How Matt Adler Closed $250M with a Small Team — Systems, Niches, and Mortgage Discipline Explained

In this episode of The Way with Dino Katsiametis, Dino sits down with Matt Adler, a top-producing loan officer at Lake Michigan Credit Union, to break down the exact systems, niches, and mindset behind his extraordinary production.

Matt walks through his full journey — from music major and tuba performance student to becoming one of the most efficient producers in the country — and explains why discipline, focus, and saying “no” are the real growth levers in mortgage.

This is not hype or theory.
 It’s a real-world operating system for loan officers who want to scale intelligently.

🔑 Key Takeaways & Bullet Points

• How Matt closed $249M+ across 570 units with a small, specialized team
• Why over 95% of his business is self-generated and referral-based
• The power of niche lending (non-warrantable condos, FHA, first-time buyers)
• Why the phrase “I’m available anytime” kills professionalism and productivity
• How to structure a high-volume team (LOAs, processors, production partner)
• Why Mortgage Coach TCAs create instant advisor authority
• The consultation process that converts without selling
• How time-blocking, Calendly, and boundaries unlocked scale
• Why saying “no” attracts better clients and partners
• Lessons from Todd Duncan, Tony Robbins, and elite peer groups

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

Matt Adler Raw

[00:00:00] 

Dino-Matt Raw: Hey, Matt. How are you? Thanks for joining us.

Matt Adler Raw: I am well, thanks for having me, Dino. This was fun.

Dino-Matt Raw: So, dude, I got to, um, I gotta start just by kind of saying this one thing. Every once in a while I like to pat myself on the back because I'm, I, I'm, I'm better than a lot of originators, right? Like, that's the cocky side of me. I, I still like to say it and, and my numbers were good when I was producing, but then a guy like you rolls around and you're like.

200 million plus. And I'm just like, what the heck? Like how do you do that kind of volume? So first of all, kudos to you. Hats off. And you know, I, I'll do a little bow down to you because 200 million I, it is an an insane number. How many units is that on top of all that?

Matt Adler Raw: Okay, we gotta correct you though. 249,000,249

Dino-Matt Raw: Oh my god.

Matt Adler Raw: Come on. So we were, uh, we were just a tad under two 50, uh, 250 million. It was 2 49, 9 89. [00:01:00] 6

Dino-Matt Raw: that gets you off?

Matt Adler Raw: Very much so

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah, that Okay.

Matt Adler Raw: yeah, I got my team and they said we did two 50. I said, no, we didn't, we didn't earn it. Uh, but it was 570 units.

Dino-Matt Raw: Wow. And how big is your team?

Matt Adler Raw: Um, I have two assistants, production partner and uh, two processors and myself.

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay, so later I'm going to actually drill down on that. 'cause I want to know like what their roles are and because you know, a lot of this is to help people scale and get to a place where they can start doing more. Right. But you gotta have systems in place. And the one thing I've learned after all these years that you can't.

Outwork anything. You have to have systems once you get over a certain number. So I'm, I'm gonna dig into this 'cause this is really interesting, but before we even get there, I just want you to tell me like who you are personally and professionally.

Matt Adler Raw: Um. Personally, professionally, personally, um, I'm a [00:02:00] dad. Um, I've got, uh, three kids, two boys, one in college, one working on getting into college as a senior in high school. And, uh, my daughter who's in, in middle school. And, uh, the gray hairs didn't start coming until she came. Um, no, keep coming. Um, so I'm a dad, first of all, and a husband second.

Um, musician, tuba player third. That's actually what I went to school for is, is music performance.

Dino-Matt Raw: Oh well.

Matt Adler Raw: And, um, I think if you ever wanna hire somebody who's disciplined and who can work on their own and take the bull by the horns, it's hire a musician because they're sitting in a practice room for hours and hours and end and trying to work toward a goal and improve themselves and assess where they are to figure out where they're going. Um,

Dino-Matt Raw: I never, never thought of that, but you're right. Like that's a lot of discipline.

Matt Adler Raw: [00:03:00] very much so. Very much so. Um, beyond that, I, um, uh, endurance athlete love to do in endurance events and, um, professionally, um, I'm a mortgage geek. I just, you know, I think like any of us, uh, obsessed with the business. Think about it, 24 7. And, um, you know, when it, when it goes, great, wonderful. When it doesn't go great, it hurts.

And it sits, it sits and stings for a while and, um, you know, very analytical and, and, and love to celebrate the victories and, and love to win.

Dino-Matt Raw: So I, I gotta ask, um, I, I'm gonna call it the elephant in the room, right? Just 'cause 'cause I, I want to, um, coming, I'm, I'm, I'm the mortgage broker, right? And I, and I had to generate a hundred percent of all my deals. I used to always say these guys at the [00:04:00] bank, you know, they just sit there and it all comes to them.

And, and I'm like, ah, it's, it's not the same. Right? But since then, I have met a few of these guys at the bank, and, and they don't even take leads from the bank anymore. They generated all themselves and, and you know, Hey, I'm being a little fun when I say that, right? Like, they'll offend the room, but I'm sure you get bank stuff, but I wanna know how much of your business.

Is actually self originated outside of the credit union because you're all, and real quick, 'cause you're also a credit union, you can't necessarily just do a purchase loan for a random person who's not part of the credit union. Right.

Matt Adler Raw: That's, that's not that big of a hurdle. Um, I can do a, a random person's loan. We just make 'em a member of the credit union and it's putting $5 into a membership account. So that's not a hurdle. Um, over 95% of what I do is, is referral and self-generated. [00:05:00] And if it's 5%, that's a lot of what I receive from, from the branch.

Um, so

Dino-Matt Raw: I was trying to downgrade you a little bit and act like you don't, you don't deserve that, but, but 95% self gen is big time.

Matt Adler Raw: Yeah, but I mean, look, I get a lot of business because of the portfolio products and the specialty stuff and the niche that I have, the niches that I have. And, uh, you know, in my career here, in prior places, I always believe firmly that the only way to succeed and, and try to stay away from the rest of the noise that everybody else is focusing on is, is you focus in foc, focus on and be the niche.

Dino-Matt Raw: I mean, it, it makes sense, right? You, it, you, you have to have a product. That you can sell. And if you have the same product that everybody else has, now you're competing with a heck of a lot more people. So you know that, that that's a smart move. And [00:06:00] sometimes I even more like, let's just call it more my world.

'cause I'm out recruiting constantly. It's just really my main focus and. I'm looking at guys at the IMB space who have, they're, they're out of like market by over 200 basis points. Sometimes a hundred easy, like all the time, but, but one 50 up to 200 and I'm just like, it's the same product. Like, man, how in the heck do you sell that?

They can't even sell a loan without selling points. And, and not only do we do no points, but most of the time we even do no fees a lot of times. So. It's just a function of you have to put yourself in the right environment. To be able to sell. Right. Like, so great. You know, great for you to have made that switch.

So personally, professionally, we got you. We know who you are. I want to go back to day one, just to kind of get, because at the end of the day, day one was just like the rest of us, right? Like you weren't anybody special [00:07:00] yet, and, and you had to start somewhere. And I want to quickly walk through your journey to the point where you started, like, like it started happening, you know.

Guide me through that a little bit.

Matt Adler Raw: One, pre-day one. Um, I'm a, I'm a music major majoring in, in tuba performance. Not, you don't know, there's not a lot of tuba gigs in the, in the world. There's like one major orchestra in an metropolitan region. There are, this is like two thou, early 2000. There are more orchestras then than there are now.

But a tuba player gets auditions, gets the job, and he has it for forever until he retires. Then there's an opening in the whole world. All the tuba players who don't have a job audition and the chance of getting a gig, getting that job, not really good. So I'm walking to my wife's graduation with my mom.

My wife's a year older in college. She's working [00:08:00] toward architecture degree and we're engaged. We're gonna get married. And she said, well, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna, you know, how are you gonna support her? And I said, well, and I'm gonna go into a military band, or, you know, I'll audition, I'll get a job.

And she said, well, what if you don't? And then she encouraged me to go to, uh, my godfather's, uh, brokerage shop, um, to start learning. So I did that over the summer and I sat and he was doing classes. And you know, this is one of those times, this is early two thousands when everybody in the world's a lender and everyone wants to come in and it's gonna be their, their side job.

And. I sit down in a class and they start teaching me everything, and I'm in college mode and I'm just eating this stuff up. And you know, we had hundreds of investors and I'm learning all their guidelines and I can just recite 'em really quickly. Just adapted really well to the point where a bunch of people in the office came to me to help structure all the deals, and that was [00:09:00] fun.

That was cool, and it took me a while to close my first deal. Um,

Dino-Matt Raw: How, how?

Matt Adler Raw: four months, five months. Part of the problem I had was, it was my, my godfather's company. So all the family relationships were there and, um, my mom started to work there and so my normal sphere I couldn't get anywhere with. Um, yeah, they were all, they were all there. So. I just had to try to go out and go to open houses and hustle and try to find a realtor relationship and who's gonna trust a 22-year-old at the time.

Um, but I eventually started to impress people with how I can just recite mortgage knowledge and, you know, guidelines and figure out how to place a loan, uh, right there on the spot. And people started to realize, and agents started to [00:10:00] send me business. So when I graduated from college and I, and I got my degree, I said, okay, we're just gonna go full fledge into this.

Um, and, and that's what I did. And then I learned about non-war condos.

Dino-Matt Raw: okay.

Matt Adler Raw: Never heard of it before. Never knew it was a thing before. And, but that was my first niche. And, um, you know, started to. In Detroit when there was a bunch of condos that were now warrantable and condo conversions started to help people close those that others, others couldn't.

And uh, even to this day, I still have agents that send me business and still think of me the non-marketable condo guy because it's back what I did in 2004, 2005,

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah, so. Um, there's that saying the riches are in the, do you know it?

Matt Adler Raw: they're in the, what is it? I know it. I just can't think of it on the

Dino-Matt Raw: The riches are in the niches.

Matt Adler Raw: Thank you.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. So [00:11:00] non rewardable condos, I mean, quite honestly, what a pain in the, you know, what those things can be, but yet if you lean into it and you get good at 'em and you know who does what and how to do it.

It's really probably not that hard. And, and once again, it's like being at the credit union and having a product that other people don't have. You know what I mean? It, it's, it's, it's a niche. I think it's brilliant and I think too many loan officers keep trying to do everything. And, and I, in fact, I had a, um, little bit of a coaching call with one yesterday.

He was asking me a bunch of questions and I said, you know, one of the most powerful things that, that I did is I had a coach, um, you know, he was, uh, he was from Australia, and he told me on this side of the, of the, you know, big poster board, I want you, and he had to get a bunch of stickies. I want you to write down who your perfect client is.

Now on this side, I want you to write down who your [00:12:00] not so perfect client is. And, you know, I got to this side and I, I was. Being a little hesitant to write certain things down because it, it just didn't feel right, felt racist to say it out loud. And, and he is like, it's all right mate. No judgment here.

And I'm like, all right. You know, and I was like, middle Eastern guys, Indians, um, uh, Greeks, and I'm Greek, right? And, and what happened was, is like I had. Like the middle Easterns, it's, they're gonna beat you up no matter what. Right. And, and even if it's not a good deal, as long as they felt like they beat you up, it's, they're happy.

So somebody's like, you always gotta start high. You let them beat you up, you start. And I'm just like, I hate that game. Like, I don't wanna play that game. And, and then the Indians are like, they don't care. As long as you don't make any money, they're happy. Right. So, and I was like, I don't like that either.

And then the Greeks, it was just like. You, you're only gonna know what I want you to know. And I'm like, no, it doesn't [00:13:00] work that way. You gotta tell me everything I need to know and then I'm gonna decide what not to tell. And, and then finally this exercise, I, you know, I, I basically said no. I started saying no to these people.

And here's the funny part, this is the part that people don't understand. When you start saying no to certain things, you get a lot more of the yeses. That you actually want. And, and like the niches, right? Like you're talking about it, that that can, that's the thing. People are scared that they're pigeonholing themselves into something so small that they're not gonna actually make enough money.

'cause over here there's so much more, but they open the door to too many nos or things they shouldn't be doing. And it causes problems. And then to, to round out this story, 'cause the, here's the truth. It, it's not me being a racist. I didn't understand it at the time. It was me not liking to do business with certain personalities.

Now since then, I got tons of Middle Eastern clients, tons of [00:14:00] Indian clients, and a bunch of Greek clients. However, they're nothing like the ones that I kept saying no to. They're the kind of people that are just like, my yeses, just like my, my normal people, right? So it was really having to say no here in order to get more of this.

And it worked. It's crazy.

Matt Adler Raw: That makes sense.

Dino-Matt Raw: So

Matt Adler Raw: thing that, that bothers

Dino-Matt Raw: you could probably leave that part out a little bit. You don't have to make a short of me like saying you can, you can leave that part out

Matt Adler Raw: summary of the story, Dino's racist. Got it.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah.

Matt Adler Raw: Yeah. Now the, the,

Dino-Matt Raw: Phil, he is gonna probably like create an entire thing saying Dino's racist.

Matt Adler Raw: yeah, the next meme.

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay, so.

Matt Adler Raw: always bothers me that loan officers do you know the number one thing that the number one, um, uh, what's it called? Unique proposition that lo loan officers seem to say to agents, call me anytime I'm available anytime. [00:15:00] And that I think that no story when you can say no to things.

If you can also say no to, to always being available. Telling people specifically when you are available, that opens up a whole different world. Personally, professionally, uh, productively. And, uh, yeah, just it, it, it bugs me to nom when I'm with other loan officers and that's what they say. Yep, I'm available anytime.

That's what makes me different. No, it.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah, so early. Early on, here's a great little coaching session that you and I can put on for, for anybody that's interested. It was, I think, 1999 around there. There was, uh, um, Joe Stump was his name. He was a coach back then by referral only. I don't know if you

Matt Adler Raw: Now I, yeah, I know that. Yeah.

Dino-Matt Raw: And, and he, I remember going to one of his free seminars.

That's all I could afford. Um, and then I scrounged up the money for, it was a thousand bucks to go to [00:16:00] like the other one because I learned so much from it. Right? And, and, and it was the best thing I did. 'cause it started me off the right way. But what he said is, he's like, for God's sake, stop telling everybody you're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

He goes, this is, this is what it is. You don't see it, but this is what everybody else sees. They see this neon light, like a cartoon thing. It comes outta your head with a big frame on it and it says, waste my time. That's exactly what open all the time means to people and, and then he went into this whole Do people do that with attorneys?

They do it with CPAs, they do it with financial planners. They'll start acting like a professional and you'll get treated like one.

Matt Adler Raw: A hundred. Now I'm curious, Ladino, what is your favorite, um, speaker seminar masterclass thing that you've been to? What stands out?

Dino-Matt Raw: I gotta, I gotta tell you, and it's not in the mortgage business, [00:17:00] but, um, I am a little bit of a junkie 'cause I, I love a good, powerful speaker and quite honestly, um, Tony Robbins Business Mastery. Was a game changer for me. I learned so much and it was like, I think a four day window or something, but powerful, expensive too.

It was the most expensive one I've ever gone to. It was like almost 10 grand. Um, but I learned a lot and, and it was, there was, it is probably a whole other conversation, otherwise I'm gonna dominate this whole thing. But there's so much valuable content of, you know, just. Wisdom, I should say, that came out of that four days that I still to this day apply to, I try and apply to everything I do.

So, but hey, this is about you. What's your favorite one?

Matt Adler Raw: did you

Dino-Matt Raw: what's your favorite masterclass?

Matt Adler Raw: Oh, my favorite, [00:18:00] um, Duncan, anything? Duncan?

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay.

Matt Adler Raw: Yep.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yep. So

Matt Adler Raw: and listen to him. Read. Read the phone book.

Dino-Matt Raw: So I, I am a fan, right? I've also interviewed him, but out of all the different mortgage things I went to, so I was part of his, um, you know, Todd Duncan Elite Group and still to this day, one of the best groups I've ever been in, the best group I've ever been in. In fact, um, lifelong friends have come out of it.

And, and how I did business significantly changed by being in a room with great guys and, and Todd. Todd was great. You know, there's a lot, a few things. There was things that, that he like taught me, beat into my head. And then the other part of it was the fact that he put together such a great group of, of people in one room.

And he, he would put us in an environment where, you know, we all shared, [00:19:00] we, we were vulnerable, some cried, you know, all sorts of stuff came out of it. But, but man, you know, a, a room full of total pros. It's unbelievable how generous they are, how generous they're with their time, how generous they are with, with, you know, their, their secret sauce with you.

Name it. And I think that, you know, if I could, and actually Tony Robbins said this too, is, you know, proximity is power. So always put yourself in the proximity of, uh, of people you want to be, you know, like,

Matt Adler Raw: Okay.

Dino-Matt Raw: yeah. So, so Todd Duncan was, was really influential in my mortgage career. Um, I would say Tony Robbins was a little more influential in my business career. Like there is a, a, a bigger kind of vision of what was there. So, um, I'm releasing a blog actually, so by the time you guys all listen to this, it'll [00:20:00] be a few weeks prior, but I'm releasing a blog as soon as the, uh, you and I stop here.

And, and it's something that Todd actually taught, taught us. Um, and I took it to heart. It was something that really like, it just, it, it, it worked for me. I had to master it. It didn't come easy. And Todd said, Hey, you gotta have these jam sessions. I was like, I like that. Yeah. And you know, how do you have a jam session?

Well, number one, you gotta cut out all of the, the noise around you, right? Like, turn off your damn email. You can't be like looking on one screen and, and then doing this. So I actually ended up going from three screens down to one so that I wouldn't have the ability to do that. So that was the first thing I did.

And the second thing I did was I started, you know, time blocking in my calendar, said for this one hour, which is really like, Todd's thing was 50 minutes and you take a, a five to 10 minute break, right? Get up exercise, jump around, do whatever you need to do and then write [00:21:00] back at it again. So what was interesting was it was a jam session, but when you, when when you dissect JAM, it's just another million.

And he, what he taught us was like. If you're gonna be a high level guy, you should only be working on things that's going to make you a million dollars. Why are you working on anything else other than that? And then he started breaking down the time that it takes you to achieve these little things that you keep doing.

And then if you just paid somebody to do all of those and you focused your one hour on just another million, just think about it, right? Like it gets, it goes the right way really fast, right? So. Why in, you know, God's name are you doing things that are making you dollars as opposed to millions?

Matt Adler Raw: Completely agree.

Dino-Matt Raw: So the vlog that's coming out is, uh, Parkinson's law, and, [00:22:00] and it goes along with the, the jam sessions and all that stuff. And, and it's really interesting because this is where I had to like train myself. So, um. Parkinson's law is basically like however much time you give yourself to do something is how much time you're going to take to do it.

And you know, if, if you say, I, I'm gonna take 30 days to accomplish this, and you're gonna, you're gonna take the full 30 days, but if you gave yourself 10, you actually would still finish in 10. It's just how it works. And the relation that, that Duncan brought in that worked for me was when you go on vacation.

Do you somehow manage to get all of your work done and enough work to cover the seven days you're gonna be gone or however many days you're gonna be gone? And, and the answer is yes. And not only that, miraculously, my desk is also clean. Like I, I got it all done. And what happens is, is you put your mind set in [00:23:00] a, in a, in a position where you know there is no other choice.

It stops. At that moment, and you cannot come back, right? Like, so you have to get it done. And that's part of Parkinson's law. Like, so if you give yourself until this not, not 30 days from now on it, just like five o'clock today, it's all done for the next week. Somehow you still do it. So what I did is I decided to start cutting my hours and, and at the time I was working 60, I was like, I'm gonna be semi-retired moving forward.

I'm only gonna work 30. And, and I had to like. Train myself to do it and, and if you leave, you just have to leave, right? But things don't get done if you don't do it right. If you don't really have your mindset like you're going on vacation, it's not gonna work. 'cause you always know tomorrow, right?

Tomorrow. So what I did is I, I, I forced myself to fall behind so that I could, I could learn like, this is unacceptable and I don't have any more time in the day. So then I started [00:24:00] working a little bit smarter. And what than what that means is you start cutting out all of the distractions. You start time blocking, you start focusing, you start letting other people do the things.

And, and then for me it was, all right, it's two o'clock. It's three o'clock, whatever that time was. I'm going to book a golf lesson. I'm going to book an infrared sauna. I'm going to book a massage. I'm going to book, uh, something, anything that would cost me money. I don't know about you, but I hate losing money over something stupid.

Like I didn't show up, so I refused to not be there on time and, and that was my trigger of I have to leave. There is no, I got 10 more minutes, or I'll come back tomorrow. Because my time blocks were, were already calendared for the whole week. If I didn't finish it, I didn't have enough time left in my calendar to come back and finish it.

So anyways, that that worked for me and I ended up averaging 18.75 hours for that year, [00:25:00] which was awesome.

Matt Adler Raw: I love, I love that idea. 'cause I'm the same way. I don't wanna waste money on a, on a mist, whatever it is. I love that idea of creating that, that deadline that'll hit you twice, you know, mentally in, in the pocketbook. That's a great idea.

Dino-Matt Raw: And you know, I started thinking about it when I was writing this blog, um, last night. I, I started thinking about it. My, my like thing when I was originating loans was 15 day close of escrow. And, and you know, this is, I mean, I've been doing it for years, but during the COVID years when interest rates were under 3%, it was crazy, man.

Like, you remember how busy it was and. Trying to get a loan to get through fast enough was fricking difficult, right? I mean, everybody's ja jammed up everybody's this, but somehow, because I said I can do it in 15 days, [00:26:00] and don't get me wrong, I put pressure on my whole team, but I always funded it in 15 days no matter what.

I bet you anything, if I said 12, I would've done it in 12 Parkinson's law and, and the fact of the matter is, is. When I tried to explain like, you know, realtors, various people, like, I, I don't know. I mean, I feel uncomfortable saying, I'm like, do you want to, do you want to get a house under contract?

Because if you, if you don't, you can say 30 and, and you'll be just like the other 50 people that made an offer on that house. It won't get accepted. Get it accepted. In fact, I'm backing it up. I'm gonna spend outta my own money. If I'm late, I will give the seller $250 a day penalty per diem paid by me to the seller if I'm late.

Well, I was only late twice in years and years and years, right? So fact of the matter is, is put yourself under a little pressure. It's okay. And if you have to work your tail off to to do it, do it. But what you're gonna do if you're smart, is you're gonna start setting up [00:27:00] systems so that. This, this kind of operation can happen as a norm.

It'll become your new norm. And then that's when you're gonna start seeing real success

Matt Adler Raw: I think systems are key no matter what you're trying to do.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. Well, and, and, and that's where, so I wanted to ask you, I was thinking about you, uh, earlier today, knowing I was gonna be here with you. I was like, how does that dude do so many loans? Right? Like, there is no way you can do that many loans.

By yourself like most everybody else is trying to do. So you said it earlier, you have some assistants, production manager or something like go over your team, go over their roles, and then if you can like walk me through your system, starting with a referral comes in, how does it come in and what happens and who's, who's responsible for what?

Matt Adler Raw: Got it. Okay. So we've got two, uh, LOAs, Rhonda and, and Jessica. [00:28:00] Um, their job is to review pre-approvals. Um, so they basically, they manage the file from online application to generating the pre-approval. And then once we have a contract, and I've started the application, their job is to disclose, get the file prepped for, uh, our system is to, to for processing.

So processing can then ideally own the file through underwriting and, and clear to close. Of course, we run into any sort of challenge or problem. Then they'll rope in the loan officer assistant or, or I'll jump in. Production partner job Craig is, um, he's about bringing in business and keeping business.

So after we pre-approved somebody, he's gonna do the pre-approval nurture. Um, once every week or every other week, he'll call connect with a buyer, see how their home search is progressing, um, [00:29:00] reach out to, to agents, listing agents, buyer's agents, if we don't have a relationship with them once we're under contract.

And then his other role is to help set up annual mortgage reviews with our closed clients. My role, um, I field the phone calls, um, the incoming prospect buyers come coming to me and we'll do, we'll do a pre-purchase consultation and, and, and talk about what their plan is and what they're looking to do, and map out what that could look like.

Then after that, that's when they'll fill out an online application and that's when the LOAs take over. Um, I do the annual mortgage reviews with the clients. Uh, usually do two a day, and, uh, the only way to get through any of this stuff is through time blocking and Calendly, and having a routine day in, day out that that really looks the same.

I know where I'm gonna be tomorrow at [00:30:00] 5:30 AM I know where I'm gonna be tomorrow, 8:30 AM and uh, you know, so on and so forth.

Dino-Matt Raw: So couple questions. Um, you said you field the calls, the incoming, right. How do you, how do you receive referrals? Is it, does an agent just say, call my boy Matt, he'll take care of you? Or is there a, a handoff somehow?

Matt Adler Raw: Depends on the agent. My, my preference is always do a, do a three-way text. It doesn't always work that way with everybody. So I'd say probably 30% are, are a three-way text, and then the other 70% are, borrower calls, borrower, text, borrower emails. My goal with any communication is to funnel, to schedule a pre-purchase consultation that's in person or that zoom. Not over a phone, and that's where we always talk about [00:31:00] the game plan, what they're looking to achieve. I'll use Mortgage Coach and we'll run through what some things could look like, get them really excited, get through whatever questions they have. Usually that meeting gets past their concern over credit pulse.

Soft, hard. My preference is to, is to do hard. Everyone always wants to do a soft and usually I can talk them. Into the benefit of a hard, over a soft, um, yeah, I know there's trigger leads in the calls and things like that. We're prepping for that too. Um, and then, you know, the girls take it from there unless they run into a preapproval problem that needs my, my brain,

Dino-Matt Raw: How long do your initial consultations last

Matt Adler Raw: uh, 15 to 30 minutes.

Dino-Matt Raw: and do you have a kind of like a, a format that you like to cover?

Matt Adler Raw: Um, I like to ask them what they know about, what do you know about mortgages, and just let it go from there. See [00:32:00] what their, their, uh, experience is, see what they've already looked up. Um, I tell them to, you know, I say you've probably been Zillow, socking some homes. Whether you're ready to buy now or months from now, so bring those with us and we can map things out based off of kind of what you're looking at to see if you're in the right ballpark.

Dino-Matt Raw: Do you? Um, I, I'm gonna, I just wanna dig in a little bit, right? Like, I think there's so many different ways to go about it. I'm curious, um, how you do yours and, you know, there's, there's a piece of me that says, all right, I mean, 500 and, what was it, 74 units or something that, that's a lot of consultations.

So I'm gonna back into this a little bit. Those aren't all purchases. Does somebody else do the refis being that they're already part of and they understand or do you still come in on the refi and and do some sort of a consultation or explanation?

Matt Adler Raw: I, I'd say a good majority or [00:33:00] some sort of consultation. Um, they're not all as involved as a pre-purchase consultation, but you know, I think back to September when we had that nice little dipping rates.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah.

Matt Adler Raw: And, uh, I think back to how booked I was with appointment back to back, to back, to back to back, it was eight solid hours of 15 minute meetings going through, you know, mortgage coach TCAs and the benefit of, of refi.

And as a result we got a ton of refi business out of that. Um, but that was queued up by my, my production partner and then it was driven home by me.

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay. And, and now let's go back to a, a purchase initial. Consultation. Are you, are you on the computer kind of like taking a nap? Are you just having a conversation with them? Do you already have a few things kind of put together and you have a presentation? Like what's your, what's your style there? Okay.

Matt Adler Raw: Um, [00:34:00] I'm not doing an app. It's, this is not, this is not, let's get your income assets credit. Let's just talk about what this is and what this looks like. Um, I share my screen. I think it's very important. I want them to see me building out my TCA and building things out. I want them to make, make it feel like there isn't that much separation between this.

I'm not hiding anything from 'em.

Dino-Matt Raw: So you build out a TCA on the initial consultation with them watching.

Matt Adler Raw: right.

Dino-Matt Raw: Interesting. Okay.

Matt Adler Raw: So they'll see it.

Dino-Matt Raw: Savage would be so proud of you right now.

Matt Adler Raw: Well, there's a wow factor too, you know, and they're seeing it. 'cause I'm really good at it. I'm really quick at it. Um, and they can see that. And, and I think that they, there there's more of an advisor feel because they can see here's, here's a different presentation. No one else is showing me this. I'm not seeing anything like this in an experience.

I'm not having anywhere else.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yep. [00:35:00] And do I think you said they, you give, you send them the link after that or do you send 'em a link before so you have some info on them

Matt Adler Raw: After.

Dino-Matt Raw: After Every time. Okay.

Matt Adler Raw: It could be a

Dino-Matt Raw: then.

Matt Adler Raw: of time. You know, I could be talking with someone who, who just yesterday, they're, they were six weeks outta bankruptcy. Um, but we still had a consultation with 'em. Then, you know, after I pulled their credit, I, I sent 'em a for video recording of a credit repair plan and they thanked me.

And, you know, hopefully in a year and a half we'll start to reconvene and maybe get 'em ready for FHA.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yep. And. So I, you know, I, I can't help, um, my, my loan officer hat just goes right back on. I, I understand putting 'em on a program and all that, but like from my world, I could still refin, I could still get them into [00:36:00] a loan. Do you have any broker partners that you would refer somebody like that to rather than telling them to wait?

Matt Adler Raw: Uh, for, for some pro products. Sure. Yeah. If there's a product out there for somebody who's six weeks out of a chapter seven, I didn't know, so, you know, broker partner in Michigan who can do that, let me know.

Dino-Matt Raw: I, I bring that up because, you know, uh, gosh, now I can't remember which, uh, I was interviewing somebody just a few weeks back and they were saying. You know what they would do if they wanted to go out and, and get a bunch of new business, they would go hit up a bunch of guys at credit unions and add different banks where you're kind of tied to whatever program you have.

And, and as great as it is, you don't have these right. And, and it's a perfect partner that you could unload a little bit too. Um, anyway, just I went off a little bit there, but, so it's really [00:37:00] interesting.

So, first of all, I guess like I'm, I'm thinking through how I would do it, um, or how I used to do it. And I, I never did the TCA, I always did it after. So my, my style was, uh, always had to be, at the time it was an email introduction. Now it could be an email or text, and, and then that way it kind of puts everybody on, on this, you know, like.

You referred it, I responded. Client's not answering. Sorry, realtor. You really don't have as good of a, a referral or a lead as you thought you did. Right. Why don't you go back to them and see if you can get that to work. Now, other times, you know, it's like, Hey, did you get a hold of 'em? Did you get a hold of 'em?

Did you get a hold of 'em? It's like, they're not responding, dude. You know? It's like, so when I do it that way, that was my rationale behind that. And now the realtor was, was in the know all the time. It was one less thing I had to do afterwards. Then the Calendly link was [00:38:00] like absolute gold. When I started doing that, it was just no.

When I kept telling people, let's set up a time, what works for you? Back and forth, it just never worked. Here's the link. Just like that. They would book a time immediately and they were never late because of the, the, the text message reminders right before the thing. Right. Awesome. Gold. Love it. And then I'd have an initial consultation, which was always 20 to 30 minutes on my end.

But I would just ask them a bunch of questions and I'd get to know what they wanted and their fears and, you know, their wishes. And then I would use it as a time to also implement kind of, uh, a, a few strategies. Uh, you know, one of them might be a, a no clo, a little bit of a higher interest rate, but, but no closing cost.

They'll help you possibly go, still have money left over to go buy some furniture, stuff like that. Uh, another one might be pre-selling the, the refinance down the road, like, you know, stuff like that. And [00:39:00] another one would be, even though this is still their first house, just a little bit of a vision of why we need to work together, like all the way through, and why annual mortgage reviews are so important all the way through, because.

Before you know it, you're gonna have kids. And before you know it, you're gonna be buying a, a, a, a bigger home. And before you know it, you're gonna be buying an investment property and before you know you're gonna have a, a vacation home somewhere. So I would instill some of that so that one day when they got there, they would remember who, who implanted, you know, that, that thought in their mind.

Um, so that was kind of my gig, but the way I did it is I would take my notes. And, and then I would pass 'em off to my, uh, production manager and that person would send a detailed email, you know, and welcome them, welcoming them to, you know, to ethos lending super detailed email of the things we need a link to fill out the loan app.

And we always said like, [00:40:00] you don't need to fill out all the stuff. Like we, you know, we'll, we'll get it for you. Just fill out some of the basics, right? So we can have something. And then you consent and the, the, the cred out are off. And then after we got all their stuff, then what we did is we created the TCA and we would have typically three options.

This is, uh, on a purchase, at least three options. This is right in the middle where you want, where you told me your budget is supposed to, where you want your budget, and then. This is where you can go up to, and then we got something just, you know, a little bit lower so you can kind of see where the things are.

And you don't have to come back to us every time you find a house for another $20,000 more expensive. And, and that was the approach I took. I'm, I guess I'm just, I'm wrapping it around in my head of thinking, I wonder if I should have done the TCA upfront, and I'm only doing that because you did twice as many units as I did.

So you've gotta, you gotta be doing something right, you know?

Matt Adler Raw: I, [00:41:00] and well, I send them the TCA afterwards when they're done. And the beauty, if you know anybody who doesn't use Mortgage Coach or something similar is anytime they click on it, you get an email. Know, you know, when they're thinking about you, 'cause you get an email when they're looking at your stuff, it doesn't matter when you're sending it. So you know, you'll start to see a flurry of activity of clicks on it before they start filling out the online application. It's kind of interesting.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you know, the one thing that, that I've learned is there's more than one way to do something successfully. And, and obviously it works for you. So I, I think that's great. Um, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrap my head around it and see if I can even get somebody to start doing it over here.

So I can, I can see, you know, what their response is. 'cause that is a different way of, of going about it. And, and like you said, it sets you up the right way from the very beginning as more of an advisor. It's impressive. And you're leaving them with something [00:42:00] tangible at the very end. Right? Like immediately they actually have something in their hands.

So if they are shopping you, you, you already gave it to 'em. So, okay. Um, so next question.

Matt Adler Raw: Yep.

Dino-Matt Raw: You're now starting to do some volume. How long did that take before you like started hitting your stride?

Matt Adler Raw: Um, well, you know, we had the 2007 eight crash that kind of hampered things for a little bit. Um,

Dino-Matt Raw: Well, it was starting all over again after

Matt Adler Raw: Starting all over again. Reinventing. So that, that was about the time when like now you couldn't do condos. Now I had to figure something else out. Um, so then I started to become the first time home buyer guy, the down payment assistance guy, the FFHA guy when, you know, people were doing FHA, but not everyone was doing FHA. Um, so I'd say it's probably seven, eight years [00:43:00] into the business when I start to actually. Do a good amount. You know, I'm probably hitting 30, 40 million and then it starts to grow 10, 10 million per year, I'd say. Um, you know, and then it, it's something like 20, I think maybe 2018 when I first hit a hundred million.

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay, and, and so let's pause real quick and then with that said, at what stage did you find yourself having to start developing some systems 'cause you just couldn't keep up anymore. And what was that first system that you created or person?

Matt Adler Raw: Um. The, the, I was not very system oriented, um, until probably I'd say five years ago. Um, the closest thing I could say to having a system was a Google spreadsheet, which to some version we still use right now. I'm looking at right over here that, uh, [00:44:00] my team and I would use and we would just track the hot files, you know, the ones that need to close in the next week or so.

But we're not clear to close that we would identify on, on a, on a weekly pipeline. Um. Because I've always been a volume guy and you gotta try to keep control of the chaos as best you can, and I found that that was the best solution.

Dino-Matt Raw: And

Matt Adler Raw: Well,

Dino-Matt Raw: how long have you been at the credit union?

Matt Adler Raw: uh, 12 years.

Dino-Matt Raw: Did, was there anybody there that was instrumental in, you know, helping you create like, something around you so that, so that you could keep going? Or did you have to like Okay. 'cause, 'cause sometimes, like you said, if you were an assistance person. You may not have been able to do it right, but I know, I know in some scenarios.

Um, one person in particular, she was the CEO of a company and, and she actually took charge of a, a total superstar and, and [00:45:00] created a team around him and created the opportunity for him to be able to flourish. Thought that was impressive.

Matt Adler Raw: Yeah. And that's, that's what I had here, right? The manager that I came here for, um, 12 years ago, he helped create and form a team around me. You know, I came here with one assistant and a couple years later I had a second assistant. And a couple years later, uh, you know, a third assistant that morphed into a production partner and.

Um, inherited one from one dedicated processor to having two. And so it's because of his, his efforts and him, him helping me out and bringing on the personnel that I was able to grow to a point where I can bring in the systems and the coaches and take it to the next level.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. Does, does your wife ever pinch herself and say. This just isn't the same tuba player I married.

Matt Adler Raw: Oh gosh. You know, we'd have to ask her that.

Dino-Matt Raw: Uh, I love it. Uh, my, it's funny [00:46:00] with my wife, right? It's like sometimes she's, she's lived a very blessed life, you know, and, uh, has everything she could possibly want, even when she complains. I have to remind her she's still getting private. Private lessons for, uh, uh, Pilates and, you know, all this other stuff, right?

I can say this 'cause I know she'll never, she'll never listen. She'll never listen to this podcast. But, uh, she loves to say that, you know, I was with you when you were broke after 2008, so you can never take that away from me. She said, because let's just face this. She's like, who would've wanted you back then?

Matt Adler Raw: It's a good point, but you know, I feel, I, I feel for the spouses of loan officers, I really

Dino-Matt Raw: Ugh.

Matt Adler Raw: You know,

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah, so, so let's,

Matt Adler Raw: get the phone calls and, okay, hang on. It's a realtor. That's important. This is, you know. If my top

Dino-Matt Raw: let's talk about

Matt Adler Raw: it and help 'em out.

Dino-Matt Raw: Let, let's talk about it because, you know, I, I know for me, like when I joined, uh, Todd Duncan's [00:47:00] group, that was probably one of the number one things that, that I changed in my life was. Setting up better boundaries and dedicating that off time outside of my work hours to my family.

And, and, and it really mattered because, you know, I got divorced in 2008 and or seven, whatever it was, and you know, life was miserable. Right. And, and my new wife, right, I met her a few years later, whatever it was, and it was. At the end of the day, we are hard workers, right? We are a certain personality type.

We are difficult, we are glued to our phone. And, and it's difficult to be a spouse, right? Uh, of, of a mortgage person. So how is, how is your balance like. You know, do you, is it, is it a struggle? Do you, is it a challenge for you to do or, or do you have like defined boundaries that say, I don't pick up [00:48:00] my phone after this time, or, you know, I always leave work by a certain time.

Like, what's your, your gig?

Matt Adler Raw: Be. It used to be work at the office from nine until five 30. Come home, make dinner, make phone calls from seven to nine emails, and then bed at 2:00 AM or whatever it was. That's what it was.

Dino-Matt Raw: my.

Matt Adler Raw: You know, I was the guy, I was known to the company. Here he is the guy who always emails everybody in the company at one 2:00 AM. Um, but yeah, after, after starting with the Duncan Dunking stuff, not trying to be a Duncan commercial, but um, refocusing that stuff, implementing time blocking, implementing Calendly, creating more of a premium on, on my time. The, it's very rare. Well, I have a, an evening phone call these days. Um, I'll still sit on my computer and on the couch next to my wife and as we're watching, so thing at night, and I'll be clearing up some emails or, or whatever.

Um, [00:49:00] but I'm not working wee into the hours. I'm not working past 11 o'clock at night. You know, I'm, I'm in bed at, at 11 o'clock, so that work-life balance, you know, they're still work at home, but it's not nearly what it was.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. Good. And what about, what about kids? You said, did you say you have three kids?

Matt Adler Raw: I have three kids. Yep,

Dino-Matt Raw: Three kids, and how old are they?

Matt Adler Raw: Uh, 18, 17 and, and 13.

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay. And

Matt Adler Raw: on me as much as they once did.

Dino-Matt Raw: yeah. Not as much as they used to but you.

Matt Adler Raw: I.

Dino-Matt Raw: So it, it, you know. The work-life balance is a struggle. Um, and, and the high stress of our job is a struggle. The demand, all that stuff. You know, I, I think about my, I got four, my two oldest kids didn't get the best of me. Um, you know, they were young when 2008 happened, [00:50:00] and then it was crisis mode and, you know.

Outside of that short window where there, there's just no work. So I got a little extra time. It, it was crisis mode and all I did was work to try and make everything come together again. And, and I, and I get bummed out sometimes 'cause you can't ever get those years back, you know? And, and I, I think through and I'm like, gosh, whenever I get a chance to talk to somebody, I al that's younger, that's kind of in that situation.

I always tell 'em like, you can never get those years back. And you know, I get it. You know, in my case, you know, my wife doesn't work. There is no option, right? Like, I have to work, I have to do this, I have to do that. But it doesn't mean you can't have boundaries. It doesn't mean you can't set, you know, realistic time blocking for your family as well.

You know, you, you don't call it time blocking, but. When you're off work, you're off work. And, and I always tell 'em, it's more [00:51:00] important to spend, to spend that time with your family, with your kids. They'll never, you know, they'll never forget the time you spent with them. So, um, hey, I, I, uh, I wanna kind of bring this to, to the end, but I got a couple last questions.

One, I just love asking, do you have a favorite book or books?

Matt Adler Raw: Um, I love exactly what to say by Phil Jones.

Dino-Matt Raw: Have you studied it like other outside of Reddit? Have you, like, do you put it into action?

Matt Adler Raw: Yeah. Um, I've got his planner right here. I've, uh, I went and did, went to, uh, a week seminar with him or,

Dino-Matt Raw: Oh, cool.

Matt Adler Raw: thing with him. So, yeah, as much as I can and reread the book every year at least.

Dino-Matt Raw: I, I did that. Uh, the, um, the Todd Bookspan and Debra Beard, they've kind of created their own little one for the mortgage industry, and I went and did that. And I, and I have to say, you know, I've been through so many different trainings and [00:52:00] stuff and, and I love that stuff, so it's fun for me. But this one wore me out.

It, it wore when I was done. I was just exhausted because it, it had, I had to think like hard the whole time, right? That we were roleplaying and doing various things and man, it is, you know, you, you, you're not used to it, and it's something brand new. So when I left, not only is I exhausted, but I was also so excited because it was truly something brand new that makes such a difference, right?

And. So, and what I need to do is go back and study it again. 'cause you, it's easy to fall into your old habits. But I love, I love saying this. Just imagine that was like one of my favorite ones that I pulled out of there. And I say it all the time now. Just imagine. So Bill Jones, great book. Exactly what to say.

Highly recommend that. Okay, last question. [00:53:00] You know everything, you know. You, I'm gonna take all your money, all that stuff. I'm gonna give you an allowance of just enough so you can't go like buy business or do all this stuff, right? Like you gotta, you gotta hustle and I'm gonna pick you up. I'm gonna remove you out of Michigan and out of a credit union and out of everything, and I'm gonna go put you in the middle of somewhere.

Let's just call it Ohio. I dunno if you know anybody on Ohio, but

Matt Adler Raw: I'm gonna say go blue. I would never wanna live in Ohio.

Dino-Matt Raw: Okay, but that's where I'm dropping you off and I can't, or you can't go see your family until you make a million bucks. What's the first thing you're gonna do? And you have to do it doing loans, of course. So tell me, tell me your game plan.

How are you gonna make a million bucks and how long is it gonna take?

Matt Adler Raw: I am gonna walk around to every open house that I can. I'm gonna talk to the realtors. I am gonna [00:54:00] find out I'm, I'm gonna figure out what that niche need is in that particular area. What are the realtors getting an abundance of and what are they lacking? And then I'm gonna be that guy and. Yeah, I will jump in.

I'll be the niche guy for whatever they need. I'll be, I'll be at the million and within the year.

Dino-Matt Raw: So, you know what I love? Is it, you go old school, like you just went straight up old school, you didn't talk about all the technology and all the things you were gonna implement, and all you're going to, you're gonna go hit up every open house, you're gonna go talk to every realtor, and here's the key.

You're gonna ask 'em what's working and what's not, and then you're gonna fill the void.

Matt Adler Raw: Exactly.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah, no, that was great, man. Um, anything left that I, I missed or that you wanna talk about?

Matt Adler Raw: Um, now just loan officers out there. The, the only other thing I, I wanna say to you um, don't be [00:55:00] afraid to embrace a new idea. Don't be over analytical about implementing the new idea. Jump in, try something new. Create that parachute in the air, you'll land, you'll be okay. But that's where success happens.

It's not dwelling and worrying about what could go wrong. It's making sure something goes right.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Matt Adler from, uh, the Michigan Lake, Michigan Credit Union, I think Federal Credit Union. Right.

Matt Adler Raw: Not federal. LMCU, lake Michigan Credit Union.

Dino-Matt Raw: Awesome. I really wanna appreciate your time here with me today. Say thank you for that because I know, uh, you're obviously a busy man and, uh, thank you for all your wisdom and just willing to, you know, be open about it.

So thank you.

Matt Adler Raw: You got it. Appreciate the invitation. It was fun.

Dino-Matt Raw: Yeah. Guys, if you're listening, you enjoyed it. Do us a favor. Make sure you comment, you like, or heck hard it, even, whatever, whatever, whatever your fancy is. But help us [00:56:00] out. We're trying to spread the word. I think what, you know, what I, what I'm, my goal with this show is to help other loan officers out there get to a place to realize like, Hey, Matt started just like everybody else on day one.

He didn't have any business. He worked his tail off. He got to where he needed to be, started eventually creating some systems and then, you know, found a niche product that other people didn't have and just got after it, never gave up, got derailed from what he said in 2008, and yet didn't give up. So just get after it.

Find the right people to associate yourself with and, and I promise you this is one of the best industries out there and I don't know, another one where you can make this kind of money. Just don't be so lazy that you're missing out on the opportunities. So love you guys. Thank you so much for coming.

We'll see you next time.