Ain't My First Mortgage Podcast
Strap into your saddles and hold on...you're about to enter the world of mortgages with Skip Willcox. The latest in sales, industry news and market talk, Skip brings that Big Skip Energy back on every show.
Ain't My First Mortgage Podcast
Friendly Competitors with Skip and Dr. Bruce Lund
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Today Skip welcomes back Dr. Bruce Lund to podcast to discuss sales coaching across commoditized industries and why “sales is sales” despite market nuances. Bruce shares his background launching 90 Day Sales Manager nearly 10 years ago, moving from academia with a PhD in human performance into coaching loan officers, real estate agents, and finance professionals. They explore why people claim their market is “unique,” how that mindset becomes a crutch, and why coaches don’t need to have personally produced $100M to be effective.
Bruce outlines Accountable CRM, built to drive daily activity, accountability, and KPI visibility with high adoption through simplicity and gamification, especially for community banks and credit unions. They close on being a proactive “mortgage advisor” and share how to connect via AccountableCRM.com, 90DaySales.com, and @brucelund.
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. Bruce, welcome to Ain't My First Mortgage Podcast, my man. How are we doing? This ain't my first mortgage podcast, but he both the new format, though, the new format it is. That's right, man. So for those of y'all that don't know, Bruce is a friend of the show. He made an appearance on the Big Skip Energy Podcast back in the day. And I'm excited to have him back on, man. So, Bruce, hey, before we dive into some much needed conversation, take a second, introduce yourself, tell everybody who you are, what you're about.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Thank you, Skip. Obviously, for the opportunity, man. I always enjoy the time to dish with you and spend time with talent to people like yourself. So a decade ago, you know, about a decade ago, almost I'm coming up on my 10-year anniversary, Skip, of launching 90-day sales manager. The P90X of sales training is what we dubbed it. So but yeah, I moved from Nashville to Denver to launch my coaching business uh almost 10 years ago. Have a PhD in human performance. So I just really enjoy helping people reach their full potential. Yeah. And primarily working in housing, banking, insurance, and finance, all the commoditized industries. But, you know, really over the last five years plus, have definitely, you know, I would say 90% of my clientele are in the housing and banking space. So primarily loan officers, real estate agents, all that kind of stuff, right? You know, the interesting thing Skip is, and this is where I get into my coaching hat. Everyone pretends like their business is unique and it's not. It's like, yeah, there's nuances to mortgage, there's nuances to being a sales trainer trainer, right? But I mean, at the end of the day, a sales really is sales when you're walking somebody through initial contact to try to set the appointment, to conduct the appointment, to you know, handle their objections, to giving their them your pitch to following up, right? So it's I just always find that really interesting talking about housing, banking, insurance, finance, because you know this as you get booked as a speaker, right? It's like, well, do you understand our business? And it's like, yes, I understand your business.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, I do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that funny? Why do you think that is? I don't mean to cut you off there. What you know, it's kind of the same thing. Like, whenever so when I was in wholesale as an AE, I would go, you know, markets all over the country, right? And and and everyone's like, Well, you know, our market's really unique, it has you know this and this, and and uh politely, of course, I have to say, I'm sorry, you're just not you know, you're just not that special, okay. I understand your concerns, and they are legitimate, but they're not special, okay. So why do you think that is? Why do people feel that way? Is that something that folks use as a like almost a subconscious reason why they may or may not be successful or as successful as they want to be? I mean, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, on the coaching side, Skip, because I see this, and I'm not gonna get into like mentioning other names of trainers, right? But I know other sales coaches that like they lean into that. Like, oh, Dr. Bruce has never been a mortgage loan officer, so why would you go learn anything from that person, right? So I know that's a whole different animal, Skip, that we're not that's not the question to answer. That's what I'm talking about, though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in general. So yeah, let's just take the mortgage piece out of it because you're right, it spans across industries. That's right. And I'm just kind of wondering what it is that motivates someone's perception, you know, to get that ingrained.
SPEAKER_00And I think like you said, the nuances, right? So, yes, there are nuances that you need to understand the verbiages and the terminologies and this and that and the other, but you know, frankly, I think as a human race, we tend to make things overly complicated, right? So for sure. I actually enjoy when, you know, Skip you know this, when you can actually start to work with somebody that's maybe brand new and they don't have all these preconceived notions, they don't already know everything there is to know. Yeah, it's actually easier to coach them. Oh, it is 100%. No, because they don't have, oh, that doesn't work, or I tried that, like, yeah, you tried that five five years ago, and then you maybe tried it once, and then you know, you didn't actually follow through the whole time, you know, sort of thing. So I think that's part of it to your point, like it's kind of a built-in, maybe a crutch a little bit of like, well, I tried that back in the day and it didn't work, or oh, that wouldn't work in my market, or that wouldn't work in my business. I literally just got off a coaching call with our boot camp members and I made this analogy. Uh, you are you an office fan? I know you and I share a lot of similar stuff.
SPEAKER_01I'm not a diehard, like play a lot of people, but yeah, I do want to share.
SPEAKER_00Well, there was one episode, if you remember, when Michael Scott and Jim flip-flopped, and Jim became the manager, and Michael became the salesperson because you could actually, it was when, and I forget the name of the company came in and bought the company out, right? And so now the salespeople actually made more money, and Michael Scott found out about that. So now he wanted to get back into sales. But anyways, so Jim is now in Michael's office and he's looking out, and Michael Scott's dinking around because let's be honest, that's what Michael Scott does. And Jim's like, listen, man, you got to do something, you can't just sit there all day, right? Like, you got to go do something. And I feel like that's what a lot of like sales is like, well, you know, I tried that, that didn't work, and then I tried this, this didn't work. And it's like, well, you got to do something, man. You can't just sit inside the office and hope things happen because hope is not a strategy. So that's a whole other thing.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's one of my favorites, my favorite.
SPEAKER_00So, but yeah, I mean, I think it is, I think it's very, it's a very nuanced industry, like all industries are nuanced, but at the end of the day, it it does come down to common sense is not always common practice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, and it's that's the thing. I mean, if you continually look at the world through your particular lens, it's gonna be you're not gonna have an accurate picture. That's why you and I have jobs. Just because people, it's not necessarily a lack of knowledge, sometimes it is, but usually it's a lack of awareness and realization because you know this as well as I do, because you and I both coach, and so it's you know, the answers are usually inside people, it's just trying to draw them out. That's the challenge, you know. Yeah, so speaking of which, I want to back out for a second. This is a question that I'm pretty only 99% sure I asked you a couple of years back on the other show, but I but I want to do it again. How did you go from academia into you know working in corporate sales training and coaching and that kind of thing? How did that transition occurred?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I actually started, I would say I was a graduate teaching assistant at Middle Tennessee State University. So I'm 24 years old and I'm teaching classes, I'm working on my you know, my doctoral degree, all that kind of stuff. And during that time, I met a gentleman named Coach Michael Burt, who was an up-and-coming speaker, author, coach, all that kind of stuff. And so I just fell in love with personal development and like I was watching him on stage, and so I literally would just follow him around like a puppy dog. I write your press releases, can I help you sell your books? Like I was driving him to events, you know, and this is while I was working on my PhD and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, so once I graduated, I became one of the youngest ever program directors at the Texas AM system PhD at 29. I'm like, well, I did all this to go be a professor. He's like, Are you sure? And I'm like, Yeah. So I got a job at in down at Texas AM Kingsville. I ran the sport business program down there for a year, and then I went to Charleston for a year and ran their sport business program there. And I got tired of hearing those who can't teach, right? You know, at 30 years old, I'm like, okay, I'll show you kind of a thing. Yeah. So, you know, I met with Coach Burt again. I and I just said, man, I want to come back and work with you. Let's see what we can do. And so for about a year and a half, two years, I went back and just worked with him, right? And so, but he had a very unique background as well. He's a former championship women's basketball coach, high school basketball coach at the largest high school in River, in Tennessee, Riverdale High School. So both of us, both he and I kind of have very unique backgrounds coming into the business world where we were never loan officers, we were never real estate agents, we were never financial advisors, we were never title reps, never insurance agents, right? But sometimes it's actually nice to have that outside perspective. But both of us had that human performance background, you know, sort of a thing. So I hope that answered it. I know I bumped out the dance room a little bit.
SPEAKER_01You know, I know so I know that we aren't going to go into like, you know, the who says it. So let's just put it down. So you and I, we're obviously competitors, right? But at the same time, I think it's really important that we understand that the way that you go about training the way I go that's very different. And it's very, and even if it wasn't, I mean, we could say the exact same words you've heard me say this before. We you know, we could get up on stage, have the exact same words come out of our mouths, and different people in the audience will pick up on it than others. And that's one of the things that's why I think that, yeah, you know, you not having a mortgage background, does that hurt you? I don't think hurting is the right term. Would it be nice? Yeah, probably. I mean, does that give me a little bit of advantage? Sure, but it's not really about that because that inherently tries to position what you do as well, for lack of a better term, as inferior. And that's simply not the case, right? Yeah, I there is there's another trainer out there, and of course, we're not gonna go into naming names here, but he has said and has been on a record many times for saying, Hey, if you're taking advice from somebody who hasn't closed a hundred million dollars in volume, then you know what, you're wasting your time. Like, what the hell does that mean, man? Yeah, like like come on, dude. So, I mean, let's you know that's like saying that in order to be a successful NFL head coach, you had to have been an MVP quarterback. Yeah, like no, no, in fact, the opposite is actually true a lot of times.
SPEAKER_00And typically your top, yeah, typically a lot of times your top salespeople and your industries, right? They're not they don't get it.
SPEAKER_01Terrible managers, terrible managers because they because it's a completely different set of skills. Bill Belichick was a terrible football player, but one of the all-time greats. Now, we're not going to go into arguments about whether it was really him or Tom Brady, all right. That's a different discussion for a different day. But you see my point, right? You know, Bobby Cox, longtime manager of the Braze, just passed away back in, you know, that was back in my heyday. Very mediocre ball player, but considered to be one of the most successful major league managers of all time. It's just different skill sets. So I think it's important that people realize that. And when they're looking at what you and I do and others do, they take it for more than face value and understand that there is a lot more to it than just that. And I know that's a total tangent.
SPEAKER_00No, I wanted to bring it up, all right. So listen, I and I I just want to lean into that too, because it's different. You know, I'm speaking at the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association here in yeah, like a month or two, and the topic is which has become one of my new favorite topics, turning managers into coaches. Right. So I've always had my five habits of highly effective salespeople, and but you know, obviously, now that I've been coaching for over a decade with salespeople and you know, coming from the sports world of coaching and all that kind of stuff, right? Like everybody needs a coach in life, trained always outperform untrained. And but turning managers into coaches is there's different styles, there's different personalities, right? Like, yeah, hey, you know what? I maybe I need a Bill Belichick, you know, disciplinary and bust my, you know, what all the time, and you know, that kind of thing, versus a Pete Carroll where hey, high energy fires coach, right? So there's a lot of ways to go about it. Well, that's the same thing in our world, right?
SPEAKER_01So the right answer, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, maybe I need a there's a period in my life where I need that big skip energy, right? And there's a period of my life where I need, you know, some Dr. Bruce in my life, right? Or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Successful managers recognize that, man. I mean, let's just go ahead and throw out a real example. You know, John Beckman is a great dude, right? And he's really good at what he does with his team out there in Kansas. He's worked with you, he's worked with me, he worked with a couple other folks. You know why he does that? It's because there are there's always something to take away from differing perspectives. Yep. And you know, and that's why I've continued to want to do things with you because we got to recognize the ability to connect and to complement. Yeah, it doesn't always have to be constant, like you know, especially in the world of making people better.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you know, and skip taking this back to the mortgage world, right? It's the same thing in their world. Like, hey, I can if a credit union, a bank, an IMB, or whoever has 30 LOs and they're in their same market, the consumer's picking one of those LOs based on what alignment, based on hey, I you have the same products and services, right? But it's like I resonate or I connect with this person. It doesn't make me right or you wrong, Skip, when somebody does or doesn't resonate with you versus me, right? So, I mean, there's seven billion people on the planet, you know, surely to goodness we can go attract the right people into our lives. I would sure hope so.
SPEAKER_01I would sure hope so, man. I mean, that's that's it, that's our business. Uh all right, enough of that soapbox moment. I want to talk a little bit about accountable because you know, you know, you know, I'm a big fan of the product that you've been developing and the way it looks now. And I, you know, and so I want to, without turning this into a commercial for you, I want to I want to talk about, first of all, the name I think leans really heavily into a concept that you've been on for a long time, and that the fact that accountability is a big negative word in a lot of sales organizations because no one necessarily likes being held accountable, but almost everybody needs to be held accountable. So I'm gonna guess that played into your naming of the CRM. Is that accurate or am I off?
SPEAKER_00Very accurate, yes. So I mean, you know, account accountable accountability is one of the most overused, underdone things in life, yeah. Not even in business, but in life in general. And but yeah, it does have a negative, like a carrot and a stick, you know, sort of connotation. And that's and it shouldn't be that way. I it's funny, Skip. I I normally show my Apple Watch, but I literally my Apple Watch stopped on Saturday, so I haven't do it again. But I wear an Apple Watch because there you go, man, because it I track my workouts, my steps, my my sleep, all those kinds of things because I know as if I want to reach my full potential and performance, like again, everybody competes harder when there's a scoreboard. Accountability isn't a negative, yeah, right? Sort of a thing. So yeah, our whole tagline, and this gets, you know, not to turn it into a commercial like you expect. I I opened it up for you to do a little bit, right? So, but you know, when I started to study a lot of the other CRMs, especially a mortgage, like where all this really came from was I went to plug in my 90-day sales accountability software into the existing tech stacks, i.e., the mortgage CRMs, and I learned that the majority of community banks and credit unions didn't already have a mortgage CRM. So that was number one. But then number two, when I started to actually study the ones that they did have, the total experts, the surefire, like, and listen, these are amazing platforms, but they're primarily built more as marketing tools like set and forget. Correct. And a lot of the times the LOs don't even know how to log in, they don't even know their logins. They're, you know, so and so I just wanted to build a software to where we put the the users, the loan officers, the salespeople, the performers at their center of it. Okay. And so that's the goal is every day you wake up knowing who to contact and how and why, and you're accountable to doing the activities inside of your CRM. And it really is that simple. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that kind of you mentioned something a second ago, which is where I want to take this next about you know banks and credit unions or even smaller IMDs, right? Let's just focus on the financial institution piece, actually, for just a second, because they are historically, especially the small organizations. And listen, I came, I've got a tremendous community banking background, so I say this with love, but they are typically behind the times when it comes to technology for one reason or another. Sometimes, and all and often it's it's a scalability thing, it's expensive to have tech, right? That's why they can never compete with the big boys, like Bank of America, Chase, whatever, on that front. But at the same time, they're also resistant because it does require an attitude to adopt the new, right? So, what what's your take on that? Why do you think that is? I mean, is it is it something above and beyond what I just mentioned?
SPEAKER_00It's there's definitely a lot there, Skip. So I've been doing, you know, we've been doing demos now for four years with accountable. So I've learned a lot the last few years. Number one, I think, is just all the different stakeholders that are involved, right?
SPEAKER_01So again, on the mortgage side, there's a formal process and a lot of time we're about to check off on it.
SPEAKER_00Too many people, right?
SPEAKER_01So yeah, yeah. I mean, unfortunately, it is a lot of times more than even is required by the regulations and the regulatory bodies.
SPEAKER_00So I think I think the challenge skip is like you, so your mortgage department's kind of on an island at most places. Oh, it's always a red-headed stepchild, almost always. So so there's that part of it. They're like, and this goes back to mortgage, mortgage is nuanced, right? There's there is a lot of different fields and things that go into a mortgage pipeline versus you know, you're checking, your banking, your auto loan, your whatever it is, right? And so, my opinion, a mortgage department needs a mortgage-specific CRM and mortgage-specific tools, right? That combine with your Salesforce or your HubSpot or whatever it is from an organizational standpoint. So I think that's one of the bigger challenges is mortgage departments over here on their island, they recognize they need some of these tools, they go pitch it to the CLO. And sometimes, listen, the CLO is also in charge of the mortgage department, but they don't maybe understand mortgages by default. Yeah. You know, so I think they're so to answer your question, like every place is a little bit different with their structure. But what I do see happen a lot is if you have a director of mortgage that takes it to the CLO and the CEO, and then they're like, Well, you know, we've been talking about getting our own tools anyway, so then they just keep kicking the can down the road. And a tool like accountable can literally be set up in less than a month, Skip, integrated with their health.
SPEAKER_01That's kind of where I was going with this, is that there with the resistance is there for one reason or another. I'm not going to judge whether it's good or bad, it's just it is there, right? It's there. And so one of the cool things I know just about your product is that it is scalable, it's easy to implement. You don't have to hire a team of a team of consultants to set it up like a sales force, or you know, it's not designed for a company with 500 loan officers like your Total Expert or something like that. I'm not saying it can't do that because it could, but it's really more geared towards your smaller to mid-sized organizations. It's like that intentional. So, yeah, that's you said that, Skip.
SPEAKER_00It's intentional because sorry to come, you want to draw them, right? So, yeah, like we we want to have that, you know, we have some companies that literally have one or two or three LOs. Yeah and you know, so it's it's easy to get up and going. We have some that have you know 30 plus, but our sweet spot's really in that you know, that 10, 15 to 20 range, which is a lot of community banks and credit unions, right? So we can do the ones that have the you know that just a handful of LOs, or we can have the ones that have 30 plus. But coming back to the culture, like accountable, like a lot of them are like, you know, that have the three to five to ten to fifteen LOs is like, hey, you know what? What got us here won't get us there. And we know if we want to go play at that next level, not only do we need to elevate or level up our actual loan officers, but we need to give them the tools as well. We can't ask our loan officers to go be these amazing producers, but yet we're not giving them the very basics. Right and skip, you know, we love sports, right? So it would be like, I want to be a Georgia bulldog, right? But you know, I want to like I want Georgia to go compete for national championships, but yet we don't have the facilities, we don't have the health and wellness, we don't have, you know what I mean? Like you gotta give them the tools then if you really want them to go compete at that level. And there's you know, these credit unions and banks are already already have the data, you know, they're already halfway there if they would just kind of maybe get out of their own way in some of these cases and not hide behind compliance or this or that and the other. And again, I love that, not hide behind it. Yes, yeah, I love my my credit unions and my banks as well, but man, let's get out of our own way. Yeah, let's get out of our own way though, and not hide behind some of these things.
SPEAKER_01Here's an interesting question for you. Does technology create accountability or does it really expose whether that accountability already exists or not?
SPEAKER_00I I think so. I I'm gonna I'm gonna come back to your main point there. You know what I think technology can sometimes do though is I have we have you know we have a new credit unit, and one of their LOs is just like bogged down by the details, like the devil's in the details, right? Like, you know, overthinking, overanalyzing everything. I don't my email signature isn't perfect, so therefore I don't want to send out an email like you know, done is better than perfectly undone, sort of a thing. So I think sometimes the challenge with technology is you know, people think it has to be perfect to start using it, and then now they stop doing the things that they should be doing, right? The networking events, the you know, whatever it might be, right? Skip. So I know that was that wasn't your that wasn't your original question, but we can touch on that because that's still part of that process to where hey, we've been asking for this one thing, and now it has to be perfect for somebody to actually use it, right?
SPEAKER_01And so there's that goes back to what we already talked about and the implementation of something like this. Because I mean, y'all and I I'm pretty sure you got this out there somewhere. I want to say, and please correct me if I'm wrong, this y'all have like a 90% adoption rate. Yes, we have a whereas we need a 90%. Whereas it's the classic sales joke, nobody likes doing it, but at the same time, you've been able to get a lot more buy-in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we well, we've been able to make it gamified. I know that's an overuse, but it's fun. Yeah, but it's fun. It's like, hey, I log in and accountable is telling me who to contact and how and why. Yeah, right. So, you know, the smarter or the harder you work, the Smarter, we're gonna work for you to be able to provide some of these things, and then we do have the goal setting, so we can kind of make it fun for when it comes to that, and you know, skip like we'd all know KPIs, like oh my gosh, if sales people hear the word KPIs, right? But it's like you know, yeah, we but we can give you those KPIs where it's just sales is a game of probability.
SPEAKER_01I know if I talk to X amount of people, then I should have X that happened, and that's the thing like there's more to sales than just numbers, but at the same time, it's kind of like the rate with a mortgage. Is the rate the most important be all end all thing than a mortgage? No, is it super important? Yeah, duh. You know, it's the same thing with numbers and sales. Is that in be-all end-all? No, but you gotta know them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But to answer your question directly, uh, we because we've had to learn this the last couple years, Skip. You have to find it, can't feel like it's busy work. Oh, yeah, right. We gotta give them wins. Yes, we gotta find the wins within the software and the platform. If it's just busy work that, hey, Skip's my manager and he wants me to use this tool to micromanage me, that's not gonna work that way. We have to truly go out and find the opportunity to do that.
SPEAKER_01Of course, that also raises other questions about, you know, well, if that's really what you think. I mean, maybe managers management's got a problem to disconnect too, but that's true, that's true. That's very true. All right, so you know that this is stays short and sweet. So we've kind of reached the end of our time, even though we're kind of just getting started. So I've got a feeling I may have to have you back again later. But any any last thoughts that you want to share with everybody, and then I want you to to tell everyone how to get in touch with you, find out, you know, how to email, contact, all that kind of fun stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yep. My final thoughts, what I'm really on this year for all of my mortgage clients is you know, being a mortgage advisor. What does it truly mean to be a mortgage advisor rather than a loan originator? Right, like, you know, so you have to be proactive. You have to go out there and find the opportunities. Yep. You know, talking about annual reviews, like seeing an annual review as an opportunity, not an obligation. You need to talk on both sides. Yeah. On both sides. That's exactly right, right? So, yeah, so that's you know, that's the big thing that I'm on right now is you know, are you that person of influence? Are you that first person other people think about, you know, when it comes to your market? And you know, Skip, we were talking off camera before we got on of just, you know, loans are harder to do, they do take a little bit longer, there's a lot that goes into them. And so that's why we got to have some of these tools that can help maybe automate the different processes so that way the LOs can stay freed up to be the mortgage advisor.
SPEAKER_01What we do is not rocket science. When I say we mean loan officers, well, you know, what is not rocket science, but at the same time, why are you not gonna use something that easily helps you become more empowered? Right, that's right. All right, so share your contact information, man. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, where should they go? What should they do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, accountable CRM.com is for our software. 90daysales.com is for the boot camp. And by the way, short, easy commercial. If you sign up for one, you get the other, right? So we do if you sign up for 90 day sales at bootcamp, we actually include our accountability software.
SPEAKER_01Um listen, I am not ashamed to say just because I do it too does not mean that Bruce is inferior in any way. All right. So I'll just go ahead and say it. It's still valuable. So I encourage you to do it.
SPEAKER_00And right back at you, Skip, right? If somebody goes through my 90-day program, I'm you know, hey, go, you know, go talk to Skip afterwards or vice versa. Yeah, it's very complimentary of each other, it's very complimentary of each other, right? So, and then at Bruce Lund, I think would be most of the different social media handles. You know, Dr. Bruce is the tagline. Thanks to my good friend Ernie Graham at Homebot. I got introduced to him, Skip by TJ Lyle from he used to be at National My. And uh Ernie's like, yeah, you're just Dr. Bruce now. Like that's your corner card. So there it is. It's just kind of stuck there. So yeah, I mean, if you Google Dr. Bruce, it's probably gonna come up. There you go, man. Very good.
SPEAKER_01Well, listen, I appreciate you being on again. Like I said, I know we kind of get started getting rolling. I'll have to get you back on again later on. But man, it was great talking to you. Always fun, Skip. I always appreciate you. All right, buddy. See you later.