Ep #85: Getting Buyers to Commit and Reduce Rate Shopping

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. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. I'm brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey listeners, welcome again to another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad you've tuned in once again. And I hope that when I say that, I hope you're glad you've tuned in. You're coming back, what that tells me is you're coming back for a good reason. And that is that you're getting value out of these podcastes, recordings, these special guests. I hope so. If so, and you haven't yet taken the time to leave us a review online, I would appreciate that. Whether it's iTunes, whether it's Stitcher, whether it's I Heart Radio, whether it's on the blog, on Facebook, how about Facebook.com forward slash mortgage marketing institute. Love to get some social love and a little rating there on Facebook, on the interwebs as they say. Appreciate that very much. And always you can reach out to me if you've got any questions, comments, ideas, suggestions, feel free to email me anytime. That's info at Mortgage Marketing Institute.com. Always looking forward to hearing from you or, you know, hit me up on Facebook, instant message me. No problem. I will respond to you when I grab a phone call, chat about something cool, awesome. All right. So let's get into this week's episode, my very special guest, Kelly Marsh, vice president of cornerstone home lending out of Santa Barbara, California. And Kelly, a consummate professional, lots of respect for Kelly and what she's built over the last 22 years as a mortgage professional in the past four years alone, Kelly has closed over $400 million in loans. Let me say that again, in the past four years alone, Kelly has closed over $400 million in loans. And in the top 125, Scott Smith's guide in the nation, right? So her industry experience, she's got vast knowledge. She's been featured in various publications and she's just, right, just a real professional in has built a business. I think what's cool is you take away from Kelly is that she says true to herself. She wants to be authentic. She wants to be true to herself. So she's built her business around the things that keep her true to herself and that she truly enjoys doing. And so on this episode, we're going to unpack a couple really cool things. Number one, Kelly's built a team. And as you may notice, that's kind of a growing trend in the mortgage space, much like it has been in the real estate space for some time, right? And that might be an interesting thing for you to consider to pursue either starting your own team, joining a team, whatever might be appropriate for you. But we're going to talk a little bit about that, how she did that, why she did that, how she leverages her team to optimize her business and deliver the world class borrower experience. And there's some really cool things that, you know, we talk about with Kelly and things that she does in her process. One of the things that stands out for me is she has something called the approved buyer advantage. And these are three statements she makes to help kind of do a checkup if you will to make sure that the clients are motivated, they're ready, they're engaged, and they're committed. And that's what she's looking to do is make a commitment, right? If before she's going to jump through all these hoops and do all this work for people, you'll find out how this works in the overall process. And the three questions are, you know, number one, when she's meeting with this client, she's gone through the due diligence, she's had the dreams and goals meeting, right, collected the information. By the way, Kelly's a big believer in having clients come in face to face because of the power of that. But what she asks them is that, you know, if we're going to follow through on this commitment, our commitment to you, right? And which is, I'm going to ask that you as potential home buyers are ready to get active and make an offer on a house within the next 30 to 90 days, that you get all the required paperwork back to us in a timely manner. And that you've made a decision that we are the best lender for you. And we'll unpack that a little bit more on the podcast as you listen to it to, you know, kind of dive into the reactions people have, what people say, right, if they're not ready to do that, how does she respond to that and so forth. So really kind of interesting stuff in terms of better managing your business, optimizing those client engagements, where Kelly steps into the process, where she kind of steps out and lets her team kind of take, take control of things. So love the conversation we have with Kelly Marsh, VP of Cornerstone Home letting up in Santa Barbara, just a fabulous person and incredible top producer. So let's just get into the episode. What do you say without further ado? Let's get into this week's show Hey Kelly, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It is my pleasure. Thank you for making time from your busy schedule. You and I came by way of introduction by Tim Bohem, a friend and mentor, I believe to us both. Is that a safe assessment to say that? That is absolutely a safe assessment. Yeah, Tim's an amazing human being. Yeah, and you've, I think what you're coaching with Tim, is that right? Yeah, I'm in the leadership 360 group. We are just coming up on finishing our year course. Yeah. Well good. I'm going to be a plug for Tim, but what the heck, you know, when you believe in something. It's worth it. I mean, it's been a really awesome coaching program. I've spent a lot of coaching through the years and this is so far my number one. I've gotten so much out of it and the people and the quality. It's just, it's a very, very, what you see is what to get legitimate coaching system. Exactly. And I'm going to put a link into Tim's into, in this podcast notes to Tim's website for leadership 360 for anybody who's listening, want to learn more about. As a matter of fact, I had Tim on the podcast. I haven't released it yet. So when you're listening to this, it's probably already out. So if you want to learn more about who Tim is, this guy we're talking about, go check me out. He's out there. Anyway, we're here to learn about Kelly Mars Kelly. Tell us a little real quickly, right? You're quick backgrounder on the mortgage biz. How long you been in, kind of production stats, all that. I have been in the mortgage business for over 20 years and going on 20s by 22nd year. So literally half my life on the math, I'm just coming up on 40, 43 and I am a originating branch manager here out of Santa Barbara, California, beautiful Santa Barbara. And I've always really been in the top, the top originators in the country, which I am really honored to be in that group. And my focus has really been in regards to building a team and looking at having a world class bar experience has really been my focus. Okay, great. I'm taking notes while we talk here so well because I want to come back to that world class bar or experience. And yeah, and doing some prep for our podcast here today, I was trying to get a sense of, you know, if we could get a little bit more specific when you say top, I believe top 100 rankings. Is that correct? In the past, last time I had a transition here in terms of I transitioned my team. I was with a different mortgage company for 10 years and I transitioned my group over to Cornerstone Home Lending. So that was a transition year for me. So it wasn't my best production year so much time and energy and my focus was really on a smooth transition. So, you know, we're getting back on track and building our production back up. So it's been, as a lot of people's production has been down in the last couple years, I'm looking at getting back to my goal, it's really 10 million a month, I'm getting there, I'm about 7.5 million right now, mainly on the purchase volume, so that's been the focus. All right. So mainly on the purchase volume, what's the main source of your purchase business then? You know, I'm kind of spread out. I mean, of course as originators, we get a good chunk of our referrals from our real estate agents. So I really look at real estate agents and my past clients as kind of their kind of neck connect for the source of referrals being really close to my top, those of the top two referral sources. Okay. So when I hear past clients as a source for purchase business, let's set aside the realtor thing because that's usually the main focus for most LOs. Give us, and this is a thing I'm sure you see often as well, and especially knowing that you're an avid mortgage coach user, you know, big shout outs props to Dave's as well. How are you mining your past database to get purchase business? What does that look like on a weekly or a monthly basis? Well, we definitely have a marketing plan. I mean, that's the first step is to actually have a plan written down and then execute the plan. So it's about how many touches. I mean, I don't try to bombard my past client database. I mean, really it starts with the transaction and doing such an amazing job on that transaction that you leave an imprint on that client to where they're going to be thinking of you for the future. I mean, if you don't do a bang up job with your current client, then they become a not satisfied past client. So if you can do a bang up job world class and we such an impression on them that they're so happy and grateful for you and your team, then the past client business should kind of automatically happen, staying in touch with clients means definitely annual mortgage reviews. You know, we, I have had that on my list for years and quite honestly, I had not executed it. You know, I've been so in the weeds in my team on with my team and production that it took away from the time that I should be spending doing the annual reviews. I mean, following up, just check it in. Whether they give you a call back or not, you made the call, you left that imprint again. So I think annual mortgage reviews is huge. I think a lot of loan originators don't do it, including myself in the past. Oh, yeah. We've all been guilty of that myself included, which is why it leads me to my next question oftentimes, which is then how do you structure that into, you know, your business process. Like you said, you have to have a plan 100 percent, right, that's what, but then it's like, what do you use, are you using a CRM, are you scrubbing the list for dates of closed load? How does that work? So when I transitioned, I mean, part of the reason why I made a move was to align myself with a company that had the technology, the systems in place where I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. So Cornerstone has a great CRM system. It's tied into our LLS, like most of them are. And so it's triggering us on what people's closing dates are. And our goal is to actually call them on their anniversary day. So we want to make it extra special, like, oh, my gosh, it was a zero cell that you purchased your house. We just wanted to check in, see how things are going. So we're starting there and then we're just going to continue to build and improve really what questions we ask. I mean, you got to just start. You don't have to make it perfect. Like, oh, I need this. I wanted to have a survey link and, you know, all these fancy bells and whistles and quite honestly, you can get caught up in that to where you never execute because you're focusing on perfection. So it's calling them. We have a great CRM that notifies us about their one year in boom. We execute. That's awesome. Now, are you making those calls to your database, should you have some help on your team to do that? My lone partner, Heather, she's making the calls and really her goal is to get a scheduled meeting in person if the client wants or a phone meeting with me to just go over kind of where they're at, what the goals are, how long do they think they're going to home. I mean, a lot of our clients in the last prior years are going to have lower interest rates than the current rates. So it's not always about that. It's just about really being of service to the client and seeing if there's anything that we can help them with. Even if it's just a recommendation for someone to be working on the house or an accountant for a financial planner or something, just so we can be in service. Absolutely. And it's really about just that touch point and kind of staying top of mind. Yeah. Okay. So back to what you said is really the get in purchase referrals from your past client database starts with the transaction itself in the first closing that you have with that client. As you said earlier, a world class borrower experience. So I hear that term thrown around a lot and I'd like to better understand how you deliver a world class client experience. So what does that look like from the first moment of connection, you get the referral, let's say, from a realtor or whatever, it's like boom, first phone call. I assume knowing who you are, you've got this whole thing kind of architected out. Yes, we do. So my other loan partner, so I have a right hand and a left hand, so my left hand, head and my right hand, Chelsea. So my loan partner Chelsea, she is going to take all of my client calls initially to go over the client with the process, here's how the process works. And then really the goal is to get that client scheduled to meet with me face to face. I believe in the power of face to face meeting with a client, you have that connection, you built the trust. If a client is out of town, they're not able to meet, but that's fine. We'll have a scheduled phone meeting. So that's kind of the first step. After we meet with a client, we definitely follow up immediately and send them a thank you card. We have a really cute little gift that we send them that is regarding helping them grow with the home ownership. So we give them that kind of first touch, and people love it. They're like, wow. Yeah, I don't want to come across as I'm interrupting you, but there's steps kind of in that process that I know people are always curious about because they email me and ask me. All right. So the loan partner, that's the initial conversation. Who's actually, where does the 1003 come in? Tell me about that. And is that online or what? Yeah. So we have an online application that most clients prefer to do. It's a really quick, we do it, it's called the PQ link. So it's a prequalification. If they submitted it, it automatically gets entered into our LMS system. It pulls their credit, and then we have a really great secure borrower portal, so immediately it invites you to that. And then they can go ahead and upload the docs there. So the goal is, and we go through this with them on the phone, is that, you know, I'm not going to meet with the client most of the time, 99% of the client's time. I'm not meeting with the client unless I have their application in the doc. Yeah, why do you do that? Why is that a line in the sand? Because it's not a good use of my time nor the client's time to have them watch me get it and put an online income in the asset. We get that all done ahead of time. And so what it also does is it establishes that this is our process, and I really think of this as a conveyor belt. So this is that front end conveyor belt, and we don't get pushed back on it. You know, every now and then a client doesn't have time to send in their docs. So I may not, you know, be reviewing everything right then and there with them, but I'm going to go over their goals and dreams and figure out what it is, you know, they're looking at for purchase price, and then I'll run some total cost analysis for them when they're in my office. But yeah, it's really not the best use of my time. So how long is it me inputting that? No, I agree 100%. I mean, you want to deal with people that are qualified and really eager and ready to buy, right? Mm-hmm. Yes. How long is that face-to-face initial meeting when they eventually do come in your office? It's about 45 minutes, so it can be as short as 30 and then it can be as long as an hour, depending on how its depth the client wants to get and how many different scenarios the client wants me to run. But my goal is that they've seen my office telling exactly where they stand in terms of their pre-approval, and they have a total cost analysis for different scenarios for purchase prices. Sometimes we have to do a credit plan where we've got to work on, you know, their credit or we have to work on, you know, their income that maybe they're not quite ready, but most of the time when I, when they left my office, they're going to know exactly where they stand in terms of like making offers and pre-approval. Yeah, very nice. Let me back up for a second in terms of that process and the referral comes in, the client, the inquiry, whatever, and your loan partner person is the first, you know, conversation that somebody would have with your company, your team. Is that person fielding and dealing with, you know, some of the usual questions that you'll get, such as, you know, tell me, rate, this kind of stuff, what makes you guys different, right? How do you deal with that? Typically, I mean, we're really lucky that we're, you know, the source of the referral that's coming is usually such a warmly that they're not asking right up front about rate. I'm very, very, very rarely do we get that. So I know that that's maybe not, you know, as common, but Chelsea, she is licensed. She's the one taking that first call. She's not going to quote rates. I never quote a wait over the phone ever. I won't do it. How often do you get pressure to do it? I would say very rarely. And I want to highlight a point here is because what you said earlier is because the quality of the referral you're getting, they're not in the relationship or the trust, if you will, the handoff is done in such a way that there's already some implied trust, is that right? Correct. Correct. And then we have the credibility, the reputation, the where they're coming to us to get approved. They're not coming to us to get a rate. It's very different. Those are two very different things. And by the way, how much of that is a result of any coaching you do to your real estate agents on how to refer you? I don't know that I can say that it really is. On the other side, I don't feel like it's like, oh, I've coached my real estate agent partners of, you know, this is how you should refer me. I just think this is in Santa Barbara, we're in such a tight market. You can't make an offer unless you have a letter in hand. And then a letter in hand has to be someone local that's got a good reputation. I mean, we're just really, really tight in our market. So I think that may have something to do with it. But before you can even go look at this house or before I can take you around, you need to get pre-approved and hear the person that talks to you. But none of your realtors are doing the three-card approach, though, I'm assuming. I think there are some that do, you know, that here's my top three and here's, you know, they're in order. I think we do have some offices here in Santa Barbara. The broker say, you know, from a liability standpoint, you have to give out more than one name. So I just, it is what it is. I know there's a lot of different scripts around it, but I don't, I don't find it it's an issue. Nice. I love it. I love it. Sorry. I don't mean to take you off track. Anyway, I mean, well, in a way, what I will say about that, in a way, it, it does me a favor if they go and meet with my competition or they go and they call because I, I just have such a different approach. I'm very much about the education and the transparency, the presentation that I use is Mortgage Coach. You mentioned Dave Savage, that software, it's far and above a much superior way to present, uh, purchase scenarios to a client, then to email them in a word doc or something funky that we've all seen rate quotes and at the joke. It's sad. Yeah. No, absolutely. And that, you know, the total cost analysis, Dave Savage, Mortgage Coach, you know, by the way, Dave, you owe me, I can hear the cash register ringing. That goes to, that's an integral part of your, um, what did you call it? The borrower experience, the world class borrower experience. Mm-hmm. That is a big part of that. Are you bringing the Mortgage Coach up on a TV screen when they're in the office? Um, I'm a monitor, so I have to have two big monitors and I'm turning my monitor in there following me. I mean, that's why I want to have a client doc ahead of time because then I know and I can kind of prep the total cost analysis. I really don't like to start it from scratch while a client's getting there. I like to kind of have the template builds out and I mean, I can do them really fast. I just think it's really impressive to a client and I think it's our duty as a loan originator to be able to show them different scenarios and not data of what comes out in a TCA, a total cost analysis is important for us to be a good advisor to a client. The dreams and goals conversation. You're having that with them during the first meeting as you're showing them the TCA at the same time. Um, Chelsea, how have the initial conversation with them, um, kind of, you know, when are you trying to buy like down payment tissues, kind of asking these questions and giving me all of my notes. And then when I meet with them, I go over that, make sure, um, you know, that we're hitting every point and if they have a magic wand where they want to be and let's the payments and just asking the right powerful questions. Well, the thing I don't want to overlook is even if you don't have a team, right, let's clarify for people what the dreams and goals conversation really is, if you could just articulate what your definition of that is. I mean, I think there's different stages. I mean, the first initial stage is like, really, what's your timeline for a purchase? Um, what is it that you're looking at? Do you have a payment in mind or, you know, are you looking at a specific purchase price? Um, what would be the ideal down payment that you're looking at, you know, in terms of dollar amount or percentage? Just asking those questions to where you're listening, like you actually listen to the client and you take notes so you can reference back to the conversation and then you make it very customized for them. You're listening for pain points, you know, where they're nervous or where they have some fear and you're trying to address that. So when they actually do meet with you, I mean, so yes, this is a conversation that loan originators can be having. You don't need to have a loan partner to be doing these conversations. Um, there's no reason. I mean, I could be having these conversations at the very, very start. It's just in terms of my schedule, it's hard for me to be taking all my calls and I run a branch in a team and growing California region. So it's just in terms of I try to stay in my top triangle of my time. So, um, is that a question on that? Yeah, it does, but you cut out for a second. Do you try to stay in your top triangle of what? Of where I need to be. So I, I, I knew that would spark some questions. But just really looking at where am I best and where should I be spending my time? You know, that's a whole time management, you know, how do you manage my calendar? We're going on a tangent here. But yeah, I mean, my top triangle looks very different today than my top triangle looks three years ago. Sure. So our top triangle is like, where should we be spending 95% of our time? Well, no, no, people don't spend it in their top triangle. Exactly, but that is a relevant conversation. For that exact reason, you just said is most people don't spend the bulk of their time where they are most effective, which in the case of originating loans is going to be talking to people, right? Are there be referral partners or clients? I mean, it's staying out of the weeds. I mean, you don't want to get in the weeds. You know, I don't get involved in the, my new details of the loan. I mean, I have an amazing team that was one of my focuses. I mentioned on the last couple of years, I've been working years and building an amazing team. I mean, they're my number one client is my team. So, you know, staying out of the weeds, again, thinking of it from a conveyor belt standpoint, I don't want to muck up the conveyor belt. Once the loan is in process, I have that, you know, the contract acceptance, a conversation with the client where we go over timelines, what's going to happen next, and then we talk about, you know, locking the rates, that's important. And then from that point on, I'm more just looking at it from the 30,000-foot view helicopter view. I'm not getting in the weeds. I can have to. No, and let's talk about that briefly, and then I'm going to come full circle and unpack a little bit your process for building a team and transitioning from just, you know, single originator. But once you've had your meeting face-to-face ideally with the client, take me from that meeting. You're ending the conversation. Hey, go out and find the house. You guys know what your buying power is, all that kind of stuff, right? When and how are you? When and how are you involved following that meeting? We're going to follow up and see how it's going. That's where Chelsea and I work together, where we meet weekly, and we go through kind of what our pipeline looks like. You know, what are our processes, what are the people that are approved? We also recommend a lot of our clients get fully approved. That way you can go in without having a lump in community and look at closing within, you know, two weeks or less when we have fully approved. So we're constantly mining our database and looking at, well, who do we have? We check in with them when the real-to-request approval letter, then we're going to follow up 48 hours later to see how their offer went. As if they want to see any updated scenario. So we're just constantly looking at, you know, it's a fine line of follow-up versus harassment. I'm definitely not one where if I follow up once or twice and, you know, let's say the clients just maybe they decided they weren't going to buy right away, and they don't follow up with me, I'm not going to harass them. I just, I don't like it myself. Well, what do you do? Do you put them on your CRM, then? They are going to get on our scene automatically because it's attached to our LLS. So there's still going to be included in our, you know, quarterly postcard and our bi-mix email. And so we had, you know, our marketing plan in terms of how many touches we're going to do to our past clients, what does it look like to kind of just start in touch on that. But, you know, there's still going to get included in that. Well, what do you do in your market? I assume it's like other markets where, you know, there's multiple offers. There's a lot of, do you have a lot of TBDs floating out there? Well, you know, we have, yes, we do. We have about 15 TBD approvals right now, which isn't that many because so many times their offers, they find something right away before they, we haven't fully approved. But yeah, it does help when there's multiple offers because they can look at closing in a faster timeline and they don't need a loan contingency to see. So it's the best way for them for a client to compete with cash. Well, let me, let me ask a question. Let me ask a question this way. How do you keep your TBDs, you know, engaged in the loop and stay top of mind? Because, you know, as you know, TBDs, right, they can be elusive. They can be like cats that get out and maybe never come back. Well, I have a conversation. I think it's about setting it up. You got to set it up right. So when I, when I have a conversation with a client about going through, we call it the fully approved buyer advantage, when we have a conversation, I ask three things. There's no cost for it, but there is an obligation. You know, my friend Ryan Grant, you probably, you probably know him. He's an amazing producer at Orange County and I was talking to him and he goes, and I go, there's no cost, there's no commitment. And he goes, wait Kelly, there's a commitment. There's no cost on the client's standpoint, but they need to be committed to you, because you're investing in them. So I thought, you know what, you're right, that's silly. So I do ask three things. And I put this in email when we talk about the fully approved buyer advantage. And they need to be looking at making offers within the next 30 to 90 days. Obviously inventory plays a role in that. But if they're, they need to be serious that they're making offers within the next 30 to 90 days, they're committed to getting us the paperwork that we need in order to submit their money. And the things decided that were the best lend for them. Those are the three items. I mean, why am I going to go through with the fully approved loan, where we spend my team's time, which is money, and we, you know, have underwriting costs, and they're not even committed to us as a lender. So that's what we are. And when presenting that, what's your compliance with that proposal? What do you mean, you're talking compliance, like in terms of compliance at the office? No, no, no, no, I hate the right. The new, as soon as I said that word, I was like, you're a compliant figure. Okay. I want to people block at that. Let me say it that way. I have not had that many people block at it. I actually haven't had anyone block at it. They'll just say, you know what? We're really not ready to make offers in the next 30 to 90 days. So let's go ahead and wait until we get closer and then go, great, like then we'll just keep following that. But you know, we're not following that for every week. You know, I think email is overused and abused. We are just bombarded on email. I am as well. I mean, so I think we can relate as loan originators of just how much email is overused. So I'm a little hesitant on email campaigns. It's part of my stubbornness and where I want to really stay authentic and really who I am. So the scripting kind of, you know, just marketing stuff. I'm really careful about what I sign up for. And what I provide to my clients. So I don't have like the weekly marketing campaigns. It's just not me. It just doesn't align from me, but it doesn't mean that don't work for people. So I'm careful about that. Well, so all right, let's roll play here for a second. So I'm in your office. So you you present to me the approved buyer advantage, which means a three commitments. You're going to make offers next 30, 90 days. By the way, I love this very much. You're going to get us all the paperwork in a timely manner. And you've decided that we are the best lender for you. And, you know, I'm one of those people who says, yeah, well, I don't know. I'm just kind of kicking the tires right now. So I'm not ready to make an offer in the next. I can't commit to that. You know, how do you then follow up with that person as somebody on your team? Maybe making a note and just call them back in 30 days? Or was that look like? Well, we have, you know, they're automatically going to be going on to our theorem. So we do a five monthly email. So they're going to get that automatically. And then we have a really awesome inactivity report that that comes out every Wednesday. And Chelsea and I meet and we go through this report. And we look at the last, you know, anything that was in our LLS system that hasn't had it opened in the last 120 days. And we're filtering through and we're going through this borrowers and we're like, oh, what about this client? Not client. So we're, yeah, let's follow up them. Let's follow up with them. So we'll just shoot a quick announcement. Hope we just want to check in see how things are going. Do you want to see an update? Do you need anything from us? Do you have any questions? Do you want to see an update in total cost analysis? A lot of times, you know, when you're using mortgage coach and you send them that hyperlink for their custom mortgage analysis, you can see like randomly if a client opened it, which is great. You can see, oh, wow, that client was pre-approved six months ago. And I haven't heard anything. I haven't responded to our emails. But they just opened their total cost analysis. So they're like, huh, something's going on. So they just do a quick little follow up and say, you know, did you want to look at, you know, rates can change every day? Do you want to look at a new total cost analysis? So you're looking at different price points. Just a quick check in. Sure, sure. And that's that's all we're doing. Okay, no, very, very good. Thank you for sharing that. Because I know everybody's listening. They're like, I don't want to know step by step. What does she do? What are the secrets? I'm actually working on a visual step-by-step guide of exactly what it is. Like, we have a step-by-step guide of the client experience. And what the client's going to receive in terms of email communication, phone call communication, and this. So we have that all mapped out. So that was part of my, one of my goals through the coaching program, you know, to create a world-class buyer experience. So I completed that and we have it all mapped out. Fantastic. That was hard to talk about it because, you know, it takes a while. Oh, I know, I know. Okay, so let's transition for a second to consider the listeners here, right? We've got a variety of different types of listeners, right? People that are at the level you're at, then we've got a lot of folks who are, you know, single individual loan officers. I'm trying to think about that person, a single individual loan officer, in the fact that you've built yourself quite what appears to be a large team, right? I mean, how many people, not including the loan officers that are under the branch, but on your team yourself, how many people do you have? On my team myself, I have, essentially, I have two. I have Heather and Chelsea, although Heather says you other things within the office. She does a lot of our marketing that's not just specific to me. She oversees our front office. Like, there's other things that Heather does. She does a lot of our servicing related calls. Like, again, we want to be there for the client long after the loan closes. We're not just the one and dad. We're really there for the life of clients. So we put that out there and say, you know, call us. Don't call your servicer. Just call us and we're happy to help you. And we're getting a lot of people that do that, which some people might think it's the best use of our time, but it is when you look at that client's in our family. Like, that's our relationship with the client. So I really have two, and then I have my processing team, which is six. So I have in the front office, so I have nine support staff, but in terms of just specifically on my team, it would be two. Yeah, the bulk of those, I mean, six. We don't need six processors just for you, right? I mean, they're there to support. Well, there's, yeah, yeah. There's the two assistant processors and then the two lead processors. So I'm in the ops manager. So, I mean, there's there is other team members, but that's more of the processing conveyor belt. So, you know, again, I have alone officers. You're not getting in the way. Like, stay out of it. Like, don't mess up the conveyor belt. Think of it as my friend James said this once is, don't be the kid with the stick that comes by and pokes the beehives and pushes off all the bees. And that's what a lot of loan officers do. It's just that they get involved and they try to micromanage the process. But if you have an amazing processing team, which I do, you shouldn't have to be in the weeds. And don't don't mess with it. Like, don't mess with my system. Did you have a problem at all in letting go? I would say I had a problem letting go when I didn't have the right team members. So my focus has been building the team and it doesn't happen overnight. You have to be patient. So it just takes time and it's that fine line of growing the team while growing production. You grow your team first and then your production. Or do you ramp up your production and then you grow your team and you're flailing because you've got all this volume. But you don't have to support staff. It's a fine line of making sure you have the right amount of team members to support your production level. So yeah, it just takes time and you have to have a plan. It has to be very, very, very clear on everybody needs to know their role and their task. Do you, I don't know if this is an easy question to answer now, because I know it's different somewhat for everybody. But do you have a sense or maybe your own personal experience, like when you get to X number of units, right, to be able to not be in the weeds, right? Is there that number where if you're at, you know, X 6, 8, 10 units, whatever, that's when you really better have a good support team? So if you're a loan originator and you're looking to get a, you know, an L.O.A., a loan originating assistant or a P.A., a production associate, that's what we call them, there, you need to have, I mean, everything, I think everyone's different. You know, my thinking is that you need to be doing consistently at least five units a month in order to support a P.A. I'm trying to think it's like our company has a specific formula, but the P.A., that the assistant is not, or associate, is not going to be processing the file. They're more of pre-processing the file, like setting it up, seeing it up for the processing team, to where when it gets to the processing team, then it is on that conveyor belt and you shouldn't, you know, have these fires and oh, by the way, like they don't qualify and the income's not right, and that program doesn't work. And, you know, you need to, you can't turn in crap and hope it sticks. I think we're in a different, you know, we've been in the different world of mortgage world for many years that I hope by now that you don't turn in something that has no chance of working. That should be on the poster board in every office, right? Don't turn in crap. Don't turn in crap. Yeah, you need, because I think that from, if you look at it from the standpoint, we, you know, the client, everything goes wrong. You'd be telling the client something and now they're expecting this. And oh, by the way, they don't qualify. Now they're in the current track. I mean, it's just a mess. And that's not a very effective way of building a really strong past client referral sort of thing. Yeah, well, I mean, all starts with submitting a quality file, right? And that means you're doing your proper work up front. That'll make it easier. Right, advising the client, yeah, setting it up for success. Okay, cool. With the last few minutes we have left, I'd be curious to get your take on. You've been in the business over about 20 years. I think you said 22 years, which is like 72 years for any other industry. And you are, are you recruiting as well? I am, but it's very slow and steady. I mean, it definitely has to be the right fit. So I have currently two other loan originators in my office. And I have space for two more loan originators. But it has to be the right fit. They have to align with us. They have to be, you know, doing a certain level of production. We have the minimum standard requirements. So we're serious about it as a company. We don't just have it not important. So definitely, it's either nine units a quarter or one of rolling 1.8 million rolling three month average. So it's really not that high. But I think that's something that we've established that makes sense for our company and what we offer. I mean, that's what I love is we're a company that is set up. And I'm plugging cornerstone and I'm so grateful I'm part of that company because we really are a company that just sets up our loan originators for success. We have so many tools. It's like all your time should be on focusing business development and client development. You shouldn't have to focus on anything else. And then when you add my branch in there, that's 100% true. Like you shouldn't have to focus and get in the weeds. You've got to support staff. We've got the marketing. We've got everything keyed up. What? Okay, so 22, this is kind of back to the original question. 22 years in the business. There's some things in terms of how we build this business today that, you know, haven't changed a lot in terms of like realtor relationships and right, belly to belly, all that kind of stuff. But moving forward, right? Is there any, are there any changes or pivots you think you've had to make to your business, how you originate business recently or moving forward that maybe you didn't expect to have to pivot or change or how you're preparing for the future might be a better question. That's a really, really loaded question. Not just a question. I mean, I think one thing I've been, and I say stubborn, I said that earlier, I'm really stubborn on staying true to myself and remaining authentic to who I am and what aligns with me. And so I've struggled a little bit in the social media category. I know videos are a really huge thing, so I have drank that Kool-Aid, and I do believe it works. I think videos are powerful, but there's nothing more powerful than the face-to-face connection. You mentioned belly to belly. I mean, I think that's really where I shine is really that connection, the trust, the credibility that we build with a client. I mean, we're in a relationship business, but as long as you have your foundation of knowledge and that your heart then it for the client, it's all about the client and the relationship, I just don't think there's anything more powerful than that is going to win. If you have to continue to adapt and we've had to adapt with technology, I was super resistant to technology, but go through a change of transitioning a team and getting onto a whole new platform and every single software is different, including your silly phone system. You learn technology quickly. And so I think being open-minded, and I had to check myself on that. You know, the mortgage coach was the perfect example. I was so close-minded to learning it. And then when I made a change and I didn't have a client presentation talk for like I had before, I wish I would have done mortgage coach years ago, because I think it's definitely in the client's best interest to present that way. So I don't know if I answered your question other than like just staying authentic to what aligns with you, so don't get too caught up in all the hype. You know, social media is good, but it can also be abused. How like email? I think the big takeaway from that is what I like is be authentic and true to yourself. And I definitely appreciate where you're coming from on the social media thing, right? That's like doing a workout that I haven't done. That's a muscle I have to exercise, and it doesn't feel totally natural, right, to kind of put yourself out there. Right. Interesting coming from a yoga host of podcasts, but it's true. We all have our lanes. I think that we excel in and yours, similar to mine, is actually face to face. I think that's where I have my most power, and that's where I think most people do. But let's face it, the world is changing. And if we, if we, if we expect to be relevant and not a secret agent, so to speak today, we do have to be have some kind of presence online. Would you agree with that? Oh, yes, absolutely. You know, I mean, we, we, we try to search our realtors at times like, oh, we have this realtor and you try to search them and you can't find them. You know, a lot of times like looking for loan originators, you can't find them very easily online. I mean, those are kind of a basic one on one. You need to be able to find yourself like Google your name and see where you're at. You know, Google it. I mean, I think online reviews, I mean, I think all of that is important. You have to have that, but you also need to make sure that you know what you're doing, you're advising clients within their best interests and you're just staying authentic to yourself. I mean, you don't have all those other tools being online, having an online presence, but you know, not going, not totally losing yourself and thinking that you don't need to be out there in the real life in your town, going to events, you know, getting clients to, you know, meeting with clients face to face. Can't forget that. Yeah, I mean, the basics are still true. It's a relationship business. And while we have to, the other thing I think I take out of what you said is, yeah, we have to evolve and kind of embrace certain technologies, but that doesn't mean leaving behind the fundamentals that we know is this the only work which is relationships. Yep, correct. Holy great. Beautiful, beautiful. Well, tell you what, I appreciate you being here. I know you're busy. You got a lot going on in terms of directing our listeners in case they wanted to learn more about the Kelly Mars team, Cornerstone Home Learning Santa Barbara. Who knows? Maybe there's your next recruit. Where would you like to direct them to your website, Facebook? What do you want to, what do you want to get put out there? Yeah, I mean, there is the KellyMars team.com. That is my website. You can also reach out and call us. You can call me. Again, the phone number, you can easily find me if you go over Kelly Mars, the Kelly Mars team. Kelly Mars Santa Barbara. You definitely can find me online. That's probably the easiest way and reach out and give me a call, shoot me an email. I mean, that's an example. I really, really love helping people. It feels really good to help people. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for helping our listeners today. I really enjoyed it and I'll put all the links to your various destinations, Facebook, your website and all that kind of stuff in the show notes. And listeners, once, you know, thank you again for tuning in as always. If you like this episode, hey, share some love. Leave us a review on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you're listening to this. And we appreciate you tuning in. So we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in mortgage marketing. Get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com. Hey, guys, what's up real quick? You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before. 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