Rick's Other Picks-Stop Chasing, Start Selling with Rick McKinley CMB

Skip interviews Rick McKinley, a Plaza Home Mortgage account executive and CMB (certified in 2018) with 30 years in lending, about strengthening the account executive–loan officer relationship through fundamentals. Rick argues top AEs should lead with knowledge, clear expectations, and process transparency—not swag—while adapting to increased complexity from compliance, technology, and product options. They discuss the two-stage sales process (signing accounts, then earning loan flow), the importance of follow-through to help loans reach the finish line, and how speed and ease of execution can beat pricing. Rick shares a responsiveness standard of returning messages within two hours when possible, while maintaining boundaries. He recommends asking AEs to explain the end-to-end process, identify what they truly do well, and support business growth via training, marketing ideas, and VA loan referral tactics through VA liaison offices. 

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Welcome Back Rick

00:38 Rick’s Mortgage Journey

01:12 CMB Credential Shoutout

01:30 AE Fundamentals Shift

02:55 Be the Information AE

05:06 From Schmoozing to Complexity

07:24 Two Stage Sales Reality

09:12 Sell the Easy Button

11:05 Responsiveness Matters

13:01 Phone as the Office

14:36 Know Your System Cold

15:38 Response Time Standards

16:15 Blocking Time Boundaries

17:16 Two Hour Reply Rule

18:10 Questions For New AEs

19:13 Deal Process Walkthrough

20:24 Products You Can Close

22:29 Helping Grow Business

23:12 VA Loan Marketing Play

25:31 Musician Side Hustle

26:15 Where To Find Rick 

#MortgagePodcast #MortgageIndustry #AccountExecutive #LoanOfficer #WholesaleMortgage #CorrespondentLending #TPO #BrokerOwner #MortgageSales #MortgageMarketing #MortgageTech #MortgageCompliance #RelationshipManagement #ClientExperience #LoanProcess #MortgageOperations #RateSheets #LoanLock #MortgageTraining #BusinessGrowth #VALoans #VAMortgage #VeteranHomeLoans #MortgageTips #PlazaHomeMortgage

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Yeah, that's right. We're back, and this ain't my first mortgage podcast. Welcome to the show where we discuss all things mortgage sales, industry news, interviews of the top mortgage professionals, and more. Strap on in, enjoy the ride, and welcome to Ain't My First Mortgage Podcast. Well, well, well, Rick McKinley, we meet again. We do. Hey, Skip. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Welcome to Paint My First Mortgage Podcast. Man, I'm glad to have you on. Hi, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man, absolutely. So we're gonna we're gonna talk all things kind of AE and LO relationship and that kind of thing. But before we get all into that, for folks out there who may not remember you from your previous appearance on the B Skip Energy podcast, go ahead and take a second, introduce yourself, tell everybody who you are, what you do, what you're all about.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Sure. Well, my name is Rick McKinley. I'm an account executive for Plaza Home Mortgage Now. And I'll preface everything by saying my words today are speaking for me and not for the company. Absolutely. Absolutely. Previous to Plaza, I worked for Crescent Mortgage for about 12 years. And prior to that, I was with National City during the whole credit crisis. I I've been in the business about 30 years now. So seen a lot and appreciate still being in the business tonight now.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yeah, yeah. A lot of folks can't say the same thing, gambling. Right. Yeah, and Rick, you're also a fellow CMB. I would be remiss if I did if I didn't point that out. So thank you. Yeah. How many years ago did you finish up your CMB work? 2018. I got my certification up there on the wall. 28. Very nice. I love it, man. I love it. So, all right. We're gonna just dive right in, man, and start talking about the AEL O relationship. And you know, let's talk a little bit about that two-way street. Sure, something's happened over the last few years, and I'm seeing an epidemic almost of this of AE's doing everything but the fundamentals. I'm part of the social media chats, the Facebook groups, all that kind of thing. And I see over and over again. Now, granted, a lot of these are just complaining sessions and forums to do that, but you start seeing certain things and over and over some different people, a different kind. You know, AEs have by and large, I shouldn't say by and large, several AEs have moved away from the essentials, have moved away from the fundamentals of what makes a successful account executive. And of course, what makes us a successful account executive is to have a successful customer base. So I want to talk to you first about the shift in the relationship management piece because that has changed over the years. Like you said, you've been in the business longer than I have. I mean, you're pushing 30 years and yeah, you've seen a thing or two, right? Like it's like the farmer's insurance commercial, right? It's a thing or two because you've seen a thing or two. So talk to me a little bit about how managing relationships has changed and why, assuming that you feel this way, it's more important now than ever.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Sure. Well, just to give maybe a little bit of a backdrop, I was an originator before I became an account executive. I did that for four years. I worked for a mortgage banker. So we had underwriting, we had funding and all that stuff in-house. And, you know, I've seen good and bad account executives ever since I was a loan officer. And when I became one, I decided I wanted to be the one of one of the ones that I thought were the good ones. And for me, I didn't appreciate somebody coming in and just giving me a little baggie of marshmallows during Christmas and calling them snowman poop. And that was a reason to talk to me. No, you know, I want to be the information person, not the food person. So honestly, even giving out, you know, trinkets with the company name on them is kind of difficult for me because I feel like I'm cheapening my worth because of the fact that I'm gonna bring you something in order to have a reason to talk to you. I want the knowledge that I have to be worth something to you. So that being the case, back when I was an originator and saw some of these things happening, I thought, okay, that's not gonna be me, especially when that person's deal that used that account executive was failing. I wanted to be the person that had the deals that worked because I told them how it was going to work at the beginning and it followed through to the end. So, you know, back when I was with National City, you know, of course, everything was on facts and paper and all that stuff back then. But the important thing was is giving people the right information. One of the things I learned at that time was not to commit everything to memory because I did actually memorize just about virtually the National City manual. But then they put it on computers and they started updating it, and I didn't realize they'd done that and I got burned. So oops, yeah. So I realized the best thing to do is to be able to know where to find the information fast and to be able to just pull it up right away. So you don't have to memorize it all anymore. It's a good idea to have a general knowledge of how it all works, but to confirm that what you think is true is still true. So now we take it to today. And I was actually talking with my RVP about this probably in the last six months. That, you know, back in the old days, schmoozing was really the bigger deal. It was relationships with the people, and it's not as much about the detail because there wasn't as much detail. We didn't have all the compliance issues to worry about, we didn't have all the exotic products. There were a lot of, you know, things that maybe you would well, before the subprime market came in, a lot of things are pretty straight ahead. Yeah. Things would close really quickly. Then we started to get into the 2000s. We see subprime people coming in and they're looking at every file and whatever. But then it's still about well, what happens when it gets to underwriting and all of that. I've always been the guy, like I said, who's the information person. I want to know how it's gonna work, and I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna work, and then it's gonna work that way. And because you trust that what I'm telling you is true, you want to continue to use me. You're gonna know what to expect. Yeah. So these days, now, if we transition to now, there's so much more to know. We've got computer systems, you know, we've got all of the programs, we've got compliance we've got to worry about. There's just a whole lot to know. And the more that you can know and be able to communicate that to your clients, the better. I mean, that's just the way a great AE works now, is being able to help you know what to do and what to expect.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, I mean, I think it's absolutely spot on. And you know, one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on is obviously I've known you for a long time and you know, we're friends and everything, but it's because you do a great job of kind of marrying the tech and the knowledge with practical application. You're not just showing up and like you said, leaving some pads and a pen and being like, oh, keep me in mind for your next deal. You know, you say, hey, look, yeah, I know all uh you know all of our tech, I know we're pointing the right direction. So when you know you need something, I got that. But hey, I'm also I can also help you do more than that. And you know, I think that's really important, especially because as you as you well know, the role of an account executive, whether you're a correspondent, wholesale, it doesn't matter. There's a two-part, two-stage sales process to this. You know, you got to get the actual client to sign on with you, no guarantee of business. Then you've got to actually, you know, get loans from them. And oftentimes those two value props, depending on the audience that you're dealing with, can be very different. What maybe got them to sign up with you may not be what's going to appeal to the folks that are actually going to send you loans. Can you talk to you know, talk to me a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. You know, that's a good thought. And it reminds me of when I started at Crescent back in 2012, I called on quite a few accounts that were signed up by the previous rep that had my territory. And they told me, they said, Look, I hope you're not going to be like the last guy, because he said after he got us signed up, hey, if you need any help once this thing is in the office, I'm not your guy. And I went, What? What? That's what I'm here for. Yeah. You know, this other person was really good at signing up, you know, his clients, which were mostly banks and credit unions, but he was not good at the follow-through of helping to get that deal across the finish line. And I want to be there for the whole thing. I mean, so yeah, I feel like now more than ever, our clients are gonna need help getting things across the finish line, especially with all the systems to learn and all that. And if you're working with more than one lender, which most people are working with multiple lenders, you got multiple systems to know. And what you want to do is be able to create that path of least resistance. So they want to work with you instead of somebody else. So if you're not helping them at all, it's a one and done, and they're gonna go on to somebody else. So no matter what your price is, if it's a hard deal, it's gonna be a problem. That reminds me of something else, actually. When I was, I think in my first year as an account executive, I was working for a small company. It was the from the largest thrift in the state of Minnesota. I don't think they're around anymore, but I won't say their name just in case. At any rate, I didn't really know what I was doing. I'd been an L O for four years, didn't get a whole lot of training as an AE. And I was given the instruction of going out and calling all of these past clients that we had to see if we could get them reignited to do business with us. And this is mostly brokers, but I went to one of them and he sat me down and he said, Look, let me see your rate sheet. I put it in front of me. He goes, Okay, this is the way I sell to my borrowers. We've got these guys here, they're the best price that you can get. But it's gonna be like walking across broken glass to get your deal done. Then I got this one. It's not price as well, but it'll be smooth sailing. Which would you rather have? And he said, Brick, most clients will choose these guys, the easier one. Oh, that's good for me to know. Okay, because at the time I had a terrible price, but we could get a deal done in like three days. Yeah, that's kind of the way it was. So what did I have to sell? I have the easy button, and that kind of is the way that I progressed through till now. While I'm way more competitively priced now than I ever have been, I still feel like I can create the easy button for people.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

So yeah, I love that. And one of the things that's like people are inherently, they're inherently lazy. That's fine. And they also like to get comfortable. So the easier that you can get someone into a new habit, a new work, the also harder it's going to be for anyone else to come in and break that. But if they constantly have motivation to break it, like things keep going sideways, there's constant issues, that kind of makes your job as a kind of way easier. So let's talk about this. This is another, this is another kind of elemental thing that I've seen a lot of people get away from, and that is responsiveness. Simple responsiveness. Now, like you said a second ago, the role of AAE in most cases is now not just the account executive, but doing a little bit of account management as well, or maybe a lot, depending on the situation. Not saying that you have to control everything, not saying that you can't that you can't and shouldn't and won't rely on your support staff. But you know, your role, like you said, it's not just uh, I'm gonna go out there and sell, you need anything else, sorry, talk, talk to them. Okay. That doesn't work anymore. Now, of course, I'm sure you can find a few outliers, but by and large, it doesn't work anymore. But along with that comes some level of responsiveness that I hear complaints about all the time. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah, you know, okay, this makes me rewind back to when I was an originator, and I used to take realtors out to go golfing. And my the way my personality works is when I'm thinking about work, because I've been 100% commissioned pretty much my whole mortgage life. Yeah, son. And uh so when I'm out on the golf course and all of a sudden my pager buzzes. This is back in the day. Pager, nice. Yeah, it's skip. You probably weren't even oh, I was in high school during the pager days, man.

unknown 12:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

So during the pager days, I had a pager to see where the phone call was coming from before I would use my cell minutes to actually call somebody, right? So I should have just had them call myself because it ended up being the same thing. But usually be like buzz, and I'm about to putt, and I'm like, Oh, I got somebody, it's gotta be a business, and I'll look shoot, it is. So then I'm like, and I miss, you know what I mean? Like your brain is just not in this anymore. So eventually I quit golfing because there was no way, well, unless it was on like the weekend or you know, late because I just couldn't do it during the day. Now, fast forward to today, and I always wished at that time, man, I wish I could have my computer and all my emails and all this stuff on my phone. It's here, yeah. So my phone is my office. And whether I'm driving and I'm using Bluetooth, trust me, I'm using Bluetooth. Yep, yep. Or if I'm somewhere and my phone pops, you know, with a call or an email or a text or whatever, I'm able to get just about everything for somebody. And I have no problem just saying, just a second, you know, and giving somebody an answer quick. And when I'm driving, I have the kind of brain that's kind of like a pictographic brand. I wouldn't say I have a photographic memory, but I can see the picture of the screen and I can describe to somebody, okay, this is what you're gonna do. On the top right, you're gonna see this button. When you click it, a window's gonna open and there's gonna be a drop-down box. Pick the third choice, it's this, and I'll walk somebody through the setup of their loan while I'm driving down the freeway, you know, in North Dakota, and there's you know, not a whole lot of distractions to it.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So, yeah, I think responsiveness is huge because somebody might have something that you know, they're gonna make an offer or the loan's about to close, or they're trying to lock it, or whatever the case might be. And if I can't help them, if I can pull somebody else in, it's again one of those things where I may not be able to do everything, but I know the person that can do it for sure. I can enlist them to help with that. Let's get on the phone or let's email this person and we'll get it taken care of for you.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah. So, you know, you've got so many guys that goes out there that don't have that type of competency level regarding their own system a lot of times. And I would contend that even if it's quote unquote not your job, which you you know, you know how I feel about that phrase. You know, it's just I don't like it. But even if you literally have a team that their job is to help onboard and get first loans submitted, that kind of thing, if it's me, I'm still working on a core competency level of that software system and process because you never know. You just never know. There's no part of that is going to not help you sell better.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

And so you know what I've run into a lot of account executives in my life, whether working with me or for the competition. And some of them I feel like they haven't even looked at all the screens in their system.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you and I know several of the folks too. I mean, it's just, you know, they're all over for all sorts of companies. And that's just that blows my mind. So about the responsiveness question, though, I want to ask you this. We obviously need boundaries in our lives, and everyone needs to, you know, have, you know, put put down the phones and that kind of thing. Because, like you said, it's our office. Of course, it's been that way for forever now, and it's a blessing and a curse. But at the same time, we do have a responsibility to our client base to essentially to work when they work a lot of times. And so I see a lot saying, hey, look, I've called my account executive, I've e emailed him or her. I've said, I've gotten nothing for like three days. Yeah, that is unacceptable. Right. Um, but what do you strive for typically as far as response time? What do you think's a good gold standard?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

To answer that question, I would first say that there are times when you have to block out time for yourself or for prospecting or whatever the case might be. That's one of the things I learned from one of my scale sales coaches back when I was an originator. So I definitely block out time every morning. If people don't know this, when I get up, I'm gonna make sure that I go for a run every morning. Right. Yeah. So I'll answer about you. Yeah, I'll answer questions before I leave and then after I come back. But there's gonna be a time though where you're not gonna get an answer from me unless you're gonna watch that's it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, and then on the weekends, there are a few people that are really high volume originators that I'll answer their call, yeah, or their email. But most people I don't. That's one of the things that I appreciate about being on the account executive side. And specifically, I work mostly with banks. I have some brokers, but mostly with banks, and most of them aren't working on Sundays, or at least they're not working on Saturday afternoons either. You know, so there's some time there where they're not going to be probably reaching out to me anyway. True. True. Okay, so that being the case, if I keep all that in my context, I'm trying to get an answer back to somebody within two hours or less. And usually it's you know, probably within 30 or 45 minutes if I'm not able to pick up the phone or immediately respond back to them. Yeah, I like the two-hour rule for you.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

When I'm in a meeting, I'm obviously not going to be able to get to back to the case. Yes, you know, hey, all honesty, yeah, I'll be right back. Yeah. Yeah. So when I'm because I want to be fully engaged with them with course, but as soon as I leave, like I'll jump out to my car and I'm just scrolling through, okay, who needs the call first, and trying to prioritize that and get back to as many as I can before I even drive away. Yeah. Sometimes if I'm in somebody's parking lot, they'll probably be like, you know, Rick's brake lights have been on his car for quite a while here. Like, it looks like he's gonna go, but he's not going. What's going on? And right the first five or ten calls out of the way before I go.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

So yeah, yeah. So along all these lines, we talked about, you know, responsiveness, management, helping, and all the kind of things. If you had to say to not your coach, but just people out there that are shopping around for new lenders, and let's be honest, the lender matters, but the but the accounting is a the accountant executive can make or break that relationship. Yeah, and I don't care how good the company is, if they he's not doing what they need to be doing, it's a problem. So if you had to say, hey, look, if you're out there looking for a new company and you're talking to AEs and you're just like, uh, this yeah, I'm not sure. But what are three questions that as uh TPO or a broker or mini correspondent, whatever, what are three questions that they should ask an AE during that uh you know meeting above and beyond, hey, what kind of cool products do you have? What you know, how's your pricing look? What are three questions?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, that's actually a really good thing that I haven't exactly thought of, but I would say one. I know I'm free to further loop on that one. Yeah, no, I'm I appreciate it. It's a good one. One thing I would say is how hard is it gonna be for me to get this deal done? You know, what is your machine like? I would really want to sit down and see what the process is. And being the person that I am, I've told people I'm kind of a mortgage nerd. Different things that I've done, I'm pretty analytical. Uh yeah, you know me well enough to know that. I actually, everywhere I go, I seek to first understand how our system works so that I can explain it to everybody else. And I created a flow chart with the actual, you know, where the whole thing goes, so that I can give it to somebody and say, this is what's gonna happen. This is who's gonna touch it next and what they're gonna do, and then where it's gonna go from there. So whether it's mini core or wholesale, you'll know if you want to, this is how it's gonna work. And because I've put it out there for you, it's burned into my brain already. So I don't need the flow chart anymore. I can tell you, but so that's the question is can you explain to me from start to finish how this is gonna go? That might be question number one. Yeah, okay, awesome. Okay, and then the next one is you know, you've got all these valid, or I should say, exciting products, but which ones of them are really valid that I should actually be trying to use, or is it like this is just something to talk about, but I'm never gonna actually use it.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah, it kind of goes beyond what are your niche products to no, I don't want to what do you do really well? Yeah, yeah. And it's possible that you can do a lot of things well if your company is set up that way. But you can't but you can't do all things, you can't specialize in all things, right? No matter what company it is, there's always gonna be a not unless you've got specialists for all those things.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Ah, like as an example, what a lot of people don't know about me is before I got into the wholesale side of mortgage, I actually took a side tour and I was working for I became a registered representative for Northwestern Mutual. So I had my Series 6 and 63, I had my life insurance licenses and all that stuff. And one of their training models was look, you don't have to know everything. You just need to bring in the specialist for that thing. Well, if we were gonna sell long term care or we were gonna sell I I don't know, health insurance, whatever the case might be, bring in a specialist for that thing with you. They can be the ones that you know will be able to answer the questions. So if you have the privilege of working for a company that has a specialist department for that specialist product, hey, you're in. You know what I mean? And that's one of the things that I appreciate. When Crescent Mortgage actually was closed due to being, you know, purchased by another bank. And we may have talked about this in our other podcast. But a colleague of mine and I, we actually, we you whom you know, we vetted 20 different companies before we chose where we were going to go next. And this was one of the things that I was finding out from myself was okay, well, all the things that you got listed here, can I really get them done? So that was that would be question two. Question three, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not sure about a question three.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Okay, all right. Well, you know, I I I asked for three, but you gave me two. I would just say, you know, one of the questions that I asked of my lady's, I want to get your thoughts on this was hey, above and beyond getting my loans closed, you know, and doing that, and all the things that you and I have already talked about, right? What else can you do to help me grow my business?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a great one. And actually, so that one would be for me, I'm offering you training. I'll train you on everything because I'm personally gonna make myself be an expert at it first. And then secondly, also marketing. So I try to give marketing ideas and finding out where people's markets are and what can we do to help them. Like, for an example, I'll just give a freebie out to everybody right now. Write this one down, grab a pencil, write it down. If you're not doing VA loans yet, you should be, first of all, because they're fantastic. You can do zero down to over a million dollars. Where I am now, I can go to two million at zero down. But so there's big money there, they're a great deal for the borrower. But you may be wondering, where do I get loans like this? How do I get my foot in the door for VA loans? Well, one of the things you can do is you can go to your VA service center, you know, where the veterans are being taken care of. And there's another name for it that's escaping me at the moment, but like every county has them typically. And if you go there and the VA liaison's office. There you go. So if you introduce yourself to the VA liaison, give them some business cards, and maybe you give them a flyer or two showing, hey, I do VA loans, we do a great job, whether it's a purchase, new construction, a cash out, refi, interest rate reduction, refinance loans, whatever it might be, we can do it. We've got great outlets for it, and we will hold your hand through the whole thing. Well, you'll start getting deals, and I know I've got bank clients that they do all consistently, they're doing VA loans every month now.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Yeah, something that that's simple. Hey, VA lending, but so many people are still scared of it because they could be different, but it turns out they're actually a little easier than conventional.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

They really are, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

They really for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Well, that's just one. I mean, you could be getting new VA loans now, and this is going to be in addition to everything else you're getting. This is brand new money, people. Write it down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

I love it. I love it. So, yeah, so exactly. It's like, you know, hey, what else can you do for me? And frankly, as an AE, you should be asking, hey, what are some of your challenges above and beyond just the nuts and bolts of the mortgages? You know, what are some you know, hurdles, obstacles in your way that I could help you overcome, break through, etc.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I know that's one of the things you do really well. Is when we're having a conversation, say, well, how can I help you?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Yeah, it's it's and that's that's it. It's like, you know, and say, hey, look, I if I'm gonna ask you to go past the you know, the numbers and the rates and pricing and programs, I want, you know, how can I not hold myself to that same standard, right? And so you know, I think it's a valuable conversation. But Rick, man, this has been a lot in a short time period. Before I let you go, though, I want you to share with everybody your pastime. Like you have coming up, you said you had a gig on Friday.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Yeah, I'm a musician. Very talented musician, I might add. Yeah, I'm a brass player for the most part. I do other stuff too. I've got a jazz quartet. I play in multiple Latin bands in the Minneapolis Twin Cities area. And so yeah, I've got you can probably see in the back in the fuzzy there, I've got some instruments up on the wall, and I've got keyboards over here on this side, I've got horns over here. This is my my office doubles as my music room. So absolutely, absolutely, man.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

So yeah, and y'all, if if you want to follow Rick, you know, he posts stuff about that kind of thing all the time, it's great, it's really cool. And Rick, speaking of which, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, where should they go? What should they do?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, you can I'm on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. I'm also on Facebook, although that's more probably personal slash music stuff. Yeah, so LinkedIn's probably the best place to go. Otherwise, if you want to flash my contact info at the Yeah, that yeah, they'll have it up in the episode description for sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Sure. All right, man. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed it. Great information, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Yeah, thank you, Skip. It's been a lot of fun. Good to see you again.