Ep #96: Personal Branding Lessons and Funding $134 Million from "The Mortgage Geek"

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 Zimper, welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad you are here, so listen, whenever you're listening to this, it's probably getting to almost the end of 2018. And normally at a time like this is we start talking about business planning and looking at how you're going to adapt and pivot for the new year, what plans you're going to put into place, what marketing initiatives that you've been putting off that you want to execute on. It's really time to do a self-assessment, I guess, and look at your, you know, kind of a SWOT analysis, right? Your strengths, your opportunities, and your weaknesses. And so hopefully you're conducting that for yourself. If you guys want us to do a session on that, just let us know. You can always email me podcast at mortgagesmarketingradio.com. But obviously I think it makes sense to look at what are your strengths, right? And play to your strengths, what are the opportunities you see coming forward in the market, opportunities to increase your market share opportunities to, you know, particularly possibly grow in a particular area or, you know, or launch that initiative that you've been thinking about for a while that you haven't. And then what are the weaknesses? Where do you need to get better, right? Whether it's lead gen online, whether it's better and more realtor relationships and referrals, whether it's maybe firing some referral partners and getting lean and mean, going deep versus going wide. Not sure where that is for you, each one of you has your own unique situation. What I do know is that if you are looking to increase your success with real estate agents to get more realtor referrals, to get more purchase business and to build a predictable, reliable pipeline, we've got something that can help. And that's called mortgage marketing pro. It's our new pro membership that was recently opened on a very limited basis. And if you want to check that out, you can go there at mortgagesmarketing.pro. We've got resources in there that will help you attract capture and convert real estate agents by teaching agent classes, the number one way to capture real estate agents. We've got resources in there to help you stop winging it and have a actual structure and sales process scripting how to minimize and reduce rate shoppers, how to have better conversions with real estate agents. And then, of course, lastly is how to build your online brand, your online presence, online leads, Facebook templates, ad templates and so forth. So whether you want to grow on Instagram, YouTube, it's your one stop shop for everything to become a modern mortgage originator. So check it out at mortgagesmarketing.pro. Now, getting to my special guest for today, Mr. Sean Kayhan, also known as the mortgage geek out of San Diego, California, I want to give you a heads up. First of all, we don't have a filter on this episode, meaning it's raw. It's real. There may be some colorful language FYI, if there's any kids nearby listening, please remove your children from the room. But Sean is done some amazing things. I wanted to have him on because he has done what so few loan officers do and that is he's built a unique brand that stands out and helps him rise above the noise and a crowded loan officer market of San Diego, California. And he's done that by creating this brand persona known as the mortgage geek and he's leveraging video in a big, big way. And I don't want you to, you know, misunderstand that, you know, not only is Sean an active mortgage originator still producing loans to the tune of $134 million in 2017, total volume funded. But he's also running Cornerstone down in San Diego. He has now over 100 loan officers as part of the organization in Cornerstone. So he's running operations. He's handling mergers and acquisitions for Cornerstone. He's originating. He's creating this brand called the mortgage geek. He's building an incredible presence in his local market with real estate agents. And you're going to hear him talk about how, first of all, it's just an extension of who he is. So I want you to know that, okay, can everybody do what Sean's doing? No. But can you do something similar or unique to you? Yes. Not if everybody's going to be as, have as big of a personality as Sean does. And that's okay. You don't need to be. I always say what you need to be is you. And that's what's going to connect and resonate with people is you, your authenticity. This is Sean being Sean. It's being him, right? So it's right in his alley. I think there's some key lessons we can take away from our discussion, not only in terms of how to create a brand, how to rise above the noise, how to pre-sell people before you even meet them, but also how to prepare and structure your day. Sean's got a lot going on. So you're going to hear about how he structures his day, how he plans it out, how he gets so much done and so little time. And lots of other different things and how you can take some of these ideas from Sean, the mortgage geek, and start to create a unique, have more fun in your business dog on it. Because look, we've all heard the thing about we should be producing content and videos and whatnot and it shouldn't always be about mortgage rates and market updates and loan programs and stuff like that because everybody's saying that, you know, it's like, what do you lead with great rates, product services? We close in six minutes. Hey, nobody cares. It's all white noise. People are tuning it out. So how do you maybe take that same info and make it fun, make it engaging? That's what Sean's going to talk about. And like I said, his style may not be right for everybody, but you take lessons out of this and you do what's right for you and just know that if you, you know, where we are in today's world, it's, it's you are a media brand and the back end is you do mortgage loans. So more and more today, you need to build your online brand, your online presence. You need to be unique and different to rise above the noise. Why should people choose you over the competition? And then some other cool lessons from Sean, just about his mindset and, you know, and how he gives away a million dollar loan to a competitor that he knows he can't be as competitive on and why what the lesson is in there about leveraging that opportunity to not only get more referrals, then you would have made money on that one transaction and build more loyalty and trust with your realtor partner. For example, if they brought you the referral and then of course, what's Sean's belief on? What are we doing to succeed as we move forward into 2019? I asked him his advice for how he's training his own originators to prepare for Q4 and Q1 of 2019. And you may be surprised at what you heard him say. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Hey, Sean Khen, welcome to the show. Anything's appreciate you having me on. No, it's a pleasure. And so you are affectionately known as the mortgage geek. And you've obviously built this incredible brand and stuff. And I've been looking at, you know, your presence in San Diego down there, your online presence, the videos and stuff that you're doing. So it's funny. I mean, there's a lot of ways I can enter this conversation with you. But I think the first question is, why? What the hell were you thinking? Well, I'm a goofball. It's obvious. I needed to kind of start getting the information out. Well, I really did it because I needed to be top of mind, right? And my downfall is being able to, or structuring my day to continue to call like my referral partners and have follow up. So, hey, you know, that's one of my weaknesses, for sure. And so then I was trying to think of like new ways to stay in front of them. And then I have a partnership with a, with a media company. And so then I was like, well, hey, why don't we start making a video? So start making videos and then about, you know, new programs or a way to get information out. And then the whole thing of the mortgage geek came into play and then Blair, my loan partner actually thought of like, hey, let's put glasses on. So I wore her actual glasses at the beginning. And then we put tape in the middle and then she came up with like a logo. And then that's how the whole thing actually started. So the first video while we were driving there had nothing to do about mortgage geek. It was just, we want to push out a video about 12 month Thanksgiving program. That was like way before anyone else was selling it. And you think because of the uniqueness with the brand, you're, you're interjecting fun into mortgages. That started getting you traction and awareness. Yeah. No, definitely. So it's like really funny. And then I'm going to call that. So a good friend of mine, Whitney Pizer, is she's very conservative. She sells a shit ton of real estate, but she's very conservative. Yeah. The first video came out and she was like, oh my, Sean, you can, I'm so sorry. Like, I don't know if I can actually continue to use you. Videos are crazy, like off the wall. Like our response for the first like six months was like, not really sure, right? It was like, I'm going to laugh, but it was like, they're a little too aggressive. I've had a meeting with Whitney Pizer three weeks ago. And she was like, I just want to let you know, like, on standby to watch all of your videos. I love them. They're amazing. They're so funny. There's, you know, in a lot of the, or a lot of the real estate agents and loan officers that I work with, or even the general public now that's letting me know that, hey, thanks for, they actually have a lot of information behind them, but it's a way that you present them. It makes us really kind of engage and go, wow, that is a pretty cool program because it's really funny. They don't know what to expect, but I'm also pushing out actual content. So if I'm, if I'm here in this correctly, you know, you touched on, you wanted to get awareness and obviously you understand, hey, San Diego, it's a crowded market when it comes to the mortgage business loan officers, much like, you know, Orange County, Las Vegas, there's lots of choices. So was it, it was an awareness thing where you're like, hey, damn it. I need to rise above the noise. It was like a conscious thing saying, hey, how am I going to grow my business? But it just kind of happened organically with the whole mortgage geek thing, right? Yeah, it was, um, so I was talking with Blair a lot. And we were talking about, hey, how are we going to stay in front of referral partners? How are we going to, you know, more of, how are we going to get this information out to more and more people, right? And then the brand created and then we realized, okay, well, now we're going to attach ourselves to the brand and use the brand to then blow it up to even bigger than it we ever thought it was. Right. So it was just kind of like, you know, kind of stumbled into it, if you will, which is nice. And what you've discovered is, is that so initially, because of the style of videos that you were doing, some people were kind of like, whoa, what the hell, you know, we're used to this button up type, you know, tie suit, a professional environment with mortgage. And they didn't know how to take you at first, right? No, definitely not. Did you see my third video? My third video is I literally, I think it's third or fourth video. I literally swore the entire time. And all it was was beeping about why are you asking it out? Why are you asking me questions about the documentation that I'm asking for? I was like, I need that shit. Give me the fucking document. And so it was like, beep, beep, beep, beep. Constantly got it, got it, got it, got it. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, like this guy walked by and I was like, who the fuck is this guy? And I was like, it was really awesome, very vulgar. And I don't think there's any video out there that is that vulgar. And except for Gary Vaynerchuk video. Exactly. I hear his name, like, I think every second of the day. I know it's crazy. Okay. You know, it's funny. I'm thinking about your videos. I just finished watching, um, do you suffer from ED? That's a brilliant one. I mean, you know, when you see that in that headline, it's a matter of fact. And I want to put links to all these that we're talking about in the show notes so people can easily watch them. But, uh, let me just skip over here and go to that because I mean, you don't hold back, man. I mean, um, it's really structured like a damn ED commercial. I mean, you've got like the intro layup. Are you stressed out with, you know, you're not alone. Dude, that's, that's freaking funny. So we are making these commercial, like, these mortgage gig videos, like they're actually commercials. And I'm going to be honest, like the partnership that I have within the media company really does help promote that because if a loan office really doesn't see the benefit of it, then they're not going to push out how much the actual cost is per video, right? Um, because I mean, there's hours and hours and hours of actual work that goes into producing one of those videos. And luckily that with the partnership and I see a huge value. So at this point, so we even have something else coming out. We're actually going to be, we're going to, we're thinking and we're going to start filming an actual like, uh, little mini series TV. Oh, wow. That's cool. The next direction that we're going to go, uh, it's going to be really funny. Well, and so, like I said, I'm going to put links, you know, a lot of this stuff's on your Facebook page. There's lots of videos there. A minute with the mortgage geek, you know, what's cool about this? Like you said, I mean, here's the big takeaway, right? You're taking a subject that's normally boring and dry and that's why people tune it out. They don't want to listen to friggin mortgage updates and stuff, but make it fun, make it educational and entertaining at the same time because as you've heard it said, people rather be entertained than educated. But if you can combine those two, um, that's when you've really got a secret formula and, you know, look at these views, man, um, stuff for media. It's a got over a thousand views. Uh, a minute with the mortgage geek, Fannie Mae changes. That's just a sick, crazy video right there. 2000 views. I mean, where, how do you, how do you struck? Well, it's two things I want to talk about. One is you were, you were, you were honest in, in mentioning your partners with a media company. So they obviously help you with the production. Um, so I want to talk to the loan officers that aren't there and don't have that, um, number one. Let's take that first. How do you think loan officers today can and should be building a brand, being a media brand, if you will, to rise above the noise? Well, there's, there's multiple different media companies out there that, you know, all you really need is somebody that's like a videographer. You need an editor. You can, you know, they're together, um, and, or even just do it from your cell phone, do it with a green screen. I mean, you can just post up a green screen. Someone is there to help you can go on Google it online. I mean, we sent out a bunch of resumes because we're opening up another studio over in Missouri and we got a ton of resumes. So it's pretty easy to actually go out there and you can do it from your cell phone, you can do it from your desk, just make sure that there's a green screen behind you and then just start tinkering with it. And just because like what I always say, if you look at my first video to compare to my videos now, I mean, it's a night and day difference, right? But the first video that we sent out, we thought was cool. Now the videos now are so much better that we look back and go, well, it's kind of a basic video, right? So I would say start somewhere and just start pushing out content and stop like thinking about, oh my gosh, this one's better or this video could be cooler. If I did that, like start actually just pushing out a cool video and over time, you'll start to learn. But if you're trying to make the first video or the second video, like the best one that you've ever seen, it's just not going to work. How often does a real estate agent look at an open house flyer? They will sit there for hours and hours on end with a graphics designer. Oh my gosh, no, the picture needs to go here and this, these go here and this information. When your hand is to somebody who can care less and they're just looking at the information they throw it away, right? So it's the information that they want, not the damn graphics and the agent sitting there spending hours about the graphics when they're not actually realizing what the customer wants, right? So just take it and come to the customer, like you might think your videos, the funniest thing on the planet, the public might not think that way. So that's why you just have to go out there and start pushing the videos out and then see what the public has an appetite for and push the envelope. You, if I'm looking at just based on the videos that I see on this, just a short glance here, most of your content is mortgage related from what I can see. Is that accurate? That is 100% accurate. So we're trying to only have it based upon based around mortgages. But one thing that I'm trying not to do is I don't want to push it out into only cell cornerstone as well. So the most recent video that we did does say a lot about cornerstone, but that's because it's a very informational video about the loan process that I send out to all my clients when they go into escrow. So that's why it says like cornerstone. But I'm really trying not to have like cornerstone like pay if you come to cornerstone and cornerstone cornerstone more about like just information. Really funny, you know, kind of getting out there allowing other even, you know, loan officers to learn kind of updates about what's going on in the Fannie Mae of the Freddie Mac or like the investor world. Are you wearing board shorts right now? No, so I wear, I truly wear a suit Monday through Thursday. And then I do not wear it on Friday. So I have one outfit that I wear on Friday in my team dressed up as me last Halloween because I live in a midly every single day that I'm not in the suit. I wear the same outfit. I'm not even mind to you. I buy $7.99, Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, here you go. Yeah, I wear like flip flops are a very specific type of like shoe. It's crazy about it. So I'm curious then with your in your conscious choice of content. Are you, you know, because you've seen and again, I'm trying to keep in context of the people I've listening and I've talked about video before and and particularly with real estate agents too, right? They should be a local community expert talking and featuring local cool stuff to do in the area. Are you purposely not doing that for any reason or is it just, hey, man, the mortgage info is like your wheelhouse. Well, we kind of have a new video that's being launched next week. It's really funny. And so it's a little bit different than it's not. So I guess it is mortgages, but it's not mortgages. You just have to see the video. But I will start to venture in a different field. Actually, I'm going to start putting in different ones, but mostly just, I want to stay with just mortgages because a minute with a mortgage geek. So I'd love to see the mortgage geek on the board. He had now, you know, for the surf, man, in his suit. So we thought about doing a really cool video. It's very similar like the geek in the streets. Yeah, we might do something like that. And I might get some like part benches and ask people why they're sitting on my face and everything like that. That's awesome. Now listen, let's, for those listening, let's just make this clear. Okay, you're, you're having a good time. You're like, you know, creating this incredible brand down there. But you're also producing a hell of a lot of business. I took notes from our last chat. If this is correct, personal production for you was this, what, 2017, $134 million. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's a lot of damn business, man. Where does most of that come from? Local real estate agents. Real estate agents. I do not, I do not create and hand out any leads zero. Everything that I do is 100% referral. How has your business grown in terms of like new realtors noticing you being a tre, you know what I mean? You building your sphere of influence is that you've seen an uptick since you started doing the videos? Oh, yeah. No, for sure. It was so crazy. Like, so I have a client that wanted to come through me. And I don't even know how you got my contact information to be totally honest. I think online. He says, and I got him pretty approved. And he said, Hey, here's my real estate agent. The real estate agent sent me a text message and he goes, Hey, you're the mortgage geek. And I was like, yeah, no, choose like your videos are fire. I'm so excited to work with you. I never worked with me ever before. She's sending out my pre approval. So it was kind of a way that the real, the local real estate agents are, they know who I am, right? And so it allows them to really kind of, and I do a lot of other smarts in Diego. So I'm staying in front of not only my current real estate agents, but I'm also staying in front of, you know, the whole community of real estate agents. Knowing that like when my pre-approvals come across, I know who I am. They, you know, they've heard me on smarts in Diego. They trust me. They see my videos. They think I'm knowledgeable. So it really allows them to maybe even go to the seller and say, Hey, we should accept this because I know this guy. Even if they've never worked with me. So yeah, exactly when they say you see you on, on the other end of the drains, actually, they're like, Oh, that's, that's cool. It's mortgage geek rock solid. Yeah, correct. Do you have realtors then? You kind of mentioned this early on when people first didn't know how to take you do. I imagine you still have some people who you're not a fit for. Oh, yeah, yeah, a lot. And we talk about realtors clients, both everybody, everybody, and you're okay with that. Yeah, I'm 100% okay with that. So when I actually meet, so I'm still calling, right? So I still do an open house almost every single Saturday. I did the people event. So I'm still working weekends and so I'm running cornerstone doing the operations, also just trying to build my own brand and doing loans, right? So it's kind of a lot of my play. So I'm working six, seven days a week, absolutely. And you know, when I meet a new agent, we go out to coffee. I do not do lunches. I do coffee. We go out to coffee. I don't talk about actually real estate. I don't talk about doing loans. I want to see if we actually work well. Dude, are we funny together? Do we communicate very similar because somebody that if we do not communicate together, if we do not communicate well together, right? And they send me a deal. Well, fuck, man, like that deal might just be a nightmare because I don't want to call that agent and that agent doesn't want to call me. So we're not really like a team. We're just using me for loans. And there's a ton of, you know, loan officers that might be a better fit. So and I try to keep both in my organization too. So I'm like, Hey, if you don't like the way that we do business on my team, because I don't change the way that I do business for anyone, this is how I do business. And I think that that's allowing me to scale. And if it doesn't work, then nothing against this personality. Why is it like I think that this other loan office over here might be a better fit? Yeah. Yeah. Are you actually like identifying and targeting agents to go after? Or are they just kind of coming into your, your web because of a brand you got? I mean, so I've been in San Diego and I've been doing loans for 14 years. So 2019, May 2000, May 12, 2019, I'll be 15 years, right? So I'm super, super proud of that. I have successfully closed the loan for 171 local agents. That's a pretty, pretty big pie, right? I'm not going to have like 836 on an actual like rotating wheel type of thing that I actually know I've closed the loan for. I can actually have a conversation with Hey, guys, I don't want to call 836 people. My team does it. I want to have a personal connection. So what we did was we stripped that down to 150 and we said, these are the 150 that we get along with so well personality. We can hang out with them. We go to coffee. Now you want to come to lunch. Do you want to have dinner? You know, those types of things like I want to be your friend. I want to hang out, right? And so that's the 150 that my team. So Blair, Chris and Jason that we actually call and we're very, we're just in sync with each other. Like we talk the same. I don't call people by their names. I literally make up a new name for almost every single agent that I know. Was that right? A nickname first name. Oh, that's funny. I'm wondering how you come up with those. That's a whole other conversation. I'm a fly. I don't know, right? What's up slice it? No, it's up slice home skillet. Yeah. Okay. So it's 150 agents that are on your, your A list, if you will. Correct. And you as a team, you just kind of divide those relationships up and you guys manage that collectively. No. So we'll, we'll, we tried to a little bit, right? But um, so like Chris, how you get these 20, Jason, get this 20 and then Blair and I have 110 that we actually follow up. But then I'll reach out to those other 20 as well. Um, it's just that I have those other two loan officers in taking and doing a lot of more of the heavy lifting on like the documents and making sure that the pre-approval is correct. Even though I still issue all the pre-approvals, um, and still sign off on them, they would do most of the heavy lifting and I come in there because I can review a file in five to 10 minutes, right? So properly. So they structure properly. I get to go in there, have a really great detailed conversation with the client. Doesn't mean it's a 30 minute conversation, but we know exactly the path we're going to go in then I go on to the next one. Right, right. Um, man, that's, that's a big base of attitude to manage, you know, um, it is, but with, with four people managing it and how much fun we're constantly having. Yeah. So you're doing anything then without the, you know, the A group of agents, I know you, you know, can coffee and all that, but I mean, well, like once a quarter or twice a year, do you do any kind of events or anything? Yeah, we're, I mean, we're doing like an appreciation party. So Blair put together like an appreciation party last November. We have three hundred and eighty people come, um, really? And, uh, we have clients, uh, no, not clients, just agents, only referral partners come. Wow. Um, and it's, and what we do is we allow our local loan officers to bring their real estate agents as well, because a lot of the time, like I know the real estate agents that they're working with too. So, um, it's like I, I send it up to the, to the actual whole company. You mean, you mean, uh, elbows that are part of Cornerstone? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. All right. How many elbows do you have there at Cornerstone? Right now we have a hundred and nine, um, loan officers for cornerstone with, uh, the branches that are coming over. So by January 1st, we actually have six more offices coming over. So we're super excited about those will be at like right around 150. And if I can finish the acquisition and merger of this other smaller bank, um, I'm going to pick up an additional 35. So my target like is to have, um, let's say 150 by the end of the year in my target for next year is right around like 225. So, so dude, I mean, you're like doing loans, still originating, running like this crazy business that's growing like wildfire, um, acquiring companies, building this brand, meeting and greeting agents. Um, what's the secret drug? Come on. It's so rap like I just, uh, I had a meeting two days ago with this, this amazing group, this new branch. I'm super excited to get the opportunity and that he asked me the same question. He's like, I don't get it. I truly don't get it. But you guys, I wake up at 350 every single morning and I am, I'm going to a 110 miles an hour. Yeah. The nine p.m. So if you take 350 to nine p.m. at 110 miles an hour, if you really structure up your day, you can accomplish so much that most people, you know, they say they work eight hours, but technically I'm telling you the honest truth that we're working four or four and a half hours. Sure. I do not do anything like it is here every single second is just like, go, go, go 110%. And then also I get to grow like horizontally too. So I bring on like minded individuals and then I say, okay, hey, you now take over this. So if like another division, it needs to get in touch with me. Well, now they're going to get in touch with Greg. And so they're going to get the exact same response that they went out of me out of Greg. And so that's how I'm actually able to grow. All right. So I'm curious to want to hear somebody talk about that kind of a schedule. And I know fitness is important to you because we talked about before we hit record, you, you know, you do iron man's, you're doing a 600 mile bike ride. So do you fit fitness into that schedule? I do. Yeah. So I get up. I start doing my emails and then like on Monday, I didn't 86 mile ride. It's about four hours and 45 minutes. Um, and so I, I fit it in there. But then I, so before any of my rides or if I'm training, I might have a long, you know, cardio day, what I'll do is I'll structure out the day and say, okay, this meeting is then, you know, Hey, Jason, you got to do this. Chris, you do this Blair. Blair actually manages everyone's schedule. So she tells everyone what to do during the day. So by the time that I come back, I'm actually not behind because I already woke up in the morning and structured out that I'm not going to be there and just kind of delegated the, um, the tasks that each individual. So everyone, they come and work to know exactly what they're doing. And then I show up at the right time to make on my phone calls. So on the fitness thing is, is there a particular regimen your following? Is it depending upon like if you're training for an event, like an iron man, right? You got to do lots of different things. You got to run, you got to swim, got to build that up. Um, let's, if you're not like training for an event, maybe always are. I don't know, but I'm just really curious on the fitness side because I know takes energy to have that much output, um, like what more, like long term, consistently, consistently, what do you do, right? To stay high energy, kind of fit and, you know what I'm saying? Okay. So I eat as many donuts as I possibly can. I murder bags of cheeses all day, every single day. I've crushed pizza. Um, no, you know, I eat, I eat pretty healthy. Um, but I also enjoy a coffee, you know, one or two coffees a day, not a problem. So I'm swimming. I, I think that actually the, my workouts give me a lot of energy. Right. So I'm saying, yeah, so I'm sure you have to make it part of your schedule. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, just make sure that I'm more in less that I do actually think about what I'm eating. Um, I try to eat, you know, as clean as possible. Sometimes I do make mistakes and, and go rogue. Um, and then just make sure that you're structured. So I always say like, if I'm structured, I'm not stressed out. And when I'm not stressed out, I make all the right decisions and I can be very clear. So that's what I'm saying. If you get up early, okay, and you start structuring your whole day, you are never behind. It's the individuals that come into the office at 10 o'clock who didn't structure the day before and, and when they come in at 10 o'clock, they're so stressed out that they're being so reactive, not proactive. And that just drains all of your energy. Have you ever seen someone be proactive and how much they get done in the same amount of time, someone being reactive, the person reactive, I say that can do literally 30% of somebody that can be doing proactive in the same amount of time. So are you planning out your, your day the night before or kind of weekend advance? What's your structure? Well, later on, I try to do everything like a weekend advance. So like, hey, you know, we, we want to know what next week is going to be, um, unlike the main schedules. And then, yeah, the night before will, okay, and I kind of fit this meeting in. Can I fit this in? And it is really down to, hey, you know, every 30 minutes or every 45 minutes is really blocked off. And you just have to, I mean, I don't even, uh, I don't drive anymore. Um, Blair does all the driving so that I can actually stay on my phone calls during that time. So it's a mobile office at that point. And who's Blair? So Blair's my lone partner. Uh, and as you can see, she's like, she's the person that's there in the background right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. What's up, Blair? How are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Good, good. Thanks. Thanks for helping out. Thanks for being here. And she's the creative, uh, person behind mortgage geek as well. Hmm. So hopefully you're paying her very well. Ah, pressure. Oh, that's awesome. Maybe a good time to get it. It's just fun. That's really cool. So you don't drive anymore. It's interesting. I don't really drive much either. Overs like the way to go. I don't have a personal clear yet. So we'll get there. You, you, you will. And but Uber is amazing as well. Like, hey, if I don't want to drive that, then yes, sometimes I'll just take a Uber. So I wrote down a question from last time when we talked, um, and I want to maybe restructure it. So the question was, what do you require your loan officers to do to build their business? And I don't know if requires the right word for you because I know you probably allow certain amount of autonomy and creativity and stuff. But you bring it on all these LOs and stuff like that. I mean, what, how would you answer that question? What are their kind of like the, you know, how do you help your LOs succeed in the market today? So everything that, so I'll bait a test based upon my volume that I have going on and see if something really works or not, where I think a lot of the loan officers fail is that they're going off and they're going to try this and they're going to try this and then they're going to try this and ultimately it doesn't really work that well. Um, and so then they come back and they don't have enough business coming in. To really take the blows of something not working, right? And so what I always try to do is I say, well, I can lose one or two deals, you know, possibly or one or two like real estate agents because of how many risked agents that I have, right? Or how many like pretty approvals that are going through. So I can test, you know, different ways of getting business and without negatively impacting, I say, my pocket bar. Right. So what I always say, like, when you come over to cornerstone, really, I want to hear what's going on in the streets in the different markets, but I really want them to follow what I'm doing because I've meticulously placed the reason why I picked this software or this is the flow of the loan because I've actually gone through a lot of beta testing to come up with that serious. So how I'm helping loan officers is actually just creating structure in their life and saying, hey, do this. You don't need to do anything else. You know, that other idea like I'll sit down with them and ask them what ideas that they're talking about, that I've already done that. It didn't work. I've already done that. Takes too much time. Oh my gosh. That's a great idea. I incorporated that idea into this idea over here. So when I'm talking to loan officers, they really like it because I'm still doing what they're doing. I'm just doing it at a larger level and I've been able to really kind of have the authority as being the owner of cornerstone to make the bank more centric around loan officers not just compliance. So I kind of took two different things and saying, I'm a loan officer, but I'm also the owner. How do I marry the two together? Because I think a lot of the mortgage banks out there are just so like compliance-based loan officer and then they have like their salespeople in the middle trying to bridge the gap. Yeah, there's a disconnection from the streets and what's going on. Anything stand out for you that's like, you know, in terms of structure, the go to strategy, right? And this works, it's always worked for 15 years. I mean, realtors come to mind, but any specific, you know, ways around realtors like, I mean, hey, you know, there's the friggin' column on Monday, Tuesdays, whatever the co-call thing or there's teaching classes, you know what I mean, any, any shares you got on that area? Yes, I do. Stop selling bells and whistles and start only telling them what you're actually good at because you're not good at everything. Well, for example, the bell and whistle. A bell and a whistle is, oh my gosh, I have this new 1% down payment and it's the, you know, the greatest product on the planet. It's like, well, hey, one week ago, you were telling me about this down, it's just a payment program. Whatever happened to that. Oh, that one really didn't work out that well, but I got this 1% like, well, the product base, yeah. You know, it's like, stop selling the actual product and start selling yourself as being an expert. That's like the biggest difference. So like when I go into a meeting and start, you know, trying to work with like the broker and the buyer's agents, I go in there and tell them what I'm not good at. I go in there and open up the meeting. Yes, I do. I'm like, hey guys here really quickly, do not send me clients in between 700, 900,000 to have a debt to income ratio of less than 30% with a more than 740 because if you send that client over to me, you're going to look like an asshole. I'm going to look like an asshole because P and C Bank of America and Chase will smoke me on interest rate. So if your client comes over, just know I'm going to refer them over to a loan officer that I've added out and just realize that if you send them to me, this is the person that I'm going to send them over, I'm not even going to quote your client because I'm going to make you look like an asshole if I did. Wow, man. There is a friggin' different approach right there. And then they're like, okay, now I'm ready to listen. I'm like, okay, here's what I'm good at. I was strategically, you know, structure your loans. Give me the hardest deal. Give me a one month bank student, 12 month bank student, give me a one year tax return. I got a $2.9 million purchase today. How fast can you close that? Like, give me all of the paperwork up front and I'm going to now strategically go in there and place it. I'm going to go get that loan. Give me a VA. Give me an FHA. Give me a VA that barely needs residual that has a debt to income ratio of 60%. You know, that is where a mortgage bank is, right? So why am I trying to compete against PNC who has, I don't know, $20 billion of cash who can just say, I want that person with 500 grand, so I'm going to give them whatever interest rate. I will never win. I'm not even in that field. That's interesting when I think about that because I've had a number of conversations with the loan officers where, yeah, I've heard them say, hey, my realtors starting to push back and say your rates are too high because we know clients are shopping out there today. Absolutely. Even with a great referral process that I'm sure you have in place, they're still going to check the market. So that's very interesting where you're like identifying your strengths, you know, and just making it clear that what that says to me is it's telling the agents that you're ultimately there to serve the client and you're not going to try and force a deal just with this kind of deal. No, like I got a call coming, exactly to come over, hey, we went into escrow, we had a great connection, you know, it's a $1.5 million purchase. He's putting down 500 grand and I was like, hold on real quick. I was like, you are a perfect candidate. Are you interested into an arm? And he was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm probably only going to stay here five to seven years. I'm like, right now, PNC is buying that market right now. And they're offering a three and a quarter. When everyone else is offering a 4%, would you mind if I introduced you to a loan officer that came from the direct banking world so that he understands closing on time and couldn't actually get your deal done, but can offer you a three-course lower and interest rate. And he was like, don't you want the deal? And I'm like, I want you to have the best service that you can possibly have. Not, you know, I'm going to benefit on closing alone because now when he closed, he actually called me and said, thank you so much. Now, I'm going to get his five referrals from his family over our lifetime. So, yeah, I didn't make money on that one deal, but I saved the client. Now, I'm going to try to pigeonhole this guy into a 4%. What if he goes out there halfway through the transaction, finds that PNC comes to me and says, why didn't you tell me about this? Oh, because I don't get paid on it. Well, cool. Not only is he going to go to PNC, but he's going to hate me and he's never going to refer. And then he's going to go to the agency, why did you refer him to me? Yeah, why? I just lost the agent. I lost the client and I lost all of his referrals because I didn't do the right thing and actually give the client the best service. It doesn't always mean that there's going to be money in my pocket. Hmm. Man, I'm just sitting on that for a second and thinking about that because I know there's some L.O.s listening where they're like, dude, whatever. You know, it's up to him to shop the marker or not, you know? That's what we're professionals. That's what we do for a living. If I know that they're offering like buying the market, like, set it over there. I love that. I just think it's a different mindset, you know, that's some L.O.s I know. I guarantee you, go ahead and email me people listening right now. I guarantee you they have a hard time taking that on because that's a long-term mindset and that is doing the right thing, which is always the right thing. And the other key point is, okay, you didn't, and I love what you just said this. You didn't make the money the upfront commission on that and some people would think, oh, well, he did the DLP and see that's who's going to get the referral. No. That was just a transaction at PNC, what you did was you built a relationship and added tremendous value, which is going to get the referrals. Well, correct. So let's, let's tailor back just one more, right? So 66% of all purchased money transactions in 2017 went with their severe influence, okay? So 6%. And of that 66%, 82% of the closed transactions went with their agents' preferred lender. Okay. So you guys, I'm not losing anything. I just maintained the relationship that I'm going to get the rest of that 82%. So yes, I pat, that's only a transaction. So if loan officers think that they're going to be able to go out there and really get a real firm hold on their clients and we're going to get that relationship, that's false, you guys. That is a transaction based only. Like, my relationship is that agent, right? So even if that, even if that, the client wants to even think of a refinance, the client normally goes back to the agent that got him into the home, then the agent goes, oh my gosh, yes, Sean is the one who did it or, hey, why don't you reach out to Sean? They don't remember who did the actual transaction. They don't. So let's, let's move, let's shift it over and shift our focus over here. Yeah. And let me just throw one other thought actually for those that might be going down this rattle play devil's advocate is, is there any concern of losing that agent then, you know, to P and C for a for all business? No, because P and C is really, really, really good on 1.5, you know, like 1 million to 1.5 million, they're like directly in the middle of the box, right? So you know what, if that agent wants to go directly to P and C for that clientele, then wonderful. But that agent's like, I can't believe you did that. I love how you're always looking out for my client's best interest. We will, it actually creates a better connection because now the agent comes to me for every single deal on the planet, knowing that I'm going to give their client the best service and I'm going to align them with the right people if I can't do it. Does that make sense? So I can now I get 100% of every single deal that that agent thinks of because they know that I'm doing the right thing because I'm a mortgage professional and they're real estate. They're not, they're not mortgage. Yeah, and you think about that in the big picture of what does a real estate agent really want from a loan officer? Yeah, the traditional closed loan is on time. They want you to do what you say you're going to do, but they also want a referable experience for their clients. And so by you doing that, that blows their socks off where they're like, holy crap, he's giving up, I mean, on that loan, easily a 10K commission, you know, I'm the owner of course, then, so there's a little bit, a little more juice in that puppy. A little bit more juice than, you know, that the actual bank is losing too, right? That's how much farther I go. Now, you know, some loan officer go, well, then there's always a broker, you know, out of their house that can offer a better interest rate. And I'm like, I get it. Okay? Yes. I'm not sitting down and passing out every single one of my clients, right? Right. If we're a VA to VA and I'm a quarter percent higher, and you know what, I'm going to fight to the nail. I'm not going to say, hey, my competitors over here are quarter percent, right? Yeah. But I'm talking about three quarters of a percent, one four percent on a jumbo. That's huge. I mean, we're talking about a lot of money at that. Right. It's like, hey, I'm going to offer you a five percent on a jumbo when Bank of America is at four and a quarter. It's like, come on. That's just too big. Well, it's really, and we'll get off this subject, I guess, one last comment about that. It's really interesting because, you know, we've all been there, where we've had those conversations with the clients, where we know they're in that whole, that pigeon hole, that narrow scope that we can't win. They're a private banking client or whatever. And you just know you're not going to win that, but you're trying to, right? And then, like you said, halfway through the transaction, the shop and whatever, and that's been in their back in your mind the whole, how much better would it be for a client experience and just like you said, earning the trust of that client's referral is if you just like disclosed up front and let them know, hey, Mr. Client, you know what, listen, I appreciate blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff, but I got to tell you, if I'm really going to do my job and serve well, my best recommendation is you go to X because of the reasons you said. And I, you know, I hate to see you go. I'd love to earn your business, but to be honest with you, look, we're talking three quarters of a rate on a million dollars. I mean, that's a hell of a lot of money to you, Mr. Client, I mean, holy crap. Talk about people are going to talk more about you, that guy, then they are the guy at PNC or whatever, they're just like did the transaction. Absolutely. Every time. No, no, all right, cool, man. Do you do any coaching or training for your agents? I mean, I guess in the context of have you had agents come to you and say, hey, man, help me with video? Oh, yeah. No, we definitely. So a lot of agents say, hey, we love your video. We hop in with the video. So we bring them in there. We do like bio videos for our local agents, you know, and help them out, but it's like really good at helping them walk through the actual video. We have a lot of people content. So we're constantly trying to help out the local agents, you know, create a brand and actually push that brand out because have you seen the actual videos like more and more if I go out there and I'm like, oh, my, or did you watch this video before you sent it out because I was legitimately fallen asleep or like I was already angry for you. So I was shedding off your video like they're awful. They really are like not everyone can do a video and not everyone should produce a video. So I'm trying to help the agents as much as possible by, you know, having come into the office and really kind of focus on what is the best way to make a video because. Yeah, yeah. Have you seen some of the loan officers that work at Cornerstone be inspired not to like, you know, duplicate the mortgage. They're going to never going to do that, but are they at least like starting to do some video themselves? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, there's more and more loan officers doing the video coming into the studio, starting to film. There was actually, if you go to like top producers magazine, Greg went my branch manager of insinitas, go to the standings page and go to that magazine and you will see what I'm talking about in terms of Cornerstone is doing things different. Like his whole thing was about his childhood had nothing to do with mortgages like, you know, I was a chunky kid playing basketball and blah, blah, blah, and that's actually how he sold himself when every other article in there's like, we can close in 12 days. We can close in 11 days. We have the best. It's like, it's not a knife fight to the bottom. Let's create like who we actually are because if there's a knife fight, I'm not involved anymore with a knife fight to the bottom. I love that. Well, a good metaphor, a knife fight to the bottom. That's really cool. I think, you know, it just goes to to speak to the fact that like we've been talking about this whole time. It's a noisy market. Everybody's frigging pitch in the same thing, which is great rage, great service. The program, we close in six minutes and it's just like, man, people tune that out. I don't care. So rise above the noise. You need something different. Either a you need a cool like compelling unique brand like yours that immediately gets attention. Now for those that are listening, maybe that's outside of your comfort zone a little bit, hey, you need some type of content. You need to start doing video because that's still rising above the noise, although that will change too over the next several years as more and more people finally get on the bandwagon. That place will become even more noisy, so might as well get your stuff in place now. Well, also right now is a really good time because believe me, you always want to be doing whatever one else is not doing or what they're actually thinking about doing, right? So like the more and more videos and more and more people are doing green screen videos, I might actually switch and start doing something a little bit different because I've already done my videos. So the faster that you start, you know, getting up ahead of the curve and stop focusing, that's what I was saying at the beginning. Not focusing so much on making the video perfect and not producing it because it's not so perfect. Like start getting it out there and then when all the noises on video and every single lenders on video, now you're going to do something different because you've already done your video thing and now you're going to do something more creative again. So it's like direct mail and spam or the drip campaigns on internet, on through email. How cool is, you know, the drip mail is like three years ago. Like everyone is like, oh my gosh, automatic drip, I can send messages like, dude, that was cool. Guess what? Now, now people got so annoyed because every single person does it, they put a spam. I'm not doing any more drip. I'm actually doing direct mail because now the mailboxes are like literally 30% of what they used to be. Now people are starting to read my direct mail, you know? So I'm just trying to stay ahead. Hey, man to that, man. I love that. Direct mail. It works. I don't tell anybody. We don't want to get that full up again. I love it when, you know, people, as a matter of fact, I just got the new phone book the other day and I love, you know, people post, you know, can you see, I can't believe people are still like, you know, sending this and every time I get a phone book, it's like, well, number one, that same thought hits me and I'm like, what the hell are they saying? But here's the thing I got to keep in mind. Somebody's paying to be in that phone book. Absolutely. It brings them why they're paying to be in there or else they wouldn't be in there. So it must be still working, right? Absolutely. It does work. It's even better because people are like, why, you know, it's like they pull up in this big, huge phone book and they're like, oh my gosh, you know, I can't believe that this person is still, well, actually, you can see, and I can't believe these things just still exist. I get all this online and they're looking at all the ads, right? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Hey, maybe it's sort of a specific demographic, right? Yeah. That's in there. All right. Listen, man, I know you got to jump. To do, we're coming into the end of 2018, right, into Q4 here. What do you, what do you, what kind of advice are you giving your team, your loan officers to close out this year strong? Buckle down. Make your phone calls, you know, change your comp if you really can to really try to maintain that market share because I'm telling you the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, I think you're going to be like the lowest and kind of like the hairiest two quarters back to back that we've seen in a very long time. So you got to work. Everything that you're doing needs to be multiplied by two or three X to maintain your still your same business and that's what I'm doing today. So I'm not trying to make more money. What I'm trying to do is maintain my actual volume in order to do so. I have to be making two to three times more phone calls, two to three times more activities for the same amount of work. So don't think you're going to get rich in the next two quarters. Right. So increase the activity. Increase activity to maintain. Seriously. So we've got to do more of what we've done in the past just to maintain, not to grow. Yeah, you won't, I mean, in the next two quarters that are, these are not growth, these are not PR months, these are not bigger quarters like at all. And so it's, you know, sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm making 30 calls. Well, cool. Guess what? You got to make 60 calls tomorrow. I don't care what you're saying. Like that is what I need you to start doing in order for you to actually stay consistent because if you don't do that, and if you're going to stay with 30 calls, I think that's a lot. And that's what drove you to where your volume is today. Well, then just, just why don't you just cut that thing in half already? Yeah, it's funny. I was going to do a video that's basically said, why don't you just quit now? Yeah. It is a doggy dog grilled out there right now. I mean, the rates have gone up, you know, I mean, the profit margins are so thin. And it starts to really try to streamline your business as well because I'm seeing these loan officers with these huge teams, you know, and it's like, when you break down the math and you're a team cost you 100 basis points to close everything alone. And you're wondering, you're wondering why, why is my pricing so high? It's like, because you're costing yourself 100 basis points to do alone, like, I need you to start doing your income. I need you to start actually pre-approving the client and don't expect somebody else because there's no mistakes that can be made right now. Zero. Right. Awesome. Awesome. Good stuff. Good message. Well, listen, Mortgage Geek, Sean Kayne. Thanks a lot for being here, man. Our listeners appreciate it. That was really fun. I appreciate it. You bet. And so listeners, as always, thanks for tuning in and listening. If you like this episode, please let us know. Leave us a little love out there on the inner webs. And we will 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, and I just want to quickly remind you of that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our Mortgage Marketing Pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. One for you agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attract and convert agents into referral partners. 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