Ep# 46: How Susan Meitner Originated $40M and Became CEO

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey listeners, Jeff Zinfur, welcome to episode 46 of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad you're here as usual. We're going to get right to it this week, my special guest, Crazy Lucky Girl, Susan Meitner. Yes, that's the title of her book, Crazy Lucky Girl. Do you have the keys to success? You know, I love her story. I love the energy and the enthusiasm and the get it done attitude that Susan brings to this call. I wanted to have her on because not only is she a proven successful originator who's had well over 20 years in the business. She's got great stories, great lessons from the road, from the trenches, if you will, to help all of us break through any potential perceived self-imposed limitations. We might be putting on ourselves how to break through to get real estate agents to give us attention, how to build my business, how to build a team, how to focus on the few that really matter versus the many that don't. And her book is just awesome. I encourage you to get it. She'll be show notes, links for you to get her book to go check her out on our website, but she is a dynamo of a lady, built her business through just sheer hard work and consistency and just slugging it out in the streets every day, over $40 million in production. She has since gone to build her own successful, Inc. 5000 ranked mortgage company and is consistently a top ranked mortgage employer in the Philadelphia area and she's been acknowledged by people such as Barbara Cochran from the Shark Tank, who highly endorses Susan in her book and the Mortgage Bankers Association and other notables. So Susan and I get into really the key tenants to being a successful mortgage professional in any market, in any industry and the core beliefs that you need to have, the habits, daily actions that require you to be successful in today's market, as well as some funny stories that I think we can all relate to. So hope you enjoyed this week's podcast episode. As always, if you haven't subscribed yet, please do so via the interwebs and leave us a review if you're liking what you're hearing. So without further ado, let's get into the show. Susan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It is a pleasure. And gosh, what, over a month or two now that we've been kind of on each other's radars and we finally able to connect both very busy and I'm excited to have you. You have a unique perspective that you bring to our listeners today, which of course is mostly loan officers, some realtors, but largely loan officers and why they listen to this podcast Susan just so you know is because they're looking for those ideas, tips, you know, lessons, if you will shortcuts, even perhaps dare I say to, to success. So that's why I wanted to have you here because you are that rare person who has a mortgage loan professional company owner of Centennial Lending Group who wrote a book called Crazy Lucky Girl and we'll talk about that. But if you would, just for those listeners, give us the quick, you know, kind of bio on how you got in the business, how long and, you know, what do you love about this business? Right. So I am one of those people who went to college and got out of college and didn't know really what I was going to do with my life as lots of people don't. And I was introduced to the mortgage industry and I started on the inside and very quickly decided that I wanted to be able to make whatever I wanted to make and not really have any hours to that I had to work or didn't have to work. And I, at 23 years old, a hundred years ago, probably, so you went out into the mortgage world and started selling mortgages and as luck and hard work had it, I was able to find great success being one of the top originators at the many different companies that I worked for, went on to manage a couple different teams. And then in 2010, really 2009, I decided to open up Centennial Lending Group and it took me about a year to do that. And then in July of 2010, we opened up Centennial Lending and right now we have mostly, we're mostly licensed on the East Coast and California. And we do business, so just the regular correspondent lender with our originators doing business were all head and quartered outside Philadelphia and we love what we do. And I have a passion for it. I went to a closing yesterday to substitute for someone who couldn't be there and the borrowers gave me a card and it said on the front of it, one kindness makes a heart full of gratitude. And they thanked us for getting them into their house, their first house. And it was just priceless. The buyers gave you that card? The buyers gave me that card. You don't see that every day, huh? I know they were first time home buyers and I had done their parents mortgage and their one of their parents have five children and this is one of the five children that I've given mortgages to. So it's just building your legacy and building up your relationships and not just being one and done type of originator, but actually keeping in touch with people and knowing what's going on with them. Okay, so before we get real backwards into your journey as a loan officer before having the company, but real quickly while we're on the topic of Centennial Lending, give us a sense of the size and scope of Centennial Lending. You know, number of L.O.s, you said your correspondence, so you know, volume, whatever you want to disclose. Right. So we have about almost 50 loan originators and as I said, we're up and down the East Coast. We have 75 employees right now. So and we're in a building, we're building a lot right now. So we're in that building phase, trying to hire as many originators as we can. But we also really stay true to the culture of Centennial and the way that we do things at Centennial. So that's pretty much what we do over a correspondent lender. We process, close, fund everything in-house and then we sell it after the fact. But we do a lot of marketing and social media campaigns and drip campaigns and that's what we're all about is building the relationship with the borrower and the realtor. So you mentioned culture. It sounds like you, you know, in terms of when you bring somebody on, look at evaluating somebody for your company. Being the right fit for culture of Centennial Lending is important, right? Vital, it's absolutely vital. And we're going to get into the L.O. thing in a minute, but you mentioned that word culture because I think that's incredibly relevant, especially as I, you know, coach a bunch of L.O.s across the country and, you know, help them build teams and they're looking at loan officer assistance and whatnot and the right person is the right fit. So I'd be curious to know how you, what, what qualifications, right? How do you make sure you've got the right person due, you know, because like here where I work, we do like the disc profile, things like that. But what do you do to make sure you got the right person on the bus? There's not an exact science to it. So you can hire the, the, the, who you think is going to be a rock star and they don't end up being a rock star and especially if it's not a good cultural fit that will, you know, you'll know pretty, pretty quickly if that's the case. And I think that making the, the, the right hire and of course you, you can have sometimes you just don't make the right hire, but making the right hire is, is vital and it's really the people who are hiring for you because obviously I don't talk to every single person really having an understanding of the type of culture that you're trying to have at your company. Um, we, we started talking about culture seven years ago when we built it, when nobody was really talking about culture and, and the right fit, we're very fast paced at Centennial. And if you're not fast paced and you don't have the personality for that, it's not, it's really not going to work for you. We process and do everything within a certain period of time, which is always less than 30 days usually. So internally you have to be the right person to be very fast paced and sales wise you have to be the right, the right fit. And so my team of people who are recruiting and interviewing people do a great job of, of weeding those people out. We don't, per se, do a task, sometimes we do if we're, if we're, if you're on somebody, but it's really a feel we Skype interview people, we bring them, we fly them in, we spend a whole entire day with them, saying, you know, what they did before, what their, what their goals are in the future, that's really important to know where the, what direction that they want to go in so that we put them in the right position. So that's, that's what we do. It's a lot of vetting. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's definitely important. So thank you for sharing that. All right. Let's roll the clock back. Okay. Take us back. How many years is it? 20 or so, right? It originated. Not into the mortgage business in 1992. Wow. And it came an originator in 1993, but I'm way younger. I mean, like, I literally was like 16 years old. Well, no, that's funny. You say that because that, that there's a story in your book about how you rolled up to a house to, yeah, you want to tell that story? The one that when I, well, back in the day, when originators actually went to people's homes to take the mortgage application on pen and paper with the carbon copies of good faith estimates, I drove up into the person's driveway and I got out of my car and they said, are you even old enough to give a mortgage? So is that the story that you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in my mid 40s now and I believe that I look pretty young. And so you can only imagine in my 20s, look like a baby, do you even graduate from high school? But that, and that's funny because that gentleman, I've done multiple mortgages for they actually bought that house from, did their mortgage for me out for that house and then refinanced and then bought another house and then refinanced. So, and he's referred tons of people to me. So even that little joke that we spent in my book and that we laugh about, we still to this day talk about and that was what 20 plus years ago? Yeah. Okay. So that is a great topic for us to dive in on a little bit and because, you know, in your book and obviously anybody relating to this when they first started as an alone officer and you maybe knew listening to this as well, you of course started out and probably had some reservations, some trepidation, I don't know if you were, you know, fear for or what. As a matter of fact, your book and chapter two, you talk about face, your fears and you find your strength. So for those listening, right, you've obviously broken through a lot of challenges. You've, you know, produced a lot. We'll get into production levels as an originator. But I think if I read correctly, it was like upwards of 40 million, you were producing, right? Correct. Yeah. So for those listening, how did you, and how would you advise, like when you bring on new allows today, how do you advise people to break through some of that self perceived limitation? Yeah. Well, pretty much no one knows everything. And as long as you're okay with understanding that asking questions and that's, that's pretty much the basics of what every originator, the more questions you can ask, the better originator you are. And you shall allow your borrowers to ask just as many questions and it's okay if you don't have the answer. Every loan is different. So which is why we love being originators because we like that everything being different that is being a challenge every day. So I would say that you really need to know that you can say to a borrower, you know what, I don't know the answer to that question and that takes nothing away from you, but that gives you a reason to call that person back and to follow up and to make sure that you get them the right answer. They appreciate that so much more. I think somewhere in my book I talk about value and it wasn't until I just found out that I didn't have to have all the answers that I, it brought more value to me when I was able to tell a borrower, you know what, I don't know that and I'm going to get back to on that. I was still an expert in mortgages. To this day, I don't know all the answers, but it also brought value to my realtors and thought they really knew I was going to get the right answer for them when I was dealing with the purchase or when they had a question about something that I could say, you know what, I don't know that, but I'm going to find out for you and then it's that constant interaction. They start to develop the trust and they know that you're going to call them back. As long as you call them back when you tell them that you're going to call them back, that's really the key too. So how do you deal then with rejection, you mentioned that, that's actually a chapter in your book, rejection, you faced a lot of rejection. This is a rejection filled job to some degree, particularly if you're prospecting real estate agents and you have been doing this since back in the day as they say when there are open offices, you can go in there and call call agents in person. But today, right, we still face rejection as a loan officer. So what's your advice on how to deal with that part of the business? I face rejection every day, I think, either in, you know, you're never going to have the best rate or you're never going to have the lowest fees or you're, you're, you're never going to have the best product, you're, you're never going to have the, you're to pay the most in basis points when you're recruiting. So I would, I would say that you have to be okay with the answer, no, you, you, you have to also understand that when, as many knows that there are, when you get the yes, it makes it that much sweeter, you know, that you get the brass ring. And that's, somebody soon or later, when you ask enough questions and meet enough people, they're going to say, yes, you're going to get it, yes. So you have to make that connection. And just like it might not be the right cultural fit, it might be better for a borrower or a realtor not to use you. And when one, you know, door closes, another one opens and you might get way more business because you went after that additional business. So have you said, have you turned down realtor business because the, the, it wasn't the right fit personality wise or they were just too difficult? Oh, totally. I did, I used to do a chart or back in the day when we were doing everything by hand. So when I got, when I would get loans, I would have a colored folder for every month. And on it, I write with a Sharpie pen and on it, I would write the borrower's name, the loan amount, and where I got the referral. And at the end of the year, I would go back and I would add up who gave me all the referrals. And it was always shocking to me that the low maintenance realtors always gave me so many more referrals than the high maintenance realtors that were just not producing as much either. Yeah. Right. They were taking so much of my time and I wasn't making anything on them and I wasn't, it was, there was, there wasn't any point to it sometimes. And so I would either go, I would go tell them that this is a partnership like they need to either use me or not use me, but they couldn't take up all my time. Or I would tend to not go to them for as much business and then the business that was driving everything in those realtors, I would, I would really cultivate that relationship more. So I would get even more business from them. So it's really a knowing where your business comes from, it always boggles my mind when an originator is when I say where do you get your business and they say I have absolutely no idea. Yeah. And I also love the one where a loan office meets with a realtor and you know afterwards they're like, gosh, you know, they still haven't sent me any business. I'm like, well, did you ask them how much business they do? No. Yeah. It's, it's asking all those questions. It's really, when you're talking to a realtor, it's asking them just as many questions as you take on a mortgage application. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You need to know all that stuff. If you have, or if you're talking to somebody and you're, and you're spending your time with them and they only do six deals a year and you might get one of them, it's not worth your time. I always went after the realtors with the corner offices. So I did a lot of business and remax and I really felt that if they had a corner office and they were paying for that space, they had business to get. Mm-hmm. Well, and I want to talk about how you coach your loan officers today to generate business considering, right, the lay of the lands a little bit different. But I love some of the stories in your book because it really, I think, relates to some of the frustrations that I feel from loan officers every day. And like we talked about earlier, rejection and being resilient and you clearly are a resilient person. I love this story. You want to tell it about how you, you walked, yeah, this was your first few months as an engineer, the rate sheets and he's like, the guy goes, oh, we need 11 of your rate sheets. Yeah. Yeah. That was like my first day out on the street as an originator. So you know, you go out back in the day again, we're talking about lots of back in the day. Right. And this again, I was walking into a real estate office that had an in-house mortgage company. So and we're going back to the mid 90s. So and we had your stack of rate sheets and I said, hi, my name's Sumitner. And I'm here for from this company that we don't service this area very much and I, but I'm here to service you with regards to mortgages. So if you could just let me know what your policy is on rate sheets and he said, I, you know, I'll give them to any said we have 11 realtors in this office and we're so excited that you're going to be calling on us. And I said, that's great. Here's the 11. Just tell me, do I put them in mailboxes, where do they go? And he picked, he took them from me and he said, I'll show you where they go and he crumpled them up and threw them in the trash. Welcome. And that's not, that was, that was in the day that you can go to like your car phone and like call your, you know, your boyfriend or your mom or somebody and say, I can't tell your husband, I can't tell you what just happened to me. So, and all I needed and all I did was I was like, yeah, that guy totally doesn't want me to ever come back in his office. So I'm going to now go to my next stop and I walked in and they were really nice and very kind to me and it was well and, and I had, you know, that, that was good. But I have to say that it did deter me from going in again and again and again because, you know, I didn't want him to be that way. So I just made sure his car wasn't there when I would go drop off my rate sheets anymore. Well, okay. And so, so there's lessons in there, right? No, number one, it's being tenacious and be resilient. You definitely need that in this business. And so you, you clearly were. Um, so how do you handle, you know, the typical, oh, we already have a lender. Like if you are calling on a real estate office, for example, right? How did you circumvent that and how would you advise it today as well? I would think that that was perfectly fine. I actually would embrace it. I would say, well, that's great that you're using ABC mortgage company. And I definitely, definitely don't want to take any of that business away from them. But I think that I would be able to help you grow your business. So if you want to grow your business, then why don't you give me a telephone call and we can set up a time that maybe we can work together so that, you know, we can help you grow your business. And they're like, wait, how are, how come, you know, Mr. Smith at ABC mortgage company isn't helping me grow my business? And you have to have a way of growing the people's business, obviously, so you can't just go in there. So you have to figure out how am I going to help these realtors grow their business. So one of the things we do at Centennial is we offer our marketing department works with them on doing Facebook pages or doing marketing, co branded marketing with realtors, home bank seminars, just anything to get their name out and our name out at the same time together. And while you're doing those things with the realtors, you are helping them grow their business. You're helping them with things that they might feel uncomfortable doing, but you feel comfortable doing. And that develops a teamwork and a bond between the two of you. Right. Okay. So you're your marketing department at Centennial, like what helps them create their social media presence. Yeah. So we create their social media presence and we work with them on that and we use their Facebook platform so that if they like and they want to offer to their borrowers to find out how much they're qualified for applying, it has a direct link to Centennial. Oh, I see. Okay. Are you helping them come up with content on what to post and what to share? Yes. We help them with content, how to do the content, what to share, all of that. We help our marketing do. So from day one at Centennial, I've always had a very robust marketing and marketing department. I always thought that it was very, very, very important for the way that I did my business. Even if it was delivering holiday gifts at were jelly beans in the spring time, I always thought that if you market yourself differently and that's exactly what we do with our marketing department. So looking back then, and I don't know if it's changed today, did most of your business come from realtors? Yeah. Most of my business did come from realtors and my past customers. So it came from my past customers and my realtors and today we do mostly purchase business at Centennial. Okay. Great. And so you've got a new loan officer listening. I'm going to sit down. I'm across the desk from you and you're going to tell me, okay, here's what it takes to succeed in business today. How would you summarize that in about a minute or so? What it takes to succeed in business today is developing long lasting relationships and building a trust with your sphere of influence, your realtors and your borrowers so that they're calling you for the business, that you make brand yourself as the expert in your community as the mortgage person so that they say, you know what, Sue is a great mortgage person and you need to call her. And even if she can't do it, she's going to tell you who can do it for you. I've done that often. I've said, well, I don't have that product, but you know, let me refer you to somebody who can help you with that. So and that makes even more doors open for you. So be the be the expert in your community and know that if you ask people, you know, what are they looking for and what are they doing and who are they? People love to talk about themselves and you learn a lot when you are open-minded. And that's another really important thing is being open-minded. I wasn't looking to write a book. I happened to be at a conference and a publisher came up to me and asked me if I was interested. I said, no three times. So because I'm not a writer, I'm a mortgage person. And it wasn't supposed to be the way it ended up. You know, it wasn't supposed to be Sue's story of my keys to success. So but I was open-minded and I listened to him at, you know, and I thought, you know, what, if people are, you know, interested or want to learn and have the keys to success or see how I was successful, then maybe they can learn too. And then so we put it down on paper and it worked out. What impact has the book had on your origin, are you still originating or are you pretty much just running the company now? I run the company, but I have to say that my favorite thing to do is originate. Sure. So much to my staff's dismay at times. I do, I do originate loads. So people still call Susan, don't they? Yeah. But I do like to see how the CLG flow goes because we do a pre-underright before it goes to processing. So I like to make sure everything's working well. And as I said, I love to go to, and I love to go to settlements. So I do originate now and again, the thing I guess the book brought is really a true understanding that I can go out and help other originators, especially women originators know that that's the sky's the limit. They can do anything that they want as long as they set their mind to it. And I love that. I agree. Okay, so let's go back to something you said about use the word branding, which is near dear to my heart. I actually did three branding classes last year or this week. And I'm a big believer that today, right, because the old school methods have changed, the whole door knocking, getting into closed offices is a bit tougher. That's why I'm a big believer in teaching classes because it gets agents out in front of you. Yes. But you talked about branding and positioning. So you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is? Yes. I love him. Yeah. So he talks a lot about today, and I show this with agents as well, about how today, this is true for loan officers, I'll be curious, your feedback. Today, you need to think of yourself not as a mortgage originator, but as a media company and your back end is originating loans. So to your point about brand, a building, a platform in your local community, to your point, what you said about become known, right, as the go to person in your local area amongst realtors and consumers for mortgages, right, young, same page there. Perfect. I'm totally on the same page for the old. So then today, how do you advise loan officers do that if let's say they don't want to make cold calls and any comment you want to make around that as well as fine? You can do what I do. I'm on the board of trustees of a local university. I'm on a finance committee of a private girl school in our area. My children's schools, I place ads in that in anything that they do. I tell people all the time what I do, and I tell people if I'm not the originator, then I have other people that can help them. I'm not shy about branding myself. I am Centennial Lending, Centennial Lending is me. I were one in the same. So I take it very personally. So when people say, oh, I don't want a personal Facebook page or a business Facebook page, it's all in the, it's the same. It is you. It is for someone to be successful. They have to live, breathe, and eat sales and mortgages and brand themselves. So I think that's vitally important. I put on my Facebook page when things great happen at the office. I do, when we have our sales meetings, I'm going to have a surprise for my whole entire office next week, and I will be on Facebook what we do. And I think that that's really, you know, I think that's really important. And when I walk around my neighborhood, people say, oh, Sue, what's the rate? Or, oh, Sue, how's things going at your office? And when we're moving offices in a year, everybody will know that we move offices. So it's just even the little things, you know, having surveys of your past customers or the ones that you have settlements with, that having that third party validation and then throwing it out onto social media is great. I mean, there are so many platforms that people, even though the cold calling and the knocking on doors isn't as readily available. You have to think outside the box. You have to say, you know, there's a, you know, car dealership. Maybe I need to go go in there and ask them if they have any needs for, you know, helping people with their mortgages. It's, you know, being at a grocery store and putting in asking if you can do a home buying seminar there, you know, there's a lot, lots of different things. It's thinking outside the box. If everyone's going after the people the same way, how can you go after it differently and be successful at it? Right. And I talk a lot about inserting yourself in the activities that are already happening in your local community, such as, you know, you've got your boat parade, your fourth of July parade, you've got your, you know, charitable related events. I've got people involved in pet rescue and people, you know, realtors and lenders teaming up to do a shredding day, like bring your financial documents for a shredding day, you know, all that kind of stuff, which I think, you know, you're alluding to there is, is about becoming, you know, being top of mind in your local community, but don't always be banging the, hey, it's a great day to buy, right? Or re-fi. Right. Right. Talk about anything else. You can talk about everything else. The way you want them to do, you never want to give out your card, you want them to ask for your card. Yeah. So you want them to want it, you want them to want to do business with you, you want them to be your friend. Yes. Yeah. And you've just got to become, you know, like it's with agents, it's like, hey, you can't be a secret agent and survive. And the same is true with loan officers, right? You need to be that person who's like on the top three names, amongst your realtor community and your local community, right? Right. And you don't need to be, I, there was plenty of times I was not the number one, but I got plenty of business by being the number two. And I have to say that in the early 2000s, I got tons of business by being the number two because the number one went screwed up. Mm-hmm. Speaking of that, by the way, do you have a response, you know, when you hear the three card thing from agents, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, so I hand out three cards. So yeah, I made a vital mistake since you learned so much from your mistakes. And I had one of my top five agents tell me that he was going to be starting to give out another mortgage person's card. So he's going to be giving out two people's cards. And I said, well, you don't actually need to give two people's cards out. Well, you, we'll say the guy's name was Tom. You don't need to give two people's cards out, Tom, you just don't need to give my card out anymore. Oh, wow. That is pretty strong. Yeah, yeah. This is a UK and I held and I held to that and I lost a lot of business because of it. And what I learned, what I learned, it take the two and three cards, let them give the two and three cards out because that, you know, Tom took me at my word and he never gave out my card again. That relationship ended. It ended. And I cut off my nose despite my face and you know, 20 years later, I remember it. And I had a great relationship with him. I built that relationship with him and then I ripped it down in a second. Yeah. So it's okay. And I think, you know, what you're saying behind that as well, that's, it's okay. So give me the opportunity to compete and let me win that business. Right. Give me the opportunity to compete and let me win that business. And I never said it again, by the way, and anytime I wanted to say it, I just bit my tongue. So, um, so I learned from that and I think that lots of people have to learn from those mistakes or learn from others mistakes because you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to have it, um, be faster and stronger and better. I love the competition of it. I think somewhere in my book, it says, I'll take the competition any day of the week. Sure. As I will today. Oh, I'm certain you will. I can tell, um, you know, looking back on agents, you know, just focus on, on them for this for a moment. Um, is there one or two types of activities that you found resulted in the, the, you know, most amount of relationships for you when it comes to agents? Well, what I found for the most amount of relationships at Centennial lending is doing social media marketing classes. I can tell you that I've never had so many agents coming into my mortgage company office then, then with anything else. The thing that worked for me in getting business as an originator was having an open door policy and I have an open door policy where, where I am now, um, as the CEO here. So pretty much, I would ever, I would tell my realtors they could call me anytime. They could, you know, when, when technology went towards texting any time and I would get back to them and they knew morning, noon or night for the most part within my timeframe, you know, if I was on a soccer field with one of my children, I would, you know, text or call and say, I'm on a soccer field with, you know, one of the children and I'll call you back as soon as I finish, but they always knew sooner or later they were going to get a response for me by the end of business. And that got me so much business. Okay. So I want to talk about that for a second because I talk to L.O.'s and I try and coach around time-blocking and the question always comes up, well, you know, what if a realtor calls? I have to take their call and I try and provide to them that you can do some scripting around that on your voicemail, et cetera, you know, so that people do understand, but how do you, because it sounds like you did something similar to that. Yeah, I would, I would always answer the call because I was always good in the moment of answering. If you leave me a voicemail even today, I'm not good at listening to my voicemail. So I would, I like to answer as they're coming and I might not be able to be on the phone for 10, 15 minutes, but I can be on the phone for a minute unless I'm in a meeting. So I would say, you know what, Bob, I really want to talk to you right now and I, and can I call you in a half an hour, but I would make sure that I call them within a half an hour. And one of the, the great things is that I, I love what I do. So it was never add to me and it was never painful for me to do it because I love what I do. So I love my family and my children, but I love my work too. So I never was choosing, I wasn't choosing what I was doing. Did you ever have off hours though or you wouldn't take a call after a certain time? So I put my children to bed every night while they were younger, they're 14 and 16 now. So I'm not putting them to bed anymore, but let's go. So I would come home from work. I would have dinner with everyone, clean everything up and then I would put the children to bed and during that time frame was my, my, my off time. I, that was my time that I was with them. I would, we'll say that my children were all, also knew that once they're 30 minute a lot of time of, of me lying in bed with them or reading them a story or doing talking to them was over that they would turn over and I would get my cell phone out and I would start answering all my, all my stuff. So they knew that when I picked up my phone that it meant that mom was done and they were going to go to sleep. So, and then, you know, I would go to, then I would start to answer my text until that one went to sleep and then I would go into the next one. So I did have some off time, but I would say nine times out of ten I'm on. But did you ever like, you know, have the conversation with realtors that says, look, if you ever get a voicemail, you know, my, my commitment to call back time to you is, you know, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever. I never placed an exact time on it on my voicemail because that was, that's really making it, you know, accountable to it. So I probably, they, they knew that I would call back and, and, and, and if I didn't in this speech, because I really couldn't. And that also gives you a little bit of a, when, when they know Sue or, or you, that you're going to call back, when you don't call back, that's okay. What do you mean? You know, if you accidentally say, you know what, I'm going to, if you're, if you call back nine times out of ten and that, that 10th time, you forget something. When you say, I'm sorry, I missed that or I'm sorry, I got caught up with something else, that's okay. They forgive you for that because you, you all are always there for that. What about the belief though that some L.O.s have that if I don't take this call, they're going to call someone else and they're going to get the deal. That has happened and when that had, when I earlier in my career and, and then I just lost the deal, then I had to be okay with that. I, I chose, you know, I chose not, you know, I made it, I made a choice. Yeah. You know, they used to, they used to do that all the time. They said, I'd call three people and whoever got back to me first wins, that you, when they say that, you need to know there's something wrong with that relationship and you need to either not have, teach them that it's a partnership and, you know, and develop the relationship with them so they don't feel that way. You know, you don't say to your friend, I want to go out on Saturday night, so I'm going to call three friends and whoever gets back to me first, I'm going to go out with them on Saturday night. Yeah. You know, you choose who you, who you go out with and you're going to choose who you do business with. That person just didn't realize, didn't realize the value you bring. So you have to illustrate to them the value you bring so they don't want to call anybody else. Yeah. And then you have to have a little, you know, you're pushing yourself worth and, and standards. I remember I had an agent who would call me and you would say, you'd leave me a voicemail, hey, I have a buyer and if you don't call me back within an hour, I'm calling somebody else. And we had done some transactions together, et cetera. But at one point, yeah, I had to sit down and say, hey, you know what, Dave, guess what? That's not the way I operate. And if you feel you can get a better deal, better service somewhere else, you know, by all means, dude, go for it. But, you know, you calling up with like playing that game, sorry, you know, yeah, the same thing holds true with you're only as good as your last deal. Yeah. In this mortgage industry, so many things happen. Yes. And sometimes you can't foresee that the guy loses their job two days before closing. And that's not the mortgage persons fall. You know, we as originators get paid to solve problems. That's why we get paid what we get paid. So we need to be able to communicate the problem and say why it might not be our fault. And that's where we bring value in calming the situation and not, you know, making it be more drama than it really is. Okay, well, we weren't able to settle in this house. They lost their job. Let's get them another job and let's figure this out. You know, where can we put a co-borrow on it or how can we, you know, how can we do this? So it's being calm at the same time. And that's where you drive your value so that they're not giving the other cards and that you're not only as good as your last deal. And sometimes you have to remind them of all the rabbits you pulled out of your hat. Yeah. So what is your, was your kind of communication plan or system as you're in a transaction with a realtor, you know, did you have kind of a set cadence and write boxes you check and so forth? I think that I didn't have a set system of boxes that I checked because I was so, I communicated so much with the realtors that I did business with. So you're overcommunicated, which is. I overcommunicated on a daily basis, like they knew when the appraisal was being done. They knew when the file went into underwriting. They knew how long it was going to take. They knew when we got it commitment. I was constantly telling them everything that was going on in the process. And one of the originators that I have now, they, they call all their realtors whether they're doing business with them or not on Mondays. They have a, they just go down a checklist and if they have a deal, they tell them what the status of the deal is and if they don't have a deal, they ask for the business or see if they can help them in any other way. Okay, right? Just a top of mine, yep. And, you know, they're killing it and it's just by that Monday, they block off Mondays for that. Yeah, and it's the phone call. It's not an email. It's the phone, yeah, it's totally the phone call. I had one realtor one time tell me and she was a really big realtor of mine and she said, she pulled me aside and she said, Sue, I get great emails from you with your, your drip campaigns and I get great realtors from a great emails from lots of loan officers. The difference is that you stop by the office or you follow it up with a phone call and that, that means a lot. Keep it up. Keep it up. And I was like, wow, she really did, did me a favor by telling me that because I maybe I could have gotten lazy and just started emailing and I say the same thing to, to my processors today, you can't just send the email, they have to pick up the phone and introduce yourself, tell them what loan officer you're working with and, you know, get their information that we need. It's that, it's that personal communication that is the extra, it's the wow factor. And that wow factor buys you raving fans. Yeah. And that's just one way to set yourself apart is if you're giving that personal touch. It's funny. I get a great, actually, example of that. I've got to fly up to Bellingham, Washington on Monday and, you know, we, both, we, you and I have stayed in tons of hotels. People stay in hotels all the time. But this, this hotel actually called me yesterday and said, hey, Mr. Zimper, this is such a hotel. We just want to let you know that we're preparing for your visit and, you know, should you have any special requests? And I'm like, listening to this voicemail going, what a hotel calling me like three days before I come. I've never heard that before. And that's a wow. Yeah, that's a wow. Now I'm like looking forward to going to the hotel. Yeah, hopefully it says, good as you wanted to say, right? But they've already set the expectation, right? Yeah. Which is cool. It's, it's really cool. And if everyone stepping up their game that way in today to a person that won on one personal communication and contact, even though everyone thinks it's going away from that, it's not. People crave it more because so much of it is the automated online digital stuff. Right. Right. We have a receptionist that answers the phones here because I cannot stand that voicemail of push this, push that, push this. So we have someone who answers our phones and we will never give that up. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not forget. It's a relationship business. It is a relationship business. And trust is built, you know, repeatedly over and over again. Not just once. Right. Exactly. Which leads me to talking about in person, you mentioned classes and that's near and dear to my heart, your social media classes. So tell me a little bit about that. Who does those? Your loan officers? How do you have a marketing team that produces the content, et cetera? Well, our loan officers can do it, but we send our marketing people out into the field to do those or we have them in our office and the realtors come to us. I see. So when they talk about how they can build their platform, why it's different than everything else and that it's not hard. Mm-hmm. Okay. So you provide, you know, some tips and strategies, right? Yes. All of that stuff. And I don't personally do it. And the whole team of marketing people do it that we have here. And I think that it really sets us apart and our originators apart in that it's something else that we can sell. And it doesn't cost the realtors anything except for developing a partnership with us. And develop, you know, and developing that trust and that relationship. And if they get one deal from it, well, gosh, that's amazing. That's fantastic. So what I find with classes is that it's a great top of the funnel activity to create those warm relationships just so L.O.s can follow up on, right? Absolutely. But you're getting agents who come to your office, bets in the seats that you might not otherwise be able to get in front of or they've been on the radar for so long and they finally come to your class. Yes. And as I said, how many mortgage companies have realtors coming into their office? Right. Right. By the way, did you find that to be an issue early on with a, oh, I don't want to go to a mortgage office because I'm just going to get, you know, a mortgage pitch. No. No, I actually didn't, I didn't, we didn't see that happen. Okay. Well, in the last couple of minutes, what I want to do is touch briefly on as you, as you, you know, came up, speak to ranks and started generating more and more volume, you needed to build a team around yourself, right? Yes. So if you can talk, because I talk to L.O.s often about, you know, how do I build that team where they are like the rain maker and they're not caught in the file all day long, et cetera. Do you have any quick tips or advice on those listening that want to, you know, do less ops, less processing, if you will, and more rain making. How would you advise? Well, find the right culture that works with you so that you don't, that you don't get into the weeds, but in the right, in the right company that, that understands that you want to, that you want to build your, build your business. And I have to say that I, as the CEO of Centennial like to work on my, on Centennial ending more than in Centennial ending sometimes, but I do get sucked back into the pipeline. But I would say that what you really need to do is you need to know what volume works for you that doesn't make you be in the weeds. And then you have to find someone that you can connect with and become partners with and develop a relationship with, but whether that's a seasoned loan officer or a new loan officer, who you can funnel business to and then get an override on, but you have to be willing to take less on those deals. Lots of originators sometimes say, well, I want, want it all, well, if you want it all, then you shouldn't be hiring someone because you, you need to have them grow. And the more that you can feed and water those originators, the more your, your team grows. Right. And sometimes you have to take less to get more. Yes. Good. And that's hard, that's hard to understand sometimes because, I mean, originators are, you know, hunting all the time, as they should be, but wouldn't it be great when you're hunting if you can spread, spread it around, you know, more so that you can go out and hunt more. If you know how to sell and you sell, well, you can sell a lot. If you have someone who, you know, can, can finish off the sale, when we're doing this with some of our teams here and finding the right person is difficult at times, but as soon as you find that right person, you're really able to grow your team and grow your business. And so it's really like little mini entrepreneurial areas of that alone originator can be and, and then the sky's the limit. So I always felt that my own personal production could be, I mean, granted it was 10 years ago, anywhere from, it was like around 40 million. My team was $120 million team. So I also had two other people who would also do business that came from my referral sources. So that allowed me to make more money, obviously, but it allowed me to also have time because not one person can do $120 million worth of business. So, and then you have, and then then you can grow it. So we are doing at Centennial is we're looking to place the right people and I do think right now with the average age of a loan officer being, I think at last time, I looked it was 50, six years old, the 57 now. So I do think that if you have the patience to pave the way for 20 year olds to come on and that you can help grow your business while helping someone else grow their career, that would be really cool. And I think you probably didn't mention it, but I'm sure you had a clearly divine system or process for who handled what during the transaction. If you're the rain maker, then yeah, so it's all about, and that's one of the things that we put into place at Centennial, it's all about systems and processes, and everyone had to do it. I mean, I hear the people saying it now, well, I want it done the way I do it. Well, if you put the system in process into place, the people who are working for you are doing it the way you do it. They talk like you, they act like you, they know what that they, I hate to interrupt, but what about, because I know you've had this happen, you get people on quote, the system and then they veer off and they start, they don't follow it. So how do you get people back on, so you tell them, you have a sit down, you have a little come to Susan talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, come to Susan talk, and so you tell them, I had one, one person that would always say, you need to bring 10,000 bucks to settlement. You need to bring 10,000 bucks to settlement. You need to bring 12,000 bucks to settlement, and I would cringe in my chair when I heard the person saying how many bucks, you need to bring to settlement, and finally they hung up the phone and I said, how are they going to fit 10,000 deer into that closing office? That's your real, that's good. And they were like, what are you talking about? I was like, I swear, if you say bucks one more time, I'm going to, I'm going to go herd the deer, add from outside, into the, into a conference room, and we'll see how many, how many finnets. And let me tell you, I made a joke out, it was very lighthearted, but that person never said bucks again. That's a wonderful way to position that though, I love that, it's much better than like slam in your head, your hand down on the desk saying, bucks, what the hell are you talking about? No, I made a joke out of it, and they thought that they were being kind of ridiculous, and I was me, I was somewhat making fun of them a little bit, but it was with the humility and humor that I was making a point, and not everybody can get away with that type of thing, but I, it works. And sometimes I, or telling a story, works too. So there's always a reason that you have the system and process in place, and if people can understand why that system and process is in place, then they're, they easily, more easily adapt to it. Yeah, and I think the point you're trying to make there is, like you said, they have to follow your lead, they have to, if you're trying to create a customer experience, you dictate what that is, you, you know, it's the scripting itself. It's just the process around that, and down to even the verbiage, we don't use words like bucks when we're working with our clients, right? We don't talk on the telephone in Chugam at the same time, like that was another thing that, that would bother me, and I sometimes I like, we just pull the trash can out from underneath the desk and be like, spit it out. Yeah, put it behind your ear till the phone calls down. Yeah, just, you know, it's just the little things and, and that make a huge difference. Yeah, no, that's a big point. And have, and have that in place, and I, I would say, listen to those people, if everyone's working from remote offices, you need to have that, you need to put in the time with those people so that you hear what they're saying, and they hear how you sell. Right. They need to develop a raft that sounds like you. Mm-hmm. Hey, okay, so last question. Then do you believe that if you want to be a quote top producer, you know, for these L.O.'s that want to, you know, build their $100 million team or whatever the case is, as I know, you went to a lot of your closings. I still would, if somebody, if I could learn officers, can't go to a closing, the, the president of the, the president of the company will show up if it's in this area. But if you're advising an L.O. that says, you know what, here's, I just want to be the rainmaker, right? I just want to tee it up. I'll have the first, like, L.O. consult, right, the loan consulting, and then I flip it over to my team and then boom, I'm off to another one, and I don't go to close. Any reaction to that? Is that? Yeah, so I believe if you're going to tee it up, you need to finish it off. Oh, okay. And, and whether it went good, it went bad or went indifferent, you need to go to that closing. Well, so, but, but how can somebody be a mega, right, mega producer, if they're going to other closings? They, they, you have a representative at your closing. If it's not you, it's somebody else, because you're, if that you have to ask for that, the listing agent, you have to ask for the business, you have to ask the listing agent for more business. You have to ask the selling agent for more business, and you have to ask the buyers for more business. And actually, at my settlement yesterday, the people were moving to Los Angeles, and I said, you know what, if you would need any help with regards to your mortgage at all, don't hesitate to give me a telephone call. I mean, you could be missing out on more than a handful of deals that every one of those people at that settlement table could give you, because you were too busy. Yep. Nope. I got, I got, I mean, I like the fact that you did say, you know, or send a representative, because I mean, there are, as you know, teams, I mean, you yourself, you're, you're a company a sizable company with people. There are, for sure, there is, I'm interviewing a loan officer next week, 19 people on us team, 400 million, I know he doesn't go to his closings, but, yes, but he has a representative one. And remember, the majority of this call has been talked about talking about how you become that part, that, that mega, that mega star. If you're beginning, you have to go to all your closings, right, right, until you're only going to some of your closings. And really, a closing should only take 15 minutes. Yeah, take care of all the problems up front if they're going to be any. Yeah. There should never be any. Your, your, your time to shine is at that closing. Yeah. Pop the champagne. Yeah. Like, take a picture, put it on social media, Instagram, put it on everything. That is your time to say, get your testimonials, say our team. The team did it. Right. And, and I say, and, and you put it on, you put it on Twitter, you put it on Facebook, you put it on LinkedIn, and then I, I, as the president, comment on every one of my loan officers surveys that get put up all over the place, or I comment on, on their, on, you know, great job, see, Team CLG. And I know you guys use, if I, if I read correctly, social survey for your online reviews. We do use social survey for online reviews that one of my favorite vendors. Yeah. I, part of a co-op called the mortgage collaborative and they're part of, they're part of that. And I would say that, that the value in social survey is huge for, for the company and for the originators. And the value of being in a co-op such as the mortgage collaborative is, is priceless. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, we'll also put links to that in the show notes for social survey as well, our mutual friends over there. For those listening, social survey is a way for you to make it easy for your clients to leave online reviews for you, which is today's currency of trust online. So, definitely do that if you're not doing it. Awesome. So, we are at the top of the hour. We are done, but I just want to say thank you so much, your book, Crazy Lucky Girl. Do you have the keys to success? I love this book because it's a fun read. It's got lots of cool stories in it. And as we shared some of them from today, definitely ones we all can relate to as loan officers. But I like it because you also take us on a journey and show us how, you know, your journey, right? You started from ground zero and then you get the 40 million and then you have your own like awesome mortgage company that's just kicking ass and taking names. So, that's all. We're trying. We're trying. And I appreciate being on, so thank you so much for having me. Yeah. For those listening, please go get her book. There'll be links in the show notes to Amazon, to her own homepage, Crazy Lucky Girl, to her company page at Centennial Lending. And if you're in the areas that she serves in the States and you're looking, you know, considering a possible change, we'll check her out, right? Right. What's a CLG-LLC.com. You got it. So, once again, listeners, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like today's episode, please leave us a review. And as always, we appreciate you and we look forward to seeing you on the next one, bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. 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