How to Build a $100 Million Dollar Team with Michelle Oddo

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, listeners, what's up, Jeff Zimper. Once again, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast. I hope whenever you're listening to this, it's either around the Thanksgiving holiday. So I hope you were able to get some time for yourself, your family, for unplugging disconnecting, reconnecting to those people, places, and things that matter to you. And if you're tuning into this, I appreciate you and you taking time from your life to give us some attention over here and hope that we continue to bring value because you are definitely among the list for me of people that matter my audience and I do this for you. So what we're bringing you today is a new episode with somebody I consider a friend in the business. Somebody I've known for a number of years now, who's, again, another one, just a great, you know, person, human being, but also a phenomenal producer when it comes to mortgage, professional mortgage business. Michelle Odo, out of the Denver Colorado market with leader one financial, Michelle is doing some incredible things for her business. She, in 2020, as the time we recorded this on November 20th was at $294 units, $135 million in production. I think her previous year, if I recall, was, yeah, so prior to that 2019, she did approximately 85 million in about 200-ish units. So obviously some significant growth, a part of that is market related, but also part of it is not part of that is, as you'll hear her unpack, one of the questions I ask her is, what was she already doing in preparation to be able to grow? So what this conversation is, what many of you listeners have been asking for, which I try to deliver, and that is a breakdown of a mega producers team. And obviously Michelle is a mega producer. So what she does in the first half of this conversation is break down her team structure, who does what, what roles do they play, where she involved, when she hired them, how she dealt with the issue of an LO, junior LOA wanting to become their own LO and leave her and, you know, on and on. So first and foremost, I think what this is is a case study in growth. So for those of you that are in a place right now where you know you need to hire somebody, where you know that you want to duplicate this past year's volume and or units, or at least hold steady, maybe even grow, but a lot of a lot of you are coming off a wave right that's coming in, right, the high tide, right, and so it's been raising all the boats. So the question though is, how do you keep riding the tide, right, how do you keep that wave moving forward? And you do that by being very intentional and focused on areas such as hiring people, right, implementing certain processes and technology to allow you scale and grow. And that's what Michelle shares is kind of how she's done that personally for herself. So that's part one. Then part two is we get in and unpack kind of what she does in terms of marketing before during and after the loan process, what she does with referral partners and what her plans are to improve and have some efficiencies in her process in the coming year in 2021. So I think that this is time to get a pen and pencil out, a blank piece of paper, sit down without any interruptions and take notes because there are more nuggets per minute in this podcast episode than maybe you'll ever hear listening to any other podcast episode on planet earth. Okay, well, maybe not, but pretty darn close. And so by the way, you're going to hear Michelle talk about some marketing activities and everything. And at the end, she is gracious enough to acknowledge what we're doing over at the Pro membership for some of the done for you turn key educational classes that she uses to attract real estate agents. If you want to learn more about that, you can go to mortgage marketing.pro and check out the brief video that's put up there and take a look at the exact same program Michelle uses to reach out to real estate agents. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Michelle, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you. Have a good year. Thank you. Yes. So great to have you. Really great to connect with you again. You're incredibly busy. So I know it's really hard. Let's do this. Let's just set up who's Michelle auto quick background. How many years in the biz and then year to date? What have you done for volume transactions? OK. I'm pulling up my pipeline over here so I can give you a little bit. Yes. OK. So Michelle Odo with the Long O, I am from Florida. I've been in Denver now 23 years. I've been in mortgage for going on 28 and that's with the seven year gap in between when I have my kiddos. 28 years working, really, 30 some years. A lot of underwriting background. I was a host cell rep for a bunch of years and then I've been in the retail loan officer side since 98. Got it. So yeah. And then you said numbers. So year to date through in November, where we're at, it's November 20th. We're at 135 million and just 250 for units right now. Looks like. Wow. That's not right. No, it's more like 294. Hey. Fundings are coming in as we speak. Yeah. Right. Wait. The ticker's moving now. It's like 94. 294 units. And what was it? The volume was 135. Wow. I thought I'd get you with that. Yeah. That's amazing. Seriously. That's off to you. How does that compare to? You don't have to be specific. Just ballpark. Previous year. 2019. 2019. I did 85 million and I forget how many units, but I want to say, I think it was 206, 206 and it was 85 million. Wow. All right. So obviously the market has driven a lot of growth for people. How do you look at your growth? Like do you just chalk it up to, hey, thank God for the market or do you think you've also done some things intentionally or we're already brewing that plays a factor into your current numbers? No, I definitely did things to facilitate growth to prepare for growth. My goal was to hit 100 million this year. So I wanted to go from like 85 to 100. I usually try to do like 10 to 20% increase for year if I can. So my goal was to get to 100. I didn't know if I'd do it because I thought I didn't know what this year was going to hold when I made that goal, right? I think the whole mortgage industry, obviously with all the horrible things that COVID brought, but with the low rates, it was a blessing for us this year. And so what I planned to be 100 million and I'd be in more like one, I end up at one, I don't know, maybe 160 or so and 70, but in terms of what I did to prepare for growth. So I knew I had to grow my team, that was my number one goal. And we had also moved platforms. So I was at a different lender up until July of last year, July of 19. So we moved to July of 19 and we opened up our own branch with a different company. And so there was a lot, you know, there was all that transition moving, moving the office, and then hiring more staff and growing our team. And so my goal all along was to get, I had an LOA who kind of functioned like an LOA and a loan coordinator. So really more docs oriented versus like selling, although she could take from lead to close if she needed to, she's licensed. And she's worked for me, she's worked for me for like 20 years. So Carlos, my right hand, you know, she's my work wife, she's amazing. So I knew I needed to hire like a true LOA that was going to be sales, and then Carla could be act more like in that loan coordinator capacity. And I did do that March of, let me think, what data, I don't even know why. It's like been a fog, honestly, it's been kind of a whirlwind. But you did that in 2020 this year. Yeah, well, I hired her a year ago, I hired my second LOA a year ago, but she didn't really move into that LOA role till like March. We had her doing some marketing things up until then, so from March until now. So hired Tanya and she, you know, within her, I don't know, third or fourth month, she was up to do in 10, 15 loans a month. And that's what she's been averaging. So she's doing phenomenal. And then I hired another LOA in September. Just to clarify, when you say doing 10 to 15 loans a month, what do you mean? Is she originating or? So leads that I can't get to, right? So I give her the lead, I give her the name. I mean, it's as simple as I might give her, you know, forward an email to her or a text or a waistmail or whatever it may be. It could be a home bot lead, you know, that comes in or it could just be a website that comes in and then I'll just, you know, she can take that lead from start to finish. Usually I'll do an intro if I've talked to the client. If I haven't even talked to the client, then she'll just call and say, hi, I'm Tanya, I work with Michelle Odo on her team. You know, I'm her loan partner. I'm going to work on this free day so we can get out to you right away. And 99.99% of the people are thrilled, you know, that they got a call right away. That's someone's on it. They're never, you know, kind of like, well, I only want to talk to Michelle, but that doesn't happen a lot. It can happen, but it's more rare. Are any of, would any of those be real to referrals or those typically kind of like those less defined? Well, I mean, I started her off with all refi stuff, just because that's the easy way to cut your teeth, you know, she'd been in the title industry. So she knew loans, but she had never like been a loan officer. So she got licensed and then started from scratch on that side of the business with me. And so, you know, started with refinance leads. So not really unless it was a realtor who referred a refi, but not a purchase lead, you know. But then once she got up and running within a few months, I did have her start doing some purchases and now she'll do both. So some of those are realtor leads. They're both. Okay, cool. Well, obviously that's, then you include your total units in those figures, her 10 to 15. Yeah, so as an L.O.A., they're not really sourcing any of their own business. They don't go out and originate like per se. They don't call on realtors. So they're really my deals that are coming in. They're my past client. They're my repeat client, my referral from a client or a realtor referral. And they'll act in terms of like taking that loan from start to finish, but they go under my volume. Mm hmm. Now you mentioned home bottom and interesting. Obviously you use that and that sounds like it's generating some positive ROI for you. I love home bottom. Mm hmm. I actually was lucky enough to get to pilot it before it ever came out. So Ernie Graham, you know, he was in Denver. He's a friend, asked me to be one attend to pilot it out here. So I got to kind of see the before, during and after process and the product. Yeah. So I've I've labbed it from day one. I think it's one of the few things that you pay for. And it actually gives you as much or more than you expected. And it's very easy. It's a set it and forget it system. So people just love it. The clients really enjoy it. And you don't have to chase them down. They're coming, they're coming to you with questions. When I think about with you and somebody at your volume, and you mentioned the L.O.A. handling home bod as an example of leads, is do you have that then internally kind of flow process wise? Do you have that set up already? You know what I mean with a very direct either a director dotted line to Tonya so that you're kind of out of the loop on that? So what happens is we have an email. One of our emails is Odo Group at leader1.com. So I have the home bod notifications come to Odo Group. And then Odo Group would be me, Tonya, Amory, and then Dennis, my other. He's kind of an L.O.A. hybrid. He's he's do maybe a few deals a month for me. And then do in his own stuff. So those deals will come in through Odo Group. And so we all see it. And I'll usually assign it, you know, or someone might say, Tonya might say, hey, I've been trying to chase this guy down for two months. This is my deal. And it's cute. We all do little memes. You know, like yesterday, Tonya had one with all the birds. And it was like, my, my, my, my, and she sent that out to the team. Like, this is my deal. So everybody's like, hands off, you know, and so that's been fun. But yeah, everybody on the team is great. We all work together. There's no drama. Everybody wants to help everybody. And that's been really good. And do you also involve them in any other activities that might be like past client type stuff? You know what I mean? As you're doing things to turn uncover opportunities, are you involving them in a similar way with that? Do you mean like events? Or do you mean like, let's just take past out of past database, for example? I don't know. What do you do with your past database to try and so it all, it's always me. I'm on the face of it. My L.O.A.'s are not unless they want to send something to like their sphere. Then it would be them and me. But so for my CRM, anything that goes out will have Michelle Odo, you know, the Odo group, my picture, and it'll come out from me. But then those leads that come in would filter back to them. Ah, very good point. So it's going out from you. It's still your face, your branding, but if you send out 500 emails, for example, and you get, you know, 25 people who respond, then that's getting dispersed to your team. Correct. Yes. And you know, I still, I don't know if you remember, but I do a lot of male, like snow, male, hard male, you know, cool postcards. We do these variable data's where their name is on it, different things. We do all different types of cards and things. So every time I do a drop, you know, I'll get calls, I'll get deals. So those will again go to the team. I mean, listen to that. Hey, snail male, right? Direct male still works. It works great. Ah, no, it's question one of the last people that, well, it's funny. I mean, we could like, you know, segway into that conversation. I don't want to per se, but it's just a good point and reminder to, you know, whenever anybody says something's dead, emails dead, direct mail is dead, right? First of all, it's not in most cases. And second of all, people, let's not forget that people love to get, like, here, I got this book here. People love to get stuff, tactile stuff in the mail that they can touch and feel. And you know what I mean? Because we're so used to digital that we, you know, that shows up and gets attention. Right. For sure. People love it. Who does to you? All right. So you also mentioned Dennis. So is that your aside from processor? We've got one, two, three L.O.A.'s. Is that what I heard? Yeah. Dennis is really, he came from another mortgage company. He's a friend, you know, known for like 20 years. He is a guy who used to do a lot of volume back in the days from California. He's lived in Colorado a long time. But just through life changes and whatnot, he really, he kind of got to where he was doing maybe three, five deals a month. That's all he was doing. And then he, as of last year, was L.O.A.'ing for a different L.O. And but he really wants to grow his own business. Okay. So, you know, he and I had been talking for a while and he's like, Michelle, I want to come work with you. I want you to mentor me on the marketing, doing the video, you know, all the things that you do, I will pick up any leftover and be an L.O.A. on some of your deals. But my goal is really to build my business and that's my goal is to help him build it as well. So he's in my branch. He's an L.O. In my branch, who is his own L.O., but he also maybe does like maybe three to five deals a month for me. Okay. Got it. And maybe, you know, five, three to five of his own. And he wants to get to 10 to 15 of his own. So that's our goal. So I want to ask you about this. And the situation with Dennis, it's for you anyways, it's a little bit different because you're running a branch. So therefore, you don't necessarily care that he grows his own business. You want him to. Right? For obvious reasons. Because you're going to have to. Yeah. But here's the thing. A lot of people I talk to struggle with is when they're looking at hiring L.O.A.s, etc. Is the is the constant challenge of them breaking away and becoming their own law and officer and then leaving me, assuming I'm not running a branch. Do you do any things in advance to kind of like mitigate that or any advice there? Yeah. I mean, my advice is, and I've seen that over the years, and you know, I husband and I were brokers for years, Jeff, I think you knew that, you know, a long time ago. And we hired a lot of people that we trained and then they left us, you know, and it just like it's like it breaks your heart, you know, you're like, oh, that hard work and nothing else is going to get it. So I kind of changed my mindset on that mainly because Carla, who is, she's our operations manager now, but she was my loan officer associate. But before that, she was my processor for a lot of years. And I've learned that I personally really like like a processor type person who does not want to be on commission. They do not want to go find their own deals or straight commission. They don't want to have to source their own deals. They don't want to be out in the street. They don't, they're not comfortable in that piece, but they're really good with people. They're good on the phone. They've good personality and they really know how to put a deal together. They understand the backside of the deal. They know how to structure the deal. They know if the deal works, they know if the income works. So it's like all the hard stuff is done. And when you know how to do all of that, you're not selling. You're just providing, you know, guidance, you're an advocate, you're putting together structures and strategies because that's what you know how to do. And if you're a good communicator and you're good at sales, just because, you know, you know how to communicate and you're good with people, then you're a great L.A. So I really, Carla was my first L.A. and she worked out, you know, she was amazing. So then when I hired Tanya, there was a lot of vetting in that, like, what is your goal? And I interviewed quite a few people. And if they said to me, oh, you know, I want to start with you and then with the need year or two, I want to be a loan officer, they think that I want to hear that. I'm like, yeah, scratch, you're not a hearoff, let's, like, I don't want somebody to be my L.A. that wants to go and be their own L.O. That's not my goal. I want, and that was vetted up front and we talk about that. Like, I love that personality that just wants to sit in their cube or at their desk and work and get deals done, but they don't want to go out and be their own L.O. That's not their goal. When you think you get very clear on that by setting expectations, by asking some pressing questions, for example, are using any like, you know, disk profiles or anything like that? You know, I have been lucky. I've done that in the past. The people that I have now, I didn't do it on any of them, but I got lucky because they were all people I've known and, you know, just having good discernment and kind of knowing their personality styles and that it would fit. But we've done those in the past. I had a team when I was at my previous company, I had a team of, there were three, four of us actually at one point at two L.O.A.'s, a marketing person in myself. And we did the animal one, you know, like we're everybody's the animal. So of course, I was the lion. Nobody was surprised. And then Carla, my, you know, my one coordinator, she was the beaver because she just like works and works and works. You know, the world's falling down and she keeps working. And then we had a golden retriever and an otter. So we were like the perfect team, you know. But yeah, I think those do work. I think those are good to have and it's good to have somebody who's maybe has some of your strengths that maybe something's your weekend and vice versa. No, thank you for sharing that because it's so often that I deal with L.O.'s who are trying to address the capacity problem and think the answer is hiring a junior or this hybrid role and eight out of ten times it winds up imploding in their face because of exactly what you said. Because if there's always that, well, yeah, I'll, I'll, you know, I'll shovel elephant dung for a while, but I really want to go be my own L.O. Right. You recognize that early as a red flag for the world. Well, and you, you're really, there's so much trust that has to be given because they have your database, they're talking to your vultures or tech, you know, so really knowing the person, like the character of the person for me is super important as well. And like I said, I've been very blessed to have amazing people come into my path and, but yeah, for sure, like, I think you really have to bet that out. And here's the problem, when we're desperate and we're really, really busy, you can convince yourself, right? Like, oh, they're going to feed, they'll, we'll make them work, they'll be fine, you know, they're going to change them. I'll fix them. We're going to marry them and change them. No, that doesn't work, you know, so that is funny. I thought you had a biz dev person, or am I missing it? It's one of the people you described. No, I do. So they're really kind of the branch. So my, my branch right now, I have quite a few people in here, so my husband does reverse mortgage. That's all he does. So he's his own team. He's not in my numbers. He has a processor and he has kind of an L.O.A. But his L.O.A., you know, reverse does, they do last month, he did nine months loans, which was ridiculous. Wow. That's a lot. I, you know, which is still a lot, but his L.O.A. does a lot of my marketing stuff, because she's kind of got that time, you know, so we have her kind of do tools. So we have that L.O.A., who does, so she's kind of a half, half my person, she does a lot of my marketing. And when I say business development, I don't have the traditional business development person that calls up realtors and says, Hey, you want to meet for coffee? Like, I don't have that and I don't do that. It doesn't mean I wouldn't want to do it at some point and I've done it at times in my career, but I don't, I haven't done that for the last couple of years. So, but Tanya, who's my L.O.A., I hire her in that role, but she wasn't in it very long. You know, we hired her in November and by March, she was in L.O.A., we took her out of that role. So anyway, so I have a kind of a half marketing person. The way my team runs, we have a assistant processor who kind of opens the file so they order like the credit, not the credit, they order the title, the V.O.E.s, the appraisal, you know, all that stuff. And then, so that's the assistant processor and then the processor. So they're for the branch. So they're for me, they're for, you know, Dennis and then my L.O.A.'s and any other L.O. that would come on board, would use like the branch processor, we'd probably need another at that point. Sure. And she's here, she's in the office. She's in my office. Yeah. Okay. So we have our own processor, our own assistant processor, and we have our own underwriter that we just hired. Nice. Not too long ago. That kind of volume, I mean, you know, you need it. Well, we needed it. Yeah, we were dying because when everybody was, you know, like just exploding with volume, our turn times were getting, you know, slower, slower. Right. Right. Like we were just dying. I'm like, no, I got to have my own person. Okay. And so we left off an underwriter as far as like your, your ops. Yeah. That's pretty much it, right? Yeah. So the opener, which is our assistant processor, same thing, processor, so if I take a loan, this is what it looks like. Yeah. Let's say I do my own loan. Yes. I take the application, whether it's over the phone, pretty much online anymore. I'm sending them to the, to the web. I really have changed my process and I like that. So they go to the web. They fill it out, take some five minutes. So if it's my deal, I'm going to call them up. I'm going to walk through the deal with them, get it all structured, sold, locked, whatever. If it's a refi, have their docs come in and it'll nearly go to Carla, who's my, my loan coordinator. Mm-hmm. She's kind of like mellow a loan coordinator. Right. She's really a loan coordinator. She doesn't sell anymore. So it goes to Carla, Carla gets all the docs together, makes sure it looks cool, gets it to the opener, who's the AP, right, assistant processor. Then she, and she orders all the preliminary staff, and then it goes to the processor, and then it goes to the underwriter. So if it's not my deal, let's say I give it to, you know, Tanya or Amory, they would do the same thing. They would get the loan out of the, you know, go into the web, go over the deal with the client, sell it, lock it, structure it, get the docs, they'll go through the docs themselves, that if I won't go to Carla, unless it's difficult, like it has difficult tax returns or something they need help with, and they will put it into processing. So it'll go to the assistant processor and then the processor. Okay. I'm on your website here. I clicked on Apply Online, so I wanted to just get a sense of, you said it takes five minutes. Is this like connecting bank assets and all that kind of stuff too? Yeah, we used to have that set up. I disconnected it because it was freaking people out. They thought they had to do it, and then they stopped the app. Yeah. So we don't need it at that point. They basically put in basic, you know, name, social data, where they live, where they work, how much they make, it lets you put in like one bank account, so it's a pretty simple app. They hit, you know, what they want to do, submit, and then we get on the phone and fill in any gaps and complete the process. Are you using the app at all? I noticed you haven't had it as well. Yeah, we use both. So I can text the app or I can send them right to the website. I mean, from a consumer standpoint, I like it because I'm seeing the images here on the website, and we can put links in the show notes. You've got this scan and upload docs securely, which is cool, like a snapshot of your W2. You know what I mean? Yeah, I love it. Yeah, people want that streamline thing, you know. Oh, it's easy. It's fantastic. Yeah. It did. Well, it's interesting when you say you push people off to the side of the app, and I'm not saying I disagree with you, but it's funny because I hear some people, and I guess look, that's what's cool about this business, you do it anywhere you want. Some people choose the opposite of the route, which is no, let me take it with you over the phone because they feel like that locks it up more. I did that. I was a person. You were. I would have sworn up until a year ago, that was the only way to do it. That's how you build your relationship. That's when you lock them in, like that's how I felt, and I believed it, but I was forced to do something different because when I moved a year ago and opened a branch, and I had to get a lot of deals in the pipeline quickly, you know, deals that, you know, new deals, but I wanted to try to build that pipeline as fast as I could. And so there was no way I was going to do that by taking every single app, right? So we came up with like a canned email and a canned text, and it was very warm. Like, hey, you know, we'd love to help you with that. We want to provide you with the same great service we always have. You know, if it was a repeat client that reached out to meet your Facebook or however they found me online even, and we would immediately send that out and say, this will take you five minutes, get your info in, and then we'll work on it for you right away. And I have found, so then what happens is I've just, I've flipped when I build the relationship, 99% of the people go, I literally hardly have anybody say, no, I don't want to do that. They're like, oh, okay, like that's what I'm supposed to do. That's what I do. So they go, they fill it out. I open the app and I call that. And then I go through it with them on the phone. I pull their credit. I tell them what their score is. I make sure I know what they want to do. I structure it all up. I run a read. I see that they like the read. They commit to it. I'm like, cool, we're going to lock it right now. You're good with this yet. I love it. I lock it. And then I go, okay, as soon as I hang up, you're going to get this and this and this, send them the needs list, five minutes later, they're uploading their docs. It's such, it's a way better system. Because now when I'm building my relationship, I actually have all of their information in front of me. I've pulled their credit. I'm looking at their numbers. I can, oh, wait. So you say you worked here. What did you do before that? Or, you know, wait, are you contracts? So how does that work? Yeah. I'm going to work with it in front of me and I'm actually kind of buttoning it up. The problem with what I used to do is you build this awesome relationship. Now you have to hang up. You have to get in the system and you get busy. And then you get 10 of those. And by the time you get to it, you kind of forget. And then you're like, and they forget. They've talked to three more people. And then you're like, wait, what was, and then you might have your notes or whatever. But, you know, you promised it that day. Now they didn't get it till the next day. It just, it wasn't, I feel like this is like when they're hot, I'm like closing it, locking it and it just where I love it. It's way better. Interesting. Regarding doing the review, once they've submitted their information on your site or app. And then you want to get together and go through that with them. Are you scheduling those calls? I don't. I just literally pick up the phone and call them. And if I don't get them, I leave them a waste mail and a text and an email. And then I'll just go ahead and work the deal. Because usually there's enough in there and that I can put it together. And I'll do what I want to do. I'll send them the estimate with the needs list, the lender. I have form, all these form emails that I do, you know, that I tweak, but just canned emails. So I just like, you know, pull up, oh, refight email or purchase email or whatever it is. And then I tweak it, you know, you're, you know, it's going to save you X amount per month. We don't need anyone had a pocket. We don't even need an appraisal. If you close in December, first came in February, you'll get your escrow account back, you know, all the staff included the needs list, the estimate and email that to them and then follow up with the phone call that email and the text. Okay. And then once you are green lighted, good to go. They say, yes, Michelle, let's go forward. Let's lock it. I got my timeline, whether it's Revire escrow or purchase. How involved are you in the transaction and the communication after that? So because I use that auto group email, usually what will happen is, so now the docs come in, again, it goes to Carla, Carla reviews it, sends them an email and disclosures, right? The disclosures go out. She sends them an email and says, you know, you're so and so, thank you so much for sending these things in. I've reviewed everything. All I need is XYZ and your disclosures, they were just email to you, you know, look for them in your email if you didn't get them, let me know. And then they'll reply to that auto group email. So I see it all, I'm a very high level. I do not get involved unless I see something happening, like something, like, you know, somebody goes sideways or they don't like something that's, you know what I mean? So then it goes from that to opening the processing and I can see all that happening. And I just slide those into their file, you know, I have a, I make their files over on the left in my email, outlook, you know, and then I, or I delete it, if it's, if it's like, oh, now I know that happened. I don't need it. It's delete. But at least I always kind of know what's going on, but I'm not involved unless they say, you know, well, that's how it was all told me or something like that or I don't want to get that. I shouldn't need to get that. You don't need that or anything like that all immediately, like, you know, shoot them and we're like, hey, I'm going to give you a call here in a minute. You know, let's discuss this and then I'll call them. And then what does your, like, pipeline review meetings look like, how often, et cetera? You know, we probably do that. We don't do them as often as I know some people do. I think that auto-gruby mill eliminates a lot of that. I always know what's going on. And I also have, we do a pretty serious pipeline. Let me see if I turn this if you can see it, just do it like this. There's my other screen. It's your exact spreadsheet. Yeah, it's pretty, it's a Google Doc. Oh, okay. Anyway, it's, you can't really see it, but it's like this. You got lots of colors on, lots of yellow. Yes, depending on the says, and dates and columns, you know, so I can pretty much tell what's going on at any given time between that. And then my team, so my processor, my LWA, I'll talk, you know, Carla and the processor will chat or whatever. But we usually meet maybe once every two weeks, believe it or not, and yeah, we don't need to meet a lot. It's a lot through emails and a lot through. Do you feel though that, like, you know, I mean, do you feel, yeah, I'm thinking of that that must be a large flow of information through your email to that auto group email. You know, it is. And we, once the files in process, then it, then it would be Carla and me, like, then we kind of, but yeah, I mean, that is the complaint that it does, it's not a complaint for me. Yeah. I like all those emails because I just read them and swipe, so type, and I always know what's going on with the race files. But like for, you know, Tom, your Amory, it's a lot because they get a lot of those emails, but they've learned, you know, I have rules and they just kind of, but yeah, we're going to try to, we need to find, we need to kind of, that's a problem with growing. Yeah. It's like, you, everything's perfect. And now we've just interjected new people and then we have to change our system again. Right. So it's like, it's, it's good until it's not good. And that's kind of where we're at right now. It's still really good. I mean, we're closing seven months this month. It's good. Yeah. We need to find out that system and that communication, and do more like tasking through the CRM, which we're not doing. Is there a particular CRM here you use? So my company uses shorefire. So that's where all of my like automatic notifications go out to the realtor and the client. That's where I send on my videos out through. That's where. Yep. By the way, videos, are you talking about status update videos or? No. So the CRM, shorefire automatically has status update videos that are really cute. Yeah. Like the animated videos. Yeah. They're dynamic. Like the client's name isn't it. It kind of tells them where they're at in the process each time. So those go out automatically. But no, like, let's say I do a video this week on what's going on with the rates or what's a reverse mortgage or. Sure. So it's comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. I think fullness video I did last month or last week. So that'll go out through the CRM. Tell my clients and milters. Okay. Um, what was I going to say? Oh, so how about when you have purchased transactions in place? You guys are you doing status updates to all the parties? Like the realtors and both both sides. Yeah. So we do, but you know, again, it's amazing to me that those auto notifications go out so quickly. Uh huh. And most realtors are replying. Thank you so much, Michelle. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. And then by the time we get to closing, they're like, you were amazing. Your communication was amazing. And I didn't do any of it. You know, it's just a lot of. Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, thanks. I know. We're so great. You know, but we didn't really do it. It's the CRM. But we still have certain touch points in the file where we also reach out like with the appraisal. You know, we always send it again in our own email and say, you know, the value is X to the buyer and the buyer's agent as is or to the listing agent value came in fine. We don't give them the appraisal. And then I usually call, you know, once or twice throughout the transaction, both sides of the agents. No, usually the buyer's agent, the listing agent, I'll introduce myself in the beginning. So that's my first touch point. And then usually right before closing, you know, they're, I'm just letting them know we're good. Yeah. Are you pursuing listing agents at all? So, you know, for years, that was always how I built my business, right? And I fully pursued. I mean, we just tried to do an amazing job and we built that way. And then a lot of marketing. But my team now, you know, so my L O A is if they have a great transaction, that listing agents for game for them, that's how I have it set up. So they can build that if they want, they're not going to go out and meet with them because they just don't want to do that. But they'll call those same thing, you know, they, they want to build, they want to have more deals coming in that of their own, even though they don't want to go get business. So it's, it's like a high, it's a little bit of a, I know I said before they don't want to go get business, they really don't. But they do, if they have a great listing agent transaction, you know, I'm like, go for it. A lot of those just circle back to me anyway because my name's been on everything throughout the process, you know? Yeah. Right. You said something earlier about growth and if I recall correctly, what I wrote down, you've pretty much grown your business, I believe like roughly 20% every year, right? Yeah. I mean, some years more than others, but I would say from definitely from 2012 to current was when I was like on a mission to grow, to really grow it. And I would say started, you know, back in 2012, I think I was doing like 20 million, 25 million, you know, and because again, I had stayed home with my kids. I told you for like six and a half years. So when I came back in 2009, I had no business. Yeah. And we had no programs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. You know, no PMI, no 125, no stated, like what? We can't talk to the appraiser. Like everything was different. One, two, five. So that was kind of weird. You know, I had to learn all that again, but so from 2009 or 12 was like just getting my feet under me and kind of building my business. And from 12, I was like, no, I'm going to blow this thing up. So that's when I really tried to start like growing every single year. Okay. So, I mean, I could ask you a bunch of questions about how to grow. But the one I want to ask first is we're in this, you know, amazing year we've all had of band or growth, second, best year on record, I think. And so I'm asking that question of a lot of people, because as I'm sure you probably feel some overwhelmed right now, right, capacity overwhelmed, been working hard, all that stuff. So my question then for you as I've asked other people in a similar situation to you is, do you plan on growing again this coming year or is it a matter of like, what are you thinking when you know what I mean? Yeah. So I think it'll shift from refight, you know, I think right now, like a healthy business model is maybe, you know, 60, 70 purchase, 30, 40 refight, right, that's for me a healthy business. Yeah. Like 70 refight, 30 purchase, that's not a healthy business model, right? Long term. It's not sustainable. Right. So my goal is that I, when you said, you know, we're all burnt out, we're all like overwhelmed. For the first time in, I don't even know, like probably a year, I don't feel that way. And this is literally the first time because I finally have all my people up and running. Our team is like ironclad, everything is smooth, we have our own underrated, like everything is cool. So now I'm going, okay, so the one thing I am doing is sales, I'm trying to do the sales trainings with my team once a week. So we're talking about all the things we need to do to be amazing and provide that wow experience for the realtor and for the client as well, because a lot of its client direct anymore, right? Right. So to answer your question, if I could maintain the volume, but shift the mix, I think that would be incredible. I think even if we went back a little bit in volume, like, you know, I don't need to do 150 million. I mean, I'd love to. I'd love to do 200 million. Yeah. So, you know, what are my goals going to be for 2021? It's like my far reach goal, 200 million. My, you know, maintain, like if I hit this, I'd be super happy, probably 150. And I think, you know, I think a realistic, like, like if I get less than this, I'll cry for a long time. It would be maybe 100 million. You know, so if I could do between 100 and 200, which is a huge range, right? I think you're happy, but if I had, you know, if I went with my gut, I'm going to guess we're going to hit maybe 125, you know, I don't know. Now 100 million is your new minimum has to be, yeah, can't do less than that. Because again, that was my goal this year, and we're going to blow that out of the water. So I can't go less. Do you recall at how many units you were, and I don't know if your company provided it or not, but a lot of people are in the situation where the only way for them to grow or sustain or get some sanity back is to hire somebody, right? So what's, is there a sweet spot you think of units or something? Yeah. I mean, so I think it's six, I think somewhere between six to eight, I like six. I think for every six, even every five, like if you want to be overstaffed and just be amazing, you know, every five, I think every six units, you need a person. And I was actually just doing the math on this before I got on the phone with you. It's kind of funny. But I went through it and I was thinking, okay, so, you know, if we're doing like this month, we'll close 70 units. Well, that's unusual, right? But let's just say 50. If I was doing 50 units at six units per person, that's 8.3 people. So that's nine people, right? So I need nine people. Well, I have one, two, three, four, five, I have probably seven because two of them are half, right? Dennis is a half and, you know, diamonds a half. So I have one, two, three, four, I'm, yeah, I have like six and a half people. So or six people. So I need to hire more people if I want to sustain. But you know, we went from like 45 units to 70 like that. So we didn't, we weren't ready for that, right? Yeah. So to answer your question, I think every six, you should hire somebody. I am getting ready. I want to see if what January and February look like, right? Because we don't really know. Yeah. But if it stays even halfway, you know, to this level or even went back a little bit like 50 to 60 units, I will hire another opener and I will hire so that I can split that volume because it's a lot for one person. And I will hire another processor and I will hire another marketing person. And I will pull that marketing off of diamond is so she can just be an L away for reverse. So anyway. Was there some point you let go of, you know, the resistance to hire, give up money so to speak, right? No. No, you know, my mom always ran hair salons, okay, she was a hairdresser, she always ran, she'd open them, build them, sell them, she did that a lot. And she had like kind of an opposite philosophy of most people. She's like, when it gets really slow, you market more, right? When you're so, because then you're doing, you're providing, you're in their face a lot and then you have amazing service, you're going to build and you're going to grow. So like for me, I would always rather make a little less money, provide amazing service because that's how you're going to get repeat business and more deals. So making a little less is actually going to make you more money, right? It's that well factor and the referrals and then your deals snowball. It doesn't make any sense to make more money and give a crappy experience, you know. Yeah. You're stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Only. That's something to have a life, you know? Well, exactly. You need to have some margin back in your life, for sure. I mean, there's some L.O.'s, not everybody's branch manager and you're, there's some L.O.'s who listen, who are waiting for their company to give me that L.O.A. I had that understand that before. Right. But, but, you know, what I tried and tell them is, you know, are you going to continue on this road, which you can't control whether or not they're going to give you that or not? So question is, do you just hire on your own, whatever that person is? Maybe it's not on L.O.A. Maybe it's somebody to free you up, you know what I mean? Doing tasks. Oh, totally. And if the company will allow you, I would say don't wait for them to pay for it. You do it. Some companies, and I worked at one that just wouldn't allow you unless you had eight units. And that was a problem because eight units is a lot and if you're paying a hundred percent because we have to pay for our own L.O.A. anyway, you know, what does it matter? But so not to slam another company, but talking to those L.O.'s, like if they're in a company where they're allowed, but they're not going to subsidize it, do it anyway. Because like my husband used to always say, if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. Right. You know, and if you're the assistant, you cannot make you are losing money. You're losing a lot more than you would be paying that person to help you make more money. I always do it in loans. How many loans do I need to pay for that person? Well, that person helped me do two more loans a month or whatever it is. And that's how. And then you just have to trust. You have to trust. Yeah, that you're going to do that. Make that happen. Wonderful conversation on the whole team structure. I knew you were going to knock it out of the park with this. I want to close out with the last few minutes, maybe just kind of high level stuff. I know you're pretty savvy with marketing and videos and things like that. What are anything big planned for you for 2020 regarding your marketing for 2021? I should say. Yeah. I know. Gosh, where did this year go? Yeah. In fact, I was just talking about this this morning with Diamond who does my marketing now. So we do some things like when the loan goes into processing, the L.O.A. sends an email to Diamond, our marketing person, that says agent to add. So if it's an agent, we don't already have that we don't already work with. That's an agent ad. So they get added to a bunch of places like they go into a place where we're going to send you know, videos, postcards, whatever. We face them, we link them in, we Instagram them. We have a thing that we do. We send them a card that says, you know, lender 911, if you're loans falling apart, call us. Like, we have a whole little process we do, right? But what we don't do, and we used to do, but we don't have time to do it now. And this is why I need my own, I just need like a full-time marketing person. Is we really need to Facebook and link in the borrower right about the time we're going to go to closing? So what friends? We've just gone smooth, everything's cool, we're going to go to closing, which all of our deals go smooth, but you know, you never know, you might have that one off where you just don't want them on Facebook or whatever, but you know, so that's what we do. So right now, we don't have the time to do that, but I want to implement that because I feel like so many of my clients come back to me year after year, refer, refer because we've become friends on Facebook. And it's like we're buddies, right? And they see my stuff and they see my videos and they see everything I do. So it's just very organic and that let in a net coupled with the mail I send, coupled with the videos we send off through, even so all of those things combined, right? So we haven't been good about it all year in Facebook error clients. So what am I going to do next year? A lot better job of getting those clients in my fold on social media, making more lists in Facebook so I can target certain things in Facebook. That's another thing I need to do this year. By the way, for those listening, what she's talking about there is custom Facebook lists. You can Google how to do this, but essentially Facebook will allow you to create a custom list. So it's quick and easy for you to get in there and follow like comment on people. Right. So you have all your realtors. You could have past clients. You could have all your veterans. You could have whatever, right? So that would be cool. And then I, and we've always done events and of course this year, every event we had got canceled. We were going to do the Top Gun premiere and that was awesome. I got cancer. Right. So we did do one thing. You put it on the group, the pumpkin patch. We did that. But, you know, so some more events again this year and a lot more loving on my referral partners. I've not been good about this. So if I get a referral from whether it's a referral partner or a past client, I want to go way above and beyond in the gratitude there. And we're not doing it. We just haven't had the time. So meaning like, you know, a huge thank you. It could be a card. It could be, oh, we noticed it's your birthday, you know, all the things, the, the realtors birthdays, the client just had a baby, all the things. So catching it all on the social media and then actually doing something with it. That's my goal this year. Oh, wait a second. Catching it on, what do you mean catching it on social media? Well, so if you're on Facebook with these people and you're on LinkedIn, you're seeing these events, right? Like, so just random acts of kindness or gratitude. Yeah. So combination of the referral, like they give you a referral. That's an easy, you know, we need to send a card, we need to call and give them a thank you. Right. But then in addition, really loving on our clients and our referral partners, just through interaction, you know, through seeing what's going on in their life. Yep. Right. By staying connected to them on social. Yeah. Yes. Connection. Yeah. To do more of that, to have a better, have a full-time marketing person that's helping me with that. Do a lot more of that. I also do a lot with the chamber, like I'm in three different types of networking groups. So I'm in a national association, a divorce professional group, so I'm a divorce professional, you know, certified divorce. So I do some stuff with that and then I'm with the chamber and I'm in another networking group. So just you, you kind of hit this. You said if somebody was trying to build their business, yeah. My number one thing I would say is get on social, build your brand, meaning be very authentic, be posting all the time, talk to people, connect, join some groups, whether it's a B&I, a chamber networking, a knitting group, like I don't care whatever you're into, you know, if you buy your bicyclist, you know, get with your people and nobody sending you alone just sitting in this chair, you know, unless you're connecting online, which a lot of us are doing that right now, right? But I would say if you're trying to build your business, you have to get in some groups and you have to get on social, and you have to provide an amazing experience and then you have to touch, you know, we touch our clients a lot during the process. They get, they get to think, you know, they get the Starbucks card when they go in, they get a lottery card again, they get different things. So just, you know, staying in front of them and then doing a great job and then after you close, staying in front of them. I used to do the congratulations, your loan is approved, whatever, you know, send it to the office, that kind of stuff, that's gone now with COVID, because now it's gonna be the office. Yeah, we didn't do the office, but we do the, so we do like a Starbucks card when they go, well, we were doing movie tickets, which we're not doing that anymore, either right now. So we replaced that with like a scratch ticket and it just says, I wish I had the card, it's so cute. It says wishing you a lot of luck, you know, and then you open it and it says, um, do I have it? You just buy those at the store or do you have these special ones printed? Hold on. Okay. Diamonds. Will you bring me a lottery card real quick so I can show somebody? Okay. She's gonna bring this one. I love it. I can just shout to her. She's right there. But no, it's super cool. We had printed, you know, so my graphic designer came up with the idea of what to, like the verbiage and we had him printed. So we send that with the scratch ticket. What are they? What are they, what are they wind though? I mean, is this an official day? Well, it's more of what here. I'll show you. Are you, are you involved with gaming or hello greetings to everyone? Stop dammit. Diamonds. Okay. So it says wishing you, can you see that? Hi, right there. Right there. Wishing you a lot of success and then when you open it, it says, um, whether you pay off your loan in this instant because it's a scratch ticket or over time, you're taking fantastic strides to meet your financial goals. And then at the bottom, it says, thanks a million for, thanks a million in caps for choosing us to handle your love. All right. You're putting a scratch ticket in there. All right. Thank you. Right? It's a touch point. I thought you were running your own lottery in the state of Colorado. Yeah. It's a scratch ticket. Whatever you want to do. We used to do movie tickets. We can't do that. No, I know. But the scratch card's awesome. Again, people love that. It's interactive. Yeah. Cast a buck. Yeah. No kidding. And they'll post it and they'll tell you and then you pray get arrested, for example, I don't know. But then we also do the Starbucks cards when they are getting ready to go to closing and then they get a closing get, you know, we send popcorn to their house after they close, they get $5,280 for a year, $5,280 magazine with our little thing on it every month. You know, so just they're all little inexpensive things, but they really mean a lot. Yeah. You're doing a lot of things right. I mean, I love everything I'm hearing. It's a very intentional system for you. For marketing, branding, awareness, reminding, stay on top of mind. You know what I mean? Yeah. For sure. It's not the average transaction. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like every time they turn around, oh, I just got this in the mail. No, I just got this video and oh, now they just called and now I got another card and now I got popcorn and, you know, it's like, it's the gift that keeps giving like it never ends. Right. Right. Not to sound self-promotional, but I know in the past you've done some events. Yes. Super busy. And some of those on your calendar for the new year, perhaps? You know what? I'm really glad you brought that up because the thing I've been struggling with and you and I talked about this and this is absolutely in my 2021 plan. Yep. Is transitioning from in-person classes because I was teaching your classes and there's a handful I love that have been very successful in people love, realtors love. Right. But now, you know, when everything went to Zoom, I was like, well, and then we were overwhelmed with business. Right. It was like, it went to our business. I'm not sure I'm going to get it anymore. Yeah. But then, but so now 2021, part of like, okay, we got to go back to, back to basics. We got to build our business. We got to build, you know, talk to realtors, all the things that are made us who we are and that are important and that we care about. So with that, what I have to do is get super comfortable teaching classes over Zoom because I'm kind of an in-person person, right? Like I feel like that's how I connect and just doing it over Zoom is just different. It's a different state. Like I need to fix my lighting, right? Like right now, I look like I'm dark and so I need, you know, I need a little $20 ring light. Yeah. It's like I need to fix some things. I need to be more, you know, we have a green right? We do our videos in there. Oh my gosh. But I don't want to teach my class in there, like I think, or maybe I do, maybe I should actually. I would encourage you to consider that, yeah, because you can control so many things in there. You can put whatever you want, obviously, behind you for the green screen. You get to stand, I assume, when you teach and perhaps, you can have somebody like Diamond can drive the slides for you, you know, or handle the chat. Right. Yeah. But then I have to figure out, so like right now, you know, the cameras in there, when we do our videos, I have a videographer, but I'll have to like, I have to get the screen up where I can see it and see the people. So I'd have to do some things. So in my 2021 plan is to figure out how to transition those classes to an online format and then how to drive, actually drive attendance because that's the other, you know, that's the huge challenge, right? So. Yep. So that, again, if I hire that marketing person, that's really, their function is to help me drive business in all of those avenues, including, you know, helping with those classes. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, we're going to be doing some extra things around that as well, helping you drive attendance. That'd be awesome. Yeah. No. And like, not to, you know, I know you don't want to self promote yourself, but I can promote you. Um, no, because your classes are amazing and they really are, um, I mean, they're, they're always like surface enough, but deep enough that, you know, you can get through, um, yeah, you don't have to be like a super duper expert to teach them, but there's enough there. There's enough meat for the wheelchair to like go, Hey, um, I can take that work with that and maybe I want more. And then that's an offline conversation. So right on. Love it. Love it. Okay. What I want to do is put links in the show notes so people can follow you and all that kind of stuff. What's your, are you more Instagram or Facebook? I'm really more face. I mean, I'm on both, um, but my videos and stuff. I'll go to Facebook. I do do Instagram. I'm on Instagram. Which by the way, I don't want, I don't want to leave the scene of this conversation without giving you props for your videos because we, we, everyone, hello, here's, oh, I know I should do video or whatever, but you've done so many great video examples. I've shared them, as you know, um, of you in a real estate agent talking topics, you an insurance person and a prazer or whatever, you're like interviewing people a lot, you know, which is awesome content for you because it builds up your expertise at the same time. Thank you. Yeah. I think I like doing the most, um, like writing a blog is kind of a drag, but I can sit and talk for a long time and someone could edit it all up and make it, you know, so videos are great. I think they're easy. I think it's the best way to connect with people and let them know who you are and show them that you are an expert. I would recommend everybody do them. Um, so yeah, that for sure, but you don't have to learn, um, we could do this offline Jeff. Or if somebody knows you can email me is I have all these amazing videos, but I don't, I know they have to be shorter for Instagram and I don't know how to get. I think to do Instagram, you have to video it right on Instagram and you can't really use your edited videos and so I just don't know how to, I need to start doing my video on Instagram. I'm not doing any video on Instagram at all. I'm looking at your Instagram page right now, um, the automatic one. Yeah. Yeah. You're just doing post which I need you could you could start doing some stories for sure. Yes. A little circle is up top. Yeah, I need to do that. Oh, both stories and the little highlights up top. Yeah, I gotta do that. But the stories is, yeah, you just, it's, it's a video based. It could be an image that's turned into a video or it's a video itself that becomes a story where you put all the stickers and everything around it. Um, but don't you have to do it on your phone like directly to Instagram? You can't upload it from somewhere. Correct. Correct. You can, there is a third party platform, I think, um, planally that you can do that. But in general, yes, you grab content from your phone. Whether it's a video already have, you're doing it right in the app and that's how you create the story for sure, but you can get a bunch of videos done in advance on your phone. Oh, I can take the video on my phone and do it. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, great. So that's part of my 2021 also like getting that Instagram where it needs to be, but yeah, just, um, cool. We just happen to have a class on that topic too. I know. All right. I gotta learn it so I can teach it. Awesome. Yeah. Uh, listen, I know you're super busy and I greatly, greatly appreciate number on your friendship. Number two, the opportunity to bring your story to our listeners. This has been fantastic. Okay. I haven't, look what I have on my desk. See, I keep your stuff. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Thank you. Got me a book once. I keep it. And I gotta, I got more swag coming. I've just, you know, been waiting for the right time and budget and all that fun stuff. Cool. I know you're busy too. Yes. You have to move and you're doing all kinds of cool things. So. Yeah. Always moving. Thanks for doing these. Well, that's how I learn and grow and I always pick up something news. So thank you. You bet. Thank you. All right. We'll see you Jeff. Thanks. Bye everybody. All right. Hey, listeners, you know what to do. If you like this episode, hey, leave us a review and we appreciate you. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Hey, guys, what's up? Real quick. You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and you just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchase 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. 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