Impossible To Forget with Wade Betz

What separates the average loan officer from a top-producing mortgage advisor?

In this episode of The Way with Dino Katsiametis, Dino sits down with mortgage industry leader Wade Betz, a producer responsible for helping over 2,000 families, generating nearly $1 billion in mortgage volume, and building one of the industry's strongest client-retention systems. 

Rather than chasing the next transaction, Wade reveals how disciplined daily habits, structured prospecting, long-term client care, and consistent follow-up have created a business where 65% of his annual closings come from past clients.

This isn't theory.

It's a practical blueprint that every mortgage advisor, loan officer, broker, sales professional, and entrepreneur can implement immediately.

From creating a winning morning routine to leveraging YouTube, AI, SEO, CRM systems, annual financial reviews, and accountability tracking, Wade shares the exact strategies that have helped him build a sustainable business that continues to grow year after year.

If you're tired of constantly hunting for your next deal, this episode will completely change how you think about growing your business.

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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Learn more about Ethos Lending at ethoslending.com.  

Transcript

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Dino Wade Raw 1: [00:00:00] My man, Wade Betts. How are you?

Wade DINo RAW 1: I'm good, buddy. Thanks for having me

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah, man. So we, uh, we had some technical difficulties the first time, but here we are, and I just have this feeling it's gonna be even better because we had to like, you know, work at it here. So I'm excited to have you. Welcome to the show.

Wade DINo RAW 1: Thank you

Dino Wade Raw 1: Thank you. Tell everybody who you are personally and professionally

Wade DINo RAW 1: I love how you phrased that. So, uh, Wade Betts, uh, I've been in the mortgage industry since 2006. Uh, that's who I am, uh, professionally. I spent the first 14 years of my career in retail at, frankly, a wonderful, uh, mortgage company. I was lucky enough to be hired by a fantastic mentor. Uh, that man is one of the reasons why I give so much back to the community, 'cause I wouldn't be where I'm at if I didn't have people along the way that helped support me.

About, uh, uh, six years ago, uh, I got into the [00:01:00] broker side, uh, and then quickly fell in love with the correspondent side of being a broker, and it's been, um, just fantastic. So I'm a big, big fan of, uh, of that model specifically, but every model has its perks. So, uh, that's, that's the, the professional stuff.

I've done this 20-plus years. I've closed 2,000-plus, uh, families, uh, for nearly a billion dollars in volume. Uh, I'm currently, um, actively producing. I lead a, uh, large branch, uh, and I also am chief strategy officer leading all sales strategy for my, uh, my brokerage. So got my fingers in some pies. Now, personally, born and raised in New Orleans, okay?

Uh, I was an All-American swimmer in high school. That was back when I had cheekbones and, um, and, uh, th-those ships have sailed, my man. Trying to get them back. But, uh, but then I, I came to Dallas, [00:02:00] Texas, uh, to attend SMU. I was originally going to swim, but when I got here, all of the team was, like, wearing their gold medals from the Olympics, and it's like, "That's not me."

I was not gonna be on a Wheaties box. I didn't wanna be a swim coach, so I just-- I ended up not swimming in college and, um, just enjoyed myself. And then my wife, same thing except her sport was soccer, and they-- SMU was ranked, like, top five in the country or something at that time. And so, uh, she enjoyed her, uh, um, college experience.

Uh, we started dating in 1999, okay? So my kids tease us that, you know, we've been dating since the last millennium. Uh, but, uh, we, we were-- been married, uh, for... This is our 20th year this year. So we dated a couple years. Ann, thank you. She's put up with a lot. And, uh, and now we have two boys. Uh, they're basically 15 and 17, and they keep me on my toes, all right?

So they're quick to remind me that I peaked in high school . Whenever I talk about the swimming thing, it's [00:03:00] like, "Oh, okay." So, uh, but, uh, but I still live here in Dallas and, um, uh, actually go back and forth to New Orleans a decent amount, uh, to, to go see my folks 'cause my family's still down there. Like, I'm talking, like, French Quarter, French Quarter.

So it's, like, really fun to go, uh, to go see them

Dino Wade Raw 1: I heard it's just dirty over there, man. Like, in, in every aspect of what that word means.

Wade DINo RAW 1: You, you, you don't wanna wear open-toe shoes. We'll just leave it at that

Dino Wade Raw 1: I re- I've never been... I remember my wife went a long time ago before she was my wife, and, and she came back and she's like, "That makes Vegas look like child's play."

Wade DINo RAW 1: It can. It can. Like, uh, so I've, I've really not missed a Mardi Gras ever. Uh, I literally, I ride in the Mardi Gras, uh, float every year. Um, you know, back, back when I was a teenager, it was no big deal to throw like 1,000, you know, pitches essentially with the Mardi Gras beads. Now I come out of that, I basically need to have like my arm in a sling for like a week just [00:04:00] to recover.

So it definitely hits harder than it, than it used to

Dino Wade Raw 1: All right, so, so that's the, uh, the crazy side of what b- of, of, uh, bets that we don't know, but, but now we do. But here's what I heard. I heard we should be listening to you today 'cause you've done nearly $1 billion worth of business, and you run a, a big, you know, team, um, branch, right? But you also produce.

So there's a lot that's there, and I know firsthand that's very difficult to do, so I definitely wanna hear that. Um, heard you've been married a long time, which means you, you have longevity, um, and you're doing something right, because that is a very difficult thing, 

Wade DINo RAW 1: Yeah. Really 

Dino Wade Raw 1: that. Um, I heard that your wife puts up with a lot, but I don't know any wife that doesn't put up with a lot with a mortgage guy as her husband.

That, that, that is, in itself, a, a feat all itself. But the other thing is two boys. Uh, a little bit older. Yours are a little bit older than mine. I got two boys that are, uh, 11 and [00:05:00] 14. He just turned 14. And man, it is the craziest thing, right? Like, I'll still whoop their butt, and they're still afraid of me, but I can see them inching towards that, like, that moment they want to take me.

And my little guy, the, the older one now, he's, he's kind of over wanting to take me, like we're both pretty big now, but the little guy at 11, he still dreams of whooping my butt. And I'm like, "Dude, you try that one more time and I'm gonna take you down so hard, you're never gonna think about whooping your dad's butt again."

But he can't help himself. That testosterone is, like, flowing, man, and, and he wants it

Wade DINo RAW 1: Dino, I had, uh, it was the very beginning of COVID, so my oldest was 11 at the time. We went to a track to, like, run around the track, uh, 'cause my youngest son had a track meet, and I was like, "Dude, I don't know if I could beat like you, you... Like it's, it would be, it would hard for me to, to, to, to [00:06:00] win now."

Being kind to him. He literally looked me dead in the eye and said, "Dad, the only thing that you can dominate me at is paying taxes." It's like, like you're killing me. You're killing me.

Dino Wade Raw 1: That's great. That's great. All right, dude. So, so let's go because I got a ton of questions for you here. Um, what's the one thing you do best, maybe even better than most?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Uh, I would say it would have to be with my calendar management. Um, so if I pulled, uh, up my calendar right now, uh, you would see it's pretty dialed in specifically in the morning. So my, my mornings Monday through Friday start the exact same every single day, and I can just rattle this off for you really quick.

So like, uh, I have pretty big health goals. So like right now I'm waking up at 4:00 a.m. and I'm working out in the morning. Like, and that's usually like treadmill and maybe some, uh, weights, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm, I'm working [00:07:00] out in the morning, then I've got some, uh, buffer time in my calendar to, to basically get dressed and everything like that, have breakfast.

Uh, and then when eight o'clock rolls around, I have social selling in my calendar. So 8:00 to 8:30 is social selling. So I'm, um, putting out my social content. I'm doing, uh, custom happy birthday, uh, videos that I'm sending to people's, uh, private messages for all of my Facebook friends, and then I spend the rest of the time engaging with my audience.

From 8:30 to 9:00, I lead a breakfast club meeting for my company. Uh, essentially I rip that off from Carl White blatantly. So R&D is my favorite term, rip off and duplicate. So I talk about the theme of the day. We do some spot training. Like tomorrow I'm gonna be talking about, uh, a realtor prospecting playbook that I built for, for, for my, uh, for my branch that I'm gonna release to the whole company.

So like there's things like that that we'll do 8:30 to 9:00. And then from 9:00 to 11:00 it's Ring Master's Power Hour. [00:08:00] So Growth Only Coaching, they have Ring Masters on Monday. We do it every single day And, and you know what I find is that participation starts dropping as you start doing some of these higher level tasks.

So like we'll have dozens and dozens of people on Breakfast Club, but like usually single digit people on Ringmasters. And guess what? The people that are showing up to both in particular, but Ringmasters especially, guess what? They're growing their business faster than everyone else. What a shock. What a shock.

I tell you, I'm s- I'm just so surprised. But at 11 o'clock, that's the first time that I'm reacting to anything in my day. So no text messages, no, um, uh, private messages, uh, no emails, no phone calls. Like from 11 to 12 I'm reacting. So before that, like it's hard to get ahold of me. So like you could get through, you have my personal cell phone, but no one else does.

So like no one else is, is [00:09:00] getting through. I have my phone on do not disturb because I need to make my calls by noon. You know, the whole Todd Bookspan win by noon? Like if we don't win by noon, like we're in mortgage, the afternoon's gonna go haywire. And while my afternoons do sometimes tend to go haywire or I have a lot of meetings and stuff like this, like I don't schedule anything in the morning.

Mornings is just for the phone. Proactive phone work. So I'm pretty dialed in with my calendar, and it took me a long time to get there, and you don't have to be perfect. So for everyone listening to this, like just win three out of five days, you'll win the week. Win three out of four weeks, you'll win the month.

Win nine out of 12 months, you'll win the year. Like you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be consistent at it

Dino Wade Raw 1: 100%. 100%. So what is Breakfast Club and how long does it last?

Wade DINo RAW 1: It's just 30 minutes. So literally, uh, we'll go over the theme of the day. So every day of the week has a different theme, and I'll just rattle those off. So like Monday we're calling realtors, Tuesday we're [00:10:00] doing, uh, Tuesday updates, Wednesdays we're doing our pre-approved and looking calls, Thursdays we're doing past clients, and then Friday we're doing our centers of influence.

So I'll go over some scripting. Um, a lot of it is repetition and, and frankly, my words don't have to be your words, et cetera. So my whole point in all of this is just take some nuggets of what I'm saying and find the one thing that resonates with you that day, and then just go do it. And then a lot of times, like at the end of the day, I wanna talk about what they wanna talk about.

So like they'll have sometimes completely unrelated questions. Like one of my LOs asked me about teaching, uh, CE. So like I'm in Texas, I went through the effort of starting a CE school in Texas, so all of my Texas loan officers can teach CE under me. But he wanted to teach it in Florida. Well, I'm, I don't have a CE school in Florida, so I had to provide a different solution that exists.

There's like a setup fee and then you can get whatever class you want, um, added, but of course there's a fee to do that. [00:11:00] But it exists. There's, there's a third-party company that you can teach CE through, and so that's what I had to, to set it up. And he was disappointed that I didn't have a CE school. Well, guess what?

Like it's a pain in the butt to set up a CE school. I'm not gonna do that in all 50 states. Are you crazy? But for Texas, because this is where I'm, I'm at, like I have that. So I've got plenty of LOs that teach CE and I went through the process of getting 33 classes CE approved in Texas. So it's, it's a big piece of, of my prospecting is to be the subject matter expert.

And just for anyone listening that wants to do the same, I would tell you, map out a training calendar where you pick a topic per month, like a theme of the month, and your goal is to teach that class as many times as possible in that month. Pro tip, title companies are the best ones to, to help facilitate that.

Dino Wade Raw 1: And what's the remaster's power hour?

Wade DINo RAW 1: That, that's literally just a phone power [00:12:00] hour. So we're on a Zoom, um, we're muted, and we're just making dials and we put wins in the chat. So like, depending on what, what, uh, how the meeting starts,

Dino Wade Raw 1: so everybo- everybody's doing their calls and everybody's watching that you do your calls, but nobody can hear you

Wade DINo RAW 1: Correct. Yeah, and, and I'll do some scripting in the beginning if necessary, uh, but, uh, but really it's two hours of phone calls

Dino Wade Raw 1: Now, do you also make your phone calls during that time?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Yeah. Yeah, so the or- the order in which I make these calls, again, just for your audience here, I call leads first that I haven't had an initial consultation with, so they get called first. Then the theme day calls, then any other CRM calls that I, that I need to make. So leads, CRM... Sorry, leads, theme day, then CRM calls, and like birthday calls and stuff like that.

Like I call everybody for their birthday the day before. Like today I had four people having birthdays tomorrow that I called to wish them happy birthday. [00:13:00] Yesterday it was nine people, and so on and so forth, so it's a lot

Dino Wade Raw 1: You are one disciplined SOP. That's incredible. I love it

Wade DINo RAW 1: Hello Work, so you don't have to introduce yourself, uh, artwork behind me

Dino Wade Raw 1: Okay. So, um, another thing, you know, in talking with you prior, you, you were very proud of the fact, I think you said six- you have 65% retention rate with your, your client base

Wade DINo RAW 1: So 65% of my closings each year come from my past client database, and so I think it's imperative that loan officers have a rock solid post-client retention system, and that needs to be a combination of offense and defense. So, like, what I mean by that is, like, defense could be like a monitor-based type of a setup, uh, where you're monitoring your past client database for credit leads, like credit triggers, uh, or, uh, listing alerts where they listed their property for [00:14:00] sale.

So, like, I had one of those today, uh, where I got a listing alert. Well, guess what? They got a phone call. "Hey, just wanted to check in, see how everything's going, make sure you don't need anything." The funny part is if you-- Like, you don't wanna tell them, like, "Oh, I'm, I'm monitoring you." I-- Yeah, exactly. That's a little creepy, but, like...

So I, I don't approach it that way. But it's funny 'cause I know they listed their house, and it's funny when I get them on the phone, some of them like, "Oh, no, everything's good." Is it? Is it? So, but that's an example of defense. And before you ask, is that a credit trigger? I thought those were illegal. No, you've got an existing relationship with your client.

You can absolutely do that. So, so that's what I'm talking about playing defense. Uh, then there's services like, uh, Home IQ, uh, that will-- that's an offensive play. So that is a, uh, a service for all of you that know, uh, it'll send you a, a monthly, um, uh, CM... uh, uh, um, AMV. And so essentially what I... I [00:15:00] don't say that though.

I say, "Hey, I'm gonna set you up with this. It's gonna send you a monthly, um, uh, real estate wealth digest to help you track and grow your net worth within real estate." I think you'll love it. You know, if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe, but I'm gonna send it every month and it'll help you track how your property is performing.

And those open rates are 70, 80%. And Home IQ specifically, their, their data source, it also geo-fences your client so that if they happen to walk into an open house with their cell phone, you know about it. So if you wanna talk about getting ahead of the curve, and I'm talking about offense and defense, so you have a, a Home IQ where you're staying in front of them with the Real Estate Wealth Digest.

If they walk into an open house, you get notified. Usually they're walking in f- in an open house before they're listing their house or before they're going to [00:16:00] a, a, a lender. So you've got like a monitor-based type setup with the defense, and you've got like the, uh, Home IQ, uh, for the offense. You start mixing in, uh, happy birthday cards.

Okay? So like I used to do a, um, a handwritten birthday cards, and actually, let me be real with your audience here. My wife used to help me with this, okay? Because it was like 300 birthdays a, uh, uh, a month for me. Uh, and what I would do is I would put a $1 lotto ticket, a scratch-off in there, and I would put a postscript that says, "Shoot me an email at team@winningwithwade.com to let me know if you win."

No business cards or just a lotto ticket. Um, a lot of times they would email, and when they do, they usually are emailing from their best email address, and then you cross-reference that with your CRM to keep your CRM updated. The only problem with [00:17:00] that... Yeah, the only problem with that is the guy at 7-Eleven thought I had a gambling addiction, 'cause I would buy, you know, 300, uh, lotto tickets at a time, and it was, uh, it was rough.

But I stopped doing that, honestly. I can't even f- uh, my, my drawer's too full. Um, I, I stopped doing that only because I was getting so many of them returned. So even though I've got a really good dialed in post-closing client retention system, like people still move and don't tell us, okay? And so, uh, I got sick of, I don't know, maybe a third of my birthdays were, were coming back to me.

And you gotta remember too, I'm calling them as well. I call the day before. So on Mondays I call Monday and Tuesday's birthday. On Tuesday I call Wednesdays. Wednesday I call Thursday. Thursday I call Friday. Friday I call Saturday and Sunday. So my big heavy birthday call list are, are, are Monday and Fridays.

But I

Dino Wade Raw 1: I, I was gonna throw in, [00:18:00] um, I'm not really producing anymore. I mean, I still do some loans, I guess, but, but I don't actively produce. But when I was heavy into doing it, I also did the birthday thing and, and I went through so many different little things. The one I ended up doing that I actually loved the most, and it was the cheapest, was I, I bought these fake million dollar bills, and- Okay

they looked pretty good, right? But obviously it's a million dollar d- deal, it's fake. And, and I would send them one of those, and oftentimes, uh, you know, sometimes I know both the husband and wife equally, other times I really only talk to the husband. So if it was the wife's birthday, I would actually send it to the husband and I would say, "Hey, Bob, I, you know, I'm sure you remembered, but it's your wife's birthday, so just in case, I wanted to remind you.

And number two, stop being so cheap and buy her something nice. And don't tell her it was me." Right? And, and that always got them to call back, right? But [00:19:00] it was my humor. It was... And, and they knew that because they knew me, so it was easy to do. Right. But, but anyways, it, it's a touch, right? And, and it matters.

All of it matters. You gotta keep touching your clients.

Wade DINo RAW 1: I, absolutely. But I pivoted away from the handwriting, 'cause one, it took a lot of time, and it, it's expensive. I mean, it was card stock, the lotto tickets, et cetera. What I ended up doing though, uh, is using a company called, uh, they re- rebranded, so they're called Unique Lith- it's like a mouthful, Unique Litho.

Terrible name, I know. It's hard, it's hard to say. But the reason I use them is because they will take your list, they will cross-reference it with the, uh, Just Moved list from the post office, and that list goes back 18 months. And then they will send your, your, your mail to the correct email... Sorry, the correct address, and then they will give you the new address.

So then I take that and I send that to my virtual team, and I [00:20:00] have them update my CRM so that it stays as accurate as I can possibly make it. 'Cause we're in the data business, guys. Like, we need to protect our data and then leverage that data, uh, with activities for ROI purposes

Dino Wade Raw 1: So I think, I think that's so important. And, and the one thing I'll, I'll just add to that, right, is for all you guys listening right now, man, there is nothing worse than a CRM that is, it's got three jobs, right? Three jobs ago, or two wives ago maybe, right? Or something like that. It's like, come on, you guys, keep up on it, right?

And, and I've said it a million times to my people, like, "Why are you upset that they didn't call you when they bought this next house? Would you have called you?" Because-

Wade DINo RAW 1: I will tell you that's exactly what happened to me one time, um, when I-- This happened when I was in retail. The company I worked for serviced their loans and, and so I got a payoff, and so I called and I'm like, "Hey, what's going on?" [00:21:00] And I'm like, I was like, "Why didn't you call me?" And, and L- Dino, like, it was eye-opening.

He goes, "Why would I call you? I've literally never heard from you from closing." And, and, and he wasn't wrong. And so, like, it's these types of things when you get your nose bloodied where you're like, "I should do better." So, like, now I wouldn't even phrase it like, well, like accusatory, like, "Why didn't you call me?"

It's like, well, it's not their job to remember you. It's your job to make sure that they can't forget. So, like, what are you doing to proactively stay in front of them? You're still gonna lose people, and you've all heard the, the, the gurus are like, "Oh, you should, 10% of your database is moving every year."

And it's like, I've got 2,000-plus past clients. Do you think for a s- I'm not doing 200 closings a year. That would be fantastic. So, like, there's a delta that I need to, to bridge the gap and continue to try to do better and better with retaining my past client database. But guess what? Those, those mega servicing companies out there, the Mr.

Coopers of the world, they're gonna [00:22:00] make it harder and harder for us to do that. So if y- if, if you don't wanna continuously have to prospect for new opportunities, you have to love on the people that should already know, like, and trust you, 'cause you did your job the right way the first time, so they have no reason to not use you a second time unless you're out of sight, out of mind.

Dino Wade Raw 1: So, so let's talk about this, right? I mean, I, I read... You answered all my questions early before the p- the podcast, right? And I read through it, started dissecting a lot of it, and, and you said one of the things you're really good at is this post-close and, and maintaining a client base, right? So you play offense, you play defense.

I wrote that down 'cause I really love the, the concept of r- of that, right? Like, in order to win a game, you can't just be an offense guy, right? You gotta prevent the shot, the other shots from coming in. So, so really, really cool there. Those are all little, little touches that are, are necessary, but they're not the big touches.

What else do you do to [00:23:00] maintain that and to, to say that 65% of your closed loans come from your past database? There's gotta be bigger, bigger than that, right, throughout the year. So i- if you want, you can walk me through, a loan just funds today. What happens for the next 365 days?

Wade DINo RAW 1: So loan closed today, um, you're gonna get a first Thursday phone call. Let, let me back up even further. 'Cause I don't attend my closings, okay? So you're gonna get a call from me the day after. Wanted to check to see how everything went. That's a lot of documents to throw at you all at once. Do you have any after-the-fact questions for me?

They almost never do, but if they do, answer it, and then the next thing out of your mouth is, "Thank you so much for trusting me. I really appreciate it. If I could ask a favor, I'm trying to get as many five-star Google reviews as I possibly can. If I send you a link, would you mind putting some kind words together for me?

It would really mean a lot to me and my family." So everything, every single word I said there was very intentional. [00:24:00] Like, the whole mean a lot to me and my family, I literally want them thinking of, like, my kids with, like, the porridge bowl, with, like, the, "Please, sir, can you put a review in the bowl? Can I have more?"

Like, that's what I'm looking for here. So, like, but a-again, I'm not, I'm not naive. Like, not every file goes well. So I don't wanna automate the review process, 'cause let's be honest, sometimes you break a few eggs. Like, I've got a, a file going right now. We're doing everything we can to, to save it, and I'm not gonna be asking her for, for a review after the fact.

But, uh, but, you know, most of your files should go well, okay? 'Cause you did a good intake interview. You fully documented the file

Dino Wade Raw 1: Let me, let me pause, let me pause there real quick. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask a couple things, then I wanna get back to the, 

Wade DINo RAW 1: Okay, go for it 

Dino Wade Raw 1: campaign, right? But y- you, you call personally or do you have somebody call for that?

Wade DINo RAW 1: No, no, me

Dino Wade Raw 1: No, no, me. You. Now, let me ask this question, [00:25:00] 'cause a lot of producers, they hand it off in the beginning, they don't stay all that involved.

Sometimes they make a call in between, whatever it might be. Here's my viewpoint. Do you deserve the right to call them and ask them for that? And when I ask that question, I ask it because did you create a relationship with them from that first time to, to, to that day, or did somebody else on the team handle everything and now you're just coming in for the, "Hey, thanks for get- putting some money in my pocket.

You mind giving me a five-star review?" Like, what makes you think you deserve it?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Uh, so to, to be clear, like I'm still involved in my files. Uh, I-- But again, full disclosure, like where I was 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, like it's evolved over time. So I take far fewer initial phone calls that leads come in than, than I ever have. Um, my team captain, I've literally worked with her for 15 years, um, she takes a lot of those.

A lot of those. So [00:26:00] she's Loan Officer Wade while, while I am actually Branch Manager Wade, Chief Strategy Officer Wade, you know, Broker Action Coalition. Like, you know, the, the wearing the different hats. So she, she handles a lot of stuff that comes in. So, um, but like if I'm taking the le-lead intake, I believe a loan officer has four main jobs on the first leg of the, of the loan relay race: make the phone ring, have the initial hopes and dreams conversation, nurture that lead to complete the application, and then hand up the file to your pre-approval team so that they can execute well.

And what I mean by that is like the, the first time the client and partner learn that there's another cook in the kitchen shouldn't be when that person calls to introduce themself. Like the, the, the loan officer has to set it up for success. They need to make notes in the file. Now, I don't want them to really do anything once the application is [00:27:00] received.

That's the pre-approval team's job. Some LOs want to do it all themselves, others don't. I don't care who does what on which team in my, in my, um, under my umbrella. I just care that the origination team turns in a complete file, and the litmus test for that, I got this from Scott Groves, strive for five. So I want five or fewer borrower-facing conditions when the file comes out of underwriting

Dino Wade Raw 1: Okay, so you do deserve it. You have a system. We'll move past that. You've made the call. You get your Google review. You have your, a, a, a picture of your kids all dirty and poor looking and skinny and- Yeah ... needing a little extra funds. Okay, got that. Yeah. What, what happens after that? Walk me through this process.

Wade DINo RAW 1: So the, immediately after the, the closing, they get the post-closing honor call. So it's a real gratitude call. Then, uh, I say, "Hey, I'm gonna stay in touch as this [00:28:00] kinda turns into the first payment. Uh, so, um, uh, I'll, like, I'll just, I'll be in touch." They get a first Thursday call after that. "Hey, I just wanted to check in.

Uh, I-- you got closed last week. Um, wanted to make sure if still nothing came up. Do you need anything from me?" "No." "Great. Thank you again for your willingness to lead me..." Like, whatever it is. Like, you get... That Thursday call sets up what the next 30 years look like. So you, you need to make sure that they know that they're gonna get a monthly real estate wealth digest, that, that you're going to invite them to an annual financial review each year.

Okay? So when you're asking, like, what the steps are, like if you just did a home IQ report, that's better than nothing. That's way better than nothing. But if you can do that and make a happy birthday call, that's great. If you can do that and offer an [00:29:00] annual financial review, that's even better. Notice, Dino, I didn't say mortgage review.

No one with a 3% interest rate wants a mortgage review, but everyone with a 3% interest rate needs a, a financial review. And if you really stop and think about it, what, about a third of America has a financial planner in their life or some kind of financial professional, but two-thirds of America has a mortgage, like, uh, uh, owns real estate.

So, like, loan officers need to realize that we could be the, by far the most qualified financial person in that client's life, and w-we are on the opposite side of the financial advisor coin. They're in the asset management business, we're in the liability management business. So that annual financial review, that is the secret to m- retaining clients, and you will be shocked at how many referrals you will be able to give out to your partners.

Like, think like an estate planner, uh, homeowners insurance reviews, uh, life [00:30:00] insurance. It's like, just there's a lots of referrals outbound that you can, uh, offer, and then they in turn then feed you. So you might not get direct business from an annual financial review, but you'll be able to refer out so much business that you become indispensable to your partners, and then that's, they, they then feed you more

Dino Wade Raw 1: So I want to, uh, I'm gonna dwell for a minute on your annual financial review, but I don't wanna leave too much of that gap missing before I get there, 'cause I wanna dwell on that when I, when, when we get there. In between, what does that process look like other than the, the monthly automated email from, uh, My Home IQ?

Do you have any other touch points that are super important?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Three six-month touch points, uh, nothing special, honestly. Uh, do you know, I would love to sit here and tell you that I can do the letters of the alphabet, um, and that's, you know, you [00:31:00] sort your past client database by last name, and you call the A's and B's this week, the C's and D's next week, so on and so forth.

That'll give you four extra phone calls a year. I don't have the bandwidth to do that, 'cause I've got thousands of past clients. I would literally have to hire a dialer, uh, whose sole job is to do that. And I've got friends that they, they do have that. Um, it's part of their post-client retention, uh, system.

That's just not where I'm at. So I'm, I'm doing a first Thursday call. I'm setting them up with the Homebot HomeIQ. I'm touching base with them, uh, with a birthday call. I do a birthday postcard. If a defensive opportunity pops up to where I can, um... They listed their home or their, their credit score got where they, they want it to be or need it to be, uh, maybe that I'm looking out for their, uh, interest rate, just whatever it could be.

Like, there's some manual pieces [00:32:00] to this, but by and large, there's, there's still room for improvement. I don't want your audience to think that, oh, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's just way better than most people do.

Dino Wade Raw 1: Sure. And, and I'll throw, I'll throw one in, one thing in there. I don't know if you do it or not, but my recommendation, uh, for anybody listening right now is, you know, everything Wade is talking about, you should absolutely do. If I could add one thing to it, is for a little bit of offense, at the very beginning, bef- before you even close on, you know, with that, with that client, you let them know through all these expectations of what they can expect of you.

And, and I would tell them upfront that, you know, they're gonna get, at the end they're gonna get this tool. It's gonna, it's gonna keep and monitor their home value. S- super important that you open it up. If you ever see anything wrong with it or you see anything kind of like, you know, the, the value's not there, make sure you call me.

Um, and then finally, every year you can [00:33:00] expect this out of me like clockwork, we're gonna do a financial review. And you explain to them what that entails upfront. And, and then when that time comes, it's not a big surprise to them, right? Because you told them that at the very beginning. So you guys li- listen to that, right?

Because it's important You, first of all, if you're gonna say you're gonna do something, what's the number one thing you need to do?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Yeah. Yeah

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah ... I personally am the type of person where if I tell somebody I'm gonna do something, then I do it on purpose, 'cause that forces me to do it, 'cause then I feel like a real jackass if I don't.

So, so make a habit of telling everybody what working with you means for the next 30 years, and I, and I, I say that because you said something, Wade, that I love, and- Mm-hmm ... and I think it's how we all need to be thinking. You said, "What does the next 30 years look like?" And all too often, mortgage advisors, right, a- and, and I say this a lot, loan officers have a job, mortgage advisors have a career.

A loan officer [00:34:00] doesn't think 30 years out. A true mortgage advisor starts thinking 30 years out. "How am I going to help this family get that house paid off?" Not, "How am I going to, you know, obligate them to more money constantly," right? Work with them so they know what your goal is for them, and they'll never, ever want to leave

Wade DINo RAW 1: So what, what I'll tell people is that, um, because what you just said is, is true. Like your value proposition, uh, really should be, "I need your retirement to be better off because of me rather than in spite of me." I can't just shackle you with this giant debt and then not stay in touch to help you proactively manage that debt.

So you're gonna have changes along the way that I need to be involved with. Maybe you wanna buy a second home, maybe you need to consolidate debts, maybe you need an introduction to an estate planning attorney. Like, that's who I'm personally networking with. CPAs, financial planners, estate, uh, attorneys, uh, family law attorneys.

Like, I'm gonna let the real estate [00:35:00] agent worry about the painter and the fence guy and the roofer. Like, I'm not spending my, my, my networking time with those individuals. I-- Even when that comes up, and it does, I'm using that as an opportunity to tag the real estate partner in to make them look good. But I'm gonna spend my time post-closing making sure their retirement is better off because of me

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah, I love that. Um, I'm looking for this thing you said. You, you do something, uh, like some sort of a tracker, right?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Oh, a sales activity? I got it right here. Hold on. You'll, you'll die.

Dino Wade Raw 1: Tell, tell us about the sales activity tracker

Wade DINo RAW 1: So I've, I've done this every day of every week of every month of every year for over 11 years, and to show you that I'm not full of, uh, full of it, I keep all of them, and I got this out of my closet. So, like, it's literally, it's every single one, literally going back to 2015, January of 2015.[00:36:00] 

So I, I pull that out for dramatic effect, of course, and, uh, just a couple things. Like, do you think for a second I like doing that? Hell no. It is, it is, it is a terrible exercise, but you know what I do like? The paychecks that come from it. Okay? So the, the, the document, this... And this is my own creation, so, like, it's, it's a, an amalgamation of all the coaching I've received over the last decade.

The front page is, like, the old school stuff, face-to-faces, breaking breads, talk tos, thank you cards, et cetera. Okay? You should spend 80% of your time on this. If you can't write it on the form, you should do as little of it as possible. All right? The backside Is the social media side. So how many reels on Facebook are you posting, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn?

How many friend requests are you making with realtors [00:37:00] and referral partners? How many comments are you engaging on stories in the feed? How many blog posts are you doing for SEO purposes? How many Google reviews are you getting? How many long-form YouTube videos are you doing? So on and so forth. This is a giant pain in the butt too, okay?

But I think where loan officers get... Yeah. I think where loan officers get confused is they think that social media is gonna be the, the, the cure for mortgage cancer, and it's not. It's a great branding tool, but you shouldn't spend more than 20% of your time on social media. 80% of it needs to be the telephone and face-to-face.

Face-to-face is the, the engine of your business. The telephone is the gasoline, so you need to put gas in the car to make it go. But social media is great to build your personal brand. So you can see Winning with Wade. Your- you've got your ethos, uh, brand right there front and center. That's the brand. [00:38:00] So I find, and this is just my truth, my experience, your experience could be different.

My experience is that short-form content, it leads to great branding, um, uh, general awareness, and some business. But if you want real leads direct from consumer, it's all about YouTube. It's all about YouTube. You gotta do long-form YouTube com- uh, content. Uh, at this point, I'm about two years into doing two long-form YouTube videos per week on my channel, okay?

I take the transcripts of those videos, and I use AI to help me create SEO-optimized blog articles. So when you stop and think about it, I look really good to the, to AI, to the internet, to Google. I show up in chat. Like if you, if you search right now, you know, it could change in the future, but if you search right now, best, uh, mortgage broker in Dallas, I [00:39:00] show up.

If you search for that on Google, I show up in the three-pack. You know how hard it was for me to get to the three-pack of Google natively? So it takes... It's, uh, like that took years of getting five-star Google reviews consistently, uh, having a fully optimized Google Business Profile, being an active participant on YouTube.

And so, like I've got friends, they're five and six years in to doing two long-form videos per week on YouTube. Da-da,

Dino Wade Raw 1: Num- number three on Google, buddy. Good for you. In all of Dallas, Texas. That's awesome

Wade DINo RAW 1: Exactly. So, um, but it's hard. I'm not gonna sit here and, and say it's, it's, it's easy to do. It takes consistency. So my, my goal is to post at least 45 times across all my platforms, okay?

So, like, whether that's, you know, that, the reel that I put on Facebook personal can go on Facebook [00:40:00] business, can go on TikTok, can go on, uh, Instagram, and it can go on, uh, uh, possibly YouTube Shorts. So one video can be five posts. You know, one story on Facebook can also go on Instagram. So you do that seven days a week, that's 14 pieces of content You get where I'm going with this?

So, like, you can repurpose a lot of it, but, like, the one YouTube video I can then turn into a blog article and just over and over again. So like I, like I said, I've, I've got friends that are further down the road than I am with my YouTube project, and like s- like my b- one of my good friends that has way far ahead of me, he did 30-plus million dollars of business from his YouTube channel last year.

Like I, I didn't do-- I didn't come close to that. So like I'm not above being jealous of other people's businesses. The difference is I'm willing to put in the work to get there. But make no mistake, that YouTube play, that is the five-year thing. So the people mistake, uh, the, the mistake people make with social is that they, they want it to be an [00:41:00] immediate ROI, and it's not.

It's, it's, it takes a lot of time to have that really move the needle for revenue, which is why the phone is so important. So that sales activity tracker, that's the hill I die on, okay? So, um, the, the loan officers that I know that do that consistently, and I mean that every week, they're, they're having higher highs and higher lows in their business.

The ones that do it occasionally are the ones that have occasional success, and the ones that fight me on it are the ones that are complaining to me about their lack of results. And it's just, I'm, I'm polite about it, but it's like, "Don't complain to me about results you're not getting from work you're not doing."

Okay? So like if, if you're doing, if you're coming to me for like coaching and whatnot, I'm gonna ask to see your last four weeks of sales activity, and if you tell me, "Oh, well, I don't have it," like how do I even know you're, you're making the effort? So [00:42:00] like attitude and effort are the only two things that you can control.

My wife tells me that all the time. So have a good attitude. There's opportunity everywhere, all right? And then effort, and we track the effort with the sales activity tracker. So if you're not even tracking the sales activity, how do I know that you're even making the effort? Like show me that you're making the effort, then it can be a coaching thing, who you're targeting, what are you saying.

Then we can get strategic with it. But if I, like... Uh, and most LOs don't even put in nearly the amount of effort that they need to to move the needle

Dino Wade Raw 1: How many, um, actually be- before I ask the next question, that sales tracker document, is that proprietary or are you willing to share it?

Wade DINo RAW 1: No. I s- I send that out to everybody that'll listen, and it's literally like a combination of, like, the core growth-only coaching and, like, uh, and, uh, the Freedom Club. I've even added, like, a line at the bottom for, like, physical activity, just yes or no stuff. Like, did you take a

Dino Wade Raw 1: send that to me? And if, and you guys, anybody that's interested, go to our website, dinokatsiamatis.com. I know that's a [00:43:00] mouthful. Just Google Dino The Way podcast. You'll, you'll end up there. And just go to Wade's section. You'll see, I'll have a PDF in there for you. You can just download it, okay?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. And, and it evolves. I, I tweak it from one year to the next depending on kind of what's going on

Dino Wade Raw 1: And, and, and now I wanna try tying this together because the sales tracker, uh, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I would imagine some of the things you have to do in there that you force yourself to do are a big part of w- why you have such a, a, a great repeat business, right? Like, why you get so many referrals from your past clients.

Is there a piece in there where you gotta call clients, you gotta call realtors, you gotta call... Like, what, what is... What's, what's the... What would you say, and I know it's a combination, but out of all of the things in there, um, o- of the 80% side, right, 20% was social, 80% was phone calls, what does that look [00:44:00] like?

Wade DINo RAW 1: It's hard, uh, honestly. So all of us

Dino Wade Raw 1: for everybody listening right now, scratch that out of your mind. It's not hard. It's super easy. And, and more importantly, it'll make you a lot of money.

Wade DINo RAW 1: It, it will make you a lot of money. So where it starts is honestly, uh, the Sunday evening routine. So every Sunday I have on my calendar, if I showed you my ideal, uh, uh, perfect week at a glance right now, you have Sunday afternoons. That's when I'm doing, uh, my Sunday eve-evening routine. I'm previewing, uh, uh, the week ahead and reviewing, uh, the week prior.

So it, it helps keep me straight. Uh, I'm making sure I have all my call list ready to go. Um, if the weeks, the weekends where I don't do a Sunday evening routine, the next weeks really suffer. So the, the, the weeks that I do a Sunday evening routine, I start the week off good with on Monday, and then [00:45:00] Monday sets the tone for the rest of the week.

So, so you wanna win the day, you gotta win it by noon. You wanna win the week, you gotta win Monday. So that, that's what I would say. So having your call list made is the hardest part, and that, like, that's where I start with loan officers that come to me in- in- internally. Like, "Where do I start?" You start with your list.

Every single coaching that I've ever been a part of, just so you, like y'all know, it's the same six things, okay? They put all their little spins on it, but it's the same six things. Have a list of people to call. Call the list. Look to top grade the list, so the quality of people that are on the list. Pair it with theme days.

Track your sales activity, and then build a team to cater to your business and life If you wanna add a seventh, I would say build a personal brand and, like, content create. But, like, it's all the s- like, uh, [00:46:00] all of it's the same stuff. So the knowledge is out there, guys. The internet's a great place. You got AI now.

It-- The knowledge is, is free. It's the accountability that typically costs you, and it's a price that most people aren't willing to pay. That's why I get so much resistance to tracking sales activity

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah. You know, man, um, I, I'm listening to all this stuff, right? And it reminds me of a story. I, I just interviewed Josh Metal not too long ago, and, um, he told me something, I don't know, 15 years ago now. And, and I asked him one day, I called him up one day and I'm like, "Hey man, how do you always do so much volume?"

Right? Like, "Can you... Can I pick your brain?" And, and he told me... Well, first everything he told me, I was like, "I do that, I do that, but like, he's crushing me. So what is it I'm not doing?" Well, here's what it was. Every day for two hours, he would make outbound phone calls, and if somebody was hot, he wouldn't necessarily stop.

He'd get back to them. Somebody wanted to re- he'd get back to them. He just kept calling and calling and calling, right? And I finally did it, [00:47:00] and man, I made $25,000 that day. That day, just by making outbound phone calls for two hours. And, and as difficult as my mind made it out to be, I actually really enjoyed it because I got a chance to reconnect with people that I, I enjoyed, right?

Realtors, "Hey man, I, I like you. You're giving me business. Like, why don't I w- want to talk to you more often?" Right? Clients, they were actually really happy to hear from me. Why? Because I was so personal with them during the transaction. I became like family to them. In their eyes, I helped them get into their home.

It's a big deal, you guys. Don't ever undersell what you do for a living. And, and keep in touch with these people. They are, they are your book, they're your portfolio. And yeah, I interviewed, um, um, Eric Levin from Model Match, and, and I loved how he, you know, how [00:48:00] he p- you know, personalized it by saying, "This is your portfolio.

It's your portfolio." It's not your database, it's, it's your portfolio, man. Like, these are your clients, and, and the second you stop acting like that is the second you lose your clients. They go somewhere else. So love all of that and, and I can't wait to get my hands on that sales tracker. Uh, and I wanna share it out with everybody.

A- and you know, heck guys, I would say do me a favor, email me or Wade, and if you want us to, to either pat you on the butt or, or give you a punch in the face, we will do it for you. Why? Because both of us care. Both of us actually want to see everybody in this industry succeed. And, and if you need a little, a little push or a, a punch in the face, I'm willing to do that for you.

If you need a pat on the butt, like great job- Yeah ... words of affirmation is your love language, I'll do that for you too. But the point is, is [00:49:00] do it. You gotta have motion. You gotta have activity. Without it, there's no chance of ever getting anything

Wade DINo RAW 1: Yeah. I've got a couple people, um, a handful of people actually, that are outside of my, um, company that send me their sales activity tracker on a regular basis. Some of them much more regularly than my own team. Okay? So it is, uh, it, it... That's the secret, guys. The, the, the hill I will die on is if you, if you can measure it, it can be improved.

The, the sales activity tracker, it's not a fun exercise, but do you think for a second I would've done that every single week for over a decade if they didn't have results? So if you wanna make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, if not millions of dollars a year, track your sales activity. If you don't want that, well then don't.

It's okay. Be inconsistent

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah. You know what else too, uh, after hearing you talk about all this, um, I think it's important to, to say your sales activity tracker, [00:50:00] 80% telephone calls and, like, connection with people, 20% is social media. I'm gonna venture out to say that the majority of the loan officers out there are going to pick the 20% as what they're gonna get most hyped up about, because it, it's gonna appear to be easier.

I, I'm gonna tell you firsthand that it's not. It is so much harder. Yes, it's super easy to put a stupid post up today. Yes, it's super easy to maybe even, like, you know, share a video or create something. But, but Wade nailed it when he talked about consistency. And, and I'm not talking about a week, right?

Wade said five years on YouTube. Five years, you guys. But I can tell you this, un- unless you're already 60 years old, five years will come and go pretty quick, so get started today. Best time to plant a tree was, was 25 years ago. If that didn't happen, you know, yesterday. If that didn't happen right now, no time to waste.

Plant that tree. [00:51:00] Start the process. But if you plant a, a seed and you water it, and then all of a sudden you forget about it, if it's not mature enough, guess what? It's dying on you. It's the same exact thing. This is what your business is. You plant a seed, you water it, you nurture it, you start pruning it a little bit at some point, 'cause that's super important.

If you don't prune your business, at some point you end up getting bogged down with stupid shit and, and that keeps you from growing. So I think that's super important. Then every once in a while, you gotta throw a little fertilizer in there. You gotta go and talk to it, give it a little love. That's what you do with your clients, that's what you do with your realtors, that's what you do with your CPAs, your financial planners, your attorneys, right?

Like, that's how you grow a business. I used to have a coach and he said, "Stop picking fruit. Start planting trees. Pretty soon you're gonna have your own orchard." Like, that's, that's how you grow and, and keep a thriving business and keep it sustainable. So man, I, I really [00:52:00] loved talking with you today. Uh, but, but you're not done.

I got a few more questions for you, and then you're done.

Wade DINo RAW 1: Hit me up

Dino Wade Raw 1: Here we go. All right. So first question, pretty basic. What's your favorite book?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Business book? Um, I have really liked the coffee bean piece. I actually, I have it right here on my desk, actually, ironically enough, because I've read it recently. I like that a lot. Uh, that speaks to me because if you are trying to improve your environment, that's the easiest way to, to visualize it. So, uh, just for those of you that haven't read it, I'll give you the 10-second, uh, synopsis here.

So the author, uh, was sentenced to prison. Before he went in, he asked around, uh, for what to expect, and basically the metaphor here is that prison is a bo- a pot of boiling water. There's three things that, that are gonna go into the pot. A carrot goes in hard, comes out soft. [00:53:00] An egg goes in soft, comes out hard.

A coffee bean goes in and improves the environment around it. So Dino, you're the coffee bean for your audience. You're trying to improve their environment. You're the, the coffee bean for your family, for your friends, for your coworkers, for your referral partners. So if more of us went through life being the coffee bean, the world would be a much better place.

So that's the book that I, I've, I've loved the most, uh, recently, and I've gotten the chance to meet, uh, Damon West, uh, twice now, and he's awesome. Ironically, his, his crimes happened like walking distance from my house, so every time, uh, I see him, he's had a pretty funny quip about, "Ah, yes, I know your neighborhood well." I'm sure you do

Dino Wade Raw 1: man, is I ended up, um, uh, when we were at Growth Con, I ended up meeting him. I ended up having lunch with the guy, and he's such a nice guy. You know? He's, he is such a nice guy. So, uh, [00:54:00] it's one of my favorite books, um, as well. Uh, and it's such an easy read, right? So if you're not a big reader, it's fine.

You can read this thing or listen to it. It's, uh, I think it's like 20 or 30 minutes. That's it. I actually had my kids listen to it, and, you know, and, and it gave us something to talk about and explain to them, like, "Hey, man, the world is hard. Everything about it. You think school is a pot of boiling water?

Just wait." But it's your choice, right? It's your choice what you do with it. So great book. Thank you for that recommendation. Um, now the million dollar drop. I'm gonna pick you up, I'm gonna drop you off somewhere in the United States where you don't know anybody. You have all the knowledge you have, but you don't have your database, right?

And I'm gonna keep you from seeing or talking to your family. No more Mardi Gras for you. No more nothing, man. You gotta, you gotta make a million dollars doing loans before you can see your family or go back to [00:55:00] Mardi Gras

Wade DINo RAW 1: Gotcha. So I think that realtors are gonna be the fastest path to that answer, okay? I think there's three core strategies to do this, with a fourth one, uh, which I'll touch on at the very end. Um, so that's gonna be the right now money is at the other end of a telephone. But if you're putting me in a brand new place with, with no brand, no nothing, I would focus on the telephone, again, the 80%, but I would also start filming content to, to establish a presence in that local market.

So I would do both, but it's 80/20. So the 80%... You gotta, you wanna add something there?

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah, I, I was gonna say, um, you know, I agree 'cause nobody knows you, so you gotta, you gotta, it's actually an opportunity. I, I always tell everybody, ask yourself how do you want [00:56:00] everybody to perceive you?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Right

Dino Wade Raw 1: And, and think, think about that, right? Like, it's an important question. How do you want everybody to perceive you?

And then create content around that so that when somebody looks you up, man, that's, that's what they see. They don't see some goofball out at the river with a bunch of thongs next to them, right? Like, who's gonna, who's gonna trust that person to get a loan from?

Wade DINo RAW 1: Exactly.

Dino Wade Raw 1: Anyways, go ahead.

Wade DINo RAW 1: no, you're, you're exactly right. Let me, let me go down that rabbit hole for just a second. So if you go to my Instagram channel @WinningWithWade, what you will see on that grid is, like, educational content with reels, uh, quote reaction videos, testimonials, and then lifestyle posts. Okay? So the, the, the business content shows you I'm competent and good at what I do, and the lifestyle content makes me likable as a person.

So, like, if you take a deep dive into my Instagram, you'll see I absolutely love my wife. We go on dates all the time. I spend time with my kids, [00:57:00] even if they roast me like we're at a, a Kevin Hart roast. It's, it's just brutal. Um, we go to sporting events a ton. We go to the movies a lot. We go out to eat.

And then all of my, uh, charity work, uh, is, uh, veteran related. So I got my why right over my, my shoulder here. So that's who I am as a person, so I'm attracting people that like that. If I was putting, like, just wild political rants or religious things or just bizarre stuff out there, I'm gonna alienate a ton of people.

But if you're like a family man that likes, uh, animals and kids and sports and just... Like, it just, it attracts more people to me. So that's what I would, uh, say. Like, if you drop me in a brand new place, I'm gonna create some content. I'm gonna target the top producing agents on social, especially on social.

But then I'm gonna, uh, focus 80% of my effort on the telephone. Your whole goal, if you're dropped in a new city, is to pick up the phone and try to book as [00:58:00] many face-to-face appointments as possible. That's it. That's the only reason you're calling is to book a face-to-face appointment, and I would do it in one of three ways, and that turns into a fourth way.

So I would do a FSBO strategy. So basically call FSBOs and basically offer to pre-approve any interested buyer. Ask them if they are open to paying a, a buyer's agent commission if, uh, if a buyer's agent brings a buyer to the, to the property. So now you've got a potential lead you can send a buyer's agent, and then eight out of 10 FSBOs end up selling with a realtor anyway.

So what you're angling is to be able to give an opportunity to a realtor. So FSBOs one, stale listing strategy second, so properties that are on the market for 40 days or more. And just to be clear, in the area that you wanna work, at the price point that you wanna work. Perhaps you can even target, uh, uh, [00:59:00] qualified listing agents that have six or eight or more buyer sides under their belt over the last 12 months.

So you can get, like, really dialed in if you've got, like, a reader or an MMI or Modex or something like that, Model Match. So, like, stale listings, though, and I would offer to, uh, provide a one-year, uh, interest-- uh, sorry, one-year temporary rate buydown as an incentive. So, like, for me and, and with some of the lenders that I have that offer that, like, that's gonna cost me seven-eighths of a point.

So I would make seven-eighths of a point less comp if I did that. But Dino, like, I've been, um, in, in the mortgage industry for 20-plus years. I can count on both hands how many times I've been brought in by the listing agent on a buyer on a file. In almost every instance, it's because the buyer's original lender dropped the ball so bad that the seller or listing agent is like, "I'm-- we'll only entertain an extension if you call Wade."

Well, so for me, I'm making seven-eighths of a, uh, of a point [01:00:00] less comp, but that's found money for me. So I am happy to do-- I'll do that all day long. I will be happy to, uh, stroke small checks for the, uh, to, to collect the big ones. So that's the second strategy. The third strategy is an open house strategy.

So if I was a br- even a brand-new loan officer, I would tell someone, "Work up to the point where you're making 200 dials per week. I want you to attend one industry event per week minimum." So think happy hour, chamber meeting, title company event, builder open, rotary club, BNI group, just something where you're around a large group of people that could be potential referral partners.

So at least one of those a week. And then the last thing I would do is that third strategy, which is open houses. I would go to seven open houses per weekend for the first three years of my career. Seven open houses a week is 100 realtors in 100 days. And again, if you wanna get really, uh, selective, you can start talking about the stale listing ones or the ones where the listing agent is, uh, a qualified agent, [01:01:00] meaning six or eight or more buy sides under their belt.

So once you get enough activity on that and you meet face-to-face, for every 30 of those that you're targeting, you'll probably meet with 10. Of the 10, you'll get referrals from two. So 30 dials, and you're not gonna call once, just so we're clear too. You're calling 12 weeks in a row. So 12, 12 weeks of calls.

So of the 30 people, you'll meet with 10, you'll get referrals from two. If you've got a great 12-week follow-up system after the face-to-face meeting, instead of two out of 10 that you meet with getting referrals from, you'll get four out of 10 referrals. So if you're brand new, you got nothing but time, so the, it's an effort thing.

So once you've got the, the relationship, referrals are coming in, you've got some pre-approvals, and now you get a clo- uh, uh, something under contract, that's where the fourth piece comes in, and that's where you start using the transaction as [01:02:00] your audition. So the Tuesday update then becomes the most important theme day of the week, because now you're auditioning to the listing agent that you don't have a relationship with.

Now you've been putting out content on social, building a brand. Hopefully, they know of you, and now you're wowing them, and you basically use the transaction to get into a relationship. It's a translationship Okay? And so, and then the more closings that you do, the more at-bats you have, the less of the other stuff that you have to do.

So there's a, there's a loan officer, uh, Robin LeVasseur. She's unbelievable. Great, great human being, too. She converts such a large percentage of her listing agents into referral partners that it's f- it's unheard of. Like, it, it puts me to shame with it. So, like, the more business you do, your value proposition can be your client experience.

And the-- my, my favorite [01:03:00] acronym is CARE: create a referable experience. So if you care, you'll get CCR referrals, you'll get introductions to other people, you'll get Google reviews, and you can only do that if you sweat. Same way every time

Dino Wade Raw 1: I'm writing that down. Create a referable what? Experience

Wade DINo RAW 1: Create a referral experience. In order to do that, you have to sweat same way every time, which means you have to have systems which stand for saving you stress, time, energy, and money. So w- we've got to have those things in place, and honestly, there's a great, uh, video that Tim Behrend did like a decade ago, he's since updated it, called "The Perfect Loan Process."

Like, every single loan officer to watch that video, grab the transcript from, uh, throw it into AI, and, like, just craft your own perfect loan process. And so, like, the whole raving fan thing of what's your ideal process, what's the client's ideal process, merge them together and then add 1%, like, that's what we are shooting [01:04:00] for

Dino Wade Raw 1: Yeah. That goes back to your R&D, rip off and duplicate.

Wade DINo RAW 1: It, I do a lot of that, uh, uh, so but you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Like none of this, none of what we've talked about today is earth-shattering. It's putting it in your process that is, that is scalable, that you can do consistently. So occasionally great is not nearly as important as consistently good.

So the whole win three days, uh, out of the week, you'll win the week. Win three weeks out of the, uh, uh, of the, of the month, you'll win the month. Win, you know, nine months out of the year, you'll win the year. Like it... You don't have to like be perfect all the time. That's not sustainable

Dino Wade Raw 1: Let me poke a little fun here just because I know you have a great personality.

Wade DINo RAW 1: Go for it

Dino Wade Raw 1: I know some of you guys are sitting here thinking, "Man, I, I don't know if I can talk like Wade does. Like, Wade, Wade has something for everything. He's got all these [01:05:00] acronyms, he's got all this stuff." And, and, and the truth is you can.

But what you gotta do is you gotta put in the effort like Wade has, right? He, he's watched all these other people, he's ripped off and duplicated. He's- Yeah ... he's put money into coaching, personal coaching. He's learned. It's taken a while.

Wade DINo RAW 1: of coaching over the years.

Dino Wade Raw 1: many hours of coaching? Y- yeah. But you can tell- Mm-hmm ... and this is where I'm gonna poke a little fun, right?

Just, I, I don't know if your wife ever says this to you, but I'll poke fun at myself, too. My wife ever- my, every once in a while, my wife says to me, she's like, "Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?"

Wade DINo RAW 1: My, my kids in particular, like, "Why do you talk to so many strangers?" Like, "Dude, if dad, if dad's not meeting new people, you're not eating, okay? So just, you're gonna have to put up with it." But

Dino Wade Raw 1: a long time ago, man, there was, there was a party and, and I wanted to

go. And my wife's like, "Why do you always wanna go to these parties? Like, what are you so interested in?" I'm like, "'Cause I'm gonna make [01:06:00] $10,000 tonight." That's how I looked at every single party. I'm gonna m- meet somebody and I'm gonna make $10,000. And then one time we went to Cabo and we met these people at the pool.

Older couple, start talking to them. My wife, she, she's great once she's, like, brought into it and, and it all connects, but she cannot, like, start that whole thing,

Wade DINo RAW 1: I gotcha

Dino Wade Raw 1: So of course, I started it. Next thing I know, we're having drinks together. Next thing you know, you know, we're becoming friends. Next thing you know, he says, "Hey, my son's actually moving to Orange County, and he's try- he's gonna buy a house, he's blah, blah, blah," so he sets me up.

Boom. I do a loan for his son, I do a refinance for his son, and then later his son refers me to somebody. Not only did I make more than $10,000, right, but I paid for my entire trip. So I said, "Honey, we should go to Cabo more often." "And we should talk to strangers in the pool more often."

Wade DINo RAW 1: sounds like a business expense to me. That's, that's all [01:07:00] I'm

Dino Wade Raw 1: expense to me.

That's, that's all I'm hearing. All right, dude. Listen, man, I thank you so much for, for your time today. Really, just a true wealth of knowledge. I, I really appreciate you. A- and actually, before we go, I'm gonna just throw a little shout-out to our boy, because you and I met from him, Amir Syed from Go Coaching, um, introduced us.

We're, we're both in his coaching program for branch managers, owners, anybody interested in learning how to recruit properly and, and run a division, right, or run a company. Um, so Go Coaching, fantastic. I, I, I- Amir to me is... A, a, a lot of people have said to me, "Ah, man, Amir, blah, blah, blah," right? I'm like, "Really?

I like him."

Wade DINo RAW 1: Will help

Dino Wade Raw 1: He's, he's bold, right? Like, he, he has a lot of that. But hey, man, you can't succeed in this business unless you are bold. So step into it. That's all I have to say. And Amir, thank you. Appreciate you introducing us. Wade, [01:08:00] thank you so much. And you know, all you guys listening right now, thank you, because this podcast, I, I'll admit, I didn't started thinking it was gonna take off to this level, and the whole first year was a struggle.

And I had great guests and, and towards the end I thought, "Hey, we're doing pretty good." And then bam, all of a sudden, one day it just exploded. And, and, and I just looked, um, last week, it was up to 250,000 downloads. But we're increasing like crazy every single day now. We're having, you know, over a thou- well, let's see.

We had, um, we had over 2,200 downloads a day last month. So thank you, guys. Really appreciate you. Don't forget, go to the social media, listen to the shorts, go to Apple, go to Spotify, listen to the whole thing, 'cause that's really where the gold is. Um, we're gonna have downloadable, uh, playbooks for you guys on all this stuff.

[01:09:00] And, and do me a favor, just like Wade said earlier, right? If you enjoyed this, g- don't go to Google, go to Apple or Spotify and leave us a review and tell us that you enjoyed this podcast. So thank you. And Wade, appreciate you, man.

Wade DINo RAW 1: My pleasure. Thanks for having me