Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome again to season four of the mic'd up show, where every mortgage has a story. We are the ultimate hub where hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. My name is Michael Kelleher.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Good morning on I am Michael Zhao.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: And together the mics will dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit, the strategic insights and the breakthrough innovations that build the world's greatest mortgage companies.
So whether you're advancing your career or scouting for industry leaders or exploring opportunities in fintech and prop tech, you're in the right space. So get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage. Today we have a special guest local to me, Robert Jewett, who is with New Fed Mortgage, runs operations there and recently just, just saw him on stage speaking day one at the New England Mortgage Bankers Conference.
Rob, take us into maybe being on stage there. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
What was it like kind of being in front of all your peers and trying to explain to them how to cut down on operational cost?
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Sure. You know, the exciting topic that it is. Thanks for having me on, guys. I appreciate it.
I, I love my time at the, at the nembc. You know, I, I grew up in this industry in New England. It was a conference, you know, I attended when I was newer to the industry and it was a conference I always wanted to get back to. So to be a part of it and be able to play a part in it was, you know, you have those milestones in your career and that's definitely one of them for me. Just, you know, being able to come back into your hometown and, and add some value.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And you started the career I was looking and you started it in underwriting, obviously. Now you're leading in a lot of transformation, like everybody is in mortgage companies and often times you hear sales first people, you have that appreciation for salespeople. I, I can tell that, but, and that's why it was actually surprising to me how you started as an underwriter. Can you just talk about how that's taught you the, the patience, the process, doing the small things well, as you've grown or helped companies grow and scale.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. So funny. Before underwriting, I, I actually, I grew up with the salesperson. My, my father had a broker shop for 40 some odd years. So, you know, I joke that, you know, I started in the business in high school. I actually started when I was born, basically. So, you know, I've lived the highs and the lows of this, of this business and, and watched him have to navigate some of the roadblocks that came up through the 80s and the 90s and, you know, the early 2000s.
In high school, I'd spend summers working for him and, you know, he would. I would have to clean out paper files. Back in the days when you used to have to storm for, you know, seven years, that was my summer job, cleaning those out and making sure they were all stored.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: That'll hurt your, like, your top knuckles, right? Like when it gets real tight, a.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: Lot of those little thimbles, you name it. Paper cuts from the metal fasteners, you know, the things that are all long gone these days. But, you know, looking back on at the time, it was annoying. And, you know, in order to get paid for the summer, I would have to read the disclosures and then write a report at the end of the summer of why the disclosures were in the file, why they were important.
Again, at the time, it was just an annoying thing I had to do to get, you know, paid for the work I did in the summer. And.
But looking back, it really gave me the foundation to really focus on detail, you know, and just from there, it, you know, after high school, I went into the tech world. Tech world's always fascinated me.
At the time, it just wasn't the right time. So I kind of fell back into the mortgage space.
From there, I got into processing, really looking at how to put a loan together. I used to have to hand write loan applications. Not to date myself, but my father always wanted me to focus on dotting the I's and crossing the T's. And it's something I've carried through with me to this day.
I got into a little bit of originating with him. I got access to a lot of different areas and really just got into the nuts and bolts from there.
I was learning to do call reports, started dealing with state auditors, seeing the other side of the business, and really seeing the importance of dotting those I's and crossing those T's.
From there, I moved to a growing shop with a ton of new loan officers. It was a shop that had a training program and they came in and they taught people brand new to the industry.
For me, I loved that experience.
A lot of those loan officers were with me today, or I still stay in touch with, see them all the time. That company taught me the importance of culture.
And, you know, we did it. It was just a lot of people kind of in that same age group. We're all in our young, young twenties, mid twenties.
You know, we did everything together in work, outside of work, and it was really the first time I. I saw in this industry when you were rowing in the same direction, the amazing things that could happen.
So, you know, my focus there again, was processing, got into underwriting that way, where I did a lot of the little things well, and that came back to my time, you know, starting in this business. And just don't cut corners. Just do things, do it right. And I will say, working for my father, it was definitely an act in patience. Again, as you. He was pretty meticulous when it came down to loans and.
But I still have those values in me today, and that's what I try to train people on. And, you know, again, at the time, it's like, what are we doing here? But, you know, as you get further into your career, you realize how important that is. And, you know, some of the stuff he instilled in me, like, just do things right. Again, don't cut corners.
It takes years to build your reputation. Take seconds to tarnish it.
So treat people the way you want to be treated and always be there to help them and support them. Even when things are tough, even when you're having a bad day, somebody needs help, be there to help them.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Rob, in. In the, in the Bible, there is saying, no one's a prophet in their own land.
And my wife often says that to me when it comes to me talking to my own children.
Right. You will want to be. We'll want to be able to glean the highest and best of what we. What we think is the best for our children. And the children, inevitably, they roll their eyes and they go.
They go, yeah, sure. So because of that, mistakes happen over and over again. But one of the things that you had a chance to really go toward in. In learning under your dad and then also meeting with state regulators is. Is instead of rolling your eyes and looking at this, going, oh, these are guys that are telling me what to do, and so on and so forth. There's actually been times where sad sounds like you had an opportunity to not only just roll up your sleeves and get into the dirt and also learn how to grow the crops and the fruit of getting into the mortgage industry itself. We go through these seasons that, that maybe we're. We just go through the. The rigmarole of originations, and then all of a sudden we'll hit like the origination of non QM in the early 2010s, and then the interest rate decreased and then the immediate skyrocket shortly thereafter.
Which moments of the people that you learned under Rob were those either the person or the event that caused you to go. I'm so glad I did that. It was monotonous and tedious at the time.
However, this is what taught me to move forward in those times of loss. In those times of loss or pain.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's a great question.
You know, again, working with my father, it really instilled in me, hey, we're helping people achieve the dream of homeownership. This is the largest transaction in their life. It is a stressful transaction, no matter how easy it is and where it's our responsibility to put them in the best position possible.
And you know what? Sometimes that means saying no. Sometimes that means making a little bit less.
That's okay. At the end of the day, we're going to do what's right by our customers and put them in the best financial position possible and be a small part of helping them achieve their goals. And to me, that's the rewarding part.
You know, I mean, I've had so many mentors over the years, are just people I look back on that, just so grateful to have. To have worked with or learned from.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm going to go topic here. Was there ever a regulator? You went, oh, my goodness, this person. You don't have to name the name, but you just went, this person. I can't believe. But then you use that moment to go, I'm so. I didn't like it at the time, but this is what I learned from it.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:41] Speaker C: I would say the very first time I went through a state audit with Massachusetts, it was. And I honestly don't actually. I wish I had the name written down, but it was somebody who had been doing it for a long time and knew I was green to the industry.
You know, I was doing everything I could to impress them. And basically they were like, hey, listen, the end of the day here, here's what I look for. It's okay to make a mistake.
Okay. But be a hundred % right or 100% wrong. If you're going to make a mistake, every file I look at is going to have that mistake or every file is going to be correct. You know, for this one, whatever we're looking at. And that's something I've actually pulled away where I.
I do that in just in life, not just in business, but, you know, I'm all in on whatever I'm doing. Right. I'm going to throw myself into it 100%. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll learn from it and correct it and move forward.
But to be able to hear it from the people that, you know, theory have the power to pull your license potentially to say, hey, it's okay to make a mistake if you're doing what you think is right, you know, and that taught me, okay, well as long as my actions are justified then I, it's okay to go with your gut. Sometimes I think you have a cool.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Just a, a cool story that people are attracted to where your second generation mortgage, right, and your father gave you the broom and then like said start here and, and work your way up. And you sound very process driven. So I think you said you were in the broker and wholesale space and then a bank acquired and they looked to people that maybe were a little younger in the tech side of things, understood tech, but also could stick to a process.
Can you just speak about how that environment was and is the environment today in tech really any different or is it still just the same, just different walls?
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say it's, it's much different now. I think, I think people have gotten over a lot of the fear of tech. I think people feared it for a long time.
My bank, years again, that happened by chance.
I went to work for a lender and the owner of that company happened to become the majority shareholder of a bank. And we got acquired overnight. And it was like, okay, well here's a whole new world we're going to start navigating.
For me at the time I was an underwriting manager, had a little helped out knops here and there overnight. You know, all of a sudden it was, you had 18 hats because that's how they do it on the bank side.
And I had to learn portfolio lending very quickly. You know, you had a, a board of directors that we had to deal, you know, navigate and just the general being the new group inside the bank where, you know, I became our LOS Admin overnight. I had to learn SQL.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: You hear that a lot?
[00:13:06] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Not the SQL part, no. I mean I had done a little bit of, you know, coding back in the day or you know, C program, whatever we were calling it back then.
So it was, it wasn't super difficult to jump in and kind of figure that out. But that's, that was really where I learned how important tech could be in our industry when I had the power to really build out our LOS system in a way that I was trying to play it at the time to the lowest common denominator of how do I make a loan flow for somebody that, you know, doesn't follow the rules or, you know, I'm sorry, doesn't follow the process, I'll say, how, how do we put stops in the system? It kind of started there, right, with that operational mind of like, well, if they don't fill this out, they can't get past it.
Well, from there it kind of transformed into, well, how do we just build out our, our whole loan flow through here and just make it consistent?
Because branch A was doing their loans one way, branch B was doing their loans a different way, branch C doing a completely different way.
I'm going to control what I can control. So now when that loan comes into my system, I want the process to be consistent and then we're going to work on our efficiency. And those are the two words I've carried with me through my entire career are consistency and efficiency.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: You think that based upon consistency and efficiency, those actually don't work hand in hand when it comes to the mortgage loan originator.
Right. But we as an industry in itself, we need younger talent, we need younger loan officers, we need younger ops management. We actually have a great crop of, of younger educated individuals right now between 20 and 30 years old that are college educated, maybe looking for work. But if you were to tell a younger person right now or someone that's already beginning within the first three years of their career would, which way do you think is better in order to, to take the younger talent to be efficient in the way that they can generate business in the most compliant way possible. If that's even, if it's even a way to get it done. What avenue do you think is the best way to get it done, in your opinion?
[00:15:31] Speaker C: I actually think it's easier to come in today than it ever has because of the tech that we have in place, to be honest. And I think there's an avenue in both operations and sales to bring, you know, the next generation in.
We're doing that a little bit on our side.
And you know, it's, there's a lot of people aging out of the industry. You know, call it what it is. I mean, there's been a lot of great people leading this industry and you know, unfortunately times the game, we're always going to lose. Right. So, you know, I think there's a perception, more probably more from an ops perspective than a sales perspective that, you know, AI and automation are going to replace people.
I don't agree with that. You know, and Mike and I have talked at length about this and my view on AI and automation is more replacing parts of the Process, because.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: There'S.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: Always going to be a human element, in my opinion, because at the end of the day, mortgage isn't black and white. There's a lot of gray area.
You know, we're talking interpretation of guidelines, interpretation of products. So, you know, I don't think there's a one size fits all on all loan scenarios. And like I said, there's more than one way to interpret a guideline.
So I think there's always going to be a need for that human element. Um, and then even from a sales perspective, I think again, we're, we're helping people on the largest single largest transaction of their life. Right?
Not everybody just wants to press a button and get a mortgage. They want to, they want to look people in the eye, they want to sit down with people. I've had a lot of good discussions about this and you know, we can automate everything and, and that's great, but there is still a human element there. There's still trust in sales that needs to be built.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Can you put a bow on what you just said while telling probably the most logo exciting part of your history where there's this belief with more than ever, scalability is important. You get bigger. You've been through sounds like just watching your, your father from across the kitchen table too. You've seen cycles and everybody says, well this, maybe this time it will be different. But every 20 years is a new top 10.
This top 10 seems like it's on pace and you were part of one of them growing that big, like they'll never not be in the top 10.
What is your feeling kind of being at banks and regional IMBs and cross country IMBs from Atlantic, the Pacific?
Do you have any foresight kind of on what you just said? Like, will the people ultimately win out and move all around, or do you think it's going to be different this time?
[00:18:28] Speaker C: I mean, I can tell you what led me to New Fed was the people. To be honest, I, I had what I consider an amazing run with cross country and you know, to see the levels they've gone to and just knowing where they started, it's, it's amazing. And I'm so happy for the people over there because there are so many great people there.
I mean, to this day I consider Ron Linhart and Jen Shazinski their coo.
I mean, two of the most influential people in my career.
But when I left there, I was, I was burnt out. You know, we ran really hard and really fast for a long time and, you know, achieve great levels of success, but it takes its toll on you. So I needed to pretty much take what I've now referred to as a gap year and kind of figure out, okay, I've had, I've had exposure to a lot. So many different parts of this industry and what like who am I, what do I want to do, you know, what's. What does success look like for me?
So, you know, I spent some time getting myself right by really honing in on that. And then I just started talking to people, reaching out to people I knew take. I had some consulting opportunities, taking loan officers around, helping them find new homes and vetting out lenders for them.
That was an unintentional consequence of my time out there. That was one of the best things that could have happened to me because that started to light the fire and really got me honed in on. I love building and I love building process and people and companies and groups.
But being able to look at all these companies and see their process and their tech and you know, talk to their people and see how excited they were about where, you know, the companies they were with or not excited, the wheels started turning like, okay, what is a prop? What does a perfect process look like to me? Right. Or what. What does that next place look like?
And through those consulting opportunities, it took me into newfound mortgage where I am today.
And that one was more to kind of come in and look at their operations and, and look at their ops look management and kind of help coach and which was an avenue I was exploring. And I was like, you know what? This is a good way to kind of jump into it.
When I got there, I didn't know the story of the company and I'll, I won't go deep, deep into it, but high level. The owner of the company unfortunately got into a. A really bad car accident that left him unable to operate in the day to day and in the weeks months after, nobody really knew what was going to happen with the company.
They just put their heads down and went to work and just moved that company along.
When I came in and started hearing the stories and started talking to the people, it was like, wow, this.
When you're looking for that culture, right or talking about being all in right.
These people were and they were doing it not knowing what was coming next.
Somebody I work with today, I don't you learn from every company you're in and every. I, I always try to learn from every person I work with. Eric Portnoy, who oversees our sales team, he stepped up in that time he rallied the troops, got everybody together, because unfortunately, you know how this industry goes. Like, the vultures started circling the sales team. Right. He kept everything together. You know, when we came in and started talking about it, it was like, hey, we want to grow this.
And it was like, all right, let's sit down and let's put a plan together. How are we going to do this? What's our North Star?
Let's develop that. And when you came into a place and saw that, and then you started talking to a sales team, and this sales team would run through a wall for him, and they're never leaving him. And it's funny when I talk to recruiters today, because they're like, oh, I've been trying to pull this person out of your company for years. They won't even take my call. You know, what's the secret sauce?
That's it. It's, again, he treats people the way he wants to be treated.
We have everybody kind of bought in on what that goal is, and it's communication. So when we started talking, it was like, okay, try to build something a little bit different. Let's keep a low management structure. Let's keep it flat. Let's really focus on culture at the heart of everything we do, not just use it as a buzzword.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: So, Rob, let's. Let's. Let's continue that maybe in a different type of light, because I want to be able to make a comparison of your experience, number one, as a regional lender, and then number two, as a national lender. And in both spaces and operations, they run similar, but also very, very, very different.
And there can. What are the operational types of changes in either space that you could see happening, that you could see would cause change or a shift from a national lender? You know, we have a few huge national lenders, and then we have a whole bunch of regional lenders. What are the changes, you think in either spaces that could be implemented today from the regional space to the national space or from national into regional to create efficiencies and trust and when making an enterprise decision, sure.
[00:24:32] Speaker C: I actually think it can happen very similarly in both spaces, to be honest. And having experienced it in both spaces, you. In my opinion, you need the right people in the right mindset. Right. And.
And, you know, there's certainly advantages to having a much bigger balance sheet, but what I've found is, you know, having all those resources is great, but at the end of the day, you have to be really good at implementation.
Like, that is the key to any of this because if you're not, you're just wasting your money.
And what I mean, what I mean is you have to have that plan. And being on the smaller side has taught me that you have to be far more intentional with your plan because there is less room for error. But it doesn't negate the fact even on the larger scale side you have to have that plan of how are you going to implement change within the process effectively?
You know, it's nice to have less red tape, to be honest. I can implement things much faster because I, there's just less people to go through the process with, less people to train. So there, that is certainly an advantage.
But again, I think you can, you can really handle it the same in both spaces.
It's just how intentional you, you are and how prepared you are up front. But it's that implementation that's everything.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah, the implementation, the adoption, it's, it's important and you need more than ever your tech vendors to be on board with that. So this is a good segue to hear from our sponsors that keep the show going. If there's anybody out there that wants to be part of the Mic Duck family and get to meet the great guests we have and get to present to our audience, please let us know. Let's hear from these great sponsors today.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Verifying income for all your applicants means.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: You need roughly 23 different vendors and waste hours and hours of your team's time.
But with True work, it's just a single place for all your income verification needs.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: So you get the most advanced voie solution.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Truark combines all major verification methods into.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: A single easy to use platform to.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: Give you a completion rate of 75%, cutting your cost by up to 50% and getting real results for your team. TrueWerk, your one stop shop. For income verification, click Verify Repeats 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 customer support team that's assigned to each account.
If they want they can overhaul everything.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: If they wanted to.
[00:27:29] Speaker C: They have a new product especially dynamic apps. With dynamic apps we can fit multiple, we can fit the Fannie Freddy loans, we can new construction, one time clothes, HELOCs, you know, whatever those workflows are, they can design that workflow for each individual app. Now what's going to take it to the next level is the AI and the OCR piece, cyber and wire fraud. Can you afford the risk.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Today's automation and technology based trends demand solutions to fraud threats.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Funding Shield provides lenders and investors real time transaction level verification. Certified wire fraud protection to protect loss of funds at closing due to cyber based and other threats. We help improve your bottom line through fraud prevention, risk management and validating the parties and documents involved in mortgage closings. Prevent fraud and theft on your closings.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: And of course we're back now in the second half. And of course thank you to all our sponsors who are sponsoring our show. For mic'd up, we have Rob Jewett at newfed. Rob, one of the stories that a lot of people know from the Bible is the story of Exodus. It's a story of how the, the people, the children of Israel were enslaved by the Egyptian empire at the time and then they were led out of Egypt and then they were were wandering out into the, into the desert. I was reading actually recently the book of, of Numbers and if you read it all the tribes of Israel, you got like a million people, a million men actually in all the tribes going out trying just to find the good land. And during that process, not only do you have a group of millions of people leaving from one culture to another, but also they're trying to figure out, hey, you know what, we're on our own and we got, we need to be able to grow from this huge empire of Egypt into now what we are growing into, what we're trying to do and what God wants us to try and to accomplish, not only for ourselves, but to bring us into what they call the good land.
Eventually, if you read all of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, you begin to find out that the, that the children of Israel wandering, that none of the older people actually end up making it, but they only had Caleb and Joshua coming in and then everybody under the age of 20 and a lot of people don't really know that story but this, but it is in the Bible. And I think that for you, you started out locally and you began to grow from local and then into national and you had to know a lot of different people. Moses had to lead all these people into a lot of different types of culture, new ways of food, new ways of culture, of trying to build an entire group of people. And all of a sudden we got to take these young people now and put them into, into the old culture, but take out all the bad habits.
Rob for from this you've learned from locally into regionally into nationally, and now you're back into regional. Can you give us an indication on how you' to teach culture and scale while trying to lead massive amounts of people. Because that, you know, you're hurting cats and salespeople. But I don't know if it's like her and cats and ops as well.
How do you, how do you bring that from, from company to company in, in teaching the culture and scale?
[00:30:56] Speaker C: Sure. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm my, I'm me. I, you know, whether I have a team of ten or a thousand, you know, I, I try to treat them the same. I, I learned very early on to get past the size part of this because at the end of the day, it's all the same issues.
Whether there's more of them or less of them doesn't matter.
It, it's still the same issue. So I was able to take some of my solutions from a, you know, more of a local lender or smaller and be able to implement them at scale and, and figure out how to do that efficiently. And, and you know, to me, from an operations standpoint, stepping into cross country, when I did, you know, they were ahead of the curve when it came to remote work. So, you know, that was something new for me. It was exciting for me to, you know, be full remote. But then I also had to eventually learn, how do you manage that? Right. So I've always looked at it in a way of like, I treat people the way they want to be treated. I want them to feel valued. So a big, big focus of ours from that standpoint was always just make sure people don't feel like they're on an island. What can we do to stay in front of them and always make sure they have support? And that's my biggest sell when I'm in sales recruiting as well, and not just ops recruiting is the more, the more avenues I can go down and make sure there's support in place for these people to get quick answers, the more they're going to feel valued. The worst thing that can happen is somebody throwing their hands up for help and no response. Right.
How did I do that?
One thing I've always looked at operations as is not a roadblock for sales to get their loans to the closing table.
I always wanted sales to be a tool. I wanted sales to be able to push. Like, I have the best operations out there I can put my loan in and I don't even have to think about it after that because I know they're going to get it done and I'm going to go get more business.
That's kind of the mindset I've always taken with it. It's been successful for me.
And then just keeping my ear to the ground and really, I want to know.
I try to build a collaborative atmosphere anywhere I go, whether it's sales.
I want to bring everyone to the table to just talk. Because I always tell people, don't suffer in silence. If I don't know about the issues, I can't fix them.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: How do you bring that to. To ops? Because empathy is one of the. Empathy is one of the hardest emotions, actually in the mortgage industry level, because money's not emotional. People are.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: And so being empathetic and under. In other words, the understanding of how other people feel, especially in the stress of.
I wanted this done yesterday.
How do you. How do you create personality so that you can, as a leader, replicate yourself to those that are under you? Especially at the regional branch level? There are regional ops across the board. How do you. How do you promote the empathy in OPS for that?
[00:34:26] Speaker C: A lot of it boils down to communication, right? And how well we can communicate with. With our peers. And guess what? Not every answer we give is going to be a positive answer. Sometimes we gotta have those hard conversations.
Well, if you can build that trust up front, it makes those conversations a lot easier because now I can pick up the phone and say, hey, unfortunately, this loan's not going to work, and here's why.
And if you can build that trust in the sense of, I know my team did everything they could possibly do and there is no way we can do this.
You know, it takes a lot of that friction out of the process. It gets them to be on your side more from a sense of, hey, Mr. Borrower or Mrs. Borrower, I'm so sorry, we aren't going to be able to do your loan, and here's why not just because underwriting didn't like it. Right.
So that's kind of where I started with that. Then again, where I. I'm telling you, I keep my ear to the ground when, you know, at the larger lender, I would reach out to sales people constantly. I would just. Honestly, I. We had like, you know, our bigger producers, obviously going to reach out to them, see how things are going.
But again, I don't. Not that I don't care if you're a $200 million producer or $2 million producer, but I still want to know what the issues are regardless. And I would just pick a handful. I would pick 10 to 15amonth that I would reach out to. And I Still do it. I still do it to this day with a, you know, smaller sales team, but I'm still reaching out. We. We do monthly meetings, and every meeting, it's, hey, reach out to me if, you know, I want your feedback.
I want you guys to be a part of this. And again, at the end of the day, I think the more people feel valued in that regard, I think it's the. It's so good for the culture.
And I keep them up to date on our goals as a company. You know, why are we implementing certain things? Why are we changing certain processes? And then I ask them for their feedback or their opinions or if they want to jump in and help us test, because at the end of the day, they're on the front lines. You know, I want them to be a part of the solution and then also be able to celebrate the success of it.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: What makes our industry so great is it is one of the biggest addressable markets in the country. You look around you, everybody has a home, right? And then it actually is one of the greatest industries for opportunity. You can, if you listen to a lot of our show, people on our show, they were given the freedom to build how they wanted to build or advance how they want to advance. And that's why the MIC DOP show exists. That's where Mike and I really focus, is to build a library through leaders so that people can emulate it and be the next leaders. And we think, like Rob, very right brain, very granular. And I, I love that our audience gets different books that tell different stories, and you give a nice refresher for the people that are our avid listeners. Here is a real granular way. How you could start with a broom and really end up, you know, running larger companies. And then sometimes we have the hype. But up on stage at the New England Mortgage Banker, you were talking about process over hype. And when everybody said, oh, we all do it, then you said, well, how many? Count your clicks.
So I think that's a. A great way. As somebody you know, in the previous question, you kind of set an environment where everybody gives you a suggestion.
What's, like your hottest take on how to fix the fact that they're pitching you hype and not process or software and not clicks.
[00:38:16] Speaker C: That's a great question. You know, I think it's.
You have to. You know, I said this on stage two. You have to know your process, right? You have to map it out and.
And really understand what everybody does. Not just a closer closes alone or a process or processes Alone. But what goes into processing alone?
Where do they start? What's that? First click right, and then you have to be intentional about it. And if you're gonna bring in a new system, then ahead of time, we need to know where it fits. Like we, I think, I think the issue, a lot of problem or a lot of people fall into is they try to shoehorn the tech in because it's shiny and new and it's going to revolutionize this or change that. But if you're trying to implement it into your process and you don't know your process well, you don't know the effect it's going to have leading up to whatever that tech does or after.
So, you know, I think it's super important to be intentional about it. If it doesn't fit in your current process, but you do see value in it, then you need to amend your process.
Simple as that. I mean, that. And that's something we've done. You know, myself and our operations manager, we've fully mapped out our process flow, beginning to end. So, you know, we get hit up constantly with new tech or to demo this or try this out.
Well, the first walk with you down any conference hall, you know, and the first thing we do is we roll that out and say, okay, well if it, if we were to bring this in, it fits in here.
Well, how does that affect everything else?
And do we need to change anything else? What is the scope of this project? Not just implementing a new piece of tech. Simple as that.
You know, there's far more that goes into it, Rob.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Let's say, for example, we, we upload three matrices from, from some buyers. And then you upload your own matrix into chat gbt. And then to, to add more, more flavor to that pot, you add in that the, the sellers, the, the seller's guy, Fannie Mae, right? And then you want, and then you, you, you spit it up against the wall and you go, okay, now we're gonna add every single mortgage loan to underwrite and all the loan documents. And then, and then, and then things that make sense and not make sense. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that we can really unpack with AI. I'm sure you had conversations with Kelleher about this, but what do you love about this evolution about just punching in information and then the spinning out, but what scares you about it at the same time?
[00:41:12] Speaker C: So I, I love it. I'll be right out of the gate. You know, I, I see the value in it.
I think where we have to Watch ourselves is thinking that it can change everything. I think again, you have to be super intentional about where you're implementing it and then how you're implementing it. So you know, just, I'll, I'll use Chat gbt just because it's what everybody's most familiar with.
You know, as I was learning AI and admittedly I went through an AI course and you know, an online course because I wanted to learn more about it and, and it was super interesting and it really helped me with prompting more so than anything.
But I built out a GPT just based on new Fed Mortgage. What's our branding? What is our, what are our core values? What, you know, how are we structured, what does our org chart look like, you know, what, what are our experience levels, what are our goals? All of that. And now I, I'm using that as a tool right off the bat because now when I want to build out a new process or I want to put something together, I can already start there.
Now I'm not just gonna take everything that it tells me because you know, there's a, a lot more that goes into it. But I'm, I'm viewing it as a great starting point for me, right? And the more I'm using it, the more I can see the answers coming out. It's like, okay, this is where I would have gotten to right through probably a few different, you know, a few different run throughs of thinking this through and it, you again can be super intentional with it. And that to me is the biggest value it's adding for me now AI within the mortgage space.
You know, I went through a lot of the different vendors out there.
I had always, prior to coming in, been a big proponent of, let's just procure tech, short term deals. Because tech's moving so quickly.
I'm starting to go hybrid on that and say, hey, guess what, we can build some of this because of the use of AI, right? And I've, I have someone now that is like an AI automation specialist. So now we can kind of talk through just small pieces of our process. Hey, it'd be super cool if we could automate this, right?
This person spends two hours a day doing this. If we could automate this and I can get those two hours back, I can put them into something else, right?
So I'm looking at it more that way now instead of like, I want AI from the time an application comes in till the time alone sells, who knows? But again, I think the more intentional you can get with it, start with that low hanging fruit and just replace a lot of that monotonous, those monotonous tasks, you're going to see the efficiencies add on.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Do you think that it, it creates and do you think it mitigates the potential of loss or default? First payment defaults, you may be able to streamline operations, but do you think that it can mitigate the loss of first payment defaults when you're underwriting? Because if you have so many quick systems, is there, is there a possibility, greater possibility of loss or do you think that it's, it's more of a yes or no question but with explanation or do you think that all it does create more, put more loans in the system and, and that's about it. I mean, what do you think it does for the overall?
[00:44:59] Speaker C: I think it's a combo. I think it can mitigate for sure, but I think it's giving us more data at the end of the day to make those decisions.
And you know, as we all know, I mean, data is everything in this industry and I think the more examples it's going to go through and see, I think the better the output's going to be. To be honest, I'm so careful.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: We've gone more about this story being about you, Rob, and about our guests. We are getting very close to current event topics and I am biting my tongue there. I'll segue in.
[00:45:37] Speaker C: It's.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: I'll segue into a question so I could say it without.
I think the problem with AI that I see is companies are not putting it into their business continuity plan. So if that expert leaves, it's not just that no one else will be able to pick it up, but they have no idea what that person did. And inherently in our line of work, that person is doing it for somewhat job security.
My cousin's in water engineer.
I think I might have said that little off but.
And when they're bidding, they're trying to find towns and municipalities that are looking to change their, their piping.
And one of the biggest frustrations they find is it's often that person at the DPW that knows where all the old pipes are underneath. And rather than cross writing them down like you would recommend, Rob, it's in their best interest to be the only one that knows where they are so that you really can't do much but keep them on, on the payroll. So as I think you're going to see a lot of that with AI and nobody's going to realize it because they don't know enough to even check with that.
Look at AI, though. Like, if. If. When you're scaling visions of yours in the past or you can count it today, though, when resources shrink, like, we're very cyclical. Right. Do you have an example of how you handled that piece or what? I guess resources can't really shrink much more than they are now. But if in the future, you know, you go up and you invest heavy in AI, do you think that is going to be a problem and you have examples of how you've handled it. Not to sound like a job interview here, but, you know, as we come to our final questions, I am curious. I'm kind of getting current eventy here, but where do you see that? What's your experience with it?
[00:47:27] Speaker C: So, again, I. I think you stay true to your culture and your people and you get involved. I mean, you know, I, I myself, just to speak from an ops perspective, I try to stay in it. I still underwrite loans here and there. You know, I underwrote one just last week, and it's not because I had to, but, you know, in the event that I do, I want to be able to jump in and support my team.
So, you know, at the end of the day, I need to know, and I expect my managers to know what we're managing inside note, you know, if we're being looked at as the experts or subject matter experts, that's what we need to be. And, you know, I've always believed in servant leadership. So, you know, to me, a big part of that, it's understanding the challenges that the employees face day in and day out.
And I think when you hit those milestones of success, it makes it all that much better because everybody's bought in with you. So, you know, again, I'll go back to it. We solicit feedback from everyone.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: I.
[00:48:38] Speaker C: We did a virtual Halloween party on Thursday, and that's where we ended it. It was, hey, send us one thing that you feel like is bottlenecking what you do.
And we. We've gotten all our responses, you know, over the last couple days, and there's been some amazing feedback in there that now I can sit down with my managers and go through and say, okay, you know, 60% of the responses were tied to this.
So let. Why don't we start here? Because clearly there's an issue or a bottleneck here.
And, you know, I think that's how you unkink that hose, if you will, and.
And just really include everybody as a part of that.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: I'm gonna wrap up the the tail end of this conversation with questions about hiring and recruiting because it, in, in the regional scale, it seems like we're almost like the ncaa. And name image like this, also known as nil.
You want, you want to be able to chase after the stars that are producing whatever X amount of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars or maybe looking at the talent at the raw in the system of hiring of just saying, hey, this person has the, as the, as the talents we could, you know, do we, do we want, do we want someone who has the, the name brand like a Joe Montana or we bring some up who ends up being a six round draft pick like a, like a Tom Brady type of situation.
If, if you could snap your fingers and fix the industry on how we bring up either new originators or ops, how would that look in, in recruiting newer talents into each, into the industry so that we could make our entire industry better. From a talent standpoint, what are some of those characteristics that you think that you can spot that you've seen in people you brought onto your teams?
[00:50:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, I think chasing names is a recipe to potentially destroy your culture.
Right. I think it's more important to find people aligned with your mindset and you know, that are on board with the culture and the direction of your company. Right.
And I, when I sit, you know, I, I sit with a lot of recruits every day and you know, just growing up in the business, I, I've, as we've been talking about, I, I resonated with the sales side quite a bit. So yeah, you know, I've always had. It found it important to understand, you know, the process and the mindset and the methodology. And I just, I do that by talking with people and you know, success. I mean, people that have hit the highest of highs again, having the opportunity to be around them every day and people that have grown their business from, you know, coming in three years ago not knowing what a mortgage was to closing 10 million this year or 15 million this year, to me that's just as impressive. Right. And, and starting from, starting from nothing. So, you know, something I've been able to accomplish over the years is really hone in on how to translate operations to the sales side and vice versa. So that's what I try to focus on in those situations. You know, when you're, when you're part of a company that's bigger than you and you truly believe in it, selling it's easy. And that's where I've been able to have success because I worked for some great companies and great leaders that I wasn't selling. I was just talking about what the ins and outs are every day because I believed in it. And the other thing you have to be okay with is not every company is a fit for every lo out there or every ops person. And that's okay. You know, I've, we've had some loan officers leave because they weren't a culture fit. And it wasn't a big, you know, yelling match or anything. It was just having that conversation of like, hey, you know what?
This is where we want to go and if you're not on board with it, or this is where you want to go and we're not on board with it, that's okay, you know, we'll shake hands and go our separate ways, you know, so again, we just really try to focus on who's going to fit our culture and, and grow with us and be successful with us.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: I think we can see why the new Fed culture is a growing culture. You certainly have described really well, Rob. Why it's an excellent place for a career. It's an excellent place on the process side, but even on the sales side, the loyalty side, it just seems to be a company where, if you listen to this long form podcast, you have to consider it as an advancement in your career. So we want to thank you for coming on, sharing that with us and thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart 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.
