Come hang with THE preeminent mortgage thought leader in the space, Todd Duncan. Todd’s been pushing and coaching the mortgage industry since he founded the Duncan Group in 1992. Come learn what Todd is teaching today and come experience how he his pivoting his own business during Covid19. 

Your snippet of this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast…

• Todd goes over the switch to digital.
• Salesmastryevent 2020
• Transformation is the key goal for Todd, Purposefully and Intentionally
• Spend more time looking for conversations

Episode Transcribe

Alec:What’s up everybody.

Welcome to a special episode of the modern lending podcast live. The guest today is a man who really needs no introduction. If you don’t know who Todd Duncan is, you’re not in the mortgage space. This guy has wrote I think 17 books. I’ll get the actual number on that when we come back. This guy has been leading the industry as a thought leader since I was like rent driving around with a Honda civic trying to talk to realtors. I’ve been to this guy’s conference for… it feels like decades, Todd decades. And now we’re going to talk about how crazy this world is changing and how this man is helping us change with it. So without further ado, let’s bring on Todd Duncan. The man, the myth, the legend dude.Todd Duncan:That was a good vibe.Alec:Oh, feel good to see you dude. I wish we could be doing this in person. I miss you man but this is as good as we get. I guess.Todd Duncan:Yeah. The world in which we live is a tad different right now. And one thing we have to look forward to is when we can get back together face to face. But you know what? This is innovation right here, right?Alec:Yeah. This is what I’m loving to talk about with you today because obviously you’ve been leading originators forever. You’ve been pouring into our community, our industry for decades. And you have a unique voice in space in the industry. And right now I think that leadership is so needed because we’re all a little adrift and we’re all trying to row or figure out where to go or what to latch onto and it’s crazy. And even your business is changing. And we will talk about the Virtual Sales Mastery which I’m actually super stoked about. But you know Todd, was that right on the books? How many books has it been? How many books have you published?Todd Duncan:Yeah, 17.Alec:Oh my gosh. So for everybody that is new to the industry because believe it or not there’s new blood [00:02:02] right now which is awesome and amazing. Give everybody a little bit of your background. When did you start getting into the thought leader game? When you start leading other people? And there’s my sister saying hi so we got a comment on LinkedIn. We’re live on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. So, thank you guys for hanging out with us today.Todd Duncan:[inaudible 00:48:49]Yeah. So I think my story is like a lot of people’s stories. I graduated from college. I had a degree in finance and marketing. And I was at a 4th of July party about a month after graduating. It happened to be hosted by my little league coach when I was a young boy. Good friends from my parents and he and his wife owned the largest independent real estate firm in the Western United States Tarbell Realty. And they had about 4,000 agents. And Don and I were talking in the backyard about me becoming a mortgage person. And I had no idea what that really meant.Todd Duncan:I got set up with an interview with the guy that was running the mortgage company that was owned by Tarbell. And within about four weeks, I was a $1,500 a month for only 90 days loan originator. And I had a 1970 Camaro with a ripped vinyl top with a hole in one of my headers. And the first real estate office I called on was in San Clemente California. And I’m driving back past the parking lot. I’ve got this beater of a car and there’s Rolls-Royce, BMWs and Mercedes in the parking lot And I’m thinking, holy cow, I am in over my head.Todd Duncan:So I parked my car about a block away so nobody can see it. And I walked in that office. And I remember to this day just see nothing but files like grades, big office under agents and I was out of my wheels over my skis. I had no idea what to do. And seven hours later, so I was making my way from San Clemente back to Panama. Seven hours later, I just felt no love. I felt no joy. I felt nothing. And so I hung a left and went to the beach. And decided to spend the rest of my first day in sales calls, thinking on whether I really wanted to do this.Todd Duncan:And that just shortly after that, probably two weeks after that. I ran into a guy that was another originator. Worked for another company. Different territory. We weren’t competitors. 34 years old. Funds 400 loans a year. And I just said to him, “how do you do it?” And he sat me down.Todd Duncan:I think Alec one of the great things is mentorship is real. People that are further down the path than you are, and we all need them, we are all of them. We have people behind us. We have people in front of us. We all need mentoring. That guy poured into me for about a month. We became best friends. At the end of my first year, with an average loan amount of $72,000 I funded $27 million in loans.Todd Duncan:So, I did that. I kept doing that. And at the age of 25, my company asked me to start training the new recruits that they were hiring. So I did that and kept doing my own business. They keep bringing in more people. And I keep training and kept doing my own business. And by the time I was in 10 years, I had trained about 400 loan officers and had done about 5,000 loans.Todd Duncan:So the next two years were interesting because I was feeling that like, what’s next? I mean, I’m crushing it and lending my agents and making a boat ton of money from me. What’s next? And you know what I did is I answered a question. If I could do anything I wanted, what would I do? And the answer was I would help people like me with. I would help people that are starting off in the business or have been in the business for any length of time and had been doing it wrong. I would help them win.Todd Duncan:So I remember in January of 1989. I decided that I was going to start a mortgage training company and did about a year of preparation and then hit it in 1990. And had a partner. It was originally called the Pratt Duncan group. And Jim was a founder of PMI. And he was a speaker. And so I relocated to San Diego. The Pratt Duncan group was birthed. We had a really good two year run. And I just had a big vision. I just had a bigger vision than I think Jim had at that point. And reasonably so, Jim was probably 30 years older than me. And different place in life. Right? And so in 1992, I incorporated the Duncan group. And since 1992 we have been helping mortgage and real estate originators make more money in less time with less stress. And that is what we do.Alec:When you’ve stayed so true to your mission Todd, over the years. And obviously I got into the game and immediately was exposed to your brand, your training, your efficacy, coaching programs, events. And it’s been a huge foundational building block for so many of us originators who are coming into this space. Even mature talented originators to come and get kind of another vision, another viewpoint from somebody who’s… I always think of it this way. You’re like at the middle of all these streams going to the ocean. All these different originators coming to the same place you’re right in the middle. And you’re also gathering all of their expertise and feedback and thoughts. And then able to kind of reshare that into your platform. It’s just been amazing. And obviously your books have had major impact across the industry as well.Alec:So really thankful for you. Really thankful for what your vision. And what you decided to do on that. And kind of on that note too, you’ve had given what you’ve been doing and that actually has been inspiring to me because I love people who are willing to go get uncomfortable. Who are like, you know what? The world moved as well I got to move with it. Like I wish I had my favorite book. Am I here at books who moved my cheese.[00:07:46]Alec:Every now and when I call some of my best managers and I’m like, Hey, “I’m moving your cheese right now.”[crosstalk 00:07:51]Is like all right because adaptability is huge. Like adaptability right now is paramount. So can you share what you’re doing? To manage through this as an inspiration for others who have their own businesses and their own origination strategies? How are you changing?Todd Duncan:Yeah. I want to answer a couple of ways. One is, I think that we all have to remember that we have a choice on what we do and when we do it. And I think most people wait for something like we’re going through right now to kind of force a need to change. It’s all talk about what do you do when you’re forced to change, when it’s the only thing you can do is change. But the bigger question is what are you doing when external change is not put upon you?Alec:I love that.Todd Duncan:Yeah. And so, early in my career, I understood a concept called the Sigmoid curve. It’s a typical bell curve where you start and then you climb. And then at some level you flat line. It’s either you’re flat lining because you haven’t built your client base enough or you’re flat lining because you haven’t built a team strong enough. You’re flat lining because you haven’t gotten skilled enough. You’re flat lining because, because, because. And what the sigmoid curves signifies is that on your decline, if you decide to change, you’ll never get higher than the trajectory you are on. You will only get back to where you were.Todd Duncan:And so the idea for mortgage professionals, for real estate professionals, the idea for leaders in those markets is to have a constant curiosity about change. And what does it look like? And what do I need to do? And I don’t have to be the first. And I don’t have to be the first innovator. But I have to be an early adopter of what’s working. And if I can do that, then I go to work on somebody else’s energy, and expense and intellect. But I’m an early follower. And that changes the trajectory.Todd Duncan:So what happen to the event business? So Sigmoid curve is… We’re cranking the company’s growing. And we’re in Savannah Georgia. We’re leading our elite group for a two day conference. And all of a sudden Saturday, this COVID thing announces. Boom, everybody’s going, “what is this?” And we got a group put together. We’ve got everybody ending on Sunday. We got airplanes that are supposed to be flying people home. And all of a sudden it’s like, okay, this is a new world. This is a 24 hour new world. And we don’t know what it means. We didn’t even know if we’d be able to get home.Alec:Oh my God.Todd Duncan:We get on the airplane and Savannah. And we’ve got the hand wipes, we’ve got the mask. Wiping down the seats. Wiping down where everybody sneezes. Wiping down all that kind of stuff. And we ended up getting home. And we learned within about 72 hours that basically if you’re in a mass gathering business, you’re out of business.Alec:Right.Todd Duncan:There’s no, like a year from now you might want to think about a different business model. It’s like now basically seven days into this deal, you’re done. And so we had to cancel a hydro sales Academy. We had to cancel about eight other events that I was going to be speaking at. We had to cancel our leadership event, which is still two months away. But[crosstalk 00:11:22] close the Island and the Caribbean is closed until August. So when you’re in the business of doing things that the world will not let you do, you have to be innovative.Todd Duncan:So what I did, I did a couple things. One is, I asked the question of my Facebook group. I said, what are your biggest pain points right now? And I got about 42 different things that were pain points. And so I went into my recording studio. Which was right behind this logo.Alec:[crosstalk 00:11:52] building all that out. Like you must be foreseeing the future because you[crosstalk 00:11:55]Todd Duncan:Yeah. My recording studio is like, if I were a rapper I can produce, I’m not. But I can produce anything I want when I want.[crosstalk 00:12:08]Alec:I think I need a Todd Dunkin rap at some point in my future, then this has to happen.Todd Duncan:Okay. I’m not going to do it right now. But let’s see. Wait, you do talk about impromptu, right?Alec:[inaudible 00:12:21]Todd Duncan:No. But the idea is that as the world’s changed, what are you going to do to continue to be relevant and be successful in the world? So we invented this brand new product. It’s a 16 hour product. It’s got…Alec:Please share about it. It’s awesome.Todd Duncan:Yeah. And so we did that. And then we decided to… what would happen if I just stepped up and lit the fuse on my social. And every day at nine o’clock, I just went live. Right. And I started going live like three and a half weeks ago. And we’re getting, I don’t know a thousand, 1200 people a day just coming in and looking at the videos. And sometimes we interview people like this. Sometimes I just do a ramp. Sometimes in the car on the way in, I see a sign or I think about something. And so we’re adding a lot of contribution to people.Todd Duncan:I designed to think called mindset moments. And I decided every morning I would try to find element of the day that was about mindset. And I’d record that and post it on social. And so we did all that. And then of course the Mother load decision is, if we don’t know what the world’s going to look like in 90 days, can we even in good conscience go to the marketplace and say, “buy your airline ticket, reserve your hotel room and be prepared to fly to San Diego for sales mastery?” I’d love if that were the world in which we live, but it’s not, it’s just not. And we don’t have any certainty whatsoever.Todd Duncan:So in terms of being able to hold live events. So what do you do? Well, you have to do the right thing, all right? And the next right thing is how do you take what you have and modernize it? You look at the logo, modern lending. How do you? How are you more modern right now as a mortgage professional than you were 90 days ago? Just how much more innovative have you gotten?Todd Duncan:I just hung up with a guy that all he’s doing is setting face time dates with his realtors. He’s taking them to lunch. Taking them to coffee and their face time dates. And he’s doing it regularly. He’s funded $50 million year to date. He’s got a pipeline of $18 million and he’s innovating, right? He’s just connecting.Todd Duncan:I locked on to how are we nurturing our CEO clients and how are we nurturing the people that we work with? We’re going to do something really special for them. We’re going to do something with sales mastery. That’s really special. We’re going to give everybody in the world. And I mean the world. I’m talking about Australia, Canada. I’m talking the of EU, I’m talking of to Italy, certainly talking about America. Everybody this year gets a front row seat.Alec:It’s crazy.Todd Duncan:At Sales Mastery. How do you have a front row seat? You don’t have to come. We’re going to bring it to you. Right? So we’re already in play. The studios are already getting built. The speakers are already hired and we’re going to take Sales Mastery to the client instead of having the client have to come with us. And we think here’s the innovation. We think that by doing that, we’re going to be able to quadruple or quintuple the size of the audience.Alec:I believe it.Todd Duncan:And maybe even more. Maybe more. We’ve got one group right now that might bring 2000 people. That’s usually our crowd size.Alec:Yeah, exactly.Todd Duncan:So I’m doing a lot of that kind of thinking. One of the things I want to say to everybody. It’s important to recognize, yes, that we are going through something, right. It’s important to understand that everybody watching this podcast. And everybody walking the earth. We’re all going through something. Right? And in varying degrees of level. The key is to grow through it. The key is to take this scenario which nobody could predict. And understand that you can choose to go through it or grow through it. And become something because of it. And I think that’s the big message I want to send to people is, what is good about this? What is it doing for you? What is it teaching you? What are the lessons that you’re learning from it? And most people just try to muscle their way through whatever pain point they’re in.Alec:Yeah.Todd Duncan:We’ve never been here before. And so the question is, how do you go through this? And how do you emerge from this? Whenever it is over, “better, stronger, healthier, happier, wiser.” I got stuff going on in my office right now that I can tell you. I hadn’t even really thought of. I hadn’t thought about how many less people do we need here if we do this there. How does this change here if we go do that here, I’ll give a breakthrough.Todd Duncan:So we do the hydro sales Academy as you know every year. We do two of them publicly. They both tap out at 150 people. And it’s live. It’s at a hotel. It’s highly experiential. But we have a sales cycle in the first quarter. And then we have a sales cycle in the fourth quarter. And in between those two sales cycles, we don’t do the high trust sales Academy. Okay. So what do we do? Let’s turn the High Trust Sales Academy into digital. Let’s just let somebody every day or 10 people a day. Not have to wait 90 days for a day. Just come through it.Todd Duncan:We’ve got the learning platform. I’m teaching it. I’m going to ask you the same questions online that I’m going to ask you live. And now all of a sudden people can buy that every day. Talk about a game changer.Alec:It’s accessibility again is amazing. And this is what I love your comment earlier. There’s something about changing without a catalyst moment. And then there’s something with changing with a catalyst moment. And COVID is a catalyst moment. Just like the credit crisis was for many of us back in 2008 where we were forced to change. Our company went away. Something happened. Our products suite went away. We had to physically change because there was a catalyst. And there wasn’t a catalyst happening to the local mortgage pro until COVID. And I think that as terrible as it is, and as much as I hate the social distancing and I want to hug everybody. Man I’m so encouraged by watching how professionals that you’re inspiring Todd. Step into these new mediums. Step into these new places. Becoming accessible. Turning the spotlight on themselves and sharing their expertise in a global setting. A digital setting. And it’s inspiring.Todd Duncan:Yeah.Alec:It was kind of needed because otherwise I don’t think people were going to move. I don’t think they were going to change.Todd Duncan:It brings up an interesting point that you can take any situation, and you’re right Alec, this was not like there was no warning call. There was not like this is going to happen. It’s not like…Alec:You were on a retreat with a bunch of professionals. Like God.Todd Duncan:What’s really wild about that, as one of the guys in the group four days later tested positive for COVID. He was in the hospital for 14 days and he was in that group.Alec:Wow.Todd Duncan:And that’s how… and nobody thought they had it. Nobody thought they were going to get it. But here’s the interesting point. And I want to have everybody that comes alongside you in your modern lending podcast to understand that stuff happens. And the key to life is not thinking that you can control stuff. You can’t. I mean rates go up, rates go down. You have zero control. Housing prices go up, housing prices go down. You have zero control. Unemployment goes up, unemployment goes down, you have zero control. Consumer confidence goes up, consumer confidence goes down. You have zero control. Consumer confidence right now is 55 points lower than it was February.Alec:Wow.Todd Duncan:Okay. And then just hit up 1% in May as compared to April. You have no control over that. So the greatest gift is to understand that for every thing that happens, there is goodness in that thing. But she got to find it. And so flow is about… like if I were trying to manage through the idea that the event business is temporarily shut down. If I try to manage my way through that, I would have gone crazy. But I understood, okay. This is a moment. And what everybody understands, whether it’s making a call, or failing on a call, or doing alone, or failing out alone, or making a listing presentation, or failing on the list. All that matters is that you have all these moments and how you go through a moment. We’re in a COVID moment, right? But it’s been nine weeks.Alec:It’s been a long moment,Todd Duncan:But there’s a hundred moments every day because of COVID. And how you go through the moment determines who you become. I was writing last night and I was talking about Charles Swindoll who’s one of my favorite pastors and theologians. And one of the quotes that he is most famous for ends with, “For us in life, life is 90%,” Okay, 90% happening to us. And we can’t control much of that. But all we can control is our attitude about that. And so in all things there is goodness. Everything does happen for a reason. It’s crazy as it may sound.Todd Duncan:And you only have two choices. I only have two choices as human beings. We can either be optimistic or pessimistic. It’s that simple. And if we’re optimistic, principally centered, we know our purpose. We know what’s important to us. We’ve got networks, we’ve got tight family, we got all that going on, we should be optimistic. We got great rates. We got our worst day is capacity issues. Loans falling out of heaven. It’s an easy market but it’s a hard market. But all you can do is learn from wherever you are and learn from whatever you’re going through.Todd Duncan:And so I think that for us, I’m actually very, very excited about how high trust has navigated through this. And I believe that our innovations are six major innovations that have happened in the last eight weeks. All six of those will change the future of this company in a way that it would not have happened. Had it not been for COVID. That is crazy.Alec:But that’s the perspective that I love hearing Todd. I love you sharing it because I think a lot of us need. I think perspective really helps just deal with our own hardships. And so just having you come out with optimism. The six things that are going to radically transform the future of your business. The future of your influence. It’s encouraging and I hope everyone hears that and is encouraged as well. Because the same opportunities available to everybody that Todd’s talking about for himself right now. And I’m taking a lot of from… I’m like getting all pumped up. I’m digging it.Alec:And so I’ve got two things for you here that I would love for you to lean into. The first, just for everybody that has been to Sales Mastery before and knows the experience and knows the amazing opportunity that presents to everybody to grow and learn. What’s your passion? What do you want people to walk away from this new virtual one because you’re pouring into it? I’ve already seen the list of speakers. They’re dynamic. They’re incredible. You’re pouring into a new style of event. What are you hoping somebody walks away from that? What would be your win for everybody there? Because I want people to hear your heart behind this. Because you’re leading this whole evolution of this new digital conference. And so what’s your goal for it?Todd Duncan:The simple answer is transformation. And I say that as purposefully and as intentionally as I can. When I had the vision to launch Sales Mastery, it was the same then. How can I help people in the area of impact and influence. And how can we come together every year and fine tune that. And do a kind of a tune up on that. I’m blown away Alec. That I look back and this will be the 28th year of sale. The same brand. Right 28 years of Sales Mastery. And millions of home owners impacted every single month because of the lessons people have learned at Sales Mastery.Todd Duncan:So this year I want transformation. And what does transformation mean? I think and I know you believe Alec that the next couple of years are going to be very, very interesting and how this world corrects around not only this virus, but also the realities of interest rate, change, and market volatility and all those types of things. And so, I’m talking about like what are the habits of the future?Alec:Yeah.Todd Duncan:What are the new habits of the future? And the new disciplines of the future that you’re not even aware of right now? And Mastery we’re going to bring 10 of them to you. And when you think about a habit, you think about, I got to do something differently. All of us have heard this idea that it takes 21 days to form a new habit and that’s absolute bias. It’s absolutely implausible that would be all it takes to change a habit. And the reason is because it didn’t take 21 days to form the bad habit. The bad habit got formed every day over 21 years.Alec:Yes.Todd Duncan:Okay. So, what you do uniquely and differently and there’s not a lot. But how do you adopt a mindset around knowing how many days and what is the operating system? So develop transformative habits that disrupt your market and change yours in your client’s life forever. And it might surprise you, but one of our speakers who is an expert on habits who wrote a book called Atomic Habits is going to tell you the most important habits take 266 days to form. So we’re not only going to bring Mastery Digital to the world but we’re going to give you months after it’s over to replay the information. So you informed the habit.Alec:I actually think that’s as valuable or more valuable than the moment because trust me sometimes it’s like a fire hose. Right like you’re just like, Whoa! Like you’re just getting all and you’re tribbling notes. And you’re trying to remember what everybody said. And then you’re debriefing with your fellow people there. But the fact that this time you get to have it on repeat for like I think it’s like six months. Is that right?Todd Duncan:Unlimited replays. Yeah.Alec:Unlimited replays of just going back and tapping into. To a conversation that happened that you just, I mean, you’re going to glean more things from it. I mean, Todd, that’s a gift. This is an incredible thing that you’re doing in Sales Mastery because you can’t… [inaudible 00:27:46]Todd Duncan:Yeah. I don’t know how I would change the future of events. I think at one point it’s like, I can watch the Rolling Stones on a Facebook live deal and have fun. But I’d rather be at T-Mobile Arena or Staple Center and watch them live. I would hope that the passion for live events comes back in a post COVID world. But I can tell you this, we’re never not going to stream Mastery even though we may have a line of live event. And that’s one of the breakthroughs of this innovation.Todd Duncan:It really is important to understand that there is goodness in everything that is occurring. And so when we look at the 40 different presenters that are already engaged at Sales Mastery, every single one of them has a COVID success story. And we’re going to be sharing that. And I don’t want to park on COVID as like this.Alec:I get it.Todd Duncan:It is what it is. But it has forced people to come up with new ways to do old things. Right? And that’s what Mastery is going to be about. It’s going to be transformative in terms of what are the innovations? What are the high producers doing uniquely and differently? How have we telepathed technology into a standard operating procedure? What is modern really look like?Alec:Yes.Todd Duncan:Surprisingly, it still involves a deeper percentage of humanity than it does technology. Interesting. So how do we have deeper human connection in a world like COVID where all you can use is technology? How do we do that? So it’s going to be solid man. And we’re really excited about it. We’ve got the production crews coming in tomorrow. We’re starting to kind of figure it out what are our build out looks like from a stage standpoint? And we’re going to use technology to bring these speakers in from all over the world and broadcast Mastery to all over the world. It’s going be exciting. The other thing Alec. I’ve just got to mention this.Alec:Yeah.Todd Duncan:Every single person needs to understand that this is like the moment of greatness where… let’s get your top 10 agents. Let’s get your business partners. Let’s get them a subscription to come to Sales Mastery. So remember guys, don’t even have to fly here. You can sit in front. I got a 40 inch monitor right here. You do too. I could look at Mastery right here. I can sit on my stool and just say, “wow, look at that.” My agent next to me, two bottle stools and we could be learning. And it’s simple. The cost is just stupidly low. It’s unbelievable.Alec:I’m a fan of this. I think it’s going to be a breakthrough moment for a lot of people. The accessibility of it. The replay action. The habits of the future help me to comment on their hope. It’s wonderful. You’re joining us on LinkedIn. What are the habits of the future? What an incredible little snippet of like… that could be the whole session. I’m looking forward to all this Todd.Alec:Here’s what I want to go for the next 10 to 15 minutes. We’ll see how we wrap and questions come in. Like I said before, I really feel like you have a unique space in the industry. You’re at this focal point of knowledge because not only are you coaching out across the industry and across the country but all that stuff’s flowing back through you. And I really like to get tactical to a degree on some of these episodes and share. What are people doing? What are stories that are happening? Like you shared one with the scheduling Face Times which I love. What are you seeing great originators leaning into anecdotally that can hopefully like trigger something or sparks something in somebody who’s watching this or watching this on the replay and just get a little bit of inspiration to go maybe do something they were or afraid to do today.Todd Duncan:Yeah. Things that come to mind that if you want to lean into it. And these are specific things that are happening. One thing I think that is going to be critically important in the future is that every lender understands what the future of marketing actually looks like for the local dialed in lender. And how is that landscape going to change? So I’ll give you an example. So one of the things that we’re leading the charge in is what we’re referring to as consumer centric marketing. Consumer direct, it’s not real term builder. It is consumer centric marketing.Todd Duncan:I had an interchange last night with one of the guys that we’re coaching in our elite group. And between July of last year and April of this year, he has engaged in excess of 20 new business development partnerships in the wealth management insurance world.Alec:Okay.Todd Duncan:Okay. And what is happening, is what led to that is the discipline around what really modern lending is. Modern lending is, I’m not doing a loan and saying goodbye to you. Modern lending is I’m going to be a better consultant. I’m going to ask you questions you’ve never been asked. I’m going to learn things that you are going to share with me. And I’m going to solve things that maybe have never been solved in your life. And every single year we are going to have a checkup and we’re going to measure the efficiency of your mortgage and your real estate strategy. And where you are in life. And we’re going to continue that for as long as I’m alive. And if I die my team’s going to continue it for as long as you’re alive. And if you die, we’re going to do it with your daughter and daughters and such.Right?Alec:Yes.Todd Duncan:And so what ended up happening is we start to look at why are we doing that? Why we’re doing is consumer direct. Most lenders can’t compete with that. The realtor builder market is still healthy but it is unsettled right now. The world of eye buyers has changed. Most of the real estate markets are level, if not down a little bit because people are losing job security. Consumer confidence went down, not up even though it got one point pickup in May it’s still low. People are not sure about their financial future and so on so that market is going to… It’ll come back but like I said, we don’t control when real estate values go up and down, we don’t control it. Here’s what we control. We’re going to control the center of the universe. And the center of the universe is every single human being that is not in a consumer direct cross fare region campaign and everybody who’s not coming in through our traditional channels right now of realtors and builders. And we’re going to go here. And in what here is, is faster trust, higher qualification, better FICO scores, bigger centers of influence.Todd Duncan:I’m attached status to a realtor or builder which is code for [inaudible 00:34:56] can now attach them to a realtor builder. And we’re going to do that every day. So the modern mortgage lender is spending more time every day nurturing their network than they are reaching out for leads and conversations. And if they’re nurturing their network then we’re activating what’s called the circle of cashflow which is… I don’t have to sell, people sell for me. If I’ve got a database of 2000 people and I am focused in this consumer centric silo, I’m actually a loan rep with a sales force of 2000 people. That’s a new mindset.Alec:It is. That’s radically a new mindset.Todd Duncan:Yeah. So stuff like that. By the way, we’re going to unleash that playbook at Sales Mastery.Alec:Yes. Yeah. I think it’s just crazy to me that consumer centric thinking is becoming so crucial to win Todd, I could not agree more with your comment. I love that you’re gonna be leading a whole group of people through this playbook on it because it’s part of the future and I know people who think it’s the whole future and I don’t necessarily think I agree with that totally. I think our realtor and builder partners are massively influential still. They’re fighting for customer attention. They’re working their butts off every day as well. So there’s really rich partnerships in that way. Cassie just commented to tell me how to sign up for virtual Sales Mastery 2020. I’m in. You go and Google Sales Mastery and you can’t miss it because Todd’s all over the internet and all of a sudden bang you’re in. Todd I think that it’s the right mindset. It is the modern mindset.Todd Duncan:Let me share something.Alec:Yeah. Sure. Share.Todd Duncan:Before I forget, you guys need… everybody needs to understand that the reason this model is not a suggestion but a mandate is because the buying SO has changed. The strategic operation of buying home has changed. So the reason why you have to be in consumer centric visibly deep entrenched markets is because the agent is not going to hear from that buyer the way they have heard from that buyer and when they have heard from that buyer. So if I’m going to be the bridge between agent success and matching buyers with agents, which is essentially what I’m going to do. I’m actually filling a need that if I don’t fill it, I can’t add the same kind of value to my agents. And my agents are going to lose because buyers are making lender decisions before they’re actually looking for property or even contacting an agent.Todd Duncan:So, it’s like, don’t think about this. You’ve got a plant on it. The guy I’m talking about right now has generated over a million dollars in commissions to agents this year already from the consumer centric market. Think about controllability there. Think about how much value you would bring them. Think about an agent that might hear from another agent that they just… that other agent just got a $22,000 commission because of a lender referral. My agent is going to call the lender and go, I want in on that action, right? So that there’s, there’s, a reason why we need to be in the middle. And if you’re in the middle, you have all of this other sourcing going on. And it’s just a flip of the switch. It is letting everybody know in your database that you are longterm thinking it is reassessing them. It’s if you have not looked at every borrower’s mortgage statement in the last four months. That’s an option. That’s a way to do it.Todd Duncan:You should do a mortgage review at least twice a year, for sure, once a year. You know how efficient is the mortgage. You ought to be asking that market, what are their real estate goals and dreams for the next five years? Because your agents aren’t asking that question. And if you’re asking that question of every single buyer, and let’s say out of your database of 2000 people, 113 people tell you they want to buy a home next year.Alec:Yes.Todd Duncan:There you go. You have an agent. Well the guy that helped me buy this house, I haven’t heard from him in eight years. So I wouldn’t say I don’t have one.Alec:Good.Todd Duncan:I have. I have one.Alec:I want to echo this for everybody listening because Todd hit this before. And I think it’s just the same. It’s the same conversation in this COVID social distancing world where we’re all on zoom cameras. We’re all in this little boxes on our internets. You know human connection has never been more paramount. And the fact that you have the privilege and opportunity to have a thousand to 2,500 people in your database that you could call today and just check in on and let them know that you care about them you’re thinking about them, you got their back. And to Todd’s point ask them some serious questions like, “Are you going to? How’s the house?” How many people aren’t happy with their house right now? Like so many people are like, “I am moving the second.” I get, like whatever that because they’re forced to shelter in place and they’re like over it. Like opportunity to make human connection has never been more important.Todd Duncan:So, Yeah. Let me say this and I need you to understand this. All of you and I hope that I meet you in a place right now where you can absorb what I’m about to say. All statistics right now in this business, outside of this business, in this country and outside of this country with the exception of two countries that are not us. Humanity is preferred over technology with about a 12 point differential. Humanity is 82% and technology is 69 or 70%. So what we’re starting to see is that technology which has had this ramp up, right? And still by and large is what everybody is expecting to kind of see the future doing, is nudging out humanity. And the loan rep or the real estate agent who doesn’t understand that technology is only to support a transaction. It is not responsible for doing the transaction, are going to miss millions and millions and millions of dollars of revenue.Todd Duncan:So there’s a book out right now called The Most Human Company Wins. It’s called Marketing Rebellion. And I read through that and I got really clear on this idea that you know what? The most human ello wins. The ello that has the ability to connect at the deepest core with a realtor, with a borrower, with a referral partner. I just did an interview an hour and a half ago and we were talking about… the 80 20 rule applies to questions and most loan reps don’t even know the questions are going to ask except the standard questions.Alec:RightTodd Duncan:And so if you’re not strategic about questions that you ask then you’re not demonstrating human interests which is code for empathy. And we also have stats right now. I could pull them up but Strathmore has taken a look at technology and they’ve evaluated three different things about technology. Is it appealing? Is the technology appealing to look at? Is the technology easy to use? And does the technology provide you with peace of mind in the form of updates on your transactions? Three things are measuring. The net promoter score deltas on those three things if the answer is no, to any one of them? Or over a hundred points. Meaning that if somebody is a nine or a 10 on a one to 10 scale. And that technology does not qualify on one of those three levels, they will go from a 10 down to a zero which means they have no influence.Todd Duncan:So if you’re relying on technology, that’s okay. Technology is lifting labor load. It is speeding along document aggregation. It is allowing us to be a little bit more quick on the rebounds and things like that but you can’t hide behind it. Humanity wins the race. Technology supports the human experience. So one thing we’ll be talking about at Mastery is in a modern day world, how important is humanity and it’s more important now than ever. And that’s important.Todd Duncan:I also want to say because three of you have kind of popped up here. Sales Mastery Event.com, sales mastery event.com sales mastery event.com. We’re releasing the agenda today. The keynote speakers are already hired. We have a very, very easy proposition. We’ve given you an entry point that is maybe one 10th of a loan commission. So it’s easy. It’s the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankindAlec:[inaudible 00:44:08] Thank you as we wind up. I have such a connection to your comment about humanity winning over technology. And I have a core belief that technology enhances our ability to be human and to do stuff but it doesn’t replace our humanity. I think that the consultation value of a loan consultant in the future is going to be paramount to the success of any loan consultant. And I just wanna encourage everybody who has heard that to realize now that you have these technological machines around you, like this thing and the camera in front of me to showcase your humanity. To show up to your digital ecosystem to your community and become an authentic human to them.Alec:I see a lot of people over producing content or just regurgitating corporate slogans or corporate logos and all that stuff has a place but your humanity actually needs to be forefront. And Todd just shared the whole proof of it right here. You heard the whole thing coming out of the guy who’s been leading our industry for 20, 30 years. It’s paramount and it was not going to change. And so Todd thank you for dropping that bomb at the end. That was going to be one of my golden nuggets. Mike you got to pull that out because that was killer. Todd, what do you want to leave the group with?Todd Duncan:I just want to say one thing about what you just said and everybody needs to understand that as humanity goes up, four things get triggered. Okay? Number one is chemistry. The deal of the future is, do business with people you like, do business with people that you’re attracted to, do business with people that are attracted to you. Every successful partnership, realtor builder, financial planner, borrower is built on chemistry. So, once you have chemistry then you must from a humanity standpoint have a conversation. And I believe that this is where having the right questions, having fewer of the best questions, going down that path. That conversation allows empathy and trust to transfer. When you have deeper conversation, it yields and opens the doors to collaboration. You should be collaborating with agents every week right now. Collaborating with your business referral partners every week right now. You ought to be collaborating and doing virtual lunch and learns and you ought to be doing the stuff that technology speaking is very easy to do right now. But you can’t collaborate if there’s no chemistry because nobody wants to have the conversation. Right?Todd Duncan:And if I collaborate, here’s what happens. If I collaborate, it spins up ideology, right? If Alec and I are talking for 45 minutes and all of a sudden we have a couple ideas and I’m going to say, “Hello,” let’s go on that. He’s going to go ” wait a minute” And then I’m going to say, “okay,” So we have chemistry. We’ve had a conversation we’re collaborating. Now we just have to resolve a little bit of the conflict. It’s not a negative conflict. The healthiest relationships on the planet have conflict-Alec:AbsolutelyTodd Duncan:…Because that’s the only way they grow. And so watch this chemistry, conversation, collaboration, conflict resolution equals connection. And that’s what we need. We need a connected society that is a universal tribe that wants to help people win. And in you, the form of lender to agent, to buyer, to… that’s never going to change for as long as real estate stays standing which will be forever. That’s not going to change. What is going to change is the human infusion of empathy, conversation and trust particularly because this is the highest value transaction anybody will make in their life.Alec:Bombs. Just throwing bombs. Todd, that’s why I wanted to hang out with you today dude. I love this. I think that everybody who’s going to hear this and check the replay is going to pull something different from it. And I love that you’re continuing to innovate, continuing to press the envelope pushing forward. I love coffee with Todd. It’s one of my favorite morning things. I dig it. I’m in dude. I just because it’s inspiring everybody else to realize that they have the same opportunity. They can step in and play a big game, be vulnerable, be human and watch themselves win. And I cannot wait for Sales Mastery.Todd Duncan:Refined.Alec:I cannot wait dude. All right my man. Hey, we’re wrapping it up. Everybody on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. Appreciate you. If this brought value, like share, subscribe. Love you guys. Todd. You’re the man have a great day. Everybody we’re out.