Marc Bui: From Cold Calls to a $100M Pipeline

In this powerhouse episode of The Way with Dino Katsiametis, top-producing mortgage advisor Marc Bui shares his no-BS journey from 19-year-old loan officer to one of the most trusted voices in the industry. From surviving the crash of 2008 to mastering the art of relationship-based lending, Marc dives into how mindset shifts, tactical follow-ups, strategic social media, and client-first communication transformed his business.

Marc and Dino talk shop about:

• The truth behind chasing leads vs. planting referral trees
• How to recession-proof your mortgage career
• The art of client retention (and pre-selling the refinance!)
• Why personal branding and post-close follow-up are game changers
• Real talk on social media burnout—and how to use it wisely

Whether you're a new LO or a seasoned pro looking to scale, this episode is packed with honest advice, smart strategies, and a whole lot of laughs.

Thanks for listening to "The Way With Dino Katsiametis"
For full show notes, links, and extra episode resources, visit dinokatsiametis.com.
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instagram.com/dinokatsiametis | linkedin.com/in/dinokatsiametis
Learn more about Ethos Lending at ethoslending.com.

Transcript

EP027 THE WAY MARC BUI EXPORT_1

[00:00:00] The business is pretty simple, guys. Don't ever let people not hear from you to the point where they start thinking what the heck is going on with the loan? Hey guys, today's, uh, episode is with Mark Bowie. Um, it is really good. He was super tactical with detailed like processes that he uses from how, and, you know, when he gets the lead all the way to funding, and then of course beyond all the way to refinance.

Uh, but the, the tactical detailed way that he does it, I thought was really valuable. I think you're gonna learn a lot from that. Um, he also talked the value about switching from banker to broker and how much more money he can make and, and even how much more ability you have to grow your business. So I think you're really gonna enjoy this episode.

Um, this is Mark Bowie. Hey everybody, this is Dino [00:01:00] from The Way Podcast and today we are here to empower, equip, and educate you the way loans should be done by the very best in the business. And today I got Mark Bowie. Um, you guys are gonna be really impressed with the guy. First of all. I like him 'cause he's super laid back like me.

Um, and just chill about everything. So he's, I think you're gonna really appreciate the way his style is. And, and I say that because the way his style is a lot of times is what makes somebody successful in the mortgage business. When we try and be somebody we're not, that's not what relates to the clients, right?

I always believed like attracts like, so be me. Those kind of clients will like me, I'll double up on those clients 'cause they'll be referring me and that's how we end up growing our business. So today Mark Bowie from Arbor Financial is going to be giving us the playbook. So Mark, welcome. Thanks man. I appreciate you having me on the show.

Yeah, of course. So dude, you've been in the business a long time. Um Yep. Almost as long as me, but you're like [00:02:00] almost a decade younger than me, which means you started when you were like a baby. Yeah, I started when I was 19, 20. Yeah. Transitioning and, and 19 and a half. Who even trusts a 19-year-old at that time with the mortgage?

Or did you start in operations somehow? No, I started at as, as a loan officer. Um, so right outta high school. Um, I applied for UCI got, got accepted. During that summer. I found out that they, that my financial aid, uh, didn't go through, so I decided to get a summer job, and I was really into cars back then. I, I mean, I still am, but like a lot of my friends were racing Hondas and I'm not a mechanic, but I wanted to be involved in Honda somehow some way.

So I ended up calling some dealerships, got an interview, and, uh, working at Honda. Working at Honda on Beach Boulevard. No way. All right. Honda World. And that was my, [00:03:00] my very first sales job. It was supposed to be, uh, uh, like a summer job, right? First day, man, I sold, um, I sold a used Honda Civic, and I made 600 bucks within, within a matter of a couple hours, and I just got hooked.

I'm like, oh, I'm not flipping burgers. Yeah. So fast forward a year later, my uncle, uh, bought a car for me and he said, Hey, dude, I think you'll do really well in the mortgage industry. You should come interview with my boss. So I did that. It was a company called First Plus Direct. Uh, we did 1 25 loans. Yeah.

Uh, Dan Marino was our spokesperson. Yeah. It was a big deal, right? I think Ditech at that time was our closest competitor, and they were probably a 10th in size. Okay. So, and, and real quick, for those of you that weren't around that long ago, these one 20 fives, what that meant was that we were giving out seconds that were not.

A [00:04:00] 90% loan to value like you might be used to, or a 95 on a good day, not even a hundred, we were going 125%. Right. 25% over what the value of the home was. So we were giving these seconds out, but we were charging what, 10 points? 10, 10 points. Yeah. You had to do, you had to do 10 points at, at, at the company.

Uh, if you couldn't charge 10 points, then, you know, not only did all the guys in the cubicle io call you weak, but then the loan gets transferred to the closing department, whether we close at eight points or nine points. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. The, so I'm guessing that was kind of the very tail end of it though, right?

Yep. Yeah. From time wise. Yeah. So I was there for about a year. Hated my life. I was making money as a 19-year-old kid. Right? Yeah. But. I worked 12 hour days, six days a week. I didn't see my friends. Uh, Sunday wasn't my only day off and I just vegged out. Um, but, but bro, you're Vietnamese from what I know about your culture, like you guys are workhorses.

We are, man. [00:05:00] But you know, I've been working since I was four, so I was tired already. You know, I was ready for retirement at 19 and yeah, so that lasted for about a year. And then I transitioned over to, uh, another company learning FHA streamline refinances. Okay. So there was a little telemarketing department they would call title leads.

Yeah. And if they had a fresh one, they would pass it on to the lo, you know, so I did that. That's when I had to learn how to do first mortgages. Ran that, ran with that for a couple years, and then I transitioned over to American Home Loans. Okay. Um, they had a net branch operation. And I joined a branch that was cultivating internet leads, still doing one 20 fives or second mortgages and refinances.

But these guys figured out how to get internet leads, right? Yeah. They were like really techie for the time. Ultimately, that branch opened up, [00:06:00] um, a company called Loan Genie that was off the five freeway across the street from the spectrum. We had like Barbara, uh, what's the Genie? I love Genie. Oh yeah.

Bar, uh, I forgot her. Barbara. Barbara, yeah. Yeah. Eden. Barbara. Eden. Yeah. She was our spokesperson. So they got a bunch of, of, um, of funds from, from, uh, from venture caps and I don't know, they kind of blew, blew the money, but that's when I learned how to do, how to, that's when I got exposure with internet leads.

How everything worked and, you know, but my, my entire career up until oh eight was leads, leads. I didn't have any real estate agent relationships. I didn't focus on past client databases. How many leads can you take? And, you know, how, what, what's your conversion rate? Yeah. And, uh, but yeah, that [00:07:00] was a very long-winded answer to the question.

Yeah. So it's interesting. Um, a couple things. One, I usually like to start with who are you today? Oh, yeah. And then we go back and, and go through your journey. Right. Uh, but it's okay. We, we already started this way, so let's just keep on that path. Um, I've never been a leads guy ever. Mm-hmm. I, I, I tried cold calling for a period of time and it worked.

I mean, I, I made money doing it. Right, right. It was the first. Deals I got, but I just absolutely hated it. And, and I don't know if it's 'cause of my heritage. I'm Greek, we are like the biggest people, pe you know, people you can ever imagine. Right. All we wanna do is sit down and eat with you. Yeah. And, and have fun with you, right?

And it's my personality to do that. So it took longer for me to start making money, like six months, um, and going broke during that period of time. But it was like laying the groundwork, right? And, and then those relationships happened, right? And, and I asked you that question like, [00:08:00] who would even trust a 19-year-old?

I guess when you're doing a legion, nobody even has to know you're 19. But the way I started, I mean, you had to trust me. It was the only way I could get business is you had to trust me, right? And, and it was face to face. I went to all the realtor parties, the open houses, I did all the stuff you can imagine.

Um, and, and I, you know, I had a really great friend, one of my best friends from college. He was already a realtor. And, and I'm like, well, he'll get me business. Right? He wouldn't give me any business. Yeah. And, and I learned though, he said something that was valuable. He said, Hey, listen. He goes, if I give you that deal, I'm now counting on you to close my deal, which means my commission.

And as far as I'm concerned, you're still new. You don't know what you're doing. I'm not willing to risk my commission at the time. Like, let's call it 10 grand or you know, 15 grand or whatever it was on you. The second you come and tell me you know what you're doing and you're good at this. Right? Not just, okay, now I [00:09:00] gotta figure it out, but like, you're good at it.

'cause you're also representing me. When I refer you out, then I'll, I'll give you a deal. And I was like, you know what? That's bottom line is somebody's. Somebody has to know I'm good. Somebody has to know I can represent them. Somebody has to know I'll close, otherwise I'm risking their commission. Right.

And, and it took a while, six months, but then I got one guy to trust me started, and he was fortunately a, a, a baller and started just handing me deals left and right. Became a great agent. I went from zero to like a hundred grand just with that one agent, but that got me going. And then the others started trusting me and then more and more, and that all happened.

So, so in your case, right, like I'm, I'm curious. In 2008, everything got flipped upside down. Right. And, and leads, uh, changed. I mean, they didn't really exist for a period of time. Right? Right. Even relationships changed because a lot of the agents that were giving me all my business [00:10:00] went outta business.

Mm-hmm. Yep. So I had to start over too. So it wasn't like. My model was better. Right. I, the only difference I would say is I already had my model, kind of like down pack. I didn't have to completely change. I'm really curious in your model or like going from leads to relationships, what did you do? How did you do it?

You're a little bit older, you're a lot wiser. You already knew how to do loans, but it's really weird to me. There's a lot of lead guys that don't know how to do purchases. They think of 'em as like some, you know, out of the way kinda loan. That is scary. Yeah. Like a, it's, if, if you're not used to doing a purchase loan, it can be a scary thought.

Right. That's, that's how I felt. Um, I didn't have a game plan, man. I, yeah. 2008, like rocked me so hard. Yeah. I got super depressed. Took a year off or more. Um, I mean, even if you were working, it would've been kind of like taking a year off. Exactly. [00:11:00] Any money. Yeah. And I. You know, I went from making this much money down to like, you know, qualifying for, for, for welfare.

So, um, I Were you married at the time, or kids or anything? No, no. I, I was single. I was 24, so a little bit 24, 25. Super. Yeah. I mean, um, but I joined, I, I knew that I had to get into the purchase game because one of my old managers had told me, dude, if you want to treat this as a career, you gotta learn how to do purchases.

Yeah. Um, and so I joined Countrywide. Okay. I didn't know what I was doing. They hired me, you know, I went through all the real estate agents I, I knew or can, can think of at, at, at the time. And I reached out to them just to say hello. Hey, I'm with Countrywide now. You know, just to try to strike up conversation.

I would attend networking events, um. Tried to visit open [00:12:00] houses because they scared the shit out of me. Yeah. I don't know why, but that back then, like, you know, without any volume or any real experience with purchase loans, real estate agents just scared the, the crap out of me. I remember like, I can't even tell you like how many open houses I rolled up to and not walk in.

Right. And just driving, like to get coffee or Yeah. Come up with something. Some Exactly right. Yeah. Oh, my pager's going off. No. Um, but slowly but surely, it just kind of built my, my, my skin to be thicker towards meeting real estate agents. And then it just dawned on me one day. I'm like, they're just people.

Yeah. You know, like me, you know, I was putting way too much into, I was tying way too much into the outcome. Right. And the outcome was, I wanna meet you to get alone. And when I kind of flip that, that script and to, to [00:13:00] think that, hey, I just wanna want to meet you because, you know, I wanna build some relationships here and grow my network of real estate agents, if we happen to do business together, cool.

If we don't, no problem. I didn't really waste my time. It made the approach way easier. You know, it just really stripped out the nerves and the anxiety and so that was so, so, question for you. Um, it, it sounds, from what you just said, it sounds like it was a mindset shift. Was there ever a time where, you know, financially it was just so bad that you, you just didn't have a choice?

Like you just had to step up and do something otherwise you wouldn't have any money? It was really bad financially. Like I lost not. I did, I did very well from like 19 to 24, 25. Yeah. Right. In the mortgage space. Um, I got to the point where I ran like a small little net branch for, for a company. I had [00:14:00] guys working under me.

We were buying lead. I, I was fine and I had saved up a bunch of money, did what I thought was right. Investments and oh eight basically took, wiped everybody out. Yeah. Everything. And that was a big reason why I, I became so depressed. But I remember having 60,000 bucks in a SEP IRA account because my CPA had forced me to put money aside, save money for taxes.

To save taxes. Yeah. So I ended up pulling out half of that just to cover. Cover the negative, if you will. Yeah. During, during those couple of years. So, and I, dude, I shed every possible bill and expense that was not needed. Yeah. So I lived very frugally. I had, I, I had, I own a town home at that time. I got a roommate, so I figured it out from the financial part.

I mean, I wasn't like bawling and going to Ruth's Chris or Maro or anything like that, but [00:15:00] I basically learned how to live within my means very means very quickly. Yeah. Uh, so I never got into a situation where I was like, I wanted to make money, but I wasn't desperate to a point where I need to do this deal to pay the bills.

Yeah. Right. I got pretty close. But I think having that, that small, I don't know, like 30,000 bucks in the bank, gave me that mental safety blanket, if you will, not to. Stoop down or not to go down to that level of desperation. Yeah. If that makes sense. It, it does. I mean, just, and, and you know, just being perfectly candid, like that's where I was Yeah.

After 2008, you know, and, and that, that desperation can do two things to a person. Right. Either it just makes 'em completely bury their head in the sand and, and go away and not. Like, just be numb. I did that. Yeah. Or it makes 'em step up. Yeah. Really big. 'cause they have [00:16:00] no choice. Right. And, and sometimes, you know, when I'm, when I'm looking at hiring people and you know, I see new people, it scares the hell outta me when I see 'em like that because they, you know, they, I don't know which direction that's going to be for them.

Um, and a lot of times when somebody's broke, they're too preoccupied with being broke as opposed to trying to, to get out of it and make it better. But sometimes that right person, that drive is so strong that they won't rest until it's done. Right. Right. And, and fortunately I turned into that at a time, but I was also, I had, you know, two little kids and all sorts of stuff happening, you know?

But don't get me wrong, I got numb for a little bit. You know, I mean, it's too hard to. To take, take in. Sometimes it's, yeah. You know, when it got to that level and, and even all the investments, right? Like I, I also did everything I thought was right. Had, you know, had investments, had the SEP ira, had stocks and, and [00:17:00] because of what we did for a living had a lot of real estate and who knew every single one of my investment investments would go away, right.

Like man, so whenever somebody complains now I'm like, you know, business may have been bad for a little while, but, but at least there were still loans to be had out there. Exactly. And even more importantly, at least your house went up in value, right? Like it skyrocketed and you're sitting on 2% like Yeah, yeah.

Like thank God for that. Right? Yeah. If you had lost everything and you couldn't make any money, that's when life is pretty miserable. Right? Right. So, so anyway, so let's get past that. Right. So I'm really curious 'cause there's a lot of people that are listening that. Some of them are new, I know that. And they're trying to figure out how to do this.

And by all means, they have a, a, they have two paths. They can either go down the leads or they can go, you know, down the, the path of creating, forming relationships. And my old coach used to say, he's like, stop picking all the fruit off of these trees. That was leads. Right? And he is like, start [00:18:00] planting the trees.

That's what you gotta do. He goes, if you wanna be successful, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. If you didn't do it then it was 10 years ago. If you didn't do it then it was yesterday. If you didn't do it yesterday, it's today. Plant the dam tree. Right? And, and you will see all you gotta do.

He said, you gotta get past the first few years with farming. And, and then the tree plants its roots and grows and gets strong and then it just keeps producing right. And that's where it's like, I try and tell everybody, plant your tree, nurture it early on. And then after that you'll see you can go pick your fruit whenever you want.

All right. So. In your case now, when you started going to these open houses, you started doing these things, you got over your fear. What was the next step? What, what happened after that? Because I know it doesn't just turn overnight. Getting really good at loans, getting really good at understanding guidelines, getting really good at knowing all the different [00:19:00] products that were available to me at that time so I can at least speak to, uh, speak to them, to my agents that I was working with or the agents that I was trying to get attention from.

Right. Yeah. So really understanding guidelines for me was, was very important because I, I quickly became the guy that can solve problems and figure things out. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know because I got a lot of shit too, shit files, right. Um, but once they understood that I was.

Not only, you know, somebody that originate loans, but somebody that can think outside the box, understand guidelines, solve complicated lending issues. That's when I started really gaining mo momentum. And outta curiosity, were you, um, pinpointing a farm or an area that made you comfortable? Yeah. Or were you [00:20:00] just everywhere?

Um, I was kind of everywhere at first. I started to, I. Market or meet agents specifically in like the Westminster Garden Grove area because I, you know, I speak the language, I look the part, you know, I felt like it was easier for me to walk into an open house. Yeah. Um, so this is where exactly where I'm going and wrap out with them.

Yeah. And then I quickly learned that I didn't want to be in that market. Okay. I love my people, but we're born negotiators. Yeah. You know, um, it's, it's in your blood. It's in Yeah, exactly. You're never gonna say Okay, the first time, no. Like, hey, uh, you get a 3% 30 year fix at no point. So like, no, I want two.

Right. Yeah. And I want a kickback. Yeah. So I quickly learned, I mean, not all are like that, but, um, I say a good majority of them were at, at the time. So I [00:21:00] started to shift market out of. The Lotto Saigon area. Yeah. And I went after, um, Irvine and, and, uh, yeah. Tustin. Exactly. Yeah. He was changing cultures. EE exactly right.

Changing dialogue. Uh, but I will say this, I, I stayed away from jumble loans. Okay. I didn't like them. I didn't wanna learn 'em. Okay. My bread and butter was the conventional, conventional or conforming high balance, FHA va I understood the guidelines. They, they were very predictable because all you needed was an a US.

And as long as you input accurate data, you're gonna get accurate results. Yeah. Right? With jumbo, you can input accurate data and if the underwriter doesn't feel it that day, you're not gonna get accurate. So, you know what's funny for me? Um. I started off doing a lot of jumble loans. Yeah. 'cause I specifically, when I first started, I specifically [00:22:00] picked Newport Beach.

Yeah. And I specifically picked Fashion Island. Yeah. Like, that's where my office was. And, and, and that's, I figured if I'm gonna do this, I might as well make twice as much on loan. Right. Yeah. And all was great up until 2008 and then everything changed. Right. And, and I had never even done an FHA loan in my life prior to 2008.

Just never my market. Right. But I had to learn how to do all that stuff. And, and then eventually I worked my business back up and got really busy and I realized if I want to do more business, I want to have a better life. I have to get somebody else to start doing certain things for me. And, and then I ended up with this team.

Right. And now all of a sudden just I, I was able to go do what I do best, which is. Not necessarily outside of the office, but talk. Yeah, I get to go talk to people. I get to go, uh, create relationships. I also did all the first time consultations. I also did all that stuff, but, but somebody else managed everything from the time those loan docs showed up.

I barely ever looked at 'em or touched them again, [00:23:00] unless it was a jumbo deal because everybody had gotten so used to a US like, 'cause it was new at that time. Right. And, and a lot of times we didn't even need tax returns. Right. You can figure out, look at a pay stub, figure it out, all that. But once it came time to a jumbo, my team didn't really know how to do it or they were scared and I had to go get involved because of that.

So I actually, and it's a combination of things, but I had my fourth kid. And I kind of started freaking out for the first time ever. It wasn't in my nature to freak out, but man, we just came off of 2008. You know, I lost all my money. I'm working my tail off, but I had a fourth kid now, and I was just like, oh my gosh.

Like, how is this all going to turn out, you know? And, and I, I made a conscious decision to go back to first time home buyers and, and I figured I have to, because my client base was at this level, great level, a little [00:24:00] slightly higher, you know, uh, uh, property value, slightly higher. Everything easier to deal with because first time home buyers were kind of a pain in the butt, all this different stuff, right?

And I made this conscious decision, I have to go backwards because I need another 20 years in the business if I have, if I'm having a brand new kid in nine months, right? And, and that was the absolute best thing I ever did. First of all, I ended. Like enjoying it because now I've got this skill level and a little bit of age and wisdom and I was able to pour that in to these first time home buyers and actually, you know, really teach them, consult them.

Mm-hmm. Right. Properly. And, and then that group ended up blowing my business up because, you know, if you also look at statistics, there were so many of them coming into market just year over year, over year, over year. Right. Just so many of them. And, and it was the greatest thing I ever did for my personal business.

[00:25:00] Um, but I've gone, I'm gonna go back to your culture for a second. Right? And, and I don't want it to sound like I'm culturally biased or, you know, prejudice or anything like that. Uh. I, I'm Greek, which I know is a little different, but you know, I don't wanna work with Greeks. So I had a coach one time and shout out to Aaron Hotson.

Uh, he made me, he grabbed a bunch of little yellow stickies and he made me write down on one side of the, of the document or the paper, all of my favorite people. And on the other side, I should say, all my perfect clients who I wanna do business with and how, and all this other stuff. I just, 1, 2, 3 word phrases.

And then on the other side, who do you not want to do business with? And, and I was a little like, gosh, I'm, I'm gonna look like a complete idiot or a terrible person. If I write down Asians, if I write down Persians, if I write down these, these people. That drove me insane. Yeah. [00:26:00] And it was like, because like you said, it's in your blood to negotiate.

But guess what? Greeks too. I was like, I even wrote Greeks on there. I don't wanna work with Greeks. They drove me insane. And, and he laughed and he's like, why not the Greeks? I'm like, well, I'll tell you why. Because they're per, they're, they obviously negotiate just like I is. But the one thing that drove me insane was like, well, you don't need to know that.

I'm like, no, I need to know that. Don't tell me what you think. I need to know. Tell me everything and then I'll decide what we don't tell somebody. Right. But they would, and I, I, I would uncover things and it's like, that's just, I, I, I don't wanna do business that way. I'm saying all this for a purpose.

Right. I'm saying it because I now work with Greeks. With Asians and with Persians, but I don't work with any of those that drove me insane. I have great Persian clients, I have really great Asian clients. I have really great Greek clients. And it's really weird because none of them are of that type of personality.

[00:27:00] So this exercise that I did was important because ultimately, and I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but by ultimately, by me putting it down and separating it and being able to analyze it all, I, I just said no. When this approached my desk, right? I, I said no. And then I said yes to all of this. And by saying yes to all of this, the amount of referrals I got from these happy people, it doubled and tripled.

And, and like I said, early in the show, or actually like attracts like, and by me liking these people, they liked me back 'cause we were very like. Similar in our thinking and our way. Right? And they appreciated me and they didn't mind even paying my, my fee. And I'll tell you what, when I saw somebody that was broke, I didn't mind reducing my fee, right?

Or even doing it for free if I had to, because it helped these people and my business blew up because of it. So I, I urge [00:28:00] everybody, make that list. Who is your perfect client, who is not your perfect client? And stick to it. 'cause if in desperation you'll take anything and it just takes you down the wrong path, focus all your efforts and energy into the perfect client.

And if you do that, you'll notice that that energy and effort that you put in is really what it, it multiplies 10 times faster. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Yeah. Right. And it's, it's, I mean, what, what you said was like, perfect man. Because 40% of my clients now are Vietnamese. Okay. Right. Interesting. Yeah.

A good portion of my clients are like their culture, some of the best negotiated negotiating cultures out there. Yeah. But through the process of elimination or filtering process and just gravitating towards people that make me happy when I do a loan for them, um, has really [00:29:00] helped, you know, shape my database into just people I think that, that are cool people that I can hang out with.

You know, people that are like-minded and to your point, like they have friends that are very similar, so they refer them over. Yeah. And we have a lot of fun working with them. Yeah, that's exactly how, how you grow your business. So how to grow your business. Let's, let's talk about that. Yeah. What you did back then, right.

Versus maybe what the market's like today. I know, you know, you've been in so long, you probably don't have to go out and hustle anymore. I don't go to open houses, I don't do any of that stuff anymore. Uh, but. Are you, lemme see how to phrase this question. Are you even actively hunting anymore? Yeah.

Because some people get to a point where they don't even really hunt anymore. Or it's a diviv like I'm not producing anymore. But in the last several years that I was producing my hunt was different. It's, yeah, it was totally different. Right? But only [00:30:00] because I had such a huge base that my hunt became more of like, how do I maximize my referrals from my current database?

Yes. How do I maximize the realtors? I already have that, that know me and love me and get them to go out and refer me other realtors as opposed to me doing open houses and broker previews and stuff like that anymore. So what does your hunt look like these days? I'm in a similar boat, man. I mean, I came to the realization that.

I already have like a solid group of real estate agents that I really like. They really like me, I think. Um, and you hope they Yeah, exactly. And we have like similar mindsets, so I just doubled down on, on, on my relationships with them. By, sorry, by, but being at their offices more, spending more time with them, going out to lunches.

Um, happy hours are kind of difficult for me now with two young kids. So, um, but I try to spend a lot of time w with them focusing on the [00:31:00] relationship. Focusing on the relationship. I mean, more than, more often than not, like when we have lunch or when we hang out, we're not talking about work. Yeah. You know, we're talking about cars.

We're talking about dogs or family or what, what have you. Right. I, I think going back to that tree analogy, right, if we go back to farming, you are, you're spreading those roots. As opposed to just trying to plant the tree. Now you got the trees planted. Now you're just trying to, you know, spread, make those roots grow right.

Exactly. Deeper, right? So they can be just stronger. I'm watering them, man, I'm putting it, putting fertilizer on, and, and, um, just the act of doing that has helped our volume Yeah. Grow pretty significantly, uh, compared to to last year. Right. And I, for, for me, like COVID, COVID really impacted my relationships with a lot of my referral partners that I had to rebuild again.[00:32:00] 

Um, so that's, that's one. And then also I really leverage my time with the listing agent during an escrow period to communicate with him and to update the crap out of, uh, out of the deal. I mean, we have listing agents that we don't even solicit. For business towards the end, and they respond with holy shit.

Like, you guys do a phenomenal job keeping us in the loop. That's all they want. They wanna know what's going on. I mean, it's, the business is pretty simple, guys. Like, people want to be communicated too. They wanna be updated. I tell my guys all the time, like the minute, don't ever let people not hear from you to the point where they start thinking what the heck is going on with the loan?

Because if they start thinking that all sorts of possibilities will pop in their mind, now they start blowing you up, you know? Um, and it's not a good experience. But if you can proactively communicate, [00:33:00] proactively, update, you know, have a little bit of personality, you're gonna go pretty far in, in the business.

It's not hard. You just gotta get out, get out there and yeah. So I, I think too, I mean, you said it earlier, so I'm just gonna combine them. You gotta be good at your trade. Mm-hmm. That's one thing I tell everybody, like, get good at your trade. Know, know how to do a loan, the ins and outs of it. Right. And then put it aside and let somebody else actually do it.

Because if you get stuck doing it all the time, you're never gonna actually grow your business. Right. So let somebody else do it. Right. Be part of a team in that way. And, and then go out there and be a professional marketer. Be good at getting your phone to ring. 'cause if it doesn't, then it doesn't matter how good you are at doing loans.

So you gotta focus on that as well. Right. And, and I, I think from what I heard, and I'll, I'll just paraphrase it. Once you start developing your tribe, it starts becoming effortless. It's, it's not like [00:34:00] you have to go out and fertilize it once a month and, you know, do all the trimming. Uh, and it's not you, you just.

You just kind of do it. You don't have to set a a, a timer to reach in. Yeah. Reach, you know, reach out to one of these real estate agents. You just, you're now friends. The reality is you're now friends. You're intertwined in everything you do because the roots have have grown and they're intertwined. And I think by doing that, that's when there is no, them trying out another loan officer, there is no them telling their client, well, you don't have to use him.

You can use whoever you want. Right, right, right. It's, it's, no, you're going to use him. Yes. Once you like break past that business relationship and you become a friend with your real estate partner, it changes a game, you know, um, you look forward to meeting up with them for lunch. We, my LOA and I [00:35:00] have, um, Maria and Janie, who are really good producing agents.

They like drinking. So we do happy hour once every other month. You know, we have a blast and we now are involved in a book club and we joke around, you know, so we see each other as friends almost. So when they communicate with their clients, they're like, no, you gotta, you gotta use market hour. Like, right.

Or at least I don't care if you've been pre-approved, but at least have a 15 minute conversation with him. Yep. Um, yeah. It, it becomes fun. So let's, let's, let's get tactical now, um, for anybody that says, Hey, I'm, I'm pretty good at all that stuff. I just, I can't get past it. I can't do more, I don't have any more time in the day.

Right. Whatever their excuse is. Mm-hmm. I wanna get tactical in, in two fronts. One on the day-to-day of the, the, the loan side, and then one on the day-to-day of the marketing side, tactical first [00:36:00] on loans. What is your process? How do you, and I'm gonna start with how do you receive a lead, what happens with it?

And then gimme, gimme the life cycle of, you know, all the way until even after it funds. If you do anything afterwards. Some people don't. I have an entire process for to a year, but what, what's yours? Sure. So leads come through I via email primarily, or text. Um, and, and how do they come through an email introduction from the realtor?

Yeah. Yeah. That I've, I've trained all my agents to introduce me via email. Some prefer text. I'm like, introduce me via text. Then they land in my CRM, uh, I, we operate off dynamics. Uh, so it's a custom dynamics. It's, it's pretty slick what Arbor has built. They land there. I connect with the lead. I do, I do 95% of the [00:37:00] initial call.

Discovery Call dreams and goals call. Well, whatever you want to call it. Right. I do that call. Um, I used to have my team do that. It worked when loans are falling from the sky. Yeah. But when they're not, like, I want to have the highest batting average I possibly can. So I do that initial call and then from there, like I talk to them about like what their wants are, answer questions.

I kind of walk them through the process. And how long does that discovery call take that initial consultation? 15. 15 minutes on average. If it's long, it's 30 minutes. Mine, mine were all 20 to 30 minutes. Okay. Yeah. Um, but I use the opportunity though to sell them on my team. Like I'm already introducing Albert, my preapproval specialist.

I'm gonna, I'm already telling them about our pre-purchase consultation that we're gonna have after they get pre-approved for [00:38:00] financing, which is gonna take an hour to an hour and a half. You know, I'm already planting the seed. Going back to your analogy of how my team is, what will operate and what kind of value we're gonna bring to the table, other than just a pre-approval letter.

Yeah. So at this point, at the end of the call, they're like, okay, yeah, we wanna move forward with the next step. I send 'em the application. Um, once they fill that out and they upload their docs, Albert takes over, he reaches out to them, cleans up the application a little bit, and builds a more rapport, reinforces the pre-purchase consultation, finalizes the pre-approval.

He notify, he'll notify the client. Okay, back up a little bit. After that initial call, I do a voice recording. Just to summarize everything. I send it over to Albert and I copy the referral partner in case there's some bits about our conversation that they might find useful. Albert pre-app approves the client, notifies them via email.[00:39:00] 

There's a link for them to schedule a pre-purchase consultation with me. We update the real estate agent. Um, they schedule the call. If they don't, we follow up until they schedule the call, but 95% of the time they schedule the call within the first few days. So then I take the opportunity, opportunity on the, uh.

On the consultation to go over their preapproval. I teach 'em about a little bit about supply and demand. I teach 'em how interest rates work, um, at a very high level so at least they know, right? Um, and we run rent versus buy analysis through Mortgage Coach. Okay? And I say, Hey, like my whole goal with this consultation is to provide you with the education and the information you need to make good decisions.

Right? Do you do this on Zoom every time? 99% of the time, if they wanna meet in the office, we meet in the office. Yeah. Great. You guys, that's important. 'cause I'm gonna go old school for psych. When we used to say belly to belly, [00:40:00] right? Mm-hmm. Like we used to meet with everybody. I can't remember. A time that I lost the deal when I actually met with somebody.

Yep. And then eventually we stopped meeting with people a little bit more. So now we, we don't meet with people very often anymore, but that zoom is almost belly to belly. It's almost like meeting with somebody and the likelihood of you actually, you know, sealing that deal up and not letting anybody else steal it from you is if you face to face and you connect with people.

If you don't connect with somebody, I don't know why somebody would show any loyalty to you. Yeah. No. That, that meeting is pivotal for our conversion. Yeah. And to your point, like if we don't, if there's a client that refuses to meet for the pre-purchase consultation and they go into contract, it becomes significantly more difficult to convert them.

Yeah. Like, no, I'm shopping with. Chase or Right. [00:41:00] But, uh, that, yeah, if you guys aren't doing that pre-purchase consultation or some sort of a meeting, uh, with your, with your clients, it's, it's a big miss. Um, yeah. So they go into contract, I, I'll, you know, we get notified, uh, of, of a new escrow. I quickly will congratulate them.

I'll work up a new TCA update pricing, send out a BombBomb or vineyard recording to go over their options. I'm like, Hey, option one, two, and three. I like this one the best. Here's a closing cost payment breakdown. Raised a very similar to when we first met a couple months ago, or they have increased a little bit, but you're, you know, I sell using, I sell a lot using video.

Yeah. And I send that thing over to them. And then I follow up with a call or a text like, Hey, I just sent over some numbers for you to review. Let me know if you have any questions. The next step is to lock in the interest rate and order the appraisal. 99% of the time they will respond back saying We want to go with option one or option two or option three.

[00:42:00] Very rarely do they, uh, have questions or boc, but yeah, from there, uh, it's processing. I handle all the updates to real estate agents on a weekly basis. I, I used to do Tuesday status updates that I learned from the core. Now I update whenever I was just say, you must be a core guy. Now I update whenever the updates come in.

Okay? Okay. Um, and I figure something out if I just keep the subject of the email the same. Okay. And I retrieve that email and I just add to it. Not only can I see the storyline. But it helps my updates, uh, in terms of speed. So I do that. Um, my team handles all the client communication, my loan coordinator handles all the client communication, um, all the client updates.

And then I'll check in every now and then. If there's a problem I step in. But, you know, usually like a loan would go [00:43:00] from the discovery call, man. Uh, I'm sorry, from the time they go into contract, I usually don't get back in until, is that funding phone call. And lemme ask you this, I know the market, um, dictates some of this, but how many days are your average closing?

Uh, is that 30 day escrow typically? Uh, yeah, we typically see 30 day escrows. Uh, we're closing in three weeks on average. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes two if, if needed. Needed. So you could easily close in two weeks. Yeah. If you need to. Yeah. Let's give a, a shout out now to brokers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just 'cause I'm always trying to promote it.

Right. And, um, there's a lot of, a lot of guys that are in that banking platform and, you know, my, my days, these days are all spent recruiting and I, I get a chance to talk to everybody and I, I hear the difficulties. I also hear the fears. Right. I hear the, the [00:44:00] dreams and it's mind, mind-boggling to me how brainwashed somebody has been at A IMB where they have their own underwriter, but you know, we have our own underwriters.

We have a little more control. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, you, how many underwriters do you have? You know, and, and like for your group or whatever, right? Well, we have, we have our underwriter. I'm like, all right, so let's just say rates dropped right now. Like, like by a point, would you, or would you not have a boatload of brand new business that you would stay up all night doing because hey, that's a big dollar amount.

Then you submit it all at one time, and I go, how long do you think it would take your one underwriter to underwrite it? I mean, one day. Would you have it all back in 24 hours? Would you have to outsource now to other underwriters that you're not used to, that don't know you, that you have zero control over?

And and how long would [00:45:00] it take? I mean, I, I, my guess is a week. Yeah. To get all those back. Right, because you're not the only one that submitted a bunch of new loans. So did everybody else at that company on the broker world? Hey. We have how many different banks to choose from, and they have how many different underwriters to choose from.

And the reality is they can scale a heck of a lot faster than you guys can. Even during COVI almost closing loans in 15 days, I and Bs were taking two months, three months, try try four, four. I was getting referrals. Yeah. From friends that worked at those places because they didn't wanna let down their longtime clients.

I was like, wow. He was like, man, I, I don't even want anything. I just, they, they've been clients of mine for, you know, 15, 20 years. They need to be taken care of. It's like, oh my gosh. You know? So being a broker is not a bad thing. Don't be brainwashed to think that you don't have any control. [00:46:00] You have a lot of control and the reason why you have a lot of control is because you.

The loan officer are the client. That's the beauty of being a broker. We are the clients of all of these different banks. And guess what? They're fighting for your business. They're fighting for your business. So Think Broker, that's all not, not nothing against I bs. There's a lot of great IBS out there.

There, there are. Um, I think big banks do a really good job selling their originators not to become an IB. And IBS do a phenomenal job selling their loan officers not to step into the broker world because they know once they step in, there's no turning back. Yeah. I was sold for almost a decade, right.

From I Mortgage to Loan Depot to Fairway. And I love all three companies. Um, I still have really good relationships with, with the guys there, but it's the, I. [00:47:00] I'm not even sure if it's a scare tactic or they truly believe that, hey, brokers, you lose a lot of control. You don't have your own underwriter or underwriting team.

You gotta build new relationships. You gotta remember a bunch of passwords. You have to learn how to operate differently from bank to bank, and you're not gonna be successful because you can't really build a team model. In the broker world, I believed it until I stepped into the broker world because my pricing was a hundred basis points higher, you know, at an IMB, right?

So I, I got to the point where I'm like, okay, well I have my comf comfy blanket on, you know, I know everybody, but I can't sell a freaking loan for the life of me because they're leaving me for a quarter of a percent, even after I spend 30 days doing a PPC with them, or pre-purchase consultation. So I'm like, all right, let me just.

Give this [00:48:00] just a shot. Yeah. I quickly learned that, um, all of that, most of that was false, right? I had a ton of control. And to your point, like these different banks, wholesale banks, they want your business, the AEs. Imagine a title ae, right? But from a mortgage wholesale company wanting your loans, right?

And, you know, courting you and, and, and, and whatnot. So, um, if I think this is a, is the place to be, I wish I would've done this 20 years ago. That's, that's my, yeah. Love it. All right, so we did tactical on your loan process. What happens after the loan funds? I, uh, and, and this is by the way, where I will say the majority of loan officers that I know, even successful ones Yeah.

[00:49:00] Fall off a cliff. Yep. I, I don't have a good process. I used to be that guy. So after the loan funds, uh, similar to Soci, so was on your, on your show, uh, we do post-closing calls, right? Every fund a client, we schedule a post-closing call. Typically it takes place a week or two after the loan funds. I talk to them about their first payment, supplemental property taxes, junk mail that they'll be getting.

Yeah. Set them up for future refinances. I say, Hey, this is how, this is our approach. And is this always you or do you have somebody else do it? It's always me. Always you. Okay. Like I, I came to, I told my team, like, I do the selling. You guys do the heavy lifting. Okay. I haven't looked at tax returns in over 12 years.

I can't read taxes anymore. I, sorry guys. Um, ca calculate income, uh, but. So I also use that to set up the strike rate for future refinances. Right. And then they, uh, I update the crm, I update mbss strike rate. [00:50:00] They go, um, and I'm checking in with them every six months. Okay. You know? And is it the check-in?

Is a phone call a text message an email? Usually it's text now. Okay. Yeah. I, I used to try to call people. Some half of them pick up, the other half don't. And when they do pick up, I'm cashing them at, at, at the wrong time, or at least that's the story I tell myself. So I drop a voice text. So, um, I mean, it sounds great.

There's a couple things I'll, I'll say or add. Um, I went to a Tony Robbins seminar one time, uh, business Mastery, and it was probably the best seminar I've ever been to at the time. It was like 10 grand, right? I had paid for. Ones before, there were a couple thousand and stuff like that through some of the, the mortgage stuff, but 10 grand.

I was like, that's shit that, that's convenient. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And, and I went, and there was times where I was like, oh my gosh, like, let's move on. Right? But he [00:51:00] kept beating it and on, on this topic, and there was this one topic about it. It was, he, he used examples of how much is your client acquisition, like how much did it cost you to get that client?

And I'm like thinking, well, I mean, it's a relationship, right? I don't, it doesn't cost me anything. I just, I have to be good about number one, my job, number two, talking with this guy and going out with him every once in a while and right, like we've become friends. So it's not even a job anymore. But what is the client acquisition cost?

And then in his example, you got them to respond to an ad on whether it's social media or somewhere. They log into your system, they wanna buy that shampoo, but they didn't buy the conditioner. Do you let them check out and go? Or do you pop up something that says 10 or 20% off? If you buy the conditioner at the same time and [00:52:00] then they're already here and they're already buying something, do you let them check out again?

Or do you offer another one with a bigger discount to try a whole different product, but from the same company that they hopefully know and love? Right. And then they buy it, everything's great. But when you know they're now using it for a couple weeks, do you hit them with something like you hope that they love it and if they do, let's try selling them on a different product, right?

And then give 'em a nice, healthy discount. 'cause you already paid the acquisition cost of getting them here so that that part's gone now. Now how do you get them to start? Branching out. And I'm like, Hey, that's great. But I, I only have one product that's like, I don't own the appraisal company. I can't sell 'em on that.

I don't own the escrow company. I don't know. But what do I do? And it, you know, I had to sit there and listen to all this and I was like, that sounds great. I wish I had something like that. And it finally dawned on me, I do have a second product and I gotta pre-sell it. And you [00:53:00] touched upon it. I, I pre-sold that appraisal.

Like, I mean, I'm sorry, I pre-sold that refinance, like nobody's business. It was sold before we even funded. Yeah. Their purchase. And how did I do that? Similar to what you said. You go through all of these things, you explain to them, you educate them, right? And then you let them know that the opportunity will come one day and it may not be right away, it may be in six months if we're lucky, but it may be in 12 months or 24, whatever it might be.

But we will be here ready for you when that time comes and you've implanted in their head that when that rate drops, you're the only solution for that. Yes, they could go somewhere else, but they don't even think about going somewhere else. The experience was fantastic and you already lined up and did the work for the refinance in their eyes, you already did it.[00:54:00] 

I also pre-sold that future rental property that they're gonna buy, and I also pre-sold, depending on their, their status, wealth status. I pre-sold that vacation home one day and I'm in it for long haul. So even if it took 10 years, I pre-sold it. It was super important. It made such an impact on my business that my refinances, like I, I rarely ever lost an opportunity to refinance because of that.

Now, here's a little trick that worked great for me. And remember a long time ago, I said I, I went back to doing first time home buyers. So this works exceptionally good with first time home buyers. Typically, a first time home buyer puts in, you know, everything they got. They don't have much left over. And almost always, I saw this enough times.

What do they do when the deal closes? They go to the furniture store and they get one of those credit cards with [00:55:00] zero interest. Zero interest, right? And then they have usually like 12 months or something like that. And if, and people don't realize, if they don't pay it off in that period of time, it all, all the interest for the whole year comes in.

And now you owe a boatload more. Six months later, the rates drop. I'm ready to refinance you. Guess what? Your credit score now sucks because you're maxed out on this credit card. I can't get you that same deal. I told you I was gonna get you one can look at it as an opportunity because now I'm gonna refi you again.

I'm gonna get you outta debt and then I'm gonna refi you again when your credit score goes up. Right? But I really wanted to do the right thing, right? So I told them, listen, I'm and I used Mortgage Coach, I'm gonna give you option one, lowest rate possible. These are your closing costs. You have very little money left over and, and if I'm warning you, if you go buy the that furniture and load up your house and owe [00:56:00] 10, $15,000, your credit score is gonna suck for a long time.

And we might have a problem when the time comes or. I can give you this option. Option B, interest rate's a little bit higher. Your payment's about a hundred dollars a month more. Right? Maybe 150, whatever it was. But I'm gonna give you back $8,000 to help pay for your closing costs. You're gonna take that $8,000, you're gonna go use that and pay cash for the furniture.

You're not going to go get in debt for it. If you need to charge a little bit, you can, but when that opportunity comes in six months to 12 months, I will refinance you. And keep in mind, by doing this, even if the rates don't drop, I have enough of a spread that I can refinance you for that exact same rate.

Right, right, right. That I was going to give you to start with. Yeah. So as long as rates don't get worse, I will refinance you in six months, which we, my call was always on the five month mark. I always called on the five month mark because I figured, hey, let's, [00:57:00] let's get you teed up and I Exactly. After that six month EPO period is over, let's get you your refinance.

And man, it worked like a charm. So all of this came because I went to that Tony Robbins seminar and it was how do you, what's your acquisition cost? And then how do you pre-sell 'em on the second product? And you do have a second product. It's the refinance. Yep. Right? Yeah, yeah. Take, take advantage of, of, of setting up that, that refinance early in advance.

I mean, we had, I'll sell the rate before the actual refinance. I'll sell the refinance rate within a couple weeks after we close on their purchase loan. Yeah. Right. And same thing, I use Mortgage Coach, I give them three different options. I'm like, Hey, here's option one, two or three. Look, review this. Let me know what number you're comfortable with, what savings you gravitate towards.

You can pick the lowest rate option on, on this analysis, but just know you may wait a very long time for, for that. Yeah. So, and, and [00:58:00] guys, um, another thing just to kind of think through is. You know, mortgage Coach, I, I don't even know what it costs exactly right now, but I, I think it's significantly more than what I pay.

'cause I've had it for, I don't even know how long. Yeah. You know, for decades. Um, but it's a tool. It's a tool that will make you money. Don't get to a place where you get so cheap that you, you don't use tools without the, a construction guy, without tools is totally worthless, right? Like, you are self-employed, this is your business.

Make good decisions. Get the tools that are necessary to help you grow your business. All right, moving on. Tactical on new ways of marketing. I mean, social media being one of 'em now, right? But how do you, how do you grow your business now? How do you use social media? And I, and, and I say this specifically because.

I know you [00:59:00] have, you went deep into social media. Um, in our prior conversation, you said you have a little burnout right now, which I totally get. Um, but, but how does a loan officer use social media? It's, yeah, I, I think social media is the new digital business card. Um, that's one way of using it. That's one way that, that I use it.

All of, all of our clients follow me now on social. Uh, we make it a point and if they're not following, it gives me an opportunity to reach out to them, right, to talk about it. But I use the platform to create a lot of content around educating the, the, the community and my database and my real estate partners on the things that I know about the industry.

And also to entertain them too. So if you ever, if you guys have a chance to like, check out my page, um, that's a little, tell, tell 'em what your selfless promo right there. But my hand on IG is at. The mark buoy and buoy. By the way, mark, first of all is [01:00:00] MARC, right? And then buoy, BUI. Thanks Dino. Appreciate that.

Not, not everybody's Vietnamese bro. Good. You can become my clients. Um, but yeah, I, I take, that's, that was the premise that got me to going on social, right? That, plus I was losing a lot of my real estate relationships during the time because I didn't do a very good job connecting with people. Uh, so I'm like, I wanna get to the lead first.

So I took, I took what I knew when I started creating content, because a lot of people after, after our pre-purchase consultation, they would say stuff like, man, I wish somebody would've showed me that years ago. Right? So I started teaching that, and then I had, after my following count grew, I. Old real estate agents reach out to me like, Hey, we see you on social.

Yes. You're doing great work. Can I buy you coffee? [01:01:00] Can I buy you lunch? Um, it didn't, and same thing with past clients too, right? They're like, Hey, we, we we're loving the content. So it worked out well in, in that regard. And I think I started at a time where there weren't a whole lot of mortgage competition on social.

Now there's a lot. Yeah. Um, and I can't log in without seeing Soci anymore. Yeah, he's, he, he's everywhere. Stop at sos. Uh, but I've, it took me about a year to actually get my first lead from social. So it's, it's, it's a long process. If you're going after social to gen, to lead gen, it is a long process. Right.

And we've built on that. I, I think it's a good way. It's, it's good for branding. Yeah. It's good for branding. Like, you need social, like you can't be an originator or any [01:02:00] business for that matter, and not have social presence. 'cause that's one of the first places people will look to validate whether you know what you're doing or not.

And speaking of that real quick, I do think for the first time, I, I never used to believe in personal branding. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, I did, but it wasn't like it was stupid to spend that much money on personal branding. Right. I wasn't Coca-Cola, I wasn't, but now an individual can seek personal branding. Right.

And achieve it for significantly less money, but not without putting in some time and effort. Social media is a lot. Doing it right is a lot more work than people think. Yeah. 100%. It, it requires a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of planning, and a lot of, uh. Keeping to your commitments. Yeah. With yourself.

Yeah. Right. If you say you're gonna shoot content at 2:00 PM shoot content at 2:00 PM So, [01:03:00] uh, so that's one way. But I mean, I'm, I'm pretty old school when it comes to marketing and, and getting new business. I leverage social media in that regard where it helps me either, uh, break, break, uh, break the ice of a new conversation.

Um, I still 100% believe in just belly to belly, having good relationships with people and, you know, if I like you and you like me and you think I can do alone, maybe we can work together. Yeah. Um, I, I think too, I'm gonna add something to it. 'cause it's, it has shifted and it's changed. Um, but I still think there's joy in this when I go on social media.

Um. Sometimes I'm like, Ugh, gosh. Like there's no point in scrolling anymore. Everything is a message of some sort, right? And, and [01:04:00] what I miss is the pictures of the kids, of the dogs, of the vacations, of, of the things that actually helped me connect with somebody. And, and in my personal opinion, and I need to do more of this because we've gone way more business than we have personal versus before we started Ethos, everything was personal with a sprinkle of loans.

But it was personal still. When I friended, I friended all our clients, I did all this stuff, but I connected with my clients because they knew me as a person. They, I, I mean, gosh, not too long ago. An old client. I haven't even done a loan for her family in years, but she has watched my children grow up.

It's like we are really good friends because she knows and she comments on [01:05:00] everything. And she, she always even says like, I can't believe how much he's grown. It's, it's mind boggling to me, but hey, that's how it goes these days. Mm-hmm. Even families don't actually talk as much. They, as they used to. They stay connected through what you show them on social.

So in my personal opinion, uh, you know, it's, it's social, it's the word. It's, it should be more social. I think personally. If you want to connect with somebody, you should be more social. You should, you know, should. Yeah. No, that's, that's a very good point. You, you remind, you reminded me of my buddy Jay Daisy.

He's out of, um. Minnesota broker, fantastic originator. Probably he's good for 20, 25 units by himself in this market, right? A month. A month. Great. And Jay, his primary way of getting business, he focuses on a monthly [01:06:00] newsletter. And you think this is something like a special newsletter, right? Because I, I'm like, dude, you gotta send me this newsletter.

It's literally like a one page word document. It's usually has, he will have a photo of him and his family for, for that month, but throughout the month, he'll just save articles or stories that are, that he thinks are relatable in an Outlook folder. And he'll write, he'll add that to the newsletter. But the main bread and butter of, of the letter is what my family and I did this month, what we learned.

You know, we went here on this trip. Yeah. Connection. Yeah, connection. Chase just won his third basketball game. He's stoked and his community loves it. His database loves it. And that's how he, that's his main mar marketing. Yeah. Yeah. He's been doing it for years. I do believe once you connect with somebody on that level, they won't think about going anywhere [01:07:00] else.

I think a misconception a lot of times is like, you know, their interest rate's so low, they don't need a loan. It doesn't matter. Stay connected. Stay, stay connected. Exactly. 'cause you never know, like, well stay connected because you like 'em and, and, and it's, it's a good thing to do, right. With people. I mean, um, I'd be lying if I say, if, if I said I stay connected with every single one of my past clients.

Yeah. Okay. Some don't like to talk. That's okay. Yeah. But the ones that do, like, they will become walking, talking billboards of you. Yeah. Um, and when you do business together and when you do a loan for them, you, it's, it feels like doing a loan for, for a family member or a friend. Let me ask you this question.

We've gone through a lot of this stuff, but I'm curious now, uh, um, if I picked you up and dropped you off somewhere in the United States Yep. Um, you know, a decent market, right? Lots to do. You have all the knowledge you have. Yep. Your family's not around. [01:08:00] Um, in fact, you can't even see them until you close a hundred million in business, no matter how long it takes.

Um, and, and you don't have a lot of money. You just kind of are getting started, but all your typical expenses are taken care of. You're like, you don't have to stress over rent and, and all that stuff. And I just dropped you off saying Minneapolis, right? Or Indiana or somewhere. What's the first thing you do and how do you get going?

Tell me what that first 30 days looks like. I would take advantage of like the new kid in school, uh, status, right? And really hit up. Uh, I'll definitely hit up open houses, uh, as, as one of the strategies just to get my name out there and shake some hands, right? But I would wanna do some sort of a weekly or monthly gathering of real estate agents, whether I'm hosting a happy hour of some sort, maybe I don't have a lot of money and I make them pay for their own drinks, but I wanna bring something of [01:09:00] value.

You know, one of the things that we do really well is

helping our real estate agents convert first time home buyers, because a lot of people get sticker shock when they see their pre-approval letter and their new mortgage payment. Um, so I'll definitely be. Teaching some sort of a class on that. Right. And maybe add in some drinks and, and appetizers. But I remember when I was doing, I picked up that strategy from the core when I was doing that, when I was hosting monthly Happy hours.

Dude, it was not only a fun event, but every single time we, we did one, leads would come in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know when, when you don't have a lot of money, I know Mark's you guys, some of you might be thinking like, yeah, that sounds great, but I can't even afford to go out and buy two or three drinks for myself.

How am I gonna buy? Like, what if a lot of people show up? You can figure it out. You figure it out. You don't, you don't even have [01:10:00] to buy all the drinks. Right. E, e, e. Exactly. Don't think that the only way you can get them to come in is if you buy all their drinks. Right. Don't, don't think that at all.

There's, there's things you can do if you really want. You can do like drink tickets and just everybody gets one. Yep. Right. If you want to be generous like that, but you don't even have to do that. But you did say something that was important. It was like, you know, what are you gonna bring them? That's of value.

Mm-hmm. If it's drinks, that's not enough value. It's not. Right. And that's, that's a, it's tied to a, you know, a substance and finances. That's just like paying somebody for, you know, for, for leads. What are you going to bring them of real value that is going to help them grow their business And what is going to give you credibility?

Being a fun, great guy at the bar? Buying drinks does not give you credibility. It makes you likable to certain people, but, but it does not give you credibility. [01:11:00] Teaching a class immediately raises your cred, credibility, you know, level, offering something to their clients immediately raises your credibility level.

Giving them something of value that's going to help them grow their business. That's huge. Always be thinking, how am I going to help them grow their business? And if you can help them grow their business, yours will naturally grow. Exactly. Yeah. And, and that's why I bring up the, uh, the whole first time home buyer conversion piece because we have gained a reputation within the community now as a lending team that can help agents convert.

You know, they have a buyer that's on the fence about buying a property. They send 'em over, talk to marketing team, right? Not only will they get you pre-approved for financing, but they'll educate you and provide you with the information too. And these agents know, like when I do the pre-purchase consultation with them, like the, the chances [01:12:00] of them leaving the consultation excited and confident about buying a house grows exponentially.

Yeah. So I try, I will, I don't teach agents that, but I will let them in to sit in on the meeting, um, so they can witness it. I don't have a favorite. Hmm. Let me think about this. I would say, come on. You just said something about a book club earlier in there. Yeah, we, it's, it's, it's a lot of drinking with this book club.

It's a lot of drinking. Richest man in Babylon sticks out. Okay. You know? Okay. It comes to mind. Comes to mind. Um, how, how old are your kids? 11 and seven. All right. So I'll tell you what I did with mine. I actually read them Richest Man in Babylon. Um, this was a few years ago. They were about your kids' age and.

It was a little bit of a hard book to Yeah. Right. 'cause it's got the old language in a lot of cases. But, but every night I'd put him to bed and, [01:13:00] and we would read this book and then I made him a deal. Right? 'cause it talks about, um, your money, the money should be your slave. Right? Right. And your slave is always working and making, and that money is making you money.

And, and I tried to teach them like compound interest and how that works and what it means. And, and then I made him a deal and I said, Hey, listen, any time you give me money to invest, I will put in the exact same amount of money and I'll put it away. So if you think about like your money without even trying, just doubled.

Yeah. And then if we put it away and I go, here's the only catch those, you can't touch it at all when you turn 18. I'll think about it, but it, I may even say later than that. Like, when it's time to buy your first house or something like that. And, and like, okay. And they didn't really get it. 'cause it was still like, okay, you [01:14:00] know, if I give you a hundred bucks, I mean I can't buy anything anymore.

He, my sons are already thinking of like what it is they're going to buy with that. Right. And if they give it to me, but after enough time in the book, right in the middle of it, one, this one night, I still remember it was like one of my proudest wellness, my one son, my older one, he got up and I was like, dude, what are you doing?

Like, get back, you know, like we're reading and he's like, hold on, hold on. Just, I can still hear it. Keep reading. It's like, all right, I'll, I'll let him, I'll let him roll and see what's happening. Right. He looks back like this and he's like covering as much as he can with his skinny little body and, and he's got a little hiding spot and he comes out with the wad of cash.

Lots of ones. Yeah. Lots of fives. A couple twenties and like $100 bill that he, he had been saving this, I think it was like $326. He goes, so let me get this straight. You're going to give me $326 if I give you this. I go, yeah, I'll, [01:15:00] and he goes, deal. That's like six. That's like, that's more than $600. I'm like, that's right.

So that's kind of what we, that's when it all started. That's, and, and now he always wants to know like how much money is in his account. Right. So, uh, great little thing if you wanna do with your kids. Yeah. No, I love that idea. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, so dude, I really enjoyed talking with you. Um, I hope you guys have enjoyed Mark as well.

Um, lots of, you know, just years of doing things right. And, and I like to ask the question to everybody. What would you do if I picked you up and dropped you off somewhere? And, and the reality is, is because I know I did, mark said the same thing. You know, we've been doing it for so long, sometimes we don't have to go backwards anymore because we've, we've already put our time in.

We've already planted all those trees. It's a little bit easier for us. But if we were brand new, what would we do? And you [01:16:00] said a couple things. You said you would get really good at your trade, right? Like I, I said that to you, but you said that's what you did in 2008. You had to get really good at knowing your guidelines and knowing your business, know your trade, and then you gotta hustle.

There's no way around it. And every single person that's been in here did not say, this is what I would do. Which is what they're doing today. They all went back. And the most interesting thing, no matter what happens in technology, every single person has gone back to grassroots. Every single person basically said, I'm gonna go back to meeting people.

I'm gonna go back to going to open houses. I'm gonna go back to getting to know referral partners and giving them something of value so that they would reciprocate and give something back. You know, so technology's awesome. There's ways to go about technology, but belly to belly, actually physically meeting somebody, [01:17:00] shaking hands with them, ha breaking bread, having a cocktail in your case, a lot of times it, it is what builds true connection with people, and it is what is lasting over the years.

But remember, get good at your trade because. It doesn't do any good to have somebody trust you and then you, you let them down and, you know, thank you again for coming on. Um, really great getting to know you too. So, yeah, man, thanks for having me. I, I had a lot of fun and, and, uh, hopefully we can do it again.

Absolutely. And guys, remember we're here to empower at Quip and educate you guys the way line should be done. I hope you guys got a lot of value out of this. If you did, please like, comment, share, share it with your loan officer friends, um, even your realtor friends. 'cause quite honestly, a a lot of this can is so relatable, whether you're a realtor or a loan officer.

So we'll see you next time and, uh, until then, go out there and hustle.