From Faith to Fintech: How Abdel Khawatmi Uses AI to 3X His Mortgage Business

In this episode of The Way with Dino Katsiametis, top 1% mortgage producer Abdel Khawatmi shares how faith, discipline, and artificial intelligence helped him achieve a 262% increase in net revenue. Dino dives deep into Abdel’s mindset and methods for scaling a modern mortgage business with purpose and precision.

You’ll Learn:

• How faith, family, fitness, and finance create true freedom
• The exact AI workflows Abdel uses to automate daily operations
• Proven systems that cut hours from the workday and boost ROI
• How to recruit, train, and empower loan officers through tech
• The secret to tracking and scaling referral business with analytics

🎧 #TheWayWithDinoKatsiametis #AIForBusiness #MortgageInnovation #FaithDrivenLeadership

👉 Tune in to learn how to build a thriving career, lead with integrity, and join the “Good Human Club.”

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

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi

[00:00:00] 

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: All right, here we go. We're ready to go, because I got a lot to learn from this guy, so it's kind of fun. I'm not just going to interview him like I do everybody else. I'm going to pick his brain. I'm gonna learn myself here because I met him on Sales mastery and on stage, and I was like, man, he's, he's doing stuff with AI that other people are just talking about.

So, dude, how are you? Thanks for coming on.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate you guys. Sure.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: So, brother, listen, I wanna, I wanna stick to the format of the show for a little bit, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna like fast forward a lot once, once we get to the boring part and really just get into the AI stuff. So, but right now, just to start, who are you today, both personally and professionally?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Somi. First of all, I'm a man of God, most importantly. Second of all, I'm a father to two beautiful children. A 13-year-old, 6-year-old, um, 17 years to this day, I put a, a joking [00:01:00] post on social media. I asked my wife, Al for the first time, having my girlfriend, and she turned me down and I always messed with everybody and said, uh, two days later, the art of follow up, she said, yes.

So in two days it will be our 17 year anniversary. And of course, everyone busted my boss. 'cause they're like, all right, well, did you use AI to follow up? Um, so, you know, uh, super, super, you know, uh, I'm always faith, family, fitness, finance, right? All that equals freedom. Um, so love going to the gym. A non-negotiable, you know, early, early morning workout.

Crank away. Uh, been in the mortgage space for a little over eight years now. Uh, same company for the last eight years too. Um, you know, and, and we're just cranking away, going through the ebbs and flows of pre COVID COVID, post COVID to, I guess this is post, post COVID, right? Um, into what I say, 2026 should definitely be, uh, another, another rockstar year.

Um, and we're, you know, super, super technology driven, uh, and, and excited, you know, to see where the, uh, where the industry is shifting.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: [00:02:00] So if you don't, if you don't mind me asking, I should have asked before, but do you wanna brag a little bit? Like what are your numbers?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, I mean, listen, accolades are accolades, right? So top 1%, nara, Zillow, the whole shebang. Uh, we're, we're just, just shy of, uh, 50 male, um, individually. Um, I'm always one that shares the love too. At the end of the day, we're all, you know, producing leaders and market leaders. I care about my net. ROI, I don't need that loan to be individually in my name.

So we're certainly sharing the pot with our originators, with our branches. And, and taking it from there. We're up. I always say what I brag out is net revenue, not just, you know, unit count and volume. Uh, 2024 to 2025 we're up 262% ads of end of October 31st in net revenue. And that's the number that I'm most proud about.

Right. Could we do more loans? Sure. Are there more, you know, rockstar originators out there on branches that are doing a lot more volume? A hundred percent. Um, I hope they're doing 400%, you know, in revenue, but that's the number that I [00:03:00] target. Um, and tech and AI and a lot of that stuff is absolutely one of the biggest driving forces for that.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: So I love that. 'cause you're right, at the end of the day, um, it doesn't matter what your numbers are, if, if your pocket's not deep, you know, um, then the other thing, just 'cause you brought it up, I I want to just talk through it a little bit because it doesn't get talked about often enough in the place of business.

But, you know, you said you're a man of faith first. And, and I love that. I am as well. I try and, and put it out there on everything that I do so that, uh, so that it is out there. And I, I'm happy to hear that you're proud of it and not afraid, you know, to, to say it. So that's awesome. Yeah.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: a hundred percent. I mean, listen, I, uh, my whole, my whole life changed, you know, my father passed away about a year and change ago. Um, and, and he was probably one of the most pious people that I know. And I was always the young kid who, you know, we've, we've. We've always made a good living, thank [00:04:00] God.

Um, but it was always like, it was based on me, me, me. Right. And until I kind of tan changed my whole mentality of that, um, in remembrance of him and most importantly thanking God for that man, I'll tell you, uh, our, our life has changed significantly. And, and we lead, we lead with that. You know, like I said, I've got, I've got two children and, and they are, they are the epitome of what I live for.

Um, and it's, it's truly allowed us that much more to be blessed on a day in, day out basis.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: So I'm just gonna dig into it a little bit, right. Might as well. Um, were you always a believer?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, I mean, listen, I, I grew up, like I said, in a, in a household where like most of us, probably some of it was ingrained in it. Um. Certainly since losing my father, that definitely was like, okay, dude, I don't care how much money you got. I don't care how much money you could do this. Um, it's, it's not, it's not, you know, if, if God has it written in his will, that it's going to happen, it's going to happen, right?

And, and I need to leave, [00:05:00] I need to lead with serving truly, you know, uh, God, then my kids, then my family, then my community, uh, then my originators and my employees, then my clients, then my partners. And I'll tell you man, since making that shift, and it's crazy. Everybody knew mortgage guidelines, right?

Bringing it to work. Everybody knew your FHA, your va, your USDA, your conventional. But you know, I'm, I'm, uh, part of a organization where we actually pick a charity, uh, once a quarter and we actually, um, throw events and actually give back to communities. Next year is gonna be solely based off of, um, to an extent four different, uh, cancer communities.

Um, uh, one for children, one specifically for breast cancer, one for adults, and then one is a little bit of a, uh, toy drive that we're gonna do for Q4, uh, around Christmas time. And my father, I lost my father to cancer, right? And I'll tell you, since making that shift, waking up in the morning actually doing it, right, not talking about it, but meditating and staying on top of that stuff and leaning on on some resources, [00:06:00] um, it's, it's definitely allowed us to wake up, you know, with a, uh, with an impassioned, you know, day-to-day motivation.

So.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Man, I'm embarrassed to say when I admit you on that rooftop that day at Sales Mastery, I, I, I took one look at you and I was like, is, he is from Jersey. He looks like he is rough and tough and he's this and that, and you are just a, a little teddy bear.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: there's, there's, there's definitely a combo, a tool, right? Couple of shots of tequila. Will, will, will certainly, um, put that perception too. Um, but it's funny you said that, right? So many times when I meet with partners and clients and stuff like that, right? They, they look online, they see this 290 pounds, six, one dude.

Um, and then as they get to know you, right? They're literally like, dude, you are, you are like a teddy bear. Um, and I take that positively 'cause I'm like, okay, well that's cool. Maybe, maybe that'll allow the opportunity for you to open a conversation rather than vice versa, where you're like, this guy looks scary.

And, and, and I'll take that all through. So.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: [00:07:00] Absolutely. Awesome. All right, so let's get into it. I want to go back to day one. Uh, actually first, how old are you?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Uh, 35.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Uh, 35. 35. All right. Day one. How, why, when, where did you get into the mortgage business? Like why?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah. So, um, originally was gonna school actually for law school, right? Uh, with my wife. Um, we were both, we both met at Rutgers. I was the meat head that was in the gym. She was the soccer player, right. Um, I, we were both studying for political science, uh, pushing through, was actually continuing to go to Rutgers for my law school.

Then, uh, so no, so end of junior year, starting senior year, I found out that she's pregnant with our now soon to be 14-year-old. So I was like, holy shit. Um, you know, we got a veer left. I was digging in school. Um. If you've ever flown through Newark Airport, I actually used to work in one of the restaurants at Newark Airport in Gallagher Steakhouse.

That's no longer there. [00:08:00] Um, so we've always made money. Thank God the hustle was always there, and I got that instilled from my father. Um, but we, you know, we did that and then eventually I had the choice go to law school and maybe max out at making, call it a buck fifty, two fifty, um, or get into the workforce, right?

Decided to get into the workforce. Ran a, uh, PI firm, hand in hand with a managing partner, um, for about about five and a half, six years. Um, while I was doing that, a lot of clients were getting their cases settled. I was the face, right? So I was the one getting the litigation management, the Selma distribution management.

When you got your case settled, I was the one building relationships with the pi, you know, uh, doctors and Cairos and PTs. So you're building the actual infrastructure for them to refer business and bringing a bunch of internships from Rutgers. To get these people to come, wanna work for us, for the law firm, uh, and get credits and all that.

But a lot of clients, when they got their cases settled, you got a lo load of cash. What are you trying to do? Probably buy a house. Right? That's [00:09:00] kind of where I got pulled in, where I would pass 'em off. I've shared just time and time again on some pods where I'm like, the same common complaint that I got eight years ago since I got into the business is the same common complaint I get now is communication.

Right? You know, the guy you sent me, he's not picking up the phone, I'm calling him or the gal that you recommended me, you know, she's not answering. Um, so I got so frustrated after a while. 'cause at the end of the day, reputation is everything. Went, got my license, um, you know, started working right with my current institution, um, and haven't looked back since.

Right? About year and a half year in Jun, I got my license in April, may of 2018. So whatever the math is, um, November of 2019, I closed six transactions in one month. I was like, oh shit. And back then was a lot different in terms of margin than it was now. Um, you know, went into it, right. Got, uh, got, you know, uh, picked up, closed a lot of [00:10:00] business, went to PRMG and I was like, Hey, I think I'm ready to go solo.

Right. Um, went solo and haven't looked back since. Right. And it's crazy how the business has evolved, right? I was always one for videos. I'm sure you probably saw some of my older videos, right? Where I looked like I was, uh, you know, I hadn't eaten for days. Um, versus, you know, versus now. And it's funny, you become more your authentic self as you become more business.

Right? Where you saw, I'm the only, I'm not gonna wear a suit. Time and energy. May, may, may. I gotta identify my audience and understand if that's where I'm going with, uh, but now I'm always in, you know, my got mortgages gear, right? T-shirts, my cars wrapped in our stuff, um, where we eat, sleep, breathe it, right?

Um, and we haven't turned back since, right? And, and we're blessed with the business continuing to move in the direction that it's going and, and take it from there.

So you, so you, as you probably heard me on stage, [00:11:00] right? I track everything so I can literally give you the exact statistic of what it is. Uh, 41. Yeah. 40, 41% of my business came from realtors, which is pretty low relative to the industry standard, right? Which tells me predominantly, listen, we love our realtors, right?

Realtors are always, um, in this market gonna be the bedrock of the initial touch with a consumer. Um, about 15% of our business comes from financial advisors. Which has been a market that I haven't tapped into fully. That only started about a year ago. This is a two year stat that we ran. Uh, almost 6% of my business comes from the gym.

So talking to people, collaborating with people, bullshitting with people, again, repping, like got more use of stuff. Everybody sees you, then they run into you, you know, you got your QR code on your t-shirt, people are scanning, all that stuff. Um,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: No shame. Yeah.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: And well, you saw the truck, so, so that, that in and of itself does it, uh, 20% comes from networking and [00:12:00] personal.

Uh, about 14 comes from social media. And then, and then the rest just comes from again, just, um, so, um, you know, collaboration of online lead flow, consumer direct, uh, you know, leads from Zillow, realtor.com and all that. Um, and we take it from there. So 14 loan officers right now. Um, we've got, we've got four satellite branches, three other branches spread out within New Jersey.

Um, we're, we're in the stage now, actually. I literally rushed to make sure I was on time with this 'cause, uh, even scheduling this and I, and it's, it's always fun to try to get everything through. 'cause you get thrown a gala right in front of your face and you're like, oh, sure, I'll, I'll go and support this.

Um, but we were meeting with a, uh, with a broker owner. He's got four offices. He's struggling with his current, with his current lender. Uh, my sales manager put the connection together. We ran, we put the business together and we take from there. So we're on such a big growth push right now. Growth strategy of growing.

The systems are there, the tech is there, the VAs are [00:13:00] there, the automation is there. Um, the products are there, the ops is there. I mean, we're at a 14, say, call it 15, 15 day critical close start to finish. Um, you know, um, some, some months might be 18, some months might be 11, right? I think it was July. We're at 11 days start to finish from the disclosure of the file to the clear close, um,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Awesome. And are you guys a, a broker or a

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: we're, we're direct.

Yeah. So, PMG, well I work So PM G'S a three

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: you got your brand under PRMG? Correct. Got it. Okay.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah. So, but it's funny 'cause everybody knows me as got mortgages,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: yeah, yeah. It's your brand.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: So, uh, but PRMG again, uh, we're retail. It's a three channel companies. So, uh, wholesale, retail, and then correspondent, um, which I always say gives us the ability in some instances to broker Allison products.

There's, I mean, some of the shit that I see out there, I mean, there are some crazy programs that I think are starting to come back pre my days, right? But like, no doc, no doc loans, right? [00:14:00] I think quote unquote stated incomes or community loans and all that. Obviously your typical DDRs, but I know maybe haven't personally dabbled, but you could probably agree with me, Dino, right now.

I think we're starting to see some of those unique products that you knew were like taboo back then are are coming around.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: So, dude, I've, I've always said when it comes to banking, there's this fine line of greed and fear,

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Sure.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: and I think, I think everybody's pretty comfortable with where we're heading. So that greed is now starting to kick in and you're gonna see this suck in it, like sparks just a little bit. It, I mean, it's happened.

I've been in it for almost three decades now. Right? So it, it happens every time. The money's there, they come in hard and they just make, make, make the second fear kicks in. They pull back.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: So, alright, so, so let's, let's jump now, let's just jump forward. Um, the reason why I was, I was attracted to you not in a physical way at all, by the way, just, uh, in, [00:15:00] and, and every other way was all the technology, right?

So it is really big, um, and heavy on me right now. Um, I'm trying absolutely everything I can to level up and, and I would say I'm probably better than the majority of the people out there. 'cause I, I think the majority still use Chate as, as a, as their new Google, right? And, and that's a shame because uh, that's just like level one, right?

So I've been, I've actually, um, gone on a 30 day sprint. I'm calling it, where I'm waking up at 4:00 AM and I'm doing nothing but AI work until everybody gets to the office. And, and that way it's uninterrupted. And, and here's what I've learned in that period of time, which by the way, I'm extending it another 30 days.

Um, because of what happened. I, I was like a kid in a, in a candy store, right? And I got distracted so much. [00:16:00] 'cause every time I opened one door I was like, oh my gosh. Like endless potential. And, and then I just kept going. And next thing you know, I am, I'm all over the place. But I saw in matter of one week, I saw all of the potential that I can literally do all by myself, right?

And, and truly affect how I conduct business on the daily. So then I stepped back and I said, all right, I just gotta start finishing projects now and, and leveling up. Everything about how I do stuff, and then the next 30 days is when I'm gonna actually start changing workflows and implementing things and, and forcing others also to do it as well because I, I do believe that if you don't, if you don't force them, sometimes they're gonna have a hard time getting outta their own way to, to learn what you gotta do.

So that's me where I'm at right now. Um, I, I, I actually, you know, was motivated when I heard you up on stage at Sales Mastery because [00:17:00] I, I, first of all, I love statistics, right? Like analytics, it's, it's, it's dear to me, and I don't understand how so many loan officers don't know squat about where their business comes from and how good they are at it, right?

Like, what good is a hundred leads if you're only closing 10? Anyways, with that said, let's just jump right into now what you doing, how you're using it, and you can start wherever you want. But where I want to end up is, is actually workflow, right? Like how are you shaving hours off of your day every single day because of what you've implemented?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I love it. Um, well, kudos to you for, for one, I always say, right, it comes down to planning, implementing, and executing. And I think a lot of us, especially when you go to, I mean, those guys do a awesome event, right? I mean, Don and Gito, Vince, shit, we were at our president's cabinet and I think [00:18:00] it was,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: they're PR MG too, huh?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: yeah, yeah.

I think it was April. I. I think this year was April because they, they shifted on to April May. It was April. These guys were planning this damn thing. And probably even before, but I'll never forget it. We're, we're, we're by the pool and then we went, we got up and talked lunch, these guys were shooting the shit.

Um, and they were sitting there asking me for advice. And of course my fucking, I opened my big mouth. So lo and behold, I ended up being stage. Um, but these guys have put so much time and effort into it, so I ha I, I gotta give 'em a shout. Um, but listen, uh, dialing back, I mean, starting from the bare, bare basics, right?

Um, BT right. I always say is, is at the, um, cornerstone of our business and I'll share a lot of different things of what we're doing with it. Um, but just in the bare basics of asking it to do a social media caption or asking it to do an email rewording, that's usually how many people start off with.

Right. Um, did you know you can integrate it within your calendar [00:19:00] and integrate it within your emails to actually daily send you a reminder in the morning and in the afternoon of what you've done or what you have coming up on a daily basis. Then when I love it is they're also telling me at the end of the week how many calls and how many events I've actually made.

So every single morning right before the start of the shift, my mornings start at the, as crack of dawn, I'm up at four and then it, it's sending me a reminder of literally 4, 4 59. 'cause that's when I'm wrapping up my lift, uh, of what I have coming up. And then it actually, it's, it's actually, it's so funny 'cause I have VAs in, you know, in the Philippines and I've got my das throughout.

Um, but it's reminded me if the event is on Zoom or on phone, which has actually been a cool thing. 'cause so many times you just get a reminder of, hey, you have, you know, 11 events coming up and this, you're like cool and you're like, oh shit, I didn't realize this was on Zoom. So that's been a game saver.

Another part where I love is that it counts at the end of the week, uh, Sunday at 8:00 PM it will actually tell me what I did the entire week, tallied wise. And I [00:20:00] split.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: because it was on your calendar, right? If it wasn't on your calendar, it won't know.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I was just gonna get to that. So you need to respect the integrity of your calendar though, to the point where my wife, who we've been together for 17 years. Knows that in order for me to physically be at my son's juujitsu, at my daughter's lacrosse, at my son's swimming, gotta be in the calendar. Our anniversary is coming up on the 13th, we're gonna do lunch.

I told her, I don't wanna be an asshole, but do me a favor and let's block it out, Jeff. Not even for me not being there, 'cause I, I'd be screwed if I wasn't, but just so the team who has immediate access to my calendar doesn't go in and book another consumer time. And, you know, yes, it's based family, fitness, finance, but you know, sometimes you gotta dle between the two.

Sometimes the family and the fitness part gets, gets switched. Um, so, so, so going back to my point

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: so it's interesting, um, from a perspective. I'll, I'll say [00:21:00] faith, family, fitness. But the reality is as soon as I wake up, it's faith and then it's fitness. 'cause everybody's still sleeping. That's why I wake up sorely. 'cause I don't, I don't take up anybody's time. Right. Like family time. So it's, it's faith first thing, and then fitness and then really it's business.

And then next thing you know, it's,

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Everyone's up. Yeah,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: but I always put, put it the opposite. Right? But that's why I wake up early. Um, I I got a question to ask you on that. Um, so in, in my journey right now, um, I've, I've, I I'm still doing some things a little too manual. Uh, but for example, I spend the majority of my day trying to grow the company.

So I do a lot of recruiting and, and I'm like, yesterday I had five different interviews and what I did recently was I switched. I don't allow them to have a phone call anymore, so I give 'em my calendar link, but I, I set it up so it's only through Zoom [00:22:00] and I did it on purpose so that I can record everything.

And, and then what I did, which I'm really excited about, is I created a project. Tell me, I'm saying all this so you can actually tell me if I, how I can do it better. I created a project for other people that don't know what that is. It's like a folder and I call it recruiting. And then I, I have not automated my Otter to go directly in, so I have to go in and export it out of Otter and then drag it in, right?

I know I need to fix that. And, um, and then it logs everybody. then if I have a, a second interview right? Then, uh, throw that in. And then I have a pipeline manager. And if I move them, which I do physically, if I move them from cold to medium to hot, as soon as it hits hot. It auto creates a folder, and then it, it almost creates like a dossier for me that tells me this is everything I need to know about this person, including like, and I try and ask these questions like what their kids' names are, [00:23:00] their wife's name, so that it can know that, right?

And, and then depending, there's certain people where I personally will say, I will personally coach you every other week for 90 days. And, and then I'm gonna help you create a roadmap to success. Right? And then I, and then I told Chad, I said, okay, now this is one person I moved to hot in three different interviews.

You know, everything about him, create my dossier, what I need to know. Um, I was going in for the close and it, and I said, you know, remind me, tell me how I can come in for the close on this final interview and then help me create the roadmap. And, and it took everything that. This person spoke about, and it created this roadmap, right?

And I, and I still need to tweak it a lot. Maybe you can offer suggestions, but I wanted to do like a 30 day, um, you know, roadmap, a 90 day, and that's where my coaching stops. And then a one year of where they need to be, and then try and come back and [00:24:00] revisit it and show them and tell them like, well listen, this is what you're doing and you're not on path.

Right? Let's, let's divert you a little bit

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, dude, I, I, I, I love it because, you know, I told you we're on, we're on such a growth care right now. Um, my recruiting calls are Wednesdays, call 'em Wednesday wins. Um, my calendar's a fucking disaster. Um, but I use Zapier

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: turn into a wine Wednesday afterwards?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: well, yeah, for sure. Um, I use Zapier for a lot of the connections that you had mentioned.

So I use fireies, so Firefly, Otter, fathom, whatever one you use. Um, and then

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Is is real quick, is there a difference in any of them?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: honestly, there may be like some tweaks. I just, frankly just think, again, it's, it's the cliche saying the best one that you use, right? The best sirens. The one that you, it's the same, like, uh, I personally just use fireflies for.

Shit, like two years and I've kind of just stuck with it. Um, why I love it is that it also just jumps into the meeting by itself. So as long as, you know, the consumer or [00:25:00] or recruit books, books a meeting, I'm the same way. It has to be on Calendly, uh, and it has to be via Zoom. And once they jump in, it automatically jumps into our team Zoom meeting, zoom, um, and then the Firefly comes in by itself, right?

And then does the recording, once it's done, it will actually drop it in a Google drive right, of the fireflies where everything is organized. And then I actually have a VA jump in and grab it. And then in that manual folder, once they move it into that specific candidate's folder, it actually zaps to Trello.

And Trello is kind of like a pipeline manager and that they'll gimme the whole database. Of where they're at, right? If they're a prospective loan officer, if they're a protected branch manager, and what they have to bring to the table, right? If they're looking for just brand support s because it comes down to sales service support, are they looking for sales support?

Which means they're probably an originator, so they need lead generat, stuff like that. Are they looking for just, um, service support, which means that they're just a branch that doesn't have the potential revenue to build an ops team, or doesn't have the [00:26:00] potential revenue to, um, figure out the automation part and they're still using their grandma or their aunt because they're loyal to her and I support, which is usually social media, right?

Social media, tech, podcasts, automation, all that stuff, community involvement, whatever. But I use a lot of projects too. I love that you do that. I actually like a project for everything. Even my workouts, it's called Gorilla List. When I go in there and it's like, all right, I'm gonna do back and buy. So do me a favor, put me a back and buy together.

I got about 45 minutes, make sure I'm super setting back and biceps. And then it does the whole thing. It's funny because you know, when you first go in, we know what to do, right? You're gonna go, you gonna do lap pull downs, and then you're gonna look for, oh, this is not there. So you can move on to the neck and before you know it, you come home and you're like, fuck, I didn't do the overhead right.

Um, this, this also kind of keeps me in.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: I, I think that's just addiction on your part, man. You know exactly what to do after all those years in the gym, but you just can't help

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: feel, no, I can't. Um, and, and um, so there's that. I've also taught it and I'm sure there's so many great platforms out there to do [00:27:00] something similar, but I've also taught it how to read schedule e calculation. I might have mentioned it on stage where like the clients just snip Schedule E, so profit and loss of a rental property, um, they snip just the gross rent.

Down to the expense. 'cause again, I don't know where the, um, confidentiality is of course, but we snip the gross rent to that for 2023. 2024 say, and you drop it in there and it'll actually do, do the income calculation going, alright, this is the income that you can use. If it's a pay stub, there's a different project for hourly salary and bonus.

So worksheet, and I've usually picked it up from just so many Excel spreadsheets of MI companies and stuff. That right there, they're usually the ones spiraling away that, and you've loaded it with that data to say, Hey, make sure you do it this way. That's sometimes where it gets tricky, right? Hourly salary, well, they were part-time, now they're full-time.

So I can use the full-time income, or it was declining by X amount, so now you gotta use the lower of the two. Um, so it's never, I always say never gonna replace the lo truly, or the processor, but at least it's gonna allow 'em the [00:28:00] ability to automate some of that stuff. Schedule C is easy, right? You just simply pull out the, uh, net income, add the depreciation if you want to go crazy and do the mileage.

Sure. Um, but w where, where I've loved it is the LOA doing, um, LOEs, right? Letters of explanation or LO xs. That's actually been pretty cool because we've got, we've got the HUD handbook, Fannie Mae Selling Guide, Freddie Mac selling Guide uploaded. Um, so it knows to revert to that, uh, non QM guidelines. So listen, every company is structured differently.

We have like four or five different product, I guess you could call 'em like profiles for our non QM stuff, right? You've got like expanded access, you've got all, you've got this, you've got that. Um, I've uploaded like each, um, call it guideline doc where like one of my Los asked me yesterday, she goes, what's the lowest that we can go on their bank statements?

So my typical Jersey douche bag, I don't fucking know. Check the [00:29:00] resource center, right? And then two seconds in, I'm like, no, go to ascot mortgages.com. It's a custom GBT that we built. And you can actually literally ask it and tell me, and I'm not gonna move, I'm actually gonna tell me, say what it does. And it pulls specifically from the information that we have taught it.

Okay, well six 20 credit score, 25% down. You know, uh oh. Oh slash rt, right? Owner Occupy slash reinter. Perfect. Right. Um, I'd mentioned the custom GBT with ASCO mortgages. I mean, we've literally taught it to the point where we try to get our loan officers and real estate agents to be like, Hey, you, how many realtors text you about, Hey, what's a monthly payment?

Well go to asco mortgages.com, drop the zow link to the realtor.com link clients putting 10% down and it spits back exactly. Breakdown. I only want you to put principal and interest payment. I want you to estimate $150 if it's under 500,000 purchase point purchase price. If it's over 500,000, put 200. Make sure you [00:30:00] put the disclaimer that interest rate is only pulls from mortgage news daily.

Right? Don't pull from bank rate, don't pull from wells, don't pull from here. Do it from there. And then the other thing is, do me a favor and make sure you put that the interest rate is subjected to, I'm gonna go old school with the four C's, right? It's subjected to your credit score, your collateral, your capital, and your capacity.

And make sure you emphasize that with the client. And every single time, at the end of every, um, answer to a prompt, I want you to say, for personalized guidance, make sure you reach out to a licensed loan officer at got mortgages png net.

Uh, for personalized, well, you could go to ask on mortgages and fucking around with it too, but for personalized guidance, make sure you reach out to a licensed loan officer at, got mortgages@pmg.net or our office number.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: [00:31:00] Perfect. Um, okay, quick.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: look on my realtors too. I'm like, listen, pick up the damn phone and call me. Right. This is, this is not meant as a tool for you. I call, I, I always call 'em 'cause I, I wanna play nice. This is not meant to replace like a stadium lender as I call them. Right. Um, I'm not trying to build that, but I also understand that there's different types of consumers.

Just like the first conversation I have with a client is what's your preferred method of communication? Is it, is it CTE? Is it call, is it text? Is it email? Right. Or do you want to come to the office? Sure. Let's do it. Um, same thing to a real estate agent, same thing to a loan officer. What's your preferred method?

Do you want to just use blend? Right? Do you want to just use a typical old school? I mean, dude, you'd, you'd be surprised. Till this day I still take like 10 oh threes manually over the phone with the consumer. Some of them not, may not want to, right? But that is where I say for about my average consultation, I would call [00:32:00] it used to be a lot longer, but let's say 20 minutes, 25 minutes.

Um, I'm taking a 10 0 3 while I'm talking to you and you don't even freaking realize it while I'm building the rapport, right? I.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Quick, quick, quick question for you. So, um, guidelines, how do you, so just, this just came up last night. Somebody was saying, Hey, why don't we just create a GPT for all the guidelines? Right? And I thought to myself, man, what a nightmare. Right? Guidelines from Fannie Freddie are easy, but they're always changing.

And will it know to go out and reach and update every time there's an update? Or do we have to go in and do it?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: You have to go and update.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Which, which scares the shit outta me because quite honestly, like, you know, we got folders, right? Like a, a a shared database and you can go in and you can grab this and you can get, and there everything in there.

I'm embarrassed to say, but it's so outdated. Nobody goes in to update anything. And then I, it worries me to create [00:33:00] this and, and have somebody go and it's different. And, and from our perspective, so we're, we're, we're hybrid. We're brokers call ourselves brokers, but we're non Dell. Um, and you know, we use Rocket, right?

And, and Rocket has their, they call it Pathfinder. You can go in there and just do anything you want. It's all part of the gig and it's up to date a hundred percent of the time. Right? I don't know, it just that, that's the one piece that scares me a little bit. But I, I will say one takeaway that I wrote down is to put some real effort into thinking through.

All of the different, uh, places we get business from. So I wrote Think clients, think realtors, think C CPAs, think Certified Financial Planners, right? And attorneys. And, and work with chat to come up with all the ways that we can get business from these people. And then create custom gpt specifically for each one of those platforms.

And then give that to all my loan officers [00:34:00] and, and say like, if you want to grow your financial planner platform, this is where you come, right?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, I love it. I mean, you could, you could build it as like Ethos fp, so Ethos Financial Planner, you know, ethos Attorney, f Squire, ethos, this, right? But what I, I've kind of kept it all, um, in1@theascotmortgages.com. I've linked it with the Google drives. I've uploaded, like I said, the HUD handbook, the Fanny guidelines and all that.

Um, uh, you know, we've got, we've got a teammate that is responsible for updating that stuff, especially on the non QM side, because fuck, they're changing their stuff every two minutes, um, based on probably defaults, um, or, or their appetite for, um, for risk, right? That's, I think either before we went live or right when we led live, we were talking about that appetite for risk.

Um, so combination of everything. But listen, if you're, if you're someone watching. If you wanna start somewhere, right? The first thing I would say is [00:35:00] identify where are you spending so much time in your business, and is it yielding you the results that you want? And if it's not, that's okay. That's the something, that's the thing you can automate.

Whether it's to a virtual assistant, whether it's to an LOA, whether it's to a processor, whether it's an ops manager or sales manager, or in today's world with ai. I mean, I've shared with you either in person, maybe I haven't, right? We saved $17,000 a month from last year to this year alone in salaries from the automation, right?

Empowering our loan officers, empowering our bas, empowering our LOAs, empowering our processors with tech, right? Everyone's in the wave of like, oh, I need a virtual citizen. Dude, we've fucking been doing that for like five years, right? Um, we used.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: and the one thing I've learned, uh, I I think you're gonna agree with me, is you, I I, I'm at a point where I can't talk about it anymore and, and I can't even just introduce them to it. I have to force everybody to use it because [00:36:00] nobody actually takes that leap, right? Like I, I just switched from Microsoft to Google so that I could have better connectivity, better everything, right?

Which is tough because we've all been using Microsoft in the finance space for so long, but dude ha more than half of the guys are still on their outlook. They can't like make that switch. They're gonna have a rude awakening, the second debt license expires, but, but I'm like, guys, pull the trigger. You know?

There's so many other benefits.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: We use the Google Workspace because of the Google Drive. Because of obviously docs and sheets and, and, and all that stuff. Um, and it gives us, I agree on the control. There's also a chat integration within your Gmail, so now you can collaborate within one another. Um, we've got Outlook too, believe it or not, with, with, with corporate from, from a, from a post contract.

So I, I always, you might've heard me say this, I always treat a transaction into four phases. What consumer experience? The initial touch to the pre-approval. [00:37:00] Pre-approval to them finding a house post-contract. So they found the house to closing and then post-closing. And I always say, um, RVAs are actively involved in the first two phases, initial touch to pre approval.

'cause they're actively following up and ensuring them and taking up from cold to warm to hot. And then they're also following up in regards to just, um, did you find a house? Do you need monthly payment? Do you want us to run an amortization schedules? Do you understand the difference between, I mean, a 30 year or 50 year mortgage?

Right? Let's, let's talk about that. Right? And I immediately jumped at it, put a full blown MBS highway breakdown. Uh, I don't know if you saw the video. I did the 30 year and then I did a 50 year and I did an MBS highway breakdown between your two, showing the monthly payment difference, showing the amortization payment difference.

I don't want a consumer to ask me about it. And that's been a big part of my business over the last few years, is I wanna be able to put visuals, guides, PDFs, whatever it is before a consumer asks a certain question. I, I want them to ask that [00:38:00] question, but I also want to be like, Hey, that's a great question.

Here's a BombBomb video, here's a YouTube video, here's a PDF, and here's a guide that I control. I'm not sending them into the dark world of the internet, where now they're gonna see a, B, C company, X, Y, Z company on the right side, and they're gonna get pulled into that world. Now I'm out of the picture.

I'd rather control the information, I feed them and then show them that, Hey, I actually understand that this is the big topic and I already answered this, and I'm gonna share the info and give you the info, but at the same time, I'm also gonna share with you some educational info that you could take back.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Um, let me ask this question on email. So if I could pick one thing that I would venture out, I, I'd put whatever wager you want on this. The biggest time suck in an originator's day is email. And, and I've done a couple things [00:39:00] to try and fix it. So, um, we use, uh, a platform called Rome, and it's, it's okay.

It's, it's like a slack. It's like a zoom. It's like a bunch of stuff all in one,

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: One.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: in one. It's all integrated in one. I I really love the concept of it. I love how it looks. Um, it fits this progressive, you know, technology feel. And, and I've told everybody, do not email anybody in-house. Send them a i, uh, an instant message through Rome.

If you want to talk to your, your processor or whoever, just boom, hit 'em up. Right, right in there. Right? And, and it's cut back a lot on email. And I said, think of it this way. If you guys are looking at your email, it's because you're actually conducting business with a client. Everything else needs to be over here.

And oh, by the way, it's got a built, built-in AI assistant. So another reason why you want to keep it here is because you're gonna forget all sorts of shit. And you're gonna say, Hey, you know what, what did my processor say about the income on this file? Right? And, and it [00:40:00] should know because it's all in the chat. So, so e going back to the question now, email is the biggest time suck in originator's day. And a poor processor, I mean, my gosh, I can't even, all the, the emails from escrow, the loan officers, you know, the title companies from everybody and, and all they get is a million if six people on the chain, all of the same.

Thank you. It's like, okay, that's six emails I had to delete. Right? Like stupid. So. Through technology. Um, are you addressing that at all? Have you figured out a solution to solving that problem?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: No, because I'll never figure out the reason why you just said, right. 17 people saying thank you to back to response. What we do build on my infrastructure with my los is, um, a loan officer grabs the contracts, uploads their docs to a drive, completes the qualification milestones, and then I always say, excuse me, from my French, and I tell them, fuck off.

I never [00:41:00] want them involved in the file again, I, I refuse for you to be involved in the file again. Um, we will disclose the file. I will lock the file for you as an originator. We will push to get the file obviously approved conditions, if there's a little bit of back and forth with a client on why do you need this or why do you need that, that's when we tap in the lo, but.

We're actually emailing for them Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like clockwork, non-negotiable on their behalf with everybody on the chain. I don't need the originator involved because once the originator gets involved, what ends up happening, they're only counting their commission. All right? So I get paid 125 basis points, and it's a $500,000 loan amount.

It's seven, $500 or whatever the math is. My mortgage is 3000. They, oh, I don't really have to pick up that extra phone call or two, let's, to be honest, right? Um, and I tell them, I'm like, dude, this year alone, I had four files clear to code and they died. Two were like oil tank sweeps. One, the seller didn't want to fix [00:42:00] co issues, and one of them, the deal just totally just blew up because the seller passed away.

They have the proper, obviously, estate done in advance. I mean, you literally can't make this ship up. So, so that's, I haven't figured out a point where we've automated. I do have a lot of, like I said, my VAs are involved from just gathering docs, cleaning docs, clients upload documentation. My VAs are grabbing it, uploading it to a drive in a Resub folder so the process of the LOA can grab it and upload it to a IQ and encompass and make things more efficient and stuff like that.

Um, are there tools out there that can Yeah,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Yeah. Have you, have you messed with the. AI Fixer, I think it's called, where it responds for you based on it reads all your emails

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I've seen, what, what was it called? Because I, I want to take notes.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: I think it's AI Fixer or Fixer ai, or something like that.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I've seen one, like, you'll see, um, I think it's Gemini for Google, where, where you'll, you'll see now [00:43:00] like where templated responses and stuff like that. Um. I also think, and it could be a bad thing or a good thing, but I also know it's probably a reason why a lot of realtors work with us, um, is we're, we're to an extent involved in the file where I know a lot of that stuff.

Um, it hasn't gotten to a point where, in my opinion, it's slowed us down. Frankly, when I'm in the sauna, um, fuck it, 4 45 in the morning, um, I'm doing the emails for the originators on myself, and it gets a lot, right? I mean, you're talking like 50, 60 transactions sometimes, but I always say, you're usually like, there's a file goes through like three pieces, right?

Where you're like, um, pre disclosures, right? So we're waiting on docs or, um, file submitted. You're waiting on approval or the file's approved and you're pushing it to get clear to close, right? Everything else is on me, right? Like we use, uh, encompass, which is, you know, the, the freaking oldest system in the world.[00:44:00] 

Um,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: It's got, it's got the best connectivity though.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I was gonna say, but ICE owns the goddamn world, so you got no choice but to use it. But so what do we do is, uh, we use BombBomb. So we build BombBomb within our, um, encompass milestones. So like every time the file is moved from here to there, you know, instead of them getting a cheesy, we have te shout out to TE and all the stuff that they got.

But instead of them getting a stick figure video where it's like, Hey, your file has now moved here. It's actually a video of me literally here in my home office saying, yo, dude, what's up? Hey, just wanna let you know if file's been approved, my process is gonna reach out to you. She's gonna send a list of the conditions, can be in a table format, organized to the underwriters request who's responsible for their transaction and what does it mean in simple language.

So excited to make work for you. We haven't locked your file yet. My team's gonna jump on it and do it right. File submitted, you know, for a clear to close BombBomb video goes out. Hey guys, wanna let you know. I'm more than confident. You sent us over all the [00:45:00] documents. Sometimes the underwriters busting my chops a little bit, so she may ask some additional questions after that, but just in case I feel pretty good on this one.

And then when she comes back, when I referencing a conversation, Hey, remember when I said the underwriter's gonna bust my chops on it? Well, she's, she's, she's being a little annoying about this or that, or whatever the case may be. Or we might have missed a page or we need the property settlement agreement.

So the expectations kind of set where I think that automation side is done. I have not figured out a point and everybody busts my chops spot. 'cause they're like, well, you haven't figured out how to automate it. And I'm like, you really can't. Like, it's almost impossible to, to now will AI eventually learn this stuff and other stuff.

Frankly, I don't want it to because I think that's what allows us the ability to, what people wanna work with. Someone like you or someone like me where we know the file, we understand the mundane tasks, we understand a lot of the, the things that make us unique. Um, and I think it's just all about the delivery of the message of how we break it down to them, uh, and take it from there.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Yeah, agreed. [00:46:00] Is there. I have two questions. One, what have you done so far that you're the most proud of technology wise? And the next question, what are you working on or plan on working on that you're super excited about?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, so I would definitely say the custom GBT has been a huge lifesaver and, and pouring a, I mean, I'm like, probably on a daily basis I'm constantly like, Hey, remember when I told you to do this? Hey, let's replace it with this document. I uploaded it to your knowledge center. Right? And I'm constantly going in the instruction side and teaching it to do this or that.

I mean, dude, there's so much, I mean like playing around with like captions AI for like, um, you know, my videos and stuff like that. Um, I definitely say super empowered to train our support staff on how to become so empowered with ai. Front of the LOAs for the processors who the VAs for our loan officers, um, just pulled the trigger on fuel.

You know, with, with, uh, [00:47:00] Alex and Alex and Todd we're actually, we're actually gonna be, um, one of the AI instructors. So definitely stoked on that from a branch and just a brand perspective. Um, but I always think too, like, all right, well imagine I can now sit there and give my real estate agents access to it from a generic account to jump in and role play with myself or with Todd and I don't have to charge them shit for it.

That's powerful too, right? Um, so I mean, there's that just where I love to now, 'cause we're on such a recruiting tear, right? We've taken over three of our direct competitors in our local market, um, to come work under our umbrella. Um, everybody always, you know, let's be honest, when I, now that I've hired, I'm like, why the fuck would your dad not my fiance?

They're like, well, you're a fucking gorilla. And every time you walked in the room, you're like, this fucking guy is here. Because you're, well, you're not just doing the talking. You're actually, like I said, plan, implement, and execute. Like you met with these realtors by the time we've even thought about reaching out to 'em, your team has already [00:48:00] emailed them.

You guys have already texted them. Like I, I do it purposely when I go to a networking event, which I, my team, I have a VA responsible for a minimum of four times a, uh, I must do a networking event, a minimum of four a week. So they literally have a VA who's responsible, not just your typical chambers of commerces of b and i and the tips that we're a part of, like different rooms that I want to be in.

They're responsible to find me a minimum of four. Now, if I go to them, it's a different conversation, but I do like, I go and like build a, uh, Jersey Shore Builders Associations, all that stuff. 'cause it's cool and you get to meet different rooms. But my point is, when I have gone and I have meet with people, what's the first thing they say?

Oh, do you have a business card? Sure. I give them mine, they give me theirs. I take a picture and I always give it back to them. And they're like, why are you giving it back to me? I'm like, my wife's gonna wash my laundry and she's gonna kick my ass and then come and kick yours because it's dirty. The clothes.

I'm like, I guarantee you one of my teammates will reach out to you by nine 15 and if they don't, I owe you lunch. So what I do is [00:49:00] literally I take a picture in front of them. I actually drop it in a Google chat, and then they have a specific script where I'll be like, uh, Jersey Shore Country Club. So they know.

Hi, person on a business card. This is John Doe with Del's team of gum mortgages. Abdel was so excited to meet you at Jersey Shore Country Club, and he wanted to set up a time because he enjoyed the conversation that you had with him. Here's his Calendly link.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: All right, so, so I am, I am a little overzealous right now because I, I've been so focused on, on this stuff, and I'm, I'm still so young at it, but man, I'm so excited, right? So I just had this idea, couldn't you just open up chat, take the picture, drop it in chat, tell it real quick where you met the guy, and then have chat, do all the research you can on the person, and then automatically drop it into the Google Drive or the Google Chat.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: You can, but [00:50:00] this one is the, the VA is reaching directly out to the borrower. Making the conversation, making the engagement. So they're doing their research. I mean, don't get me wrong, they do their research, they plug it in. If it's an agent, shout out to Eric and his team at Model Match, right? There's a whole prompt.

I mean, I get, I mean, I could sit here for hours, man. I'll tell you like since we shifted our focus, like when I meet with a prospective real estate agent or a referral partner has connected me with the real estate agents, uh, the team has a specific prompt to go to model match snip, you know, the. Seven or eight tabs, or MMI or whatever the hell that you use.

I, I'm, I'm a fan personally of model match I always will be. Um, but they're taking that, they're snipping it, they're uploading the chat. There's a specific prompt of what they say, they upload it and it's basically like, Hey, I'm a licensed mortgage professional. Super successful in what I do. Make sure you approach this real estate agent from a coaching business planning perspective.

I want you to emphasize the focus of the three sales service support based on the business of where they close and the map of the area that they [00:51:00] close. Make sure you map out a whole plan for them in this verbiage. Make sure you come off like a Dell, so it's bold Jersey leadership. So it talks like me and it curates an email.

The team will email the professional and schedule it 10 minutes before my meeting. So before I can meet with the professional. I'm giving them an idea of what they've closed, who they've closed with, what area they've closed, how we could help their business. They're an 80%, you know, um, listing agent professional.

Well, you also have. Fix, you know, agents on your team, why are they not leveraging more buyers? Are you leveraging that opportunity? Are you guys using list reports to create that stuff? Do you guys have custom QR codes? Do you have loan officers that are out there helping you promote that? You know, are you guys running social media ads to get buyers based on those listings?

If you're not, those are the conversations that we'll have and then we'll meet with the agents and it's such an empowered conversation to have prior to the actual meeting. 'cause it shows them, Hey, this is not just a loan officer that invited me out. First of all, I'll never do coffee against, against my doctor's [00:52:00] recommendations of caffeine.

I get enough from my pre-workout in the morning. Um, but you have such an empowered conversation with them. And again, being able to train your support staff to use it while you've kind of perfected and move on to the next phase is.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Do you think it, it's not the right way to ask it, but do you think we're gonna need CRMs anymore? Um, and, and I say that because like, first of all, most CRMs suck. Um, as far as the common person trying to use it, there's too much going on. It's too confusing. But what if you just, every time, right? It was like, you can either dump it from your email into chat, right?

Or just say, Hey, I just met this guy. Here's his name, here's his business card. Um, you know, I personally have a star ranking system that I use. Give him a three star. Um, and let's set up a, a, a program where I'm gonna reach out to him every month until he meets me for [00:53:00] coffee, right? Or whatever it you might be.

Um, and, uh, and I don't know anything else you can think of, right? And it's just there. You don't need to physically go look at it and open it up anymore. Then you have another conversation with him, hopefully through Zoom, and automatically it just fills it into his bucket. I don't know how that framework would really work, or if there's a way for, for chat to create maybe a, a really simplistic CRM that just tells you what you need to know, what most people use a CRM for.

It's like, oh, gimme the name, gimme the phone number, star ranking and email, um, notes

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, I mean, I think I'm seeing a lot of CRMs. Integrating with chat, with Gemini, with perplexity, with all that stuff. There's certainly some common phases between the two. Um, I do say, I mentioned it before, Zapier being a huge integral part of it too. Um, where, where it's linking like, like I use Big Purple.

I use big [00:54:00] Purple dot, right? So, um, which is just the CRM, just like te, just like. Follow up bots for our agents and all that stuff. Um, so it's, it's moving it from one phase to another and now you could, there's like power ups for Trello where you can move it, so it updates it within your CRM and then Zapier puts that same note, right?

There's so many different, like automation. So like if I put the note once, it's added in all phases, right? It's added in a client's profile in follow up loss. There's an agent follow up loss. It's adding it in a profile for big purple dot, and then it's simultaneously building it through there. I don't really use chat GBT that much for the interface of notes and stuff.

I've got the VAs for that. A lot of times. The V first of all, I don't make phone calls to consumers. My VAs make the phone calls to the consumer and then transfer me over. Um, so that's, that's another thing where I'm not the one that actually initiates the first phone call. 'cause frankly, I'll probably forget.

I know it's [00:55:00] there, but I'm not looking at the clock at 1159 unless it's, you know, to see Dino, uh, then I'm like, fuck it, it's 1.9 and we start at one 30. I better make sure I jump on. Um, but they're, they're making the initial phone call to that partner and transferring it over, and then we actually record every single phone call and we let the consumer know.

Um, so it's recorded. We use RingCentral for our office line. Hey, is it okay if I record this call? I just wanna make sure that I'm doing my part so we can hold ourselves accountable. The future conversations, first of all, no clients can say no. So we take that and then, um, we actually take the VAs, take the recording and upload it to fireflies.

Um, and then it generates, you know, like a, um. What do you wanna call it? Like a cloud-based link? Um, the VAs will take that cloud-based link and actually drop it in the group text because they, they make a group text between myself, the referral partner and the client. And I might have shared this at on stage.

Um, [00:56:00] so now that real estate agent or that referral partner, that financial advisor, whoever that connecting to that client, he don't need to ask if you connected with that client, you got the full blown summary with the recording, with the zoom call or the audio call or whatever of the entire conversation that we had.

Can that, can that step maybe somewhat be automated? Sure. But you know what, this is what we're actually doing. Right. You know, that's what I said on stage. Everybody's talking about, you know, this noise and talking about this and talking about that. This is what we're actually doing on actual database based on our day-to-day workflow.

And, and it's, uh, it's brought us a results that we're looking at now.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Man, I'm feverishly taking notes. I got so many great ideas, um, as I hear you talk, right? Like I, I like some of yours, then it makes me think of stuff I got going on and how I can just better it. Um, so I love that last piece, [00:57:00] right? Like, uh, I, we use Dialpad and we don't record every conversation. Um, but I know we can, we can just API it right into Google Docs.

I, I'm, I'm guessing the answer's yes, but I can, can then I have it automated to get right into chat without us having to dump it in.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Sure.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Sure. So then I could just tell Chat or Google whenever there's a new folder, a new something here, just send it over to chat. Right. Chat can create a summary or Gemini I guess can do it too.

But I, I, I, I'm tired of like separating too many things. I think. Bring it back to chat, create. Now do you, you don't create a project for every single client

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: No, no, no, no,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Do you have a project that says clients and then it just drops in there and then you just have all your clients in there?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Well, in that situation, we're not even going to the client. So like if we, if we, let me,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: No, but, but let me, but let me hear, uh, but hear out my thing. Right? And then it, it, you have the entire, entire initial [00:58:00] conversation. You have all the needs, the wants, the, the budget, um, you know, the, the gift funds, ev whatever it might be that you just discussed. And then it creates a summary that can then go out to your realtor saying, your realtor partner saying, Hey, we just finished speaking to them.

This is everything you need to know, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're gonna put you on a drip and then it can go to your processor or LOA, and now everybody's in the know and perfect. Like done.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, so fireflies, and I can only attest to the platforms that I use, fireflies when you upload the recording, does that, so it does the meeting summary, it does the transcription, and then it gives you the video recording so I don't have to like take the video recording or audio recording and then upload it to chat and then grab that and then drop it to the client.

Um, what I found with fireflies, it does that and then, um, like I said, it gives it in like a shareable link. They could drop the link in the Google, in the um. Chat conversation, right? The text message [00:59:00] with the referral partner and then we actually take the summary and drop it in our big purple dot notes section.

So it's always

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Do you manually have to do that or can it be automated?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: it. I'll be honest. It's manually being done. Can it be a step, and I think I had maybe ended with, can this be a step where we can kind of automate, right? Sure. Um, what I'm excited about is, you know, I've had my VAs for about Tony just hit five years, so call it five years, right?

Which is a very long time, right? All of 'em have been with me for a while. I think the shortest term one now is like three and a half years. Um, and they're, they, they just got annihilated. Um, and they continue to get annihilated with this typhoon out in the Philippines. Um, so luckily we saw it come in.

They're all, you know, they're all safe. They're in hotels. They made sure they were taken care of before all that stuff. Um, but

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: him a hotel with wifi?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: we did actually, I.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Gotta keep working.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I got them the starlink, um,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: There you go.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: literally no [01:00:00] joke. Um, so, so I'll tell, I'll tell you one thing. Um, I'm excited for the AI voice and the AI text. Um, I met with a company yesterday.

I won't go out and say who they were because I know they're still in the process of getting their kinks together. But it was funny when I was sharing with him some of the, um, text message drips and email drips that I shared as I, as it usually happens when I meet with a new company, they're like, dude, can you send me your shit?

And I'm like, wait, who's demoing who?

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Yeah,

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Um, but they,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: dude, I, I gotta tell you, man, I had you so wrong when I first met you. You're actually deep. You, you got a lot of death in there.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: there, there's, there's a, there's, there's a lot going on. Um, but I'm like, Hey, who's Emily? Who fucker? Uh, but he super, super cool dude, right? Uh, building out a system. Um, so I'm like, listen, I don't need, and I could be wrong, but I don't need too much. And I might've. I might have said this or I don't.

Did I say that I have three different clients, right? Uh, maybe I did or maybe I did. [01:01:00] Right? I have my consumers, I have my loan officers, and then I have my referral partners, right? So I said I'm pretty confident in our approach with our consumers. I, every time I travel, which unfortunately is one once a month, usually, um, I usually, when I'm in a plane, that's actually my time where I love going into my CRM and playing around with my text message drips and email drips.

Um, so generally once a month I'm tweaking it. I'm also going back to finding out who's responded to which email. Right? Right now, the most producing email is the one where it's like a four layout picture. It's like a ranch, a mansion, a condo, and a multi, and it says, Hey, these four houses came on the market.

Which one do you like? They'll respond back and be like, four. And it's like multifamily. I'll take that and forward that email to the realtor and be like, yo, bro, make sure you guys are finding every single multifamily home for this client based on new 500,000 effects. Right? Um, so you, you know, you have fun with it, but this, um, I haven't really built out as much as [01:02:00] I wanted to, like a real estate agent automation park.

Right? Because I kind of just always felt like that was a little bit more personal. So this AI text company is going to be helping us build that out where it's pretty engaging. Again, I just had my first demo call with them, but I already, my head was moving in several directions. I had my growth manager on there, my BDM Business development manager, where I'm like, dude, now you can't.

Freaking complain to me, right? That you can't touch a minimum of x amount of number of agents. Right. Um, and then I'll share it. 'cause they shared it on stage te right. With their, with their voice ai. Um, I'm super stoked for that. Um, I know, I know they're launching that to a few companies. That should be dope, right?

Because in addition to my los calling, my BDMs calling, my sales managers, calling my VA's calling, now I'm gonna have an AI augmented agent that's gonna also be doing those text message follow-ups and voice [01:03:00] follow-ups. And then the biggest part is plugging into a system that actually converts right now in our market.

Uh, what's, what's your local market? Are you in Florida? No, no.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: No. Orange County, California.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: yeah, you're in Cali. So it's funny, every time, uh, I think I told you on the call yesterday, I'm like, I'm always like, alright, one hour back, two hour back, three hour back, right? When I'm trying to figure out my time zones. Um, but.

What I always see is just lack of execution for my competitors, and that is where we crush it, right? Like I just met with the real estate partner, like I said before, this call. Um, right when we hang up, I already know exactly what I'm gonna say. I'm gonna recap the entire call, I'm gonna recap the entire meeting.

We're gonna do all that stuff. And that is where I think if you're an originator out there and you didn't take anything out of this hour call conversation, the only thing I could tell you is execute, right? If you promise a client something, if you promise a referral partner something, right? It's the three F's.

Follow up, follow through, and follow back. If you master those three and sprinkle a little bit of tech [01:04:00] and AI in there, dude, you'll, you'll crush it.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Man, I have loved this conversation. I got so much out of it. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Um, I, you know, it's. Gone long, but I, I finish every podcast this way, so I just gotta ask a couple more questions. Um, what's, what's your favorite book?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Uh, I would probably say Atomic Habits. James Clear.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Okay. And this is my favorite one. If I picked you up and took you away from your family, took you away from everybody, you know, and I dropped you off somewhere in America, I gave you just enough money that you can survive, right? But like, that's it. You don't have all this like free spending money to go, you know, marketing and taking everybody out to lunch and doing, you gotta go like gorilla style, right? are you going to do? And oh, by the way, you can't go see your family again until you make a million dollars.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Sure. I love that. [01:05:00] Um, that's such a phenomenal question. I would, the first thing I would say is identify what is moving the needle in my local market. Um, finding the top relationships that I could build off from a local level, allowing them to be my soundboard while I continue providing value to those referral partners, expand and extend heavily into the local community, and making sure that I'm that presence.

Where everybody knows, likes and trusts me and whether they don't like me, they're going to know me, as I say. 'cause I know, as I always tell my referral partner, I know most of you fuckers don't like me, but I know for a fact you know me and trust me from, from the vehicle, from the charge, from the online exposure, from the in person, from the events, from the books, from whatever it is.

Um, and I would follow that exact same flow obviously.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: do you do, how do you do that in a short period of time without a bunch of money to go wrap your car and all that other stuff? Like what, how do you get them to know you, like you, and trust you?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Being absolutely consistent in stuff. Right. Um, if, [01:06:00] if you wanted to shoot social media content right there, it doesn't cost you a dollar. You might need a cell phone. You could freaking grab a flip phone and start doing it and just stay consistent. Day in, day out, day in, day out, lead with education. Right.

I'm not getting dropped off not knowing anything about the market. And if I can talk about, hey. Government shut down, hopefully is done right. Did the house, did the house meet yet? I don't know if they did. Um, but Right. Senate passed late last night. Now the house fed. What does that mean? That means that those, I, I freaking lost three contracts over the last 30 days 'cause there were government employees.

Um, that means that I can now go back to those three consumers and say, Hey, we need to get back on the market. They might lose their, they might lose that trust and I'll be like, you know what? Because of that bad experience that you have, I'm actually gonna do an appraisal waiver for you and I'm gonna give you an appraisal credit to make sure that we actually make sure you don't wait that extra six months or a year to purchase.

Building the empathy, right. Making that relationship, stressing the urgency without sounding like a, a [01:07:00] commission breath, I think would absolutely be a reason I'll allow us to continue being back on top.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Well, man, you were great. I appreciate it. Um, I dunno if you ever get out to Cali, but I'd love to

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I do,

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: out for,

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I do.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: in fact, I'm not gonna take you out for dinner. I'm gonna, I'm gonna invite you to my house where I'm gonna cook Greek food for you and, and show you something that, uh, that really tastes good.

What nationality are you anyway?

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: I'm Syrian. I'm serious.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: All right, so you'll like Greek

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Oh, I love great

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: I love Greek food. Before we go, I'm gonna do a little social media picture here. Let's, let's go. Gimme a little. Yeah. Hold on. Lemme get the other side of that. There we go. There we go. Ready? Right there. All right guys.

We are here to empower, educate, and equip you, um, with the tools you need in order to do lending the way it should be done. And, and I think from a lot of this conversation here today, obviously there's new [01:08:00] ways of doing things. There's tech that you have to learn how to adopt and don't wait around. Like get involved now.

Start learning it, right? Mess around with it. But don't forget there's an old school way that never really goes away, right? And when I asked him that question of what would he do if he had to start all over again, the reality is a lot of it is old school. You're gonna be in front of them all the time.

You're gonna get them to like you, and you're gonna get them to trust you and ensure you're gonna use some new techniques. But the reality is the bones are the same, right? Like it's, it's how you create relationships. Relationships are made mostly by interaction. Nowadays you can have interaction through, through technology, but, and it's not a hundred percent the same, but if you want more like impact, go face-to-face with people.

That's what I've always said. I've never lost a deal face-to-face, ever. And, and nowadays face-to-face can be zoom even. So don't discount that. Don't shy away [01:09:00] from the tools that you have that can help escalate and, and empower you with the things that you need to do to succeed. So guys, we love you. We appreciate you.

If you enjoyed this, please share it. Please tell your friends about it. Come back, listen to other podcasts. Uh, visit us on our website, dino kati.com. I know it's a handful, but, uh, but you'll find it there on wherever you found me. Somewhere in the notes. Dude, thank you so much. Do you, uh, do you wanna share any of your information and anything?

Uh, if anybody has questions for you.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Abdel Kwame Got mortgages.com. Definitely not hard to find us online. Instagram got mortgages. Abdel Kwame. Anybody out there who's looking to collaborate, you know, shoot the shit, just talk, uh, exchange ideas, collaborate. You know, I'd be more than happy to share some of the stuff that we're learning, learning some of the things that some of you are doing, and expanding our horizon.

Dino Interview with Abdel Khawatmi: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Abdel Khawatmi Raw: Appreciate you.