Getting Clear on Your Vision for Success with Christine Beckwith

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Go check it out right now. Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, hey, hey, what is up? This is Jeff Zunford, your host of the Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast. Hope you are doing well. Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you as always. And I wanted to give you guys a couple of points of housekeeping. First and foremost, you may or may not have heard that earlier this year, I released my latest book, which is called Disruptor Die. How to Survive and Thrive the Digital Real Estate Shift. And with that, there's a few ways that you can use that book to your advantage. Number one, just read it. Because if you're looking for ways to survive and thrive the digital real estate shift, there's tons of examples in there from interviews I've done with loan officers and real estate agents and technology professionals and so forth, companies that can help you make the pivot, make the shift to stay relevant and not be a fading winner. So if you want to check that out, you can go to DisruptorDieBook.com. And with the book, let me tell you about a couple of different options. First of all, at DisruptorDieBook.com, I will pay for the book. That's right. I will pay for the book. Thank you. I know it's exciting stuff. It's like, hey, you're going to pay for that book. You know it. All right. So you just got to pay for shipping. How's that? That's anywhere in the U.S. And I think it's about the ten bucks for a flat fee. You can get that book for $9.95. So that's a good deal. Now, there's multiple ways you can leverage this book. I have some loan officers who are using this book and gifting it to some VIP agents. Some people are actually having a kind of a mastermind monthly over Zoom to go through some of the ideas. Some people actually are using the free material that comes with it, the free companion course that has additional videos, downloads, guest interviews, checklists, and things like that. You want to invite your agents to that, by the way? Go right ahead. Okay. Go right ahead. I would use the book as a conversational piece. For years, we've been talking about sending people books as a gift, as a thank you, as a way to drive a conversation. Why not this book? Okay. So once again, it's disruptordiebook.com. It's ten bucks. Just pay for shipping. I'll pay for the book, which if you don't want to go that route, go buy it on Amazon for 15 bucks. So that's that. I hope you check that out. And then also, hey, listen, we've got a Facebook group for just the podcast community. If you haven't checked it out yet, head over there to Facebook and just search mortgage marketing radio. It's a group. You have to ask to get in. There are some questions because we don't want any spammers or, you know, people trying to pitch products or things like that. There really are no third party vendors selling you stuff. It is a community of, I think, about 1,500 loan officers. So there's additional content that goes on in there. We slowly live stream in there from time to time. And if you're looking for more good stuff, go check that out there. All right. So let's talk about my special guest this week who have a tremendous amount of respect for and have been watching her for some time. And she's just a leader and a trailblazer in this industry talking about Christine Beckwith, who is the master coach and president of 2020 vision for success. So if you haven't heard about Christine, I want you to check out the link we put in the show notes to learn more if after you hear this interview with Christine, visionyoursuccess.net, we have a great conversation about what it takes to be a well-balanced, successful and by successful, I don't necessarily mean the only definition of that as money. But someone who thrives, someone who doesn't sacrifice their personal life and health to be in a business that can sometimes eat you alive. But how do you really design a business that supports your life rather than demands everything from you and leaves you nothing left for what really matters in your life? And so I think Christine's got a good handle on that, right? She'll share her core philosophy. We're going to talk about some sales tactics. She has that towards the end of this interview, she's got a wonderful kind of dialogue, if you will, a script about how to handle rate shoppers and so forth. So hang in there, listen to this interview, it's more strategic and vision focused than it is tactical. So I think oftentimes if we don't have the vision, the identity, which we talk about is who do you want to be in this business? Who do you want to be, right? What is your vision for your identity for you as a mortgage professional? What is it? What does that look like when it's played out and how you're going to get there? So I hope you enjoyed this interview. And once again, if you like it, please take time to leave us a review or check out the links in the show notes to learn more about Christine's coaching platform, 2020 vision for success. And we'll see you on the next one. Thanks for tuning in. Let's get into this week's show. Christine Beckwith, welcome to the show. Yay! First of all, the audience is thrilled. They're so glad to have you. Yay. I hear them cheering for me. Thanks, audience. They are. They are. And there's a special person who's a real big fan there. So that's your VIP crowd. Yeah, who that is. That's Jason Frager. It is? Is that what he sounds like? Yes. All right. So listen, how do we introduce Christine Beckwith, master coach and president of 2020 vision for success? You've got quite the history and the background. So even though I did the formal LinkedIn version of here's who Christine is, who really are you for people that you're serving in the mortgage or real estate space? Wow, that's a deep question. I think I'm a person that wants to help them navigate the waters of their businesses without making mistakes and wandering around in the dark. This business is relentless at times. I think it's confusing to start. I think that there's a lot of lack of business knowledge for people in our field. At the lower levels, entry level positions, low originators. When I started, you know, I didn't have the guide book that didn't exist. And so you do what everybody does when you really want to succeed. You look around for the people that look like they know what they're doing. And then you emulate what they're doing or you ask questions. And that's really how I found my way. I had a lot of trial and tribulation, but I had fast success. And I was able to kind of, you know, I wanted to career success. Not everybody wants to do that. And so I wanted to become a manager out of originations. And I did that. And I seem to have like this endless thirst to challenge my heights, I suppose. You know, could I get to the next level and the next level and so to speak? How old were you when you're in the mortgage space? Yeah. I was literally 18 when I went to college in Massachusetts, Framingham State University for sports medicine and nutrition. I took a job on a teller line of a small credit union in Massachusetts, but I ended up quickly within like six months, taking a position that opened up in the loan department, assisting a female originator. And through college, I worked, you know, 25, 30 hours a week, putting myself through school. I started college on scholarship. And, and yeah, I just, you know, fell in love with the mortgage industry. And interestingly, I didn't go into my trade, did my internship, hated it in my, in my chosen field. And then said, yeah, I want to be a loan originator. And so really jumped in as an, as an L.O. 21. And I became a manager at 26. Between 21 and 26, you know, I was part of an origination team that started with 20 originators, but then was purchased. The company was purchased by several companies over the years. And we would end up in a pool of about 200 originators. And I found my way, you know, I was in the top 10 of the 200 pool. And I went from the bottom to the top of the 20 pool when it was just the 20 pool. So I knew I was competitive. And I knew that, you know, I was wanting to kind of like see what my lengths were. I wasn't ready to be a manager when I got the first job as a manager. They gave me the label and I didn't know what I was doing. And recruiting was brand new. And so, you know, and I would say that's true about every single thing that I ever did in my 30 years. Like every position I got was brand new and, you know, learn as you go, bring what you know and learn as you go situations. Yeah. Well, some people it's interesting if they're in this industry for a while, they forget about like sometimes what really brought them into this in the first place. What was it for you when you're like 21 or whatever, right? You're kind of helping out, interning, shadowing this other female loan officer. Why were you more attracted to that to this? What about this industry being a mortgage originator really like hits your buttons? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I was smart enough to see the financial height ability, you know, was greater than the Joe's and profession. I wanted to help people. I had a desire for health and wellness myself going through college. I became an aerobics instructor in a physical trainer. I would continue along that line through my 30s as an originator and even as a manager. For 14 years, I taught 14 hours a week of aerobics and physical training. And so I have that kind of like I put that to use for myself and background. And I'm still an athlete at 51 years old. I did TRX this morning at eight o'clock. Like I still have a desire to challenge my physical, you know, fitness or whatever. You know, so I saw that there was opportunity there. I kind of felt like I'd be good at it. I saw I really looked up to the and it was really rare that there it was a woman originator. But I really looked up to her and I just thought, you know, this is something I could do. I love challenges and it felt like a challenge to me. And so, you know, so for you, the financial aspects of it, like, you know, mortgage planning, numbers, all that kind of that was no. Was that any resistance for you? Yeah, no, I mean, I remember thinking I didn't know what I was talking about when I started, you know, like I remember getting a very savvy call that scared the hell out of me from a guy point blank. Kind of giggling at me because I had the script in my head as a young originator. And he was a savvy, you know, multi investment business owner. And I just remember being really nervous on the call that the economic question was going to come and I wasn't going to know the answer. And I talked to young originators today as a coach about that intersection in my career because there's nothing worse than, you know, faking it until you make it feeling. And I don't like that saying it's so overused and I don't think it's really smart, it's really make it. And I think now there's a number of resources that we all have that will avoid that intersection. Right. The long and short of it is every time I found myself in a conversation that I was out, you know, witted by the clientele would send me and I just so you to put this in perspective. I was an originator in the Worcester, Massachusetts market right outside of Boston. Boston has the highest average loan balance in the country. And so, you know, the clientele in that market were savvy, jumbo, you know, affluent buyers. So I was thrown into the deep end of the pool origination wise because you could not just talk to a guy that had $2 million to put down on the $6 million house that he was going to buy and fake your way through that conversation. So really early on I had to learn economics. I would say at a level that was probably greater than a lot of loan originators because of that, the need. Yeah, so you were basically forced to get better sharpen your skills, grow your knowledge. Yeah, I'm wondering, I mean, that's such a hallmark I think about because you work with, you see a lot of people come across, you know, your viewpoint here, you've got a pretty wide lens in a similar way that I do with with interviews, but with the coaching that you're doing with your organization. You see a broad spectrum, I think of like high level producers than newbies and then people middle of the road. And so you probably see at some point, right, I'm guessing this at some point, people are faced with a decision or a choice. It's like, so who am I going to be in this industry? Who do I want to be? Do you see that at all? Yeah, I definitely do. I think that right now look at all the new people coming in this year. And so they're coming in and we manage and coach, you know, retail, we coach executive level, we coach, you know, origination, branch team, whatever size. And so we see people coming into all channels and yeah, I think they're trying to figure out who they want to be. I think that, you know, they're trying to find their way. We're working with a lot of people that are new to the business right now. And this is exactly why I ended up doing this is that over the years as I grew into bigger and bigger and bigger positions. I did hire all the coaches like all the coaches that are currently my competition. They know me really well all of them because at some point I hired them as either my coach or the coach of people that I had in the in the various firms. And so what that did for me is it allowed me to see what was out there for support for people in our space and in our industry. And over the years, I just started so I'm an avid writer and I do really well with like capturing systems and, you know, process and that sort of thing kind of creating organization out of chaos. So, you know, I, I stopped at parts of my life that sound so corny, but it's true. And I would record the lessons I learned. And so like my first book that I wrote in 2006 that would not get published till 2018, why is I see your way to success happened because of like a tragic incident that was occurring in my career, which was the closure of my 12 year job with H and our block mortgage. When that firm closed, I was the senior vice president of sales. I was overseeing 1200 sales employees and 900 originators 210 branch managers and 14 regional directors. And I had grown from an area manager up to that position over 12 years. I was in that position as a vice president of sales for a couple years. And in the final months, I was the senior vice president, which it was just a hard act. We were tied to Wall Street as H and our block. We were publicly traded. We could not afford to have the mortgage leg of H and our block lose money, not one month because the gravity of that would have been billions of dollars. And so in the board room, I was in the board room when we made the decision that we were going to just close the mortgage industry down, which is, you know, you build something for 12 years. And then it's just, you know, your next act is helping everybody leave the boat, you know, I get it in a safety boat. You know, play the violin. And then you leave, you know. And so that was like the end of that story. And I sat on a beach. I rented a house at home where I grew up, which is Lakeland, Pisaki, New Hampshire, I had a young baby had been born the previous year. And I wrote wise eyes sitting on the beach. I had to write like I was just in the frame of my I was hurting. I didn't know really what the next step was. Yeah. And so I wrote what made me successful what made me advance how one thing in reflection and not to brag was that I was advancing faster than the tenured peers that I was with. And I wanted to kind of understand what that recipe was because I thought if I could learn how to teach other people to do it. And I felt like it was a combination of things that I'm now written about, that I call the blueprint for success. And I wish I could rename it sometimes because I feel like blueprint is a word that's overused. But it was new and it explained kind of what I was doing back then. So in a long, windy way, I will tell you that because I stop to write and capture my success. And I would go on from that job and take a job at a boutique shop in Boston overseeing this IT guys 50 L O shop, which was a fall from from the height of my job with HR block. And everybody was just trying to find solid ground, you know, all that summer, the mortgage implode meter was running and companies, Maryland was falling, like, you know, it was a mess. And I found myself in a boutique, you know, I took the job being the vice president of sales for the small shop that was really, you know, 50 L O's. And I was going to call from an old colleague that worked with me at block, who had left years before we closed, and he had started a shop in New Jersey called village home mortgage with this mortgage back securities bonds guy, Joe, pen of Bianco. Hey, do you want to have dinner? We'd love to pick up your business because they were wholesaling. And then when we had the dinner, they said, do you think your owner would broker a sale so we could pick up your 50 L O's. We know that you, you know, have the bandwidth to help us grow over here. And that's what I did. And then that that would be the next 12 year journey of my career building any back home mortgage with with Joe and Ryan. Yeah. Wow. So a lot of in the in the trenches in the field experience. Yep. So what's different do you think today for originators coming in? How are you advising them to prepare? Is it the same blueprint or what is it today? Yeah, I think fundamentally it is actually. I think that there are a lot of companies sitting on really weak foundations out there. There's a lot. And when I say companies, I mean, you know, there's lots and lots and lots and lots of branches that are running themselves, you know, fin that, you know, don't scale properly that don't, you know, do fundamental things in their businesses. So, you know, what I, what we do is we literally take L O's and we build the foundation every person that comes to us has to start. So let's say I get a senior vice president. We have a lot of executives that coach with us. Let's say somebody calls me and they're a senior vice president and they have 500 people reporting to them. They are literally going to be put through the same process as the guy that calls me that says I've never written a mortgage can you train me how to do mortgages because the very first thing we need to do is really make sure that the foundation of the business they're going to build on so they may be operating from a business plan, but they're going to fill my blueprint for success business plan out and we're going to dissect this thing and put it back together. The plan is created a team of coaches, so coaching is kind of a funny word because it implies a lot of things. For me, we're kind of like a hospital for businesses. So there's a curriculum you follow, but then we have the pharmacy. Like if you're coming to me and you're saying as Jeff, you know, I'm great with my P and L, but I have issues with time management or I'm we're really profitable and productive, but my wife's ready to leave me because all I do was work. So I called the company vision for success because I feel that every person's vision for success is different. So how do you become, you know, that hospital for businesses where if your knee hurts, I'm giving you that medicine, but if you have an earache, I'm giving you that medicine and instead of being like here, this is who I am as a coach and do exactly what I did to be successful and you'll be successful, that's not what we do here. You know, I know I had success, but I really feel like I've made a school now of business. And so right away, everybody has to do curriculum. So everybody's doing curriculum in the background. They're doing two courses a month over 12 months for 24 certifications in business fundamentals and sales skills and it goes from economics to marketing to prospecting to scaling. There's EQ classes in there. Obviously the basics time management, business planning and then it moves beyond into more complex areas of marketing. They're going to get looked at by a financial forensics coach who's going to examine their business analytics. Andy Tobag, Andy Tobag actually was with me at HR block. He was the just under the CFO and he was with me at any Mac and he helped us do our forecasting there and today he's my financial forensics coach here. So literally helps professionals forecast, analyze their PNLs, their business models, you know, we look for trends, we look, you know, we lay out road maps for them on forward metrics activity metrics. And we really run people's businesses with advice exactly like we're an executive banking firm that you have come and plugged your car into our chipboard. And we're going to tell you where the car is not operating right and then kind of help you get that car up to top speed, whatever direction you're trying to drive it. So we have a lot of people new coming in the industry. We've got, of course, the average age of an L.O. I think today is right around that of a realtor right like 55 is kind of stuff. I think about that age group. Me neither, man. I keep moving neighborhoods. I just got my ARP card last year and I threw it in the trash. I'm in denial. We'll see if they send me another one this year. Same, same thing I did. There's no way, if the handbag, the tote bag was worth it, maybe I might do that, right? I think it's pretty handy though. I was like, they're really innovative. The backseat, a Chachky grabber for your car. I mean, someone put a lot of thought into that. There's a lot of people listening Jeff that don't know what the hell. They're like, what's a ARP? Just wait. You have to wait to get our age to get that privilege to be proud to get it. It is. That means you've got wisdom and experience. What's that old saying? You know this. We love these kind of cliches. Things wisdom. How do you get wisdom? Experience? How do you get experience? Make a lot of mistakes? Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Isn't it? So, so like I said, what I, here's what I wanted to kind of pull out of you, right? Because I think there's value to somebody who has a wide lens. And you've seen a wide lens both in your career and your history. But now what you're doing with 2020 vision for success. And by the way, we'll put links in the show notes to all this for people who want to learn more about your coaching platform. I'm trying to think of like people listening right now. There's people at various places. Like you said, it's various issues that they struggle with. Right. What's, I hate to ask a question of like, what's the biggest thing the number one? But do you see patterns? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, definitely this year, I felt that I'm always looking at the tide, I suppose, in our business. I would say we're in March, the question chain, the answer to your question changed over the year. You know, in March, I felt like our industry, you know, I'm a metaphor queen was like a boat that hit this massive wave. You know, we had pre pandemic. I mean, let's go back to the first week of March, the first week of March, you had the margin calls happening, right? So we were, we were lending 600 times the amount of business. And the risk assessment by Jenny May and, and, and all the investors was that that they were starting to do margin calls, the feds lowered the interest rate to zero on a Sunday. The week before we declared an national pandemic. So we were already, you know, non QM lenders were falling. So there was some volatility economically happening. So what did I, what did I think the number one problem was then? We felt like when I looked around at the people coaching with us that everybody was, was scared. Like I saw the whites of the eyes of a lot of mortgage people going, what is happening? We had non QM teams here that we're getting shut down. It was a small percentage of the people we were managing, but, you know, what's your act as a coach when ultimately a company is closing. It's to go sit with them. Like, you know, there's nothing else you can do at that point. There's no life saving advice that can be rendered. But you can sit with the person that has to go through that and let them know it's going to be okay and, and share your story of, you know, my, my 2006, which made no sense to me when it was happening. It would end up lending me the greatest lessons of my career. You know, my ability to, I didn't think I had another run in me to do an anti-mac post HR block mortgage. I didn't think I had a 2020 in me after doing anti-mac. And so it's kind of like I'm here to say to that person, you will live to fight another day, you know, today's a bad day. I get it. And today's a sad day. And I say you sit with that sadness. I'm a firm believer that we should not try to go around conflict. You know, obviously go through it and work through it and process it. And so that was March. So what did I do in March? I had very heavy come on. I did tons of Facebook lives. I just put as much economic news as I could out because I knew everyone needed it right now. I didn't know where to go. What was their foothold? What do I say to the consumer? And I just, I'm going to tell you, I cried at my bathroom sink. I don't mind admitting this. But the third week in March, I woke up and I was getting ready to come into my work studio. And there was just this eariness. It's the sound of the boat when the lights go out on the Titanic. We were immobile as a country for the first two weeks. It's just that like there's no cars on the road. Right. You know, and I have to go to work today. And am I going to lose this company? Like, am I going to lose 2020 in the midst of this storm? Or am I going to show up and be the light house? And I chose that day to be the lighthouse, but that did not come without my own personal fears. I was standing at the sink. My boyfriend, we have a double sink. And my boyfriend was standing next to me of 14 years, who is magnificent. And he legitimately looked at me and that's all he needed to do. I'm one of those people. Don't ask me how I am. If I'm, if I look sad, just assume I'm sad. Don't ask me if I'm sad. I don't make me think and feel sorry for myself. And he was just like, are you okay? Because I look tired. And I was tired because of everything that was going on. And I just, it made me burst in tears. And I had my moment. And for a few minutes, I just let myself have that moment. And I just, from that moment, and never from that moment on, I just came downstairs that day. And I said, I'm going to talk to every single person I can. And I'm just going to let them know we're going to be okay. And I did more live zooms than we've ever done since for the next foreseeable eight weeks. And during that time, I just wanted people to know that they could come here and they did, if they did nothing other than sit on the zoom and just talk. And that's what we did. We spent hours and hours with professionals that just were coming on. And they were like, in their lives, forget about their businesses and their lives, they were trying to figure out where they would be. You know, that was then today, I'm trying to prepare people to look at the core part of their business, which is real estate and purchased us and not forget it. Because we've been distracted by this refi tidal wave. And it will dry up at some point. And the victors will go to those people that maintain some semblance of that core business. So, you know, we do real estate webinars every month, and we open them publicly for all of the people coaching with us to invite their realtors. And so what that allows them to do is have at least a once a month place where they're offering something of value to their realtors. They get to connect with them, they get to bring them into our webinars, give them something we make the topics very like last month was self imposed stress to how to overcome self imposed stress. This coming month, it's the cavern between planning and execution. And it's basically, you know, the lack of implementation, you know, where we fail to implement. And so these, we call these high EQ, and they're very attractive to professionals. They want to learn about these techniques and they're coming. So, I guess I try to make it pliable enough, you know, where I'm inserted, you know, I have one class a month, I teach. And then what's happening, the rest of the day is I've got 12 coaches that are group coaching and independently coaching. And then I have executive accounts that I'm in, of course, but I'm popping in and out of zoom rooms. It might be a team that's coaching with somebody else. I think everybody just needs to be aware of economics. You need to have a strong foundation. You need to really have a plan looking down the road. And all of this sounds really boring and vanilla. Yeah, it's not bright shiny sexy all that. It's not, but what is sexy is when you run a sound business, and you don't fall apart because things get a little rocky, or you can't see ahead of you where the landscape of your runway is going. And I think we are going to take a turn. I think we are going to take a turn in the next year a little bit. What do you mean take a turn? I mean, I don't think it's going to stay on this straight refi line is all. I'm sure you saw the NBA numbers, right? Where they're talking about the drop off and refives is 56% I think. Yeah, reduction in refis and purchase is going to go 3%. I mean, just to put that in context, we're still going to have a few trillion bucks worth of, you know, total originations, but let's just face it, right? Yeah, refi bandwagon is it's still moving. Yes, but yeah, slowing down, there's less people getting on that bus. So to your point and what you guys do at 2020 vision for success and hopefully what we're giving some people awareness about is like you said, well, number one awareness. That's why I love, I mean, are your glasses of your logo because it's you or is that also tied into it's about vision? Yeah, both. You know, I think they're symbolic, you know, how do I become a piece of the logo a little bit that ties me into me. But at the same time, you know, the vision, I coined, you know, I got the website in 2006 vision, you're six for your success. And I did not have the wherewithal to think of 2020. I'm going to tell you that didn't come into view for me pun intended until like somewhere in the beginning of 2019 when I was like everyone's like next year's 2020 and I'm like, oh, no kidding. Like, you know, and then it seemed really fun and cool as the year got on and it was the overused phrase. Or like, I hope you copyright wrote that and I'm like, well, you can't copyright a phrase 2020 vision for success is a phrase. Of course, my company's trademark know there can be no other 2020 vision for success coaching and consulting that's fine that's protected, but I can't be mad at people that chose the phrase. In fact, I felt like that's shown a nice light on us until this year came. And then, and then I'm like, I don't want to be 2020 anymore because 2020 doesn't. Yeah, but I think that people understand vision seeing 2020, I get that. So it's only like 14 years in the making this thing, right? That's it. Well, I'm truly the person that you could emulate and know that a dream, you know, can become something and all my books talk about my childhood dreams, becoming reality through my career. And my breaking the cycle book that came out a year ago was my first like tell all of my life with another little girl on the street that I grew up with, which was really, really poor. In fact, the back of the book is filled with pictures of us on that street as little girls, you know, and it is she became a world renowned doctor. And if you would have ever guessed that really side by side on this street, two of us out of eight of us could have gone to the lengths, you know, that we have. It's basically we wrote that book for young adults so that they understand that your beginnings do not define you. No obstacles are too great to get where you're going. And I still believe that today, you know. Yeah, for sure. Well, I think what's exciting about you and what I love about a story like yours and then of course what you're doing for individuals, regardless of the industry is something that's, I think, personal for any of us who try and do what we do here, which is have a platform with our intent of this platform is because we want to in some way make a difference. You know, that may sound cheesy or cliché to some, but it's true for me. I mean, you know, when I think about why did I start this podcast five years ago, it's because I've something was missing. There was like you said earlier, there was no quote playbook. There was we didn't have the stuff when I started in 2003, we didn't have all the tools and resources. And so how do I succeed as a mortgage originator. So I think it's like sometimes you just have that DNA where that's just part of you that you want to, you know, help help somebody up extend your hand and help them up. You know, if you can, if you can build a business around that, great, awesome. And I think L.O.s have a unique opportunity to do that by helping people up extending a hand. If they approach this the right way of that's why I wanted to talk about like vision and mindset, which you've done so eloquently, when I asked you that question, how do you see yourself. What I'm getting to is this, I guess this final little cap to this brand is with you 100% keep going. I think it starts with that's if I go back to your title starts with vision, because I know when I said a lot of people see themselves as a salesperson in this job. And do you number one, do you think that's appropriate and or what would you advise if that's kind of how they see their role right now. So I struggled with thinking I was a salesperson and I definitely don't teach sales. So what's interesting is our school is called the sales acceleration success solution, SaaS. And we teach a ton of sales tactics, but I really feel like, you know, one of the classes we teach is how to take a client from the rate inquiry to the start of a conversation and all the way through them. You know, engaging with you and taking an application. And it seems the impossible feat to a new mortgage loan officer, because if somebody says I got three and a quarter down the street, what's your rate. You know, a new originators looking at their rates, you're trying to see if they can beat it. And so we begin to talk about what is your reality as a person. So do I see myself as a salesperson. I have to I had to lie to myself in the beginning of my career, because I hate the sound. I don't like being sold. I often have told that a story when I was building a bookshelf for my son that I went to Sears for a tool that I needed. And I didn't know what the tool looked like. I had a description of it, and I had a salesperson walk up many. There was a whole bunch of sales guys at Sears sitting around the lawnmower section, and they walked up to me and said, can I help you. And I automatically knee jerk said, no, I'm all set. I'm just looking, but that was a complete lie. I wasn't just looking. I needed a tool. I needed a specific one, and I, and here's the funny part. I needed help. But I ended up wandering around looking for this thing, ultimately not finding it going back to the most friendly of the three faces that had talked to me and asking them for help. And they directly brought me to the right thing and all this time was saved. And I remember leaving and reflecting like what a jerk I am. And then I thought, well, I'm not a jerk. I just wanted to control the situation. And that was an epiphany for me. And I teach that in sales. People want to control their own transactions. So I don't care if you get a person whose grandfather has given them ultimately bad financial advice. Don't buy points. Get the best rate. You know, all of these things, which sounds great on the surface of financial inquiry. But our jobs is to determine the financial risk assessment of a client. And I'm going to bet all day long that my competition hasn't done a thorough job. So if somebody comes to me with a rate inquiry and says, I, you know, I'm getting a three quarter, three and a quarter, you know, quote down the street, what is your interest rate? I'm going to dissect the rate quote to start. And then I'm going to go straight into my risk assessment. I will not say, oh, I'll answer that in a minute and be all scripted or oh, it depends or any of that jazz. I literally say when they gave you that three and a quarter percent interest rate, had they reviewed your income and your assets and your FICO score from your credit report. And your money down and all these things, what kind of inquiry or what kind of qualifications were done to give you that rate. If you're dealing with someone savvy, maybe even a homeowner multiple time homeowner, they might say, no, they didn't, you know, they didn't ask that. I just asked for an interest rate. And so I'm going to say without insulting the person because you're never going to win the battle in sales that you insult the client. But I would say, okay, so you got a teaser ad quote. You basically got the best on the rate sheet quote and they don't know what you financially qualify for. Okay, so I'm going to give you a rate that beats three and a quarter, but I can't promise it to you because I'm going to tell you right now that that rate is going to also be unqualified. If you want the real rate qualified, then we can dig into the questions I just said. And then I'll actually give you a rate that you can count on actually being there on paper. Would you like to go through those questions with me? And if they say no, I say, okay, then three and a eighth is my rate. And I don't even look at my rate sheet. Because all I'm saying to them at that point is, you know, I can, yeah, it doesn't matter because you don't care. Yeah, because you took the three and a quarter rate and called me and told me that so, you know, elbows will look at that conversation. And it takes, I realized that took time for me to get the confidence up to do that. And then I do a little bit of a lesson and I just say in 2008, the government came in and rewrote loan origination compensation law, which prohibits us from profiting from the quote of an interest rate. And then I said, Mr Smith, you're in luck because I can't make money of quoting you and interest rate anymore. So what I will tell you is if you're getting a far better interest rate down the street that those monies that the company is allowed to make are somewhere in that fishy that I can't see that you probably have or may not have. I give you my rate quote, I am going to give you the rate, which is part of the price of what you're paying. I'm going to give you the fees, which are going to be in the finance of your loan. I'm going to tell you the maximum amount you can borrow so you can see if any of that money is going to actually help you get a better financial position. And then I'll happily compare that to the deal that you're getting. But if you're only looking at rate, you're missing about 80% of the financial picture and the deal that you're looking at. So is that salesy or is that trusted advisor educated economic informing of whatever. So that's what I teach. I teach mortgage professionals how to speak intelligently about the products we serve. There's a lot in there, by the way, that that was like a mini lesson right there. All right. There you go. So we gave the audience a nugget of realness, real lesson stuff. Rewind this, jot it down. No, I'm serious. There's so much in there. I mean, one from the from the get go, I think all loan officers that are dealing with the rate conversation need a rate differentiation statement that takes that person off their pattern interrupts the pattern. And you gave a few examples of that. Plus, then what you did was you reposition to basically say, here's why here's how I'm different. Right. I'm not just going to quote that right that rate fee sheet blah, blah, blah, without completely understanding your financial situation so we can ultimately pick the best loans and situation that's right for you. Essentially, that's kind of the same thing you said. But the point of this is for those that are listening in the sales discussion, most people are ill prepared when that question comes. Yeah. And so then they fumble and dumble and they feel they have to quote rate instead of you don't have to quote a rate. You just need a better response. Yeah, and there's only one person that has the best interest rate. And I don't know who it is, but it's never been me. It's never been me in 32 years. I've never had the best interest rate. I've never worked for a company and that isn't dog in the companies I work for. But I've never worked for a company that had the best interest rate. And we're all competing on some level, but I put faith in the fact that if I make educated loan officers that give good advice, good sound financial advice. They are going to win sales by being smart enough to educate their borrowers on what's best for them. And that is legit and it's in line with what they should be doing. And it really isn't salesy. It's just the best win sales. I think knowledge win sales. And so I'm in the business of creating knowledge and experience. And listen, we are, you know, this week I got on a call and all I did for 90 minutes with 60 new loan officers was go through a HUD. I had a HUD on a zoom. And I think that you're going to have to explain how each fee, how you explain, how to warn people that the APR is different from the note rate. Understanding what mortgage insurance premium is like literally teaching them the definitions of how to explain because these things are the deal breakers when they can't explain their LSE. So the client, they're not going to be able to win that transaction. They sound like silly little lessons, but they become huge, you know, differentiators in the world that we live in. I wouldn't buy from somebody that couldn't properly explain, you know, things for me. And so it's kind of like, here's your gun. Let's dismantle the gun and put it back together because, you know, if I'm going to send you into war, I need you to be really good with this gun. You need to be able to take this thing apart, put it back together, get the ammo in it. Let's worry about shooting it later, you know, that is not the problem right now, like so many firms that are out there that are not trusting experts to teach their mortgage originators how to be the best gunslingers is because they're taking them to shooting ranges. And all they're doing is saying, shoot this thing, but they haven't taught them safety. They haven't taught them why or when they should pull the trigger and all of the things in the peripheral of carrying that gun that really, in my opinion, matter more than their ability to shoot, you know, pulling a trigger is easy, but like understanding the timing, understanding all those other things become really, really, really important. And I have a passion for this, like I feel like I listen, I left a really expensive job to do this. And a lot of people thought I was nuts when I announced my retirement from mortgage and said I was going to go build a coaching company. First of all, everybody thought, oh, great, another coach, just what we need. Number two, I think everybody thought, why would you do that if everything's hunky-dory and you're making a lot of money and you work to get to this place. And at some point in your life, all human beings say, I want to live in my gift that God gave me. I'm a faithful person. And I believe that God made me a teacher. I think he made me that way at one years old. I can remember being little and helping and teaching and wanting to write, read, talk and do these things. And I've been spending my entire life accidentally in a career that had teaching capabilities. And I found my way to spend my days this way. And you know what, I have endless amounts of energy because of it. My ROI is happiness and fulfillment. The money is subsequent to those two things. And my father told me if I drive from a place that is purpose filled for people that God would provide for me. He has provided for me in plentiful ways money being one of them, but not because that's been my focus, but because it's been the peripheral effects of a greater focus. Money is just an outcome, really, right? In a variety of different ways. That's awesome. Thank you for taking us on this journey. I want to applaud you for living your true gift and vision and having the courage to step into that role. I want to buy the two signs behind your head for my office. I'm just letting you know you can't see it on the podcast. Success in a straight line arrow. And then there's a success sign with like a screwy arrow. It's that's the reality right there. It's all over the place. All right. So listen, I want to close this out because we're tied on time. And then there's usually what I started doing was asking these you might want to get these these pod decks. And so it's a thing of questions to mix it up a little bit when you're talking to people. Okay. That is very cool. We do have people watch the video. But here's the thing. So I try and pick three questions in advance who I think might resonate with who you are. So let me, and these can be fun or whatever. All right. Let me, let me, let me try two of these. Here we go. Here we go. If there was a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Oh, gosh, that's tough. I, oh, my God. I'm laughing, thinking of anything. I think I'd be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Really? Okay. Yeah. All right. I think I, I think I, I don't know. You know what's good about peanut butter and jelly? I'm like fun. Like I am a very fun. Yeah. Well, I have a fun like aspect to myself where I think like when I'm not having to be serious. Anyone, anyone that goes to convention with me wants to sit next to me because I am a fool in the audience. Like I am one of those people that will laugh and get everyone around me laughing. And so that's kind of my person. For me, when you say PB and J, what I think about like that is that's a sandwich you can always count on. Yes. It always delivers. And it's old fashioned. It's dependable. And nobody ever gets sick of it. Right? All right. Here's here. Here's the last one. Which band or artist dead or alive would play at your funeral? Oh, I think I would, it would be Steven Tyler, you know, I'm from Austin. He grew up in a little town right above where my home has been for many decades now. And cinnamon concerted time. I love what he stands for, you know, the heart of that music. Of course, home in the Boston marathon. And he played a huge role in, you know, helping raise money in the fake of that and stuff. Yeah, exactly. For sure. And by the way, for those who can dream on dream on dream on that's your song. If you like, you should play that in the background too coming out of this, this podcast, you're going to have to overlay. Oh, dream on. I'm going to cut it in. I'll cut it. Yes. But you can see I got my Patriots glass. Yeah. So I love the Patriots. You know, I'm from New England too. You are. Did I know that? I don't know if I knew that. I think you might have. Yeah, I may have forgotten that. Yes. I love the Patriots for the 35 years they lost in my life. And I love them even more for the 20 years that they forget they weren't always a winning, but they've been quite. That's correct. All right. So listen, for those who want to reach out to Christine, we're going to put links in the show notes, but vision your success. Yes. To go learn more. She's got all kinds of free stuff, check her out, set up a call. If you're interested in learning more about her coaching services, because clearly she knows what she's talking about Christine back with. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. You bet listeners. Hey, you know what to do. If you like this episode, please leave us a review. We always appreciate you tuning in and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Bye everyone. 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. Done 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, attracting convert agents into referral partners. 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