about how to make 39.99amonth. You need to almost solve that go to market strategy. So if it's I want to work with gutter cleaners and get ready for the fall here, let me build an interface that somehow turns gutter cleaning into a HELOC broke and then make that windfall and know that after I run through everybody might not be as useful. It's I don't need to make it for a 36 month monthly payment window.
The rate buy down example, like how do I create some piece, get it out there for nine months, get as much as possible.
There's a lot of better ideas. I just you know, try to keep those a secret for my main clients. So with all that said Sass.
Sass is dead. Was like where do you see this going?
[00:27:30] Speaker C: I, I do like Wass. So let, let, let's trademark that and you know I'll, I'll just take a small cut from, from my, my participation here. I. While I don't necessarily feel like SaaS is dead, I think as we knew it over the course of the last few years, I believe that version is dead.
And it's for some of the same reasons that we just talked about with producers that find their way to master their market, to master their sphere of influence and generate business and business development.
SaaS generally is homogenized to the every person.
Right. And so it's a solution that anyone that's in this space could use some or most of the platform and the features and that will maybe dovetail us to an adoption conversation which will be a lot of fun for us as well.
But that like homogenized here is a platform that the enterprise has that everybody can do all the things they'd ever want to do. I don't believe that continues to be the solution. And I also don't believe that lenders are going to be interested and willing to sign up for the multi year contracts that have always driven the industry. Right. It's minimum two years, likely three or four.
The, the one size fits all is not fitting and we see that play out even just with, you know, the M and A activity. Right. One size fits all is not what the industry is anymore.
People are becoming much larger and in some cases others are becoming much smaller or obsolete. And so again going back to the question of lass or SaaS, the, the, the, the service or software entities need to be in A position to be more configurable or customizable or allow for you know, I guess individual producers to, to find and optimize their own spots. So the solution is not just you get this enterprise tool and you can use a hundred percent of its offering. Well, I mean maybe I only want to Pay to use 50% of what it's capable of because that's, that's all I want to utilize. I don't want, and I hate to use a CRM. I don't want all of what the CRM does because I have feature overlap in seven of the other tools that I'm using. So I'm paying a full seat for this SaaS solution knowing that I'm only going to leverage say 25 to 30% of what it can do. So I think that's where the conversation, it's not dead. I think it needs to be if it's not already positioned so that it can be more, I don't want to say a la carte either, but almost down that, that approach where I can have a service menu and like I, I want to subscribe to these services but maybe not the plus, maybe I'm in the I'll still pay and watch ads version of that service versus the paid upgrade to, to you know, eliminate ads during the process.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Again just in the industries I think I'm going, go through some, some strange phases almost like an adolescent now the voice starts dropping, the Acme comes. I think right now it's just very early on and I don't think anybody's paying attention to a lot of these AI homegrown pieces are not paying the same LOS tolls that a vendor typically has to pay because I hear a lot like there shouldn't be multi year contracts. And as somebody who had my own company, I don't know if that's possible in getting a good product if you're actually having to pay the tolls. Right. And so for now, yes, the disruptors won't do that. The PPEs, you might not know this but the PPEs are so because you need rates, they often have tolls too. So right now you could find ways around that. But once their ears perk up, your, your, your items aren't going to work without LOS data and they're probably not going to work without rates in a lot of these last models.
I, I also think that a lot of the vendors I know on the mortgage side are getting free tokens with joint ventures with Anthropic or Azure through teams or even OpenAI Nobody knows yet what the pricing is going to be when all of a sudden that tokens are full price or some sort of electric, electric price coming out here. And so I think there'll be some growing, some changes.
What do you think? Michael?
[00:32:04] Speaker B: For a long time I've often felt that the customer is the tail wagging the dog in our industry. They're trying to dictate price because of what other people are doing, they're trying to dictate service for what other people are doing. And, and as a result, where the dog is trying to figure out where the tail is going and it's actually not, you know, it should be whoever makes the gold makes the rules, not the other way around. And in having this conversation, we're always trying to create the better outcome using software. But are we, are we still concentrating on the outcome for what the customer borrower is trying to have in their experience?
Or, or does it even matter what kind of software AI we are utilizing? Because is the tail still going to wag the dog? And where are we headed toward in your opinion, for what we could be doing in terms of technology, for what the independent mortgage bankers could be doing to make the company originator, processor, executive capital markets experience to be better instead of having the tail wagging the dog with the customer controlling where everything is supposed to be going?
[00:33:15] Speaker C: Let me give you a perfect story of that or representation.
I see more new emerging technologies from created by and delivered and owned and operated by top producer, top producers in this industry than I ever have in the first 22 years.
There are people on the street that are solving problems at the community, at the client, at the family level and they are vibe coding, to use your term earlier, Michael, their own solutions. And it's like, well, I went out to the market and there was, there was this platform that did some of it and there was this other one that did some and this other one. And I used my AI and my abilities and I brought what was impactful and useful from those three and I built my own.
And not only is it helping me manage my own business and growth, but now I'm actually offering that to the market to other originators, both within the organization or selling as a traditional technology provider to, to competitors for that matter. And I think that goes to the, you know, tail wagging the dog situation. Like is that the entry point where more top producers with technology at their literal fingertips, they're developing their own solutions.
So if I call back to the earlier question about the build versus buy and now this Middle scenario, right where the lo is the builder. That's where we're seeing it. There are real solutions, real technology platforms that we're owned, operated, created by these entities that aren't just their own, they're actually out in the marketplace.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: So this is your new potential plan for recruitment and so loan officers, you heard it here first.
There's obviously some this happens now people want to pour it in their solution into your basically from dis disclosure to underwriting to closing. You probably want your manufacturing plant but you're going to let them that plug in to those rails. I think other companies are, are evaluating as well more the compliance risk, the data security risk, the brand risk.
How do you see this unfolding?
Obviously first to really embrace it is going to win a lot and there's probably a lot of, I remember from the mobile app days, probably a lot of anxiety about stuff. Two years from now people will go back and laugh and be like why do we have anxiety? So how do you teach yourself to kind of see through the trees and realize that it's, it's the right move and now is the right time?
[00:36:02] Speaker C: Yeah, well, let me just pause briefly and just be really clear. I, I am not stating for the record that we are recruiting to this actively today. I believe this is where the landscape and the conversation has started and will continue and we want to be part of the conversation and what it looks like because we know how, how things just continually evolve in the business. So just want to be clear if you're a loan officer listening, please don't call me and say hey, I want to port all my technology and workflows to you because I will have a slip of the pink variety on my door tomorrow. We don't want today's more like out
[00:36:40] Speaker A: there in, in the, in the world. I think today is the Masters lottery opening. So this is almost like a lottery you can, you can, you can submit about the potential of, you know, later this year Brandon might pull your, your card, submit your best was model and they'll pull.
[00:36:55] Speaker C: I like that, I like that.
I, but I, I, I do believe that that is the direction and whether others steal my brilliance from this conversation and start doing that today or tomorrow.
Congratulations. That, that's great. I do believe that to be the direction and what, what will end up being the norm.
Going back to the question is, you know we've seen with, with Freddie already having an AI governance requirement now Fannie with their it's not even proposal, it's just their mandate which becomes effective here in what the next 30 plus days.
Companies, lenders, IMBs, all shapes and sizes have a strict adherence to the governance policies by the GSEs, which we believe, of course everyone will operate by just considering who they are and their impact in the industry.
And so organizationally, what is not only necessary and required of our counterparties, but it ends up becoming that source of confidence, compliance, legal protection, everything where the company can own, manage, monitor all the policies, all the procedures, own the infrastructure and foundation to conduct the right and proper business within those confines and what we have to do.
But allowing for potentially, I'm going to wink, wink potentially porting in loan officers who want to plug in their own workflows or within the foundations, within the structure of the lender who maintains adherence to policies and requirements.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: So I have a two pronged question to follow that up because as leadership, there's some responsibility to the people that are selling as well as to operations. So the first question which leads into the second question, the first question is what's the difference between a teacher and a coach?
And the lead up that goes right behind that is at what point is the responsibility of either of those definitions in leadership to the staff, whether in sales or in ops?
[00:39:08] Speaker C: So the answer to the first one, what is the difference between a teacher and a coach? To me is very clear. A teacher will educate you on what you need or should be doing to be successful.
A coach and their predominant role is to hold you and provide the level of accountability to do the things in which you either learned or are learning to be successful.
It isn't to say either one is more important than the other, or that either one has its own unique place in the overall success of an individual in any line of work.
But they are very different.
A teacher will show you the buttons to press to accomplish the end goal of what the buttons are supposed to do. A coach will call you at 8am every morning and say, hey, did you push those buttons because you learned you were supposed to? Did you do it right? That's the difference for me. I believe they both have a very clear place, not only in this industry, but in life. But they are different by nature. And to confuse them as one being able to do both, I think is a little misguided. But that's my point of view.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: How do, how do we implement that into our entire dialogue for the last 40 minutes of AI in teaching versus coaching? Because there's accountability to both, right?
[00:40:33] Speaker C: And it goes right back to what you noted about leadership. It's leadership's responsibility to step in and hold you accountable to be present and engaged in both of those activities.
Are you showing up for the education? Are you doing the webinars, Are you doing the resource library and watching the recorded videos, whatever the educational element is and then are you actually seeing the coach or following through with the activities in action?
It seems like that's a lot and it's really not. Are you attending the education?
And generally in this business, as we all know the results show the effort. So are your numbers. Whether they're volume, whether they're units, whether it's call logs or activities, whatever the that level of oversight is that can be done at a leadership level without being intrusive or you know, standing over the shoulder. Micromanaging originators, which we know to be the killer of any originator is to
[00:41:36] Speaker A: be micromanaged it a loan officer wants to come in port in right and and has built their own workflows depending on if it's pre disclosure or after disclosure.
Does any of those make them more valuable to the company or does it make them more dangerous to manage that?
[00:41:58] Speaker C: That's a, a beautifully worded question for one. So kudos for that.
I believe it makes them more, more positively dangerous if I can coin that phrase, in that they have an opportunity and ability to take over market share because there is the uniqueness to the way in which they operate.
And so the post disclosure piece I think is a real important line because we know all the regs that are applicable up to that point. The giving an originator the freedom to operate kind of in their own way, within the right constraints, I, I think gives them a positive way of being dangerous.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: So then how does a lender allow freedom to the originator without creating the, the chaos of, of randomness for everything, for all the tools and for all the accountability and coaching and for everything that that's there.
How do we stay compliant but yet still create freedom for the originator to do what they need to do there
[00:43:12] Speaker C: There should always be a level of trust and confidence in the people that you bring into your building.
I think it's leadership's responsibility to watch the front door and bringing on the right people that are going to conduct themselves not only in line with policy and procedurally, but morally and ethically in line with the organization's culture, mission, vision and values. That is absolutely a leadership requirement. And so with that said is if you are trusting that you're hiring the right like minded people to join your organization, you should be trusting in their day to day operation and how they go about conducting their business.
Not to say that people can go rogue. It happens all day, every day. I don't want to be naive to that statement. But if you have trust in who you're bringing on, you're hiring the right people that fit your organizational model and how you go about your business, you should trust them to make the right decisions and how they conduct themselves on an activity basis, on a relationship basis, and at the loan level.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: Does volume cure any ills?
It used to be that if you just produce it overproduced, then it cured any problems that you had. But does volume fear that in the situation, especially with the course of action we've had, where loans cost more than to produce more recently? But does volume cure that?
[00:44:33] Speaker C: No, not at all. To me. And I think it's pretty emphatic with the speed in which I want to say no, volume does not cure anything. You look at the price of one unsalable transaction for whatever the reason is immediately defeats whatever revenue was generated by the massive amount of volume of the same producer. If we're kind of tying it to that part of the conversation. So, you know, more volume to some degree only creates a, a broader set of problems. Right. Like 90s hip hop callback, mo money, mo problems.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Right.
Yeah.
So taking all of this in, you guys are a company that builders love to work with. When you're.
And you just came back from a conference that used to be my arch nemesis. I'm not going to mention their name, but it has to do with a lending ecosystem, which was a word I actually coined.
But multiple people looking at the idea of buying a new home, maybe that's not built. You got to wait for it.
Less problems though. Maybe somebody didn't grow up with a dad that taught him the trades. So they come out and this sounds like a perfect home.
If you're looking at tech and you're looking at your sales people, how are you envisioning consumers are coming to this conclusion? They want a new build and then what are you thinking is like the first thing they do before they reach out? And then do you believe that they go person digital or both? Like how, how are you better way to say it? If you were a consumer and you decided at the couch tonight you wanted to get a new build, what would you do?
Or if it was like your nieces, what would you tell them to do?
[00:46:32] Speaker C: Yeah, con. Well, I'll say this part first. Consumers are much more savvy than I believe industry professionals believe they are.
Consumers, first time buyers, repeat buyers, etcetera Are using technology, their own, to, to answer their own questions, whether it's which new community should I buy, whether it's which home is the better one for my makeup or demographic of my family.
I know we've talked about AI a ton in this conversation. AI can answer a lot of those things. For a consumer that didn't exist two or three years ago, where a loan officer or a real estate agent or someone, you know, home builder representative was essential and the only individual that could answer even the most foundational questions consumers are using technology to answer. Not just foundational, but the next one or two or three steps up.
Consumers today are leveraging technology only on a when.
Sorry, let me back that up. They're leveraging technology for everything they can up until the point where they have to engage a human. And I know that sounds a little bit defeating, but that's where it's gone. You can ask all of your AI entities everything that you need educationally, up to the point where maybe it's choosing between individual loan products that are best long term suited for me and my family. Is it a 30 year, a 15 year, how do I maximize seller concessions or builder incentives or along those things? That's where the professional, I don't want to say is the only point that they step in. That's where they're providing the most amount of value in today's market.
Having defined technology that can facilitate what consumers want, asking things like what is an apr?
Your technology should do that. That's table stakes, right?
And so that's where a lot of the technology, whether it's builder based or focused or resale, whatever it is, the technology at the lender should have at minimum, table stakes, ability to meet consumers where they want to be met, which is handling every part of the transaction up until the point where they cringe and say, I need to call a real person to engage from this point forward.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: That's awesome. I think that our entire dialog that we've had this entire time has been based upon what is it that lenders can accomplish so that they can provide a better experience for the borrower. And then at the same time, when it comes to making a new house decision, whether it's existing or new, build this in, in this particular instance, the originator has actually some power. And I call it emotional power, because money's not emotional, people are. And this is what AI can't do. And this is when leadership can give some directional input to the sales staff on how AI can not only help them fiscally for fiscal education, but also for the new build experience on what the originator can say, okay, we're starting from scratch here. You're going to get new construction. It's a brand new start for your new, for, for your next buy. And this is the, this is what we're going to do to help you throughout your home purchase process, fiscally speaking, but from a human, from a human, very human standpoint, we get to emotionally empathize with the buyer borrower and go, yes, this is how, this is how I'm empathizing with you and I'm going to hold your hand through this process. And using and utilizing AI to help us through the entire process, whether it's through a mockup of communication or whether it's in leadership. To tell the originator this is how we're going to actually calm people down so that we can make the, the process easier is really critical. Not just, not just for the originator, but to go to leadership and say, look, I'm doing this really well. Leadership helped me, help me kind of get off, get off the ledge on certain other types of items. And so I've been in appreciation for our conversation for this and so thanks for, thanks for helping guide us in this conversation, Mike.
I just, I have really appreciation, Brandon, going through this with us.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't say enough how much I enjoy it. I was, I wanted to talk more. This is a subject I really do enjoy and I don't want to just thank you. I want to thank our listeners. Thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart of mortgage innovation.
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