Success Secrets from a Top 1% Originator

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now. Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, listeners, what's up, Jeff? Is it in Per? What do I have? Do I have any magic buttons for you? Hey, you know what? I just wrapped up this interview and I feel so good that I have to give you, just give it. That's right. I feel so good. I got to give a little James Brown shout out. Why? Because, you know, when you're doing what you love, it shows, right? And I love a couple of things about this podcast platform that this is creative. We're in our fifth year now. We're soon going to surpass 200 episodes, which, you know, when I first started, I would have never thought I'd be at 200 episodes. I wasn't looking that far out in the future. I was simply looking at like two steps in front of me. Hey, how can I put content out that's going to be helpful for people that I care about? And that's mortgage professionals. Why do I care about you? Because I'm one of you. Because for over 10 years, right? I was an originator in a tough market, Southern California, lots of competition, lots of realtors, and all the issues that go with it. And when I started, it was like, hey, here's your business cards. Go get some realtors, right? All right. Thank you for the quality management training program at that previously aforementioned company. Anyway, that leads me to the introduction we're at right now, which is, first of all, before I forget, if you like this, this podcast, and of course, this episode, which I'm confident you will, and you like the content we're putting out and you want to go deeper. You want to have a more a bigger conversation, jump in our private Facebook group. It's over on Facebook, right? Facebook.com.com forward slash groups slash mortgage marketing radio. That's along URL. So what you can do is you can just go to Facebook and type in the search bar at Facebook mortgage marketing radio. And guess we'll come up, that's right. Our group, just for you podcast listeners, and we are going to be doing some good things. Coming, it's already happening. We've gone live in there a few times. We're posting downloads in there for you. We're having guest moderators share content in there on the topics that you most want to learn. So go hop over there if you want to carry on the conversation on the Facebook group. And lastly, don't forget that if you're looking to get ahead of the change in the market with refives, right? Because if you're looking at forecasts for refives, right? What you're seeing is certain people, MBA and others, predict that the refi rates are going to drop off. And the biggest challenge I hear, it's funny when I come into the group, when you come into the group over there at the Facebook page there, one of the questions I ask you I believe it's in there is like, what's your number one struggle? And I hear a bunch of different things, right? Capacity, dealing with the leads, right? But overall, one of the largest responses that people give me to, what's your biggest challenge or area of focus right now? It's how do I get more or better realtor relationships and grow my realtor referrals? Now I don't know if that's right for you. If it is, well, we've got a solution for that that's proven. Literally, I've been doing this for over 10 years. Building originators, both myself, when I was originating, this is how I built my career, but also now hundreds of originators across the country. What we're helping you do is put you back in charge. Never have to make a realtor call call again, never chase, beg, borrow, plead, whatever, have realtors come to you. Does that sound good? Well, you can do that by leading with education, a done-for-you-turnkey educational platform that puts you in front of real estate agents every single month, like clockwork, building your realtor referral base, your sphere of influence, building your database of realtors, and consistently, like clockwork, every time you host a educational class for real estate agents, you get relationships and ultimately referrals if you follow the system and it's done for you. Want to learn more? You go to mortgagemarketing.pro to check out more about that. Turnkey, classes, zoom-friendly, zoom-ready, promote them, post them on social, download the PowerPoint, speaker notes, handouts, checklists, watch the video tutorial of me, training you how to do a class over zoom, soup to nuts, this is, by far, the most quickest, most efficient way for you to add realtor referrals and relationships to your business. Mortgagemarketing.pro, go check it out. All right. Transition now. Let's get into my guest this week who I'm honored, and I don't say that lightly, honored and thrilled to have that she was able to make time from her incredibly busy schedule plus living abroad internationally since COVID hit last year, and yet still running a region at Guild Mortgage running a branch and team at Guild Mortgage, who am I talking about? I'm talking about Shayla Gifford. In 2020, her entire team, or the Shayla Gifford team, by the way, her team did $770 for $213 million. You know what, that deserves a James Brown as well, okay? And that's her running a team from afar remotely, okay? So she's clearly a superstar, very dynamic leader in our industry and in our space. So whenever I have the opportunity to speak with someone like Shayla, you guys should listen. So she'll break down her numbers or team and things like that as we get into this. But what we have is a very just kind of candid conversation about she runs the coaching division at the Guild, she coaches hundreds of loan officers, she's been in this business for, gosh, over 10 years, started pretty young and has just simply continued to grow and evolve since. And I think you'll really enjoy this conversation because we talk about relationships. We talk about what are some of the blind spots that most originators have or what are the building blocks to going to the next level? Like what's essential, what's not essential? How do you stay balanced during the madness, right? And what are you looking at in your business to help you get to that next level, to help you have that quote thing, whether it's confidence, whether it's the right relationships, whatever it is, I just love this conversation, right? So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Shayla, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you for being here. I'm honored, right? And I don't say that just to sound cliche, I really mean it because I know how incredibly busy you are and a lot of different fronts. So for those that may not know who Shayla Gifford is, why don't you share your brief background, how many years in the industry and then 2020, volume and units? Cool. Well, I am almost a 40-year-old blonde chick from Reno, Nevada, grew up with parents, dads and the drywall business and my mom's always worked alongside my father and then my stepfather and the construction industry, both entrepreneurs. I grew up early on as an achiever, always wanting to gain love and appreciation for my achievements, whether it's straight A's or slamming the volleyball or winning the soccer tournament, whatever that look like, went to college on an academic scholarship but dropped out after one year and got in a network marketing, did direct sales, lived on a mattress with five people and one bedroom apartment for a few years. One point lived in the bathroom inside of my office, so I know what it's like to struggle financially and to be unnatural at sales and unnatural at even relationship building. But anyway, that's where I kind of got my formal education and got involved in the industry at 23 years old now, gosh, almost 17 years ago. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I've got some questions around that, but keep going on, yeah, kind of 2020, what did that look like for you? Okay. Been a loan officer since 2004 and started day one, just jumped into the deep end of the pool, was handed a phone and a rate sheet and you just figured out. I didn't have a team at all, Jeff until 2010. I heard my first assistant, but did big volumes still? I did 200 loans a year, processed my own loans, did the whole thing start to finish, major control and trust issues, workaholic, maniac, just doing whatever I could to achieve and be successful. Kind of took a big turn when I found Guild Mortgage and I started getting coached and started putting together a plan and a purpose and understanding how to build a team, trust others and that led to growing a branch and growing a network of loan officers that I now lead today. So I have about 44 loan officers, I think it is between 10 different branches. I coach almost all of them. Some of them are professionally coached in our Guild coaching program and I still run a team on an origination team, the Giver team, going strong. My original very first Eloise still with me almost 11 years later and in 2020 we did 770 loans on the Giver team for I think 213 million ish somewhere right around there. And then with the network of loan officers that I have got the spans from Dayton, Ohio now to Arizona and Northern Nevada and a little bit in California. We did about 1.9 billion and that is the district that you oversee. Yeah, that is what we are going to call it, the district network, whatever. Alright, that is funny. So I am curious, MLM, that is an interesting start. What company was that? I have to ask. So the first come to me was called Trek Alliance and they were shut down by the FTC for calls advertising. Okay. Then the second company I think is still in existence called Symmetry but always in kind of the health diet nutrition product sector because you have always been into health diet nutrition. Totally, since I was 16 I was reading those kind of books and avoiding sugar and I am totally a nerd Jeff. I did my homework like reading my books for AP History or whatever on the treadmill after high school. Like I didn't go play with friends, I didn't skip class, I was working out and reading my history book on the day I am treadmill at the same time. And so it makes me really curious, somebody like you who is naturally driven, right, kind of self-motivated. I am wondering, where does that come from? Have you looked back? I know you have done a lot of self-work and stuff like that, where do you think that comes from? Yeah, I have done a lot of self-work, I am fascinated about what makes this tick and elevate our lives and breakthrough to new awarenesses. I am just eternally fascinated by that myself and other people. I think it is that same thing, I mean both of my parents are achievers, both of them probably have the same kind of dysfunction that I have where they don't feel deserved unless they are the first one in, the last one to leave that works harder than everybody else that provides more value. And so I have had that since a young age, I was considered very bossy when I was younger. So I wanted to say, you know, leadership qualities, but in first grade I stood up and took over a class and started teaching because my teacher was so old and slow that I had to take over. You are like, look, handle this. So I had that kind of edge about me from a young age and just my willingness to say it like it is. I have been wanting to just tell, you know, you are the true teller, but I am definitely wanting to say, this is the truth, this is what it is, just take it. That is very interesting. The drive then comes behind that, I guess maybe to back it up, maybe to stand out because you know, I never was popular, I never was cool, I never felt like it was natural for me to build rapport with people, it's all things I had to learn. So I think I always wanted to stand out because of my achievements. So I just worked hard, worked hard on it. How did you say, how did you say going into the mortgage business? I was living in Indianapolis, Indiana and selling vitamins and I had one of the neighbors in our office complex, Mike Noble, still a friend in the industry, Facebook friend, and he just kept saying, you got to get in this business, you're made for this business, I promised, promised, promised and I told him no about a hundred times until he took me to lunch with his female mentor who, you know, made 500 grand a year, drove a minivan, wore jeans and a leather jacket. And I don't know what it was between the combo of the minivan, the jeans and leather jacket, but it was definitely like, okay, this is a real business. This is a career. This is something I can put my whole heart, my whole self into, and I can really make an impact in people's lives. And that is where the incongruency was for me in network marketing at the time, because although I was selling products that I believed in, I was really selling the opportunity, a freedom, a flexibility of, you know, driving a nice car, I was driving a convertible Mercedes at 20 years old, wearing a suit, and then living on an air mattress in the department for other people. And so I really like congruency and authenticity and just saying it like it is. And I love that the mortgage industry was something that you can make a real impact for the customer, where it's really needed and skies the limit. You could also grow and be and do and make whatever it is that you want to make. And you saw that opportunity early on because of this other, this female mentor in terms of income wise, you saw essentially those things. I just thought when I met her, I was like, this is a real chick, like, this is a real mom for me, she wasn't faking it. She wasn't flaunt and faking, there was, I don't know, you were a nice watcher and that's me. I still have my 11 year old car, and I don't even wear one, you know, it's always been about like winning for real, not for the show of it. And that's what she showed me, I couldn't have met a better person than Rocky all those years ago. What aspect of the mortgage business do you enjoy the most? And it could be two things because I know there's the origination side and now there's a leadership side for you, but what comes up for you there? So it's so funny because I have really trained my mentality to love it all. And I had a friend challenge me the other day because he's like, do you really love it? Because I just like literally, I love it all, I could get in and cross those loans and I could love that. I could get in and manage and be in spreadsheets and, you know, dive deep in strategic things. I love that. I love, you know, speaking in front of people and being with the customer like I love it all. And he's like, do you really? And I just had to really dive in and go, you know, I don't know if all those things bring me energy. I can certainly muster my own energy and bring it to it because that's what I've trained myself to do. So I found a way to love it all through the process and I think that's what's helped me have this like catapult mega career because people can feel that passion and the love that I put into whatever the heck I'm doing at the time. But my number one strength on the strength fiber and for anybody listening who doesn't know their top five strengths and hasn't done a gallop strength fighter, I highly recommend it because it was really empowering for me, but it's to be strategic. And at first, that really bummed me out, Jeff, because I was teetering on burnout at the time that I took this test. And to me, when I thought strategic, that means your brain is never shutting off that you're always constantly thinking about a way to solve a problem or fix something or prepare or plan or. And I just kind of got a little press on my, how is this going to help me be the mother I want to be that is connected and calm and peaceful and encouraging and and is just being with my kids instead of always achieving and producing and going and thinking ahead. I really, I really was at that point where I wanted to be more in the being part of my life instead of just doing and having a checklist run my life and 10,000 goals on the list. The other thing was how does that, how does being strategic allow me to be the kind of friend that I want to be because I sacrifice a lot of time with friends. I mean, you just, I've had the blinders on for at least the last 10 years. And so it took me a little while to start really understanding for me what my strategic strength means and what it means, Jeff, is to meet somebody really care about them, listen to them and then part intuition to just say, this is what I think your block is. This is where the issue is for you. And I'm willing to be bold enough to tell you and strategic enough to tell you what I think would be the steps if you're open to the coaching behind it. Same as if our friends want to achieve some goal or we want to book some kind of a trip or we want to do something. My strategic brain will figure out the best way to book a travel or to put together a party or an awesome evening. So it's not just all obsessing about planning and future things. I can use my strategic strengths to help create the lifestyle for my family that is harmonious where we're all thriving, where we're eating healthy food, where everybody's balanced, where everybody's needs can be met. And I can think through complex things and then try to boil that back down into implementation and action. So I don't know if that gave you any kind of an answer that you're looking for. I could have just said, I love managing. No, it did. It did. And the other question I was going to ask you, which you kind of alluded to, this is what you're super power. And so clearly it sounds like you're all about strategy. So I think that super power is getting a sense of somebody. Like really, what their brilliance is. Yeah, yeah. And how quick does that, do you have like a radar? It's interesting because some people have this where you can, you've got these vibes, you can pick up from somebody and know what that is in a short period of time. Yeah, like if, if I would have done what I like to normally do, I would have spent the first 15 minutes grilling you a quick, reverse the process. Yeah, that's okay. Let's go. Start grilling me. I don't get the chance to be interviewed much. Yeah, so I, you know, and generally, generally within 15 minutes, I've got a real sense of a person. And what drives you, Jack, and what motivates you and what, what your fears are and what you really care about and maybe what, what are those things that are kind of pulled you back, you know, I have people that are such good originators, like amazingly talented originators. And I always say, the best loan officer doesn't always win, doesn't always do the most loans. Isn't the most successful? It's the person that knows their strengths and can communicate those and harness those to serve the most people. And sometimes the best technicians don't know how to get out of their own way to say, I can help you, I want to help you and have the mindset of like, if I don't clearly communicate this to you, Jeff, I'm going to be doing a disservice to you, like you're going to be the loser in the field because I'm not helping you with your business. And I know what your kids are and I have the skill set to help you. That's a very strong personal belief. Yeah, well, to be able to say that. I think, I mean, if you want to be effective and not work a bazillion hours and take forever to get where you want to go, that's the number of things to work on. So believe in yourself and your capabilities. You've got to know what your strengths are, you've got to know what your values are and how to like put that in a verb. So if you say, you know, achievers also in my top five. So what, you know, what an achiever means is that you're willing to do long, hard, persistent effort to get what you want, something you just want to achieve, but you can sustain work for a long period of time to get what you need to get done. So how do you put that in your own words so that the other person actually cares about what you're saying? Because me just talking about myself doesn't help you, Jeff, and what your goals are and what you need. I need to find out what you need. And then I need to be able to communicate and know when it's a no, it's a no. When it's doesn't fit, when you're the wrong guy, I'm not going to try to jam a round peg into a square hole. I'm going to just say, wow, this was great and move on. But to be able to say, I know that I have that belief in myself, I have these strengths to help you with what you need. Yeah. So there's a lot in here that I could unpack. I guess let's go there. Strength. Well, let me just talk to you for a sec. What are your top five? Do you know your strength on the strength? I haven't done the strengths finders. I've heard about multiple times and I want to do it now for sure. You're going to want it and you please please send it to me. I will. I know I know my disc profile, but I'm a strength finders is a whole different thing. So I want to do that. You're going to love this. So you talked about blocks, know your strengths. I was curious as I'm listening to you, I guess the place I want to go is, did you start with that belief or certainty in yourself when you don't 20 plus years ago, let's roll the clock back? Did you have to work through some stuff for that to, you know, I'm up for you higher. We're all working through our stuff, you know, I mean, my biggest fear honestly is that I'm not valuable enough, that I don't deserve it enough, and I'm still, after all these years, dealing with that same thing and it pops up in various ways, right? So I might take over the microphone in a branch meeting and go on and on too long because I'm really trying to like make sure you feel me in the value and how much I care about it. Well, that's coming from a place of insecurity because I'm overdoing it. So and same, it's the reason that I got into a place of burnout was like I was, I was kind of leading my life out of obligation, you know, well, I feel like it should be at that. And I've got to attend that and I feel obligated to show up for this. And, you know, that's when we start becoming a person, yeah, is that what I couldn't say no? It's just that I could find a way to say yes to everything. I could justify it and rationalize a reason that it was important to me to go or something wasn't important. It's a no, you know, so some level, which means you found a way to say yes, okay. Exactly. And I just meant that I didn't have the clarity on what is essential. What are my values? What is essential to me and then where are those boundaries so that I also know that being the most fired up, clear-headed, creative person authentically, not forced energy is the salespeople. We learn how to turn it on, you know, we all learn how to drive in the car and smile until we're laughing and put on the show face and get it going, but like true authentic energy of like, no, I feel good and I'm not overgassing. Yeah. Yeah. You're in this place of confidence and certainty and also to use your word is congruency. It's because when you're congruent, if in a dare I say all areas of your life, although mentally I'm like challenged, is that even possible, right? But I think like you said, we're all working towards it. But the whole thing about if you're congruent in the certain areas that you're making the right choices, you're saying yes and no when it makes sense for you internally, you know, it's like that thing of balance, although we can be out of balance for a period of time for a good reason sometimes. But you know what I'm getting at? It's just like, yeah, you're in this place of like, no, man, like, I don't need to wave my own flag. I'm confident in my skills and my ability and sometimes that takes quite a while in our life to get there, right? Yeah. Oh, totally. So you asked the question, have I always been that way? And then the answer was no, that I'm still working at those fears from very little childhood still come up all the time. But the biggest transition for me, so the first six years, here's what I relied on to be successful. And I think this will never fail because it will always work. Answer your phone. Always answer your phone. It's amazing how many people just don't answer the phone and don't call people back. Yeah, but what about, all right, let me play desive that devil's advocate, nothing to interrupt you. But, you know, there's some people who preach the, you want to be not on demand, but in demand, you know? When you're broke, and you have no option to go against the fricking phone, right? So it was the first six years of my career. I built a successful business because I was easy to work with. I was eager. I was hungry. I was available. And I built a brand. I also built all my skillset during that time, Jeff. I was out there on the battlefield looking at loans, looking at pre-proels, pre-proels, pre-proels, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's what builds the belief in yourself. You've got to get to add that. So this is why I love people joining a loan officer team when they have no experience. Like yes, right now, it seems great to just jump in the deep end and be a loan officer and go get loans. And yeah, you can slug through. There's, you know, 19 million borrowers that should be easy refires and you can kind of figure it out. But, you know, you interviewed Amanda Ray, who was my very first pre-approval teammate. I have one at. And then I think I had Dan and then Amanda, she was like my third hire, right? And she just closed $103 million as a loan officer. But she spent two years on my team just swinging the bat every day, pre-proels, pre-proels, pre-proels, pre-proels, pre-proels, pre-proels, looking at stuff, building her skillset. So I think being on demand in the beginning of your career is important. And we were just talking about college. If you can take two years of being on demand and all in, you will have the skill set for the rest of your life, right? Right. For knowing you can ever take the skill set away from them, if you, even if it takes you four years to really hack the technical, effective abilities that you need, then that is what it is. What I got from network marketing was listening and finding out what matters to the other person. And then just catering to whatever that person needs. What I didn't do well the first six years is actually think about building relationships. I was 100% transactional. I was looking for the next rep by the next deal, the next deal, the next deal, the next deal. And, you know, I was fine to say next, you know, they're shopping me next, you know, they didn't like my presentation next because I always knew if I just had enough leads and enough people in the pipeline, it would work out. And yes, I was rollercoastering like every loan officer does before you have a team 18 loans one month for the next month, 22 the next month, you know. But I didn't have a mentor, I didn't really have a manager, I wouldn't even call it that. I never had a coach. And so I was just grinding and building my skill set. And then right when I made that change to get coaching, join guild, like it was a real defining moment for me, I just gotten married. Flagster bank was where I had worked. I had been number one in the company, but they had come in and they closed my branch down and so I was like left with nowhere to work. And so I just became really intentional in 2009 and said, okay, I want to build a long lasting career. I can't be burning the midnight oil and doing 12 hours a day. I don't want to end up divorced like my parents did. You know, I want to like travel, be madly love, make an impact on it, live a big life and crush this. So that's when I actually started going to coffee appointments with realtors after six years. Wow. And I might believe actually strength and Jeff when I said, so what do you love about certain loan officers you work with? What are things that they do really well? And then you get the feedback and you just listen and note what the people say, well, if you could be a loan officer for a day, what would you change? You know, what drives you crazy about lenders and loan officers? And I started hearing the same things over and over and over again, you know, simple things like they never answer a phone. When things go wrong, they hide. They hide under a desk. I don't find out until the last second that don't do a really good job at the front for you proving somebody. So I waste a lot of time with somebody when the end can't get pre-fall upon. I mean, all this stuff, Jeff, that I like, for me is the bare minimum. Like this is how you do this job well. I was doing that all day long. I didn't realize I needed to tell people I did that. Right. I didn't realize how bad it was. You know, that that was a sellable to real estate. So that's why you got to get out, you've got to meet your competition. You've got to ask those questions to realtors and you'll start building belief in yourself because you'll start going, oh, what they really need is this. They need somebody. Oh, you hear me? Yep. Go ahead. Okay. Well, sorry. How did you then? Because I know how we market or grow our business changes over time. But for the listeners who, you know, are listening and they've got, you know, share the gift on the line who's, you know, team is rocket and crushing it and, you know, 200 million, 770 loans and all this kind of stuff, you know, you're obviously, and you're able to manage such things at a high level. So, so I want to, we're going to come back to that conversation for those people. But when I go back to the blocks, you coach a lot of people, a lot of loan officers. And we're looking at my notes just so you know. What do you see then come up as the repetitive blocks for loan officers who want to go to the next level? Well, it's funny. When I prepared for Dave Savage's event, the Montemorgan summit, and I did that talk that was about how you can harness your dysfunctions to get rich, right? Because a lot of times you try to hide them or avoid them. Right. And so, you know, for me, realizing that I don't feel deserve it is one of my things. The way that shows up is I do XYZ and how can that be positive? And then also what are the negative things for that and things that I have to really work on curtailing? And where do I put in, you know, boundaries and where do I, you know, start healing some of that stuff if that's what it takes and I've done that. But what I did is I went through every loan officer have that hasn't made a million dollars yet any year, okay? And sometimes it's easier to find the answers when you think really big, you know, I did a talk to realtors. I'm like, okay, what would you have to do to make a million bucks this year? And these are people that are trying to make a hundred thousand. Doesn't that just like immediately the rock, their perception and their bring up a lot of issues? Perfect. That's what I'm looking for. I want all of your issues. That's if I'm setting a goal here that's like, well, maybe I could. Yeah, I think I can't. I'm not getting the real like elephant in the room and it's like, oh, like, no, that's not me. Well, yes, it is. If it's possible and we're in this industry and she can do it, he can do it and he can do it and she can do it. Here's the playbook and I'll coach you and hold you account to it. Why not you? Right. And so that is exactly that's the stuff that I want to get out. So the blocks, the way they're displayed is differently than knowing what the root is. But like very typical alone officer who is messy and frantic, I definitely was this as well. Like their desk is just stuff everywhere, they're running always ten minutes late. They don't really have time blocking together. They don't have a start time. They don't have an end time. They're putting everything to their anniversary to the kid's birthdays and everything's last minute and winging it. That shows up. So why does that show up? Well, it could be a worthiness issue that I've got to show up for everybody the minute that they need me. And then if I don't do it right now, they're going to leave me. If I don't answer the phone for this leave right now, they're going to leave, right? If I don't take a pre-approval meeting at 6 p.m. on a Saturday, then this realtor is going to leave me and go with somebody else. That's a worthiness issue and it's also a confusion about what that realtor really needs and how to sell your strengths and your value act to their business because, you know, it's just like I said in the beginning, you've got to be available and you've got to be hustling and you've got to do all those things. But it doesn't mean that you sacrifice everything and that you don't have any parameters and you don't have a way in which you do business. I meet clients on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays for pre-approvals. I have one slot in the morning and I have three in the afternoon those days. You've got to have some basic parameters put in place otherwise you have no rules. So when anybody asks you anything or any question like we talked about earlier, you're saying yes to everything and then you're always going, oh, what did I commit to and trying to pull it off? So that's one example. Another one is just belief, I mean, it all comes down to worthiness, am I good enough? What is so special about me, why would that realtor work with me? Why isn't everybody calling the top realtor in town and saying, you do a lot of business, I want to do a lot of business, I'll do whatever it takes to help you succeed but I need to know what your issues are and what your problems are, can we meet and see if I can add value to your business and make you more money? I'm not asking you for the deal, I'm just curious and I want to know if I can maybe add value but people aren't doing that. So I think it comes down to like, well, I'm not good enough, what if they say no? What other structure, I want to come back to structure a little bit because from what I've seen, probably similar to you with a lot of officers, it's one of the most common areas where they struggle is having structure used the dreaded word, time blocking and people have various reactions to that, like the classic one I get is like, well, if time blocking, what happens if a call comes in from a realtor? What do you do? So I'd love to hear how you would coach somebody to handle that. If something's on fire now, it'll probably still be on fire in two hours. Like it just let it go, have time in your calendar to deal with loan drama and fires. So when you're all by yourself, you need to put a few of those blocks in. But rolling out of bed the minute you wake up and doing emails is the worst way to jump start your brain. And most of us have this fallacy of like, well, I'm being super efficient. Now you just killed all your creativity. You jumped a bunch of, you know, stress hormones into your body, like, not good. And then answering the emails, the minute that they pop up all day long does not allow us to focus and complete anything. So the way that we show up in the email versus the phone call versus this versus that is like a freak where we aren't grounded. People can feel it's energy. People can feel energy in a relationship. And if you're really here with them and you heard them and you're delivering and you're taking notes, it's about the quality and not the quantity. So if something's on fire, it'll stay on fire. You don't need to check your emails every minute, same thing with your text messages. And then, you know, I've never successfully done leaving a voicemail saying, I will return calls at 12 and 4. I know a lot of people have. But that's why I'm, you know, driving in the car and I'm always on the phone because I'm not going from appointment to appointment. I'm catching up on those windows and I'm figuring it out, making it happen. But I said the expectation, Jeff, when I'm meeting with a real term that, look, if you need a loan officer that's going to answer your phone call, me personally at 215 every day of the week when you need help or need something, I'm not your girl because the best value I can add to your business in my opinion is that pre-approval appointment. When I'm consulting the buyer, first thing I do is edify the hell out of you and talk about how amazing you are and that there's 3,000 real estate agents in this town and I'm lucky there to find you, what a great negotiator you are, how committed you are, you know, what you know how to do in terms of relationships and creativity and structuring like they're so lucky to meet you because I know you can't sell yourself, nearly like I can sell you. So that is my number one role in helping you with your clients in conversion. And then second to that is really educating that client so that they walk out of my office super focused and motivated and they don't waste a lot of your time looking at, you know, stuff that isn't in the price range that doesn't qualify, that doesn't work for the loan type that they need. So if you call me at 215, I might be in a pre-approval meeting and I don't answer emails of phone calls when I'm meeting with a client 101 because I'm totally lasered in, that's when I'm on stage and wowing your client because you put your neck on the line or refer him to me and I want to blow them away. Now I'm always returning all my phone calls, it might be 6 p.m. at night but I also have a team and probably 80% of the calls that you, you know, questions that you have can be answered by the team but still some realtors don't like that. So if you're that realtor that that's what you need at this stage of my career, I'm not the right fit for you. All right. And just straight up saying it, most of my, I'm fine working with your team and- Well, it gets back to, it's like you were saying earlier, what do they really need? Like, like, ask the question, you know, what do you really need in a relationship from a loan officer? Tell me, like, what are your non-negotiables? And I think what you'll find is it's rather simple, you said it earlier, one is, returning your calls, right? I don't think any realtor that I, I mean, there's always the crazy real, and people always like hold up these examples of like the psycho realtor, you know, we've all had them. Like, I had the guy who's like, if you don't call me back in 15 minutes, it's going to another lender. You know, that's not the norm. That's the exception. Most who have realtors that are mature, you know, adults, if you will, understand, right? Well, and, and if, be grateful when people show you their colors, so if somebody please not card with you and says, if you don't call me back in 10 minutes, I'm going to have to refer this to somebody else, and you could beat yourself up for that and go, gosh, how can I not do that? Or you could say, thank you so much. The quicker you get those people out of the way, that aren't going to value you or you for those amazing pre-approval meetings that are going to help make more money, make everything less stressful and help them, you know, close faster, then they're the wrong person. They don't really get it. And that's, that's not who you need. So. Go ahead. No, go ahead. How do you deal with the realtor or realtors who maybe aren't clear on what your true value proposition is in the relationship or in the dynamics of closing a purchase loan, and what I mean by that is, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do extra things to add value to two relationships, like, you know, whether it's classes or networking events or, you know, I mean, co-marketing and all, but, but so many LOs, I think feel like, like just being an LLO isn't enough. And you said something earlier, just a few moments ago, that, you know, not the paraphrase if you will. So, so one of your big value ads is that pre-approval conversation. Yeah. And I've tried to hone that message as well, where it's just like your number one value is to create a referable experience, right? And so we say to that, like, do you agree or what? Yeah. Yeah. It's really do your job. Yeah. And do it well. Yeah. That's the number one thing. And I think a lot of people miss that. I think a lot of people are running around and having a lot of meetings, but they don't, they don't take the time to really dial in a solid pre-approval and it's a mess later. And they're always apologizing and begging and, you know, and all of those things on the second. And so I think being highly technical is super important. But once you've got the technical ability, then you've got to articulate your process and why that process helps them achieve their goals. So if they're, if they like, I just want deals to close on time. It's so stressful for me to, you know, coordinate the utilities and the move and date and the signing and all of these things to just have to redo it all over again and deal with the emotions and all the phone calls and I just don't know why lenders can't close on time. Like, why does it all pop up? And then I could say, okay, well, let's talk about how you, you're riding your contracts. Do you ride all of your escows to close at the end of the month, generally? And they might go, well, I don't know. Well, have you been really consciously to pick a Wednesday, like in the middle of the month? Because that's a great technique. That's a great strategy. A lot of people don't think about. So that really matters to you, that really derails your business. First number one trick is let's pick good closing dates. Second, are you communicating with your loan officer before you write the close best for date? Because so often, I'll get a contract before I've even got a free proof of that for somebody. And now we're all working behind the e-ball the entire time because we've made promises all over the place that now we have to deal with and it's so much stress the whole time. So yeah, we all want to close a deal on 15 days or 25 days or one of the cases. But you may be better off riding a 48 close of escrow and you have no stress. And we give very, you know, explain timelines to the buyer and we communicate. If I don't have this in the next 48 hours, it could jeopardize our closing. And this is the way we communicate because we also value closing on time as our number one value. And does it happen 100% on time? No. But I feel like I'm doing a damn good job of 95% in time, I close on time and I close smooth. I don't like flopping over the finish line. I like sailing through the finish line and it doesn't always happen. But I work backwards on that same goal and metric and I'm a loan officer that will work with you together so we can keep strategizing on ideas and ways as the market changes, as appraisals get tracked out. Because you've got contingent offers or multiple back-to-back contingencies, sometimes we have no choice but to do a 20-day deal and it's just going to be stressful the whole time. But in normal, you don't want to do that for every transaction. And when you start talking to people like this, it's like, most sales people, Jeff, will just say, no worries, I'll get it closed on time. You send me the mail, I'll get it done. That's it. That's the end of the conversation. And then they wonder why relationships kind of don't really work or why there isn't respect there. And they're like, well, you just promise something without like setting the ground rules and the process and the structure, how you're going to make it happen. And ultimately, people choose you because they like you, but they stick with you because of your process. I mean, there's no other way to explain the people that are still doing business with me and my team, when they don't get me at all, the customers don't get me. They don't even get me on a Monday call or face-to-face happy hour or nothing. But what they've come to trust is how we work and what the structure and the process is. And that's why we go to McDonald's is why we go to in that order, it's not because of the best food in the world. We just know what we're going to get in terms of the process and we trust it. And when push comes to shove, people always go back to what they trust and what they know. Yeah, yeah, because people want a certain amount of certainty in their life. And especially in a transaction like this, they want certainty. Any gaping holes that you see most often when you're first working with a loan officer and looking at their process for those that are listening, it's like, what are some easy hot holes to fill in, if you will, on the process that might be broken or missing something? Don't rush to the pre-approval letter. Be very specific of what you require and you need for your pre-approval letters. Your letter is going out as your name and your brand and your company's brand every single time. So I don't care how much pressure you're getting from the realtor or from the client or wherever else, you've got to have a process to doing a pre-approval letter. I used to the first six years I never really had a process. I mean, I was just running the gun and the answer to the phone and I never met with clients face to face, everything was over the phone. And I don't even think I collected documents, although there was a lot of stated income loans and, you know, it was less important today, but when I changed to requiring every person to book an appointment and come in face to face and we spent an hour together face to face and going through, you know, a very structured process every single time my business completely blew up for a couple reasons. Number one, I'm working from appointment to appointment to appointment. So if I have 15 appointments I'm looking to book, I want those all filled. I want to be like the orthodontist that just shows up and there's people in all the chairs with their mouth open and I'm moving around from mouth to mouth like that's where the money is made is pre-approval appointments. The second thing is is if people take the time and the invest time in you and meeting with you face to face, which in now is saying synonymous with video, you're taking this hour of your life, Jeff, to come meet with me. We will forever have a relationship because we've spent this time over camera. And, you know, I, I would say it's pretty similar to meeting face to face. Now, Grant, if we have a three hour dinner, that's going to be different than a one hour zoom. But still, it's, it's the important thing is investing in that relationship and I was so again because of my insecurities wanting to so quickly give out the pre-approval letter and just get them on a phone. I didn't build a relationship. I didn't hand out referrals to other business people. I wasn't asking the client for referrals to our business and to the realtors business. I wasn't edifying the agent. All of these things that are how you take one hour and you turn it into five wins instead of just here's a pre-approval good luck. That's the real difference. So I think a lot of people rush to the pre-approval because they want to be people plasers and they, you know, they want to get it out. They don't vet out all the problems up front and they don't, they're not just straight up with the client saying, okay, you've got a 639 credit score. I've done way worse, but we're not on the strongest foot. The good news is, I know I can get this done, but you're going to have to partner right feet. We've got to clean this up and we got to clean this up. Here's your exact plan of attack, here's your homework, here's what we're going to do. We'll set a task to follow up with people to do that. I think so often we also want to say, all good, no worries. You know, no problem. That's one of my earlier favorite statements. No problem, Jeff. I got this. No worries. And nobody knows that behind the screen it's an absolute show and we're killing ourselves and doing gymnastics to help the client, but they don't even know. You're like, how am I going to get this done? Why would they ever refer me again? They don't know that it literally just killed myself for 30 days and made miracles happen. They don't. So just being straight up and letting people know and also let the listing agent know, you know, they're so often the buyer's like agents like, I don't, I don't want to tell a listing agent. And it's like, you've got, you know, I respect that for, for like a day. But after that, it's like, I've got to call the listing agent. We've got to bring them in on this problem. We've got an appraisal. It's $40,000 low. We've challenged it, but it's not fair to anybody to sell or to anybody who let this go on without getting more people collaborating on the problem. And if the deal is going to die, the deal is going to die. But I'm not going to let my reputation go to like, notify them two days before closing because we're so afraid of telling anybody, like, we got to tell everybody straight up what the issues are and then work on solving it together and you'll gain so much respect and build your reputation, you win that. And if you work on building your reputation as the person that's always going to do the right thing, be thorough, be upfront, be direct, solve problems, be enthusiastic, see the positive. You know, all those things that people respect in a solid professional, the money will follow always. Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So you're saying then that today's version of face to face is this. Zoom. And you still would encourage even in this crazy market of overwhelm. Oh, yes. For sure. If I'm going to spend all my time, Jeff, to figure out if this long works for you, you need to spend time with me. You got to, if you can't give me 30 minutes, then yeah, I got a question how committed you are. Exactly. I mean, you know, the reason that I've interviewed some quick and loan officers and their key method for converting business is to keep the people on the phone as long as they possibly can. Right. That's their whole technique. If they keep somebody on the phone for 45 minutes from the first call, by the time they're done, they've already locked the loan, sent them disclosures. It's in their email. They probably have the disclosures back. That's their secret. And we're so quick to want to get on and off and deliver, you know, the immediate need versus build that relationship and keep them on. Yeah. You said something I saw on one of your earlier videos, keeping an eye on the clock here, is we've got to keep making deposits before we make withdrawals. And I thought that's brilliant because that's true for both our referral partners in a big, big way, because we so show up so off of our handout. You know what I mean? But then that's also true on like with with consumers. You brought up the point of quick and I've talked to a handful of people just personal in my life that I haven't talked to in a long time, right? And somebody reaches out to me from the East Coast on Facebook and they're like, Hey, I'm talking about like doing this or that. You know, I was on the phone with quick and I'm blah, blah, blah, I'm thinking, quick and is getting so many at bats, you know, just because of their name brand and the recognition. And all it would take to win that would be what you're talking about here would be invest in a little bit more time in the upfront, right? Educating, connecting, you know what I mean? Because we know, yeah, I don't want to beg on quick and per se, but I want, you know, advise this person on what to watch out for in that situation, you know? So I think that's brilliant. I think the deals won or lost a pre-approval truly, that's when they're deciding if you're the guy that can get it done, because yeah, they're thinking about rate at that point, but they're in the process of going, I want to get a house. I'm going to go into a super competitive market. I'm going to be up against five other pre-approval letters is just pre-approval letter with his name on it, his reputation, his, his scrappiness to call the listing agent and to be on the flyer with me. Is that going to be what helps me get it done? Right. And yes, people do use our pre-approval letters in a local market to win a deal and then ditch us after that, but most people are not those people. And I don't build a business around the exception. I build it around the majority and the majority are, if they give you their word, if they give you their commitment, if you build a bond and trust with people, if you add value to their life, they will bring it back to you and it's the same thing with realtors. So if you are always looking at the weird realtor or the exception or people that are rude, you're looking at the wrong group. I have a saying, home by wall in the office, I love realtors. And the more you realize what they're having to go through to get a lead and to get an opportunity. And the fact that I'm in a warm or air-conditioned office and people come to me and I'm not driving 300 miles in a day to get a deal and knock on doors and deal with internet leads. We have it so good and we need to be there for them and help them. And I will tell you one of the easiest things that you can do is just encourage realtors. Just be their cheerleader, be their champion because they don't come, you know, I do a Monday sales call every Monday, every law officer I got, how many leads, how many deals, how many variables. Yeah, whoo! Killin' it. I mean, we do that every Monday, recognition, celebration, accountability, like it's energy. Right. It's recognition. We're back into them. We create it. We do a skills meeting. We do, you know, awards trips. We do all the things that we do that build culture and that help us succeed and we have people to our right and our left that are doing the work and they're working Monday's or call realtors and they're doing Tuesday update calls and they're working the plan. They have a playbook and that one just did 100 million, that one just did 50 million. We have all that around us. In a real estate brokerage, they have 300 people in the brokerage, hardly any of them are at the office. They may have a once a month rally, but they're not doing a recognition of all 300, we're going to say, so cheer people on when they get a listing accepted, when they get a contract accepted, call them and go, hell, yes, I'm so pumped. Have you been jumping around your living room because I'm jumping for you? Amazing, yes. Then the champagne, yeah. Yeah, this is where they, you know, they don't get to do that and their family is not understanding why, you know, a 600 dollar listing is such an exciting big deal, you know, and what it took. Oh, no, that's so true. And like I often say, you know, they struggle with many of the same issues we do as loan officers, right, where we're independent, where commission only in most cases, right? We were not getting, you know, the culture isn't as great as it is for you at Guild, for whoever loan officer, realtor same as well. We know there's some, some challenging brokerages out there. So yeah, I don't think you can ever go wrong by pouring into the referral partners. That's going to create that relationship and loyalty, you know, love that. Love that. All right. So we are almost out of time. This has been fantastic. Obviously, keep going on and on. I'm curious about, so we're in 2021, we just came out of the most crazy as year, probably for a lot of us, right? In recent times, have you, did you, are there any pivot or shift or change to the direction of your ship for this year that you're coaching people on now? Yeah, of course, it's back to basics and it hasn't changed a whole lot. I think we're 2020 got out of control. It's just the phones just started blowing up and ringing and every minute you look at your email and you got another email from somebody. And so, you know, for all of us who are really disappointed, we work a plan and we have a playbook and we know what we're doing, we can all admit and put our hand in the air and say, yeah, we've definitely got an off track and we've definitely just kind of tried to survive instead of thrive. But I will tell you that I think what is amazing about 2020 is that we've all built our stamina. We've all figured out how to work more efficiently and we've all figured out how to think more creatively. We've all figured out how to balance a lot of people because a lot of our pipelines sat around for a long period of time and we've got a love and nurture on these people. Those are all skill sets that you can parlay forever if you think about it that way. You know, some people are doing 90% repy business and yeah, they're going to struggle to get out there in the purchase market and to make the calls and happen meetings and get on social media and do the networking events and do the education, all the things that you teach Jeff because it's so new and it's scary and how long is it going to take and take 90 days to build momentum and, you know, I get purchased leads and they write seven offers and they all get rejected. Like, yeah, absolutely, but you've got to love the game because the game is constantly changing. So when a realtor cheats on you that, you know, you've been working with forever, you've got to love the game and go, thank you. I just am getting valuable information. I needed to raise my game. You just gave me the motivation to do that. When all of a sudden race, jump up a half point and you have four deals that aren't locked in your pipeline and you get squeezed. Good. Now you remember and don't do that again. I mean, everything that we learned in this business is through painful lessons, but the coaching is really just amping up on the beliefs that we talked about. All of our scripting, tightening down our scripting, being super excited and enthusiastic about what we're doing. Like, I don't want to hear about for now. It's over. We're in this industry, we're blessed, put boundaries in place, have a plan, have a business plan and let's go attack it because this is a golden, amazing opportunity and we need to make a lot of money and we need to help other people. We need to give away money. We need to donate. We need to volunteer. We need to change people's lives by employing them and having more for our teams. That's what we need to do. That's the opportunity that we've all been afforded in this industry. Yeah. What a blessing, really, to be in this industry too. Truly. Yeah, for a long time. Awesome. Listen, I'm going to let you go because I know you're incredibly busy. If anybody who does want to connect with you, should they do that somewhere on social media or something, Instagram? Where do you like to say it? Yeah, I just, you'd be so proud of me. Just started a business Facebook page. Oh, congrats. Nice. Only after what? 10 years or so. I rejected it for so long. I said, I'm not a creative and this trust me out, but, you know, I've been hosting classes and workshops and coaching and making videos inside of Gilmourgage and running and coaching programming for years and I just realized like, oh, I could be just putting this all on Facebook and serving a bigger audience. So, yeah, Shayla Gifford page on Facebook, you can direct message me and I'll just keep bringing it. I'm loving. I'm loving this. I'm on fire. I feel just stoked about what we're doing and I do feel like there's a real need to help lawn officers get clarity and, you know, really build their founding right now because this is going to be the start of a lot of people's careers, like real career. It was just nice. Yeah. It was amazing. The tide lifted everybody last year. Yeah. So, we've got to just level up our skills, all of our scripting, all of our disciplines. And so, anyway, that's what I'm. Be grateful. Be grateful for where we're at, grateful for the challenges and for the blessings that come with it. So, all right. We'll put links in the show notes to your brand new Facebook business page. That's awesome. People can go check it out. And once again, it's a pleasure and honor to spend some time with you. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for doing this, Jeff. I mean, five years running, impacting so many people, interviewing awesome people, building a community. You're doing all of that. So, thank you. Well, for me, it's a great journey because I get to learn a ton, right, through the process. So, I'm grateful for the opportunity. And like you said, you've said earlier, you never know where or how you're making a difference just by pouring into some people. And so, that goes to the listeners. Three people are listening right now. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode. This is for you. You know what to do. Leave us a review. And 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 I just want to quickly remind you of 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. Well, good news. 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