The Truth About Recruiting

Hey, hey, listeners, what's up, Jeff, the Zimper, your host for the mortgage marketing radio podcast. Hey, before we get into today's episode, would you do me a favor? I know you hear me ask for reviews on this podcast and usually I'm asking those reviews be left. We're ever listening on this podcast platform, you know, it's Apple Spotify, typically is where you're listening. But here's what I realized. I was actually just on a call with somebody and what they pointed out was that I'm going to be honest and transparent with you, okay? My Google reviews are weak and that is unacceptable for me because I'm a huge advocate of the Google Business Profile. I teach Google Business Profile classes to help realtors and mortgage professionals and others optimize their Google presence. And here's what I realized the other day. I'm like the, you know, the cobbler whose kids have no shoes. So what I'm going to ask if you wouldn't mind is there's a link in the show notes here that it's going to be, you know, leave a review on Google is probably what I'll say or leave a review, right? And it'll be a link to my Google Business Profile. If you wouldn't mind taking a moment to leave me a review there about how you've enjoyed the value of the podcast and content you've got the impact that's had on your business, I would greatly appreciate that. And then if you want to be gutsy and you want to DM me the fact that you left a review, I'll have a special surprise bonus thank you gift for you for doing that, okay? So I appreciate you guys for doing that. And that's just because I want to build up my Google Business Profile presence. And by the way, if you haven't, you should do because that is part of the consumer journey. They're checking you out on Google just like some of y'all listening right now. I've probably looked me up on Google and said, well, three reviews on Google. So would you help me? I'm pleading. Help me. Help me get more reviews. Link is in the show notes or you can just go to Google and look up mortgage marketing institute, but probably easier if you just scroll through your phone or listening right now and tap that link that says leave a review. You should that. Okay. And one more thing before we forget, of course, I'm coming to you with another success story from the trenches. And this is for once again, one of our pro members. As you guys know, the name of the game today is land grab market share grab. The tide has gone out. There are agents leaving the business. Yes. But the good news is that means there's less competition and that, you know, the rising tide reveals who's left naked said that before. But here's what I wanted to share with you. If you've identified and realized that real estate agents should be and are a key pillar of your business, not the only pillar, but a key pillar of your business, the question is how do you pursue agents? How do you get those engagements, conversations? How do you get awareness? How do you not show up like everybody else and put yourself at a disadvantaged position? See because most originators are positioning themselves as a solicitor or a vendor, right? And that's all about you. You're there to get or if you're a vendor, yeah, you're a vendor like who the hell wants to be a vendor, right? To you, I don't want to be a vendor. I want to be a partner because a vendor is simply a place to get something. It's a place to transact and a vendor's not seen as an equal. A vendor's not seen as a peer. And what we want to do is show up in our current market and when we're attempting to engage with real estate agents and get engagement, get conversations, we want to leapfrog from solicitor and vendor to peer, right, and partner and ultimately becoming mentor and later. See, as I've said before, if you expect to earn their business, you need to become part of their business. And one of the easiest ways to do that is help them solve problems. And this is what we do with our members of the mortgage marketing pro community through our my agent classes platform. We help them solve problems. We help them solve marketing problems. We help them solve business planning problems, social media, video marketing, et cetera. Google business profile problems. That's one of the classes our members teach is how to optimize your Google business profile to get more reviews to show up on page one of Google and so forth. I thought I'd share with you. I've got so many testimonials. I don't remember what I share when, but here's the latest one or when I'm sharing today. Johnny Walker out of Florida. Johnny says she's doing her second class in 30 days, which is what my best members do to a month on average, maybe one virtual one in person. She got three applications in yesterday sent to her from agents who attended her class that she sent meetings with those agents afterwards. Wow. Here's another one. Another one. By the way, Carmel is always showing up on my list of success stories because she is a rock star. She did a class today, 25 agents registered 16 showed up eight out of the 16 were heavy hitters attending her class for the first time. It actually took some time and effort to get those heavy hitters to show up at her class, but they did. She scheduled three appointments immediately after the class and two others ending following up. So one class, five appointments in one hour booked and some of those are heavy hitters. How else are you getting in front of agents? What's your strategy? If you want a better strategy and plan, if you want to go from solicitor and vendor to partner and peer, go check out mortgage marketing dot pro. That's the video there. The testimonials I've got there and book a call with me to see if it's a fit for you. All right. So without further ado, let's get into this week's episode where my special guests are Andy Stewart and Dave Hendricks in both from the home side group of mortgage companies, the family of companies under the home side umbrella. And as you'll hear Andy talk about, you know, he's a VP of ops and Dave is a senior vice president of sales and business development. And this is not my normal podcast discussion. I wanted to have a discussion with these guys because I thought it would be interesting. I thought I would learn a few things talking with them and I did and I thought you might too. And the title of this episode is the truth about recruiting. The reason why I wanted to bring this to you guys is because look at it in this market, there's a lot of shifting going on. There's some movement, right? And you may, yourself, may be considering a change. And both Andy and Dave, because they've been in the industry for 20 plus years, have seen and heard it all when it comes to recruiting is the grass really greener. Hey, watch out for those signing board bonuses that they're, they're, you know, dangling at you like a carrot on the end of a stick. What's the truth? What's real? What's not real? How do know when it is time to make a move? What do you really look for if you're considering another company and when to not move? When is the wrong time to not move and stay where you are? We talk about those things and more on today's episode. And if we want to connect with those guys, Andy and Dave, that link is in the show notes as well. So hope you enjoyed this episode. Let's get into this week's show. Andy and Dave, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. It's my pleasure. So let's do this. When I have two people on, usually as guests, we got to identify who's who. So I'm going to pick just because so nobody freezes like a deer in the headlights. So why don't we start with you, Andy? Who are you? What do you do? I'm Andy Stewart. I am a VPN operations and run a team within the home side, lower family of companies. And I've been in the mortgage space for, gosh, 20, 22 years now. Wow. Yeah, that's a long time. Usually I usually say congratulations and condolences on that one. But drum snare, hey, Dave, same question for you. Who are you and what do you do? Yeah, Dave Hendrickson, also a part of the home side and lower family, really have been searching for a title for the better part of 23 years. But I guess if you're looking at Orchard, the SVP of sales and business development. Okay. What do you mean when you say lower, you know, what was that description you used? Well, the lower is just the holding company for the company we work with. So lower.com and it's a subset, a subsidiary of that is home side financial. Okay, God, thank you very much. Okay, cool. So we're here today to talk about, I was trying to come up with a catchy title. We're talking about the truth about recruiting. That's what we're going with here today. Because, you know, we're in a market where there's some shifting happening and a lot of different ways. And there are loan officers listening to this right now who have already made a move or who are potentially contemplating a move. And so what we want to do is kind of unpack the truth about recruiting, some things to look out for. And you guys are obviously experts at this. So by the way, for those listening right now, this isn't a thinly valid recruiting pitch for you. This is, you know, Dave and Andy came to me by way of John Cornish, who's been on our podcast twice now. And I've got some connections and relationships that are people over there. And I thought, you know, for John's idea, it would be a good, good conversation to have for our listeners so that if you are thinking about a move, like what do you look for? And I think, you know, Dave and Andy are great based on the conversation we had last week. Great tips and conversation around that. So when what are the first things if somebody's considering a move and you guys can decide how you take this, right? Either one of you go first. If I'm a loan officer and I've been at my company whatever period of time, you know, and I'm thinking like, hmm, I don't know if this is the right place for me. And I'm going to start looking. What advice would you have for that person who's in that framework? I can start this, Andy, and if you want to parlay on it, that'd be great. But my first question is always why? Like, why are you leaving the place that you've been loyal to for X amount of years? What happened there to get you to this point? So I don't think it would be, this is my opinion, right? I don't think everybody's going to have the same drive to leave a company. Are they leaving a leader? Are they leaving a company? Did they realize that their comp plans not as good as they thought it was? Are they losing to the competition on rate, product, service? I think there's a lot of different answers there, Jeff, but I would always want to know what got you to the point where you wanted to peek over the fence? Yeah, that's a good, good question. I'm thinking do I want to roleplay with that? But of course, there's like 10 different answers to that. Andy, you have anything you want to add on that? Look, mine's kind of a taking that answer. I guess trying to simplify it. And I always ask if somebody's wanting to, I'm like, are you running away from something or are you running to something, right? Because if you're running away from something, you're going to find yourself in a position that you thought the grass was greener, and it really isn't. But if you're running to something, you actually know what you're looking forward to and there is a plan in place for you to move forward. So I think that's always my first question. Like there's bad days in the mortgage business. And if you have a bad day and somebody calls you at the right time, it sounds exciting. And are you running away from a problem that can be solved? Are you running to something that that problem won't exist or rear its head? And I think those are the things you need to ask yourself. Yeah. Well, you said something a moment ago, Dave. Are you leaving a leader or are you leaving a company? And I'm reminding me of a quote. I'd be curious to get your feedback on this. Is people don't leave companies, they leave leaders. And I don't know where I stand on that in terms of belief. But I think it's an interesting one to chew on for a bit. So I'll toss that your way. What do you say to that, Dave? I do. I come from that same belief, Jeff. I think people leave people. I think in today's market, what we're facing is a little different. I think loyalty is only going to go so far. And I think regardless of the production level that the individual does or the branch of regional manager, we're getting to a point where finances are becoming tight in the mortgage industry for 80 to 85% of the entire industry, regardless of the level. Right. We all know that lifestyles are adjusted based on expected and past earnings. And if everyone's income is cut in half, or they prepare to weather the storm, right? So I do believe people leave people. I think this next nine months though, loyalty is going to be very challenging because if you can't pay the water bill, you know, are you still going to be loyal to Dave Hendricks and an Andy Stewart? And the answer is no, you're going to be loyal to your family. So I do believe people leave people, but I think in this upcoming nine months, it's going to be tough to say that. Yeah. And then loyalty can, like, you know, everybody has their price, right? So let's talk a little bit about some of these, some of the siren songs of signing bonuses that are waived in front of these producers that get them to put loyalty and question and leave for, like you said earlier, the greener grass or what they think is going to be that better solution because there's a big fat check waiting. That comes with it a bunch that's kind of a hairy ball there to deal with, right, if you will. Let's unpack that for a little bit. I don't know if Andy, you want to kind of take that. What, what, what do people need to look out be cautious of if they've, if they're blinded by the bonus? Well, look, I think, to me, I think if you understand, what kind of is, I'm going to use the word trending in the business, right? So, and if somebody is an anomaly out there, why is that, right? If someone said, I'm going to pay you, you know, two acts on your production and someone else says, I'm going to pay you seven X, or tell me why, right? What, what is all, what's that? Yeah, correct, correct. It is, it's like, is it too good to be true? And more times than not, it is. I don't know how else to say it. I think that, you know, Let me ask, let me ask you this way as well. Should people leave just for the bonus? I think, to Dave's point earlier, I think it depends on where they're at, financially, within their family. Your loyalty number one is to your family, but you got to make sure that if what gets me through these next nine, 12, 18 months, if that is at the expense of three or four of my top relationships for referral partners, what does, what does that do for me long term? Right? So what, what is good for me now? I mean, that could be good for me to democracy for tomorrow. And I think that's where, I think that's where trouble can arise in terms of the recruiting world is, people are looking at what happened. What's, what's today looked like not tomorrow? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. Dave, you're welcome to jump in. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm creating pregnant pauses on purpose just in case you want to jump in. Yeah. And I think that Andy nailed it. And I do truly believe that, you know, if you're really a transparent company and try to get in front of people and in full disclosure, we've lost some teams that Andy and I could have done better. We've never blamed home side. It just, what could we have done better to keep them? But I do believe that, you know, we are coming into a unique time and the decision might be for somebody to just say, I have to take this money and let the markets settle down. And I would understand that and I truly would. But I think a transparent company that moves a little forward, we have had conversations with all our leaders that says, look, if they're leaving just for money, let's just talk this through, right? Because could they be making a mistake, there probably is something to work out there to where we could pay some type of retention bonus or something along those lines? Because, you know, I think attrition is going to be the big thing for companies over the next nine months. It's going to be a very big concern for them. I think too many companies are focused right now on recruiting. But if you've got a hundred million walking out the back door and 50 million walking in the front, did you really win? And that's where we would hope that people would come to us with the transparency of, hey, it is hard to have that conversation. But good companies have prepared for markets like this. And if they're willing to spend all this money, you know, 30, 40 basis points on last 12 months production, why are they not willing to take care of the people that they know have been profitable historically with them? So we're really trying to stay in front of that and making sure that we have everybody's ear in regards to, if you're just leaving for money, come to us. Yeah. And again, that goes back to leadership and relationship. And do you trust that relationship to be able to have that conversation? But you mentioned, you think attrition is going to get ugly. What, why do you think that is? I just think that, look, if I really look at the signing bonuses been paid to bring this back into recruiting from March of last year through kind of January of 23, every company, most companies were banking on a hot spring market, a summer market with rates in the fives. All the experts were saying it was going to happen. And when it didn't hit, they were kind of like, oh, we got to pay less from a standpoint of this. But also with with them paying less margins have condensed and people are just going broke. So I truly know this. I mean, everyone thinks, hey, a hundred million dollar producers, just to keep it simple, they make a million dollars. Well, they've made a million dollars for the last 10 years. In 2021, they probably made a million and a half or two million. But this year and last year, they're on pace to make 400,000 or 300,000 this year. But they've adjusted their lifestyles to the income that they could have counted on the past 10 years. So they have the layhouse. They haven't overextended themselves. They've just been a victim of the market. So if that individual gets to a point, they may just have to take the check. They might have to. Okay. You got it. Can't sell the layhouse. You got to take the check, right? Well, that's but also, you know, there are some lessons in there, though. Now I get what you're saying. I've been, you know, a customer, but that's this business. We know this business is cyclical and goes up and down. I don't know why this popped in my head, but remember, I was having a conversation with Todd Duncan the other day and he was talking about one of his coaching clients who said, I can't afford it. You know, and the guy had a $900 month car payment, right? And it's like, what do you mean you can't afford it? Like you got to choose, you know, which one's more important? Yep. So I'm not saying give up the layhouse. I'm saying, yeah, people, this is, this is not an easy situation because of all the issues we know that come into that. And it's like, if somebody's waving you a check and that's going to buy you another 18 months, whatever, like you said, to cover this kind of phase, you know, all the numbers we're seeing 2024 or 25. We're going to see rates come back down four to five percent. So we know there's going to be an uptick there and there's a lot of pent up demand once again. Yeah. I wouldn't want to be in that position. Let's put it that way myself personally. That'd be a hard choice. I would say, Jeff, I think people prepared for a market that was going to be bad. I don't think any of us thought it was going to be this. And if they did, then they probably are retired. If they were able to predict that, they won't have to sell. So I just think that, you know, we're kind of like the hourglass has kind of running out of sand. And it's going to be really difficult for a lot of people that have been very loyal to their companies for many years. Okay. So let's do this. Let's go through a couple of questions I've got from our previous conversation for notes. What do you think people, considering a move, what are the most important things that the top three things they should look for if they're evaluating a change? For me, look, I think part of it is, you know, when we're talking about people leave leadership or, you know, I think that's, that should be top priority. I think, I think the last of the three should be from a compensation perspective. That's where I sit and really what can it do to improve my business or how can it help me grow my business? So, you know, leadership, how can it help me grow? And then what the comp plan looks like in my opinion, because again, what we're trying to get through today isn't what life's going to look like tomorrow. And you want to position yourself for tomorrow, especially if you are accepting some kind of compensation for a move, and there's some sort of two year, three year tag to it, you're there. You know, if we come out on the other side of this and you don't like it, you're there. Stuck. Well, what's interesting is I didn't hear products in there, which is kind of cool, because I think, you know, too many LOs, like they've got that as the first arrow in their quiver of like products. What do you got for products, man? You know, look, I would tell you, if I look at holistically, you know, a generalization of a product mix for an originator, 80% of their business is predominantly similar products. Maybe a little bit higher than that, but let's say you say 80%. So there's 20% differential. And when you try and sell a product, what's cool and flashy about a product is it's, it's there for 60, 90, 120 days. And then if it's an investor that's got a cap space, then they're done. Now the product doesn't exist, right? So as quick as products come in, you see products go. So to try and to try and sell, we've got all these products. Okay, but how long have you had them? How long are you going to have? And so I think product is a tough thing to do, especially when the, you know, 80% 80 plus percent of your business is your standard conventional performing agency, jumbo, government business. It's not the one-offs that that people are talking about. I think I think products have a lot to do with conversations starters. I don't know that it has a lot to do with building a business in my opinion. Okay. What is some inside baseball? You guys would want to share, right? That, that originators don't often get access to, like the behind the closed doors. You guys are, you know, both involved in recruiting. You talked to loan officers. I'm sure quite a lot. You deal with company executives. What would, what could you share with them, right? That if that, you know, remember the old things, top of the stairs, kids are listening in on the parents conversation, top of the stairs, right? Like what would be a conversation you'd want to have LOs here to help them along this process? I think to keep it on kind of subject here, right, is then understanding what they take from a signing bonus perspective. You know, when Andy and I look at it, we know that a company's going to try to, whatever they give you, they've got two years to get it back because you're probably going to take it to your tag in today's market with the money out there, right? So I want them to understand just, hey, look, here's how the back end works. Here's what they're going to do to your margins and you're held victim because you took all this money. And that is what I believe is putting these LOs in a very difficult position. There's companies out there that have a two-year tag and there's like no drop off every month, meaning, you know, let's just keep it really simple and say two-year tag at $240,000 or $240,000 signing bonus to your tag, right? So every month, $10,000 historically would drop off, but companies have went away from that. So if they left month 23, they would owe the 240 back plus 9%, 10%, 11%, 12%, I've seen all the way up to 15% interest rate compounded monthly on that 240 they took. So we've also seen some companies terminate employees based on lack of production because of the markets that we're in or not hitting the anticipated production that was promised when they initially sat down and then they're coming back at the signing bonus plus the percentage. So those are some of the things that LOs just don't know how that works on the back end and they may hope you'd are up one day and be like, why am I a quarter of a point out and rate? And the reason is you took that money up front and Stu, this is really your world. So if you want to dive in and kind of top that off. I mean, look, piggyback on that piece. You're not, if you, Dave's example, if you're spending that money, you're not making that up on the condensed margins that you're running right now in today's world, right? You're going to try and call that back some some way shape or form. I mean, it won't be overnight, but it'll be over time and you'll see, you'll see pricing kind of take away from you. I think the biggest thing that we're talking with some people that I've seen is, you know, we have talked, we have talked to companies and they like, you know, in 22 that I got, we weren't not profitable at any point during 22 and you're like, I'm sorry, that is, that that's not true. Like nobody went 12, 12 months in 22 without losing money. They may have sold some servicing. They may have done other things. So their balance sheet doesn't look like it, but from just the origination perspective. So I would say, but you know, lifting up the curtain behind the scenes is when people tell you that you really got to dive into it, especially when you've got access to national, national data and statistics to look into it. So somebody tells you that that your next question is, so you're the anomaly and just see what they see what the response is. Yeah, you mentioned on a call that we had last week about the average company profit after expenses. This is for an independent company. Recall the number we talked about? Yeah, I mean, I think so. So I'm going to go back to 19 because that's probably the best. I'm going to say, quote unquote, normalized market, if you will, you know, companies would make anywhere from a 15 to a 30 basis point profit after all bills are paid. And I think some of the thought process out there is that number was closer to a 115 basis points. And so that there's a lot of wiggle room. So obviously with 22 happening and how it was, that number was negative. And if you look at the MBA statistics on it, in 22, the hedge or the cost of hedging your business was actually running at a negative on the national average. So they're actually losing money on per transaction basis. Well, I'm just whenever I hear those things, it's just I'm like, well, how do they stay in business? Most most companies play for the, I want to make a little on a lot versus a lot on a little. And so you got to, you got to, you got to be, you got to be sharp. Very interesting. Okay, the other thing we're seeing happening is the attention back on the broker side of things, right? The brokers are better campaign. And I got some brokers. I love I got some peeps out there, but I know you guys have seen both sides of the fence. There's positive negatives to both sides who wants to perhaps take that and, you know, give some coaching tips around that. Yeah, I guess, even though I know this is like a gray area. Look, I think there's a place for both in this market. And we see that, right? And I can't really argue a big producer opening up their more their own mortgage broker shop in today's market. They probably will win, right? I mean, they're selling at a different price point than the independent mortgage banker. And the technology's gotten real good. I think that the tough thing is is how do you scale that? So, you know, if you take a very respected leader in the industry that maybe is a regional manager that has, you know, 60, 70 loyal LOs out there, I just don't know how you can build out a regional, a branch, a divisional manager when you're running on like a rate sheet that's selling the lowest grade out there, right? And so I think there's a place for both. I think that the scalability on the broker side, they've done a great job with. I have nothing bad to say about brokers and I'm a mortgage banker. I think for me personally, I just like to control the process a little bit more knowing if I have something go off the conveyor belt, I can call Stu and say, hey, how do we get the Jones or Smith file back onto the back end of the system here? So I love both. And I think there's a place for both. And I think the problem is with the independent mortgage banks that we work for is the lack of transparency from the independent mortgage banks over the last 20 years with what they're doing on the back end with margins, how they're grabbing the signing bonuses back, how they're referring something as an internal lead and cutting calm. I think that's really why the broker started driving. And then there's some great leaders in the broker community that have been great at getting it out from a social media standpoint. And I think any independent that should be frustrated, be frustrated with yourself, right? You're the one that created it. They left you and went to the broker world. So I think, although I am an independent mortgage bank, I definitely see the positivity of the mortgage broker as well. Yeah, I mean, the one thing that I would say is if you are, if you are in the independent space or working for an independent and going to the broker world, I think the things that you probably don't think about is the efficiencies. So I take my team with me. So I've got my assistant, my processor, you know, marketing, whatever it might be. Well, they did every unit pretty much went through the conveyor belt the same way. But if I've got 12 or 15 different people that I'm selling loans to to see who's hot from a pricing perspective, is my team well versed in their process. And now that process has probably got a lot of similarities. But, you know, from one place to another, there's going to be some quirks. And that could, that could be a hiccup. And it's, it's not a negative. It's just not what somebody coming from the independent is used to. So it's just being aware of that and understanding that there's, there are some real potential hurdles there. And then same is true where you're freedom of, if you went from a broker to an independent, you're freedom of being able to look at seven different investors and look at pricing and go bar or paid to lender paid comp. Now you're going to an independent and it's much more structured and rigid because it's more scrutinized quite, quite honestly. So I mean, there's, there's pitfalls to both. And it just understanding what they are before you make your decision is probably the most important piece. There's not a wrong answer there. Sure. Yeah. Let me go back to what we said earlier, which is, are you running away or running to right and looking at leadership operations comp, you know, probably in that order, roughly with comp, typically being in the third position. I'm, I'm reading a, grabbing an article here from housing wire granted. It's from July of 2022, which is a year ago. It was saying that turnover is 30 to 40% on average and a 10 year of around three to four years. Is that still relatively the same you think? Yeah, I do. I think that what we have been able to see now is the independent mortgage banks gotten a little bit smarter in regards to looking on the linked tens, the Instagrams, you can start to see a history, right? There, there are, and I would say this, what we've seen personally is the, there's the 30 to 50 million dollar producer that will move every three to four years. And that might be part of their business strategy, right? I'll take a two, three hundred thousand dollar check every three to four years. And I'll never move my business north, but I'll always do 30, 40 million if I'm at ABC mortgage, DEF mortgage broker. I know that I'm going to do 30 to 40 million. So it's a nice way to grab a little bit of extra income, trying to get towards that ultimate goal, right? Every tirement. The flip side to that is you don't see, if you really look at the statistics, the big time producers, we're talking the ones making a million, two million, three million a year. You'll see longevity there, right? Now they're going to cut near margins really hard, but back to, you're going to make a little bit of a lot. So those people tend to not, you know, run away from something. They actually run to something, right? But their turnover is at lot less. So, you know, Andy, I don't know if you have different stats in me, but what I've seen personally when you look through these is, yes, every three years, you know, you'll see that 20, 30 to 50 million dollar producer, they're actually just running towards a check. They're not even running away from something because it's part of their business strategy. I would say agree. Okay. All right, in the last few minutes we have, I've got to do this just because that might be fun. We'll see what the yellows, you know, there's the, you see the people, or at least I have, you know, some planning about the recruiting process or how they're being approached, you know, with, I don't know, do you guys know what I'm talking about? Or is this in creative? I will say that certainly. I'm sure overwhelming to the yellows. You know, Andy and I, we've been really blessed to have a couple partners that are mega producers. So we kind of know what the, what the deal is out there when, you know, there's soliciting towards the top producers, but look, I think it's great. I think this, right? Why wouldn't you take a call and educate yourself on what the competition's doing? That could kind of identify the outlier, meeting back to Andy's comment, why is this company paying seven X? Well, do a little research there. Call some of the branches. Don't call the people they tell you to call. Of course, they're going to say the right thing. Just grab a branch, listen, call random people. I say this about our organization all the time. I'll give you the list of our entire organization. And guess what? You may call someone that's really pissed off that day, but I feel confident enough in our transparency to be able to say, hey, look, you might just get a random call from someone. So that's what I would encourage, even if it's a mortgage broker or somebody in the independent mortgage side, just grab the phone, look it up in Google, start calling random offices and say, hey, I'm thinking about joining your company. Tell me about it. And you'll find people that say, don't come, right? And that's kind of some of the things that Andy and I went through back in the day when we were looking at transitions. And it does shock the owners when you're like, well, hey, listen, I know you gave me this list call, this person and this person and this person. But I actually found this branch down in Austin, Texas. They're not real happy with you. And here's what I'm about now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That goes back to something. I don't know if we said this last time, but you know, it's all about we said leadership, but it's also regional or local. Like it can be the same company, but New York and LA can be completely different. No doubt. So do your due diligence is what you're saying? Yes, because I don't think that, look, if someone comes to a corporate America, you're going to give them your top to the lying people that are going to feed them everything they want. You don't even know if they're getting an override if you join or not, right? So right in your margin. So of course, they're going to say the right thing. But I really encourage people and this is kind of going back to where we want people to send their employment contracts to us will help you do the research. I think the worst thing anyone can do is take the money and then realize in six months, oh, shit, I just absolutely signed up with a horrible marriage partner. And now I'm stuck for the next, you know, 16 to 20 months, and I'm going to lose a lot of good referral sources because of that money I took, you know, six months ago. How difficult are these clawbacks on signing bonuses to enforce? Everything that I've seen of you except if there is a monetary transaction that takes place, they're they're pretty good. Now, if you're talking about like a non solicit, non-compete, that comes down to if it's just that most states are an at will state or many of them. So those are harder to enforce if there's no monetary exchange in between. But if there's a monetary exchange for the signed agreement, they're pretty, I mean, not saying that you're dead to rights with it, but you're going to pay somebody to help you try and get out of it for sure at the bare minimum. Interesting. What I guess then closing comments, what do you guys, you've got an audience of loan officers listening, right? What do you want them to know from a recruiter's standpoint, from you guys, you know, interfacing with loan officers, like you have this chance to like set the record straight, hey, we're not all trying to, you know, bug you or whatever, like what do you want to say to Ellos? Andy, I'll let you kick it off. Yeah. I mean, the couple of things that I would say is if you're picking up that phone call and you have a bad day and you're having a bad day and you want to have that conversation, get their number and tell them you're calling back in 24 hours. And then let's see where your head's at. The other piece is some of these calls are when they come in and they tell you how bad your current company is before they even say a lick about their own. I'm probably not worth the time, money and energy that you're going to waste, lose, or or not realize by having a conversation like that because that's at the end of the day, the pie in this business is big enough for everybody. It doesn't need to be just one company that does every every loan under the sun. It's it's it's right. The right fit for the right guy and you know, I might be the right fit. Dave might be the right fit. You might be the right fit and it might be oil and water. So I just think it's important to focus on if you're taking a call, is it what's best for the company and the recruiter or is it what's best for you and the company? You always got to be able to come out with a win-win because win loses never last. All right. Okay, that was good. Dave, put a cherry on top of that. Yeah, look, I know this is going to hurt, but listen, Lona is branch managers, regional managers. It's you, right? You're the problem, right? Like if you're running towards something, go for it, right? But if you're running away, just just be honest with the company and transparent. I would love it if someone came to Andy and I said, listen, we've done no research on you. We're broke, right? We would have a vetting process, but I would love that individual. Instead, they want to come in and talk about my company's not doing this, my company's not doing that, my company's not doing that. Here's a newsflash. We all sell the same damn place. We're all the same, right? It's a commoditized business. The only difference is how does Lona get there from a service standpoint and the comp coming back out? The technology, the social media platforms, the marketing departments, it's all fluff. You can buy it all LOs, branch managers, regional managers. You can get a third party source to do all of that, right? So just make sure that you're running towards something or just be transparent with company and say, look, you know what? I didn't prepare financially for this. I got to take a check for the next 24 months and you got 24 months to prove to me that I made the right decision. And that's a win-win both. There you go. That's positioning right there, man. All right. One of the things you guys also offered as a chance for those who might want to connect with you, I have written down, keep me honest on this, Andy and Dave are open to doing a second opinion. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Do you want to explain what that means at all before we? Yeah. I mean, look quite simply and no offense today as a partner of mine. When we received our contract, the call he made was, can I sign this? I said, well, did you read it? He's like, no, that's why you're here. So I think he, I think he falls in that that throw Dave on the sword here, but I think he falls into to a lot of, you know, the devil is in the details. So if you want a second look to say, hey, look, am I signing something that could bite me in the in the rear? We're happy to take a look at it, dive into it and say, yeah, here's, I mean, there's no strings attached. It's what's best for you and your family. And you're just, we're out here to try and help protect them from, from themselves. Yeah. Right. What you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. Correct. And I want to make it clear with this. We will never pitch home side our private label group. Nothing. We will not do that. I truly think that educating everybody out there as to what they're doing. The funny thing is, Jeff, if I was going to say, hey, Jeff, I'm going to give you a $500,000 loan. Here's the disclosures you've got to sign. You would look at every single line. But if I tell you, hey, Jeff, here's 500 grand sign here. I'm going to put 500 grand in your account tomorrow. I just say sign here, here, and here. In most salespeople will just sign it, right? But what they're really doing is they're holding themselves captive. So we'll even look at, we'll look at packages. We are very in tune with where rates are in every pocket of the country because the blessings we've had to be a national brand. So really, I just want to educate everybody. Hey, look, Andy is a detailed guy. I'm not. We both together follow pricing very well. We look at a lot of contracts. Andy is able to just, hey, look, if you get anything out of it, go ask this question to your future employer. Like, this doesn't make sense to me in here. And if we can do that, just affect one person, this podcast was worth it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I wanted to bring you guys on, by the way, because it's not the normal conversation, right? But let's face it, it's one that I think we can help people get some context on. And if they need some additional guidance or support, we're going to provide a way for them to reach out to you, which we already covered this earlier, which is I'm going to put a link to both of your LinkedIn profiles in the show notes so that people can connect with you individually if they choose to follow you, whatever the heck they want to do, they can do so no expectations, no strings attached, no nothing. I do, I love what you said, Dave, because that's what I'm all about as well as education. And yeah, when you're making these kind of decisions, you got to be informed. So get informed, right? Get it around you. That's a great way to put it, Jeff. Get informed. Yeah, exactly. All right, guys, listen, I'm going to let you go. Give you back your time for the day. I appreciate you guys being here very much. I appreciate you for having us. Thank you, everyone. All right, everybody, you know what to do if you like this episode, please leave us a review, share it with somebody that you think might find this useful. 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 purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. 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