13 Questions Every LO Must Ask Before 2026 - If You’re Serious About Growth

Hey, are you stuck in the same production level year after year wondering why the needle is it moving or maybe you're looking to make a quantum leap in your business in the coming year? Hey, if you've struggled at all, if you've hit the wall of resistance, if you've kind of questioned and asked yourself, if there's a better way, well, it's not because you're not capable. It's likely because maybe you've stopped asking the right questions. Imagine if you had a framework to challenge your assumptions, elevate your standards and scale your business with intention. That's what we're talking about today. My name is Jeff Zimper. I'm your host of the mortgage marketing radio podcast where we help you get more clients and close more loans by building a brand that becomes well-known. So you attract versus chase real estate agents and convert them into profitable long-term referral partners. As a matter of fact, before we get into this episode, I have a win of the week that I want to share with you from our community of my agent classes, loan officers. This is where we help loan officers scale their reach and engagement with real estate agents by leveraging a one-to-many platform of educational content and classes that they teach in their local market in person or Zoom. And we give them everything. The content, the emails, the promotion strategies, the PowerPoints, the weekly coaching, the trainer, the trainer videos and more. And one of our longer-time members Greg Fisher, there's a concept we talk about in our group called Five Mile Famous. And while Greg is actually leveled it up, now he's talking about being 30 mile famous. He just posted this win in our community last week that says he took a call from a director of sales at a boutique real estate brokerage in an upscale neighborhood area. He has spoken to the training director at the local board of realtors. This director of sales at the boutique brokerage, that director of sales spoke to the board of realtors looking for suggestions for someone to come in and teach realtors relevant current topics that help them with modern marketing, with understanding how to leverage AI and more. And the board of realtors said that Greg was highly recommended. And what happened as a result of that call, well, Greg got set up with an event at their next two-day in-house training. And as a matter of fact, the broker of that upscale neighborhood brokerage even offered to pay Greg for his time to come in. And so what is happening for Greg now? He, because of applying the strategies we teach in the managing classes platform, he's built a personal brand that has differentiated himself, that has outvalued his competition, and has accelerated his engagement and conversations at a very high level with the right referral partners that he wants. And so now he's invited to be a trainer and presenter at a two-day private in-house training for an upscale boutique brokerage in his back yard. Now how does that happen? It happens with consistency of a process over time. And if you want to learn more about what we do, well, there's a link in the show notes, or you can go to go.myaginclaces.com. You'll actually see Greg's video there, as well as a bunch of other loan offers are sharing the results they've gotten. And a brief overview on the back end of our platform at myaginclaces. It might go for you, it might not be for you either way. You'll get yourself to take five minutes and check that out because there's a new way to get agent business a new year. And it's not chasing coal coal when you're paying for leads. So go check out go.myaginclaces.com. Okay, so back to today's special guest. Today we're talking about a powerful self on it. And I'm joined once again for the third time. This is rare air to bring back to the conversation. Matt Weaver ranked the number one mortgage integrator in the US by units closed with over a thousand loads funded, right? And Matt leads a team in Florida that runs like a high performance machine. Seven days a week, 8 a.m. serving agents buyers with a system he's refined since 2010. And Matt has 13 questions that every originator should be asking themselves to grow scale and lead in the new year. So what you're going to walk away with is we're going to go through all 13 of the questions. But just a quick highlight of those is how about a blueprint to build standards so strong your business becomes impossible to ignore. What about the exact mindset shift that turns agents into loyal long term clients and a fresh perspective on what your brand actually is beyond the social media fluff and the posing how to build a brand that's rooted in performance, purpose, and clarity. Oh, and there's something deeper will uncover imposter syndrome. Yeah, we all have struggled with it at different times. But what Matt's going to talk about is the hidden role of some imposter syndrome and how it might actually be your greatest asset. So if you're ready to raise the bar and redefine what's possible for your business in 2026, then stick around for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Matt, we were welcome back to the show. It is an honor to be here with you, Jeff. Always a great time. I agree as well. And this is a timely conversation. Here we are at Wednesday, December 10th when we're recording this. I think this is going to be very useful for people listening as they head into the new year. You know, close out 2025. I know our topic of conversation is what we're going to call 13 questions. Ella should be asking themselves for more better productivity. But before I get there, I wanted to ask you, and maybe this is relevant to the 13 questions, which is if it is, that's fine. Somebody like you, right? Number one, Mortgage Originator in the country units closed. Obviously doing incredible volume, winning at a high level. What before we get into or maybe setting the context of those 13 questions, are there any frameworks or processes that you go through at a time like this end of the year preparing for the new year that you think might be relevant to share with those listening? Oh, absolutely. And thank you again for the opportunity. So the way that I view my business is that I'm always questioning myself. Now, I'm not questioning myself to necessarily take myself off course, but I'm questioning myself to make sure that I'm improving in what it is that I'm doing. I'll give you an example. The highest rating we ever give ourselves here in the Matt Weaver team, whether it's a presentation, whether it's execution of service, etc, is going to be eight out of 10, Jeff, because the truth of the matter is that we always leave that extra two percent margin will say, okay, for improving. So we have a firm understanding that everything we do today can be approved upon. It's never going to be at a level 10. So I think questioning ourselves, okay, productively, is something that all originators should consider doing. So I wrote 13 questions, okay, that I asked myself and I shared these 13 questions originally with a group of about 250 originators. And, you know, I say it humbly, the feedback and response has been really great. And then I shared it to an entire organization of about 2,500 originators. And a lot of originators had said that they found a lot of value in it in asking themselves these questions to better prepare for 2026. So it's exciting to be here. All right, well, I think that's timely then. Do we want to just start from the top and go from there? Number one? Well, I have it all written down here. So here's the first question that I wrote down to myself. And I think that we should write down to ourselves and take some time later on either today or another day to answer these questions as an originator. Number one, what do I want to accomplish? What do I want to accomplish? So I'll expand on each question, okay? For me, it was very clear. Going back in 2010, 1112, I knew what I wanted to accomplish, which was I wanted to be number one in my respective state, which I'm here in Florida. And I wanted to be number one in the nation. And the reason for that, okay, Jeff is my wife, Nadia, and I were expecting our first born Alexander. Okay, now for those that have children understand that there's just an element there that you get even extra more motivated because you have this human being coming into the world, okay? And my goal was to show this child. And then of course, my second child was Stella in 2013. But to show these two children that you can pick an industry, pick a line of work and be number one at it. So I was determined to get to number one and to achieve that, okay, in my state and in the nation. So what I wanted to accomplish was clearly defined to myself. Now, what I share with the group is that what you're looking to accomplish might be different. Okay, you might tie it to how many transactions you want to close. You might tie it to number one in your city, county. You may say state, you may even be crazy enough to say the nation because you have to be crazy to say the nation. I'm just going to give you that. Okay, but guess what? Everyone's goal is different, but I think it's so important for originators to ask themselves, what am I looking to accomplish in this industry? Okay. Okay. Okay. That one. All right. So what am I looking to accomplish? Let's go to number two. So number two, here's what I wrote down. What are my standards? What are my standards? So to expand on that here at the Matt Weaver team, we have a lot of standards. A lot of standards. And it really dates back to 2010. You'll hear me reference 2010 often because that was the creation of the Matt Weaver team. I've been in the industry longer than that, but that's when I started my team structure. Okay. And I wanted to have a lot of standards because people that own businesses and run businesses have to have standards in my opinion. So here's a few of my standards just to expand on this. So number one, I wanted to have an operation that operated seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Number two, we were 364 days a year only closed Christmas day. Number three, our pre-approval process. I wanted it to be the most thorough and extensive in the industry leaving no stone unturned and it being a step by step process. Number four, every buyer has to have a home buyer consultation regardless of their qualification or perceived qualification. So if you take a look at my process from the onset of the customer wanting to get pre-approved through to funding, I have standards in between that we never compromise regardless of frankly real estate agent or relationship. Okay. So we have to ask ourselves as originators, when we look at our process, what are our standards that we want to operate at and never compromise? Yeah, I think that's very important. It makes me curious when I hear you say every home buyer gets a consultation, I know within that is its own individual standard as well as what is your version of a home buyer consultation? Because as you well know, there's all different levels of the pre-approval chat, the online app thing. You want to give a couple of little like what does that mean to you when you say home buyer consultation? What kind of buyer expect? Oh, absolutely. So you'll find this interesting. One of our standards is we do not offer and promote an online application. Every home buyer applies over the phone. That's a standard. Okay. Now don't get me wrong. If someone saying no, no, please, I want to apply online, then we'll send them the link. But we don't promote it in our initial offering. We don't I'm talk about it when we when we walk the customer through our process. That's a standard, another standard that we have. We never pre-diagnose. All calls go to application because that's what the customer, both agent and home buyer, deserve. Pre-diagnosing is the kiss of death. I mean, it will watch in the medical world. It's a medical malpractice. Okay. And it's a malpractice in our industry, at least in my belief system as well. So we never pre-diagnose. So once we take the client's application, gather the documents, have them reviewed in totality. Regardless of their qualification, we have a home buyer consultation over the phone. We go over loan program closing costs, what to expect contingencies, if any, and overall process flow. And then we take that conversation. And we send it, of course, to the end to the customer as well. So they can understand where they stand in totality. And by the way, Jeff, that's before we would ever issue a pre-approval letter. That's another standard. Okay. I like that. I like that. And I know you're very particular about the customer experience. That's probably one example of that. It's very thorough. Correct. It's very thorough because that's what the customer deserves. Now, when I say customer, first and foremost, agent. Remember, our job, okay, is to serve our customer, meaning the agent to a high level. And the way that we believe serving them to a high level is ensuring their time for productivity, ensuring that the customer will close and fund successfully, ensuring that they don't have sticker shock when they go find the home. Okay, that's why we have our step-by-step process. And we never compromise it because any time that it's compromised, then of course, it breaks the flow of the process. But these are standards that we have. And originators should ask themselves. Because remember, as an originator, whether you're closing one transaction on month now, you've got to start somewhere 5, 10, 15, or 20. Okay. You have to start implementing and thinking about standards for the business that you're running. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a missing element for too many people, especially as it gets even more competitive. And the herd has thinned out somewhat in terms of those who've left the industry. And therefore, who's left probably the better of the crew? I was going to say best of the best, but you're obviously in that category of best of the best. But let's just face it, it's getting harder to win. Would you agree with that? Oh, it's definitely getting harder to win. You had just have overall market compression. There's just no question about it. I mean, I think we're going to end the year at about 4 million transactions in the nation. And you're talking about 21, going on 22, it was 6 million. So you're looking at a 30% reduction in overall market share. I mean, it's condensed. Yep. Good point. All right. Number three, what do you got? Number three, what are my value propositions? What are my value propositions? And this is an interesting one. Okay. I would say to you probably over 90% of originators cannot articulate or even have value propositions. And we just talk about that. It's interesting. But let me tell you why that is. Okay. Despite or regardless, I should say whatever company you're with, you see everyone runs their own kind of independent practice, even though they could be with a company. But because everyone runs their own independent practice, it's very hard for a company to drive down value propositions that are universal. So what ends up happening is that an originator just really doesn't have value propositions other than humming and hauling and saying, well, I can do this or that. Well, I discovered in 2010 the importance of developing my own unique value propositions, which my value propositions wrap the agent sales cycle from beginning to end. Okay. So if an agent said to me, Matt, what are your value propositions? I can clearly articulate what those are. So we always think about the old classic elevator pitch. Okay. You walk into an elevator and agent walks in. They hit the 23rd floor. Can you go over your unique value propositions? Okay. And show what you do differently in this industry by the time you hit the 23rd floor. That's the question you have to ask yourself. So for us, our four pillars of value have always been our value proposition, which is the foundation of our offering. So what I would encourage an originator to do is to ask themselves, okay, what are my value propositions? How do I put it together so I can present that? Okay. Whether you're presenting one-on-one at a coffee appointment in front of a small group, a large group, doesn't matter. Okay. Because I'm always going back to my value propositions with an agent. So I could be sitting with an agent and say to them, okay, so allow me to walk you through my process, what we do differently in my unique value propositions as to how I can help you grow your business. Okay. And that's the way that we have to consider conducting ourselves. Okay. So think about that one, Jeff. Oh, I am. And I'm thinking that a lot of originators get stuck there. Yes. To your point, they don't know beyond delivering a product on time at a quote, competitive interest rate. Like a lot of people, that's all they have. That's my value prop. I'll close on time. No surprises at a competitive rate. What do you say to that? Oh, well, that's not even within my value propositions. I mean, listen, speed and execution and having a good rate is important. That's kind of a prerequisite. You take a look at my value propositions. I'll give you an example. My first pillar of values, my pre-approval process. It operates seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. 364 days a year. It leaves no stone on turn. All customers go through a thorough review process and have a home buyer consultation. My second pillar of values, my offer process. Okay. My offer process consists of my seven elements of structuring a winning offer, whether you're looking to eliminate buyer competition and a multiple offer or if the home is sitting a little bit longer and you want to, of course, increase your negotiating skills and power by using my seven elements. That's what agents do and use. Okay. See, I can clearly articulate my value propositions. That's what we have to consider doing. But here's the deal. There's one catch to it all. You ready for it? Yeah. You got to know who your customer is first and foremost. Okay. You got to know your customer. Who is that for you? My customer is the agent. It's very clear. It's very concise. Now, most people can say that. Okay. But not really understand what I mean when I say that. Let me give you an example. Most originators speak to agents as if they're a peer or in equal. They don't speak to them as if they're the customer. So I want us to think about that one. So, for example, if you went to a restaurant tonight, Jeff, would you want the server to be speaking to you like a peer or an equal or you as the customer? Yeah. Me as the paying customer. Yeah. That's exactly correct. That's what a real estate agent is to us. So, for example, if you were an agent, hello, Jeff. Thank you so much for the opportunity in working together. I know that you're calling to I'm just using an example. I know you're calling to find out the status of the appraisal. Allow me to look into that and we'll get back to you right away. I'm rest assured that our process, okay, we'll meet all of its timelines. But certainly, I'll be getting back to you. You see how I speak? Now, here's a question. Do you think I talk like that at home? No. Of course not. But watch. My wife is not a customer. My children are not customers. Okay. So, you don't speak at home as you do to a customer and so on and so forth. But see, a lot of originators don't think like that. Okay. When you know who your customer is, you know how to speak to them as a customer and that's what scales. Do you say to agents something to the effect of you are my customer first? Oh, well, the buyer second. You do. Oh, well, the time. In fact, if you go to one of my seminars, you'll see a sign that says, dear agent, without you, there's no me. I bet that's very refreshing and probably, you know, this, what we're talking about here, multiple things going to your success and impact that you have with real estate agents. But just just a sheer fact that the level of professionalism that you deliver that in and of itself is a differentiator. Well, absolutely. And no matter what. Now, here's what's interesting. I want to give a little bit of an analogy or metaphor here. Okay. Our children. Okay. If you have a child that plays sports, okay, both of my children are in competitive sports. Okay. You'll see from time to time, let's use Alex. He plays basketball. And every now and then they're going to go ahead and face a team. That is what we'll say, not as competitive as their team. But what we always stress to the kids is you never want to play down to them. Do we agree? So no matter how unprofessional my customer can get every now and then when you run into an agent that let's just say is very unprofessional because it happens in all industries. I'll never play down to them. My level of professionalism will always remain the same. This is the way that we have to consider thinking as an originator. Here's the standard originator. Hey, Jeff, how you doing? Let's close a deal next month. I've heard it. Two words. The Matt Weaver team never uses. And they both have the same letters. You ready for it? Leads and deals. Never use those words. But that's a standard. You see. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I know we have to go get through most of these if we can. But man, there is so much for you listening right now. You need to think about your standards around communication and your value proposition. Yes, minimum. Always enhance your vocabulary. Always enhance. Remember every presentation is a performance. Yeah. I love that. I've heard you say that many, many times. All right. Number four, what do we have for number four? What is my process? What is my process? So for me, Jeff, what I wanted to do is I wanted to have a scripted process, which then will deliver consistency to the agent. And so what do I mean by scripted? So not only verbally, but in its actual steps. So for example, if a customer calls today, okay, they're going to go through the same scripted process. Okay, that's been for years. Okay. The same process for years. So what I would encourage originators to do is if they don't have a process from beginning to end, from the point of high, I'd like to get pre-approved through the funding. Pull out a whiteboard. Okay. And whiteboard out the process on what you want that to look like. Okay. Every part of my process is a scripted process. You're ready? Every great business has a scripted process. Every sports team follows a scripted process. And then when it comes to originators and a lot of agents, they just wing it. Okay. And you can't deliver consistent results by winging it. Okay. Let me give you an example of this. So I just recently took on an advisor. We have advisors on my team. Okay. Now he was a new advisor. And so he ended up dealing with a client, meaning he in took the application. Okay. And an agent text me one night. And she said, Matt, we just got the pre-approval letter. Okay. But the customer doesn't know the closing costs. So can you quickly call them and tell them what the closing costs are so we can submit the offer? Now for me, knowing my process, that's not possible. So of course I pulled up, I pulled up the file and I saw that this new advisor handled it. So now watch, I could do one of two things. I could quickly call the advisor and say, can you do me a favor and call the buyer and just let them know their closing costs so they can make the offer? Or I can call them into my office and say, okay, let's go over the one, two, three, four step process we have with our pre-approval process. And let's talk about the fact of how we skipped the third step in the process. So I'm not interested in remedying that really quickly. I'm interested in remedying the mindset of missing the step. So his next 500 applications don't that doesn't happen there. Right. So the difference between the two? Absolutely. You know, I mean, there's some other elements in there as well as that, you know, you mentioned bringing on an advisor and thinking of people have a team or a junior or something like that. You know, it comes down to, again, the importance of a process, but also knowing that you're dealing with humans and they may screw up, they may forget a step, they may, this gets back into kind of mentorship and, you know, cleaning and I'm sure you have a process around that as well for onboarding a new advisor. Yes, definitely. But see, here's the thing. Now, we, you know, just like if you made a bad pass or you know, you didn't execute on a play on the court, okay, we take him off the court. All right, we have a conversation, but we got to put him back on the court, okay, because we have to build each other's problems. Okay. So watch the next question. How is my service? How is my customer service? So the school of thought that I have always had and it's an old Earl Nightingale quote, which is if you want to increase your reward in life, you have to increase your service to the customer. Okay. So the way that we look at it is closing on time and so on. These are all prerequisites. The question becomes, how are we giving the customer, which in, for me, it's the real estate agent? How are we increasing our service to them? So as I mentioned a little earlier, we never rate ourselves greater than an eight. So if you ask me Matt, how is your service today? I'd say at most, it's an eight, because I have to increase, okay, what it is that I'm doing because it's never going to be a 10. So I'm relentlessly always trying to figure out how I can increase my service. Now, it doesn't just mean process flow. It means thought process creation. How are we helping them sell a little bit more real estate? So as an example, today I'm doing the top or actually tomorrow. Okay, I have an incredible audience coming in. We'll have about 180 agents in the room and I'm going to be going over the top 11, okay, home buyer and seller objections agents face in today's market. Okay. The idea behind this is to help them sell a little bit more real estate. All right. That's how we increase our service to the customer. That's one of the ways I should say. So asking yourself, how is your service and how do you continue to increase your service? But remember, you got to know who your customer is first. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just hanging out for a second on the whole, you know, you'll, you'll never rate yourself above an eight. I like that because that forces optimization is the way I would say it. Correct. You know, because if you're like, oh, we're a 10, we're rocking it. What do you do? Y'all son, you get lazy. Yeah. Yeah, I'm never satisfied. I'm happy, I'm happy, but never satisfied. What are they, they used to say, what was that constructively discontent? Something like that? There you go. All right. What do you have for number six? And highly paranoid. Highly paranoid. That's a whole mark of a lot of high achievers. That's right. Okay. So now I have watched this one. Oh, this is going to pierce the originator. And by the way, I'm doing this because I want them genuinely to get better because I believe if I can do what I'm doing, I'm no better than them. I just want to put that out there. Okay. But we just have to learn from each other. Okay. How's my delegation? How's my delegation? I so I said, you're going to kick us. I said to the to the group of originators, there was, I don't know, maybe 250, 300 in the room. And I said, okay, could you imagine an originator owning a pizzeria? They would be the cashier, the cashier, they'd work the cash register, they'd need the dough, they'd serve the slice, they'd actually probably be the delivery driver. Okay. But every now and then an originator says themselves, wait a minute here. What if I got someone to work the register? And what if I got a pizza maker in the back? And what if I hired a delivery driver? Can I sell more pizza? So we have to ask ourselves whether we're closing one transaction a month, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, whatever that number is. We're always having to ask ourselves, how is my delegation? So for me, okay, I have high delegation in the process because I'm supposed to be doing the part of the process that I'm supposed to be doing because that's what that's my fiduciary to my team. Okay. So delegation is critically important. So then here's the question, how does an originator okay figure out how and what they should delegate? Well, it's real simple. Think about the parts that you don't like doing. Okay. When you have that whiteboard out about writing out your process, think about the pieces that you'll need to let to have someone else do it. Now watch, you might not be in the financial position to hire that person. Okay. When I first started doing it, I wasn't. So I was having to do it all. But as I was building, okay, I was hiring for those lanes and those roles. Okay. I wasn't afraid of it. Now I was, of course, walking them through each part of the process because I was very paranoid about having someone handle certain functions. But don't let the paranoia eat you alive. Okay. To where you're not delegating at all because you're capping your potential. Okay. 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. Been part of my agent classes for a little over a year and totally changed my business. I grew at least 25% and that was during a pretty down market and have only grown every single month that I've kept doing it. Community is great. Jump to the Friday calls. It's awesome. Have fun with it. Teach as many classes as you can. Just do more. Do better. 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. Let's say somebody, what is that sweet spot where you think the loan officer needs to hire help, whether it's five loans or four or eight, and what is the first hire they should make? So how fast it depends on what their financial position is and how much they want to fast track that process. So let me give you an example. The bottom line is that if you want to scale, all right, you're going to at some point as a business owner have to dilute yourself. Okay, that's just the name of the game. So the question becomes if someone needs the immediate cash flow, then of course hiring process is going to take a little bit longer. Versus if someone says I'm going to take this next year, reduce my income so I can hire ahead of my volume, ahead of what it is that I'm looking to do, then they're going to get there faster. As long as they understand what part of the cycle they're doing. So for example, for me, I'm a rainmaker. So I'm involved in business development activities every day. So I was always very confident, Jeff, that I was going to stay in that. I wasn't going to just go to the beach. I was always going to stay in, of course, high levels of rain making, which then in turn, I was confident about hiring others and, of course, getting more units funded to offset the hiring. So when you think about it, everyone's pain point is going to be a little different question because you think about who's that first person. Okay, usually it's someone who's taking your applications over the phone. Sure. So you're going to focus on the rain making. Okay. Love it. Let's keep going. Number seven. Okay. Number seven. Watch this. What is my role? What is my goal? This is a big one. I want to hear more. Yeah. So I discovered years ago that I'm passionate about, about procuring the relationship, about rain making at a high level. So then what I decided to do is I decided to build out the Matt Weaver team system so I could go out and do what I do best, which is to sell the system. Okay. I don't go around selling myself. You see, if I sell myself, I'm going to sell myself. Okay. But if I sell my system, then we can, of course, duplicate, duplicate and get to high levels of scale versus me being the value proposition. Okay. An originator would say, yeah, but I go to my closings for now. Okay. That's not a scalable value proposition. Okay. Right. Every one of my phone calls for now. Okay. That's not a scalable value proposition. But when you build out the manufacturing plant and a system that's consistent, that's a value proposition. But you got to figure out what your role is. You got to identify with who you are as an individual. Are you really a rain maker? Got to ask yourself that question. Okay. Because guess what? Based on my research, about 10, 15% of originators are true rain makers at heart. Okay. This is why we created originate for life, the podcast. It's literally designed for an originator to understand that there is a platform for you. Okay. That you can plug into should you like dealing with buyers directly? Or should you like rain making only? Or should you like see those various lanes that we talk about? Okay. But getting back to it for this podcast here and for this purpose, have a heart to heart. What is your role within your structure? And what is it that you want to do? And you want to build around you to make sure that other those other parts and pieces are delegated off to others? Yeah. I think that's interesting. And I know you know this as well. When you look at the figure you referenced to what was at 10 or 20% or actual rain makers, there's a lot of tacticians, right? People like, there's a lot of loan officers who like to solve problems and structure deals, right? Correct. And that's okay. That serves a great purpose knowing who you are is important. Okay. Knowing because most go ahead. I was gonna say it gets back to what we've been talking about here. So if you self-identify, you realize, hey, I'm not a rain maker. I actually love structuring and putting together deals and making all that. Well, then that means you need to find the rain maker. You need to find the biz dev person. So so you can stay employed and stay busy, right? That's exactly correct. But you got to have a heart to heart with yourself to know it. That's a big one. Good point. So that's a good point. The last thing I'll say about this, by the way, in terms of you selling the system, I don't want to leave that. That's a really key point. Not selling you yourself, but selling the system, the thing, right? Think about big donalds, right? I mean, they have a system. What that also gets you out of is the trap of it and you kind of alluded to this as always being dependent upon you. And as you've heard, I'm sure through your career of the realtors of like, you know, I thought I was getting Matt Weaver. I know I want to work with Matt directly. Well, from the beginning, if you're selling Matt directly, you're pigeonholing yourself instead of selling the Matt Weaver system. Yes, but you have to have that same consistent process through and through. And that's the that's the catch to all this. That's why if you see the order and the questions we were asking, okay, we want to understand what is our process? What are our standards? What do we believe in? Okay. And so so so it's very well received from the audience. Okay. What's this next question? Yeah, sure. What are my prison? How are my presentation skills? How are my presentation skills? Okay. And this right here, all of us, myself included, have to work on relentlessly our presentation skills. Okay. A strong presentation makes the sale easier. Presentation skills can be adopted by anyone should they have the desire. If you have the desire to get better at it, then you're going to get better at it. But watch. Okay. For me, so most people don't know this, but you know, I stopped school at age 15. Okay. So my education level is about eighth grade. Okay. So I'm a drop belt. Not necessarily, you know, promoting that, but that's just the way that my life was organized, I guess. Long story short is this. I knew at age 18, when I got into the industry, it was important for me to increase my vocabulary, increase my presentation skills, because I was very self conscious of the fact that I didn't have any real formal education. So I think you can agree probably right now that as I'm speaking to you during this podcast, you wouldn't think that my that I dropped at a high school at the beginning of ninth grade. No. Okay. And the reason why you don't think that is because of my presentation skills and the choice of words that I use. And the way that we do that is we are ferocious learners. Okay. Listen, I love audio books as well, but it's not going to help you with your vocabulary. You got to read as well. You'll get a kick out of this. I have never opened chat GPT. You want to know why? Yes, I'm very curious. It's going to, it's going to numb the brain. Now your brain will atrophy, won't have those well-defined brain muscles. Well, watch. Okay. So it doesn't mean that we don't use technology. It doesn't mean that AI does, okay, I'm not knocking any of that. But what I'm saying is this, when I write a newsletter to my group, when I write a newsletter to my agents, when I don't go anywhere near it. See, I'm constantly challenging myself to think. Okay. I was talking to an originator the other day. We knew they weren't the right fit for F13 consulting, but watch what he says to me. He says, well, you know, I like to do post for agents in this one group. So I just go on chat GPT and ask great posts for real estate agents. You see, I got to tell you something. You can't take yourself out of the thinking process. Yeah. Okay. So I totally get what you're saying there. 100%. Yeah, we could go on about that. I love that you said that though. All right, let's go to number nine. What is my brand? What is my brand? And this is a big one here. Yeah. This is a big one here. I said to the group as they were all listening very carefully. I said, do you want to develop a strong brand in the industry? And they're all looking at me. And of course they're saying yes. And I said, do you want the answer? And they all yelled out yes. And I said, here's the answer. Win. That's it. Winning makes your brand. Now you can sit here and fake it on social media. You can sit here and do all these things and show all these little achievements and all that. But the real understand that there's just too many phonies out there. Okay. I'll share this little story with you. In 2008 and 2009 in the Florida market, of course, residential lending was basically seized at the time because of the mortgage meltdown. So anyway, I was of course in the industry. So what I had to do is I had to also help with some commercial lending to offset the actual loss of the residential business. So I was handling some commercial financing for this rock star of a restaurant broker in South Florida. This guy here was the man. I mean, he was in every major publication. He was the brand. And ironically, I knew his family for a long time. His name was Tom Prakis. So I'll never forget, Jeff, I was sitting talking with my father, may he rest in peace in 2009. And I said, Dad, you got to understand. It's so crazy. You know, this guy Tom Prakis, I mean, he has got such a brand here in South Florida. You think of a nightclub, when you think of whatever it may be, that's who you think of. And then I said to him, watch what I said to him, Jeff. I said, and then on top of it, his name is Tom Prakis. I said, look at me, Dad. What could I do? My name is Matt Weaver. What did I do in between if I have somewhat of a brand in this industry? Only thing I did in between was win and continue winning. So I want us to think about that when you're more focused on what you're doing on the court, how you're increasing your service, your process flow, serving your customer to a high level, your presentation skills. When you're more focused on really a lot of these questions that I'm asking you to ask yourself, you're going to win at a higher level, and then you're going to have a brand. The idea is not to talk about your brand. The idea is to have others talk about your brand. Yeah, exactly. So just win, baby. That's the brand. But to make sure I'm clearly understanding that winning is not just about closing transactions. No, winning is about the whole package of who you are, should you have this goal, by the way, who you are in this industry, what you represent your standards, okay, and what you want to do differently. Like I wanted to intentionally accomplish some great things in this industry, and so many originators out there can do the same thing. Okay, this is why I'm sharing this with you all right now. It's to challenge yourself a little bit. So Michael Jordan was recently interviewed. Okay, just the other day, watch what he said, Jeff. He said, I built my entire brand around what I did on the court. We all know that his name could have been Michael Brown, and that name would have been synonymous with winning. Okay, it's what he did, how he performed. Okay, that built the brand. He didn't sit there and do posts to you to make you think he's a brand. Okay, yeah, all right, that's about to consider what's this next question. What is holding me back? What is holding me back? Okay, listen, a lot of the times it's confidence, and I got news for the audience. There is nobody for years that has been plagued with low confidence than this man right here. I have no problem admitting it. And every time I say that, I always get an interesting response. Okay, because first most people think, no way, what is this guy saying? And it's just the truth, which is why I'm always fully prepared. That's a confidence. Okay, knowing what to say. Okay, so confidence comes, of course, with accepting the losses along the way. You know, the countless months where you wanted to be number one in that office and you lost it, you know, right by one or two units, the countless years of trying to climb and losing. But then when you're winning as well, it builds confidence. Okay, so confidence is a big one, worthiness is another big one. Okay, we know that when we climb a little bit, sometimes we can really ask ourselves, am I worthy of this? Which is why you hear about a lot of artists, a lot of people that hit higher levels of income, end up having, you know, substance abuse issues, sadly, because really it stems from unworthiness. But what also holds us back in a lot of ways. Okay, is the cost of perfection, which is just way too expensive. So for me, I'm rolling out new things all the time. Do they all, of course, succeeded a high level? No. Do we have to course correct along the way? Yes. Is it coming from good intention to try and help the agent or to try and help the consumer 100%. So we get one time at this game. We all know that. Okay, life is not a dress rehearsal. So what's holding you back? Okay, what's holding you back? It's a good question. I think ourselves. Well, yeah, and that's one that people need to probably sit on or sit with for a while, because there's a lot of things that can come up with that, which we don't have enough time to go into here deep, but I would suggest somebody to be real, be authentic with yourself. And what, also with story are you telling yourself that's probably not true. If it's appropriate for a quick second, on your YouTube podcast, originate for life, which we'll link it up in the show notes, a dotted line. Is this relevant to kind of what you're alluding to there? Is you have a video that says your real superpower is imposter syndrome? Oh, 100%, which imposter syndrome stems back to worthiness issues. But watch, I ended up using that liability or turning that liability into an asset. So I'll give you an example. I was asked for years, Matt, would you coach me? Matt, would you consult me? Okay. And for years, I would never do it until I hit number one in the nation in 2023, because there's no way I could physically tell you what to do or share with you what to do. If I didn't hit number one myself, it's a mindset. Well, Matt, but you hit number two or three or four. What are you crazy? No. You see, so imposter syndrome was a major issue for me. It still is to this day. Now F 13 consulting, which of course we have 35 incredible members. Okay, part of that group. I had the good fortune, of course, consulting them all over the country, which is an incredible opportunity. But watch, I asked myself daily, I look at the transactions and the units were closing to ensure that I can get on that next call. Okay. And that's a real issue for me, but I've converted it into an asset because I can't, I could not, I could never share on an open platform, unless I highly succeeded at it myself. There's a quote that I can never erase from from my mindset, which again, may sound negative, but I really do think it's a positive, which is to inspire someone, you must first become someone. And it's something that I really live by through and through. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, I don't disagree with that. It talks a little bit back to what you're saying with confidence. I mean, no results, breed confidence, right? Do something. To have this confidence and then do it over and over again repeatedly. I love it. All right, number 11, sir, what do you have? What is my motivation? What is my motivation? And motivation is an interesting one. So one of my mentors, Mike Ferry, would always say that if you take a look at the word motivation, it's really motive to action. Okay, motive to action. So he would always say that a lot of people don't have a lot of, they don't have a strong enough motive to create the action. Okay. So what I want to share with everyone, this is so important. Okay, because there's some things that don't really get talked about. And I did this in our podcast, originally for life, we talked about this both Max Fish and I on our podcast, which is when it comes to motivation, there's really nurture and then there's nature. Okay, now my whole life, I have, and I still believe to this day that most things are nurture. In other words, if that five, eight basketball player wanted to get in the NBA, I believe they can get to the NBA. I really just believe it. Okay. So I really do think nurture plays a, you know, plays a big role over nature. But then nature does also kick in and let me explain with what I mean. So motivation, people can have it naturally or they have to manufacture it. And either or is not better than the other, but it's important to know which one you are. Okay. So here's a prime example. I was sitting with the top producing real estate. He sells 750 homes a year. So this guy is highly productive. So he sits down in his mastermind. First thing he says, Jeff, is I'm wondering what I have to buy to motivate me through year end. Wow. You see, he knew that he has to manufacture his motivation. Nothing wrong with that. Then he turns over to me and says, bad, what are you going to buy to keep you motivated by year end? Now what he doesn't know, Jeff, is I've been in the same house since 2010. Okay. I live a great life, but I don't necessarily need to do that for motivation. Not saying one is right over the other, but here's where what I want to drive home to people is some people have it more intuitive. So I am a motivated person intuitively. I don't know how you get that. Maybe I was born with it. And some need to manufacture it. So I think it's really important that you find out which one you are and feed into that. It's okay. Okay. So if it's where you have to manufacture it, go out and take an expensive beautiful vacation. Go buy yourself a really nice car and get on the farm. Yeah. And by the way, it doesn't even have to be something material like that. Your why could be something else, right? Absolutely. Whatever it may be. Yeah. Like your children, your family, right? Making it impact those things. Correct. It could be that. If you have to manufacture it in some way or some degree, go do it. Okay. I just wouldn't want someone to think or to not know why someone has more motivation than others. So I wanted to touch the person that may not know this and says to themselves, wait a minute, maybe I have to create a different motive that would get me to do more action. Okay. So that's my thing because I know there's probably so many out there that may feel that maybe just I don't have motivation. Right? Oh, there's pretty pretty much two rules on that. Maybe you got to manufacture it in different ways. I just want you to think about that. The next question I have here is who do I hang with? Who do I hang with? I have to tell you something, folks. It is a lot easier and I'm not saying I'm at the top, but it's a lot easier to swim at the top. The bottom, the bottom is where it's just it's sludgy. People don't want to help each other. People are angry. They're bitter at the world. It's just not a fluid system down there. But at the top, everyone's willing to help everyone else. I'll give you an example. A dear friend of mine that I value to a high level. His son is 21 and just started a business. Okay. I got a text message from him the other day. And he said, Matt, I want to thank you. I help him get a mortgage. I want to thank you for helping me get a mortgage, et cetera. I just want to ask you a question. Would you be okay mentoring me one or two times on the new business that I just started? So here's where I'm going with it. Smart enough, and I'm not saying that I am, but he was smart enough to ask for that mentorship. Okay. He's smart enough to try to go to somebody who's doing something. Okay. At a decently high level. And of course, the response to that from me to him is, well, I'd love to help you. Now watch. Let's say he asked somebody who's necessarily not doing that well. They're bitter, they're angry. They don't want to help. So who you hang with is so critically important. Your circle, it's so cliche. I know, but it is really so important. Okay. For growth on who you have. 100% so true. It's cliche, but a lot of cliches are true. But yeah, I mean, if it's all about who you're around in terms of, like you said earlier, standards, inspiration, you know, you've got to choose that very important. I guess the last note on that is I was going back to my mom when I was probably in my teen years and she probably needed to get my attention hanging around the wrong crowd. So she used to say to me all the time, show me who you go with and I'll tell you what you are. And right, we used, you know, I would disagree with that. But now obviously being a mature adult in hindsight, I'm like 100%. We've all heard the quote. You're the average of five people and all that stuff. So very, very important who you hang with. As well as real quick, who you choose to partner with on the real estate side too, right? Well, you know, for me, it's a little different. And let me tell you why I have a system. Okay. So for me, I want to serve all. Whether you sell one home a year or 400 homes a year, my system is designed to serve the buyer seven days a week for medium to nine PM. See, you know, the originator that has to be very guarded with their time is because, of course, they're probably a sole practitioner. They don't have a system in place. So they have to ask themselves, you know, who am I doing business with? Is it worth it for me? Where for me, of course, the philosophy is very different because I have a system that's a manufacturing plant that's operating for all buyers. You know, how does that translate into something tangible? We're here ready. I'm in Boca, return Florida. That would be considered. That's where my office is. That would be considered the Ritzier area of South Florida. But you want to hear something interesting, Jeff? Even though it's the Ritzier area of South Florida, because of the philosophy of serving all, I'm honored to say that I've issued the most down payment assistance programs over any other originator up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard, Eastern Seaboard per Fannie Mae. So you see where I'm going with that? Because you're open for everyone. So it's a big difference in thinking and thought process. But the last question I have here, ready for it? Who can I learn from? Who can I learn from? And this is a big one. There's a great quote if I've seen further, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of giants, Sir Isaac Newton. And if we think about this, okay, what I would suggest to originators is this, find who you admire in this industry, okay, and figure out how you can learn from them. Because it's going to, of course, expedite the learning process. It's going to expedite, you know, and accelerate your business a lot faster. But here's the catch. The catch is, is that sadly, there are too many imposters out there. There are too many people that are selling programs that never have really accomplished greatness themselves. And so that's a big one that we have to be very mindful of with social media today, everyone's a rock star, okay, which is why my particular program, which is really not for everyone, but after teen consulting, the premise behind it, okay, is the world needs more imposterous syndrome. In other words, you know, I'm on the court. So what I'm sharing is what I'm doing today. Not, hey, you know, 20 years ago, this is what worked, okay, so the great group that I'm consulting on, of course, is in honor. And I'm sharing with them every single thing that I do, every process flow, every procedure, okay, to which it's so fun. Because the number one motivational factor for me in creating F 13 consulting, Jeff, you'll get a kick out of this is because I wanted to create my own competition. Okay, 100%. So watch, there's a few members that are coming close. And I'm consulting them on how to beat be Jeff. Isn't that great? That is great. That's an abundance mindset. Yeah, well, I knew I knew it was going to force me to get better. Yeah, yeah, because yeah, if you see people nipping at your heels, you're like, I got to level up, man, what's next? But, you know, so, you know, for those that are interested in hearing a little bit about our program, they can visit think 13.com think 13.com, which of course is our site. We have two forms of membership. We have floor 13, which is the full membership. And we also have club level that just recently got rolled out max fish, another top originator close to 200 million a year. Okay, he's spearheading club level, which I have to tell you, he's doing an extraordinary job. He has this interesting program on how to multiply your agents, I'm turning one into three at each interaction. It's fantastic. So everyone who who speaks on behalf of F 13 is on the court and performing at a high level, no imposter's here. Yeah, I would agree with that. So we're going to link all that in the show notes every day with the website you heard think 13.com. And then, of course, your podcast, which is on YouTube, you can look it up right now if you're listening, originate for life podcast, but we'll link that up as well. Man, there's just so much here, I wrote down every single one of these and you know, each one of these could have been its own podcast as a standalone. So how would you how would you let last question ask and then let you go? So people have these 13 questions. How would you how would you advise they take these 13 questions, get some alone time heading into the new year? Yes, I would highly encourage someone to take 30 to 45 minutes and really honestly ask them answer these questions. It's going to stimulate thinking. Okay, don't put these 13 questions through chat GPT. Okay, really honestly answer them yourself. And I think it's going to provide a lot of clarity. Okay, to you and your and your business. My my hope, Jeff. Okay, after doing this for as long as I have been doing this for. Okay, if I can touch one person out there that may have a little bit of low confidence that may think high levels of origination is not attainable to them. That may think that maybe I'm not a strong presenter or whatever it may be. I have to tell you something and I'm not I don't speak ill will about myself when I say this, but I'm being very genuine and sincere. If I can do it, believe me, you can do it. And you just have to believe in that in yourself. Okay, because I am proof of it. Now I'm not anywhere near where I want to be. Okay, because I'm constantly trying to improve myself. But you got to start here with a premise. Yeah, and look to build something differently. Look to build something where you're creating a standard. Okay, and setting a bar that's really higher than anyone else in your local market. Absolutely. I think it's been really great, we're very reflective that some of these questions are deep actually and they might need a little more than 30 or 40 minutes on some of them. And for those ones, you know, you'll know, whoever's listening, you'll know which of these, you know, out of the 13, three or four that you know, they'll rise up for you. You'll feel an emotional connection or resonance with one to three or however many of those questions. And that's probably your signal to yourself to go deep and do the work that's required to work on that one thing. So Matt, I can't take it enough, man. I really, really appreciate this a lot. Of course. Thank you so much, Jeff, for the opportunity. Everybody, you know what to do? Check the links in the show notes. Go learn more about math programs. Think 13 club level. Go follow his podcast on YouTube. And by the way, if you like this episode and there's one or two main takeaways that you got from the 13 questions, we'll also put a link to Matt's Instagram. Just DM him on Instagram and let him know. What's the one question for you that really hit home for you? You would like to probably know that, wouldn't you? Anytime. Okay. All right, listeners, appreciate you tuning in. 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 co-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 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 pros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode.