How to Stop Losing Past Client Deals Before It’s Too Late

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Mortgage Marketing Radio

Episode: How to Stop Losing Past Client Deals Before It’s Too Late

Host: Geoff Zimpfer
Guest: Andrew Penner (Co-founder, Milo AI)
Date: September 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Geoff Zimpfer interviews Andrew Penner, co-founder of Milo AI, on the pressing challenge mortgage professionals face: losing deals from past clients. They discuss why a staggering 82% of clients don’t return to their original lender, how to proactively spot opportunities in your closed-loan portfolio, and how to leverage technology—especially AI—without sacrificing personal connection. The episode offers actionable strategies to help loan officers compete with major lenders and retain more of their database.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why Do Most Clients Fail to Return? The “Churn” Problem

• Acquisition Costs vs. Retention:

  • Andrew laments that after spending heavily to acquire clients, lenders frequently lose repeat business despite providing good service.
  • “82% of customers use a different mortgage lender on their next transaction. There’s clearly a systemic problem.” (Andrew Penner, 03:47)

• Causes:

  • Clients are not being reached at key moments (e.g., when considering a purchase, refi, or investment).
  • Lenders commonly react too late—after the client is already with another provider like Rocket Mortgage.

2. The Failing Status Quo and Gaps in Current Tools

• Most Loan Officers’ Approach:

  • Heavy reliance on mass emails or CRMs, but without sufficient personalization or timely alerts.
  • Even disciplined lenders slip, losing clients to more aggressive or better-informed competitors.

• Limitations of Popular Tools:

  • Tools like HomeBot and HomeIQ are effective for engagement but don’t fully close the “opportunity loop.”
  • Andrew emphasizes the need for the lender and LO brand—not third-party platforms—to be front and center.

3. The Power of Behavioral Intent Data (06:42, 09:54)

• Milo AI’s Differentiator:

  • Tracks over 40 behavioral signals within their platform (e.g., home value report interactions, web activity, and more).
  • Engages loan officers with actionable alerts 6–8 weeks before the client’s credit is pulled, enabling proactive outreach.

• Analogy:

  • “You don’t want to be the Reese’s rep chasing after the Snickers bar at the checkout line—you want to be present when the customer first has the need.” (Andrew Penner, 05:54)

4. Competing with Giant, Full-Funnel Institutions (07:02)

• Rocket Mortgage Example:

  • Owns more of the funnel and leverages labor-intensive outreach, but also employs data and tech to keep clients in their ecosystem.
  • “They are one of the few lenders who buck the trend of poor customer retention.” (Andrew Penner, 07:21)

• Takeaway:

  • Even smaller or mid-sized lenders must invest in their database and tech stack to stay competitive.

5. The AI Balance: Automation vs. Authenticity (08:59–11:01)

• AI as an Enabler—But with Limits:
  • Andrew warns that completely automating client contact can erode authenticity.
  • Instead, he suggests:
    • Automate the repetitive, value-add aspects (market updates, home value reports).
    • Reserve direct conversation and relationship-building for humans.

“Our past client database is sacred.” (Andrew Penner, 09:35)
“The most human company will win.” (Jeff Zimpfer, 11:01)

• Role of Data:
  • Success hinges on using AI to “skim the cream off the top”—identify who’s active or “high intent,” then prompt a personalized, timely human follow-up.

6. Practical Next Steps for LOs (17:52–20:00)

• Immediate Actions:

  • Ensure your database is organized (even a Google Sheet is a valid starting point).
  • “You can't manage what you can't measure.” (Andrew Penner, 18:08)
  • Consider platforms for credit monitoring and client alerts.

• Milo AI Process:

  • Upload your database and nearly 70% of clients will engage monthly through value-driven content.
  • Expect 1.5–3.5% of your database to show “high intent” each month—filtered for you, not predicted.

• Market Opportunity:

  • With a projected boom in 2026 and many homeowners planning to tap into equity, now is the time to invest in a client re-engagement system.
  • “If you have a database of a thousand loans, that’s 250 loans potentially up for grabs. Platforms like Milo help you maximize the loyalty from those customers.” (Andrew Penner, 20:05)

7. Overwhelm and Modern Marketing Realities (21:15–22:18)

• Challenge:
  • Mortgage professionals feel pressure to “be everywhere”—online, social, Google Business, etc.
  • Andrew advises leveraging company resources or starting small; discipline matters more than size.

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On The Importance of Being Proactive:

  • “We give the loan officer the information they need to turn it truly into a relationship and not just a transactional occurrence.” (Andrew Penner, 05:54)

• On AI & Automation:

  • “I focus less on the conversational piece and more on what value can we provide...That’s where we hang best.” (Andrew Penner, 09:54)

• On Database Management:

  • “Even just having a spreadsheet of your past clients... as long as you have it in an organized format, you can manage it.” (Andrew Penner, 18:08)

• On Upcoming Market Opportunity:

  • “Now is the time to make those investments because you want to give yourself some time to warm up your past client database and get to the relationship part of that lifecycle.” (Andrew Penner, 23:12)

• On Platform Selection:

  • “Every person's business is different. They have to figure out where the gaps in their personal strategy are and what works best for them.” (Andrew Penner, 23:38)

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Recommended Actions for Listeners

• Assess and Clean Up Your Database (18:07–18:30)
• Implement Behavioral Monitoring (e.g., Milo AI, Stick Em, Home IQ)
• Focus on Value-Add Messaging, Not Just Automation
• Prepare for Upcoming Market Opportunities by Engaging Past Clients Now
• Explore New Platforms—But Fit Them to Your Unique Business Needs

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Important Timestamps

• Problem Overview & Industry Statistics: 00:00–04:00
• What Milo AI Does Differently: 04:21–05:54
• Behavioral Signals & Proactive Alerts: 05:54–07:02
• Why Rocket Mortgage & Big Lenders Retain Clients: 07:02–08:22
• AI: Automation vs. Human Touch: 08:59–11:01
• Getting Started with Milo & Database Organization: 17:52–19:21
• Market Trends & Retention Opportunity: 20:05–21:15
• Digital Overwhelm & Practical Solutions: 21:15–22:18
• Final Recommendations: 22:41–24:41

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Closing Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for mortgage professionals who want actionable strategies to win back more business from their closed-loan portfolio, future-proof themselves against rapidly evolving tech, and deliver a customer experience that keeps clients coming back.

Links: Milo AI: my Milo AI | Andrew Penner on LinkedIn

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Transcript

[Jeff Zimfer]

Have you ever missed out on past clients next purchase, refi or an investment deal simply because you don't know they're back in the market? You know, that feeling of opportunity lost is all too common with loan officers. Most lenders are leaving future business on the table not because of bad service, but because they're not showing up when it matters most. Hey, you're listening to the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast where we help mortgage professionals close more loans with less effort. If you don't know who I am, my name is Jeff Zimfer. I'm author of Instant Referrals for Mortgage Professionals and Disrupt or Die how how to Survive and Thrive the Digital Real estate Shift. Today on the show we're asking how do you stay top of mind with past clients without relying on labor intensive follow up or losing the personal touch to automation? To help us answer that, we're joined by Andrew Penner, co founder of Milo AI. It's a platform purpose built to help loan officers turn databases into deal flow while keeping the human connection intact. In this episode we're going to learn three primary things. Why 82% of your clients never return to you and how to stop that churn. How behavioral intent signals can reveal which past clients are ready to transact with you before they hit the open market. And the delicate balance between automation and authenticity in today's AI driven world. We'll also dig into how companies like Rocket Mortgage are working to own the entire funnel and what you can do to compete with them. So if you're ready to learn the strategies to get more business from your past client database, stick around for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Andrew, welcome to the show.

[Andrew Penner]

Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Jeff Zimfer]

I want to jump right into it today and talk about, you know, this, this platform, gotta be honest, wasn't on my radar until you and I connected. And I'm gonna allow you to give the, you know, the executive summary definition of what is Milo? What problem does it help solve?

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Sure.

[Andrew Penner]

Yeah. And the roots of it kind of go back to my days on the lending side. So I used to run marketing and some other functions for a high growth mortgage lender out of Connecticut. And you know, a big thing that I think a lot of lenders have dealt with, whether really aggressively and painfully like I did or even silently is the problem of customer churn. You know, we work so hard to get these customers in the door, whether it's through agent referrals or whether, you know, I also manage consumer direct for, for that lender and you know, you're paying 2, $3,000 in acquisition costs per closed deal, and that's okay. You can make money on that if you price the loan right, and if you're handling comp well. But then we would just let this repeat business slip through the cracks. And we were disciplined. We were really strong with what we did. You know, as an example would do, I had a mandate where we had to send a mass email every two weeks to @ least a segment of our database, touching every customer about every six to eight weeks. And that worked really well. In the year that I left, we originated 3 billion. About 500 million of that was marketing, assisted production. But we couldn't rest on our laurels. And the thing that drove me crazy was when I would have loan officers come to me for price concessions because their customer went to their bank first and they got a half a percent lower. Or we'd see, you know, our credit monitoring, we'd see an alert pop up, and that customer had already gotten a right quote from Rocket. Now we're in it with Rocket, right? Or we get a reply to those mass emails and somebody says, sorry, I already refinanced. Those kind of things drive you crazy because you work so hard to cultivate this database. For most loan officers, I think if you ask them, their biggest asset, maybe besides their Realtor portfolio, would be their closed loan portfolio. And if you ask them to wait, it'd probably be like 60% realtor and 40% closed loan. But we constantly fall short on appropriately nurturing that closed loan database. You know what kind of pushed me over the edge? I had used tools like HomeBot and had used tools like Home IQ. And what pushed me over the edge was we were churning customers. And I saw that we were not alone. 82% of customers use a different mortgage lender on their next transaction. And so when you look at that, there's clearly a systemic problem that wasn't being addressed by the solutions out there. And so to more directly answer your question, we did a few things differently when we launched Milo. One is we wanted the loan officer and the lender to be front and center. It's not HomeBot branded. It's not Home IQ branded.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

It is. I set you up with home value reports from my company, whether I'm from Fairway Movement, Total Mortgage, or any other lender.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

And I am featured front and center throughout the entire experience. The second thing was, you know, I always agreed philosophically with what those tools brought to the table, but we wanted to close the Loop as well as we opened it. I think those platforms do a great job and I give a ton of praise to HomeBot and Home IQ for what they do. They do a great job of opening the loop with the customer, getting me interested. Okay, wow. I have, you know, my home's worth this much. I have this much equity. That's great. Now what?

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right?

[Andrew Penner]

And I can mess around with some calculations there, but with Milo, we bring that opportunity back to the lender. We're tracking over 40 different behavioral signals within the experience that we provide, which is, you know, home value reports, white labeled home search site, and a bunch of really great tools and calculators and things like that. But we're also tracking what that customer does across the web. So now we have this change with trigger legislation.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

I think Katie Sweeney and a bunch of people have done a great job of lobbying and honestly helping customers more than anyone, but making it so. Now there's much tighter restrictions around how we monitor credit and how trigger leads are sold. And we need to be able to get to the customer before that event happens. So what we see with Milo is the alerts that we're sending to the loan officer and to the lender through CRM are coming about six to eight weeks before that credit is pulled. So it's no longer I'm in the checkout aisle and I grabbed Snickers and now somebody from Reese's is like, hold on, hold on, wait, you should grab a Reese's.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right?

[Andrew Penner]

Because I might have already seen, hey, the Snickers is half the price, right? I've already sold myself even if Reese's is my favorite candy. Now I've sold myself on Snickers and they're trying to win me back instead of being there when I needed them in the first place. So we help build that relationship. We give the loan officer the information they need to turn it truly into a relationship and not just a transactional occurrence. So in our case, we integrate with just about every CRM. We do it deeply. It's bi directional. You close a loan comes into our system in real time, Loan officer leaves, you can update that and reassign the loans in real time. In our system, a customer engages, you get that interaction alert. Right? In CRM, a report is generated, will give you the underlying data in CRM. So it's this perfectly bi directional system, no login needed, and just hits loan officers where they are. And I think it's important to know your audience that way as well.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot in There, I mean, what's coming up for me is, you know, of Mr. Cooper and of course of Redfin. And so they are definitely going all in on top of funnel activities. Not only top of funnel, but actually obviously through the other acquisitions there, through middle and bottom. Right. So, I mean, it looks like they're trying to own the entire Funne Funnel, right?

[Andrew Penner]

They are, yeah. And it's a smart play. I give them their flowers. I think they're also using it to their advantage on the TPO side as well through Rocket Pro, using Redfin to generate some leads there. And yeah, that's a smart company. They know what they're doing. They are one of the few lenders who buck the trend of customer, you know, poor customer retention.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

They do a great job retaining their past client database. But a lot of what they do even is through just pure labor.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

Reaching out to those customers. They have a ton of, you know, people dialing out on those clients.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Andrew Penner]

And that's important. The question is just what approach do you take as a lender? And I think each lender needs to feel that out for themselves.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. And I think that's where a tool like Milo can come in, from what I understand of it is, you know, getting back to some of what you just described. Intent monitoring. Right. Client engagement. You know, if we're, if we're to be in the same ballpark as somebody like a Rocket who's, who's, you know, got that share of customer because they've made those investments throughout the funnel. The question then becomes, you know, is, is what do we do? How do we maintain our database? You know, I talked to a loan officer the other day. We had them in our small group community. Wade Betts, if you're listening, shout out to you. So Wade, I think he said 65% of his business comes from his past clients. And that is a rare number. Most los cannot say that that is true.

[Andrew Penner]

That's incredible.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It's very incredible. No. And especially knowing that in his career thus far, he's funded over 800 million in loans. But he's very methodical. He's very, use the word labor intensive. He's doing the annual financial reviews, he's doing the actual birthday calls. You know, those, those different labor intensive things. And what I'm excited about with AI and looks like your integration of and use of AI and different milestones and intent monitoring is that shouldn't we be able to streamline or to a degree rely on a platform to help us stay top of mind so it's not necessarily always manual labor.

[Andrew Penner]

Yeah, I think that's really important. And you know, I, I haven't figured out the right way, you know, on a personal level, I think it's hard when you talk about AI and what that follow up can do because I think there's a massive unlock there in the future. The challenge you have is, you know, I try to use this litmus test and it's probably flawed, but you know, would I do it, for example, with my friends or with my wife? Right. Because ultimately that's the kind of relationship we want to have with our past clients, with agents and the people who are really important in our sphere of influence. And to trust that all to AI, I think you risk taking the personal part out of the relationship.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

I'm all for AI and leads, for example. I think that's great. There's no pre existing relationship, but our past client database is sacred. And so we've been really careful to walk that line cautiously in Milo. And one of the, you know, I think the biggest thing that we can do is I focus less on the conversational piece and more on what value can we provide.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

Even in my conversations with my wife, there's value additive things that I can do.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

Or with my friends. And so in this case, what do people care about? Well, you've just helped them with the biggest transaction they will probably make in their life until maybe the next house they buy.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

It's for most people where most of your net worth is tied up in and they have, they don't have great ways to track that value. I mean, you can use Zillow.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

But we all dog on Zillow and for good reason. But at the same time, that's a decent estimate of value. Right, but it only gives you part of the equation the next step. And what we can do to provide value to our customers is hey, we have revolving debt at an all time high. Rates are starting to come down. How can you make smart financial decisions with your equity to get liquidity that you might need to just make your life better? And putting those numbers, it doesn't make sense for a loan officer to prepare that full analysis. I love, you know, mortgage Coach, for example, but I'm not going to put a total cost analysis together for every client in my database.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

But you can get a ton of leverage with tools like Milo to be able to automate that part of the conversation and then open up genuine conversations as a result. And I think that's where we, we hang best.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, I agree. I think that's a great point, is we don't want to automate the relationship away. And I always go back to, you know, a quote that I heard a while back, which was the most human company will win. And especially in this day and age with AI and deep fakes and people questioning is it real or not? Hey, are you tired of cold calling realtors and feeling like you're getting nowhere? With my agent classes, you don't have to chase agents anymore. We hand you a done for you system of ready to teach presentations, plug and play marketing, and even 200 producing agents to invite. So you can double your agent referrals.

[Mortgage Marketing Pro Announcer]

In 90 days or less.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Plus you'll get weekly coaching and a community of loan officers sharing exactly what's working right now. Here's a quick win from one of our members.

[Mortgage Marketing Pro Member/Testimonial Speaker]

I joined it because I was tired of doing business the way that regular loan officers have been doing it in my market, which is just making the, the core calls every Monday and Friday, checking in with real estate agents. Um, I had done that for years and it seemed like everybody was doing that. I needed something different and I wanted to find a way that I could work with the agents that I want to work with. I wanted to find a way that I could have a captive audience every month, every couple weeks where I could find agents that were like minded and that wanted to work with me as well. So it's probably brought in, I'm just guessing here, but it's probably brought on. In the three years I've been back with, the program has probably brought on, I'd probably say about $40 million in volume since then.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Mortgage Marketing Pro Member/Testimonial Speaker]

And it's led to some massive relationships and I wouldn't be able to do those things without this program. The value of these Friday calls are so incredibly valuable for all of us. I get upset if I miss it on a Friday. The cost of this program is what is worth it. Just because of these Friday calls that we're on where we help coach each other. We're just here to help each other add value to our realtor partners.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on demand? Book a call at MortgageMarketing Pro or.

[Mortgage Marketing Pro Announcer]

Hit the link in the show notes. Now back to our show.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Do you think that. Would you agree that people, the rare, the actual conversation like this, whether it's over the phone or whatever, but the actual interaction, There's a time and a place for AI and AI voice and all that, but where do you Think what would you advise a loan officer or how have you structured or designed, Milo, to make sure that that human interaction is still part of it?

[Andrew Penner]

Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, I'm long on AI. I think one thing that we can rely pretty heavily on is that AI is going to get better and better every six months.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

You have kind of. Was it Moore's Law with, with computing that was, you know, years and years of. Every 18 months, you know, computing power would double. I think we're in a place where every six to 12 months AI is doubling in power and in what it can handle. I mean, we're probably, maybe it's sensationalism, but we might be within a few years of basically super intelligence. Not, or, sorry, not general intelligence, not super intelligence, but a place where AI can probably start to have those conversations in a way that you would when it learns enough about you. Right now in its current state, it's still a little fallible.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

It's still prone to hallucinations. It's still going to say some things that are not authentic, no matter how much training data you give it. But I do think as that technology evolves and as we as lenders, you know, I think a big thing for lenders is starting to structure your data and your database for an age of AI. And what I mean by that, for example, is they need to get to know your customers. So how much customer data are you storing? What is the breadth of that data? How accessible is it? And also your loan officers. How much data do we have? Are we recording conversations? Are we making sure that we have a good structure to how our emails are logged and managed so that that can eventually be fed into these algorithms and be used as training data to be able to really get to that next level of personal connection. Because you've probably seen, you know, AI in some cases is better at rebuttals than people now. Yeah, and I think, you know, that's a, that's a good jumping off point. Rebuttals is probably the easier of the things to like, mimic versus a genuine human relationship. But still it's getting there. And so in due time it will be there. And if you don't invest in it now, I think now's a good time. But if you don't invest in it now, I think structuring yourselves for that investment down the road to make sure you make the most of it is going to be mission critical.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see the use cases. It's going to vary based on company and what their, what their headcount is internally. Like, you know, thinking back to our conversation about Rocket, I mean there is an argument to be made that they could scale back on some of their call center because AI might be able to streamline some of those opportunities to identify at what points they are right at what stage in that readiness. Because I think one obvious use case of AI is tee up the client and the conversation to once it identifies, it's at a stage ready to talk to a human. That's the time to hand it off. And right now there's probably a lot of human interaction that will be eventually handled by AI because it's more efficient, can streamline it and, and you're not. It's not a customer experience burn in most cases. Would you kind of agree with that?

[Andrew Penner]

Yeah, I think so. You know, we'll probably end up seeing a bit of a bifurcation in the market too, at least temporarily where you're going to find some organizations. And you're right, company size is definitely a factor. But I also think there are some small companies that can get massive unlock from the efficiencies of AI. And it's really interesting because we've seen this trend as business has been harder to come by of Consolid. And it'll be really interesting, you know, you have some democratization happening from UWM and Rocket bringing life into the broker world again, which I think is healthy. And it's going to be interesting to watch over the next few years how there will be different strategies. Right. There's going to be some people who get an enormous amount of leverage with AI. There's also going to be some loan officers who can get just, who can be that personal relationship.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

We as people crave that personal connection. And so there's going to be the efficiency play versus the human play.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, well, let's, let's do this. Before we hit record, we were talking about right now in the market. We're seeing some favorable headwinds finally, which is likely a reduction in the interest rates. We're already seeing some movement on that, probably further movement. So we're going to open up this new pool of potential buyers, maybe some people. There might be somewhat of a market for refis out there. But let's just say this, I'm a loan officer listening right now. I don't have a platform right now that that optimizes my engagement with my database right Through a financial digest, through property searches and all the various things that you guys do on your, on your platform, which we'll put a link in the show notes which is. It's my Milo AI that's M Y M I L O A I link in the show notes if you want to go check it out. But if I'm a loan officer and I don't and I haven't done a good job of nurturing and staying top of mind with my past client database, I want to prep for potential opportunities coming in 2026. What would you advise? I mean could it be that I can take my database and upload it to Milo like tomorrow and I can start building some of that future business?

[Andrew Penner]

100%.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Andrew Penner]

We have a super easy onboarding process. We take a lot of care in how we do it. And yeah, it's if you have your database in good shape and if you don't, by the way, that's order of business number one, right? Make sure you have that database in good shape because it's.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What does that even mean?

[Andrew Penner]

I mean think about, you know, I know most people don't use a CRM. It's amazing if you do, right? But even just having a spreadsheet of your past clients, I know some of the best loan officers I know just track their people in a Google sheet and that's fine, right? As long as you have it in some sort of organized format where you can measure it and you can structure it, right? Because you can't manage what you can't measure. And so if you're just flying by the seat of your pants, you're not going to maximize your potential. So that's sort of business number one. But once you do have that, there's a ton of great platforms, right? I would make sure you do some credit monitoring. If you don't do it, you know, if you don't have a system through your company, which most companies do, you could use a system like stick em. They're, they're a great platform for individual loan officer credit monitoring. I would look at, you know, what kind of platforms can I use to get alerts from across the web. But looking at Milo specifically, we immediately will start engaging about 70% of your customers every month. Just because people again, it's value additive content, right? People want to see these home value reports. They want to check out their equity in the home. You're going to see generally around one and a half to three and a half percent of those people reaching out to you or at least being observed as high intent actors through our system. Our job is to Skim the cream off the top of your database. You talk about time before.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

There's unlock that comes with AI in terms of automating conversation. There's also unlock that comes from having the right platform do some of that pre filtering for you. You can look at your potential deals in your pipeline as needles in the haystack. Right. And platforms like Milo or the Super Magnet that allow you to kind of pull them out without much effort. And then we're also, you know, something we don't talk as much as we probably should about is we track customer interactions across the web as well. And so it's not just what occurs on the home value reports we send, the tools that we send the white labeled home search site that we have for each loan officer and lender on our platform. But it's also what if that customer goes to XYZ comparison shopping site and looks at a mortgage rate article or fills out a form or you know, saves a home on a top home search site? Well, we get that data back and we're letting the lender know. And it's not our best guess at predicting, you know, it's hey, we believe that loan officers are competent professionals and if properly equipped with the right data about their customers, they're going to know who to reach out to and what to say. And so our job is to figure out how do we skim the cream off the top of that database, give them the most effective way that they can spend an hour or two in their week to make sure that they're maximizing their chances. Because I don't know if you saw Jeff, I think it was ICE recently put out some numbers that 25%, I think they did a survey of homeowners and 25% of homeowners plan to refinance or tap into their home's equity over the next year. So if you have a database of a thousand loans, that's 250 loans potentially up for grabs. In that same study, they said that in Q1, I think less than 25% were retained by lenders. So you have this kind of rule of 25, 25% of my database is now high opportunity, but I'm going to retain less than 25% of it. Use platforms like Milo, like Stick Em, like Even Redder, you know, to be able to make sure you maximize the loyalty from those customers.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I think that's very, very important. We need to stay top of mind, right? Be, be present throughout the funnel as much as possible. You know, that's I guess that's part of the challenge today though too is like we need to, quote, be everywhere. Right. That includes online, on social media, and have a Google business profile. It can be very overwhelming for, for Modern Mortgage Professional, no doubt.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Andrew Penner]

Hopefully in a lot of cases. I know a lot of good companies will help with that. So if you haven't, reach out to your company's marketing department, see if they can help you.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

But if not, I mean, I've done this. You know, I did this. I had my own marketing consulting firm before I came into the mortgage industry. And it's really not that hard.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

It's overwhelming. I think that's a great way to put it. But once you say, okay, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to commit to doing this, it starts to become a lot clearer. You can create that Google my business page. You know, it's a one shot thing. There's platforms like Yext out there that can even help create a bunch of listings at once.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

Content's a whole different story that requires a lot of discipline. But you have some great episodes on your podcast about that that I definitely think people should listen to.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Hmm.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So what do you think for people who have listened to this so far? And maybe like we said, you know, maybe they've been on another platform, maybe they haven't, or maybe they were in the past and, and they're not currently on one, they're, they're kind of orphaned out there and they don't really have a database, you know, reactivation awareness, platform or system. This sounds like a softball, but I would, I would assume it's like, hey, go check Milo AI out.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

I mean, what else would you want to say that to anybody listening?

[Andrew Penner]

Yeah, I would say now is the time to do it.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

I just mentioned, I mean, we're about to see if these people who are a heck of a lot smarter than me are correct about the market. We're about to see probably the biggest boom we've had since COVID And so I don't blame the people that, you know, have waited and are, you know, pulling back. Gosh, if I was a lender, for example, you know, if I had the choice between getting a new piece of software or keeping an employee that whose family depends on me, like, I'm going to try and do the latter.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Right.

[Andrew Penner]

But now I think we're starting to see the industry is turning a corner, the market is turning a corner. It probably won't be nearly as rapid, but as it was Prior, but now is the time to make those investments because you want to give yourself some time to percolate adoption through your organization, to warm up your past client database and make sure that you're filtering through, like really getting to the relationship part of that lifecycle.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Andrew Penner]

And so yeah, I would definitely, hey, I'm biased, but check out my Milo, see what we can do and, and look at some other options as well because I really think at the end of the day, every person's business is different. They have to figure out where the gaps in their personal strategy are and what works best for them. But I think we've worked hard with a lot of empathy for loan officers to find a solution that can work for just about everyone.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And that's why I wanted to bring you to my audience here today is because of awareness is like, you know, people need to know what's out there for choices. And so I think this is another great opportunity for anybody listening that feels like this might be a fit. Check it out, dig further. You know, I don't get anything for this other than like my job is to make sure you guys are staying, you know, top of the, you know, the heap when it comes to modern mortgage originator. I hate to use that word, but I mean that's what we have. But to really just help you, you know, be a better loan officer. And for me it comes down to people, process and technology and this is one of those opportunities for you to leverage a tech stack that's going to help you capture more of that future business. So I'm glad we're able to connect and chat about this.

[Andrew Penner]

Likewise. Thanks for having me, Jeff.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And listeners, once again, you'll put, I'll put a link in the show notes. Plus I'll put a link, Andrew, if you're okay with it, to your LinkedIn so people can connect with you on LinkedIn there as well. But hey, if you like today's episode, check the link in the show notes, leave us a review and we'll see you guys on the next one. Bye for now.

[Mortgage Marketing Pro Announcer]

Okay, that's it for today's episode. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes. Your proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days. Imagine never having to cold call again. Instead building real lasting relationships with top producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentations, marketing, automation, weekly coaching. It's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun. So if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income, visit Mortgage Marketing Pro or check the link in the show notes. And while you're there, don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening and I'll see you.

[Jeff Zimfer]

On the next episode.