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Mortgage Marketing Radio
Your Sales Process Is Broken! Here’s What Today’s Borrowers Actually Want
00:47:53
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- [00:00]
A
Are your sales and marketing speaking the same language or are they quietly sabotaging each other in today's market where every lead counts and borrower trust is fragile, disconnected messaging and rush processes don't just cost you deals, they erode your long term growth. If you haven't rethought the borrower experience since rates were in the threes, you're already behind. My name is Jeff Zimfer and you're listening to the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast, the number one podcast for mortgage professionals who want to sharpen their skills, shift their mindset and close more business in any market. Today on the show, we're asking how do you create a sales and marketing system that actually converts in today's market and builds deeper, more loyal borrower relationships? And to help us answer that, we're joined by Jake Vermillion, CMO of Mortgage Champions, where he helps re engineer sales and marketing strategies to increase pull through, close more loans and elevate the borrower experience. And in this episode, you're going to learn three crucial things. Why apply now, calls are killing trust and what to do instead of how loan officers can stop being order takers and start becoming true mortgage advisors and where AI belongs in your process and where it absolutely doesn't belong. We're also going to talk about the biggest mistake retail loan officers are making right now, what consumer direct teams are doing differently, and how to rethink networking for real business growth. So if you're ready to close more loans with smarter systems and stand out by leading with value, stick around for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Jake, welcome to the show.
- [01:38]
B
It's great to be here, Jeff. Thank you so much for having me. I've been listening to your show for quite a while now. I know Dale's been on in the past. Yeah, it's, it's really fun to come on myself.
- [01:46]
A
Yeah, it's good to have you here as well because I know you're knee deep in the trenches with working with companies and loan officers all about sales and marketing. As a matter of fact, one of these things I'm doing now is I'm doing these little, you know, who is, or roasts, if you will, on GPT of like, you know who is Jake Vermillion, CEO, CMO of Mortgage Champions and what he does according to GPT. You can tell me if this is accurate or not. Is you lead. Yeah. You lead all marketing, promotion and branding work for Mortgage Champions, number one. Is that accurate?
- [02:18]
B
Yes.
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A
Okay, now this is where I think. Yeah. So far, so Good. Right now this is where we're going to probably unpack some of these, these little bullets here. So it also says that you work to align marketing around what drives real results, not just tactics. Fixing broken sales processes and making the marketing sales alignment tighter.
- [02:39]
B
I'd be curious to see where I got that. I feel like it's probably from like a panel I did for the gathering with Housing Wire this past summer. But yeah, we, we certainly do that for sure. Absolutely.
- [02:47]
A
And speaking of Housing Wire, you are a Housing Wire rising star. Congratulations.
- [02:51]
B
Thank you. Appreciate that.
- [02:53]
A
Okay, so let's get into that jumping off point from ChatGPT. Do you see that marketing and sales is often misaligned?
- [03:01]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And there's a couple of places that that happens. Maybe the easiest way to kind of think through it is just from the borrower's experience. Right. So before we get there though, let me back up a bit. You know, I'm obviously the chief marketing officer, Mortgage Champions been around for 30 years at this point. One of the go to solutions for sales training in the space. Right. So listening to this, you know, knowing my association with our company and then of course my dad deal Vermillion has been around doing this for forever and be thinking why are we talking about marketing and not sales? Right. Well, the reality is when you go into a shop like we do and you begin to implement a system for the loan officers to be able to sell more effectively, have more compelling conversations with their customers, convert customers more quickly and, and get a more secure borrower by getting upfront commitment from that borrower. Right. When we re work the way that they are talking to the referral partners, for example, you then can create the opportunity for a disconnect. If you've transitioned a loan officer, for example, from having a highly transactional conversation with their customers predominantly around pricing, right. Rates, fees, points, you name it, and products, to instead having a conversation around life goals, how mortgage can serve them, the customer's needs, their desires. Right. And talking about how you can benefit them through the way that you structure their loan. So it, those are all good things. Obviously that's the transition want to make, but it presents an opportunity where there could become a disconnect between the quality of conversation that the salespeople are having with their customers and their referral partners and what's being pushed in the marketing. Does that make sense? So for example, I mean surface level, big picture, we all know this. If you land on a lender's website, what's the first call to action? You're more than likely to see.
- [04:40]
A
Yeah. Fill out a form. Yeah.
- [04:42]
B
Right. Well, yeah, but even, but even more than that, start a formal application that's going to push you towards what, date of birth and Social Security number. Right. You need to have built some trust. Right. That's like what we're telling the loan officers. Right. Is, hey, before we get to the point where we're asking a customer to commit to us, we need to show some commitment to them. We need to understand their situation, their goals, their qualifications, make sure that this is the right time, that they're not, you know, that low likelihood of a declination, for example. But you go to the marketing, if you will, whether that's social media posts, talking about specific products or programs, whether that's banner ads, talking about pricing such as rates, or whether it's a website pushing them immediately to apply online without having built any trust relationship with the loan officer. There's a big disconnect there. Does that make sense?
- [05:23]
A
Yeah.
- [05:24]
B
So that's, that's kind of the first point where we need to get some alignment and then obviously there's, you know, sort of smaller details that we need to work out as well to make sure that that customer experience from the top of funnel all the way to that point where they connect with the loan officer and then through the process in closing, that's all seamless.
- [05:38]
A
Where do you see, with your experience 30 years in now, Mortgage champions, you get called into a company to, you know, fix. Right, fix. We want more productivity, we want more production, more volume, et cetera. Where when you're walking in, you know, you've got your, I don't know, put Sherlock Holmes on or whatever and, you know, you're digging, you're uncovering stuff. Do you usually find the, you know, patterns that are. Seem to be repetitive across companies where the, you know, most of the opportunities are existing?
- [06:07]
B
Yeah. And I think the patterns are universal, especially across channels. Right. So do you want to start with consumer direct or retail, which would be a better place to start?
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A
Well, that's very interesting. I'm going to take most. Let's take retail first because that's most of the audience.
- [06:22]
B
I kind of figured. So let's start there. What's the number one thing that we're hearing from loan officers? Right. Especially walking to shops of why they feel like their business is not able to grow as quickly as they want it to grow? Well, in most cases we hear the same answer. They feel that it's a lack of inventory or it's the affordability Problem, which granted, we do have affordability challenges in this marketplace, no doubt. But let's start with inventory. Inventory is actually not nearly as much of a problem as you would think. In fact, actually, if you account for the number of loan officers who have left the business since the heights of COVID right, that post Covid market, we actually have more inventory per active loan, and I don't mean license, I mean active originating loan officer than we did in 2019. 2019 was about 5.8 units per loan officer. Today it's about 6.2. Does that make sense? Yeah. Now that's not to say that we don't have, you know, we could use more inventory to serve buyers demographics. Of course we could. You know what I mean. But the reality is as a loan officer, on any given transaction, you're only really competing with one customer against other loan officers. Right? The reality is you're competing against fewer today because of that inventory equation. Furthermore, talk about affordability. We've seen that at least half of markets across the country, according to the NAR's chief economist, have seen price reductions this year. Okay, we know that there's a reduction in volatility. This, this market has shifted to a buyer's market. Right. So there is an argument to be made that yes, of course rates are higher, that's going to affect the payment. But the reality is if, if we went back in a time machine back to 2020 and 2021 and we reminded ourselves of how hard it was to serve a borrower, sure, rates were in the twos and threes, but home price appreciation was like 4, 5 to 10% per month, increasing 1 over. The other people were competing, you know, 10, 20, 30, even 40 plus thousand dollars over asking price. They were waiving all of their contingencies. They were buying site unseen. Like you have so much more power as a buyer today to be able to actually control the transaction even though rates are higher. Okay. So yes, there's affordability challenges. But even on that front, talking about a retail loan officer, one of the things that we've been teaching them that we've been using on the consumer side for a long time, that a lot of retail loan officers just don't even think to incorporate into their conversation with the borrower is the fact that today we have more consumer debt and more and more equity. Right. Than we've ever seen before. Well, of course, the equity we can only use with existing homeowners. But if someone's in a purchase transaction and they're trying to bring to the Table a large amount of cash for a down payment to try and depress that monthly payment. Reverse or alternative strategy that you could take instead is what if we actually put less down, consolidated some of the consumer debt. Right. Just eliminated outright. And when you start to look at the blended rates of you're no longer paying 21.9%, right. On 10, 20, $30,000 of consumer debt, you're effectively rolling that into a mortgage that you're taking on. By putting 10% down, for example, instead of 20%, we actually really can. When you look at the total amount that a consumer is spending month over month to service all of their debt, not just mortgage, but mortgage, student loans, auto loans, credit cards, you name it, we're actually bringing down that total amount. Right. Even stepping into a purchase. So these are some of the core issues that we see all the time. Every shop we walk into is things like people saying it's the affordability, it's the inventory. It's usually not those things. Usually what it is is a lack of understanding of how you can serve your borrower, frankly, a shortage of referral partners. You just tend to have a lot more referral partners today because inventory is constrained in certain markets. And the only way to get around that is to have more partners who can send you more business. Right. And even within that, to evaluate your existing partners and to look at the type of deals that they're sending you and the volume and to give yourself an honest assessment of this. Someone who's just sort of, you know, I mean, like paying me favors and they don't really see me this as a partnership and it's not really something I can elevate and I might be better off actually ending this partnership and pursuing ones that are going to be more productive. Or is this just something that either they or I have not invested enough and taken the time to say, hey, look, there's a ton of potential here. We're super aligned. I love working with you. How can we work together better and more often and not just elevate your own business, but elevate your partners as well? Like, these are the things that we need to address basically every shop we walk into.
- [10:24]
A
Yeah. So those are some, some critical areas you're auditing there. I want to go back to the example you gave of the direct lender and the buyer. And what I wrote down was consultant. And so what it sounds like you're saying there is that one of the strategies, if you will, is, is is instead of, you know, rushing rate to rate term things like that. Take a pause. I mean is, this is kind of our job as a, as a mortgage loan originator is beyond just quoting rates and fees if you really want to. Right. Have a, have a career and differentiate yourself. What you're saying is, is you're suggesting to give advice that's not normal or that's not expected to that potential buyer and you're going to evaluate their total financial situation and see where the opportunities are for them to do some financial restructuring rather than just oh, here's what you can afford for a 30 year fixed. That what I'm hearing?
- [11:22]
B
A hundred percent. Yeah.
- [11:23]
A
And so real quick, do you think is that hard for, for most originators to switch like that to switch hats?
- [11:30]
B
No, I really don't think it's hard for originators. I think it's new. Yeah, yeah. So they've fallen into a habit. Maybe it's the way that someone else in their office sells and they seem to do pretty well. So why not do what that guy does, right? You know, maybe it's from some of the habits that we picked up in Those heydays of 2020, 2021 where loans were just kind of fall in their lap. I mean still today, where you know, we can look at the average number of units or the average volume that a loan officer is doing, obviously appeals in comparison to what many who if they were in the business at the time, were doing four years ago. And yet we look at the way that they handle customers on, on the phone and it's very similar. Right. It's a very quick pre qualification confirmation of basic information. None of that is being typically actively input into an actual application. And then the borrower basically, I mean the loan officer basically says to the borrower, okay, great, sounds like, you know, there's some opportunity here. I'm going to shoot you a link. You go ahead and fill that out and when I see it come through, then we'll have a conversation. Right. And so they're forcing the borrower to self serve. Why is the loan officer doing that? They've gotten it in their head that one, that's what the customer wants. And let's be honest, if you look at the actual data, no customer actually wants that. Very few. Right? I mean, sure, maybe if this is someone you've done five other loans with, they're an investor. It's you know, the DCR kind of thing. They're, they're familiar with the drill. Like yeah, maybe they do want to do some self service there. But when you're talking about your typical retail loan officer who's handling a purchase transaction, especially a first with a first time home buyer. This is someone who actually wants some guidance, some advice, and they want more than anything for someone to confirm for them, give them confidence that they are making the right decision for themselves or their loved ones.
- [13:04]
A
Okay.
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B
Walking through an application together on the phone is a critical way to do that. And it's also the only way that you're going to disarm the objections that are going to come up when they get to those critical fields like date of birth, like Social Security number, like, hey, attach your bank account here. What do you want that for? You know, if you're not there on the phone to explain in the moment why it is that you need that and how ultimately getting that documentation suits sooner rather than later is going to allow you to do, to do your job better and get them a actual offer that they can take to the bank. Right. Then they're just going to assume that it's nefarious or now's not the right time, or maybe they should, you know, talk to a few other lenders before they commit to one lender. Right. Like you're positioning yourself to be shopped in that situation. Yeah. We would say to loan officers, like, slow down, it's not 2020, it's not 2021. You have time. Take 20 minutes with that borrower and don't waste it. Don't ask all the questions that you could be asking my completing application and then still just send a link completing the application and get that customer bought in from the front.
- [14:02]
A
Yeah. I'm curious as I hear this around what you're seeing and what you might be able to forecast the road ahead, you know, the intersection of AI with this human involvement. And I'm curious, you know, because we're talking about marketing and sales and that whole integration there. And I know you're, you're pretty savvy on this whole AI thing. And my qu. My curiosity is, is at what stage of the consumer funnel? Right. Your journey, Better word, are you seeing that your clients are starting to ask you about, about when, when and where do we implement? Because let's just face it, right? It is, it's simpler in a lot of ways in terms of collecting some of the information and I'm seeing some examples of it out there, but there is that, that, that I think there's that point, that sweet spot, you know what I mean? When you're in that dance, what are you seeing? What are you recommending?
- [14:56]
B
Yeah. So first of all, I appreciate you saying that there is in fact a sweet spot and that this is a dance. Right. I couldn't agree more. And the way that I would, I like to think about it when I'm talking with our clients about these decisions. And you're exactly right. They're asking questions from the very top of the funnel all the way through to how, you know, ISIS making updates to Encompass, for example, we have more options to be able to do automated underwriting. What do you think about that? And I mean, so it's, it's the full cradle to grave origination and manufacturing that they're exploring how they can implement this new technology. And I think that's smart. Like, I think you really should think about every aspect of this process being influenced by the existence of artificial intelligence. Where I would push back though, as you hear this phrase, a lot of human in the loop, right. I think it's the other way around is the way that we need to think about, we need to think about AI in the loop. This is a human driven process that we need to be selectively and strategically injecting artificial intelligence into for efficiencies and for accuracy, right. Like that's the way that we need to think about it. So when you're thinking about what's where in that dance, right. Should you be allowing artificial intelligence to interact with the customer versus your people? I would strongly recommend you need to think through the nature of the type of information that you're looking for or that the customer's looking for. Okay. And so let me break that down. I would say there's low sort of relationship information that a customer might seek, right. And that might be the basic of mortgage. Like, you know, what's a, what's a baseline credit score that might qualify you? What's the difference between a 30 and a 20 year term? How much does that typically impact payment? What is an FHA loan? These sorts of things. Not to say that you can't build relationship and establish yourself as an expert. If you choose to answer those questions for your customer, you absolutely can. But there's a difference between that type of sort of transactional information, if you will, or just background information versus the type of information that you want to be extract from the customer and where the customer is starting to think about like there's an emotional connection to the answer to the question that they're beginning to ask, right? Like, is now a good time for me to buy? Right. If, if you're thinking if it's a renter who's thinking about, should I get into homeownership? I want to participate in equity. Is home ownership the right type of equity that I want to accumulate? Right. You know, how big of a home should I buy? How much of a payment should I take on? I'm hearing that home insurance is increasing, right. Like, should I consider buying less house? These all the types of questions that you have an opportunity to build relationship and trust by answering. Much more so than defining what an FHA loan is versus a conventional loan. Does that make sense?
- [17:28]
A
Yeah. I want to make sure I'm understanding, though. Are you saying that those questions are the human involved questions?
- [17:34]
B
Yes. So you should be asking the questions, and you should always be making sure that you're the one in conversation with the customer, not your artificial intelligence. For example, when you're getting into anything that can have an emotional connection. Now, this may not be evident, like on the surface to most loan officers. Right? So, for example, when we walk through a loan application, one of the things that we have to fill in is employment and income debt, Right. Most loan officers ask that like a doctor. Right. Where are you currently employed? Do you have any dependents that you would like to declare? You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's very, you know, it doesn't build relationship or trust. You can ask those questions in a different way. And so some of these questions should be very obvious to people. Like a question like, you know, well, what are your goals in trying to become a homeowner? Right. Why is that? That you're trying to leverage the equity in your home? You know what I mean? What are, what are you trying to accomplish? How can I help you with that? Right. Like, these are, these are questions have emotional connections that should be pretty evident to people. But even when you're getting what might seem like basic information on a 1103, there are still opportunities to build relationship and ask questions in a way where it's like, hey, what do you do for them? You seem like a great person. Like, help me understand, you know, what you do for a career. They're family, you know, it's not dependent, you know, hey, do you have any kids? Are you married? Oh, how long have you been married? You know what I mean? Like, this is a way and then to share about your own life. Oh, that's so great. We've been married for 10 years as well. Oh. Yep. We just took the kids, you know, on vacation. You know, now they're back in school and we're all sick, you know, like, there are Ways to build a connection with a customer if you just treat it the right way and don't just sort of check the box.
- [19:05]
A
And what you're saying is people want that?
- [19:08]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. So we listen to calls for every single one of our enterprise clients. In fact, we're actually in the process of building out an AI call scoring platform that can do this automatically by integrating directly with the dialer based on the thousands of calls that we've already scored. Right. But having like we listen to these calls every single week. Right. And so I can tell you, you know, we, we, we onboard a client and we listen to the calls, we listen to those transactional questions. We see a call that's you know, five, six, seven minutes in length of that call is just. Okay, great, let me send you a link. We know what the, we know what the pull through and conversion rates on those are and they're abysmal to be just blunt with you. Right. And as we get through this training, we impart this system of the loan officers, we change the way that they think about how they can interact with their customers. We start listening to those calls again, the times they go up, they're no longer 5, 6, 7 minute calls, they're 15, 18, 22 minute long calls. Right. And we're hearing this interaction between the customers and borrowers. Do you know what suddenly drops out of the transcript when you get to that point where it's a longer call? It's about the benefits that you're going to give to the borrower through the mortgage and you're establishing relationship with these application questions. Rate immediately drops out of the question every single time. It's almost like an afterthought at the very end of the call or someone goes wait, actually I think I forgot to ask is your rates right?
- [20:22]
A
Yeah.
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B
And all the loaners have to do, say, super competitive. Absolutely. We're going to get to the lowest rate we possibly can. It's going to be great.
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A
I'm curious, we're going to dance a little bit between consumer Direct and you know, the retail.
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B
Yes.
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A
A loan officer or broker. I'm curious to, to your point about all those calls you're listening to and it's abysmal and you know, to use your, your word there, I'm curious if the source of the lead makes a difference. And are you, do you put the different types of originator in different categories? Consumer direct versus relationship based, referral based, realtor. Right. Do you see that the context or the, you know, the framework of that, of that Lead engagement, that referral engagement. Those are two different things.
- [21:04]
B
It is, and I'll say two things here. And just to clarify, the pull through and conversion on those calls is abysmal. The calls themselves usually not abysmal. I don't come across that many loan officers that I really think, wow, this person really shouldn't be in this role. It does happen. It's rare, but you can see the potential for improvement and you unlock something in that person of wow, they really are an amazing salesperson. They just didn't have the right playbook. And now that they've got it, those conversion pull through rates are through the roof. Right. So as far as the differences between consumer direct and retail, the first thing I'll say is consumer direct loan officer naturally has to be a more competitive salesperson because there is no context, there's very rarely an established relationship. They're competing on a more national scale. Right. So there tends to be a higher floor in terms of call quality when it comes to a consumer direct loan officer. Now the reality is though, you know, their margins are thinner, they have to do more units and more volume, you know what I mean, in order to sort of live a similar lifestyle, if you will, with a retail loan officer. So, you know, that just is what it is. The floor line is different. The nature of the conversation really is not very different, except for the very beginning of the call, which is that a consumer direct loan officer has to do a whole lot more work to explain why it is that they're in touch with that customer at that moment to remind that customer of how they receive their information. Often there has to be a declaration of something, like a recorded line, for example. And so it's more important to front load immediately within the first 30 seconds of the call, exactly what you think you can do for that customer to get them to want to buy into at least the next couple of minutes and then from there more time beyond that. Makes sense, yeah. Retail loan officers get a bit more leash. Right? But I will say this, where we often see, which is surprising to me, miss, if you will, on the retail side is there's just not enough recognition of the referral source when we listen to calls, even by retail loan officers. You will hear it on occasion, but even then, usually it's light. It's not as, you know, sort of as congratulatory and partner oriented as it could be.
- [23:06]
A
Right.
- [23:07]
B
If you're a retail loan officer and you pick up the phone or the customer or even a warm referred customer, you need to go above and beyond to express how great the partner is that gave you that opportunity and to make it seem like you are two peas in a pod. You've been working together forever and you are going to do everything that you possibly can, hell or high water, to make sure that their experience is as top notch as it can be. And you're not going to blow a closing date, for example, Right. Like that needs to be communicated quickly upfront. Also, I would say retail loan officers probably should lean a bit more on their personal credentials, little less on their corporate. Corporate still matters, so don't, don't. If you work for a retail organization, don't not mention the name of your company or how long you've been in business or, you know what I mean. Like some of you know the awards won recently mention all of those, but those are going to be a little bit more front and center with a consumer rec shop where it's a bit more of a branded experience, if that makes sense and a little less focused on the individual loan officer.
- [23:55]
A
Yeah, there's a lot in there actually. 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 in 90 days or less. 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.
- [24:23]
C
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 core calls every Monday and Friday, checking in with real estate agents. 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 of 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. It's probably brought on, I'd probably say about $40 million in volume since then.
- [25:02]
A
Right.
- [25:03]
C
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.
- [25:25]
A
Are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on demand? Book a call at MortgageMarketing Pro or hit the link in the show notes. Now back to our show. What I think about, like when you're talking about the retail loan officer I wrote down set the frame and I'm glad that you brought up the referral partner situation because I agree that there's, there's a lot more opportunity to edify that referral partner situation both on, by the way, and I'm sure you know this too is the source of the referral to edify you as the recipient. Right. Loan officer as that handoff is taking place. It's, it's a two way street there for sure to create a more, more, you know, symbiotic relationship there. So I'm glad that you said that.
- [26:04]
B
After, after that first call, cc that partner, keep them involved. The, the number one complaint we hear from realtors is they never feel like they know what's going on with something. A borrower that they've handed off, a buyer that they've handed off or then once they actually get into process, the status of that file. Right. So just keep them looped in from the very beginning. As soon as you get off the phone, send an email to the customer saying, hey, it was so great to talk with you. I'm super excited. You know, we're going to get you the perfect loan. You know, I've got Joe, whoever it is, you know, he's here. Like, he's absolutely going to make sure you're in the perfect home. Like, we're so excited to partner together and make sure that we get this across the line for you. Like, it's not complicated, it's not rocket science, but it goes so, so far with those partners.
- [26:40]
A
It does. And I've always thought about this of like, you know, I've always used the word of like architecting this process. Like you think about going to a very fine dining restaurant, like, like a Mich star restaurant, right. For those that have been there, you know, it's different. You can actually there's a Michelin star restaurant that I read about and heard about on a podcast that's in Japan and it only seats like 10 people, and it's this tiny little hole on the wall. But it's the quality. I know it's crazy. It's a sushi place, and it's the quality of the sushi, and it's only open for like four hours a day. But it's. It's crazy, right? But, but, but why it got the Michelin star is the attention to, yes, the quality of the fish, but really the attention to detail and the, the almost level of art that goes into the sushi dishes that they create. So I think of also, like Ritz Carlton and other traditional examples, and it always befuddles me. And I remember when I was originator, you know, I definitely felt that I was conscious of this and always try to not only edify the referral partner, but I think about framing. Again, you've got to set the frame and you've got to architecture this process. Think, like, you've probably had this experience as well. Like, so, so often today our consumer experience is lousy. Where we go to different places. The doctor, the whatever, you know, dentists seem to be a little bit better than it, but, you know, but the average consumer experience is average, right. And, and it's so easy to stand out if you would just put some structure and some format into that first engagement, even pre engagement and then that first engagement.
- [28:15]
B
Yeah, well, and I think, you know, because that is the key word, right? It's like structure. We like to use the word systems a lot. I think a lot of loan officers, they feel like that's taking something away from what makes them unique. Right. It's like, well, I'm not a cookie cutter loan officer. We're not asking you to be.
- [28:28]
A
Yeah.
- [28:29]
B
You know, like, you can't tell me that any star quarterback in the NFL is exactly the same as another quarterback. And yet they've all used playbooks and operate within systems, right? Their personality, their unique skill sets, what they're best at still absolutely shines through. And yet they can still wear the team colors, abide by the playbook, book, call the place. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, this is, you know, we can do this.
- [28:51]
A
Well, it reminds me of, like, you know, the process and, you know, what is your process? And, and, and you have a process. You, you. It just may be terrible. You know what I mean? So how consciously have you thought about the process? Because you have one.
- [29:04]
B
That's, that's. I'm a believer and I think of C.S. lewis, right? He said, we're all theologians. It's a question of whether or not you're a good one or a bad one.
- [29:12]
A
Yeah, I like that. I want to go back to again this, this, this dance between consumer direct and retail because you know, you and I both know there's people out there that have this lead opt in process forms for example. And you know, you see Lending Tree is the classic. You've seen the forms, which is the questions and then it's slide, slide. It's another question, another question. And that whole. Do you think that is appropriate for both consumer direct and retail?
- [29:40]
B
I'm not sure that I see a reason to have that. Be front and center as a retail loan officer if you're predominantly working off a referred to book of business. I think the key consideration here that a lot of retail loan officers maybe take for granted is speed to need. Right. People just move faster today. It's, you know, by the time that someone's looking at a property or even has contracted with a realtor, and let's keep in mind you have to contract with a realtor today. You know what I mean? Like it's a much stronger signal of intent to proceed now, not six months from now than it's been ever in the history of this business. So. So just because it's a warm referral, you know, if you get a phone and you can't take it right this second, you get a text message or an email, whatever it is, you still need to respond immediately. Even if it's just to say hey, you know, thank you so much for your call or your text, email, whatever it is. Right. You know, I'm currently in a meeting, but I'm going to get back to you at this time. I'm looking so forward to speaking with you. Right. So yeah, I mean do you need to be redirecting to forms and having the customer pre fill information? You can choose to do that. I would say be very like, be, be very honest with yourself about whether like the drop off on that and if it's, if it's even like 10%, I would seriously consider. Do you really want to lose 10% of opportunities? You know, 10% of opportunities to get that person on the phone? Probably not. Especially on this market, you know.
- [31:02]
A
Right, yeah, that's, that's such a good point. By the way, when we have this, you know, reduction in transactions, every, every one of these is that much more important. Yeah. So we've got to do the best that we can on that. That's interesting.
- [31:14]
B
Prioritize speed of need, direct to consumer. There's going to Be more of that form filling, if that makes sense. But even still, I mean, I've told people before, if I could build a mortgage company today and was crafting a digital experience that's top of funnel, knowing that I'm driving first party traffic, right. I have people coming to my website, for example. Honestly, the way that I would build it is I would have a chatbot if you want to call it. It's not a bot, it's a chat widget. And I would do live direct connections, not necessarily with a loan officer, but with like an LOA or business development representative who is highly trained and can do a soft pre qualification value presentation and then transfer to an agent. I would just have it. So my customers land on my website, they see a human face and it's like hey, walk now. And they can choose their preferred channel and begin a conversation and then immediately get connected with a loan officer. That's how I would run it if I was, if, if I was stepping into the business myself.
- [32:05]
A
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that's smart. Just this morning I was listening to a HubSpot conversation about chat widgets, if you will, and kind of what's coming around those once again in the integration between marketing and sales. And even, even when somebody on that widget drops off and says they're not ready, right. To do that, the next step or whatever it is nowadays, you know, you can have technology to reroute that back to prospecting because they didn't complete the process. Well, let's put that back automatically into that prospecting workflow. Yeah, love that. Really smart.
- [32:38]
B
Think about it this way because we've touched on this idea of like integrating sales and marketing more closely in mortgage. I think the primary reason why to do so is think about marketing and many other industries, right? You're marketing the specific features of a product. What's the product in mortgage? You don't know until you've assessed that customer had a conversation and already have them moving in process, right? Until you've done this sort of discovery process to identify what's going to be best for them. So this idea that you can steal the playbooks, right, that are designed by other companies to market products with defined features just simply doesn't apply to our business. What you need to market is what ultimately converts in a sales conversation. So I would highly recommend. If you don't know what you should be marketing, just think back to the last thing you said that really clearly changed the mindset of a borrower, right? And when they were like oh, yeah, 100% I'm doing that. Like, I'm gonna work with you and I'm not gonna talk to anyone else at this point. I'm in. Take that thing and put it in your marketing. Like, what sells is what markets in our business. Does that make sense?
- [33:43]
A
Yeah. No, that's very smart. I like that. Okay, cool. Let's pivot for a second. You are also part of a soon to be published book in the Rethink Everything series. What do you wanna tell us about that? What are we rethinking now with the whole.
- [34:00]
B
At some point we're going to rethought everything. Kyle and the team are just cranking that book. It's been awesome. But, yeah, this time we're rethinking networking. That's what we're rethinking.
- [34:10]
A
Why is that of particular interest to you?
- [34:13]
B
Yeah. So I think the reason why I was approached to be a part of this book is because two things. First and foremost, there's probably a lot of people in your audience who've heard of my dad, right? We've heard the Vermilion name. He's been around for 42 years. He's been running our business for 30 years. He won every award you can think of, spoken on every stage, you know, worked with all the logos, all the people. He's turned over a million and a half loan officers. Right? Like, he, he. He walks with a large shadow. And so myself, stepping into this business, this sort of family business, you know, it's. It's been a question of, like, how exactly without, you know, like, while celebrating this incredible legacy that he's still living and building, how do I, in some way, step out from that shadow and begin to find my own voice and, you know what I mean, find my own crew and all these things. And so I think people have seen me do that over the years. And I think that's part of the reason why I was asked to participate in this book, is because there might be other people who feel kind of the same way. And who knows what that shadow is? Maybe it's father figure. There's a lot of people in the business who come in from family, but it could just be other influencers in the space. Your competitors in your local market, you name it. You just feel like you can't figure out how to carve out your own space. Well, I tried to share a playbook to help people understand how they can do that and to give them the courage to try and do so. The second reason would just be Because I have accumulated a decent following on LinkedIn and have a few tricks up my sleeve for how to do that and to do it in a way that really is driven around authentic connection and not just sort of trying to build a following for building a following sake. Because that really doesn't. I'm assuming if you're in this business, you're not monetizing your views, otherwise you just become an influencer, Right. Why sell loans anymore? So for those of us who aren't making money off of millions of clicks, you know, having a following on social only has limited value. What really has value is real connections that you can call on and you know what I mean, that can actually drive your business forward.
- [36:06]
A
Yeah. So what specifically is your chapter about? What can people look forward to?
- [36:09]
B
Yeah. So I give basically a couple of principles, basically working towards the thesis that what you really need is not a following, but actually an engaged network. So the first principle that I. And these are principles that I live by, right. But a couple of years ago, I did exactly what the book title is, right? I rethought how. Why. Why am I on LinkedIn? Why am I sending out connection requests? Why am I, like, going to conferences or not going to conferences? What's the whole point of this networking thing that I'm kind of got one foot in, one foot out, right? And ultimately what I realized was that the first thing that I needed my network to be was in was to give me intelligence. Does that make sense? And so that shifted my perspective from I just need to connect with anyone and everyone and. And, you know, build up this audience that I don't even really necessarily know what to do with. To instead, who are the. Who are the type of people that I can serve and add value to and to go out and to find those people, build relationship with them, and then what naturally happens is conversation. And through that conversation, you get intelligence, right? You learn, like, who's hiring, you know, who's making a change in product, who's moved to a new company, who's, you know, exploiting a new market opportunity. Like all of these things that are incredibly valuable for our business. And for you, that might be something different, right? Like for the local loan officer. It's what's happening in your. In your local market in terms of, like, referral partners, you know, is there a new builder who's come in town that you can build a relationship with? Is there a CPA who's looking for a new loan officer to partner with? Yeah, you name it, you know, is there Is there a brokerage that had a falling out with a loan officer who was doing a lot of business with them and you have an opportunity to step in and snap up some of that business. So that was the first principle.
- [37:40]
A
It's like, okay, I like it.
- [37:42]
B
Get intelligence from your network. The second thing is recognizing that ultimately you can differentiate yourself by actually paying attention to what other people say and worrying less about what you're trying to say on social. Does that make sense? So really simple couple of strategies here. But the first and foremost thing I would say is ultimately, so take AI, right? We've been sort of dancing around like AI and its applications. Today, most people see AI when it comes to the social media, networking, building a following, all, you name it. They see AI as like an escape hatch, if you will, to avoid having to do the work, to create content, to be able to put content out on at least a daily, if not weekly basis. Right. I don't think that's the best use of AI. I honestly think that the best use of AI is to be able to better identify who you can be prospecting and then to leverage its power for it to do the homework for you so that you can actually learn who it is that you want to be doing business with or doing more business with. Does that make sense? And so once you are able to identify the right people that you should be listening to online and then you can even ingest large amounts of their posts at one time, it allows you to be able to strategically leave a comment, a reaction, to send a message. Like, the way that I run my social now, if you will, is I actually have like spreadsheet after spreadsheet of the type of people that I know I want to add value to. And I, I, I do a sort of how, when was the last time I actually like, they put out a post and I was able to engage with it and I reverse filter it. Does that make sense to find people who I. It's been the longest amount of time since I engaged with them and I check their profiles to see what they're up to and I leave a thoughtful comment or I send a message saying, hey, I saw that you post about this, that remind me of this. I want to connect you with this person, right. And just add value in whatever way I can. I can honestly tell you that's done so much more for me than when I was trying to post every single day and sort of keep up with the Joneses, if you will, if you will, of social media. So that's the second principle and the third, I will leave for anyone who wants to read the book.
- [39:42]
A
There you go. I like it. A little trailer teaser. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up the digital social thing because networking of course implies not only in person, but online as well.
- [39:54]
B
Yeah. And sorry, I should have clarified. I was sort of. I was told by the powers that be that there was plenty of content in the book already on how to network in person and they really wanted more perspectives on how to network online. But I really do think that the majority. Your. Your networking in person is gonna be that much more effective if you've actually already made a connection online.
- [40:11]
A
Yeah.
- [40:11]
B
So I think it's a great starting point and it's budget friendly, if you will. You don't have to spend a lot of money going all over the place or hosting your own events. Although hosting your own events can be an amazing strategy and growing your network. I know, Jeff, you've got the playbook on that.
- [40:26]
A
Oh, yes, thank you very much. That is so true. And I always say let the online drive the offline. Right. And I love your strategy about being smart and intelligent with how. Because I mean, I can definitely relate to, you know, it's Wednesday. Boy, I gotta get up and post something. I gotta connect with people, you know, and you just randomly throwing crap against the wall.
- [40:46]
B
Well, and here's the thing. This is one of the things I point out in the chapter. It dawned on me when I was posting a lot that that was, I was, I was most exposed to being controlled by whatever the algorithm wanted to show. Today when I was deciding that I was gonna build my network by posting my own content. Right. It controls who sees your content when you post. What it does not control is whose content you choose to go out and see and engage with. Does that make sense?
- [41:14]
A
Yeah, of course. Yeah. It can't. Doesn't handcuff you to go visit.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. There's no way they can control it. So I think if you leverage tools like AI to identify who it is that you really do want to be connected with, engaging with online, and then you just do the work to go out and engage. It's sort of an algorithm proof way to go about growing your business and building more real connections that you can then follow up with in person when you decide to host that event or go to that conference or whatever it is.
- [41:42]
A
This is more a question for me. I'm curious because you do put a lot of content on LinkedIn writing. You've got 10,000 plus followers. How do you, which by the way, Your tagline on LinkedIn is actually written by a human. I'm wondering. Yeah, where, where I'm going to make an assumption here, but where and how do you kind of close out on this? Where and how do you incorporate AI in your writing, for example, on LinkedIn in some of the content you're posting?
- [42:11]
B
Yeah, I, I let it do a, like a typo grammar check at the end and that's it. And honestly, I'm debating not even doing that moving forward, to be honest. I think there is a genuine. I think it would be strategic to assume that the algorithms will be able to detect AI generated and AI edited content better, faster. Right. And so there's sort of a long term play. I think that would actually be very wise for a lot of people who are serious about posting on LinkedIn or any other content platform for that matter, to seriously keep their content close at hand and not expose it to too much AI. Interesting.
- [42:52]
A
Do you use AI as kind of a brainstorming partner?
- [42:58]
B
I use it as a research tool.
- [42:59]
A
Research tool.
- [43:00]
B
I appreciate that secondary follow up because I should have said that up front. Yeah, I love to use it for research, but you do have to treat it like interns, if that makes sense. You have to, it's trust but verify. You absolutely have to verify.
- [43:12]
A
Yeah, very interesting. Okay, cool. All right, well, listen, 30 years mortgage champions. Congratulations to you and your dad and the whole team out there. You guys obviously made a huge impact in the history. We're closing out Here it is September 2025. We're heading into the end of 25 and into 26. What are you optimistic about for 2026?
- [43:35]
B
Everything.
- [43:37]
A
You're an optimist.
- [43:38]
B
Well, I mean, look, rates are going to come down and don't make that your saving grace. But the reality is here's lower rates does not necessarily guarantee more business. What it does is it brings borrowers back into the market and you see an uptick in activity. Right. So if you're a loan officer or you're a lender listening to this, what you need to prepare for is the ability to be able to effectively capture more borrower activity. Does that make sense? So, so, but that's good for our business. Ultimately more activity is good for our business. So that's, that's a huge thing to be excited about in 2026. I also think there's going to be a little bit of like necessary bursting of the bubble on some of the AI enthusiasm and I think that's good. Right. The reality is 9 out of 10 AI startups fail right now. So the ROI is simply not there in many of its applications. And so what I think lenders and vendors who are supporting lenders are going to do is they're going to be a lot less generic in their approach to AI and they're going to be much more strategic. Like, let's not solve this huge problem. Let's like focus on this tiny little one, make sure that we can be cost efficient and then let's deploy that and, and then iterate from there. Like I think that's going to be much more productive for the industry than some of the sort of sweeping claims and big picture ideas that we have out there right now. That's kind of the wild west of AI. So that plus some younger loan officers getting to the business. Like I, I think we have nothing but, you know, really, we should have nothing but enthusiasm for this industry in my opinion.
- [45:06]
A
Yeah, that's good to hear. New blood is the lifeblood.
- [45:08]
B
Well, listen, there's not enough of it, but we're seeing more hiring on that front. Good. You know.
- [45:14]
A
Yeah, well we need to, we need to create a compelling case, you know, use case for them to consider this as a career.
- [45:20]
B
100%. Yeah, 100%.
- [45:22]
A
That's what's missing a little bit is like a lot of that same playbook that is still there that I got, which is here's your business cards, go get some realtors, you know, but, but.
- [45:30]
B
Think about this though. Think about the impact of AI on industries like traditional knowledge work or even like Silicon Valley. Like a lot of the careers that these current college kids were going into school for, they're, they're sort of seeing in real time. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get a job. Right. Like there's so much more efficiency with developers now. Like why would they hire some junior developer to do code when it's like they can have a senior developer do vibe coding and you know what I mean? Like it's done. So you will have people who will be in this, like I need to find a job that they could make a little bit more money. Like what I was expecting to make for having gone to school. Mortgage is an amazing opportunity for those individuals. To your point though, we just got to get the message out.
- [46:06]
A
Well said, well said. All right. For people who want to connect with you, we will put the links in the show notes, but what is the best place for them to connect with you?
- [46:13]
B
Mortgagechampions.com or just shoot me a message on LinkedIn. I pretty much live on there, so would love to connect.
- [46:17]
A
All right, we'll link that up in the show notes. Jake, so much. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.
- [46:21]
B
Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate you man. And like I said, I've been listening for a long time and I feel like you're one of the OGs of mortgage podcasting. And so it's just such an honor to be here with you and to share some tips. I hope it's helpful for your audience.
- [46:33]
A
Appreciate you being here as well. You bring a lot of value to our community and hopefully to the listeners today. So listeners, you know what to do. If you like this episode, go follow Jake on LinkedIn. And by the way, if you're looking to improve your sales and or marketing, check the link for mortgage champions and learn more over there everybody. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. 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 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 MortgageMarketing 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 bros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.
- [47:34]
B
Sam.