Rethink Everything About Being a Next Gen Loan Officer

Hey, what's up, Jeff Sinfer, time for another episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. Appreciate you tuning in here, boy, boy, we got a good one coming to you in just a moment about a special project that I'm involved with that I'm very excited about to be chosen to be part of the special project. You'll hear about that in just a moment, but before we get there, another success story from the streets, as you know, one of the things we do in my company Mortgage Marketing Institute, hopefully you know by now is we help originators move from solicitor and vendor to becoming partner and peer. We do that by helping agents solve problems. We facilitate resources, content and education in the format of classes in person and virtually to scale our reach with real estate agents, to have a better impact, to attract versus chase, increase trust, drive conversations that lead to referrals. That's what we do. Here's another success story. Once again, coming at you with a story from Tiffany Sachsden, Tiffany, what's up, shout out to you. Tiffany just posted it on our Facebook group yesterday. She's been hosting a series called Learn with Tiff, great title, lesson in personal branding there. By the way, the average quote lunch and learn is boring. So Tiffany is smart. Here's how smart she is. She's hosting her Learn with Tiff class called top 10 ways to get more listings. By the way, that's one of the classes that are done for you and provided to you as a member of my agent classes. You can go facilitate that in your local market. But Tiff is really smart because she has more than once now partnered with a top producing agent in her area. That makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Why? I mean, sure you can host a class on your own and that definitely works and is highly successful. However, maybe you want to consider partnering with some other known people, agents and others in your local market that have their own audience that could attract people to attend your classes as well. And therefore you double dip on that. So Tiff decides to reach out to a top producing agent in our area to team up and teach this class 10 ways to get more listings. That provides additional value. I mean, the real estate agent loves it. Most successful real estate agents tend to want to share and have the heart of a teacher. Maybe that agent wants to recruit people. And that agent's going to help get people to attend the class. So what happens? Tiffany gets 15 reservations. But 16 people show up. She had several agents come up to her after class wanting to partner with her. She's already started to follow-ups, the conversations, the meetings and a side note. Tiffany's been with us for several months now. She also wanted to share that she had just closed and funded alone, that she had received from previous classes that she had hosted, realtor she had met and referrals that she received. All that done with no chasing, no co-calling, no co-paying for leads, no going to, you know, happy hours, dressing up for the Halloween costume bowl, if you've ever done that in your career. No, she's leading with education. So look, if this sounds like something you might be a fit for you and it is not for everybody, we're looking for people who've got at least two or three years experience under their belt, are at least doing two or three close loans per month or more, we've got people doing much more than that in our community. But if you're looking for a more effective way, a predictable way to reach agents at scale, increase your conversations and increase your referrals that lead to contracts. Go to mortgagemarketing.pro, what could call with me and you can learn more. Mortgagemarketing.pro. Okay, so now on to the special guest for our guests, I should say, for this episode and the project that I'm involved with, which I'm very excited to be part of. While back, we had my friend Kyle Draper on the show, Kyle's a video therapist, I believe is what he calls himself. And Kyle is actually helping people in our space, real estate and mortgage, gain more confidence on video, be more authentic and consistently put out content that resonates and engages with our target target audience. Kyle is the author of a book called Rethink Everything. And he has a new addition in that series coming out called Rethink Everything You Know about being a next gen loan officer. Kyle has teamed up with another smart dude, Brian Vu from Finlocker. And they've done this pretty cool thing, which you're going to want to check out and listen to this episode because they've decided to, they're all about collaboration, right? So what they decided to do is reach out to, I believe it's 39, roughly, could be 40. Maybe I'm getting that number wrong, but let's just call it 40, about 40 of the top thought leaders in the mortgage industry got together and we wrote a book. The book is called Rethink Everything You Know About Being An Next Gen Loan Officer. It covers a range of game changing topics and insights from some of the industry's best. I am grateful to be considered on that list. And I have contributed a chapter, which is called Unlock the Secret to Doubling Your Real To Referrals. And many other people that I respect and have followed for years are also included in this book. Just to name a few and if you're listening and I don't mention your name, I apologize, but we're talking about Bill Hart, Ryan Grant, Dale Vermillion, Phil Treadwell, James Duncan. Who else we got here? You can see Y-Shar, who's an amazing originator who's been on my show. I'm just looking at the less Shane Kidwell, of course, Cal Draper and Brian Vue, right? Dustin Owen, and the list goes on and on and on. Upwards of 40 different highly intelligent, smart people all bringing a topic that they are a thought leader, subject matter expert in. And this is amazing. And if you were able to be in a room with 40 of the top thought leaders in this industry, that ranges from top producing originators, people that are excellent at financial education, leveraging tech or AI. You want to improve customer experience. How about building your personal brand? How about video? How about podcasting? You name it. It's all included in this book. And this is a conversation that Kyle and Brian and I have about the book, about the content, and this is your opportunity to go out and get the book now. There will be a link in the show notes to go get this book. And each book, by the way, each chapter, the authors of the chapter, each also contributed an educational video. And this is, you know, so it's free access to get to the video. My chapter includes a video of some of the best content I have. And that's why this is a pretty cool project and a book that I definitely highly encourage you to go check out if you're a leader or manager listening to this. You know, get multiple copies for your branch, for your office, your company, whatever it is. You won't be disappointed. This is dog gone at the best darn deal that I've seen come along in a long time. So make sure you listen to this episode. More importantly, check out the show notes, get the link to go ahead and get your copies of rethink everything you know about being an ex-gen loan officer. And so let's get into this week's show. Kyle and Brian, welcome to the show. Jeff, thanks for having us. It's an honor to be here. It's an honor to have you both. And we always have fun when we talk together. So let's do this for those that are listening. They want to put a face or sorry, a voice with a name. Kyle, why don't you explain who you are and what do you do? Who am I? I'm Kyle Draper and I am what I call a video marketing therapist. So I help people get comfortable in front of the camera positioning their story, their narrative in front of the people that are most likely to work with them. And I wrote a book. So I guess I'm also an author, and that's partially why we're here today. And so could I tell you more? I could. Would you care? Probably not. So Brian. Brian, go to you. Yes. Yeah. Hey, Jeff, thanks for having us on again. Brian, view president, chief operating officer, Finnlocker. So we're a fintech that supports mortgage lenders, really the whole mortgage ecosystem. And our focus is really to help, help prepare the next generation home buyer for qualifying and getting that mortgage and then buying that home. And there's a whole lot of other stuff that we do around engagement and technology. Awesome. So today we are together because you guys are working on a cool project, which I have been blessed to be a part of and invited to, which we'll be talking about that, this new book that you have coming out that you guys have collaborated on. So stay tuned if you want to learn more about that. But the premise of that book is our topic for today, which is next generation mortgage loan officer. And I thought it would be fun seeing as you guys have been spending a lot of time talking to other professionals around the country and kind of massaging out this next generation mortgage loan officer. I wanted to build it, build this person and like we get to build the robot, the terminator, whatever, right? So let's take a moment and kind of articulate or maybe let's start with how would you describe articulate what are the attributes? What does that mean to be a next generation mortgage loan officer? I'll start if it's okay, Kyle. Yes, please. I like to start by talking about the next generation home buyer first, right? We all know that there's this, well, those of us that are really close to the industry understand that there's this pent up pool of prospective first time home buyers. And I think the National Association of Realtors told us at the end of Q4, the average age in 2023 for first time home buyers crept into the upper 30s. I think 36 years old was that median age. So we've got this pool, a population of growing, you know, people who want to buy homes that have been shut out of the market here for some time. And that pool is going to continue to get bigger. So that's, to me, that's the next generation home buyer is that that growing pool and there's estimate estimates that it's north of 30 million consumers or somewhere thereabouts. And so when we talk about the next gen loan officer, I think we have to have the lens on who is the next gen home buyer. And it's, you know, it's really, it's the, it's the younger millennials are, I'm sorry, the younger, yeah, younger millennials, all the jazz, and I twist them myself up. So we've got this younger, you know, consumer segment that is grown up as a digital native. And, and so if you're going to face off with that type of segment of consumer, I think you should understand who they are first. And then you start stacking on what are the right attributes. And the last thing I'll say on that is I'm a mid 50s year old guy. So when we, when I say next generation loan officer, and I think when we say it collectively, we're not necessarily talking about a younger and age loan officer, it's really a mindset that we're talking about. All right, Kyle, what do you say? Yeah, on top of all of all of that, I think listening to, you know, as, as we record this, Brian and I have had over 30 people in a podcast environment talking about their perspective of this. And what, what I'm seeing in all of this is that this younger generation, even the like I'm at the tail end, right? I'm, I'm barely, I actually know, I'm at the older end. I'm barely a millennial. And I still do not want you to call me like I do not answer the phone. And I, I, I'll say this from stage jokingly, but it's dead serious. Like if you want me to answer FaceTime me. And I'll answer. But if you call me, I have no desire to talk to you. Like text me so we can solve it. And so I think with this next generation loan officer, they have to realize that, that the next generation of home buyer, they're perfectly satisfied building relationships online. That they believe to be as strong, if not stronger, than the people they actually do life with every day. And so figuring out how to leverage technology to get face to face, though it's through a screen is of equal value, if not better, for this next generation of home buyer. And so that's been my takeaway is just figuring out like, how do we decrease the knowledge gap by being more present online? By the way, we interact through our socials and in our processes. And I think that's going to be the biggest swing in this transition is those that leverage AI because we're about to unleash AI on this conversation. You already teed that up. And, and so if we're not willing to jump into this game, there will be no room left for you. No one will want the yellow. And my opinion that's like, can we meet for coffee? Can we get together? Hey, let's go to lunch. And I think most people will be like, bro, I don't have time. If that's what you need for me, we're probably not a great fit. So that's, that's kind of my take so far. Oh, my drop. I don't know if it's good or bad, but no, it's good. All right. So you, you kind of teed up the whole AI thing. And before we hit record, I, I asked Chachi PT, I said, how would you define, define a next generation mortgage loan officer? And it gave me, you know, three paragraphs that won't read at all, but I think the summary of it was actually wrote our book. We don't need to write it now. Let's go home. I think two things I want to highlight, which is actually echoes what you both just said. It said number one, there would be a depth at using online platforms and digital tools for communication and document management catering to a tech savvy clientele. But it also said, where is it here about engagement, right, tailoring, maybe skilled and personalized customer service tailored solutions to meet the diversity needs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, tech savvy, knowledgeable, customer focused, adept at merging technology with treat the modern demands of today's client in the mortgage industry. Now, obviously Kyle, you help people show up online, you help people be tech savvy, right? You help them merge technology, I think with the human element. And I think you would agree that's probably one of the key key parts of next generation. Because even, I mean, I know you both have seen it. Like there's all this AI now that will literally do video for you. And it still sucks. And I get synthies now and people are like, check this out. I look how cool this is. And I can't believe that people are freaking buying it. I know. But it just shows that like we're just so scared of doing what we're doing right now. This people will go to any link to avoid the discomfort of this. Yes. Even putting out a version of them that's so obviously fake. And so yes, like AI is unbelievable. But to truly do it right, like AI won't be a relationship, AI won't be emotion. And so we still have to be the willing person to bring ourselves to the forefront of this. And we're the three of us are our great examples of this. Brian and I have still to this day never met in person. We're writing a book together. We've spent more hours face to face in the last month than I have with guys that I'd call my best friends that I haven't seen in a year. Jeff, you and I, we connected online far before we ever met in real life. In the moment we met in real life, you almost have to remind yourself that you don't know the person based in the traditional sense. Because we didn't have to walk up to each other. We're like, oh, hey, are you? Well, hey, have we ever shook? Do we need a shake? Can't do we? It's if we're willing to lean in. This is the this is the game changing environment that I think we have the greatest advantage in. I'm curious. I pause to for a moment to see Ryan. If you wanted to add anything, so I'll jump right in there and, you know, step through that if you don't mind. But what I'm sure it's because you guys have talked a lot of people in preparing this book. And you've got various people contributing chapters, which is awesome. How many chapters is there going to be, by the way? I think we're at 400. That's how many of those like slightly less. I think we're I think we have 35 contributors. So each each will have a chapter. And we didn't set out to have 35 contributors. I think I think in our minds, Kyle, we're thinking, ah, we get a dozen people. This will be a pretty good. Yeah, we started at 12. And then you're like, but we can't leave out so and so. Right. And then you're at 16 and then we're at 20 and it's so I'm curious. Let me pivot for a second. We're going to talk about this book and how do you get it in a moment. But so you, you're talking to roughly 35 people and getting their take on what next generation mortgage loan officer means and what does that look like? And these are all different types of roles. We have, you know, executives that companies, we have individual producers, you know, speakers, authors, coaches, whatever. What would be a couple highlights or takeaways that you found most impactful for you, right, in prepping and putting this together? Yeah, I think for me, it was intuitively, I think I knew the answer, but it was pretty inspiring to just continue to hear. And then it's what we've already talked about, which is the relationship formation that can and does happen virtually digitally, right. And so, you know, the entire book's not built around personal branding and showing up online, but a lot of the chapters have components that touch on those aspects. This is not a book for learning how to be a technically proficient loan originator. We're not hammering through, you know, guidelines and regulations. People, there's there's plenty of places to go learn. In fact, I'm pretty sure if you want to have that little license number, you got to go take 20 hours or whatever it is to figure that out. This isn't a, you know, teach you how to be a loan officer book. This is for people who are in our profession who want to improve how they face off with this next generation who want to be in this business for the next decade. That's who we, you know, compiled these these experts to help. And so there is a lot of talk around, you know, that showing up on digital and personal branding, but we get into things like segmentation, like talking about different segments of consumers from Gen Zs to millennials to seniors and veterans. So there's some segmentation discussion. There's some technology discussion around, you know, what's the right or not the right, but what are some optimal tech stacks for loan officers to have, you know, in their arsenal and and then mindset. There's a lot of, a lot of chapters or a lot of people that talk about mindset either exclusively or touch on those things. I feel like it's a really well-rounded compilation of experts and expertise. Like, you know, we're not, we don't think you're going to open the book and everybody's going to take away 35 gems. I actually think there's more, but we believe if you buy this book and you read this book and you find three to five things that you can put into your business today, it's a it's a heck of an investment. For sure. Kyle, what was you a couple of your key takeaways through all these 30 plus conversations? Yeah, man. I mean, so many the whole time Brian was talking, I'm like, which which ones am I going to talk about? I I love the spotlight we're putting on veterans in this book. You know, we Brian and I very intentionally were like, man, let's pick multiple people that focus primarily on the veteran community, because I also know and Jeff, you know this as well, because you've like you teach lenders to work on the real estate side. Most realtors have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to the VA loan. But when I talked to lenders that do the VA loan, they talk about how easy it is, how great it is, how much opportunity is there. And so for years, like I've always been baffled with why are there such different of opinions on one loan product from from from from both sides. And so I'm super proud of the the people we've brought in to represent the VA home buyer, the veteran home buyer. And so those conversations have been really fun. And the the other takeaway that I had was I feel like Brian, almost everybody said, you've got to become an educator. Yes. Yes. You have to educate. Stop assuming that people know what they're doing, that they understand what the different loan products are, that they understand that that maybe putting more down to lower your points isn't necessarily the best decision, but you heard a youtuber say it. And so I think there's just going to be this really big push in the book to go be the expert to people. And we do that by the way we show up online and educate. Yeah. Well said. And I kind of continued it on with chat you BT here in terms of what tech and social platforms would be used to reach the modern consumer. And it dovetails to what you just said there. Obviously social media platforms be the educator. I think that's the key headline here is be an educator, right? Be be a knowledge broker, be an authority, become known for something whether that's VA, whether that's reverse, whether that's whatever the thing is. And leverage these free platforms, right? That obviously you're very well skilled in video, et cetera. But this is how you're going to engage as a next generation originator. This is where the consumers are. And so we need to be there and be president or we're just kind of becoming relevant. Well, and even like four months ago, I brought on a team to really dial in just my email communication. Because so many people now would say, man, email's dead, we get hundreds if not a thousand a day. Right. And what I'm learning is like people think that because most of the people they get emails from suck at writing emails and they make them all about themselves. And so duh, I don't want to read an email from you when all it is is all your highlights. It's not adding value to me. So we four months ago, we got my emails dialed in to my database that I've wasted for years. And it's actually like making me money now. And like three minutes ago, my phone dinged with you got a new cell. And I'm over here talking to you guys. And I'm making money. And it's because we've created a community where I'm using my expertise to create value for other people. And so there's just there's so much, there's such a large gap in the way we educate people in general in our industry. And so to feel to fill that with social media or email campaigns are like it's there. There's just there's so much opportunity here to serve that next generation. And like Brian said, you can do this as a 65 year old veteran L.O. that's been doing this 40 years. Yeah. It's just going to mean you need to rethink a couple of things, retool a couple of things and change your mindset. That's the key. I think the Brian said that at the beginning like next year isn't about age. It's about mindset. 100%. Okay. So let's do this. People want to know all about this book. I'm actually excited to read it because I want to learn from some of the other contributors that you've got in there. So I'm kind of you're going to be blown away. It's unbelievable. So it's this compilation of 35 thought leaders if you will, sharing the best that they have in their of expertise, which I think is a pretty cool concept. So who is listening right now that wants to go get a copy of this book? We have a URL set up just for you. It's called rethinkeverythinglo.com. We'll put a link in the show notes to make it easy. Just tap, use your thumb, whatever. And this will take them to Amazon to get the book. rethinkeverythinglo.com. Go get the book. I mean, for, you know, less than a trip to Starbucks, you can get educated on how to become a next-generation loan officer and learn from some of the best that are in the industry today. Who those do you guys for putting this together? Yeah, it's been, well, I was inspired by Kyle's book. You can see it over his left shoulder, our right, his left, I think, probably over my shoulder somewhere here too. And if you've read Kyle's book and the format of it is what was super interesting. It's an easy read. But then in each chapter, the reader gets to actually see and hear Kyle on video, right? So QR codes in the book take the reader right in front of Kyle or vice versa. And so the other aspect of what we incorporated into this format is the same, that same model where you're actually buying a book, but now you're becoming part of a community with these 35 experts and you're going to see and meet and hear them and what we hope for. And I think we're going to see this as we hope that there's all these relationships that get built, you know, exponentially from the readers and our contributors. So we're super excited about the community that's going to kind of form around this book as well. Yeah, I love that. Thank you for pointing out the format. That's an important aspect of this book and what makes it unique and different in that it's actually an interactive book via the QR codes and you go to watch a video from the person you just got that quick lesson on and you want to go deeper. That's that that's next is Jen book right there, my man. That's right. It's like it's this is the modern version of the scratch and sniff books. Remember those? Yes, I do, sir. Yes, I do. That's, I don't remember. I'm not too young to remember those. Anyway, so once again, rethink everything, L O dot com, link in the show notes, go check it out. Guys, thank you so much for being here and you know, contributing to the community as you do. It's an honor. Thank you, Jeff. And thank you, Jeff, for for being part of the project with us. It's also an honor and a privilege. If we accept your chapter. I know. All right. So you listeners, you know what to do. Go get the book. The links are in the show notes. And if you like this episode and think somebody would benefit from it, please share it with them. Send it to them because a lot of people could benefit from this book. And thanks for tuning in. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. All right. Well, thanks for tuning into today's episode. Hey, you got a question for you. Are you struggling to get engagement and referrals from real estate agents and feeling like you're constantly fighting for business and a crowded market? What if I told you there's a way to attract agents to a provide unique value that helps them grow their business and generate referrals on demand, helping you become the dominant loan officer in your local market. Look, I've was an originator for over 10 years. I understand the frustration of feeling like you're just another player and a sea of competitors and you're struggling to stand out and get noticed by the agents that you want to attract and engage with. What if I told you this way to flip the script and position yourself as the go to lender in your market attracting agents, not chasing, not paying for leads, not cold calling, but actually generating referrals on demand. And the best part, you don't have to ever make a cold call or chase leads again. You don't have to work with we need agents if you don't want to. This is what we help originators do at the my agent classes membership. What do you get? You get exclusive access to our private community of like minded law officers where you can network, share best practices, get ongoing support to grow your business and you get a turnkey platform that helps you build your personal brand that moves you from solicitor and vendor to partner and peer. You attract agents, you increase conversations and you increase your referrals all without chasing without begging, playing the game, paying for leads, you just by doing what you love to do, which is help other people solve problems. So how do you learn more? Go to mortgagemarketing.pro. What could call with me? And I'll take you through the library of done for you agent classes that you can use to just plug and play and follow our proven system of train the trainer. You don't have to be the subject matter expert. Think of yourself like the nightly news reporters just sharing the news. You also get access to our marketing automation platform that will attract, engage and convert agents to referral partners for you. Scripts, checklist, downloads, automated email, SMS, text messages, done for you landing pages and more. You also get our market maker content, which is the social media images that help you promote your class online. And again, every Friday our mortgage marketing mastermind call, you get access to top L.O. speakers, coaches, connect and collaborate with what's working right now in today's market to help you grow your business. So you don't have to struggle and try and figure it out all on your own. Don't miss the opportunity to learn more about what's helping so many originers succeed and become the go to lender in your local market. What could call with me now mortgage marketing duck bro. We'll see you on the other side.