Come join me and Dave Savage, CEO of Mortgage Coach and Industry Leading Collaborator as we discuss best in class tactics, strategies and scripts used by world class originators to thrive in this digital world. 

Your snippet into this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• Be the guide not the hero.
• Get out there and just do, get in front of the camera.
• Grandma know what zoom is now. Now is the time.
• Find out what mortgagecoach and Dave Savage is all about.

Episode Transcribe

Alec Hanson:What’s up everybody. Welcome to another live episode of the Modern Lending podcast.

I am stoked you are here with me online live and I’m also stoked if you’re listening to this later on, as it gets rereleased as a podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be a fun conversation. I try my best to bring a lot of value to you guys on these podcast days on Thursdays. And a lot of you know, and this is a little bit of a humble brag, but I wrote a book and it comes out May 28th. So that’s in seven days. So thank you for all that have pre-ordered.But one of the chapters in this book is on consultation and quoting, and I almost literally dedicated this chapter to the man that we’re going to bring on in our podcast, Dave Savage. This guy has been leaning in to contemporary consultative practices for what feels like a decade. I mean, honestly, Dave will correct this, but it feels like forever from video technology and leveraging the web to make an online digital presentation. And guess what? That’s all we got now. So let’s bring on Dave Savage and have an incredible conversation about digital consultations.Yes, here we are. Dave Savage, the man. I’m super jealous of your digital background. I want something as cool as that. Because I just, I got wood and yours is like an actual like Mortgage Coach, like domain.Dave Savage:Well, there’s the logo up there, but yeah, it’s a pretty sweet background and a hats off to the Mortgage Coach product and design team.Alec Hanson:So good. Hey everybody. We are live on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. If you are there drop a comment from where you are listening in from, we’d love to engage with you. All of your comments are live. We’re seeing them, we’re experiencing them. So any questions you have as we’re going through this live podcast, we want to engage. So jump in. Dave, thank you. Number one for hanging out with me today.Dave Savage:Thank you for inviting me to hang out with you.Alec Hanson:Well, for those of you that know Dave, like this guy, you are the one of the busiest guys in the game. You are consistently putting out enriched content to drive our industry forward bringing new conversations. And so I know how busy you are not only in just running Mortgage Coach, but just an also producing a lot of stuff for everybody that’s in our community. So thank you for that.Dave Savage:Well, I love doing it and we have an amazing community and the mortgage industry is an amazing industry. So it’s a gift and a pleasure.Alec Hanson:I love that comment because even when I started in 2003, the mortgage industry had a taint to it. It was not necessarily thought of as this amazing industry, this amazing platform, it’s kind of like used car salesman and mortgage people were fighting for superiority. And here we are though in this incredible industry in this unparalleled time and the mortgage industry is actually going to be one of the amazing industries of the United States that help pull this country out of the COVID recession. And I’m just really proud to be part of it, proud to be part of it.Dave Savage:Yeah, there, there is no doubt. This is a tremendous opportunity for our industry, the house and the home is the center of the universe for a family. And most families need a mortgage to experience that amazing wealth building opportunity. And guys, I do not think we’re competing with used car salesman. I mean the quality of loan officers in America has elevated and it just continues to elevate. It’s one of the things I love about your book is it’s a blueprint to being that modern, elevated mortgage professional. And I think it’s a very bright time to be in this industry.Alec Hanson:Well, look, we’ve got people from all over. We got Jersey Shore, we got Colorado, we got Oregon, we got Texas and we’re already getting some of your fans jumping on here. Tammy’s quote is the best, “Woot, Dave Savage doing digital before it was a thing.” And that’s actually like Tammy, that’s dead on like one of the conversations I want to start with with you, Dave, which is it’s crazy to me Mortgage Coach as a platform, as a technology was leaning into digital conversations and digital consultations literally before it was cool. Because now you don’t have a choice. Like we were just talking about this two seconds ago guys, before we went live, as a local real mortgage pro, like one of the things I loved doing was getting face to face with my customers and explaining an LE or explaining a CD or explaining the costs and the fees and the whole stuff. You can’t do that anymore. You can’t do it anymore. So let’s just ask this question. What’s subscribership and what are you experiencing for Mortgage Coach?Dave Savage:Well, I mean the virtual mortgage experience has exploded. And I think Zoom and the results that are putting out is into the public in terms of their user base, how many more people are doing virtual experiences has exploded. And the Mortgage Coach network has exploded. We almost hit a million families a year last year getting a TCA. We’re going to crush over 2 million families a year getting a TCA this year. Between our integrations and the number of families that are clicking on it it’s exploded. And then our users loan officers that are creating a total cost analysis. I mean, it’s up multiples of percent. I mean, it’s a virtual explosion.Alec Hanson:And it’s so funny. You talk about skating to where the puck is going, right? The great Wayne Gretzky quote of like, “I skate where the puck is going.” And I don’t think anyone would have predicted that we were going to this place.Dave Savage:Not this fast. Not this fast. Not this fast.Alec Hanson:And man, but when tipping points happen, when things come up, when things happen like this, I mean the mortgage crisis was no one thought how fast, that happened fast. It was like, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” And then just total destruction of the industry in our world, everything was going digital. And then all of a sudden COVID hit and then it’s like, whomp, now we’re almost purely digital. And so one of the things that I love that you do and that I like to kind of maybe have you unpack for a few minutes, you connect to a lot of top originators. You share their content, you host things like Scriptapalooza by the way, which is epic. If you guys haven’t seen that on the YouTubes, it’s amazing. But the Dave, what are you seeing like real talk live happening around us right now that the best loan officers are doing leveraging Mortgage Coach?Dave Savage:Well, I think there’s been at least a five year acceleration in digital adoption. And I do think we’re entering this new phase, which I had been calling all of last year, the digital shift era. And I think we’re in this new phase call it new chapter of the book called the virtual shift era where we need to connect virtually. How realtors show homes and market homes, they’re doing virtual listing appointments. So there’s just an explosion of professionals creating content. The webinar wars, I call it the mortgage industry. I used to be kind of like-Alec Hanson:Dude, I like that.Dave Savage:… the guy that was doing the most webinars [inaudible 00:07:15] content.Alec Hanson:What is the webinar wars?Dave Savage:Now, we got this show going on. There’s another show. So there is that people have stepped into this stage and they’re there on virtual stages. I think now there’s the skill, the skill level. I love how you played off of Rene Rodriquez is digital body language. And the people that are like looking in the corner of the picture are the people that are over here. So there’s different people show up at different levels. And the best of the best are just learning quick.I was on the phone the other day with Shayla Gifford, rockstar mortgage professional. And she wasn’t, I’m talking into the eye, that’s the camera. She fixed it like the end of the day. She’s like I did three meetings and I’m on it. And so I’m seeing the best of the best. They’re just getting good rapidly. They’re unlearning their bad habits. They’re relearning new habits. And guys, the mortgage industry is leading housing virtually in America. We’re teaching realtors how to do it. And the best of the best are just learning really fast. That’s what I’m seeing.Alec Hanson:dude. You know what that tells me too, it’s it’s not just that their skill and learning is probably maybe above average, but they’re willing to make mistakes. You can’t learn to stare at the camera and get that feedback from you unless the camera’s on. So that’s a wonderful point. So share a little bit about your total cost analysis, because there are some people that by the way, may have never heard of Mortgage Coach.Dave Savage:What? Watching this call right now. You think there’s some here.Alec Hanson:Yeah, not true.Dave Savage:If you’ve never heard of, let me know, like, “I’m hearing about Mortgage Coach.” I’m just kidding.Alec Hanson:That would be fantastic.Dave Savage:But I do want to know.Alec Hanson:Well, because here’s the reality, Dave, new blood’s coming into our industry, brand new blood is coming into the mortgage space right now because we’re hiring like a bunch of other companies that we’re going to hire like 3000 people between now and the end of the year and a bunch of other mortgage companies are going to have rapid growth. There are not enough loan professionals in our industry today to handle the volume that’s coming at us. When rates go into the twos and they’re seven to $6 trillion of opportunity out there, there’s not enough humans in our industry to manage this influx. We’re going to need new blood and they’re going to never have heard of Mortgage Coach. They’re going to come in from wherever they came in. And I want you in the simplest way possible. What does a TCA analysis do?Dave Savage:So when I founded Mortgage Coach and the TCA, I always came from this concept that, I want to make money. I want to be successful, but I want to be valuable. And that was always my guiding light to create tangible value and to do it in a way that was unique. Like, if everybody’s doing this, I need to do it a little different. And so a couple things that I think are common sense that I discovered early on in my career was that every loan officer is quoting rates, payment and cash to close, which are essential parts of a transaction. But there there were some things that loan officers weren’t doing and they weren’t showing families the total cost over time. So let’s face it people don’t just get a loan for a monthly payment and they don’t get the loan and keep it for 30 years. Usually there’s like, “Oh, I want it for three years. I want it for five years. I want it for seven years.” And so to me, that was just common sense that if you’re going to get a loan, look at it over windows of time that irrelevant to you.And then I don’t remember where I first saw it. It was probably at a Todd Duncan sales mastery onstage. Someone talked about, “Hey, if you make an extra payment a year, you’re going to pay off your house in 18 years.” And so that was another thing like common sense.And I didn’t want to just say that conceptually. I wanted to be able to say, “Hey family, let’s say you did a refinance. And it’s going to save you this much per month.” Which every loan officer in America is, they got that right.Alec Hanson:We can do that.Dave Savage:They know how to show monthly savings. But I thought like, “Hey, what if one, I blew up the savings over time?” Like, consumer, “How long is it important to have it?””Oh, it’s going to save you that much over five years.” To me, that’s good salesmanship. It’s good advisory. And then what if we took that extra savings and applied it to your principal, to the penny, how much is that going to reduce your interest costs? So the Mortgage Coach was born from that like a couple common sense principles that are not common sense and automating them so that any loan officer, whether they were new in the business and they just got of the business for being in the food service industry, they could implement these common sense ideas. So that was what gave birth to the total cost analysis.Alec Hanson:Now this is where I love when you took it to the next level and talking about skating to where the puck is going, you incorporated the video. And we even rapped about this on another one of my 100 videos in 100 days thing where you introduced video. And so remind everybody, when did that feature go live?Dave Savage:Gosh, well, it’s been a long time.Alec Hanson:I know.Dave Savage:I mean it’s been a few years. I think this is one of those things when I think back at why I embraced video, this is where a weakness I have. I mean, I am real deal ADD. So I was that kid in high school, not high school in grade school that took Ritalin, so that’s real. And then I’m dyslexic so spelling is not my gift. So I started using video very early on. One, I’m always looking for the differentiator, but really why did I use video? Because I can’t spell anything wrong. And it’s faster. What would take me too long to type and write and would have errors. I could just use a video. So I was an early adopter because of a personal gift. Some people would call it a weakness, but a gift that I had. And then I just saw the speed advantage. So I just started like, “Oh, I’m going to bring video to the mortgage industry because it’s a way to personally connect. It’s a way to save time.” And for all my dyslexic, brothers and sisters out there, it’s a way to not spell any words wrong.Alec Hanson:But I really want to take a tangent here because what you just said, number one, thank you for showing that vulnerability as strength and just sharing something that you used, you thought of, or maybe in the world and interprets as a weakness and figuring out, “Hey, this is actually going to be a strength later.”And here’s my story on this. So I have massive call reluctance and massive insecurity from being bullied growing up and all that stuff from being wanting to be accepted and all that fun stuff. Right. So that’s all lives in here. And so when I was told in 2003, I’m 23 years old. They’re like, “Hey, you need to go out and meet realtors. I want eight business cards a day. I want you going out on broker previews, open houses, eight cards a day.”And I was so terrified of getting rejected. But I knew I had to walk in there cause calling them out of the blue was even more terrifying. So screw that. But I knew I had to get in there. And so I didn’t sell because I’m like, if I don’t sell anything, they reject me for anything. So I didn’t sell. I just walked in and introduced myself, asked a couple high level, whatever questions. And it’s funny, I hacked my own success because without selling, I became nonthreatening and nonthreatening I became a friend or a colleague, an industry professional, fellow industry professional. And all of a sudden now I had permission to start asking like, “Hey, did you ever think about using me as a mortgage guy?” Because now I had a relationship with them, Dave. And they saw me for who I was and I got honest feedback.And a lot of people were like, “Yeah, I’d love that.” Or like, “Yeah, I was waiting for you to ask for business and you never asked.”And I was like, “Well, I was too terrified that you’d say no.” And it’s incredible. It’s like with your dyslexia and going into video. I mean, you hacked your own success because if we’re honest guys, sometimes our greatest fears and weaknesses are actually the things that are going to empower us to the next level. And Dave, you’re a living example of that. Because you brought video out and look at the world now. Isn’t it crazy?Dave Savage:Yeah, it is crazy. But it’s so important. And I still see way too many loan officers not leaning into the video game. And I see too many loan officers thinking video is making a show like this. And this is an example of video, but guys, text video send a 15 second, 30 second text video to a realtor after meeting in Mortgage Coach the easiest video to the two used videos you’ll ever do are the thank you. Because you know how to do that hopefully. And then the voice memo on a Mortgage Coach TCA where you have that conversation with people on voicemails put it in a digital format so that everybody who is helping that family make their mortgage decision, gets to connect with you. They get to see you, they get to hear you and they get to connect with you. It’s the biggest no-brainer there ever was.Alec Hanson:So I think Dave, this is going to be the best kind of recognition of what you guys do. So let’s, let’s show some comments because we can’t see them. If you’re on Facebook, you can see the Facebook comments, but you can’t see LinkedIn put Shawn’s comment up.Dave Savage:Yep. By the way, the tech that you’re using here is pretty sweet.Alec Hanson:Dude I’m geeking out everyday. But look at this, “Mortgage Coach has changed my business forever. The TCA is a major game changer when my clients.” Scroll up a little bit, Mikey, throw Erica’s up there.Dave Savage:Thank you, Shawn. Appreciate you brother.Alec Hanson:Keep going. You’ll find it. Erica had a quote about how Mortgage Coach has changed your careers. Oh, there’s a good one. Yep. “Mortgage Coach saves me deals. Weekly takes the fight out of rate.”There’s Erica’s, “Mortgage Coach has changed my career.” I mean, Dave you’re making impact in this industry.Dave Savage:Wow, wow. Thank you, thank you.Alec Hanson:And you deserve a lot of thanks, because you’re making massive impact in our industry.Dave Savage:Well the Moore Good Coach team. I mean, I am a guy who started the fire, but I have a partner that helped create the first version. Greg Waxler, Joe Patura our head of product. And we just have an amazing team of innovators throughout the entire company. Jacob Gibbs, everybody who’s part of Mortgage Coach knows Jacob’s voice from all the videos he’s done and all that support. So we’ve got an amazing team.Alec Hanson:Now here’s where I want to take the rest of this conversation. Obviously you have a tremendous product and it’s serving our community. It’s serving our loan officers. There’s social proof right in front of our faces on this live podcast. But you also do something different to kind of brand yourself and market yourself. And this conversation, or this question is going to be universal to every single sales person, mortgage professional on this live or listening to this pod. Which is, you don’t just produce content saying, “Look how great Mortgage Coach is.” Which you could, you could have video after video testimonial, after testimonial of, “Look how great Mortgage Coach is.” Instead, one of the things you do, which has always impressed me and I took a page out of it. And it’s kind of what I’m doing with my strategy is you bring collaboration and best practices and conversations to the industry. Like Scriptapalooza. How many of those have you done?Dave Savage:Well, that was the third Scriptapalooza, but I put everything I do when it comes to creating social media content under the category of leadership. And the only force I know that changes the world more than technology, it is leadership. And I started creating content using video, started with GoToMeeting coming out of the mortgage meltdown because nobody was doing sales meetings. And if they weren’t doing sales meetings, they were not motivational and great. And so from a Mortgage Coach standpoint, I always learned that when it comes to learning to use a new piece of technology, or I looked at the branch managers that had everybody using the tech right. And you know, different companies have different levels of adoption. It’s all about leadership. And so my, why is I create content because I want to shine a light on other people in our community that are incredible leaders that are actually doing it. And it was just the best way to make the change I wanted to make in the industry was to do interviews. So that’s why I do it.Alec Hanson:And guys, the reason I asked Dave, look, we can all take a page out of that book right there, guys. I literally had a teammate today, send me a LinkedIn note saying, “I want to get out in the game. I want to produce content at scale. I want to be on video, but I’m afraid that I’m not going to enough content and I’m going to fizzle out and I’m going to disappear.” And the reality is there is so much content out there. I mean, Dave, your strategy of just interviewing people and sharing best practices alone could go on forever. And I hope it does. There’s a comment right here. Again, Shawn basically said that, “His weekly calls are my personal sales meetings.” And this one, “The weekly series of masterminds. I learn something every time.”Dave Savage:Thank you Shawn.Alec Hanson:And what I love about this is, Dave, you’re not just selling your product. You’re contributing at scale with leadership. And that to me, everyone should write that down and take a page from that book and integrate it into their own strategy Dave. It’s exceptionally cool what you do.Dave Savage:Well, thank you brother. And I do want to comment the person who said, “I’m worried that I’m going to run out of content.” I think that’s a very legitimate fear.And when I started creating content, it wasn’t like, “Oh, I am going to do this for the next 10 years. And before you know it, I’m going to be doing two live calls a week and I’m going to be interviewing multiple loan officers weekly.” I mean, that was not a plan. And it’s still not I’m committed to doing the amount of content that I do forever. So I think anytime that you’re fearful of something, you need to step over that so, “Oh, I’m fear.” So I just got to step over that and take it one day at a time, take it one video at a time.And either one, most people aren’t going to judge you the way you think they are. And the people that are going to judge you the way you’re worried, who cares about those people? You’re worried about the wrong folk. So whenever you reach fear, you just need to step over that fear when it comes to video, because we are in a new world guys, it was a virtual economy. And while we will be living in the real world, again, we will have face to face meetings again, guys, grandma knows Zoom is. That’s like a household name now. And grandma likes Zoom.Alec Hanson:Love it.Dave Savage:We had a birthday party on zoom. My mom loved Zoom. She’s like, “When are we going to get on more Zooms?”And I’m like, “Okay, mom, the phone’s still cool. We can’t Zoom it out every time.” But if you are serious about your success as a mortgage professional, you need to use virtual tools like Mortgage Coach. I do think we power the ultimate virtual mortgage experience. I do think Zoom or competitors of Zoom are essential to your tool kit. And I think whether it’s Vid Yard, BombBomb, video automation platforms, guys, these are essential tools that you need to learn how to play with and you need to do it now. There’s no more time to wait.Alec Hanson:Well, and this is where we were chatting a little bit Dave before we went live. It’s funny. What’s the saying about when the ocean recedes, you could see who’s wearing shorts. When the water level goes out, you get to see who’s naked and who’s wearing clothes. We’re in this moment, COVID arrived. We’re all forced to shelter and home. We’re all retreating to our home offices and our garages and wherever. And to me as I look across the social world, it’s so evident to me that people that were equipped, they had cameras, they had lighting, they were already doing stuff. And now they’re accelerating in their business. While some people are up and that’s unfortunate, but it’s also going to drive this industry forward to the next space. I mean, we’re not going back to business as usual. We’re going forward into new business and new opportunity.Dave Savage:Yeah, new chapter. It’s a new chapter.Alec Hanson:I love that comment. Yeah. It’s absolutely going to be a new chapter.Dave Savage:Yeah. Could you imagine what life was like before we had these mobile phones, smart phones.Alec Hanson:I do remember because I had a Nokia brick phone and I had to go and MapQuest was around. So I could print out all the maps from location to location to see which open houses I was going to go hit when I pulled the hot sheets up and I’d have them printed out on my seat next to me and I would drive. I do remember what it was like.Dave Savage:Here’s the point I want to make, what’s different about this. So when Steve Jobs stood on stage and showed the smartphone, here’s what I know. I know I wanted one and I know I was one of the first to buy one. But I did not know the world had changed forever. I mean, it took some time for us like, “Oh my gosh, that is when Zillow started. That is when the arms race in the mortgage industry. And everybody has to have a digital experience. That’s what it started.” But we really didn’t know it for a few years because here’s what’s different now is after eight weeks of quarantine, grandma knowing what Zoom is, we all know it. We know it’s different and we know we need to step into that. So I think it’s different. This is an innovative moment, a moment of innovation and acceleration of digital technology that I think is obvious to everyone. And so are you stepping into it? Is the question I think we all need to ask ourselves.Alec Hanson:well, here’s a way you guys can step into it. Shawn made the comment on Facebook. It’s a long post, so we’re not going to show it necessarily. But what you do on Facebook with your Mortgage Coach group is incredible. And so I would encourage anybody who’s listening to this later or live right now to flick over to Facebook and join this Mortgage Coach group. Because you’re going to find 10,000 something members who are collaborating and leaning in to new skills. And Dave, you post constantly with relevant content in that place.Dave Savage:I try to make that my social media hub, it’s Mortgage Coach Productivity Mastermind group. And I do check into it multiple times a day. And I love our community of mortgage professionals. I believe that the Mortgage Coach loan officer is the most valuable loan officer to the family. And I want to grow that. So yeah, it’s a great community. Check it out. We also have a YouTube channel Mortgage Coach on YouTube.Alec Hanson:I was going to say definitely the YouTube channel.Dave Savage:Check it out.Alec Hanson:And here’s some encouragement for some people that are struggling with content. Cause Dave, you triggered me a little bit because you said we’re in an accelerating environment, but when you decide to jump over the fear and start creating content and putting out your message, there’s also an acceleration that happens. And so I’ll give you guys a quick little anecdote. When I realized I was not executing what I was preaching, I was telling everybody to get digital and get social, I wasn’t doing it myself. I turned around, went, “Why haven’t I gotten all in on this platform?” And so I put my personal challenge of 100 videos in 100 days and I put an Google doc drive up and I got 40 pieces of content for 40 videos. And I’m like, “Dude, if I got 40, I can get 100.”And then I powered through that. I got my 100 done. And then I realized, “I can do a podcast and take this to the next level.” And my podcast is going to be one a month. That was like my goal. I got one a month, 12 podcasts. I’m like, “I could do 12 podcasts.” I’m doing one a week now because this whole thing continues to accelerate forward. There is no shortage of content to talk about and it definitely accelerates. And that’s why when you look at the stuff that Dave’s done on YouTube with 10,000 subscribers, someone said, I’m calling you out right now. I’m calling everybody out right now. Because I want you to win. And that’s what Dave’s doing. We want you to win. We want you to play big and I don’t want you to be invisible to the world because you’ve got so much to offer.And look I got to hit it again. The fact that you can use a total cost analysis, that you can put your face into the living room of the customer you’re talking to, they can see your intention. They can see your eyesight. They can see you go over the numbers, it’s a mandatory tool. You are not going to win unless you’re playing that level of game.Dave Savage:Well, I think there’s also just a time saving benefit to when you’re using technology to deliver. And again, Mortgage Coach deliver options to families, deliver quotes, deliver advice. But every time, I mean, you’re seeing a massive number of people figuring out that Calendly or scheduling meeting using scheduling automation makes sense. Doing interviews you are using Stream Yard right here to do interviews and guys a content idea for every loan officer. You get it, you need to do text video, you need to do email video. You need to put Mortgage Coach TCA. But if you want to start creating content, interview local rockstars.If you want to be a mortgage rockstar and you want to be the most well known loan officer in your market. And by the way, if you are, referral-based like, hey, I live off of referrals and I live off of referrals within an hour of where I live, I call you a local referral based mortgage professional, I would tell everybody watching this right now. I want you to write down the 10 or 20 most well known professionals that are also referral based that live off of that on social media. So who are the realtors? Who are the CPAs? Who are the financial planners? Who are the restaurateurs? In every market you live, there are people that are playing this game and then I want you to go interview them.And maybe if you’re afraid to interview them in a way that’s a show, interviewed them for your own curiosity. Reach out to them and just say, “Hey, I want to can you jump on Zoom for 10, 15 minutes? I want to shine a light on you and your business and what you do.” And if you’re too afraid to like interview with them, the purpose for the purpose of promotion, which I would recommend you don’t, I recommend you just get after it and do it. But at a minimum, interview them for yourself and see what it feels like. And guys, it’s a huge opportunity. It’s a massive opportunity for everybody watching this right now.Alec Hanson:Massive opportunity guys, because right now think about what Dave said. I mean, rewind it and listen to it again on YouTube. Just write down exactly what he said, it’s 100% right. And here’s what I would add to it that hopefully gives you guys some more juice. There are a lot of businesses suffering right now. They’re suffering. Whether they’re local restaurants, mom and pop retailers, whatever they are, they’re suffering because they can’t open. They can’t run their business the way they want to. They’re doing takeout or whatever they’re trying to do to survive. You having an interview with them about why they started their restaurant or their little boutique store or what they’re doing, how they’re thriving, how they’re getting through this and how the listeners can help. I mean, this is your opportunity to say, “Hey, look, how can we help you as a community?” And let them tell you how you can help.And then take that piece of content, take that interview and blast it to your past customers and your community about this local place that you love. And now you have a way to help them. Whether it’s a gift card or come by on Thursday or whatever it is, this is incredibly cool. One of the things LoanDepot did that, I was like, Oh my God, it was so good. Anthony Shade decided to give away a million dollars worth of stuff to first responders and to people that are suffering and dealing with COVID. And he went to the local restaurants that our employees eat at all the time. And it was like, “Hey, can I pay you to bring the food?” And single handily dropped a huge check on that local restaurant. Who’s like, “I was suffering. I had no customers.” And now they’re that. Now that restaurants delivering food to the nurses at like CHOC hospital.And I was like, “That’s it that’s the right thing.” And even if you don’t have a million bucks, you can still do that with a limited resource.Dave Savage:There’s so many. Yeah. And guys, this is where in the mortgage industry, we could be the light. We have jobs, we’re having record breaking success. We can help restaurants, small businesses. I hope everybody on this call, that’s watching, this is tipping at record levels. I hope you are doing everything you can do to support your local businesses. If you have local service providers, I hope you’re prepaying for services. You’re doing anything and everything to help local communities. But these interviews are huge. And guys have Bill Gaylord on the team there. So if anybody’s watching this guys follow Bill Gaylord, he’s part of the American Dream network.Alec Hanson:Man, he’s the man.Dave Savage:Yeah, and by the way, Craig Sewing, who’s a good personal friend of mine. He’s getting ready to come out with this new thing that is Elevate. I think he’s calling it Elevate where it’s taking interviews and then editing them and producing them, elevating them. Guys, it is just such a massive opportunity to do these interviews and do them in small ways and do them in big ways, but get out there and do it.Alec Hanson:Yeah. And please don’t be afraid of it having to be super produced content guys. Just be humans. We all recognize authenticity when we see it. So just be humans and you’ll kill it. So Dave, we’ve got a ton of comments, a ton of engagement going on. And this could take a longer time, but I usually like to kind of end the segments I do with advice advice, you would give local mortgage pros. And you’re the perfect guy to ask because it’s like, hey look, let’s say you got a 30 year old rookie to the industry. And you’ve got a 30 year veteran sitting, sitting in front of you. And they’re both said, “Dave, what should I be doing?” What do you say?Dave Savage:So, I’m going to play off of something. You just said, don’t worry about editing them, producing them, putting bumpers on them. Be raw, be yourself. I think I’ll look back 10 years from now and one of the most important books I read last year was Story Brand by Donald Miller. And the central theme that I pulled out of that book and really why I think I will be referencing that book 10 years from now, is be the guide, don’t be the hero. I think real estate agents, mortgage professionals. We’re always trying to be the hero, “Look how many loans I close, look how smart I am. Look how many years I’ve been in the business.” And I think first of all, it’s important too, we’re competitive, we like to win, we like to crush competition. Every single loan is a war. Every family is looking at different lenders there’s a competition taking place and one loan officer walks away with that. So we are a competitive breed and I think we need to be, to be successful, but we need to, we need to be the guide.And so if I had one piece of advice, I delivered a keynote to a bunch of new loan officers this week. I think it was about 50 new loan officers entering the industry. And I had put in a couple hours of thought, like, “What do I want to tell them? I want you to be the guide.” And I also, for all you guys that have been doing this for a long time, I want you to really think about your conversation, I want you to look at your website. I want you to look at how are you showing up? Are you the guide or are you the hero? I don’t think we celebrate families success in us. I am seeing a lot of people where they’ll like take a screenshot of a testimonial and they’ll push it on social media. Guys, I don’t think that’s being the guide.I think showing a picture of a family and putting a little story like taking a minute to tell their story. And then not just talk about how you closed their loan in 23 days. Like, how fast you did it and how low the rate was. I want you to start talking about the ripple effect of what you did for that family. I helped them get their loan. I helped them do a refi that will allow them to unlock $343 a month, which equals $6,350 over five years. And because they’re going to prepay their mortgage, they’re going to pay off their house eight years earlier. Tell stories and tell stories that have the ripple effect of the lifetime value.We are just too transactional. We’re cutting and pasting testimonials. We’re bragging about low rates, we’re bragging about how fast we can do it. Guys brag about the ripple effect of your advice. And I want to see more stories being told, and I want to see more mortgage professionals being the guide, not the hero. And if I was talking to you, if my kid was getting in the mortgage business, I would just be talking about if you’re the guide, not the hero, you guys got to work your ass off, you got to put it in the hours, we’ve got to grind, we’ve got to be intentional with our time. But the strategy is be the guide, not the hero. I repeated that five times, I think. I think that’s enough.Alec Hanson:You should, because I want everyone to hear it and I love it, Dave. So look guys, we’re going to leave it at that. We’re going to drop the mic right there. That was incredible. That was the exact message everyone should hear be the guide, not the hero. And in a world of heroes, we need more guides.Dave Savage:And by the way, guys, timeout, I did interview Donald Miller for the mortgage industry. Check that on our YouTube channel. And I did write an article on it with Kristin Messerly, it’s on LinkedIn. Don’t just take what I said. By the way, get his book, read the book, look at the interview and then execute. So sorry I just had to do those breadcrumbs.Alec Hanson:All right, brother. Peace out. See you guys next week.Dave Savage:Take care.

Let’s be honest, we’ve now got this small window of digital space to communicate our message, so let’s unpack what message your body language is sending!

In this LiveTime with Alec, we unpack…

• What this small window we have now in this new digital age
• How your current body language could be telling a different story
• How present are you to the people you are talking to
• what to do with your hands…

Episode Transcribe

What’s up, everybody?

Welcome to LiveTime with Alec.

I hope you’re having a good Tuesday. Oh yeah. It’s Tuesday. Should be a Monday. Sorry. I’m getting my LinkedIn all set up down here because Stream [inaudible 00:00:11] doesn’t like to hear or see LinkedIn comments which suck. So Chris, welcome. Yeah. Today we’re going to talk about digital body language. This is a continuation of a conversation that I had with Rene Rodriguez. And if you missed that shame on you, but don’t worry. We’re going to release it as a podcast and you can go to the YouTube channel and check it out. But one of the things that he talked about, which was exceptionally powerful was the power of your digital body language. This is a crucial concept because we can’t get physical anymore. LinkedIn just went live. I got it up. Thank you guys for joining me on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. Let’s talk about digital body language.COVID has made it so abundantly clear that we now live in this little box on our computer screens. And so your body language is now more important than ever because there is no action going on in our sales process and even in our meetings, like our digital meetings. How many of you, by just throwing a comment in there, have seen in a Zoom call or in a WebEx or in a Team, Hangout, Microsoft [inaudible 00:00:01:19], the one person who’s like asleep. You know what I’m talking about? Like they’re just not even in the game at all, or the best is their camera’s off. So you know what the camera off shows me? You don’t give a shit about whoever’s on the call you’re with. Oh yeah. I went there. I even cussed for expletive purposes to like make the point.Like if you don’t have the respect to put the camera on and get a light on your face and hang out with me on a call, then it’s like going to a meeting and sitting down there and the guy shows up in his onesie pajamas, like just cruises in. The amount of disrespect you’re showing by not showing up is so crazy to me. Yeah, dude. Somebody liked it on LinkedIn. That’s what I’m talking about guys.So number one, let’s talk about digital body language. And you can’t talk about that if your camera’s not on. I don’t care what you look like, dude or gal. I don’t care. It’s a meeting. Show up in the meeting. Okay, so let’s break it down, not only just like a video sales pitch, I’m not even going to go there yet. Which all of you should recognize like how important body language is in a sales pitch. But let’s just talk about your WebExs and your Zoom calls guys. Okay, you know what I… If your camera’s not on, you’re disrespecting everybody there. If your camera is on, but you’re this guy. “Oh yeah, yeah, no. I’m paying attention. Yeah, for sure.” I know what you’re doing. You’re not paying attention. Again, that’s like me sitting in a meeting with you and you just staring at your phone the whole time, which I’m actually really, really guilty of so I got to be real careful like calling the kettle black right now.But do you feel me though? Like if we’re in a meeting and you’re over here. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. For sure.” Your body language sucks. If you’re in a meeting and you’re laying back in your chair, you’re not engaged. You’re not even here with me. You’re not even paying attention. This is so crucially important. So crucially important. Think about it. If your boss, mentor, coach, friend, colleague is sitting on a Zoom call with you and you’re not actively engaged with your body language, with your eye contact, with your focused listening, you’re missing out. You’re blowing it. You are blowing it and you shouldn’t be.I saw Jason Martinson, a guy who runs Hawaii for us, awesome human being. He put on LinkedIn the other day a little sticky note right underneath the camera and it was a smiley face. And I love it because it’s part of this conversation, which is like remember to smile, remember to engage this camera because that’s what the person sees. Remember this person has this box to experience you with. This is it. This is what they experience. Are you focused? Are you engaged? Are you present? Is your posture good? Like I know because we sit in our chair and we turn into little T-Rexs, and this is what we look like when we’re just kind of doing stuff. I get it, but it’s not good enough and we need to be better. And digital body language sets the entire tone.A silly example, your boss puts together a Zoom call. You don’t even get on the camera. Disrespect. You get on the camera, but you’re not paying attention. You’re typing over here. You’re on mute. First of all, if you’re on mute and you’re looking like, I know what you’re doing. And look, it’s hard. It’s hard. It’s hard to stay focused. You’ve got your computer. You’re on a call. Maybe it’s boring. Maybe you don’t even like the content. I don’t know. But I’m telling you that if you want to up your game, you better put some stickies or some things in your backgrounds or something to remind you to come to the call, to come to the camera and engage.Now let’s for sure talk about sales because now we’re selling with this box again and digital body language is now more important than absolutely ever before. And it is a learned, practiced thing. You don’t naturally turn the camera on and be like, “Boom, I’m here to play” and bring your A game. But Rene taught me something really cool and I want to share it again with you guys because it made an impact in how I show up now digitally. And so I’m going to pass it on. These guys. These guys. Oh my gosh. Have you seen… Think about a speaker that you know, or like when you watch politicians, people talk with their hands.Now when you’re on a camera like this and you’re sitting your hands tend to be where? On the keyboard, out of the frame. That is not a good place for them to be. They need to be part of the conversation, but they’re down here. So you actually have to have a little more intentionality to bring your hands and your body into the camera. Sometimes when you just sit here like this all day long, you turn into a talking head and you’re boring. And you’re just like, “Yes. And the mortgage backed security market went down 2.5% and then the rates stayed the same or flat.” And I don’t care. Stop it. Stop immediately.If you’re going to sell, if you’re going to bring your story forward, bring it forward with your body language. This is why I always coach people and encourage people to stand up when they talk on video. It’s not for everybody and there are times when sitting is totally appropriate and totally fine. But I think that when you stand, you gain a little bit more energy and purpose. You can actually bring your hands away. My keyboard’s away from me. It’s like over there. So I’m not tempted to sit there and type and I can talk like this and engage. Yes, it’s a little bit like Ricky Bobby. [inaudible 00:07:18] like, “I don’t know what to do with my hands.”But you can do what you normally do, which is you can gesticulate. That word. I was a little scared to let that one out of the mouth, but it just went. But you can point things out. You can talk. You can exclaim. You can do this. I don’t really care, but bring them out. One of my favorites personally, on the hips right here. Yeah. I’m here in the hips. I don’t know. Look, I don’t claim to have any more intelligence than anybody out there doing this game. What I do know is that when I hear things that are correct, they resonate and they sink in. And what Renee said was absolutely correct. Your hands need to be part of the conversation.Digital body language matters. Digital body language matters. I didn’t want to keep this particular conversation LifeTime very long, but I want to drive home the point. When you’re in a meeting online, you got to show up to win. You got to show up to show respect. You got to turn the camera on, get the light on, be present. It’s just like going to a meeting in real life. If you need to put sticky notes to remind yourself, to show up, great. Put something around your camera, put a smiley face like Jason did right next to the camera. Do whatever you need to do to remind yourself to play big. Your colleagues are watching. Your boss is watching. Everyone’s watching.Yeah, Jenny, I cannot live without a standup desk thing. I actually think Varidesk, which is now Vari, is epic. But there’s so many like affordable options now where you can buy sit-stand desks that are electronic. One of my videos in my 100 videos, 100 days was on standing desks. I think standing and sitting throughout your day can help bring new energy. It’s incredibly powerful. And by the way, if you don’t want to buy a Vari desk, I don’t care. Go get some boxes and stack them up. You’re just as good. Trust me. But it’ll add a ton of energy to your videos, to your conversations.And so circling back, in your meetings, guys… You want to be a leader on your team, for your community, then you got to show up big on digital calls. And I really, really encourage people… Oh yeah. Nice. Nice, Sean. That’s a steal. I really, really encourage people to play big. Even if you’re just a part of the team, your leadership can show up. And that’s you being engaged and involved. I know it’s hard. We want to put ourselves on mute, but when you put yourself on mute, guys, you can’t contribute to the experience and the conversation in the meeting. You can with your fingers. I try to do that all the time. When I’m on mute or I’m on a podcast with a guest and they’re talking and they say something I like, I like to point and thumb up and this because I’m in the conversation. Digital body language matters.So in a meeting, showcase your leadership, showcase who you are, who you want to be. Step up big for your boss, your colleagues, your friends, your peers, and play a big game in digital body language. And then on the sales side, yeah, you got to bring the A game. Of course you do. You got to have all the power going on in the video space.Leanne made a comment on LinkedIn, which I can’t show on the screen because LinkedIn doesn’t like this platform, but… Background. So yes, your digital body language sets a tone of the conversation. But guys, because we have this box to communicate with, right? Because this is our communication window I know you’re not just staring at me the whole time. I know you looked over my shoulder at this thing and were like, “What is going on there?” And then I know you saw kind of glowy lights and Deadpool and nerd stuff. Like I know you saw that stuff because you have the opportunity, not only with your digital body language, but in this box to communicate a message and a story.Sohrab. Just right here, like… Yes. Your box can tell a story, not just your posture and your body language, but what’s behind you gives a message. And that’s why I think you should curate your entire message. This whole experience that you’re seeing right now sends a message. You’re like, “Hey.” If you’re an ’80s kid, you’re like, “Oh, I recognize the Nintendo thing right there. I get it.” And like, “Oh, I like Marvel stuff and comic book stuff. That’s kind of cool.” You get to know a little bit about me too because I’m sharing that with you. If you’re in your living room and behind you is a window, which crushes all your light and I can’t see anything, what message are you delivering? We need to be intentional. We need to curate it. We need to absolutely lean into this stuff because it’s new. We need to be thoughtful about it.And this again comes back to my last pro tip. If you realize that you’re struggling with this body language thing because it’s not top of mind, do whatever it takes to make it top of mind. Do whatever it takes. Like figure out a sticky note, a smiley face on the camera, like whatever it takes. Ask somebody for feedback. Steve Pfrenzinger, who has been a friend of mine and my family’s for almost 30 years, is like the feedback king. He keeps saying that like the power of feedback is what really transforms us. It’s our super power. Self-awareness. Ask people. Like, “Hey, did you watch my video? Yeah, what’d you think? And like, did you notice the background?” And just lean into it, guys. Lean into that opportunity. Ask about how your body language. Ask if it showed up the way you want to.But let’s play a big game with our digital body language. Let’s play a big game. Let’s lead the way we want to, show up the way we want to, because it makes a difference on your impact, on your brand, on your influence. All of it makes a difference in how you show up digitally. Make sense? I super appreciate this conversation today. We’re going to keep it at like 15 minutes. We’re on 13 right now. So all you guys joining me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, I super appreciate it. But this conversation needed to happen because somebody needed to hear that the digital body language matters and we’re not paying attention to it and we should.But it doesn’t just matter in the sales game. It matters how you show up for your colleagues, your bosses, your peers, your friends on every single call you do. Even a Zoom call with your buddies, even then your digital body language sends a message. And I think it should send the message that you want it to send. That’s it. There it is. Boom. I appreciate you guys. Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your week and I will see you guys Thursday with another killer podcast.Just so you guys know we’re starting something new up. We are going to be going live every Tuesday and going live every Thursday with a podcast with a guest, radically pushing out some more information for all of you guys. I appreciate everything you do. Be on the lookout. Be on the lookout. We’re starting up an email and a text group to hang out together throughout all the weeks and days of our crazy lives. I think the more we can continue our conversations with each other, the more I can learn from every single one of you, the more we can contribute together on these platforms, the better we get at them. Thank you, Tiffany. The more we play, the better we get. Annette on LinkedIn, this is awesome. Thank you very much. I appreciate all you guys. Have a wonderful day. I’ll see on the internet.

Come hang with me and the man who is helping lead the Mortgage Industry with knowledge, information and accurate analysis of what’s actually going on. In this episode we will be discussing his new book, Money in the Streets and you’ll get the chance to get to know a little but more about what makes Barry…Barry!

Your snippet into this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• It not magic, it’s magical…
• Consistency and practice is key, you have to do the work.
• Barry gives us his crystal ball insight into the market.
• Never take no for an answer. Bring that magnetism by bringing positivity

Episode Transcribe

Alec Hanson:Everybody we are alive. Happy Friday. I hope it’s going good.

Every day feels like a Monday, but except for Friday.

I think that’s the one day we get to actually realize we have a weekend ahead of us and I’m excited to get tackled and totally destroyed by my children. But today we’re going to have a really fun conversation. I’m bringing Barry Habib into the studio to rap about the market, the craziness, but most importantly to rap about his new book, Money in the Streets, which is amazing. And because look, I know we’re so hyper-focused on COVID land right now and it’s consuming our attention. It’s consuming the country, but there is life after COVID and Barry’s book is full of gems about that stuff. So I wanted to bring him on to talk about that. If you don’t know who Barry Habib is you’re not paying attention. This guy, I just joked earlier and called him the modern day Renaissance man. I mean this guy’s in music. This guy’s in politics. This guy’s in the economy. This guy’s a mortgage industry thought leader and we’re going to talk today about all the cool stuff and learnings he’s had in his whole life, so let’s bring on Barry and kick of this episode of Live Modern Lending podcast.We’re here with Barry Habib. I’m so stoked to hang with you today dude. Barry Habib:Hey man, I’m really happy to be here. Thanks man. Thanks for having me. Alec Hanson:Yeah, absolutely dude. Every time, we were joking before, every time someone brings you on for some kind of a live podcast or a show or something like that, everyone wants to know what’s going on in mortgages, because you’re the leading thought leader helping guide kind of conversations and influence politics and all the crazy stuff there. So before we dive into your book and the amazing stories and stuff in there, why don’t we just talk a little bit about COVID, a little bit about the market, because I know when people have you and they’re like, “Oh, I want to know,” because it feels like we need updated information every second. It feels like things are changing so fast. Barry Habib:So my buddy, Mike Roizen, who runs the Cleveland Clinic, and he called me last night, he said, “Barry I have some scoop for you.” So he’s part of the research board of scientists and he also is very, very influential. He got Ohio opened and things like that, so he talks to the governor every day. But he said that there was a paper that a few of the scientist and his colleagues were reviewing and it appears that ultra violet light can be very, very helpful, because it just destroys the virus and not just this virus, think about it, other viruses as well, or future viruses, because we’re worried about the next pandemic.He was like, “Hey Barry, you can probably reopen Rock of Ages again.” You put the ultra violet lights, they don’t hurt you, and in 10 nanoseconds or 1/100th of one second, it immediately zaps and kills the virus if its on you, if you’re exhaling it. This is a real, real important step, because he even said, he says, “Well you don’t even need a vaccine if you can do this, you just have to use this where this is.” But you could pretty much eradicate it. You could put it in your office building, you could put it in your home, but it would have to be everywhere, so to speak, if you were entertaining guests. But in a theater you could have it where it’s everywhere. In an office, you could have it everywhere in your office and it would be safe, even if somebody had it and they were shedding the virus, it would kill it before you can catch it. Alec Hanson:Dude. I mean, it’s just lovely to hear that there’s hope on the horizon. Sometimes we get so focused in on when is this going to end and hearing that is awesome. Barry Habib:There’s really, there’s so much hope. There’s so much hope, not just on the medical front, but we’re really blessed to be in this mortgage and real estate industry, and while real estate will take a little bit of a hit over the next year, that’s to be understood. But what is the big thing is that longer term, there’s just too much demand and not enough supply and every metric that we look at in real estate is really, really good. The pressure that’s going to be put on household formations is, well, people talk about it jokingly, but you’re cooped up now for a couple of months, either the divorce rate is going to go up, but that will lead to more household formations, or there’s going to be birth rate that goes up. Alec Hanson:Yeah, and they’re all going to be firstborns because those of us that have kids, we’re like, “No more.”Barry Habib:But you know what Alec, that type of thing though is what drives home ownership rates. If you’re a 30-something, between ages of 30 and 39, so you’re a classic millennial age group, you have no children, the home ownership is 38%. Just one child, the home ownership rate is 80%. Just think of the differential. Alec Hanson:It’s massive. So what are you seeing right now in the mortgage space? You mentioned real estate going to take a hit? You’re the two-time crystal ball winner, so what’s coming at us in the future?Barry Habib:I think for 2020 we probably see … Now, this depends, because the higher above you go median home price the softer the market starts to become, the lower price ranges will be more resilient. I think that we have very low vacancy rates going into this so that will help us be resilient. That’s very different than where we were in 2009. People have equity in their homes. 65% home ownership rate, you have 34% of homes are owned free and clear. Lot of cushion there.Well, those 53 million homes remaining is 124 million households, 80-and-a-half million are owned. The 53 million that have a mortgage, those households the average LTD is 53, again.Alec Hanson:Yeah, so this is crazy. That’s a real statistic. I’ve been sharing with everybody that can hear, there’s more equity in American real estate than ever in the history of our country. That’s a silver lining, especially for people that are in dire straights. They at least could sell and they could take that equity and kind of try to navigate through this. I mean, it’s a terrible silver lining if they’re forced to sell through hardship, but it’s better than nothing.Barry Habib:Yeah. Then the people listening to this call to do a cash-out refinance for them and help them, so there’s a lot that we can do to help through this situation. When you take a look at those who have that amount of equity, which is the bulk of people in the housing market right now, it’s a lot of money for move-out. That’s a lot of money for cash-outs.What do people want during this? I think that the more people I talk to, they’d like more space and more distance. They’re two different things, so space is interior space. I’ve got a small apartment, I want a home. I’ve got condo, I’d like a single family. Maybe I want a little bit more space so we don’t make each other crazy in here.Then the other thing is they want more distance, so instead of being on top of each other in apartments, they’d like to have a little more spread and a little more distance. I think that these will bode well for your sprawl from urban to suburb to the next ring which is call exurb, so those are all going to … Then you get rural, but you will see a tremendous demand for home ownership. All the metrics that’s out there right now are just so positive for housing, so while we’ll see maybe a 1-2% hit this year, we think it comes back with over 5% pricing gains next year and it remains relatively strong throughout.Now, the big thing is about the economy and about the job market, we’re estimating that the unemployment rate right now is 19.7%. That’s live in real time. That’s our numbers. You add another 3.2% due to the fact that there are people receiving PPP money, their companies, and keeping people on payroll, if it weren’t for that those people would be off payroll and in the unemployment ranks. We think the unemployment rate, without PPP, would be about 22% roughly, so it’s big numbers.The Great Recession was 10.3%. You go to 1982 recession, it was 10.8%, and before that you’d have to go back to the Great Depression, where it reached 24% so we’re not that far off those numbers. If there’s a comeback, the comeback is going to be somewhat muted.I look at everything. I look at OpenTable. I start to look [crosstalk 00:07:39]. The amount of reservations that are coming back. Naples, Florida, leading the nation in a comeback. Even though Naples, Florida is leading the nation in comeback, they’re down 65%. That’s leading the nation. So we have some obstacles to overcome.Even if we do 90%, get 90% back, many businesses can’t survive with a 10% loss of revenue, so what I’m saying is I’m hopeful, I’m optimistic, but I’m saying there’s going to be a little bit of a lump ride. Housing should be resilient. Gold should be resilient. Be a little careful about the stock market right now. I did a call with David Rosenberg yesterday. We did look at history. The big down move this year in the stock market, a retracement. That’s a typical Fibonacci retracement. You can go to 50%. You can go to 62%, so here we are, we’re at 62% and now it’s struggling.Now look, I could just be just giving you this warning. I don’t know. Nobody knows [crosstalk 00:08:28]-Alec Hanson:Yeah, we get it.Barry Habib:But if you take a look at the Great Recession, exact same thing happened. Eerily similar. Then it really went down. Everybody thought it was over. If you look at the 2000 dot-com bubble, exactly same thing happened. If you look at t the Great Depression, exact same thing happened. We had the big collapse, 60% retracement, you had the big down loop.Now, I’m not trying to scare anybody, all I’m saying is please be careful. Please be careful. Just don’t think that this is all in the rearview mirror because what starts to happen is you get the initial shock, the crash. Then you get this recovery, the feds coming to the rescue, “Okay. It’s going to be okay,” and then here’s the realization of, “How does our economy really get back on track? How do restaurants survive? How do airlines survive?”All these businesses, clothing stores, do you really want to touch the merchandise? Do you know what I’m saying? It’s going to be challenging. It’s going to be challenging. Now, I know eventually we’ll get back, but there will be a period that we’ll need to get back.Alec Hanson:What’s the crystal ball say? When’s the timing? I read an article this morning that said Q3 was going to start the process, the climb-back. I’m curious for your insights.Barry Habib:That’s a relative statement, so yes. Starting the climb back. Well, Naples, Florida is starting the climb back of reservations, but you’re still down 65%. So I agree with saying that we start the climb back. I don’t think we get anywhere close to seeing this recover because listen, you know what? I’d love to just share a quick chart with you if I can. I don’t know. Do we have time [crosstalk 00:09:56] chart or no?Alec Hanson:Email it to me and I’ll get it up on the screen in a couple of seconds or-Barry Habib:I will. I’m going to email it to you right now.Alec Hanson:Awesome. And by the way, while you’re doing that, Barry, because I have to make an announcement, so send that over but we got about 50 people across the platform checking in right now and joining us.First of all, Jenny put a comment up there that said, “Thank you for always being a hope bearer,” which you are. And you give so much, you give so much. We even, right before this whole Live, you were trying to get lunch in because you’re going back-to-back and sharing information. I know we want to pivot and start talking about your book, and so for every single person watching right now, about 50 of you, if you hit the share button and, by the way, if you’re on YouTube you got to get over to LinkedIn or Facebook, if you hit the share button right now so we can expose Barry’s book to more people, I’m going to buy every single person that hits the share button a copy of your book, Barry, Money in the Street because here’s the deal. I keep wanting to ask, how can we help you? Obviously, at loanDepot and across the country, we’re huge supporters of the Nbs Highway. We love your platform, but I’m going to buy every single person that hits the share button a copy of your book and send it over to you guys so that right now the rest of the ecosystem and our friends can see and hear about why you wrote the book, what’s inside it. Because, like I said, I am a huge fan of people who tell great messages through stories. I feel like those land.I got a chance to look at your book and read a bunch of it and I’m 99% done, I skipped around a little bit, and it’s powerful. So I want to share that. I want to give everyone a chance to share and I want to give everybody a chance to get a copy of this book in their hands because it’s worth it and you did a great job, Barry, so I’m [crosstalk 00:11:30]-Barry Habib:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That’s unbelievably kind of you, so thank you. I’m very humbled. I really am. When I wrote the book … I had in mind to write a book for a long time. Everybody would say, “Well, why don’t you write a book? Why don’t you write a book?” And so many people have told me, Meghan right here in my office she would be prod me, “When are you writing a book?” But a lot of people had asked me to write a book and I’d thought about it, but I didn’t want to do a book about mortgages. I just wasn’t passionate about writing about mortgages. And by the way, it’s a great subject to write about, right? I mean, it’s [crosstalk 00:12:03]-Alec Hanson:But it’s still mortgages. I feel you deeply there. Not curing cancer.Barry Habib:But I want to, as you said, people like stories, people listen to stories, so there’s a way to tell stories. Now, there are stories that affected me, but it’s not about me it’s more through me. It’s just things that people could relate to, so that I wrote Money in the Streets.How did that come about? The title came about because every immigrant that’s watching this, or people that have immigrant family members, or maybe you know someone who came to the United States. My parents did. When they did, they heard stories about the United States being, “America’s such a rich country there’s money in the streets. All you have to do is pick it up,” and it’s a story that they told me. They told me this all because I was a kid growing up and it was kind of funny, but it was also sad.When I started to realize that the opportunities are truly everywhere, there is opportunity everywhere. There’s opportunities right now that if we could just learn how to see them, so many people are missing them that it could be life changing in the way we help others. A lot of this has to be about helping others because, Alec, look what you do. You give so much because that gives you fulfillment.Alec Hanson:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Barry Habib:It’s one thing to have goals and achievement, and that’s important, and there’s been a lot of people that have had so much goal-oriented success that have had hard times in life being happy. There’s people that have had bad things that they’ve done to themselves, even though they’ve achieved all this amazing success. We’ve seen so many stories about that. You say, “Well, they’ve got everything. Why would they do that? Why would they end their life? Why would they hurt themself? Why would they become substance abusers? They’ve got everything. Why?” And it comes down to fulfillment, so I think that if you are focused on goal-oriented success I think it’s great and I think you should be, but you have to marry that with fulfillment and so much fulfillment comes from helping others. That’s really, really what it’s all about. So, as people listen to you and all the great information and dialogue, what we really want to do is we don’t want to just consume it, we want to consume it so that we can learn it, we can teach it.The best way to learn, by the way, is teaching. You practice, you rehearse it, and then help others, put that out there and that really is what does it for you. I mean, that’s what gives you the two married together is when you have fulfillment along with achievement, that’s a really good recipe right there.Alec Hanson:You’re laying in the foundation of what I took away from your book. I mean, chapter after chapter is about learning into kindness, leaning into help others, being an authentic human, being a authentic communicator, a connector of people. It’s just told again, and again and again in here, but you’re also quite vulnerable in this book.Barry Habib:Yeah [crosstalk 00:14:56]-Alec Hanson:I’m finding it very powerful. I find that lessons land when you’re vulnerable and you really share some things in here that I never knew about you.Barry Habib:Well, yeah. There’s a lot of things that have happened to me. There’s a lot of things that I screwed up on too. I mean, certainly I’m not perfect.Alec Hanson:By the way, that was one of my favorite chapters. I always joke for people, especially with the stupid videos and we’re trying to get people to get out and get digitally connected. I’m like, “Your number one piece of content is going to be your blooper reel because it’s the most authentic.”Then your chapter, it was right in the beginning, Let Hardship Teach You.Barry Habib:Yes, yes.Alec Hanson:By the way, did you have a favorite chapter. Do you have a favorite story that stood out for you that maybe you could share for people that are [crosstalk 00:15:39].Barry Habib:There’s a lot of them. There’s a lot of them and if I could share a story, I’ll share a quick story just because [crosstalk 00:15:46]-Alec Hanson:That’s good. Good. Good.Barry Habib:… out of them. I think it’s chapter 11 where I want people to understand, and really this is a blueprint book that will help you … If you’re having a great time it’ll help you maximize and take it to the next level. If you’re having a little bit of a tough time, we all do, I have, you guys have. No, I’m sure we will, right? How to better get through that?Then what it really can do is help you see opportunities and not be intimidated. One of the things that can happen to us is if you’re watching this and you see somebody’s done such huge volume levels, or such big success in your market, you can almost become intimidated. And I’ll just going to share a quick story with you about that.I’ve always been somebody who’s been a fan of magic. Heck, I produce Criss Angel’s Mind Freak in Vegas, I’ve always loved magic. But before I was lucky enough to be able to produce this, and believe me as you’ll read in the book, I came from extraordinarily modest beginnings. My parents were really poor. I was very, very poor growing up, made fun of because I was so poor because kids could be cruel and because clothing was not great and certainly didn’t have any means or resources, so I get what it’s like. That’s why I’m so empathetic about it.There’s a lot of lessons throughout the book that are coming that to me now, the ones where I taught my kids that. For example, everybody knows Dan and my daughter, Nicole. Many people know too I’ve got two other wonderful boys, but Dan and Nicole were younger I had gotten divorced and parents like to spoil their kids with their divorce. It’s just natural and I’ve fallen into the same mistakes, okay? So maybe we overcompensate that way and I would give my kids some nice things because I was pretty successful in the mortgage business at that time.Well, as young kids, my son, Dan, as a young boy, he’s a kid. He’s seven-eight years old. I heard him saying that, “Oh, wow. They don’t have this. We have that,” or whatever and kind of like almost making fun. And I said, “Dan, if you say that, that’s kind of like you’re making fun of your dad because your dad was that poor person,” and I could just see it on his face like, “Oh!” And it just changed his perspective. My daughter, Nicole who had overheard the conversation and so there’s really important moments in life where you have to plant seeds when the ground is very, very fertile.Getting back to the story that I wanted to share with you where it seems like-Alec Hanson:Hey, by the way, on the magic thing. How did you fall in love with magic?Barry Habib:I don’t know. I was always been amazed by it. I’ve always wanted to learn it and I was never any good at doing it.Alec Hanson:I bought a magic kit when I was in elementary school and I would bring the magic tricks to school. You could tell I clearly didn’t have many friends. I would try to do the magic tricks to everyone at school, so I have a similar love. I love it. It’s so good. Barry Habib:Well, when I was younger I always liked it, but now there’s a couple of go-to tricks I pull out at the dinner table sometimes for entertainment. Anyway, I was on CNBC regularly and Mark Haines, rest his soul, he was a friend and he was one of the hosts. We were friends. In advance of that I had gone to see David Copperfield and it was at the State Street Theater in New Jersey, only about 20 minutes from where I live.I go and man, this show was amazing. One trick after another and I was like, “I don’t have no clue how he did that. How’d he do that? How’d he do that?” And then at the end there was this amazing trick, last trick, the grand finale and he said … I really wanted to know. That’s the way my mind works, I need to know how [inaudible 00:19:30] work.Alec Hanson:That’s the lure is trying to crack it.Barry Habib:Trying to figure out, right? When I was a little kid, even though I didn’t have much for toys, the few toys that I had I couldn’t resist it. Sometimes I would break them because I wanted to take it apart, see how it worked, so I was terrible.But anyway, so I had to know how these tricks go and the last trick he says, “Okay. I’m going to bring a group of you up on stage and make you disappear. Like, “Shit man, I got to do that. [crosstalk 00:19:58].” So I’m all pumped up, “What do you got to do?” So he’s got these balls that he throws into … Now, there was 3000 people in the theater. He was going to pick 12 and then he says, “I’m going to pick four others, so there’s going to be 16 balls.” I understand what the 16 meant, but, “Okay, I’m in.”He throws these balls and he plays muci. Now, if the ball comes near you and the music’s still playing, you got to get rid of it. This one ball came near me and I just couldn’t. Another one and this other ball is coming at me and I could sense it’s got to be near the end because the music’s been playing now for a good 30-40 seconds, right?Alec Hanson:Yeah.Barry Habib:So I lunge for this thing. Now, I think by accident I might have knocked a couple of people over, but-Alec Hanson:Oh, no. [inaudible 00:20:40] I’m just picturing you old lady, just like diving over.Barry Habib:So I was really into it, man. I wanted this thing. I catch the ball. I’m one of the people that catch the ball. 3000 people. The way my brain works, I like math, I’m actually pretty good at math. I just have this quirky thing. I’m able to do really good math in my head so, “3000 people. [inaudible 00:21:00] people. One out of 187 chance. I can do this.”Anyway, I get up and I’m walking on stage and David Copperfield looks at me and he says, “Okay, so you’re going to stand right there in the corner.” He’s putting other people in the chairs. Four people sit in the corners, 12 people sit in the chairs, I’m like, “W-T-F,” here. [inaudible 00:21:23] He says, “Yup. You’re our witnesses.” I could have been his witness in my seat, okay, but now I’m [inaudible 00:21:30].So bro, I watched him do this trick and make 12 people disappear. They put the curtain on. I see the lights going, all of a sudden they’re fricking gone. I see them up in the balcony somewhere later on, I’m like … I was pissed. I would have been [inaudible 00:21:47]. I was frustrated enough watching and can’t figure it out from my seat, but now I’m this close away and I can’t figure this thing out, okay?So I’m like, “Dang,” but I had a great time. I’m joking about … I had a great time and it was wonderful. Next year he came back and Mark Haines, my buddy, he called me, “Hey, Barry. Hey, yeah. David Copperfield’s show is pretty good.” I say, “Yeah, I saw it last year. It’s good, Mark.” He’s like, “You want to go?” I’m like, “Okay. Let’s go.”So we go for a nice dinner, we go to the show and I figure they’ll be a bunch of new tricks. Me, as a speaker, I always have new stuff thinking that the audience I want to play for, if it’s in the same location, I want to give them new stuff. Not David Copperfield. It’s exactly the same tricks, but I still couldn’t figure it out.So here we go all the way to the end, and it’s a great show. Listen, I’m enjoying it, of course.Alec Hanson:Oh, he’s a pro. Yeah. Of course.Barry Habib:Now the same trick with the balls.Alec Hanson:Oh, no.Barry Habib:In the back of my mind I’m thinking, “It’s only one out of 187 chance. Could I do it again? Maybe.” But I’m the eternal optimist. I’m like, “I can do it again. I can do it again,” so balls come out, the music’s playing and I’m like a man possessed. I’m like, “I really want this thing.” And honest to God, I can’t believe it, somehow, someway I willed, but I caught another ball. I catch another ball. You know what the chances of that are? It’s almost astronomical how such a rare chance.Alec Hanson:Tell me you’re not on the side again. There’s no way you’re a witness again.Barry Habib:Listen to this. I walk up and I’m walking up and there’s David Copperfield, he looks me in the eye and he says, “You’re going to stand here,” I said, “Now I know the deal.” I said, “Excuse me.” This is in the middle of his show, okay? The show’s going on, there’s people that’s walking around, “Excuse me? David, you made me stand in the corner last year. Can I please sit in one of the seats?” And he looks at me and says, “Are you a magician?” I said, “I’m in the mortgage business.”Alec Hanson:So, yes?Barry Habib:He knew that I wasn’t going to let up, so see? But that just goes to show, there’s another lesson here. Don’t just take no for an answer. Never take no for an answer if you believe in yourself, if you believe in what you’re doing. Don’t just accept it. Don’t accept rejection. Where he said, “Okay,” so now I sat in the seat and I got in there, they put the cover on and I know how the trick is done. I know everything about that trick. The morale of the story is this, is that it’s not magic, but it’s magical. This is not some mystical thing. You know what it is? It’s hard work, it’s knowledge and it’s practicing it doing it over, and over and over again. So when you watch somebody do something, big numbers that they’re doing, great achievement that they’re making, it’s not magic, it’s magical. But what you have to do is do those things. Put in the research. Get the knowledge. Put in the hard work and then rehearse that over, and over and over again and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing that you can’t do. Alec Hanson:I bring you on here to talk about your book and you just drop knowledge bombs on everybody listening. What a lovely segue to that story into … See? This is what you do in your book. You tell us and incredible story and then you land it, you land it in such a authentic, real way that people can go, “I get it. That means something. I have some action I can do.”I want to ask you for another story, if it’s okay?Barry Habib:Yeah.Alec Hanson:One of the chapters that stood out to me because I’m in the mental space right now of trying to get originators and people I care about, the local mortgage pro, back into the spotlight because we, as a human culture, have gone Internet first and not human being first. What I mean by that is in 2003 when I was driving around in my Civic to try to find a realtor, if you wanted to find out what homes were for sale you had to go talk to a local pro, a real estate professional, or you looked at the weekend open house sheets in the newspaper. It wasn’t on the Internet. The MLS was locked down. And you fast-forward and as an entire society we go Internet first. We don’t as our friends any more, we ask Yelp. The local mortgage pro who is sitting behind a real estate agent waiting for a referral is getting hurt by this. One of the chapters you wrote was chapter seven: Amplify Your Message and Become Magnetic. It resonated so much with me and I’d love for you to unpack that chapter a little bit, what was going through your head when you wrote it because there’s so many people that need to amplify their message right now. The world has given them the tools. Everyone’s got a phone, everyone’s got a camera, everyone’s on the Internet, but if you could just talk to that chapter a little bit and what you were thinking, and what you wrote there, and share your thoughts? It really spoke to me. Barry Habib:Well, you’ve been a great leader and teacher and you wrote a wonderful book about it, so this is exactly what your book is about which is to teach people in this environment. First of all, there’s never been a better time because you literally have a captive audience, right, I mean, with the people staying home, so literally have a captive audience and people need to read your book so they can truly maximize that. I love the term that you coined, which is called being a web-lebrity. I’ve used that and I’ve given you credit for it, and says, “There’s a web-lebrity,” so you really have to do that. You have a chance to do that today, so there’s so much about this but it all begins with you doing the work because you can’t get what you don’t have. If you gain the knowledge and you have the knowledge then you have so much to give, so that’s why doing the work up-front’s important.Listen, if you want to be magnetic, how is it that we’re around people they just draw you to them? What makes somebody magnetic? And sometimes we, “I wish I was magnetic,” and you can be. You are. You naturally are. Here’s the thing, just when you come into contact with people make them feel better and smarter from being in your presence. Just those two things. Make them feel better. What does it take to make somebody feel better? Give them a good optimistic viewpoint. There’s always nice things that you could do or say. There’s always a good side that you could look at. There’s always promise towards the future that you could point to.Now, these are things that make people feel better because we need that. We need that from each other. We help each other, right?Alec Hanson:We do.Barry Habib:None of us are on all the time. I have tough times too, man. It’s nice when somebody kind of helps get me back on-track. The other thing is, make them feel smarter. But in order to make them feel smarter you have to have done the work because people will gravitate towards that, they’ll want more of that and that’s the definition of magnetism is being drawn to something, being drawn to you.Focus on those magnetic qualities that you already have. All you have to do is sharpen them, but in order to do that the nice thing is you have to do the work. I say it’s the nice thing because if you didn’t have to work for things then everybody could do it. You don’t get rewarded for your efforts and that’s what’s so far.I mentioned about having some hard times. I mean, I start my day, every day, with literally out loud … I know it sounds corny, but out loud I talk about, to myself, I typically do it after a cup of coffee. I tend to function a little better after coffee. All the things that I am so blessed, and lucky and grateful for. I start my day by focusing on those things and really thinking about how I get to do what I’m doing. I don’t have to, I get to. That’s the focus is I get to do these things. I get to have a busy today. I get to help … Sometimes I’m a little stressed, but boy, am I lucky I get to have that and all these people in my life, all these wonderful opportunities, all these wonderful things.I look and I feel and I pray for people that don’t have these things and wish good for them, but say, “Boy, how blessed am I?” All of us, if you’re in the mortgage business right now, we might have heartburn over a product going away.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Or a longer term time than we want.Barry Habib:Yes. Some people out there, and a lot of them, their problem is how to make their family’s hunger go away.Alec Hanson:You know what, Barry? I love this conversation and that statement because there’s two things I think I’m just delighted by in our world today. Number one, that perspective, exactly what you’re talking about. Perspective can lend so much confidence, and clarity and strength to your day. We’re all dealing with a hardship. This is hard.My wife didn’t want to be a stay-at-home teacher. This is hard. And that’s okay that it’s hard, but we can really micro-focus on ourselves and get kind of stuck in that space. But when we open up and we realize that there’s other people that are truly suffering, number, one, we have a chance to just get over our own little problems. But number two, we have the chance to be of service and get outside ourselves. That, to me, is the grit … This is the second trend that I love is that marketing, the concept of marketing with bells and whistles, and catchphrases, and flashy logos and whatever it is, has absolutely eroded and true marketing now is to be in service to others.That’s true. They’re almost combining, service to others and marketing are becoming the same thing when you do it without asking for an email address or some kind of catch at the end, but when you actually just go and be in service it’s radical how business opportunity just starts to flow into you.Barry Habib:That’s really the magic right there. I’ve been self-employed for a long time-Alec Hanson:You have.Barry Habib:… but I’ve been really fortunate to work with so many wonderful people. I’ve never had much turnover, hardly ever turnover, and it’s kind of the same thing with any of the businesses that I’ve run, whether it be Rock of Ages. So the personnel’s always been spoiled and the customer’s always been spoiled, but you know what really makes the difference? Is that do something when there is no obligation to do it. Nobody here’s ever asked me for an increase. It’s always done before they’ve even asked. It’s always done without people asking because there’s something about whether it’s your customer, whether it’s a family member, whether it’s a friend, whether it’s an employer, employee, co-worker, if you do something for someone before they even ask about it, what does that say? Think about all the things it says.It says, “I’m thinking of you. I’m worried about you. I’m anticipating things that you might be benefited from or things that would help you,” and if you can do that and people know that you’ve got their back, there’s bonds that are made there that anything that goes to the fulfillment part of our life that we started with, that’s just as important as the achievement part of our life. That’s the stuff that just makes you feel good. You do good and you feel good, that goes a long way because even with all that we’re going to fact obstacles, we’re going to get pissed off, we’re going to get aggravated, we’re going to get frustrated, we’re going to have tough days, tough weeks, whatever it is. Let’s hope that those are few, but that helps you get through those.Alec Hanson:Mikey, how many shares did we get so far? Can you check the platforms real quick? Nice, all right. We’ve got, it looks like 10 shares, 10 books being bought. We’ve got about another five-ten minutes here, Barry. There’s 60 people watching across the platform, so we’re going to give it one more chance. Share this thing, let people go out and experience this conversation and what’s really going on in your book, Money in the Streets. I’m going to buy a copy for every single person that shares, so you go ahead and share right now, throw a comment in there.The wonderful thing about going live, and people forget this, is that it’s not about this moment. Now, this moment’s amazing and I’m really enjoying it. I know there’s people watching and who are enjoying it. But these videos live on and so the people that get to watch it later get to experience the same thing we’re experiencing now live and it’s a wonderful, wonderful gift. And so I want to give the chance for everyone to see this and get a copy of Barry’s book.Barry, here’s what I normally ask this and I’d love to ask it of you. We have a lot of originators that we all support, that we love, our mortgage originators. In this time of chaos, and uncertainty, and ups and downs, and changes and all the stuff that’s going on, what advice would you give them to navigate through this? What encouragement would you give them?Barry Habib:You’re embarking on an incredible journey ahead of you where let’s just do some math here. Again, I like math. First of all, there’s more households being [inaudible 00:34:32] than there are builders putting up homes. There is a shortage of homes. That’s going to be very supportive of prices, so 2020’s going to be a rocky year. You’ll probably see real estate values drop a little bit, 2% or so, depending. The higher up homes will struggle more.But 2021 should start a very strong rebound and whether it’s 2021 … That’s what I meant to say in case I said ’22. 2021 should a strong rebound. Maybe it’s 2022, but people buy homes for the long-term, so that’s an opportunity and you’re going to be in great shape.But the refinance aspect, rates are going to be low for a long time. I don’t want to go into all the reasons why, but they will be low for a long time. What we have to know is that while it’s easy to feel heartburn over, “I can’t do non-QM,” or this, don’t focus on that.I’m going to give you the quick rundown. Right now there’s $4.8 trillion of loans that are available to be refinanced. Doesn’t even count purchases.Alec Hanson:Doesn’t even count purchases.Barry Habib:Right. This year the entire refinance market, the entire is $1.3 trillion and most of us are very busy, companies are having record months. This is a very busy time and purchases are down and we’re still busy with $1.3 trillion refinances. How are you going to do all that volume? There’s more rain than there is buckets. Don’t focus on what you can’t control. Don’t do that. Just go after the abundance of transactions that are there. This is what you want. This is what’s out there for you right now. You have this unbelievable opportunity ahead of you and you have to fight fear and you have to gain knowledge. If you want, I could close with one of those two chapter stories in the book because-Alec Hanson:I’m in. I was actually going to ask, so this is perfect. You’ve read my mind.Barry Habib:What would you prefer? Would you prefer the knowledge aspect of it or the fighting fear aspect of it?Alec Hanson:Fighting fear. Fighting fear all day long, dude.Barry Habib:It’s only natural to be afraid of things. I mean, we should all admit that we’re afraid of things. Bravery isn’t not being afraid. Bravery is being afraid and still moving ahead, okay? That’s being brave. I’m just like that. I’m afraid to do stuff, but I just kind of try and push myself and step it up and suck it down and go for it. I’m not always successful either, okay, but I do try.When I was a kid, I was about 20-years-old, so I used to love outdoors and do stuff, went camping. Me and two really close friends of mine, really good buddies of mine, Craig and David, childhood friends. We go camping with these three great dates that we had, so we had three lovely, beautiful girls that we’d take on a date.Listen, I’m young, want to make a nice impression, so this and that. So we’re camping and we’re hiking and we come across this beautiful waterfall that we’re on top of. It is, I don’t know, it’s about 50 feet high. For many people they may even not be afraid of that, I’m fricking terrified, just so you know.Alec Hanson:It’s high. 50 feet is high.Barry Habib:Alec, I also am not super-comfortable with heights. I’ll admit that.Alec Hanson:Got it.Barry Habib:So, my buddies, David and Craig, they’re like, “Oh, yeah.” These guys, growing up with them was an adventure because they’re crazy. Crazy. They’d bring up crazy in me too. They would go right to the edge and they would look like, “Yeah, it’s not so bad,” this and that. I couldn’t even get to the edge because I was very ginger about it. I was like, “Yeah. Yeah. “Alec Hanson:There it is. Yeah, there it is.Barry Habib:Then they start the conversation, “What would it be like to jump off of it?”Alec Hanson:Oh, yeah. I knew it.Barry Habib:And I’m like, “Oh, yeah. It’d probably be crazy, but listen. Let’s get going, right? We should probably be moving along, shouldn’t we?” So no, not David. David was a fricking lunatic. Meanwhile, the three girls, they’re all like, “Oh, yeah. That would be great.”Alec Hanson:Oh, yeah. Pushing you on.Barry Habib:So David, lunatic, he just throws his body off before I could even say, “Don’t do it,” he throws his body off. He said, “The water was like wow, this is great. It’s great. It’s great,” and now Craig’s like, “Should I go?” I said, “Craig, you’re really not thinking about that, right? You’re not going to do this, are you?” Before I get the words out of mouth Craig throws himself off there and now the two of them are in the water high-fiving and, “Barry. Barry.”I take a look over and the three girls are looking at me like, “Well?” I was so scared, Alec. I was really scared, but I’m not going to look like a wimp in front of these girls [crosstalk 00:39:08]. I’m like, “I know this is a bad idea,” but I just muster up enough courage to do it. But I was so fricking scared to do I didn’t do the flying leap like these guys did, I just kind of, “Da, da, da, da,” and then I look down and I realize that you got to get a little further out to go for the water, so I’m trying to get body out here. I hit the water and I was like, “Man, that hurt so bad,” because the water hit so hard and I wasn’t exactly going in perfectly. But you know what? When I came to the surface my buddies hugged me and it felt great. It was so wonderful and I’m really glad I pushed myself to do it.In life, when we let fear take over, I would have felt miserable if I didn’t do that. I would have regretted it to this day. In life, I think it’s not the things we do much that we regret, it the things that we don’t do and the opportunities that we left on the table. When you have a chance to do something business-wise or have an opportunity whether maybe, “Should I do this campaign? Should I take a leap forward with this?”Sometimes it’s okay. You think about it at night and you say, “It’s great,” and then you wake up in the morning and it’s like a different person starts talking to you. “Oh, no. You’re not going to do that,” and you talk yourself out of these things. Don’t do that. Don’t do that because when you’re in these positions where you don’t do something, you look back and you regret those. You regret those opportunities.I’m not saying go crazy. I’m not saying jump off buildings and things like that, okay? But that was a little bit of a risk there, a little bit scary to do, but it wasn’t really life endangerment, it was more fear. Overcoming our fears is something that we all have to do every day.Alec Hanson:Everybody, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for those that shared. Barry, we’re going to end on that. Wonderful message, guys. Appreciate everything you do for our industry, Barry. Appreciate everything you do for the people around you and you’re just a great man and I love this conversation today. Thank you. I look forward to many more in the future.All right, everybody. This is Alec and Barry signing off. Have a wonderful weekend and-Barry Habib:Thanks, Alec.Alec Hanson:… a wonderful week next week. Take care.Barry Habib:Bye, everyone.

Come join me and Nicole Carrillo [EVP, Chief Accounting Officer] along with Bri Hamilton [Community Program & Events Manager] to hear how Anthony Hsieh’s vision to donate $1,000,000 to provide relief for those affected by COVD19 is transforming local communities. And as importantly, come hear how you can do the same thing!

Your snippet of this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• Community, community, community…now more than ever do we need to lean it it.
• LoanDepot is making sure our community around us is taken cared of.
• You don’t need to have a grand gesture just a helping hand.

Episode Transcribe

Alec Hanson:What’s up everybody and welcome to a special live episode of the Modern Lending Podcast.

We have a really interesting conversation to have today.

 I am bringing on EVP, chief accounting officer, Nicole Carrillo. I got it right. Two L’s make a Y, and Bri Hamilton who runs our … I got the full definition here, community program and events manager. We’re going to be talking about this million dollar donation that loanDepot is contributing into the world here during COVID-19. That’s cool. That’s wonderful. I’m proud of my company.How we’re doing it is actually inspiring me to bring this conversation to all of you today, because I think it’s something we all can do, even if we don’t have a million bucks in our pocket. Let’s kick off this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast. Woo. We did it. Here we are. Hi Nicole. Hi Bri. Good to see you gals.Bri Hamilton:Hi.Nicole Carrillo:Hello.Alec Hanson:I see you’re working from home and being safe and sound. I absolutely love it. This is going to be a fun conversation. Thank you for joining today. There’s a lot of chaos caused by COVID. A lot of people impacted. A lot of businesses impacted. I keep saying this to a lot of my peers, man, we are so blessed to be in the mortgage space. Which just sounds weird because mortgage people have always been like one step above a used car salesman. Now, we’re actually doing really incredible things in the American economy. Part of that is this million dollar donation.I wanted you to share real quick … Before we do. Everyone’s going to wonder. I gave your title, yay, but who are you? Nicole, share a little bit like when did you get to loanDepot? What do you do every day? Who are you?Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. Absolutely. Hi everybody. I have been at loanDepot since March of 2018. I am the chief accounting officer, but sometimes we jokingly refer to me as the chief anything officer. I am involved in lots and lots of different aspects of loanDepot in addition to my normal title job of accounting. I am so excited and so proud to be part of this million dollar giveaway that loanDepot has done.Alec Hanson:Bri, who are you Bri?Bri Hamilton:I’m Bri. I’ve been with loanDepot like a year and a half. I have been focused on doing a lot of the employee engagement efforts. I help with the WOW event that we do every year, which is my favorite event. [crosstalk 00:02:36]Alec Hanson:You’re representing too. You got the shirt on and everything.Bri Hamilton:Of course. Always. Yeah. I’m so excited. This has been the most exciting part of my career this far, is being part of this million dollar donation that we’ve been able to do.Alec Hanson:Yeah. No. Where did this come from? How did this come about?Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. When COVID really started to impact us in the middle of March when we had to push everybody, all of our 7,000 employees home, and we were realizing that we were very lucky and very fortunate. Our business was continuing. Our employees were doing well working from home. loanDepot was breaking records, but we were seeing all of this impact around us. All these people suffering from job losses, illness, fear, anxiety. Kids being thrown into this situation where they were trying to learn in their home, sharing devices with their mom and their dad and their brothers and sisters. We were really trying to think about what can we do to help? Anthony Hsieh, our CEO, is such a visionary and he really said, “Okay. Let’s do it. If I give you guys a million dollars, how much impact can you have? Put your heads together, and how can we have the most direct impact to people? Like literally our dollars going to those people to change lives.”Alec Hanson:Yeah. See, this is where I think this is going to be a really fun conversation because it sounds like we could have easily written a check to a great organization. I know we’ve done some of that. It’s like we could have just a million dollar check to this person and just there, “Look how great we are.” That’s not really getting in the weeds. Right? That’s not really looking down on how … Anthony also really wanted to go national and local because there’s a lot of loanDepot employees here in Orange County. There’s a ton.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah.Alec Hanson:Let’s share a little bit about what we did nationally because I think that’s really cool.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. Bri, you want to talk about Feeding America.Bri Hamilton:Yeah. We have partnered with Feeding America and we donated to them and they are sourcing the funds to the different food banks. That way they can start fueling. Getting the food out on a national level to all the food banks that are obviously extremely impacted and were struggling to make sure that they had enough food to give. They saw the need in the local communities obviously skyrocket. We’ve been able to help them get those funds so they can get the meals out for the families and the groceries and everything that they need to help the people around the local communities.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously food banks have been massively crunched in this time. That’s amazing way to make this donation stretch across the country and provide obviously an essential need. That’s killer, but it didn’t stop there, right? Where did it go from there? I know you said earlier, Nicole, we did something for our troops.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. I think Bri is probably the best one to talk about that because she has been living and breathing that every single day. Bri, why don’t you tell him about what we’re doing for the National Guard that have been deployed?Bri Hamilton:Yeah. As you know, loanDepot, we love our troops and we do our WOW event every year. It’s something that’s near and dear and part of just the foundation of loanDepot. We partnered with Freedom Alliance which we love.Alec Hanson:Yes. We love those guys.Bri Hamilton:We’ve been partnered with them so that way we can put these great care packages together for the deployed. Either they’re on the frontline or out all over the world. Our amazing employees have put together over 80 boxes on their own at home. I provided a list and shipped them a label. They go out and buy these products and write an amazing letter to the different deployed, so just giving some encouragement. These boxes are amazing. I’ve gotten some great pictures and photos and inspired-Alec Hanson:What’s inside them? What’s inside the boxes?Bri Hamilton:It ranges. There’s maybe some games, magazines. There are snacks. There’s Gatorade, or the liquid IVs are put in there. Just different stuff to give them that feeling of home and support from loanDepot. It’s really exciting. We’re seeing employees have their kids color and write cool cards and [crosstalk 00:07:00] of affirmation to the troops and stuff. It’s really, really exciting. I know that my roommate and I are putting together some boxes and it’s really exciting.You just get the box. We put the label on and ship it out. It’s super simple. We are only able to do them with Freedom Alliance because they’re able to provide us with that information so we can get it out.Alec Hanson:I love that. People think sometimes you have to do this grand gesture. It doesn’t have to be that way. I mean, this is what really inspired me to bring you both on and share some thoughts on this because even loanDepot as a big company is getting super grass roots. Just a care package delivered to our veterans with cookies and snacks and a card, and some kids coloring. Just letting people know that we care about them because in this time of social distancing, I feel like we become too socially distant and we’re not connecting. Just, that’s a wonderful gift.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. You can’t emphasize that enough Alec, especially for our employees. While our business may not be closed, our employees are dealing with this isolation similar to how everybody else is. The impact that having our employees get involved … And we’ll talk a little bit more about that when we get to it. The impact that we have seen from getting our employees involved in the way that they feel being able to tangibly do something right now, you can’t even put a price on that. It’s helping everybody who is feeling stuck at home, feel a little bit more connected to other people.Alec Hanson:I had a really cool experience. I think you gals know about this. I got a random email saying, “Hey.” Part of our a million dollars is food to first responders and to some of our nurses and some of our hospitals. I actually had a really cool experience to be able to go to CHOC Children’s Hospital with Wing from Wahoo’s and drop off 250 meals to the night staff that was going to be there for 14 hours. I stepped into that and I was blown away. It was an incredible experience, but this is really just part of the whole million dollar donation that’s going on. Let’s go into that space.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. One of the things that we took part of that million dollars to do was like I said, we keep focusing on trying to amplify our impact. We partnered with local businesses, whether it was restaurants. We wanted to support those restaurants, but have them donate those meals to the hospitals. We really looked for hospitals, and the night shift seemed to be a shift that didn’t get a lot of [inaudible 00:09:36]. We were focusing on that night shift at hospitals across Orange County and LA County, where these people really are on the front lines. We also partnered with a local t-shirt screening company that completely was out of work. They make uniforms for kids’ sports and stuff. It’s not-Alec Hanson:Yeah. No sports.Nicole Carrillo:We partnered with them and paid them to make masks that we then donated to homeless shelters and food banks and things like that. Not only were we giving masks that these organizations needed, but we were supporting a local small business and helping them to keep their people employed. We even found a local distillery here in Santa Ana that we paid them to make sanitizer. We paid them to make $25,000 worth of hand sanitizer and then turned to them and said, “Where should we donate this?” They couldn’t believe it. They had a whole list of places that needed it. It’s just been incredible. We’ve been able to support these businesses that maybe wouldn’t have been able to keep their people paid if we hadn’t come to them and said, “Hey, we’ll pay you to do these things so we can donate it to those organizations that are on the front line.”Alec Hanson:See, and this is where I get really excited. I have to highlight what you just said, because you said it too fast, Nicole. I want everyone to hear this. There are so many places and opportunities where you can have a one-two punch with your giving. You know, the fact that we went to local small business restaurants and said, “Hey I’m sure your traffic is down. I’m sure you’re stressed and maybe you furloughed your staff.” It’s a really hard time for small business owners. Yet to say, “Hey, here’s a bunch of money. Make some meals and let’s deliver it.” Now, we’re giving our food and giving support to people who need it on the front line, but we’re also lifting up the small business so they can be here at the end of COVID. That’s epic. Then you’ve got the distillery. You’ve got the distillery whose probably profits are up because everyone’s drinking every single second of their life now.Nicole Carrillo:Maybe. Maybe.Alec Hanson:They’re converting all of their processes to make hand sanitizer and then giving that away. Then the t-shirt screen printing company. I have a friend who runs one in Huntington Beach. They’re down. They’re totally down. All of a sudden say, “Hey, let’s pivot and please make some masks and we’re going to donate them.” I mean, it’s just lifting up everyone around us. If you are a local sales professional out there, this is within your grasp. The reason I got inspired to have this conversation with Bri and Nicole today was because I watched a loan officer of ours, Sean Uyehara in Nevada, do a similar thing. He went to a local chicken company that sells chickens and basically bought 50 meals. You guys, we can do this too at our level, no matter what. That’s incredible, but I want to hear about the Boys & Girls Club.Nicole Carrillo:Yes. Absolutely. This one’s near and dear to my heart. We have partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Central Orange Coast, which covers multiple of the cities here in Orange County. It’s Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Newport, Orange is like-Alec Hanson:By the way, which is my Boys & Girls Club. That’s where my son, Phoenix, and my daughter, Scarlet, played basketball. This is near and dear to me too.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. Costa Mesa and Irvine Club, we’re asked to open up to provide childcare and help with the virtual learning for medical professionals. Medical professionals could be anywhere from doctors and nurses, but also down to like the janitors and those medical techs who are not the highly paid people, who their kids are normally in school. Now their kids are out of school. They don’t have that care and attention and help with virtual learning but they’re on the front lines too.We have to have those people at our medical centers. loanDepot provided a grant to Boys & Girls Club to help fund that, to help cover the cost of that childcare for essential workers. As well, we have partnered with Boys & Girls Club at the Santa Ana location and loanDepot volunteers have been there weekly to do the meal box handouts. They have groups of families where their kids got their meals, breakfast and lunch at school, and then they got their evening or afternoon meal at the Boys & Girls Club.With the club closed, these kids have lost that direct access to food that they had on a daily basis. Boys & Girls Club has partnered with Second Harvest Food Bank, and on a weekly basis are providing these families with meal boxes that are supposed to last for a week. Our employees are out there putting the boxes together, putting the produce in bags, putting it in the families’ cars when they pull up. We have served meals to over 350 families with our loanDepot employees that have been out there, doing the hard work every week to help make sure that these kids in these communities are fed.Alec Hanson:What I love about this, everybody, if you’re listening, tuning in, we have been given a great opportunity in the mortgage business. Not only to have a career that we can be proud of and a lot of success this year and the years to come. We’re also in a wonderful position to serve those who need serving. Sometimes when we’re in our own pain, we’re in our own hardship. Like I’m not happy, right? I’m as optimistic as you can get, but it’s hard. My wife’s homeschooling now. She didn’t pick that job. Now she has to do it and so we have a chaos in our house. My kids are sad because they can’t see their buddies. There’s a lot of stuff that all of us individually are carrying around. Then when we open up and we look out at the other people who are suffering so much more than we’re suffering, that perspective really helps us with our day-to-day stuff. It’s like get some perspective. I love that loanDepot employees are out helping people get food and providing those essential needs to those people.It’s incredibly powerful because sometimes we get frustrated like, “My loan, it’s not moving as fast as I want it to go.” They were like, “Oh yeah. Wait, what about these people over here whose kids aren’t getting fed? Maybe I should go serve a little bit and open up some perspective.” I love this conversation because I think we all need this a little bit in our lives. You can go down to your own Boys & Girls Club in whatever city you’re in and ask them if they have a need. See if you can fill that need personally. I mean, sometimes I think we get a little overwhelmed like, “Oh, what could I possibly do?” You can do a ton. Just go show up. By the way, this is where it gets really exciting for me is, Nicole, once we started serving this community more needs started to present themselves.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. This is where I can’t echo your point enough about reaching out to these organizations and saying, “I want to help you. What do you need?” We have access to things that sometimes these nonprofits whether it’s a Boys & Girls Club or a YMCA or a homeless shelter or a food bank. They have needs that sometimes we find it’s very, very easy to fill. Boys & Girls Club of Santa Ana said, “One of the things we’re really struggling with is that many of these kids in this very low income area, these kids don’t even have a device to do their virtual learning.”It’s been what? Nine weeks, and these kids haven’t been able to do their classes. loanDepot is sitting here. We had a stockpile of laptops that we had purchased as part of our potential return to work plan that we ended up not needing. They were laptops that we couldn’t use with our current configuration, but they’re perfectly great brand new laptops. They also told us that there was a group of 17 families that did not have access to Wi-Fi. They did not have Wi-Fi in their house.That was a cost that these families couldn’t take on. We worked with our IT team. We said, “Look, we have this list of kids and families.” We send it over to our IT team and shout out to Jessica Gilbert and Andrew Nguyen who just [inaudible 00:17:43]. They came back to us a day later and they said, “Here’s the laptop that’s been assigned to every one of these kids. Here’s the Wi-Fi that we’ve ordered, the hotspot for these 17 families.”Alec Hanson:Oh my gosh.Nicole Carrillo:You have to ask these clubs, “What do you need? What can we do?” They were trying to distribute food on these broken rolling tables. Chris Giglio, our head of corporate real estate said, “I have so many vendors that would donate you guys a hand truck.” He called around and got them a hand truck in three days. You all have access to do things like this. It’s doesn’t have to be 40 computers. It could be a new table or a new hand truck to help them in the mission that they’re trying to do to serve.Alec Hanson:You know what? I want to hit this again for people that are listening. Marketing today doesn’t work. The way we used to market … Everyone’s like, “Why is he talking about marketing?” It’s going to land here. Just stay with me. Marketing today is just noise. Humans are tired of it. We’re tired of the noise. You know what marketing now is? It’s service to other human beings. That’s what marketing is. If you’re looking at ways to grow your business, go serve other human beings.That’s how you grow your business. I don’t know how to … I want to shout it. As I’m hearing you talk Nicole I’m like, “This is so accessible for every single one of our great salespeople, loanDepot or not, to go serve the community they’re in. That’s marketing. That’s how you build influence and brand. By the way, you get to do something good. You get to do God’s work, like get out. It’s just, I love how those things have now come together and become the same thing. Because marketing before has always been so cheesy and taglining and Zippy, and yeah that cool tune. Now, it’s actually just about helping and serving your community. That is the game. I love. No, wait. The laptops are a surprise though, aren’t they?Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. Bri, do you want to talk about it?Alec Hanson:The families don’t know.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah.Alec Hanson:Yeah. What’s the surprise?Bri Hamilton:Yeah. As Nicole mentioned, our amazing IT team was able to get these laptops to us. Tomorrow we are going to be bringing over the laptops to the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Ana. The Boys & Girls Club have asked the families that are assigned these items to come and pick up their weekly groceries. When they come, we’re going to say, “Oh, wait, hold on one second.” Then we’re going to go and grab a box and we’re going to surprise them with their new device.They have absolutely no clue. I am so, so excited to be a part of it. We will be fully streaming it and all that fun stuff, so that way all of loanDepot can be part of it and see all the excitement from the families. Yeah. We’re really-Alec Hanson:You’re doing the loanDepot Instagram takeover tomorrow, right?Bri Hamilton:I am. Yeah.Alec Hanson:If they just follow loanDepot’s Instagram stories they’re going to see you they’re going to watch these laptops go and get delivered?Bri Hamilton:Yeah.Alec Hanson:That’s so epic.Bri Hamilton:Yeah.Alec Hanson:Oh, I love it.Bri Hamilton:It’s going to be really, really amazing.Alec Hanson:Guys, these are just some of the stories that I wanted to highlight in this conversation about what’s going on and what you can do locally. You know, I know, again, sometimes it feels like, “I’m not a big corporation. I don’t have tons of resources. I don’t know.” You do. You have way more than you realize. Sometimes it’s just walking down there and asking what people need. You’re going to find out that there’s this huge opportunity for you.I’ll give you another one I saw that I loved, is a lot of these local restaurants like Burger Lounges and like Spitfire Pizza and stuff in Costa Mesa, they’ve set up provision tables in their restaurants. Have you guys seen any of those yet? Because I have to put on a hazmat suit and go get the food and like come home with it. Now, I feel like a modern day weird, put on my armor and like, “I’m want to go get the food honey.” Anyway, it’s a mask. The provision tables are laid out and what I’ve seen some of them doing is people are actually buying some of those provisions, but leaving them there and telling the staff, “Hey, when people come in and if they’re in need have them take a bag of this grocery some. Here’s a hundred bucks for it.” They’re paying it forward with essentials, because it can be really embarrassing to ask for help and people don’t want to do it. Sometimes you just have to ask.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. Yeah. That’s actually a really good point Alec. Also, one of the other things that we tried to do with that million dollars, which was probably one of the biggest things we did in Orange County, from that loanDepot pandemic relief fund, is the $500 debit cards, emergency debit cards directly to families that have been impacted.Alec Hanson:Yes.Nicole Carrillo:[inaudible 00:22:21]. United Way is helping us administer that fund. You get in contact. You’ve lost your job. You can’t buy diapers. You can’t get formula. You can’t pay your utility bill. You can go through the process and we can get you $500 in your pocket through one of these emergency debit cards to help you make ends meet, because it’s right. You’re right. People are having trouble making ends meet and we wanted to help get those dollars directly to those people.Alec Hanson:Let’s recap and see if I missed anything. This million dollars is being deployed so strategically and so broadly to really help the bulk of humans that we can. Obviously, we were helping nationally with Feeding America, which is really cool. Anybody can write a check and we encourage you to write a check. It’s awesome. They’re a great organization and people need food. Secondly, care packages to vets, which is epic because even though we’re all dealing with our own stuff, sometimes it’s good to go to tell our vets like, “Hey, we haven’t forgotten about you either buddy. Thanks for all you do.” Then you’ve got the local restaurants that you’re buying all these meals from to serve first responders, which every single loan officer should be doing right now.I’m telling you, if you’re a loan officer, call the local hospitals. Call, ask them first. Don’t just show up with a bunch of meals. Bri is like, “Yeah. Please talk to … Call them.”Bri Hamilton:Talk to me.Alec Hanson:Because you could be showing up the same time I am with my Wahoo’s truck and then it’s going to be awkward. Call them, but you absolutely can support small businesses. You can absolutely figure out how to support them and restaurant to help them provide their food. Then we’ve got the local Boys & Girls Club and finding out that they need food too and how to help them equip their kids with food. Then laptops and hotspots is so epic. It’s so cool. Then, oh, we have the hand sanitizer with the brewery. Is it brewery or is it a … Well, let’s give them a shout out. Who is it again?Bri Hamilton:Distillery.Nicole Carrillo:It’s Blinking Owl Distillery in Santa Ana. They really stepped up for us. They don’t make beer. It’s some kind of like-Alec Hanson:Gin or something?Bri Hamilton:Spirit.Nicole Carrillo:Gin. Yeah.Bri Hamilton:Yeah. Spirits.Alec Hanson:Sounds like I found my new distillery.Nicole Carrillo:Yeah. Chris Giglio did a pickup there the other day and it seemed to take a little bit longer than it should.Alec Hanson:Weird. He just ended up hanging out just a little bit.Nicole Carrillo:Just kidding.Alec Hanson:Sure. I got it. Well, so gals, what else would you say? Because you’ve been front lining this. You’ve been actually on the front lines, figuring this stuff out, solving solutions. If I’m a loan officer out there in another state right now or in Florida or wherever, what would you tell them to do? What would you tell them to go check out? How can they help?Nicole Carrillo:What I would say is everyone is very focused on the hospitals and the frontline workers, as they should be, but there’s a lot of other essential workers that are out there. Some of our donations went to CHP because they couldn’t get masks. Some of our hand sanitizer went to the sheriff’s department because they couldn’t get their hands on it. There’s a lot. The food banks used to rely so heavily on corporate volunteers. There’s no corporate volunteers anymore.Those food bank employees are strapped right now. Go out there. Support your local businesses and consider donating those meals or donating those supplies to some of these other really frontline essential services, or those that are out there where their job is to help other people.Alec Hanson:Killer. Bri, what have you learned? What experiences would you share about this, if someone wants to get involved, whether it’s with loanDepot or on their own?Bri Hamilton:Yeah. One of the biggest things that I’ve also seen through this. You don’t need to have funds in order to support like we’ve been saying. A lot of the different things that our employees are doing and they’re excited about is we’re all going to be reading books. Taking videos and reading books to children. We can record videos and just say, “Hey, keep going and doing these things.” They’re getting to see other people because they’re at home and they’re used to seeing all their friends and they don’t get to. It’s really exciting for them to see new faces and just feel the support and know that they’re not alone. If you are able to … So I don’t have that skill, but we have seen so many people that are able to put these face masks together. Our employees very talented and they’re sending them to me and I’m getting to go and drop them off. I’m dropping off a couple hundred to CHP, like Nicole was saying. There are ways. You don’t necessarily have to find the perfect cotton material. Actually Nicole’s mom has helped. She’s found a way to actually make it from fitted sheets from beds, so when we can’t find the cotton we’re using it. There’s just different resources. Just from all of this, the community and people that I’ve been working with and the different businesses and stuff, that sense of community. I’ll never forget working with Dimino’s Kitchen who is owned by one of our loanDepot employee’s family. That’s a bond that we’re going to have. Just knowing that and forever diehard Wahoo’s fan was. I’m California grown. They’re amazing. Greenleaf Chopshop we’ve been working with. These are all brands and companies that are the relationships that we’re building and the gratefulness and stuff. I will always remember that time. Just feeling that bond and building the relationships. Like you said, that’s really the true marketing now is the relationship building.Anybody can pay to have a billboard if they want to, but having the relationship that I know if I need to, I will always tap into those resources because they care and have that sense of community and stuff. I think that’s the biggest thing.Alec Hanson:Yeah. You know what? I’m going to echo that Bri. I will never forget hanging out with Wing and handing out meals from Wahoo’s to the people at CHOC. I mean, it was just an unbelievable experience. Well, look guys, I want to leave everybody with this as we kind of wrap down. Number one, Nicole and Bri, you guys are awesome humans. Thanks for being awesome humans. Number two, I want to remind everybody.Guys, times are stressful. Perspective will help and the best way to get perspective is to go serve those who are in massive suffering right now. That absolutely is going to uplift not only your soul, but it’s going to give you patience and a little bit more calmness to weather through the hardships you’re having. The last thing is, you do not need a million dollars to make an impact. You just need the will. You need to walk down to some local business, some Boys & Girls Club, some food bank and ask, “How can I help?” You’ll find that the whole world will open up to you and you’ll be able to serve. The last thing is just that marketing today guys is not about a flashy banner or a podcast, or the graphics that you’re making on Canva. It’s about serving your community. That’s how you make influence. Thank you both for serving our community. You’re awesome.Nicole Carrillo:Of course.Alec Hanson:With that, everybody, we’re going to wrap down this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast. Go out and be of service. Thanks everybody.Bri Hamilton:Bye.Nicole Carrillo:Bye.

 I personally pull up some viewers digital brand , give them a full review, and made custom recommendations for them. Now is the time! If I pulled up your brand, what would I see?

Switch of pace in this edition of LiveTime with Alec;

• Alec goes through some business professional profiles
• Have a good mix of personality and business on all social platforms
• Keep things up to date…banners, activity…IT’s GLOW UP TIME!
• Get Real , Get Authentic and Get people excited about what you do.

Episode Transcribe

What’s up everybody, welcome to another LiveTime with Alec.

Glorious Tuesday, hope you guys are doing wonderful.

Today is going to be an interesting conversation. For those of you that have just clued in or those of you who have been waiting with fear in your soul, I put out a challenge last week when I scheduled this. The challenge was to see who was brave enough to get audited, a social media audit, live right now, and just put themselves out there because that’s how you get better, is you look for feedback, you ask people like, “Hey, how can I be doing this game better,” and you look for feedback.Now, I will start with a couple disclaimers. I am self taught. I didn’t go to school to figure out how to audit people on social media or what’s good or … I’m just learning alongside everybody else. So, everything I’m going to say today has a little bit of personal opinion tied through it. But that’s okay, right? You’re here for a little personal opinion. So, welcome to the channel. If you want it, yeah, you got it. It’s free, so you’re not paying for it, so deal with it.Yeah. So I asked everybody if they would be willing to be audited, and we got some takers. And so, I’m pretty excited about it. The first thing I’m going to do is dump the banner here, the brand, so I can show some stuff. And let’s start with the first person who said, “Yep, audit me, and across all my social media.” And that’s Cassie. This is going to be fun. So Let’s look at what we got going here. I’m going to go ahead and share my screen. I pulled up all of her social media, and we’re going to look at it together right now. Is anyone else getting nervous? Because this is exciting time. This is cool time, so hold on. No I don’t want to share this, cancel.Where is she? There she is. Pull this up. And just as we started this, my Google Chrome has glitched. That is the life right there. So we’re going to wait a second for this to kind of buffer and get ready, and then we’re going to go after it again. All right, hold on friends. Yeah, Brian on LinkedIn, I feel like I’m looking at her diary. Yeah, this is vulnerable time. Oh man, I’m still glitched out over here. We’ll come back, slowly but surely here. All right, I’m fully glitched out, so here’s what we’re going to do, I’m going to close out and get right back in with you guys in two seconds, so hang tight.All right, we’re trying it round two. Whoo, that was exciting. I’m pretty pumped on that stuff. When you go live like this, you never know what’s going to happen, so you got to keep rocking and rolling. All right. I’m kind of waiting to see if LinkedIn kicks back up. Can you guys see and hear me now? Am I back live? I know there’s a little bit of lag, so if you can see and hear me now, give me a little bit of a comment and then we’ll do this thing again. I think we’re back.Okay, let’s do it. I’m going to start off, share my screen, share a tab. This is the new tab, share. Here we go. All right, so first person that raised their hand and was willing to get audited, Cassie. First thing we’re going to do is we are going to give the old Google a chance. That is the first thing your customers do when they are looking for you, is they Google you. Boom, there we go. Okay, we got a Facebook, Facebook business. I’m just going to open up some these tabs, so we can take a look at these things.We got LinkedIn, which I don’t think is her, but we’re going to go for it. CrossFit, and some pictures. Look at this. Oh, there she is. We got an image. All right, I’m looking at who we’re talking to. I think I know what’s going on here. So let’s pop over and check out … She made a comment on a dog post. Okay, well let’s get over to her page. There we go.All right. Look, we got a website up. We got a Facebook page. Looks like a beautiful family. Looks like she’s a loan consultant at loanDepot, former at First National Bank. We got some posts. Okay, this is like a … If I was talking to her right now, I’d be like, “You know what? This is kind of a … Let’s get rid of some notifications. “This is kind of a good deal here.” Thanks for everybody on LinkedIn, saying you got my back. I appreciate you guys. We’re in. Okay, so I got a real person, that’s nice to talk to.Now if I click on where she works, loanDepot, loan consultant at loanDepot. Oh, that’s not her, that’s loanDepot. I don’t want loan depot, I want her. So how do I find her? Well, let’s search again a little bit. Where’s her business page? Can’t find it very easily, so I’m going to go one step deeper and say mortgage. Now let’s see if I can find her business page. There she is, business page. Okay. So, first pro tip, where you work, if I’m on your personal page, don’t say, loan consultant at loanDepot. I know you work at loanDepot, love it, but I want you to link to your business page. This one, so I can see you.Kevin, not seeing my screen. Okay. I see what you’re doing here, Kevin. So I’m going to stop this, and I’m going to get the whole thing on. So check this out. This is going to blow up everything but we’re just going to go with it. Share. All right. Now you have the portal of death, Kevin, but we’re in. Okay. So, what I was saying is, when I look at Cassie right here… By the way, is it Cassie or Casey? Because I’m dying here. I want to say it’s Cassie but I don’t know. I’m an idiot. So you just got to go with it.When I click loanDepot, I go to loanDepot’s page. I don’t want to go to loanDepot’s page, I want to go to her page. That should say loan consultant at, this page. They should be connected so I can easily find it. Now, one of the cool things about looking at this page is, it looks professional, it looks nice. I got the NMLS number, I got this, Cassie@loanDepot, but this banner, this banner, I don’t like it. I’ll tell you why I don’t like it. First of all, you’re beautiful, this is a wonderful headshot, very professional, but this makes you look like a, and by the way, I’m loanDepot guy, like Mr. loanDepot … It’s impersonal.When I come back here, my loves, I have a personal connection to this one, but when I jump to the business one, it starting to look a little, pushed off a little bit. I want to engage, I want to know what’s going on. When I click reviews, not much going on here. I got to get some reviews going here. I got 143 people that follow this, that’s not enough, we got to get more. And we can talk about strategies to get more, but you want to grow this because you’re a wonderful human being. Look at your posts. She got the posts.So, this one, okay, happy Mother’s Day, but again, it’s impersonal, it’s just from loanDepot. It doesn’t really connect me to you. This one is kind of cool. She’s sharing a house she likes. I like this. She is kind of showing case what’s going on. Okay, another loanDepot post. I like this, sharing again, kind of what’s going on. Another loanDepot post.So I want to see a lot more personalization. I want your personality to come through in your social media here. Let’s kick over to LinkedIn. Operator truck at Freedom Carwash, clearly not the right person. So I’m going to search again. I’ve already searched. There she is. Awesome. Beautiful profile pic, same thing though. I want a personalized banner. I want your banner to tell a story. And then on your about thing right here, let’s clean this up. Let’s check this about, and let’s really personalize it. Like what’s your message to a person?So if I’m reading this and I’m talking to you on the phone right now, I’m a driven individual, I’m sure, I love that, but speak to the customer. Speak directly to them in their heart and let them know what’s going on. Good morning, guys. Hey, Dan. Oh, hey Caroline. This is great, thank you so much. Yeah, we’re getting real. This is just an audit. And then I really don’t want to scroll much further down from here, so there’s that.And then let’s do the old YouTube since YouTube is the thing. We’ll search by name. Not finding much. Let’s see if this is even you. No, it’s a doggy. Could be you though. But let’s go a sense step further and look for mortgage, nothing. So we got to get you on YouTube. It’s the second largest search engine in the world where all the video content needs to be. Get over there. Put your face, put your content on the YouTubes, and start building out a channel.Some of the people we’re auditing later, I actually have examples of this, so I’ll share with you. But that is my encouragement for you. So let’s kind of close these out, go back to here. I hope that makes sense. I love your willingness to put yourself out there and let’s get some work done.Pam. Okay Pam, let’s audit Pam. So first thing we’re going to do is share this, and boom. I know you got to fill your screen, let’s go in here and let’s search for Pam Mender. All right, loan officer. Got a Facebook, let’s open that up. Got a LinkedIn, let’s open that up. Got a Twitter, let’s open that up. Instagram, open that up. Nice. And then some old stuff from other places. Oh, YouTube, open that up.All right, let’s see we got Pam. Oh, awesome. Like this, family, good profile pic. You’ve got some mutual friends, I sent you a friend request. You got some general posts. Let’s see your job at loanDepot. Works at loanDepot. Again, right here guys, I don’t want to see, works at loanDepot, I want to see your business page. All right? So let’s see if I can find a business page Pam. Yes, I can find one. Let’s go check it out.Okay, I like the background video. Even though it’s a loanDepot commercial, I’m digging it. It’s something to draw the eye. I’ve got some three decades of mortgage experience, good. 820 people like this, you’ve done a good job. Let’s kick it over 1000. This is really good. You should be proud of this. You got some infographics, cool. That’s not necessarily a loanDepot commercial, I like that a lot. You got some hashtags going on here, some videos. Oh, I like this video, to uncomplicate the mortgage. So this is …If I go down to posts, let’s check it out, posts. Kind of what she’s been talking about. Let’s look at some reviews. Got some reviews. I’m digging it. Now, it’s only five out of five, based on three people, but we can get some more, right? All you have to do is start asking, but this is wonderful. And then we got some videos going on here and I’m sure we’ll see more on YouTube. So, let’s kind of kick over to LinkedIn. Awesome. Continuity of headshot. Looks clean, I know it’s you. I know it’s you again. The about section does not look personalized. Let’s tighten that up. Let’s add some personalization. Why do you care about this? Why are you in the game? Let’s change the banner. You’re not a commercial, you’re an authentic, amazing human being. Let’s put that up here. Let’s make that known.And then I don’t see many posts. Let’s see all your posts. Let’s see what you’re going on here with posts. Okay, good. Yeah, you’re seeing some posts, but not much engagement. So, we got to figure out why there’s not much engagement going on here. Not much engagement. Not much engagement. Even though you’re posting pretty consistently. A week, five days ago, three days ago. So let’s see your connections. 351 results, that’s why there’s not much connections. We got to get you more connections. And while we’re here, I’m just going to connect a little bit to some people. See, that’s how you do it. You just lop it in there.Let’s check you out on Twitter. Continuity, I got the banner again, let’s fix that. I got the same post. So it look like we’re multi posting across … It looks like we have a service posting for you. So, now that I’ve kind of humanized you a little Pam and looked in, this simplifying the market seems to be a continuing post across the thing. My gut tells me you’re not logging into every profile and posting, my gut tells me you’re using something that’s posted across all mediums for you.If I go to Instagram too … Oh, yeah. Okay. We got to increase some followership, and you do that through engagement. Joseph Duncan, how do I get audited? You had to have commented on this when I posted it, and then I have a bunch of people to go through today. Five. Let me log myself in here. It’s airing, yeah, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But I like this. And then videos, yes. Okay. First person who’s had a YouTube channel. This is a great start, Pam.So first, we got to work on your subscribership. You got to request this from your friends and family. You got to ask people for more information about this, get them over to your channel. You got some good stuff, time to start setting up some playlists. All right? Playlists organize your videos by topic so that somebody can come in here and go, “Oh, okay, I see what’s going on.” So for example, you should do a playlist on refinancing, you should do a playlist on first time home buyers, you should do a playlist on FHA, a playlist on VA, a playlist on renovation. There’s like six or seven playlists right there. Do a one to two minute video in a micro topic, in each of those places, and start putting them in here on YouTube. This is the second largest search engine, let people find you. And again, fix the banner. You’re not a billboard, you’re Pam, and your wonderful.All right. So, how are we doing so far guys? I see people saying, I’m down, audit me.” You’re too late. You’re too late, I got more people to audit. Stacy Chevalier, this is going to be fun. I love auditing people. She asked for it, so here you go. By the way, Stacy, if you’re not watching right now, because I can’t tell, go ahead and somebody tag her, because let’s get real here. All right. Let’s open up a screen here, and let’s start looking for Stacey.Okay. Stacy Chevalier. First thing you do is you just Google the name, you see what comes up. All right. Loaner at loanDepot. Facebook, LinkedIn. I got some pictures. Awesome. So now I’m starting to see who Stacy is. I got an Instagram, which is probably not her, but we’re going to go look around at Instagram. Open up a couple of these, and I got a YouTube something going on, so I’m going to open up that. Sorry, don’t do that. All right. Let’s go to Facebook.I’m friends with her, so I found her. Let’s check it out. All right. Studied at St. Mary’s. Beautiful family. Looks like a wonderful person. She’s got some pics of her kids. This is awesome. Looks like lots of comments are flown around. 39 comments. Wow, because she’s connected digitally, she’s getting good engagement, but I cannot tell where she works. About, I don’t know. No workplaces. What’s going on? Who is Stacy? Does she have a job? She looks like she’s doing cool stuff. Let’s see if I can find her by searching for her business page.Stacy Chevalier. I don’t see a business page. No business page Stacey. Boo, I’m going to come at you. You got to have a business page. Seriously, business page. You’re a business professional, have a business page. Okay. Let’s go to LinkedIn. Found her. Okay, we got the generic loanDepot background. We now know that that’s a no no. I want to see some heart, I’m want to see some souls, some personalization.Stacy is a branch manager. No, you’re not. Your about thing is wrong. Boo. This is what an audit is. You got to cut it. You’re not a branch manager, says up here you’re an area manager. What’s your story, Stacy? What’s your story in Washington? Feed it to me, right here. By the way, featured, we’ve got an AI mortgage old thing. This is very normal for people on social media to have old content linked on. Get rid of this and I want to see some videos in the featured section of you Stacy telling about how much of a badass you are and what you’re doing in Washington.All right? Sorry, I always have to clear my notifications. I have massive ADD, so I can’t help it. All right. So some things have to clean up, but we’re looking like we have a lot of activity going on here. So if I look at all activity or posts, she was on Chad Anderson’s Beyond The Loan podcast, it was actually posted today. So she’s active on social media. Come join us. This is great. She’s got little emojis floating around. I like this. 66 likes, seven comments.All right. I’m digging Stacy. Cancel. That is not Stacy on Instagram. So we’re blowing that out. Okay, it looks like I found, loanDepotpugetsound, which looks to be like it’s Stacy. So this is likely her Instagram. And I can’t log into Instagram for some reason, it’s glitching me out so I’m over it. But we got a little Instagram account. 10 likes, 13 likes, 72 likes and … So we got some stuff going on here. It’s got 141 followers, probably need to get a little bit deeper there, but got we activity. I’m not opposed.Ah, So this one, let’s look for Stacy. So the first thing that pulled up on YouTube is actually her interview with Chad Anderson. So, there is no Stacy YouTube channel, and there needs to be because Stacy has an incredible story to tell about what she’s doing in the state of Washington, how her team’s doing, and I can’t see any of her story right now. So if she’s recruiting me, and I’m looking her up, I’m finding some stuff, but I can’t tell that she is one of the number one teams in the country for loanDepot. I can’t tell that people are coming to her office and just wanting to work for her from all over the state. I want to see that stuff because it’s awesome.We have a lot of comments here. So Rosie, I’m loving this, so practical. Thank you. Yes, Skip, audit me. You’re too late dude, but we’re going. Okay, so that was Stacy. So, audit me, Tammy. Let’s do it, Tammy. Let me close down these things. Let’s open up a new deal here. Add there. And let’s look for Tammy. All right. I Googled, found her, loan officer. I’m going to look to learn off the page. Twitter. I got a LinkedIn. I got Facebook. I got a Yelp. I got some videos. Okay. Okay. So let’s check out this page.There’s Tammy, looking good. Okay. Goodbye. Twitter. Senior loan … Okay. So first thing Tammy, you got the old banner still. We got to fix that up on tweet. You have 966 tweets, so you’re actually playing the Twitter game, which is good. I’m not good at the Twitter game. I’m trying. But you got a banner from 1992, with Mortgage Masters still on there. Come on. Come on. Get rid of that. But grab your favorite cocktail, join me. Wonderful. Retweeting loanDepot stuff. I like this. So you got an active Twitter going on, a little bit of cleanup needed.All right, LinkedIn. The banner, this is the LinkedIn banner, that’s not you. That’s not you Tammy, you got to get that cleaned up. Get the personal banner, make sure it tells your story. Headshot. I don’t know. I can’t see you very well. It’s a little dark, a little grainy. It looks like you’re at a work event, which is natural. Like that’s maybe you like the picture. But no, I want to see you dude. It’s glow up time. Get out there. I know it’s hard in COVID land when we don’t get to wear makeup very often, but … I’m literally in shorts, but you can’t tell, so it’s great. But let’s get a better profile pic.Let’s clean this about section. Why who cares? Buying a house is stressful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get real, get authentic, get people excited about what you do. And then let’s go down and see your kind of activity. All right. You’re sharing some real estate. You’re liking some comments. Yeah, I love this too, that someone made a custom skin for this. This is amazing. So yeah, you’re engaging, you’re talking but I don’t see many posts. Why aren’t you posting? Where are your posts? Three weeks ago, that’s why I haven’t seen it. There you are, three weeks ago. So not enough frequency. All right? You need a higher frequency.And then let’s see how your followers are, your connections. 500 connections. Yeah, we need more connections. More connections, grow yourself out there. And let’s pop over to Facebook land. All right. This is your business one, let’s see if there’s a personal one first, because if I’m a customer, I’m always looking at your personal one first. There you are. Oh, doggos, super cute. Mortgage rockstar, I love that. That’s more personal. And you got some core training you’re showing off, which is good. You’ve got some, supporting small businesses. I like this. You shared the live … You did a watch party, you hosted it, that’s cool.But again, I can’t click to your work thing here. You said your NMLS number at loanDepot. I don’t want to go to loanDepot. There’s loanDepot. I want to go to you. Sorry, I got to clear notifications. It’s just a personal problem. Look, leave me alone. All right? All right? It’s a personal problem. There’s two types of people in the world, the person who has zero unread emails, the email box is zero, and the person who has 30,000. There’s no one in between. Come at me.So, I want to get back to your business page. I like the banner. It’s a little commercially but it’s not as like, just loanDepot, it’s actually talking about the digital loan experience. So I’ll give you kind of a pass. I really like this right here, about Tammy, it says a lifetime guarantee but then you’ve got the boring … I think this is cut and pasted. So I really like this, but man, write something that’s a little more you, not commercialized. Let’s go to reviews, because humans check reviews. Good. Okay, nine reviews. Good. Good start. Can boost that up, should be 90. Got some interesting photos.So when I click on photos, look, I’m seeing, because it’s on your business page, but I’m just seeing a lot of the corporate jargon. By the way, I’m in. I love it every now and then, it’s good, it’s graphical, but I want you to really lean into, personalize your work content. You’re not just a billboard, you’re Tammy. I want to see Tammy, I don’t want to see this. Videos. We got videos. Good, good, good. So I’m going to go to YouTube in a second, but I like these videos. Look, these things live forever. I mean, closing costs, 148 views. Because you have this posted here and you have a mask, I want to click it. This is like, I want to know what’s going on here. I love it.So this is the kind of stuff I want to see more of. So let’s pop over to YouTube and see what you got there. I found you, good. This is great. So you got five subscribers, eight videos. Let’s check your channel out. Continuity of photo. The photo’s the same everywhere. You look great. Again, banner not personalized. I don’t like it, I want a personalized banner. And then you’ve got some videos. Okay. So back to my original comment, you need to have some playlists, so you could organize your content, right? So I know kind of where you’re talking about. You were kind of quiet for two years then you started to come pop back up. So we got to get you going here, and that’s going to kick your views up.The last thing you can do is you need to start working on your bumpers. I’m going to talk about this and I have video training on this that I’m going to send out, but I want you to look at my channel. I’ve been working hard on this. So I’ve got a custom banner. I’ve got a custom little face. We’re live right now, with this, audit time live. And then look at my playlists, modern lending podcast, live in 2020, 100 videos in 100 days, show up evolve series. And then I’ve got my bumpers. I made all these bumpers, you see, so it’s not just my face, it’s my face with some graphics. Makes a big difference when you want to click on something. So, throwing that out there for you Tammy, everything else here so far is really, really good. So you’re on the right path, you just got to keep leaning into it.All right. Craig Stamler, don’t choose me. That’s like asking me to do it. You can’t put that out there and be like … Because I’m going to … You’re poking the bear dude. I’m going to Google you live. Okay, but other people have actually asked, so I’m going to go. The last one was … Not again, no, no, no, no. It was, hold on, stay with me. Stay with me, I got this. It was … I wrote it down. I know, I know. Nathan. Nathan Nelson. Nathan Nelson.Awesome. Nathan Nelson. Let’s go find you, buddy. All right, let’s share the screen. Get back up here. Good. Nathan Nelson, here we go. This is a good one and a good example because there’s more famous Nathan Nelsons the Nathan Nelson Mortgage. So all of a sudden I’ve got a bunch of Nathan Nelsons popping up. It’s hard to deal with. You’re going to have to figure out how to differentiate yourself before I have to type in mortgage, because people aren’t going to do that. There you go. Got your LinkedIn, Zillow, we got a Facebook. Let’s see if that’s you. Got some Yelp stuff, and then more pictures and aces.So let’s go check out … All right, found you. First things first, get rid of my notifications. All right. Same trend here. Got a generic background. I don’t like it. Great profile pic. Looks professional, look sharp. Got a bio that I don’t think is really that personalized, got to fix that. Same thing with down here, loanDepot, blah blah blah. No one cares, they care about Nathan. Let’s see what your activity is like. So you’re liking some stuff, you’re liking some stuff, it’s good. I like it. You like my stuff, that always get you big points. Looks at some postsOkay. So you’re posting a lot of loanDepot stuff. By the way themes, right? We’re seeing themes. This dehumanizes you. Turns you into a talking head. Coach Steve is editing my online profile right now. Yeah before I start looking at it. I want to personalize this stuff man. Personalize, that’s the key word. There’s nothing sticky here, there’s no videos here. I want to see what’s going on with you, dude. I want to know what makes you tick. Awesome. Look at this.So, great profile pic, great family. Look at this, exec MLO at loanDepot. Relationship loan officer at his business page, which I’m going to open up. I get lots of links here, this is great. Look, he has a video of Marble Madness maze. Looks good. So as a human, if I’m talking to Nathan right now, I’m like, “Hey, dude, this is a good man. Good family man. I like this stuff.” Get out of here. Let’s go check out his business page. Yes. Look at that, personalized banner. Like in the game, it’s an action shot, right? I like this stuff. I like it. And you’ve got 70 people like this. You got to get deeper and get more on there guys, that’s just the game here.And again, I’m seeing a lot of loanDepot posts. Oh, no, no, no, I see a video. My man, this is solid. Okay, we’re getting more personalized content not just reposting kind of commercial stuff. Let’s look at your reviews. One person, at least you’re on the board dude. Hey, on the board. Better than some of you who don’t even have a business page. Stacy. Just going to call you out like that, right here, live. Just calling you out.So, let’s check you out on YouTube dude. Let’s see what we got. Nathan Nelson, bummer, you got a bunch of famous people and a song that’s named Nathan Nelson, so you got problems. Not going to find you very easily, you’re going to have to put out more content, you’re going to have to out shout those people. I know that’s challenging. But now I found you, five subscribers, 16 videos, when I search for mortgage. Unified headshot, I know it’s you. I don’t like the non personal banner. But again, same issue that a lot of you guys have, no playlist, no organization, no bumpers, so they look a little chaotic. And then we it looks like we’re throwing a personal video on to this thing, which is fine, not judging, but you can see how it kind of breaks up. If this was a playlist of like, my family and personal stuff, mortgage stuff, et cetera, you see how that could kind of guide me as I’m looking at this stuff.But all in all, Nathan, this is a strong social media, kind of showing more ways to improve. So, now I’m going to show you guys. Yeah, it is work to do guys. I mean look, Cajun lender, Nikki, it is work, you got to really put it in there. But it is what it is. I’m going to do one more on LinkedIn, since these comments don’t show up on this thing. So, it’s Michael, and we’re just going to do it right here. Boom, boom. He’s being brave. I know some of you guys have been brave too. So Michael, I want to make sure I spell your last name right. Did I get it? Michael Faraci.Okay. Okay, I’m finding you here, Michael. I like it. So, I’m trying to figure out which one we got here is you. But we got some different stuff going on. I don’t think any of these are actually you. This might be you. So we got to get some more posts going, because I don’t think LitCon is you either, but I’ll look it up. Nope, see, not you. So let’s go find you on LinkedIn.Got you. Oh, look at that beard. I have such beard envy right now. I hate you, bro. All right. So we’ve got 500 plus connections. Let’s see how many connections we got on LinkedIn. About 1000, 933 pretty good. I like that. That’s working hard to build connections. Really great banner. Look at this banner. He’s got his podcast up there. He’s got a specialty team, non QM. I mean, this is like, I’m liking this dude. You got a great … Let’s see your engagement. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I’m a fan of your videos, but look, the first thing I see on your post is the authentic videos. Your background tells a story, nerds for life. And then you’ve got a ton of personalized content going on, and video content.So this is looks like, so far an A+. Let’s go down and look at here. I should see like, you know how you can tag videos in your profile, I expect this from you Michael. You got to put your best videos kind of in here, about you, so people can see them. Right? And I’ll give you an example so we can kind of talk through it together.If you go to mine, my featured stuff. So I’ve got some of my featured live streams, my 100 videos, a meet Alec video. I want to see this about you guys. All right? So this is when I go back to Michael’s page, he does such great video content, I want to see it like right here so I can engage it. But we’re looking good here. Let’s see if I can find Michael. Is this you? Works at I will never tell. No. Maybe, I don’t think so. I can’t find you dude. I want to find you. Oh, I found … No, that’s Michael terrace. Michael Faraci. Let’s do mortgage. Michael Fisher. Can’t find you on Facebook, where all the humans are right now. Let’s see if it’s AFM, nothing.My limited Google skills cannot find you on Facebook, and I want to find you on Facebook, because you got good stuff to share. You should be all over that. Let’s go check out YouTube. By the way, I’m going to get a little bit of judgment for saying this, but you know what? If we’re auditing everybody and being live let’s do it. We got a lot of interesting things here. But there he is. Okay. So let’s just go his channel. It doesn’t stop, does it Mike. Hey, by the way, maybe your Mike over here. Nope, nope, nope. Really ripped guy right there.So, got some videos. Oh, dude, okay, so you’re the video fricking King. First of all, give you a little subscribe. I want to see a much deeper and richer YouTube channel. You’ve got tremendously powerful content that should be showcased. I mean, I want to see custom bumpers, I want to see a banner, I want to see some playlists. I mean, you’ve got amazing content. I’ve been a fan of it. So you’ve got to get it here and play the game. Right? You got to play the game. Let me show you. So Michael, thank you for being brave, by the way and just jumping in there. That was epic.So, let me show you some examples of where we can go. All right? So, first things first, let’s share and look up my buddy. He’s not here to defend himself. So Sean Uyehara, in Las Vegas. Got a bunch of stuff that popped up here. If I actually search for Las Vegas, it gets better. Now I see immediately his Google business with 46 business reviews. This is what should show up for you, when you’re googled. I’ve got a way to make an appointment. I got phone number. I’ve got information. Request to quote. 46 Google reviews. And then I’m like, “Huh. Wow. Okay, this guy is putting some effort into his brand.” Right?Let’s go ahead and open up Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram, and take a little quick look. All right. So, in fact, let’s go to his personal first. There he is. I’ve got a custom banner, got a bunch of his self social media handles. I like all this. I got tons of links here, of where I can access him. I’ve got a video here, where he’s being interviewed that looks professional and awesome. I’ve got another video that looks personalized and cool. So I’ve got a lot of good stuff happening here. Let’s go ahead and click some of these links.So let’s go to his YouTube. Dead link. This is normal though. This is normal guys. This is what happens. You have to check yourself. I’m a customer talking to Sean, I want to see his link and I got a dead Link. So now I’ll go in here and look for him on YouTube. There he is. There he is. And I’m going to come back to that in a second. Let’s go down look at his LinkedIn. Boom, link. Dead link. Man, now I got to look for Sean on YouTube, I mean on LinkedIn. Okay, so I found him pretty easily. I’ve got, again, a banner, his same picture, I see continuity of image and brand. I don’t have any featured posts here, that’s a shame. Get me some featured posts. You’re too good for this, Sean. But I bet he’s …Let’s go check out his activity. Okay, he’s liking my stuff. He’s liking other people’s stuff. Let’s see his posts. A personal video content, my early struggles on social media. What a good topic for this. That’s incredibly good. Michael, thanks for doing this brother. Yeah, dude, of course. This is how we get real, right? So he’s got a lot of authentic creative content here. I like it. Let’s go see how many connections he has. 682. Brother, start clicking the button more. Come on. Got a lot of people to connect with here. Speaking of which, so do I. So let’s just go ahead and be a little selfish right here and hook it up. Sorry, if we’re here …All right. So back to Facebook. Let’s go check out Instagram. Wow, 4000 followers on Instagram. Okay, so he’s super active on Instagram. This is a pattern … Look, by the way, same continuity of headshot. I know this is Sean when I find him here. So I’m digging all this. And he’s got a little link tree, so I can see … This is good. There’s a lot of links to where to go, mortgage do’s and don’ts. I like this. This is good, guys. This is good. His podcast.So let’s look at his YouTube channel. I see some playlists. Create a playlist. Facebook Live videos. Okay, seven step home ownership guide. Yes, yes, I preach this all the time. Self made podcast. Okay. Six podcasts in there, I like it. 13, 12 Days of Christmas videos about loanDepot. This is good. Now I’m starting to see some stuff. I see some custom bumpers that are kind of like Vegas strong. Like look at that, that’s a strong video, strong bumper. His channel is telling a story. Now he’s only got 37 subscribers because he’s not pimping his channel out as much as he could. But he’s got the content already built on here. All of these should get bumpered at some point, because they look chaotic. Like this. But I’m sure they’re great, but you got to bumper them, put that little cover photo on it and get it all cleaned up, so that you can have kind of the image and the brand you want, with such a professional effort you’re going through here.So all in all, Sean, this is exactly how you should be doing it. And there just probably ticky tack cleanup stuff in my opinion that he could be playing with. All right, that was a lot. I appreciate you guys for hanging out for 40 minutes on this audit. I went fast. This is available on YouTube. When the live is done, you can go to my YouTube channel and you can watch it, so you can kind of go through it again and see what you should be doing and not doing.By the way, use the YouTube and just do the same thing, like social media audit. If you are a leader at a branch or of humans in the mortgage business, I absolutely encourage you to do it. Brenda one of our managers did in, Tustin. She sent all of her loan officers names and kind of some general information over to her friend in New York and said, “Please, Google these people, do exactly what I just did.” Like I’m on the phone call with you, I google you, we find out what’s going on, and then you get the results back and let your results speak for themselves, and share them with your team that you’re leading. Share them.Be like, “Here’s how I look online.” Guys, you go on a first date, okay? You go on a first date, what do you do? And It’s COVID, so let’s … So it’s a video date, and you get dressed. You do the makeup. You get the beard tamed, if you can tame it. I can’t tame mine, it’s turning into an actual animal zone. But when you go out on a date guys, you put your best foot forward. You go to a interview, you go to an appointment with a realtor, you don’t just show up in flip flops and just mail it in. You come ready to play. The same thing needs to happen with your brand on social media and on the internet. You need to just come to play. Okay?I want you to show up in big powerful ways and you can’t do that if I google you and I get nothing. Okay? You with me? It’s not hard, it’s just hard work. It’s my quote for the day. It’s not hard, it’s just hard work. All right? Go out there, clean yourself up, have a wonderful rest of your week. Oh, there’s one more comment. Great stuff, thank you. You’re welcome. Thanks for being bold and putting yourself out there to get better. That’s how we do it. As Coach Steve Frezinger would say, “Feedback and self awareness is key.” Rock on everybody, have a wonderful week. I will see you on the internet. (silence)

Alec has on former LoanDepot Chief Informations Security Officer own to make a pivot to the other side of the web that we normally do not see. A pivot to the person and his team that keeps us safe from cyber attacks and the bad actors out there that want to hurt our customers and our business.

Your snippet of this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• Billy’s origin story is one for the books…homeland security…what!?
• Privacy vs. Security, whats the difference
• Make sure to thank a tech guy, they don’t sleep so you can.
• There’s a lot of bad actors, but luckily there are people like Billy who protect us.

Episode Transcribe

​Alec Hanson:What up Modern Lending podcasters.

 Welcome back to episode nine.

We are going to take a radical change in direction. We’ve been talking about sales and originations and sales strategies and operations, but let’s go to the other side of the mortgage industry. Let’s go into information security. Let’s go talk about hacking. Let’s go talk about the bad actors in the world out there, and what is being done to protect mortgage companies every day. I’m going to bring on former LoanDepot employee, Billy Spears. Now, while he’s no longer here at the time we did the podcast, he was our chief information security officer. And man, he has a lot of stories to tell and share about what’s really going on. He did a great job for us while he was here at LoanDepot and he’s continuing to change that world out in other industries today. So without further ado buckle up because we’re going to go to the dark side of the web with Billy Spears.All right, what’s up everybody? Alec Hanson back with another episode of the Modern Lending podcast here with the one, the only Billy Spears. Now, Billy did you know I was going to call you under this stupid podcast? Where you prepared? When you saw it come out, where you’re like, “Oh no, he’s going to call me now.”?Billy Spears:I wasn’t prepared at all. It’s definitely a treat to be out here in front for once.Alec Hanson:Well, this is fun. So guys, listeners, this is a totally radical different conversation we’re going to have today. I mean, we’ve had high level sales executives and Tammy and operations and mortgage technology and loan officers. And now we’re going to go to the other side of the house, which is cool. So for those of you that don’t know Billy Spears, he’s the EVP chief information security officer. He’s like our bad-ass in the back room, like protecting us from the bad guys. So… It’s true though. It’s true. So I really want to unpack this whole thing, Billy, but really quick, before we get your origin story and kind of how you got into the business, what does a chief information security officer do? Like, what does that mean? For somebody who’s like, I don’t know what that is.Billy Spears:Sure. It’s more than a matrix. We’re not just looking at ones and zeros all day. It’s kind of like a superhero, but at the end of the day, what we do is we try to clean up the quality of the data. So you have to make sure that the data is what you expect and the data kind of grows organically throughout the pipeline all day long. So what we get is we get adversaries, or we call them bad guys, right? And bad guys are coming in trying to prevent or stop the quality of the data and they do it through all kinds of different means. So when you talk to us, we kind of talk a little strange sometimes because we’re so caught in the weeds with all the attacks and all the things we’re trying to keep out of your environment. But most of the day, we’re trying to manage data quality. Alec Hanson:All right. So there’s bad actors in the world. They want to get into our business. They want to take our data, mess it up, blackmail us, whatever they want to do, sell it, all the crazy stuff. And you’re the first line of defense?Billy Spears:That’s true. Alec Hanson:Okay. Okay. So that’s what we’re really going to unpack today. But before we get into kind of that world of mortgage which is just not talked about. Let’s talk about you. Let’s frame it up so everybody understands who you are. What did you start doing, Billy? What’s your origin story? Billy Spears:Sure. Thanks Alec. This is interesting. I have a sort of a different origin story. I grew up in downtown Detroit, downtown proper. So those of you from Detroit, [8 Mile 00:03:20] Woodward.Alec Hanson:Yeah. What’s up. Shout out for them.Billy Spears:That’s right. From there, you sort of grow. My dad, he was a pipe fitter Union guy. He worked really hard for a living and when he started to retire, he had his dream was to own a farm. We always thought he was kidding around. I had a bunch of brothers and whatnot. He said, we’re the labor force. We were like, “Nah, that’s not true.”Alec Hanson:That’s not going to happen. Billy Spears:It did. He bought a farm and he was like, “Hey guys, here’s tractors and tools and dig and plant seeds.” And we were like, “Whoa, listen, this is not for us.” And then he gave us a choice. He’s like, “Hey, you can join the Union. You can work on the farm or you can go do something else.” So we all turned on the TV and we were like, how did these other people live? We had no clue. So we all left. Alec Hanson:Oh my gosh. All of you left.Billy Spears:All of us.Alec Hanson:How many brothers? Billy Spears:I have four brothers, five of us in total. We all joined different branches of the military. Alec Hanson:Really? All of you?Billy Spears:I’m the only Marines. So I’m pretty proud of that.Alec Hanson:There you go. Yeah.Billy Spears:So I left for the Marines. Alec Hanson:Wow.Billy Spears:That kind of the story for me was I wanted to see how the other sort of side of the world live. I want to see this is wacky place in California, how do these people live? They always seem happy, right?Alec Hanson:But they’re bizarre. Billy Spears:That’s right. So that’s what I did. So I joined the Marines. You take these little tests that kind of tells you what you can be in life. And mine came out where, “Hey, you’re pretty good with technology.” I was like, “Cool. Technology sounds fun.”Alec Hanson:Sounds amazing.Billy Spears:Cool. So what they did is they taught me to program and sort of an old school language now, it’s called Unix shell. And what I did is I programmed mission one computers on FA teams. So-Alec Hanson:Mission one computers on FA teams.Billy Spears:That’s right. That’s important because there is a mission two. Alec Hanson:Okay.Billy Spears:So that wasn’t me. That was somebody else’s.Alec Hanson:There was a mission one though.Billy Spears:That’s right. So what that means is when the birds fly, they have to understand where they’re going, much like what you do in a commercial airline. And we have to program where it’s going, what might happen in case of emergency and make sure that the asset, the jet and the people get to the place in case of diversions.Alec Hanson:Wow.Billy Spears:So that was my job. It was a really, really fun job. And-Alec Hanson:How long did you do that for?Billy Spears:I did it for seven years, three months and 21 days. Don’t judge me.Alec Hanson:Specifically. Yeah. So just happened to know my numbers. Billy Spears:That’s right. Most military guys do.Alec Hanson:And then what happened after that?Billy Spears:From there was… It was kind of wonky. The market was a little different for folks coming out of the military, especially coming from what we call the theater.Alec Hanson:The theater?Billy Spears:Yeah. It’s not like the movies, so it’s a little different. So when you sort of come back from combat and trauma and whatnot there’s a settling period for adjustment. So for me, I didn’t settle really well when I first got back. And so the idea there was, how do you sort of grow with the skillset that I had learned? I get a little better, but be ready for a regular industry.Alec Hanson:And you mentioned too right now there’s a very strong… I would say pro veteran kind of ethos-Billy Spears:That’s true.Alec Hanson:… in America today, but you were mentioning that hasn’t always been the case.Billy Spears:It’s true. I mean, it wasn’t like the Vietnam guys for me. Right. So nobody was calling me names or spitting on me or anything like that, but they just weren’t really to take a chance. It wasn’t like, “Hey, let’s go hire a veteran. Let’s give the guy a chance. Let’s teach him something.” Because that would have been really cool. Instead, they’re like, “Hey, this guy might go postal in my office. So nah we’re not going to take a chance on you.”Alec Hanson:A little judgment.Billy Spears:And I was like, “Dude, why are you judging me?” I’m pretty smart with computers. Right. So I stayed in the federal government-Alec Hanson:Nice.Billy Spears:… went to this place called Glynn County, Georgia. It’s a really small place on a map so if you’re in that area, you know what I’m talking about. So what’s up. And-Alec Hanson:How many people were there? Come on.Billy Spears:There’s one stoplight. So it was-Alec Hanson:One stoplight.Billy Spears:… pretty interesting. So from there, what we did is we learned, so we had to build an entire ecosystem. What I thought was interesting in that particular place, we got to build 3D and 4D simulators to help our law enforcement guys. Alec Hanson:Okay. So unpack that a little bit. You’re building… What part of the government is this?Billy Spears:So at the time it was The Department of Treasury and it’s simply there for, kind of like the IRS and whatnot. They stick it there. It’s sort of a cost item on a budget. What it became was the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And then it got really sexy from there.Alec Hanson:Okay. So before it became Homeland Security, you were building 3D and 4D models to train?Billy Spears:We were. So we were building rooms, mock houses, and we had SAG actors and actresses sort of playing roles. And we’re… Pretend arresting them and pretend kicking doors in and driving fast on race tracks, whatever. Alec Hanson:So guys role-playing has never left the industry. In sales you’ve got to role-play-Billy Spears:That’s right.Alec Hanson:… in real life they’re role-playing.Billy Spears:It’s really cool.Alec Hanson:If you’re not role-playing your sales calls you’re blowing it because the professionals role-play.Billy Spears:That’s right.Alec Hanson:I dig it, dude. And then it became Homeland Security. Billy Spears:It did. And when that happened, everything got interesting and much more severe, much more sophisticated. We were called up to Washington. There’s a small grouping of folks that were pretty good at the industry building these things had never been done before. So they called us up to Washington and we built two things. One is the first cybersecurity program of the United States. The second is the first privacy program in the United States. Very different, but interrelated.Alec Hanson:What do those things do? Billy Spears:So when you think about privacy, it’s really about the appropriate access to information. Meaning you have access, you’re in a company, you can see… So let’s put it in LoanDepot standard. So right now you have access, you can see every customer we have, but should you? It’s not really bathroom reading father, whether or not-Alec Hanson:Right.Billy Spears:… some professional athlete or some famous person got a mortgage through Depot. Alec Hanson:Right. Billy Spears:But people do they get curious. So privacy is sort of tempering that, and it’s also about creating safety for consumers. So what we’re trying to do with privacy is we’re trying to build trust, will consumers purchase using our products? Do they believe that we will protect their information throughout the lifecycle, et cetera?Security is the technical integration of all those standards and all those sort of governance layers-Alec Hanson:Cheese.Billy Spears:… that we put in place. Alec Hanson:So you became Homeland Security?Billy Spears:Yeah.Alec Hanson:You built the first couple crazy government security systems, I guess. Is that right? Billy Spears:Yeah. The idea was we consolidate it, think of it that way. So three letter agencies don’t like to share, right?Alec Hanson:Fair.Billy Spears:So you have different agencies. They’re very special. They have their own unique data. They don’t really want to talk to other sort of agencies.Alec Hanson:Sure. I’m sure they have very sensitive data.Billy Spears:They’re all equally sensitive, right?Alec Hanson:Yeah. Fair.Billy Spears:The idea there was how do we consolidate to a system that makes sense. But how do we keep the information segregated based on the agency individually? And so that was a… That’s a very difficult challenge when you’re talking about 22 or 23 major agencies and a whole bunch of subdirectorates underneath all around the country. So the minute it was formed, it was 200,000 people from zero.Alec Hanson:Wow.Billy Spears:So you got to think of all the people and all the people on the borders and all the stuff that we care about in America today, those are the kinds of issues we’re fighting. And then right about the time that it started, we had hurricane Katrina.Alec Hanson:Oh my God.Billy Spears:A huge catastrophic event and not just United States, but everywhere because families were getting separated from their children and whatnot. So think about that in the context of a , if you have half of a file one place, and it goes to… I don’t know, Kentucky, and then old school, the other half of the file goes somewhere in Arizona.Alec Hanson:Oh yes.Billy Spears:And then you got to put them back together, but this is people we’re talking about. So it was a very difficult challenge for not just the privacy, but also the security-Alec Hanson:So how long did you work there? How long did you do this kind of stuff for?Billy Spears:Altogether about three and a half, maybe close to four years. Alec Hanson:Okay.Billy Spears:It was enough. Alec Hanson:It was enough. So after four years, what happened? You decided to… Where’d you go?Billy Spears:Yeah from there I decided to take my trade back in the industry. Right. So it was sort of always the goal. From there I went down sort of the South Midwest and I went to Austin, Texas America.Alec Hanson:Oh I love Austin.Billy Spears:And we started to build cybersecurity and privacy programs at Dell. So Dell was much smaller then, but it’s sort of grown into this fantastic machine. Alec Hanson:Yeah. It’s big.Billy Spears:I can’t take any credit for that. Alec Hanson:Okay.Billy Spears:On the backend. It was interesting watching data move. So if you think about how we use data today, how we analyze it, how the business intelligence we get off of it to help us predict or help us sort of understand where to move in the market. That’s really what we are learning at Dell. It was sort of how do we use the analytics for monetary benefit or really to as I heard Anthony have said over and over now, how do we delight our customers? Right? It’s just a different kind of context here than it was there. Alec Hanson:So after Dell.Billy Spears:From Dell, I started my own company. Alec Hanson:Whoa.Billy Spears:It was super exciting. I realized that I do not want to be an accountant any circumstance.Alec Hanson:Yes. That’s no one realize that when you start your own business, you’re like, “Wait a minute. I got to do all this. I got to do taxes on this. I got to do bio bookkeeping.”Billy Spears:It was a lot. I thought for sure, I was going to… There was going to be the time where I could tell my story and I was going to go out and just make this big disruption into the cybersecurity space. And I thought, “Hey, you know what? This is going to be great. Entrepreneurial mindset. Let’s get it done.” What I didn’t realize it was in the economic downturn. So it was right there. 2009, 2010, everything was terrible. There was no really money to be spent. So we did okay for about a year and a half and after a while my wife said, “Hey, it’s time for you to get off the couch and go do something else.” So I went to General Electric and General Electric was another boom at the time for when you think about innovation in the space, because not only did we use all the concepts and sort of in my world, technology ones and zeros, figuring out data, intellectual property, those kinds of things but we had the research budget to kind of solution the technologies themselves. So you have all these technologies in our space. There’s about 4,000.Alec Hanson:Really.Billy Spears:So if you think about why cybersecurity is so hard for companies, because there’s too much to choose from, right? If you could just package it down and say, this is the pathway, it’d be really easy, but it’s not for us. So you take different pieces of it and you try to solution the best thing for your organization. And at General Electric, we’ve got to do that. And we kind of whittled it down to a science. And so from there we were able to replicate. So from there the story, it gets pretty easy. So I went to Hyundai Capital from there. Hyundai Capital’s huge. I didn’t realize either. I thought it was car company.Alec Hanson:No.Billy Spears:Those of you think it’s a car company, it’s not. Steel manufacturing. So they kind of have eight or nine business lines and then when it comes out there’re some cars there too. Alec Hanson:Yes.Billy Spears:But when you think that they have both public companies, private companies. So it’s a very sophisticated model that makes it very difficult to secure. From there, we get into the Depot story and I think that’s the magic.Alec Hanson:Well, so how did you get introduced to Depot?Billy Spears:LoanDepot is interest… Over a burger. Alec Hanson:Yes.Billy Spears:For your audience. Alec Hanson:Yes. All good things happen over food. Billy Spears:I think when I got first introduced to LoanDepot, it’s kind of the same story that I think everybody out there hears. They said, “Hey, LoanDepot.” And I thought the same thing as everyone else, you said Home Depot.Alec Hanson:Home Depot.Billy Spears:Right. Alec Hanson:All day.Billy Spears:It was interesting. And they were like, no LoanDepot we’re a mortgage company. And I’m like, “Huh?” And so they explained the story of Quicken and I was like, “Oh yeah, I know Quicken. I’m from Detroit.” Right.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Billy Spears:And they’re like, “We’re number two in this space. We’re this rocket ship, we’re trying to make this first digital mortgage solution. It’s never been done. We’re trying to help people’s lives and really work towards the customer.” I was like, “Man, that’s cool.” A company focused on the customer and they want to use tech to innovate or drive the industry. That’s something I hadn’t been part of before. So as a technologist, that’s really sexy. And so for me, I was like, “Okay, let’s unpack that question. What does that mean?” And so-Alec Hanson:Totally.Billy Spears:Yeah. And so I got to go to meet the tech folks here at LoanDepot and what I realized is these are some of the smartest humans you’ll ever meet. So if you’re out there and you ever get to visit one of our locations where we have tech people go say hi, appreciate them. Give them a high five. Buy them a soda. It doesn’t matter. These people are working 24 hours a day around the clock. They’re building new features, they’re securing your space. They’re making sure that everything is right so you can just do your job. And without these people, it would be like getting on the freeway and not moving anywhere ever. No HOV lane. Alec Hanson:So this is amazing and this is why I wanted to bring you on Billy to talk about this stuff because sometimes… I’m a simplistic sales guy and we get so focused on what we do. And we forget that without all of the parts behind us, we can’t do what we do. And that to me is the funnest part about just this conversation is unpacking that. And so what I want to ask, now that you’ve been… How long have you been at LoanDepot? Right. Billy Spears:Two and a half years.Alec Hanson:Two and a half years. Billy Spears:Just over. So whoo, whoo. Alec Hanson:Congrats.Billy Spears:Over the hump. Alec Hanson:Yeah. So you kind of hit what drew you in, what do you do every day? Unpack that for some people. Because I think everyone thinks, like, we know what salespeople do everyday. They sit around and go on social media. Billy Spears:Right.Alec Hanson:And don’t actually call their customers. Billy Spears:Yeah, I see them. They’re there.Alec Hanson:So what do you do every day? What are you focused on? What are the big objectives you’re trying to handle? Billy Spears:Sure. So the first thing that I say, Alec, and you’ve heard me say this before I hope is I make sure that I don’t sleep so all of you can. Right. It’s really, really important. I take little cat naps. I’ve done that now for the last 15 or 20 years, it’s kind of a rhythm for me. Other people need more sleep, but for me, every time I get into a deep sleep, I think, “Oh my gosh, did I check this one last thing?” It’d be kind of like leaving your house and you’re not sure if he locked the door. Yeah. Same thing with the companies that I represent. And here at LoanDepot, what I do every day is we’re looking at how much, so it’s a balance of how much security to have versus how much we implement. And when we integrate technology are we improving the lives of the people using the technology? Because security should be transparent. Alec Hanson:Yup. Billy Spears:When I first arrived in 2017, it was anything but transparent.Alec Hanson:Sure.Billy Spears:And it was very frustrating for people banging on keyboards, loan officers or otherwise because every time we put something on, we would stop or disrupt or change the way they did business. And that wasn’t on purpose. We were trying to get to a place that actually makes people’s lives easier. But the challenge is when you layer on technology after technology, you’re not quite sure how it’s going to interact with the normal loan process. So what I do every day is we’re trying to keep the bad guys out and we’re trying to keep business flowing.Alec Hanson:Well, so who are the bad guys?Billy Spears:Sure. That’s great.Alec Hanson:Because there’s probably a spectrum of bad guys. Billy Spears:Sure.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Well, who are they?Billy Spears:Yeah, yeah. So you start with sort of your state sponsored actors, right.Alec Hanson:Okay. State sponsored actors.Billy Spears:You got it. So this is your government institutions. This is-Alec Hanson:This is Russia.Billy Spears:You got it. Alec Hanson:This is the straight up… Like this is the Russian interference intellect… Okay. Okay. Just kind of frame it up.Billy Spears:For sure. I wasn’t going to go political. It’s a political time right now, but yeah, this is definitely Russia-Alec Hanson:When you say state sponsored-Billy Spears:China and all these other people trying to get information over time and they buy and sell and transact data throughout all the other sort of sales pipeline. So if you think about sales information it’s definitely a supply market. Alec Hanson:In term of black market.Billy Spears:You got it. Alec Hanson:Okay.Billy Spears:We call it the dark web, but you might call it the black market.Alec Hanson:I like… Yeah.Billy Spears:It’s not a guy selling you a watch opening up his jacket, but at the end of the day, it’s the same sort of principle and whatever you can get there, you’re transacting through Bitcoin or some-Alec Hanson:So are there really state-sponsored bad guys out there?Billy Spears:Oh absolutely. Oh my gosh. For sure. It’s the number one. They’re the smartest attacks. So they typically sit for longer periods of time. They listen and they learn and what they do is they build a targeted attack so they can effect some change like an election or otherwise. Alec Hanson:Fascinating. Okay. So you’ve got state sponsored bad guys?Billy Spears:You have state sponsored. Then you get sort of your hacktivists. These are folks that sort of have a mission kind of, they want to-Alec Hanson:You’re saying these like the Robin Hoods. They think of themselves as like the Robin Hoods?Billy Spears:Yeah. You got it.Alec Hanson:Like they’re taking down the man, or whoever they believe-Billy Spears:Whoever they believe to be the man. So sometimes it’s corporations. Sometimes it’s a nonprofit. Sometimes it’s some-Alec Hanson:We’ve got nonprofit?Billy Spears:Some belief system. It just depends on-Alec Hanson:And are these individual actors?Billy Spears:They are or groups, right.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Okay. Sure.Billy Spears:So they can form in small teams or whatnot and they’ll go back and forth and kind of steal your identity and barter and sell it and whatnot. Then you get the straight up hackers. So these are one offs. I used to call these kids 15 year olds with Cheetos, but they’re much smarter now.Alec Hanson:They’re now 3 year olds with Cheetos.Billy Spears:That’s right. They’re still there. Lots of Cheetos. They’re just grown.Alec Hanson:They went from AOL, stealing someone’s credit card and now they’re up here.Billy Spears:You got it. So you get those guys and those are kind of fun because you actually get to… It’s sort of like a game of Dungeons & Dragons-Alec Hanson:Is it fun?Billy Spears:Yeah, because it’s easier when you only have one adversary to sort of compete with. So that’s fun. It’s much harder when everybody’s sort of targeting you all at once. Alec Hanson:Oh my God.Billy Spears:You know you’re still trying to run a business. Remember it’s not Space Invaders. We’re not just one off one sort of matching up with these guys. We’re literally trying to keep everybody out-Alec Hanson:Putting walls up almost.Billy Spears:You got it. Different layers of protections.Alec Hanson:Okay. And simplistically, you kind of answered it a couple different ways, but I want to hit it again. What are they trying to achieve? Like simplistically.Billy Spears:Simplistically, they’re trying to get in and discover. Get to the-Alec Hanson:You mean get access to our information?Billy Spears:Yeah. They just want to discover what we know and what we have and who you are. Right. So the interesting thing from the bad guy’s perspective is, can I get into the company? Lots of ways they get in. So think about every time we’re out there and we want to hook up something cool. So Alexa is pretty cool. “Hey, I want an Alexa in my office.” Cool. The minute we hook that on our network, it’s an open pipe somewhere. And if we don’t know that-Alec Hanson:So we know she’s listening.Billy Spears:Always listening.Alec Hanson:Always listening.Billy Spears:So if she’s always listening someone else can too. And that’s kind of some of the challenge if we’re not integrated into security in the beginning then we don’t know how to configure, don’t know that exists. So it pops up on our screen and we start thinking, “Hey, we’re being attacked or something.” So we shut it off immediately. We get the call from the loan officer. “Dude, I’m trying to do my job. You just stopped my pipeline or something.” We’re like, “Dude, we stopped an attacker, not you.”Alec Hanson:Well, okay. So they’re trying to get in, they’re trying to discover what we have, who we are.Billy Spears:Yeah.Alec Hanson:And so they can take that information out and sell it, manipulate us, blackmail us. Billy Spears:Yeah. So let’s go back a little bit. So they’re trying to get in for the data. For us we have consumer data, employee data, and we have all the things that transcribe in between. That’s really the value for us. We also have a lot of intellectual property. Think about all that mello software we’ve been writing for the last… however many years, right. That’s valuable to LoanDepot and the brand and those things. Those are the three things they’re trying to get. So that’s the crown jewels.Alec Hanson:Well, and there’s also wire fraud. There’s massive wire fraud right now. Billy Spears:True. Well, that’s on the other side. So that’s what they’re trying to do with it. Right.Alec Hanson:Okay.Billy Spears:So the idea is how do you get in, right? So they’re trying to get to the crown jewels we just described. How do they get in? The most prevalent way people get in right now is through what we call social engineering attack. There’s a-Alec Hanson:Jacking people.Billy Spears:You got it. So there’s a couple of methods for that.Alec Hanson:Just straight up jacking people.Billy Spears:Just straight up jacking you and you don’t even realize it because you’re so busy. And the most prevalent way we get it is through emails at LoanDepot. It’s probably 96% of all attacks that we get here that actually touch humans and that’s where the human generosity of the LoanDepot family comes into play because we are so nice to people that we just accommodate. Alec Hanson:Well. So I have a story about-Billy Spears:Sure.Alec Hanson:… your guys’ org. Myself and I’m sure like many people out there listening we understand what phishing is and not the fun kind, not the Anthony [Shea 00:21:05] kind.Billy Spears:Not the Anthony kind.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Not the Anthony kind. Because we just get these spam style emails all the time and they’re always like, log in here, click here, then they’re spoofed, certainly you can tell, you look at the URL, look at the email address. You can tell it’s not really a person. But my story was I consider myself relatively savvy and on the ball and I’m on my phone and I got an email and it tricked me like for real. And I like, “Okay.” Well, I login real quick. I got something that… I can’t even remember, but what I do remember was in like within 30 seconds of me hitting that, I had a call from somebody in your world and an email saying, we just picked up a login from you in like Belize or something. Somebody’s not… And so we we’re taking care of it, blah, blah. And I’m like, “Oh my God, I got goofed. They got me.” But you were on it. You shut that down.Billy Spears:On it. For sure. Alec Hanson:You’re like, Alec is not in like Russia logging in right now.Billy Spears:Yeah. We call that impossible travel situations.Alec Hanson:Yes. Billy Spears:So for us, it’s interesting because a lot of loan officers, they take vacations in-Alec Hanson:Of course.Billy Spears:… these exotic locations. So I’m very jealous of all of you, by the way. You guys go to some of the best vacations on the planet and when you’re there, hey, you don’t want to lose your pipeline. You want to keep everything flowing.Alec Hanson:Yeah.Billy Spears:It’s really important.Alec Hanson:You got to talk to customers.Billy Spears:For sure. My initial reaction back in September, 2017 was, “Hey, on vacation, be on vacation, don’t work.” And they’re like, “Hey, that won’t work for.”Alec Hanson:That’s not going-Billy Spears:That’s not possible.Alec Hanson:… be a thing. Billy Spears:Right. So I was like, “Okay, so now that I’m thinking outside the box, let’s find a different solution.” So what we did is we had the mad scientist up in our security operation center, kind of build a program customized for LoanDepot and it simply says that if you go a certain distance in an impossible amount of time, seconds, then what we’re going to do is flag it. So we can detect it in four seconds. Alec Hanson:That’s better.Billy Spears:So that’s probably how quick you get it. We came up with that number randomly because that’s the speed of our dialer. So we were like, we want to match the dialer. So that was the goal and we can do it. We do it-Alec Hanson:So I look like I’ve moved across the country in four seconds.Billy Spears:You’re going to get the call. We’re going to lock you out. You’re going to get a couple of different things that comes from IT ops and whatnot. It’s a machine at this point.Alec Hanson:Because that was an amazing experience for me. Billy Spears:[crosstalk 00:23:09] hundreds-Alec Hanson:And I was like, that was crazy.Billy Spears:Yeah. So we got your back. That’s what we’re trying to say there. And then we’re always trying to improve. So we’ll throw some innovation in here right now. For the last two years, we’ve been trying to race the market to get to passwordless authentication. So what that really-Alec Hanson:Oh my God. Please tell me you’re close because this password thing.Billy Spears:We’re very close, but we need your help. Right. So at the end of the day in order to-Alec Hanson:I can’t help you.Billy Spears:Oh. You Alec the Hanson, get out of here. This is the guy that makes the impossible possible all day long. Alec Hanson:No. So what is password authentication or passwordless authentication?Billy Spears:So it’s kind of like when you open up your iPhone and you have all the bells and whistles on it-Alec Hanson:Yeah, it scans your face, right? Billy Spears:You look at your iPhone and you’re in.Alec Hanson:Yep.Billy Spears:No passwords, no touching the screen, no remembering some secret code, nothing. It just happens.Alec Hanson:Yep.Billy Spears:But in order for that to happen, there’s a whole lot of steps behind the scenes that I won’t bore you with but a lot of that stuff has to happen. And in our business, we’re in different levels of maturity for that to happen. So for example, on my phone, in my device, as the security guy at the company, I’m passwordless, and I have to display that because if I won’t drink my own Kool-Aid how can I ask you to do any of it? And I can assure you, it doesn’t slow me down for anything. I have probably, if not the most, one of the most open accesses there are so I can see everything if I need to. Alec Hanson:Yup.Billy Spears:Now my team, I just said that on recording so my team is going to be shutting me down right now, right at the end of the day.Alec Hanson:Yeah, exactly.Billy Spears:Like an invitation-Alec Hanson:Sorry Billy.Billy Spears:… I built into my account. They’re like, you used to have a lot of access. Right. But the idea is if I can continue doing my job and it doesn’t slow me down and I can still get to what I need, but I still have all these layers of protection, then I can make it really cool and sexy for the person on the ground. No more codes, no more waiting for a text. No more… None of this stuff, just do your job. Alec Hanson:It’d be nice. I would like to not have to change my password every couple of months and then I forget it and then when I remember it, they say, that’s the wrong one. Billy Spears:Yeah. You got it.Alec Hanson:What’s the right one? And I’m in hell. Billy Spears:Right. But we’ll reset it for you again. No problem. Alec Hanson:Yeah. No problem. There’s no problem.Billy Spears:So we’re getting there. So we want to use certificates. Certificates, machines, talking to machines that validates the human, the human has their own stuff. Security. Another thing to kind of tell the viewers here. Security. We don’t care what you’re doing on your own time. We’re not trying to look in your device or talk about what your kids are doing. We have so many-Alec Hanson:Yeah. Alexa’s doing that.Billy Spears:Yeah. Whatever she does, but you’ve hooked her up so you can keep those records. We get 10 million sort of inbound requests a day. There’s nobody on my tiny team, they can look at anyone’s stuff. What we are trying to do is separate LoanDepot data from personal data so that we can ensure that quality exists so you can be a lean mean loan operating machine. Alec Hanson:So before I get into kind of the good stuff of what you’re working on, I want to really just kind of end this conversation for the bad guys, because for those… If you’re in the mortgage industry and you’re listening to this you’re an avenue into your company. So what are some of the things that they need to look out for? I mentioned phishing, those emails come through, but what other stuff are people susceptible to?Billy Spears:I think people are susceptible to normal business factors where you print things. So if you leave a customer file. I know we don’t have paper cuts that much anymore, but those of you who do out in the field, when you print stuff and leave it laying around, that’s a huge risk for the bad guy. They want that stuff. Yeah. They come in with cleaning crews and other stuff to really bring that out. So they can put the pieces together like a puzzle and they can solve for again, the data or how to get in. Your credentials. What we find in our company is we are so nice, especially in the branches where you might have people working or working out of your account or whatever. You’re so quick to give your credentials away and that is your authentication into everything. So when you give it to one and they give it to someone else and you have three or four people working with the same account, we don’t know that it’s you because all of the technology fires off your characteristics, are you right handed? Are you left handed? Do you use a Mac or a PC? Or do you login from California, Alabama? Because if you log in from Belize that throws us off.Alec Hanson:Yup.Billy Spears:Things like the pressure of your keystrokes and we do that through timing. So if you type really fast, we know it’s you, you type really slow we know it’s someone else and that’s going to raise up a flag and-Alec Hanson:You’re actually tracking keystrokes. Billy Spears:The time of keystrokes-Alec Hanson:Yeah, okay.Billy Spears:For sure. Yeah. So what we call those is indicators, right. So it’s not really about Billy or Alec. It’s about, do we believe as a reasonable guess that this is normal behavior? So we don’t actually know what the timing is of the keystrokes-Alec Hanson:Right.Billy Spears:… but we know, “Hey, it’s normal green. Hey, it’s abnormal. Let’s go to another check and make sure that the right person is in our environment all the time.”Alec Hanson:Yup. I was aware of a situation that happened in San Diego recently where a customer, they got kind of tricked and they wired $700,000 to a fake… a bad actor. And you look at that happening in our industry and it’s heartbreaking that this kind of stuff can happen to people. But the reality is everyone’s got to have another level of kind of intensity and focus around this stuff, because it’s real. Billy Spears:Absolutely. I think with wire fraud, that’s what you’re describing. That’s sort of the use case once they get in, once they’re sort of talking to people and it’s rules of three kind of like sales, I would imagine. The first time you talk to someone cold call, kind of ignore you, blow you off. The second time, you’re starting to build that rapport and by the time you get to the third time, just because of the way how fast businesses transact, they kind of believe you and they’re like, “Oh yeah, I know this guy on the phone or this lady and I want to be helpful and whatnot.” So that’s the wire fraud. It comes in a couple of different forms, but where we see it as if they get into your account and they’re able to see some of the transactions, we put a lot of loan numbers and whatnot in our emails. So they start to build this case of how to manipulate the customer, which is third party to LoanDepot. So that’s-Alec Hanson:Yeah, from my understanding, it was an email from a spoofed escrow and it looked almost identical to the emails they’ve been getting from that escrow person. The signature was the same, everything was dialed in, except the only thing that was different was that the email was slightly different and they didn’t see that.Billy Spears:That’s surprising. Sometimes they’re exactly the same, their screenshots. And really what you don’t see as the user it’s a screenshot on an email and all it is is a box for you to enter things, your account number whatnot.Alec Hanson:Yeah.Billy Spears:And then the transfer goes through, by the time the transfer hits and you realize it, they’ve already moved the money 17 times. It’s really difficult if… Impossible to get it back. You’re doing police reports and whatnot. You’re calling LoanDepot. You’re asking us to investigate. We are certainly willing to do that but there’s not much we can do when it’s a third party risk like that. So the best we can do is get in front of people and educate them that this is very real.Alec Hanson:Very real.Billy Spears:It’s very, very serious. So we want to make sure that we take the right precautions so that you can just focus on the machine of originating loans.Alec Hanson:You know it’s crazy and when I take some of our potential recruits through the metal lab and we go up and we look at the war room as I call it, but what do you call it?Billy Spears:We call it the security operations center. Yeah.Alec Hanson:So I call it the war room.Billy Spears:The mello command center. For sure.Alec Hanson:It’s amazing. Right. So there’s all these TVs and there’s all this stuff but one of the things that always stands out for me is this, you’ve got the globe, if you will. And you have all these little pings coming in from other countries, and it’s like thousands and thousands a day from certain countries, what are they doing?Billy Spears:So what they’re doing is they’re trying to get into our systems. So what we’re looking real time is the threats around the globe. So what’s interesting is how the social or economic factors adjust to those threats. For example, the president comes out and he says something that the globe doesn’t agree with. We’re going to start getting attacked from those places. They’re not necessarily attacking LoanDepot. Instead what’s happening is they’re sending all these electronic pings to find vulnerabilities and when they do, they share that intelligence and exploit all those vulnerabilities at one time.Alec Hanson:What would be a vulnerability? Billy Spears:So you think about, like when you’re on the freeway in the morning, and there’s no traffic clear, you’re just sailing to work. It’s the best day ever. You probably know it’s D-Day because that never happens in Southern California.Alec Hanson:No. No.Billy Spears:But let’s assume it does for a second. Then we’ve done our job. So we have all of these right filters, we’re blocking things out in the appropriate place and you’re just clearly streaming along. Now attack would be, I’m going to send 5 million requests at your inbound port. That’s a little nerdy, right? But it comes in all at one time and we don’t know how to filter it out. So we call that a denial of service attack. And what happens is-Alec Hanson:They’re trying to overload the system.Billy Spears:You got it. It clogs everything. Our firewalls will shut down. You won’t be able to do business at all. You’ll be like, “Hey, I can’t do my job.” And it’s because we’re being attacked.Alec Hanson:That’s wild. I’ve even heard and I have no substance behind this, that there’s been some mortgage companies that kind of got held hostage.Billy Spears:Ransomware.Alec Hanson:What is that about? Billy Spears:Ransomware is interesting. So this is the millennial sort of criminal.Alec Hanson:Yeah.Billy Spears:They’re so lazy. They don’t want to take your data. They just want you to pay to unlock your data. So your data actually never left. You just can’t do business. Alec Hanson:They just locked you out. Billy Spears:They just lock you out. For sure. And they usually ask for little bits of money, but once you pay, it’s going to escalate, right. Because they got in-Alec Hanson:Oh they know.Billy Spears:… they know how they got in. They can get back in again.Alec Hanson:They leave themselves a little door.Billy Spears:So it might be 5,000 now and then it grows into millions of dollars. You see it all over the news, different places, depending on how they’re structured, they’re either paying or not paying for these types of attacks. Once you start paying terrorists for things we go downhill very quickly. So we take some pretty serious actions at LoanDepot to prevent that from occurring and we’re constantly testing sort of the resiliency of those plans to make sure that doesn’t happen here. But again, it’s the same as I told you before we need the help from not just the folks in the backend, but we need to get the message out to the front end. So people realize that it’s little simple things that can be prevented. For example, just don’t click the link if you don’t know. We deploy a lot of technologies to help folks.Alec Hanson:Hold on. Okay. Let’s just…Billy Spears:Unpacking.Alec Hanson:Let’s talk about unpacking, like don’t click the link. What damage can clicking a link really do?Billy Spears:Oh my gosh, these links have what we call payloads, right. And the payloads are meant to be destructive. So the minute you click a link, you don’t realize it. You could be giving full visibility to everything on the computer to the bad guys simultaneously and not even realizing it.Alec Hanson:From one link, they-Billy Spears:From one link.Alec Hanson:… get full visibility into your computer?Billy Spears:Absolutely. Alec Hanson:How’s that possible? Billy Spears:It’s the payload that’s in there. So it’ll send a… It’s an executable file, sends a signal back. Basically they connect in or remote connect in. Right. And they’re in the background, just kind of watching what you’re doing.Alec Hanson:So yeah. I want to just pause for a second, because for those of you that are familiar with great technology partnerships we have that LoanDepot where someone sends us a quick link and all of a sudden the IT guy is on their computer. Right? So you’re telling me that there could be a bad actor who sends you some link about download your CD here and some loan officer’s like, “Oh, you know…” And all of a sudden they’re watching?Billy Spears:Absolutely. Or it can be a helpful IT guy. I mean, how many loan officers know all 300 IT people that we have. So if you don’t know us, I mean, it’s pretty easy for me to… Well, you guys probably know Alex, so it’d be hard for me to say I’m Alec. But I could be John Smith or whoever that is. Right. And I can call and say, “I’m John Smith. I got to do this update. I just want to take over your computer for a minute and I’ll get it done for you. No worries. You guys go get a coffee or whatever.” You come back and I’ve already downloaded your entire customer database.Alec Hanson:That is crazy. I see it. I mean, I can see that. Sales people don’t realize this. We have a naivety. It’s like, “Well, it’s a link. Whatever. I close the window that opened up. I didn’t mean to click it.” But it could have serious consequences.Billy Spears:It does. And I think what’s interesting here, just a kind of a fun fact.Alec Hanson:Yeah.Billy Spears:We run these anti-phishing simulations all the time. So if you guys don’t know-Alec Hanson:Are you sending out phishing emails to try to trick the field? Billy Spears:We do. So-Alec Hanson:You do, don’t you?Billy Spears:Stand by LoanDepot. We’ll be phishing your cell phones here this year. So I’m giving you that advanced warning now. Alec Hanson:Okay. There’s one of our clips for everybody. Yeah. We have our own team. Okay.Billy Spears:Yeah.Alec Hanson:Hold on. Is this like… I read something somewhere and this could be totally not correct, but like black hat, white hat, gray hat. Is that a thing?Billy Spears:That’s a thing. Alec Hanson:Break that down. What’s the…Billy Spears:So, simple. White hat. Good guys. Black hat, bad guys. Gray hat, confused guys. Alec Hanson:No, are they’re really confused?Billy Spears:Yeah. I think-Alec Hanson:Or are they just playing in the middle?Billy Spears:You always have that sort of inner personality where some days you want to be great and some days you want to be a little nefarious and… Typically those are… The gray hats are the guys sort of playing both sides. Alec Hanson:Yeah. And so we wanted to play white hats to stop the black hats.Billy Spears:That’s right.Alec Hanson:And some of them could be gray hats and you don’t know.Billy Spears:It depends, there’s a big conference once a year where the good guys get to become bad guys and we sort of get to play sort of the cops and robbers for lack of a better term. So-Alec Hanson:Try to break through the systems down.Billy Spears:More than that, we try to break everything. So we descend upon Las Vegas the first week in August every year and it’s kind of summer camp for us because all of the theories that we talk about all year long, that’s the one place where we actually get to break into cars and houses and technological systems and-Alec Hanson:I want to come to this. Billy Spears:You should.Alec Hanson:This is amazing.Billy Spears:That’d be great. Take the podcast on the road. You would really get a kick out of it. Alec Hanson:Oh my God. You just go in there and you just break stuff apart.Billy Spears:Yeah. two years ago we hacked into a Tesla. So that make you real comfortable as you’re driving home at night.Alec Hanson:if you show up on my Tesla screen, I’m going to freak out. Like, “Hey, Alec.”Billy Spears:That’s all you need. “How are you?”Alec Hanson:”I’m your autopilot driver now. I’m taking over driving.”Billy Spears:That’s right.Alec Hanson:Oh my God. Okay. Let’s not go there.Billy Spears:[crosstalk 00:35:33] my car. Alec Hanson:Okay. So what are you working on right now that you’re excited about?Billy Spears:Yeah. We’re excited about the transition of easing the customer experience. So I talked about passwordless authentication.Alec Hanson:Yep.Billy Spears:So we’re moving from the sort of… the more rigorous mobile device management solution that we deployed a couple of years ago. We heard you, so that’s important for everyone to know, and now we’re moving to a mobile application management software. So instead of managing the device itself, we’re going to be looking at just LoanDepot apps.Alec Hanson:Nice.Billy Spears:So we’re not going to deploy things. We’re not looking at your phone. None of that. It’s simply the hook or the certificate, which is more important that authenticates your hardware into our backend and then that’s going to open up all your access to everything else. Alec Hanson:Very cool. Billy Spears:So we’re going to cross IT to consolidate and centralize, shift things over to the cloud, which simply means for the users, it’s better agility to give you what you need and we have the scale necessary to evolve as the business shifts.Alec Hanson:That’s fun.Billy Spears:That’s really important for people. Alec Hanson:That’s awesome. Billy Spears:Yeah. And then, so for us, we’ll move to a better MFA platform. Alec Hanson:And what does means?Billy Spears:That six digit code you get when you log into your bank-Alec Hanson:Yes.Billy Spears:So we’ll do it on your phone, which gives you a one button push because we like the stoplight mentality. And then once we get all that in place, we’ll turn off the password and you truly will have passwordless authentication.Alec Hanson:Turn off the password.Billy Spears:That’s right.Alec Hanson:I mean that’s like music to my ears.Billy Spears:We’re hoping to get there by early next year. If we can just convince everybody that this little bit of heartache that’s going to happen over the next four or five months is worth it, we can get to the-Alec Hanson:All you have to say is you don’t have to remember passwords anymore. Billy Spears:That’s it. No one will. It’ll be good. Alec Hanson:That’s awesome. What else? Anything else fun you’re working on?Billy Spears:We have dark trace. So you’ve seen that as you walked around our sort of command center for lack of a better term. Dark trace is cool. We’ve implemented that for you guys. It’s artificial intelligence and machine learning. And what that product does is it kind of helps you prevent hurting yourself. So we look at all the normal traffic versus abnormal traffic across our network and if it’s abnormal, we use threat feed and we have this cyber analyst now which kind of saves us on humans. We had a small team anyway, so it’s not like we’re going to grow to 4,000 people. So we’re trying to use technology to mitigate the threats at the lowest possible denominator. Alec Hanson:And what are they trying to stop? Billy Spears:They stop all the bad guys from coming in. Coming in. Good things from getting out. If you start sending customer files 300 at a time or something, it’s going to send you a note saying, are you sure you really want to do that? You might think that’s a little wonky if you get that pop up, but it’s serious. So if you’re not sure, just give us a call. We’re happy to answer your phone or answer our phone, take your calls and let you know that there’s probably a different way to do that. We’re also on the email side. So we’re looking at emails today. We’ve just launched this product a couple of weeks ago. So hopefully all of you have seen the benefit of getting less phishing email or spam in your boxes. We’re down about 80% and continue to-Alec Hanson:How does it tell?Billy Spears:It looks at a whole bunch of indicators across the email. Things that humans can’t see. Alec Hanson:Got it.Billy Spears:So when you’re looking at a link, there’s actually metadata inside that email that the computer can see a whole lot faster. So the technology reads that and it shifts it off to a quarantine state. Right now everything’s going in your junk box. So we didn’t take anything away. So if there is a legitimate emails-Alec Hanson:It’d be in there.Billy Spears:… or whatnot. It’s in there, it gives you guys an opportunity to pull it back in your inbox and let us know, we’ll continue configuring but by the end of March our goal is to go live. We’ll quarantine. You’ll never get those emails again. We have about a 98% effective rate so far. Alec Hanson:Do you have a secret to stop spam emails?Billy Spears:Yeah, don’t open emails.Alec Hanson:Okay. Billy Spears:Stops them from-Alec Hanson:We get thousands of emails a day. Billy Spears:We do. Yeah.Alec Hanson:How do we deal with this? Billy Spears:So there are a couple of different kinds of spam, right?Alec Hanson:Yup.Billy Spears:So we have the bad actor spam we’ve been talking about a lot of phishing and whatnot. So we’re taking some steps to stop that or prevent that from occurring. And then you have your business partners that are spamming you. Some of you signed up for them, you’ve been to these conferences, you dropped your business card in a hat, whatever. And that’s kind of on you guys, right?Alec Hanson:Yup.Billy Spears:So the idea there is we’ve given you a link in your browser and it basically gives you a choice. Is this junk, not junk, phishing, whatever. And the more often you click that there’s artificial intelligence that drives behind that too. So you need to click the same thing a couple of times, and then it’ll automatically start filtering those things into other folders.Alec Hanson:I don’t think people know that. That’s pretty cool.Billy Spears:Yeah. It’s pretty cool.Alec Hanson:I didn’t know that. Billy Spears:Now you do. It’s great.Alec Hanson:Yeah. Billy Spears:We have a whole website too. It’s for those of you, you can get to inside LD, go to the information security website. It says I is. So if you have a question about what is go there and then all this stuff is built out. We’ve spent for the last 10 years building collateral to help you. How two guys’ job [crosstalk 00:39:55]-Alec Hanson:Hold on. You’re asking sales people to go read stuff, man. Billy Spears:No, it’s pictures. We made it pictures. We don’t want you to read anything. So very, very much pictures but finding my numbers is great.Alec Hanson:Oh I appreciate you. Okay, so we’re kind of… I know this has been hyper helpful for people that don’t understand this business side of our business, which is really cool and I’m sure that people are getting really good insight out of this. For the salespeople out there running around what tips, tricks, best practices, heads up. We kind of unpacked that. If you click a link and how damaging that can be-Billy Spears:Sure.Alec Hanson:… as an example. What should they be paying attention to so that they don’t hurt themselves or their company?Billy Spears:So the first thing let’s talk about as an individual work towards a company, right?Alec Hanson:Yeah.Billy Spears:As an individual, you guys should all have Microsoft Authenticator. If you don’t have it, go download it. It’s a simple app. You install it. It’s 30 seconds. And what it does is gives you a second layer of protection for things like Yahoo, Gmail, your social media accounts, your bank account, all those other things. Because if someone does get your password and I can promise you if you’re ever in Southern California, stop by my office and I’ll show you how easy it is to show you your password. Right.Alec Hanson:Wait, wait, wait, how? Billy Spears:Ah man that will cost you lunch, but I’ll show you. It’s fun. Very quickly.Alec Hanson:Is that easy?Billy Spears:Yeah. Alec Hanson:To get someone’s password. Billy Spears:It’s really quick and easy. Think about all the other breaches that you have in the market today. For example, I was reading this morning T-Mobile had this sort of email compromised just this morning.Alec Hanson:Really?Billy Spears:So it’s a very large thing. And what they did is they got the customers and the employees, username and passwords, and that’s sent out. Right. And so the idea behind that is if they get that and you don’t have a second factor or another layer, then they’re in your account. You don’t even realize it.Alec Hanson:So that’s Microsoft authenticator?Billy Spears:Yeah. That’s what we use. It’s free. It’s easy to install. It’s really really cool.Alec Hanson:It adds another layer of protection. Billy Spears:It’s another layer of protection. It gives you that automatic six digit code. Once you route it in it’s seamless, you can remember yourself. It pings off of your phone or wherever that code is or the cloud, it’ll let you through no big deal. The only pain is the first time you log in. The first time [crosstalk 00:41:49]-Alec Hanson:You got to set it all up.Billy Spears:Yeah. Just getting in the code, takes 30, 45 seconds, but it gets you the layer, even myself. So I got one yesterday in my Yahoo account that someone was trying to login from Pakistan. I thought that was interesting because I’m not there, but it stopped him because my second layer of protection hit me on the phone and said, are you there? I was like, “No.” Locked out.Alec Hanson:Definitely not there. Billy Spears:So it’s pretty cool. And you don’t have to worry about your passwords as much because they are compromised. We tell them all the time.Alec Hanson:I think that’s a point people don’t realize. Billy Spears:Yeah, and most people here’s another good rhythm. You guys are using the same passwords at LoanDepot that you use in other places and when those [crosstalk 00:42:19] place-Alec Hanson:No. No. We’re not.Billy Spears:Hey, [inaudible 00:42:21]-Alec Hanson:No. No. No. It’s the same password or a variation with like another exclamation point. Like that’s every single person in the world.Billy Spears:You got it. And people aren’t using license plates anymore, it’s pretty crazy. So you’re using them when they get compromised, they go right into the domain or where you work or whatnot and they’re looking for that sort of highly valuable data. Alec Hanson:Okay. So what else? So individual is use Microsoft Authenticator.Billy Spears:So MFA. Get some point of in-point protection. So when you get these high powered computers, make sure you’re having some protection on there. So again, you can use Microsoft Defender, that’s free. There’s other products that have free versions for personal use. In the company we have our own that we pay for on our products. If you’re dialing in through Citrix or some other method, remember that the machine itself still needs to be updated, not just the virtualized machine that you’re working off of because that piece of hardware still contains a lot of buggy things, changes all the time. So do that.Second thing is, or sort of the last thing. Number three is make sure if you’re unaware of something that you’re calling somebody. Shoot us an email. It’s not always call the service desk. Get ahold of someone that you know here. Send us an email at iso@loandepot.com.Alec Hanson:Just though to check. Billy Spears:Yeah. Just let us know and we can help you, even if you’re having some… and I’ll cautiously say this, but even if you’re having some personal issues where you’re not sure. We get it all the time from loan officers, “Hey, my kid did this or my spouse did that.” Dude, we’ll check for you. We are here for you. We talk about our customer and delighting them all the time. You’re my customer. So it’s my job to delight all of you.Alec Hanson:Well, but on the flip side, if you’re not responsible in this area, you can cause so much harm to the customer you’re trying to delight.Billy Spears:Absolutely.Alec Hanson:Without meaning to.Billy Spears:True.Alec Hanson:And that to me is the biggest tragedy of this stuff because we’re trying to help people. And then if we’re lazy or we’re complacent, or we don’t think about this kind of stuff and the next thing you know, we’ve hurt our customers.Billy Spears:Yeah. And it only takes one. I mean, we say it all the time. It is not… You hear terms like FUD, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. That’s not our sort of position. What we’re trying to do is help you understand that it only takes one bad action to take down our entire network. So we have tons of professionals, super, super smart people behind the scenes, keeping this thing up and running. But we just need a little help, a little wisdom, a little bit of foresight from you guys and we can go a long way together. Alec Hanson:So last question.Billy Spears:Sure.Alec Hanson:Which we can have multiple answers to. So I’m not saying this is over. Where’s this all going? Where’s cybersecurity going? Like, what’s the future of this crazy cyber world?Billy Spears:Yeah. It’s becoming the world. But that’s-Alec Hanson:That’s very good to us.Billy Spears:… by force or by choice we are moving into a virtualized environment. You see everybody doing with disruption, right?Alec Hanson:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Billy Spears:You had this manual processes. Now everything’s online. You don’t even go to stores anymore. Alec Hanson:Nope.Billy Spears:You’re buying stuff from your phone. Like you got to stand in the store. You’re like, “What?” Even your cars are driving themselves.Alec Hanson:Yup.Billy Spears:We are just dependent on data. So you’re going to need cybersecurity in everything you do when you connect a new device or a piece of technology into a network and your houses networked. So that’s the other thing. Any then got Netflix or any of these smart TVs.Alec Hanson:Of course.Billy Spears:That’s connected to your credit card. I don’t know if I want to tell it to the audience. Alec Hanson:Yeah, [crosstalk 00:45:25]. Tell it.Billy Spears:But it’s really cool if you-Alec Hanson:Say it.Billy Spears:So if you go out into your audience and you put in one 192.168.1.1 some weird screen is going to show up and that’s your personal router. And those of you who haven’t changed the backend password, I’m going to tell you what your password is. It’s admin as the username and password is the password. So you go log that in, and now you’re into all your neighbors. Now I’m into your Netflix. Now I’m into [crosstalk 00:45:47]-Alec Hanson:I don’t know if that’s okay but that’s incredible. You’re right. You’re right. Because there’s that backdoor. Billy Spears:You got it.Alec Hanson:And people don’t even think about it.Billy Spears:No, because you just changed the password inside the house. You’re like smiley 1 or guest 2 or whatever. And that’s cool. That keeps the-Alec Hanson:Password 12345. Billy Spears:Yeah. You got it. Whatever works for you, but you got to remember that there’s the backend side. And if you’re not protecting the backend, your entire ecosystem is interconnected and people are getting in. And it’s very scary things. You can get into your cameras and whatnot. Now you’ve got people-Alec Hanson:Dude somebody can be sitting outside your house and jump on your wifi and get in there. Billy Spears:Yeah, now they’re in your cameras and they’re watching your kids. How about that?Alec Hanson:You made it real creepy.Billy Spears:That’s super scary. Alec Hanson:You made it real… Yeah.Billy Spears:Right. I’m not trying to make it creepy. I’m just trying to make it reasonable for people to understand that listen, very real things can happen just by ignorance.Alec Hanson:We live in such a sheltered world.Billy Spears:Yeah.Alec Hanson:We just put the blinders on a little bit. Billy Spears:Yeah. You got it.Alec Hanson:We also get distracted. So I’m not going to just say we’re all dumb and blind, but we were working. We’re busy. There’s lots of stress on our lives in sales. Billy Spears:That’s right.Alec Hanson:And right now in this interest rate environment, there’s tons of stress on us. Not only to respond to the influx of customers, but just when we build a pipeline like this, it’s stressful. So yeah. I mean, we’re not thinking about it.Billy Spears:You got it. So I think a couple of precautions, right.Alec Hanson:Okay.Billy Spears:Friend your neighborhood cyber professional. Alec Hanson:I love that. That’s… Billy Spears:Thank your IT professionals that are around building all these new features to enhance your lives. And when you see folks, remember that we’re working 24/7 behind the scenes to make sure your lives get better, easier, faster. And when we have a little bit of a mistake, what we ask for is the same as you ask your customers, if the pipeline slows down, we’re getting to you as fast as we can. It’s never the intent. For the cybersecurity, we kind of branded ourselves a little different because it’s not about the people. So we have the mello cyber squad sort of behind the scenes. Alec Hanson:We love that.Billy Spears:We like to brand it as best squad only we get things done. So that’s a good thing for you guys. So if you have a problem, mellocybersquad@loandepot.com, we will come running, we’ll get you through the pipeline. We’ll help you and we want to get you back up and running as fast as possible. Alec Hanson:So Billy, this has been a cool session for me because I think it’s nothing that normal people talk about in my world. We’re always on the sales and social media and branding. And then this is just like, “Oh no, whatever the real defenders doing behind the scenes in the dark stopping the bad actor.” So I super appreciate your times, super appreciate everything you do. And so Modern Lending podcasters, we are closing it up. Remember this gives you value. Like, subscribe, share the message. I appreciate you guys. We are out. Have a great day.

Don’t miss this amazing conversation. If you’ve never seen René speak now is the chance. For the last 20 years, René has researched and applied behavioral neuroscience as a dynamic keynote speaker, leadership advisor, world class sales expert, and renowned speaker coach. Yet, he believes that we are only scratching the surface of what is possible and that every profession can benefit from fully engaging human mind/brain. Join us as we discuss how to manage stress, the dangers of group think and the power and importance of digital body language in this virtual world.

Your snippet of this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• How authenticity is more meaningful then the crazy attention tactics 
• What digital body language is and why it matters more now
• Group think can be dangerous and how to deal with it
• Your digital box can tell a lot about you but what story is it telling?

Episode Transcribe

Alec:What’s up, everybody.

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Lending Podcast live.

And it’s hysterical because we’ve been two minutes in our incredible podcast and realized we didn’t hit the go live button, which is just part of the life. So we’re going to roll with it. I’m really excited for the conversation today. If you don’t know Rene Rodriguez, you’re not paying attention. This world is causing all of us to shift and pivot, and this man is stepping forward as an industry leading thought leader, helping drive new behaviors, challenging people’s paradigms, and really leaning in for the world we’re facing today. This is a two times TEDx, TED Talk speaker and man, I’m so, so excited to bring Rene on for a great conversation. So without any further ado, let’s bring on Rene Rodriguez.We did it this time for sure. Rene Rodriguez:We got it. We got it.Alec:For those of you that are just jumping in, Rene and I were rapping for like two minutes and I realized it’s not live, which means we were just hanging out together, which is fun, but in and out of itself. So thank you, Rene, for coming on today. Rene Rodriguez:Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Alec:You’ve been busy. You’ve been super busy. Rene Rodriguez:It’s been a while, a few weeks. That’s for sure. Very well.Alec:It’s got to be weird for someone who is used to presenting in-person to a lot of people and just being in that physical intimacy now being forced into COVID land. And look, before we dive in, I have so many fun questions. Please share a little bit about your background so people can understand the context in which you’re seeing this world and what you’re really leaning into and teaching.Rene Rodriguez:For sure. First, I want to look as cool as you get my pop filter on. Alec:Yeah, you got it. Rene Rodriguez:Now that you have the right-Alec:[crosstalk 00:01:54].Rene Rodriguez:Well, you have the right quality. So I just realizing it’s coming through. So my background is in behavioral neuroscience and so I look at everything from a perspective of applied neuroscience. And so what does that mean? There’s a lot of really smart researchers out there, psychologist, and they do the research and then put the study on the shelf and go onto the next. I’m the guy that goes in and pulls out research often says, “What does this mean to the business world? What does this mean to my life? What does it mean to selling leadership? What does it mean to conflict resolution, communication, influence, all of those different elements?” And so, yeah, I’ve been doing this work for 23 plus years and 18 of those have been also within the mortgage industry. So I do know your industry very well, but it’s not solely the mortgage industry, but I do seem to get a lot of social media touches in mortgage. Alec:Yeah. So that’s a fantastic, interesting background. I don’t have that. I just have the sales background of like meeting realtors and kissing babies. And so one of the things that, before we get into the meat of what I want to talk about is you’re putting out a lot of your content for free in this Lighthouse Series. Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. Alec:I got to… Mikey, can you throw that up there real quick for everybody that’s curious? Here’s the link and people can write it down, screenshot this, et cetera, but can you share what you’ve done with this? Because it’s incredible. I’ve personally absolutely enjoyed them.Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. Thank you. Well, I do close to a hundred events a year and this all came down and I was committed to still fly and still flying. All of a sudden, you just start seeing events cancel and cancel and cancel, and all of a sudden, it’s be the equivalent for you guys, all your banks just saying, “We’re not funding loans anymore.”Alec:Which we’ve experienced in 2008, which was really delightful.Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. And so we sat back and I started giggling and I thought to myself, I said, “Okay, well, I went through 911 where we lost everything,” and I go, “Here we go again.” And I go, “What do we do?” And so my first thought was, and what everybody told me, “Well, now you got to move your content online.” And I said, “Great, let’s do that.” And I grabbed my video crew over and we created these videos and about halfway through, I thought to myself, I’m like, “Geez, moving just immediately online, is it going to feel right?”Alec:No.Rene Rodriguez:It’s not going to feel right. Alec:It hurts.Rene Rodriguez:Not just for me, I’m fine with it, but for my audience. And the other two pieces, there was this image that came through for me. And I told my team, I said, “Imagine if we’re inside and we’re safe and you see a group of people out there drowning, and we have this beautiful boat. And would that be the time that we think of our business model and how much we can charge them for saving them? Or do we just get in the boat and go out there and pull people to shore?” And it immediately clicked with the team. And I said, “We just need to give this stuff away for free.” And it was some of the better content. And when I say better content, it’s overview introduction to the work, but we wanted to give people something to grab onto, to understand behaviorally and emotionally what was going on during times like this. So this was like day two, albeit. And so a lot of it was more of my prediction of how people would respond.Alec:So let’s… First of all, thank you. Thank you for giving. I’m a huge believer of giving away things for free. Like I think that just cements your position as a leader in your space when you’re just willing to have that abundance mentality. And it’s not a trick and here sign up for my ebook and it’s just here, here, let’s learn together and what a gift to people in this chaos? Because there is a ton of chaos right now. Rene Rodriguez:Yeah.Alec:I’m coaching people right now who are just absolutely incredible people, incredible producers, in my opinion, like way better looking than me, and they’re terrified of turning the camera on. And it’s a little thing. I’m like, “Guys, you’re a master of your trade.” But this new world is scary for some people.Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. It sucks. The reality I’m looking at myself and I keep adjusting with a mic. Is it here? I’m looking at the lighting here, you can tell that I broke my nose twice because it goes out and it goes out this way.Alec:I’ve got the light from the Lord. [crosstalk 00:06:05]. No, it’s not better. You just got-Rene Rodriguez:It’s [crosstalk 00:06:11].Alec:We don’t have [crosstalk 00:06:12] in our lives. We just are us.Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. And it’s a real stress. I think that stress is coming at people from all angles right now.Alec:Well, that’s the first topic that we should dive into, is managing stress. And so I would love for you to just go into your insight into this world of stress. A lot of people are feeling it and they’re not really aware. For me, I’m not necessarily aware of it and I have like a meltdown. And I’m just like, “Oh, I’m carrying a lot right now.”Rene Rodriguez:For sure. Alec:So let’s break it down. Let’s talk about managing stress.Rene Rodriguez:So I think the first thing I tell people is that you have to understand stress is a physiological response and stress is a good thing. Stress has a purpose. It is designed to protect us. It’s designed to wake up our muscles. It’s designed to make us more focused. And if you’re growing up playing baseball and you go up to bat and you have no stress, you’re not going to do all that well. If you’re playing a sport, and you don’t have stress you couldn’t do well. If you’re in the military and you’re going to battle and you don’t have stress, that’s not a good thing. And so stress is designed-Alec:I’ve rarely heard somebody say stress is a good thing. I’ve rarely. The second you said it, I was like, really?Rene Rodriguez:Yeah, well, it’s good. It’s the release of cortisol into the body and cortisol plays a role. And that gets you more focused, you become more alert and you pay attention to what’s going on. It’s the overuse and the over secretion of cortisol or too much stress that begins to hurt us. It’s just like anything. Too much of anything is not a good thing. And so what people think is that stress is an external thing, or that stress is something that people cause. Stress is an internal response and it is something that we can learn to control. There are two different nervous systems that are being triggered when we can understand how that process works, understand that it’s physiological, it’s there. And what’s interesting is, I played basketball and I was an amazing basketball player. I could hit-Alec:Wait, I played too. What position?Rene Rodriguez:What’s funny is I was a power forward, shooting power forward. Is there a such thing?Alec:Yes, absolutely. [crosstalk 00:08:13]. One of my best teammates and my brother basically was actually a shooting power forward. Killed it. Taking roles all day.Rene Rodriguez:All day long. All day long. And for me, I was a great shooter until my coach was walking. And I could get 23, 24 out of 25, three point shots, and then the coach would walk in and I couldn’t even find the rim. And so the question was, did it matter? Did it matter at that point that I could shoot that way? And the reality is it didn’t matter. If you’re in the military and you go on the range and you’re hitting bullseye after bullseye, then [inaudible 00:08:41] and you completely dismantled human being, it didn’t matter. If you’re a pro athlete and you can’t perform at a pressure, it doesn’t matter what you trained. And so what you’ll find is the tool of the elite performer or anything is management of stress, but what’s challenging is that it’s also the punchline of the under-performer.”Oh, we’re going to meditate today. And oh, we’re going to talk about mindfulness.” I was like, the moment I see somebody make fun of that, I already know their performance level. I know they’ve never had to manage true pressure of having a couple thousand people looking at them to say, “Can you manage this? Can you carry an audience? Can you carry a message?” That is stress management.Alec:Dude, you just blew my mind. That’s got to be one of our clips, Mikey, the fact that somebody who’s going to mock stress management in terms of meditation, all that stuff, that’s a powerful statement.Rene Rodriguez:It’s unfortunate. It’s really unfortunate because it’s also the avenue out for those that want to perform better. Think about it. In sales, picking up the phone, making more phone calls, equates to more sales activity. Why don’t they pick it up? Because of stress. And if they can’t manage the stress of the rejection, they’re going to call less. And if they can’t… Think about presentation. Presenting one-on-one versus one on many. Present to 10 people, you just increased your reach and you upped your credibility, you upped your leverage. You’ve compressed your time. Everything is good about that. People don’t do it. Not because of logic. They do it because of stress. It’s a completely irrational response. So the ticket out is usually what people make the joke.Alec:So how do you manage it then? How do you deal with it? Once you recognize that it’s a good thing, and once you pause and realize, “This is a normal, real thing. I’m not bad. This isn’t wrong,” what are some techniques?Rene Rodriguez:If you talk to a Navy SEAL, they’re going to tell you that… when you get into it’s a concept called system 1 versus system 2. Dr. Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel prize on this. He wrote a book called Thinking Fast and Slow. And he’s a behavioral economist, which is finally starting to give some value or credence to the fact that economics isn’t about logic. It’s actually emotional and completely rational, which has to do with the brain. And so it’s all of those different elements. And so he wrote this book and he talked about having two systems. System 1 is our fast thinking brain. It’s quick to respond. It’s a part of the brain that makes very quick judgements. I’ll give you an example. How many of each animal did Moses bring on the ark? Alec:Two.Rene Rodriguez:Okay. So the real answer is zero. Because it was Noah, not Moses. Right? And so that example is I used system 1 against you, which is contextual. It looks at Moses and Noah contextually close enough, the ark, how many of each animal, you’re already thinking Noah’s Ark. And your brain immediately cut out the difference to hear all of the context, that’s system 1 at play. And system 1 is at play in the stock market when we buy and sell. It’s in play in negotiations where we’ll take worst deals all the time. I give people an example. I have it over here. I did a sales meeting this morning with Aim. Alec:I watched [crosstalk 00:11:54]. Incredible. Rene Rodriguez:Oh, good. So you saw the one, 1.5, 2.5, five and 25 numbers, right? Where alone is worth $3,000, and application’s 2000, and meetings were 1200, leads were $600, and a [inaudible 00:12:04] is $120. I’ll immediately follow that. Once I break that up I say, “I want to hire somebody here.” And I’m going to pay a $20 to just come to my office and you pick up the phone. And every time you talk to somebody and ask for a deal, I’m going to pay you 20 bucks.” They don’t have to say yes. You know how many people take that job? All of them. That’s guaranteed 20 bucks, but I just told them they get paid 120 and they’re going to take the 20.Alec:Yep.Rene Rodriguez:And so that’s system 1 at play where it becomes very irrational, but that is a stress response, right? It’s what’s in front of me versus system 2, which is a slower part of our brain, is the only part of the brain that actually humans have system 2 so they can think through the future, they can calculate things. And that battle between the two is there. So I shared all that with you because you asked how do you manage it? When you talk to a Navy SEAL and you talk to a professional athlete, a sprinter, a professional fighter, I’ve talked to them. In fact, I’ve been punched by many of them. And it’s the… Excuse me. The training is the price of entry. You got to train harder than anyone, but once you’ve done that, how do you perform? And that comes down to understanding system 1 and system 2.And the only bridge between system 1, which is too much stress, and system 2, which is that flow would be breathing. It’s the only thing. So Navy SEALs have made famous box breathing, which is you breathe four seconds in, hold four seconds, out four seconds, hold four seconds, in four seconds, out four seconds. And you go through that process. I’ve taught a method for 20, over 23 years, 25 years. In fact, I’ve got a recording of it called progressive relaxation, where you go through and you tend to tighten different parts of your body and let it out for the purpose of creating a mind-body connection, with what mind-body connection mean, which means I’m thinking about my body and I see that stress is held here or here or in my jaw or in my eyes, where are my shoulders? And then I’m like, “Oh, I made a connection, mind-body so I can relax that.”And all of a sudden, I start to relax. Training yourself to do that, learning how to… If you can just breathe like that, it immediately calms you down. I have to do it before every podcast, before every presentation, every single time I have to go through that to get my body to function correctly.Alec:I want to make a pause on this because it’s so simplistic in how you laid it out, Rene. But I feel like it’s never top of mind for anybody in their day to day interactions.Rene Rodriguez:Unless the elite, it is top of mind all the time. Alec:Well said. Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. Alec:Well said.Rene Rodriguez:All the time. You just look at what they did. Phil Jackson brought progressive relaxation to the Bowls and to the Lakers. Alec:That’s right. Rene Rodriguez:Every single sprinter imagined Tiger Woods plays his entire game in his head every shot, every part of the field before he plays, he’s managing the stress response when we’re out there. It is-Alec:Let me drive a comment in for everybody that’s watching and for everybody that is afraid and feeling that stress response to video, to putting themselves out there into what they, and we all think as a position of vulnerability, breathing, Rene literally just told us how to do it. So you can just go back and rewind and see the strategy. How long should someone read like that, Rene if they’re going to go through a practice of this?Rene Rodriguez:At first, it’s going to be hard because we were going to go… It didn’t work. Well, that was one second in, one second out, why this didn’t work. There’s a number to it. It’s four seconds in, four seconds hold, four seconds out, four seconds hold. Four, four, four, four. Another way the male clinic goes three seconds in, four seconds out. So three in and then four out. But if you’re not measuring it, you’re not doing it right. There’s a science to this whole thing. You have to be breathing out longer than you breathe in. But what happens is that you’re creating control structure, order predictability for your mind. Think about the logic here. When we are stressed and when we’re in a high alert state, we take shallow breaths, right? Alec:100%.Rene Rodriguez:And what does our brain need? Oxygen. So when we take shallow short breath, we get less oxygen. It’s no different than somebody choking us. And so the brain is going, “I’m getting less oxygen. I’m going to die.Alec:This is-Rene Rodriguez:Fight, flight or freeze. Let me freeze up. And you know what? Let me shut down memory. Let me shut down creative thought. And let me shut down. Let me shut down. Let me shut down to focus on fight flight or freeze.” That’s why they say what’s the number one rule of brainstorming. There’s no bad idea. This isn’t new. Why? Because a critical environment causes stress. Stress causes that part of the brain shut down. And it’s not as creative. This isn’t rocket science.Alec:It’s not rocket science, but it’s not something we think about.Rene Rodriguez:Unfortunately not. Alec:You think about. And now in these moments of great stress, whether we think we’re in it or not, or we think, “Oh, I’m coping just fine,” with sheltered home realizing, “No, I’m not. I’m not doing okay.” And then taking into consideration of, “How do I meditate? How do I deep breathe? How do I start to control my physical responses that’s going on in my body?” I think that this has been… If anyone takes anything from this, the four breaths; hold four, release four, that’s all that anyone needs today. Just take that as one thing.Rene Rodriguez:And I’ll just add this to it. It’s just start the process of beginning to be aware. When you’re stressed, instead of starting saying, “Oh my God, I’m stressed. I got to slow down,” ask yourself and be curious like, “Oh man, why am I stressed? Where’s it coming from? Am I even breathing? And what’s my breathing like right now?” You start building that self awareness. Self awareness is the first key and the first skillset of leadership anyways, building that self awareness and then asking for help. Sometimes you got to ask for help say, “Hey, can you help calm me down?” In fact, I’m going to send you animated gift that opens and closes at the right pace for people. And then you can just follow it. I just put it on my phone. I give it to my son when he’s stressed and say, “Just breathe along with this.” And it’s pretty amazing what happens.Alec:I’m going to give it to my kids because they’re eight and six or nine and six this month and they need it as much as I do.Rene Rodriguez:And I love your application because I want to make sure we drive application to this. Before you’re getting on video, learn how to breathe, learn how to relax. Do it often. It’s not going to work perfectly the first time, nothing works perfect. Give it a few dozen times, right? Let’s go back to the old days where we had to try things a few hundred times. Alec:Well, what are you talking about? You mean practice? Rene Rodriguez:Yeah, exactly. Alec:Come on. Well, all right. So let’s move to group think. There’s three topics that… So everyone listening and if you saw the bumper on this and you got a reminder, there are three topics that Rene and I are really going to lean into and that would be exciting. Number one, managing stress because clearly we’re in unprecedented stressful times. But number two is the dangers of group think. And so some people don’t know what group think is, by the way. So Rene, could you give the definition and let’s have a dialogue about group think?Rene Rodriguez:So group thing is… I don’t want to get too technical on it, but basically it’s a psychological phenomenon. And it happens within a group of people and their ultimate desire is harmony or conformity in the group results. But it ends up leading to irrational and dysfunctional decision making as the outcome. So that can trigger all sorts of thoughts right there. Right?Alec:We can break it down because right now, here’s a really real place we find ourselves in today. We can’t go into our offices. We can’t go see the people we used to see. We can’t go see our friends. And in my opinion, we’re now surrounding ourselves with whoever was in our digital community on social media. And that’s our groups now. I just I’m seeing it. And then I’m wondering what’s group think affecting these groups on social?Rene Rodriguez:Well, it happens in everything. It’s a part of a human survival too because we know that when we’re in groups, it help us survive, right. And when we’re in groups and we are thinking of people that think and act like us, we’re going to protect each other. We’re going to be there. You could be sitting in a group of people and one person starts running and all of a sudden you’re going to feel this urge to start running. It’s just natural, right? You could be-Alec:Well, [crosstalk 00:20:15] some silly videos, right? Where like a group of people are in on it and they’d run down an alley and somebody’s like, what? And they turn around and just immediately like run with them because they don’t know what’s happening.Rene Rodriguez:Yes. Yep.Alec:It’s true.Rene Rodriguez:And it’s absolutely hilarious because I’ve been part of that. We used to do that as kids. We’d be just saying, “Just start running and see what people do at that point.” So it’s pretty funny, but it can be scary when it starts hitting a larger group. So when it starts hitting the government, when it starts hitting the media. And I think that’s the biggest piece is we have to understand it’s started learning how to recognize it and the way to combat it is just starting to ask questions, just be willing to ask. And it’s easy to call others out for group think while we’re group thinking as well. So we got to be careful with that as well. It’s-Alec:Yeah. That’s amazing. Stop your group think from my [crosstalk 00:21:04].Rene Rodriguez:Exactly. It’s this clash. And so-Alec:You point it’s natural. Look, we grew up on teams. When I was on my basketball team, the other team were the bad guys. You had school, your alma mater, pride in your school, pride in your college, pride in your company, pride in your industry. And all of a sudden these things can become very combative, where all of a sudden one group thinks they’re better than another group and now you have this toxicity entering in. Rene Rodriguez:Absolutely. And there is a sense of safety that comes from it as well. You watch people they say, “Well, I’m deleting everybody that doesn’t agree with me on this whole thing.” And there’s a part of me that agrees with that because I shut people down that are negative. That’s the thing. If you’re negative, and negative doesn’t mean challenging information. I love to be challenged. I love the… Because right now, you couldn’t guess what it is that I believe right now, because I don’t even know if I know what I believe. And so if you tell me what I believe, then you must know something about me I don’t. But it’s interesting to watch. I love to be challenged, but I don’t like alarmist behavior.I don’t like people searching for attention through… Most people, if they post about this, I’m not even going to name it because I don’t want to do it. But that flying murder thing, I just don’t… Don’t even say it because I don’t want to give it any energy. If they post about that, you’re part of the problem because that’s not going to happen to us. Let’s get back to the focus. And somewhere out there, people are just managing attention and I’ll say this and I might get in trouble for it. But I lost a ton of respect for Grant Cardone because he fell right into it. He went out and played that hoax about he was going bankrupt and everybody started posting about it and I was just watching. And then he went out the next day and he started saying, “Oh, well we did that because, hey, today you got to be crazy. If you’re going to get people’s attention, you got to talk about murder. You got to talk about shooting. You got to talk about bankruptcy.” And I thought, “Wow, he stooped to that level because what’s sad is that so many are going to follow him and they’re going to use anything they can to get our attention.”But then you think about what he says, well, that’s what the media is. The media is a for profit organization.Alec:I feel like it’s what everything is. Everyone’s clamoring for attention. This is the reason, in my opinion, authentic social media, where people are sharing their actual fears and sharing what they’re going through, it has so much more power than the scripted marketing world. Rene Rodriguez:Yeah. Alec:It’s just trying to poke you with a flashy object or an alarmist mentality. I agree.Rene Rodriguez:And I’m all for… I love marketing ideas and branding and catching attention, but when it crosses the moral ethical line, that’s where I have a big problem. Alec:So we’ve identified what group think is. I think everybody that has heard us chat for a few minutes is recognizing, “Hey, I see this. I can now tell there are these groups happening, there is group think happening.” And in your answer and I’ll have you go deeper on this, your comment of how to deal with it because it’s just around us is by asking questions and staying in a positive frame of mind. So like when you say asking questions, unpack that.Rene Rodriguez:There’s something else. So why am I believing this? I told my kids. I said, “Yes, what religion are you? What do you believe?” And they say, “Well, I believe this.” And I said, “Well, what if you grew up in India, what would you believe? What if you grew up in China? What would you believe? In Russia? In Israel, what would you believe?” And it’s like, “Okay. So why do you believe that now?” I said, “Son, that’s your journey now.” And so sometimes we have to ask ourselves, why do we believe what we believe? There’s a great TED Talk that I think everybody should watch. And it’s on how to have better political conversations. Two neuroscientists break down the realities of where you can get a Republican and a Democrat to sound like the opposite. When you remove the political veil and you talk about values.And I love it because I have friends all over the spectrum. I have very extremist friends that on Facebook, people would call it racist, but if you were to see them in real life, they give you the shirt off their back and they never ask what race you were from, what language you spoke, because they’re kind, good people. But for some reason, the political veil brings it up. I know people that are in another extreme that you’d see them on Facebook as well. They’re complete activists and they love the world, but you catch them one on one and they do some of the most horrific things. It’s amazing just the human range of who we can be in that. And so when you look at it and you break that down, and you take away the veil and you see the humanness, to me, the only conversation that matters is what do you value? What are your personal values?Alec:I could not agree more. I did a video on labels and how they’re good for canned food, not so good for people. But we want to label people. We do it. We do it when we see them without any… We don’t know them at all and we immediately go, “I’ve labeled you now. I know what you are.” And we subconsciously just play that game all day long. And to consciously unstick ourselves from that, it’s hard.Rene Rodriguez:It is. And again, it’s a survival mechanism. My whole career has been understanding how our biology has been designed to keep us alive, but it kills us in a modern world. And our fight flight freeze response was designed to keep us away from animals and things that were of danger. And then now we bring that into a modern world where the trigger of the fight flight freeze was stress level, but now a board or a meeting or a presentation could because that same level of stress. And we act in a primitive fashion. And so we have to be able to learn to get past that.Alec:So John asks on YouTube, what TED Talk is that? Let’s-Rene Rodriguez:How to have better political conversations.Alec:Which honestly, I think the whole world could use right now. I think the United States could use right now.Rene Rodriguez:It’s-Alec:Going on an election, it’s time.Rene Rodriguez:And here’s the other thing. And I’ll tell you this. There was a great Harvard and I’m going to have to look them up. I’m going to try to find this afterwards to give you a link, but a study that said, how can you tell if somebody lacks intelligence or isn’t that smart? And the one trait was certainty. The more certain you come off or the more certain you think you are, the less intelligent you are. The more intelligent, the more open-mind is like, “Maybe I’m not right. So I should probably listen.” And just because you listen, doesn’t mean that you have to agree.Alec:That’s a wonderful comment. That’s a wonderful comment. That gives people the ability to not have to go into conflict.Rene Rodriguez:But I think conflict’s great, respectful conflict is great. Alec:Well said.Rene Rodriguez:Right? We have a program or a tool that we use called the respectful dialogue or the respectful contrary because contrarian, a thought or a belief is great. But when you get… Think of a gene pool, think if all the genes were the same, what happened? Alec:Yep.Rene Rodriguez:That’s why you don’t marry your sister. Alec:Not good. Yeah.Rene Rodriguez:It’s not a good thing. But in dogs they have a name port called hybrid vigor. The more diverse the gene pool, the more intelligent the dog is. And so the more diverse the species is, or the gene pool, the more diverse the ideas become. All of a sudden, the intelligence of the group goes up as well.Alec:So Rene, let’s do this for a second. Let’s pivot to the last topic that we had because I know that we’ll get some questions. Digital body language. We can’t get physical anymore. And I’ve watched, and we’ve had some conversations about your amplify events and some of the things you do where you really coach body language, intentionality, leaning in, all that fun stuff. And now we’re digital. And like right now, I’m really enjoying the fact that I can see you. Like I can look at my camera and I can see you on the screen. And then someone on Zoom calls and stuff, I can see people. But when I’m maybe doing a video and I’m going to post it later, all I have is this stupid little device in my face. I have no connection. Let’s talk about it and give your insight into digital body language.Rene Rodriguez:Man, that’s such a great question, man. It is a new challenge because even right now, I’m looking at you right now, but my camera is up there. So my eyes don’t look like I’m looking at you. I should be doing this. Now I’m looking at you, but you’re actually down there. And so we have this challenge of how do we connect? We have another challenge too, which is, I have this little square here that I have to influence. So in this square is all I’ve got. But 20% of the square is taken up by this stupid device here. Right? And now it’s here. I used to tell people, I said, “Am I pretentious enough getting all this stuff and then we put the headphones on and we look really cool.?” But yet there’s a real reason for this.And I loved our conversation ahead of time because I can hear the quality. It takes the feedback back and it’s going to be really nice for the outcome, but it still can send all sorts of messages. And so when we’re standing, I tell people that if you’re standing up between your belly button, your eyes is your influence zone. And when your hands are outside of there and say, “Hey, I’m really super excited to be here. And I can’t believe.” I would just hope everything is, it’s all of a sudden people are like, “You look funny.” Until they see your hands. I was like, “God, I’m so excited to be here. Everything that we’re seeing in moving around.” But now the influence zone is within this little square, but very rarely do our hands make it there. And so a lot of times I think you’ll notice the influencers, they’ll have their hands in their talks. “Okay, guys.” And they’re holding one phone up and they’re doing this and they’re always right here and just watch this. There’s always a hand involved. And so get your hands involved is one piece around digital body language. I struggle because I’m doing so many of these a day. Like even this is more comfortable for me. And I try to sit there. I’ve got the chair. If I really wanted to sit here, this is where I would be. This is my most comfortable place. But now all of a sudden I don’t look as engaged. If I’m working though, this is me right here. Alec:Yeah. I was going to say, my mind goes way further back than yours. [crosstalk 00:30:44].Rene Rodriguez:This is me all day long. And now you can’t hear me as well, but you know what, “Hey, I’m comfortable. So I’m going to prioritize my comfort to this.” But no, we can’t do that. Now all of a sudden I can press that button and lean forward and I’m literally thinking about, “Can I put pads back there to keep me leaning forward?” Because this is more comfortable, but this is more influential. Right? And so we have to think about what is digital body language. And now the other piece is, eyes. If I want to connect with you, I can’t be like this. I have to be here. I have to be looking at you. And so now the eyes of the world as this little lens.Alec:I know.Rene Rodriguez:One of the things I’ll give you a little secret, print off a set of eyes and paste it right there. And then-Alec:I love [crosstalk 00:31:26] like that. Yes. That’s so good.Rene Rodriguez:Because then you know what I’m looking at because-Alec:I was doing-Rene Rodriguez:I’m sorry, go ahead.Alec:I was doing little things like that, Rene. So like normally when I’m not in the studio, I take the picture of the video image and I put it as close to my camera on the top of the screen as possible. I shrink it down and put it close, that way if I-Rene Rodriguez:So do I.Alec:… [crosstalk 00:31:47] I’m doing this. Rene Rodriguez:Yes. And it’s those little things that make such a big, big difference because again, the battle today is all about our attention and connection is about the eyes. It’s about how we use our hands. Right? All of these different elements. And again, if companies are going virtual, then they need to invest in giving their people the good quality microphone so it sounds right. This is more for recording. So for meetings, you don’t need this, right? You can have this. This is for recording, but give them audio. I can’t… I have this great visual and I should have sent you a picture of it. But every day, there’s a couple of clients that I’ve run their sales meeting every day. And I show up and I’m there for 20 to 30 minutes. And I ask for five numbers, how many times do you dial the phone? How many times you talk to somebody? How many leads, appointments and apps? That’s it, every day. And there’s no other conversation. Right? And now at the end, based on that, I do a little dialogue. But in the first meeting I took a snapshot of the whole grid of people. And you had anywhere from people here to this, to this-Alec:Oh, yeah, to [crosstalk 00:32:49] on.Rene Rodriguez:… or this one, this is one.Alec:Exactly.Rene Rodriguez:You ever had this one? Hey yeah, no, I’m listening to you. Yet you do. I have you right here on my camera. I’m just working on my thing right here. And so now I took a picture of that and I sent it to them and I said, “Guys, we are switching to a digital culture for at least in the short while.” And I said, I want you guys to recognize you have this little square. How do you want to show up? Pretend you were showing up for a job interview.” And they all leaned in and did this. I took another picture and it looked like two different companies. It was incredible. But as leaders, our job is to show people the new reality. Give them, they’ll just save you, though they look so engaged. If they have poor lighting, talk about, “I’ve got a beautiful open window right here and I got an extra light that you told me to put on. Thank you for doing that.” And now all of a sudden we’re managing all of the perceptual cues that we can manage.Alec:Well, and I think of it like this too. When I would go out and prospect real estate agents, when I was 23, I realized that how I showed up when I walked into that house to meet them mattered. And so I would always have a suit that I picked out and I would put on every morning and I would get the tie on and I’d make sure I looked the way I want it to look. And we have the same option now with this digital ecosystem, the digital world we’re in, that we get to curate how we show up. Rene Rodriguez:So true.Alec:And people that are taking it seriously and buying good audio equipment and buying good lighting and trying to learn about it, and just like going out and researching and seeing what’s going on, giving constructive feedback, those people are the ones stepping into this world. And I don’t know how quickly we’re going to leave this digital world, Rene.Rene Rodriguez:Exactly.Alec:I don’t know.Rene Rodriguez:[crosstalk 00:34:30]. And we’re going to have a… It’s going to be an overlap, but we’re still going to need this. And here’s the funny thing is you could buy all the digital equipment and lighting you need for a night out of drinking. Same cost.Alec:Which you can’t go out drinking anyway. So you might as well just invest the money. Rene Rodriguez:There you go. Alec:Yeah. It’s hysterical now though, like total first world problems like the mics and cameras, they’re all sold out. Like they’re hard to get now but that’s welcome. [crosstalk 00:35:00]. Okay. We hit really three cool topics and I want to give just a debrief of them real quick again, to see if you have any comments you want to add. Managing stress was a wonderful little mini segment here on breathing techniques, on that stress is a good thing. Stress is not something to be ashamed of. Self-awareness of you’re probably stressed was a really wonderful comment, Rene. I think that people are… And especially in the masculine world where like, “No, I don’t feel stress. What are you talking about? I’m a man. I just carry it all and just shove it all down [crosstalk 00:35:31],” that was wonderful. What else would you add to the stress conversation, Rene?Rene Rodriguez:I’ll say this because it’s very real. I went out yesterday to Costco and I think there was maybe three or four of us that weren’t wearing masks. I was one of them. And then I go, “Oh man, why am I not the only one wearing a mask? And is it mandatory?” And it wasn’t because nobody was saying anything, but everything in my soul wanted to resist wearing that mask. And I said, “Hold on a second. I’m not somebody who believes that I do want to be safe for others. And I do understand that this I could be asymptomatic in spreading this. I don’t want to be the jerk that does that. And I read this article today, that thought was really fascinating because it was really talking about self awareness.I had asked myself some tough questions. Why wasn’t I wearing it? Because there’s this whole psychological study on why. One, it becomes a political divide. If you wear a mask, you believe this. If you don’t, you don’t, you believe that. And then the other side of it too, was that where I resonated was wearing a mask to some felt like a sign of weakness. Because I personally am not worried personally about this because it’s just statistically, I’m not. And there’s other things statistically that I should be worried about. There’s a great book. And I’ll recommend this to everyone called Predictably Irrational. And Dr. Daniel Ariely talks about all of our irrational behaviors, the things that we worry about that we really shouldn’t be worried about and the things that we should be worried about that we don’t. Right? The foods that we eat are killing us at a much greater pace than anything else right now.And now in that sense, I’ve got decades of studying this stuff. And so when I see statistics, I immediately go into my old ways. Yet I have a massive amount of empathy to what’s going on. I’ve got a mother that I moved into my basement the day after this came out. I said, “You’re coming out of that nursing home.” because I looked at the stats immediately. And I said, “You’re not living anymore.” Lives in my basement. So I’m not dumb. I know what’s going on. But then I’m like, “Shit.” I go, “I guess I see it as a sign of weakness and I don’t want to be weak.” That’s a totally masculine macho thing. And I still going, okay, so then I start going, “Well, what mask could I wear that looks cool or at least?” And I’m like, “Oh man, here I go. I’m protecting something so stupid instead of just wearing a darn mask.” So I think from a stress perspective, we have to start asking ourselves, we have to start questioning everything that we do. And just being curious about who we are now.Alec:Well, and that pivots nicely into the being curious part into how we were unpacking group think. And so group think is normal, we group all the time, humans like groups, they’re protective, they’re a protection mechanism. And yet at the same time they can stunt your views. They can turn you into toxic, the toxicity can come in. Rene Rodriguez:Yes. Alec:How would you put a bow on group think?Rene Rodriguez:Again, the enemy to group think is awareness and just asking questions, be conscious, question things and be open to the dialogue because you may be wrong or you could trigger a thought. But if you attack people, you’re just going to trigger the system 1, the stress response, and they’re going to shut you out. Stop the crazy Facebook posts that make people look stupid. If your posts requires someone to say, Yeah, I guess I am dumb,” for them to agree with you., your post sucks and it sucks [crosstalk 00:38:43].Alec:Got it.Rene Rodriguez:Yeah, but it just does. Alec:I’m there.Rene Rodriguez:So if you’re going to post things to create questions and thoughts and dialogue and lead by example, be willing to say, “Hey, I thought this. And I thought that I made the mistake.” Show that you can change your opinion, that you can change what you think. Lead by example.Alec:Wonderful comment. And then let’s wrap it up with digital body language. I think it is a new normal, I think this and this little box of influence or our box of space… I was talking to a friend of mine earlier and I said, “Do a favor. Not many people think about this, make sure your background tells a story.” Because as humans, we don’t just stare into the face of whoever we’re talking to. We look around and then we look back at the person and we look around and the same is true when you’re looking at your camera. Looking at it, make eye contact, but then be okay. You can look at the screen. I’m looking at comments people are typing. Like it’s fine. Humans do that naturally. You can do that naturally again. But now I’m going to change my comment from make your background tell a story to, “Here’s your little box. Let’s have it tell a story. And what story is it telling?”Rene Rodriguez:So good. I’m so glad you said that because people ask me why do I not use one of those digital backgrounds? I say, “Well, I get to show off right there a few of my favorite books, I get to show off my TED Talk, I get to show off the six moneymaking activities, all of the sales math, and then over here with a wider screen, you see my calendar. And that’s part of my presentation to show that it went completely empty.” And then it became even more busy doing virtual events, which is completely wild, but you’re right. Everything tells a story whether you want it to or not.Alec:So, Rene, how can people connect to you and how can people who have been a little inspired or helped by your comment today help you?Rene Rodriguez:Well, great question. My website’s very easy. SeeReneSpeak.com.Alec:Well, Mike, put that link back up for the Lighthouse Series too because I want people to really see that.Rene Rodriguez:And yeah, the Lighthouse, you can go to Lighthouse Series. The videos that are free there. You can see them on YouTube. You can find them in the Mortgage Coach Community. Really, this was something I really just wanted to get out as much as possible. Follow me on Instagram. I am trying to grow that. My sister would be very happy follow @SeeReneSpeak and that’d be good. But yeah, just connect. If you got a live event coming up, of course I’d love to speak. Keep me in mind for those types of things. But until then let’s continue to ask questions. Let’s continue to share what we’re learning. This is all a learning process. Somebody asked me, why did I do so many of these in the last 45 days, I said, “Because I wanted 45 days from then to be able to say, “Well, I’ve done these many and this is what I’ve learned.”Alec:That’s incredibly cool. Brother, thank you. And, guys, there’s a link right here. There’s so much resource in this link right here. And I would encourage all of you to copy it down, cut and paste it and jump over into the Lighthouse Series and see what Rene put out. Rene, you’ve inspired me. You’ve helped me to unpack what I’ve think and challenge my assumptions and lean into new stuff. I know you’re helping everybody. I know you’re seeing the comments over here. There are people that are just like, “This is so good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” And I just really appreciate you, man. I appreciate your leadership in this space.Rene Rodriguez:Thanks for having me on, man. And Bravo, I’m learning by, I love it using stream yard. I got to get myself into that. I love that you forced me to put through this because I want to see the quality of this. And so I’m going to be picking your brain afterwards and I just I’m impressed that you dove in to understand the quality because quality is going to matter-Alec:I know.Rene Rodriguez:… during this.Alec:For anybody that cares and I’ll just unpack it with vibe right now. These kinds of mics in this setup and the reason that I want the headphones on to avoid the feedback is because a lot of people that are going to listen to this, Rene, later, like first of all, this audio is going to come out as a podcast next week. So people will actually consume the audio portion of it alone and they won’t see our cool little digital boxes. And the other reality is a lot of people watching this, I guarantee, moved it over, kept it up as a separate tab and sort of doing other stuff while we were chatting. Because that’s normal human behavior. They’re not going to sit for 45 minutes and stare at us. They might, but they had ADD like me, I would have had this up over here listening while I’m doing emails. Rene Rodriguez:Right. Alec:This is the truth of this whole thing is, we always think we’re the center of the universe, but so does everybody else.Rene Rodriguez:I wish that I was the center.Alec:[crosstalk 00:42:54] the center of their universe. And so, I’m just glad that you were here to share a little bit of your universal there, so thank you, buddy.Rene Rodriguez:No, and thank you for the invitation. Truly an honor. Let me know anytime you want to do this, I’ll be back anytime.Alec:Alright. Mikey, send us out. Have fun, everybody. Have a great day. Rene Rodriguez:See you guys.(silence).

Let’s discuss the reality of our social media and marketing efforts in a very real and candid way. And let me give you a hint, the truth here is not unique to those two topics above. It really is the long game that matters.

In this edition of LiveTime with Alec he covers:

• The most important thing when you’re just getting started with live streaming: VULNERABILITY
• Speaking of which…take a trip with me into the archives of my first ever, YouTube videos.
• Challenging the idea that you don’t know what to talk about on video(You totally do)
• What flirty pager codes have to do with building relationships with you clients. Yes. Seriously
• Stop thinking about “Perfect Content”.  Create human connection.

Episode Transcribe

What’s up everybody.

Happy Tuesday in COVID land.

Can the year be done? Can it just be done? 

My rally beard’s going strong. My wife refuses to look at me. My daughter won’t kiss me but I’m not shaving. I’m not shaving until we are back to work because that’s what Jesus would do. I don’t know if that’s what he would do.Hi guys. This is a fun conversation today. I got really motivated because I’m seeing more and more people doing incredible things on their social media, incredible things, authentic things, real things, stepping into the heat. I got to give a big shout out to a really close friend of mine, Nema Namdar, who decided to go live for the first time, the other day. I think it was yesterday, actually. The days are all blurring together so I don’t know anymore.First of all, if you’re checking us out live on YouTube, Facebook or LinkedIn, love to hear where you’re from. Love to hear where you’re from. So please drop it in the comments so I can check out where everybody’s tuning in from. And if you’re watching this on a replay, still want to hear, still want to hear, put it in there. All right. So back to Nema, man this guy, first of all, you probably know people like Nema. The guy’s incredibly talented, extremely charismatic, like a lover of humanity. When you hang out with this guy, you just want to hang out with him more. Right? And so he’s in business development, which is the fancy way of saying sales, sorry, everything is sales. Not in construction, but like building out an office, right. Building an office. Obviously that’s an insane [inaudible 00:02:01] too but like someone’s going to make your office look good.He finally went live and his first live, he dove into a topic of vulnerability, fear, and what’s been holding him back, one of his insecurities that have held him back from going live. And I was like, dude, you did it. If any of you are like trying to get into the video game and you’re scared and fearful, like the first video is on why you’re scared and fearful. Perfect, perfect video. Hey Jess. [inaudible 00:02:25], LinkedIn. And so I’m just immensely proud because he did it, dude. He did it. I was asking him in his industry, how many people in sales in his world are doing that? Getting out into the new normal, which is this medium right here and dialoguing and creating content and sharing what they do, but also sharing themselves, right?There are so many scripted post produced pieces of crap on the internet right now where everyone is just a talking head and we don’t like talking heads. Does anyone seriously watch the news anymore? Did any of you watch the news? No. No you don’t because it’s garbage and you know you’re being fed something. Like I don’t care what your angle is, what your political slant is. Pick a channel. They’re like open up burb and they’re just spoonfeeding you whatever their agenda and the angle is. Everyone’s got an agenda, everyone’s got an angle and they’re all scripted on teleprompter.Salespeople going live and sharing video content. That’s authentic. That’s from themselves. That’s just raw and making an impact. And he did it. And I was like, Hey, hunt in Healdsburg. Oh my gosh. I want to be up in Healdsburg. That’s on LinkedIn. I love that place. It’s like a special little place in like Northern California, Napa Sonoma area. Anyway, this one I was talking about, he got in the game. And if you saw the topic of this live stream today, man, it’s about the long game.It’s absolutely about the long game. I just want to share this with you guys. So check this out.Hey, Brian spoonfed from bend Oregon. What’s up, dude.I’m going to share my screen. I got to show you guys this stuff because this is the real stuff. So hold on one second. While I click the buttons, let’s do a Chrome tab. Let’s do YouTube. Share.Let’s come in here and drop this banner off because it’s messing me up. Bang. All right, check this out, dude. Here’s YouTube. Let’s go to my channel because I want to show you guys what’s up. Not the studio. Alec, not the studio. No one cares about the studio.By the way I am considering if you’re interested, let me know, I am considering doing a live training on how to set up your YouTube channel. If that’s interesting for anybody, please let me know and make a comment. I’m super into doing it. I think it would be helpful, but a lot of people I don’t think are really figuring it out yet. So if you’re in to having me help set up your internet, your YouTube channel, let me know.So look, here it is. Here’s what I got going on. Make it full screen. You’ve got kind of my intro video. It’s a long game that matters. We’re alive now. How fascinating is that? I got my two homeys watching right there. I got my playlist. And if you go to like my a hundred videos in a hundred days, for example, you’ve got all these videos. And if you go back to this very first one, check this out.Hey everybody. Alec Hanson here with a quick message. Look, I’m a huge believer that leaders need to lead from the front. I have tremendous respect for the country leaders that are actually in the business leading and coaching people and showing them what they should be doing to the best of their ability. I like to call it leaders-Yeah. Yeah, there it is. It’s not good. Like I’m not proud of it. And I took this idea directly from Shawna Harra who is another, pushing the industry forward and social media and I’m sharing it because…Oh, hi. Hi Colleen. You’re interested in YouTube. Okay. Yeah. I will definitely consider doing live training on it. It is not as complex as people think.But you know, Shawna showed his first video ever and he was kind of embarrassing himself about like, Oh my first video ever. This was my first video on my channel. A hundred videos a hundred days, but now let’s get real vulnerable. Check this out. We’re doing it. Drive time with Alec. This is it. Ladies and gentlemen, this channel is the game right here. Hold on, hold on. Let’s get rid of this over here. So first video ever nine years ago, episode 22. And the reason it’s episode 22 is because- all right, we’re just going to play it for a second. Hold on, hold on. You deserve it.(music playing)Yeah. Good morning. Video edition. Oh this is not safe. Not good. And that’s not safe.So guys, guys, nine years ago, I decided as a experiment of self-expression, now this is how weird I am. So I’m sorry. You get to be on the weird journey. Welcome. But I decided to record, that’s why this is episode 22, I decided to record myself.Louis. What’s up dude. Blast from the past.Yes. I decided to record myself on audio only driving into work. And I just was just talking. I was thinking of it like an audio journal, right? So you don’t judge me because it’s a journal now. So now you can’t judge me. And then I was like, you know what? Let’s go ahead and film it. So after 22 audio journals, I turned on the camera in my car and I started nine years ago. People nine years ago. Okay. Long time ago. And I started to film myself, driving to work and talking about whatever topic I want to talk about. And so here, I’m just going to show you this real quick. Yep. Here we go. Here you go. Paying attention? You seeing this right now? I’m sorry. Is this not helpful? Let’s go back to this one, 262. Personal favorite, choke out the day. Here’s choke out Friday. Drive Time episode number 183.Guys, this is called practice. It’s called practice. Walk time is really good. That’s a really good one. I started putting graphics on a DriveTime intro. Yeah. We’re going to play the intro right now. You deserve this.(music playing)All right. I’m sorry. No one deserves that. No one deserves to be subjugated to that. I apologize for showing you that.Paul said the rest of the beard is gone next video. Alec, bring the mustache back. Yeah, we’ll talk about that.But look guys, I’m trying to show you the truth here. Okay. Do you see all of this practice? Do you see the ability for someone to get vulnerable and what it can do for your longterm? I’m telling you right now that I would absolutely not have the confidence or the competency in talking to a little lens, if I didn’t put myself into a position of vulnerability to do it often and a lot every day, for example, for all these days.So I share all this because one video is not enough. It’s not going to do it. I can guarantee you right now. I did a hundred videos in a hundred days, which is nothing because I did 260 videos in 260 days. That’s actually not true. A hundred was terrible, terrible. I was in a different place and my DriveTime didn’t have to make sense. The hundred, I really wanted to actually land and add value into the world. I can tell you right now, people don’t watch all of them, or many of them. I always joke about this. And now I’m going to be at a housing wire engaged marketing event, doing a 30 minute session on the power of video. That’s what I’m talking about. Video matters, but it’s a skill. It’s a skill that you have to lean into.Let’s talk about the long game, right? I guarantee you, the first time you walked into a referral partners office, open house and said, I’m ready for a loan. And they said, thank God you’re here. I’ve been waiting for a loan officer to walk in and say, I’m ready for my loan because I have the Johnson’s here who just want to give someone their loan. So thank God you’re here. No, no. Of course not.Jeff on LinkedIn is nailing. He’s like, the truth is most don’t have the longevity to see the fruits. That is a hundred percent truth. And that is what I’m pushing all of you to understand. You’re not going to be good in the beginning, but you will become good over time. You’re not going to be a brand leader and an influencer in your first 72 videos. But you will be in a long time., if you lean in, you’re not good at prospecting realtors and going to open houses until you are after you keep going. I don’t know how else to say it. And I think the proof is undeniable. I think the proof is undeniable.I appreciate the LinkedIn stuff. This is really fun. Thank you Maria for the comment.Yeah. You know, look, I’m going to take the banner off. I’m going to take the brand off. This is like my new move now to like, bang. Look, look, if you’re thinking in your head, I don’t know what to say, you’re lying. Okay. So let’s just strip that falsity out of reality. If you’re like, I don’t know what to say. You’re lying. I’ll give you an example.If you’re in mortgage sales right now, there is so much confusion happening around what you can and can’t do in mortgage land that you can show up and explain what’s going on. What are the changes Fannie and Freddie are doing? I heard jumbos are going away. What’s happening to Healogics. There’s a million conversations you could be having. Barry Habib, God bless his amazing soul, will literally send you topics every morning. Sign up for Rob Crispin’s guide. It’s a free email. He’ll give you content and topics every morning.This is a page Kung Fu Alec. Yeah. Let’s punching quick, quick jabs. I don’t know. We’re not going back to drive time ever again. I’m off my game.If one of your excuses is you don’t know what to say. I don’t have the content. That’s a lie. There’s a million things to talk about. If you don’t believe me, I’m going to challenge you right now. Call me after this session or DM me, since we’re on social. DM me, leave me your cell phone. I will call you and we will create 50 pieces of content in 25 minutes. I’m not joking. We’ll do it live. DM me your phone number. I don’t care what industry you’re in. I don’t care what you do, but if you’re in mortgage, you better buckle up. I got a lot of them. In 25 minutes, we will come up with 50 pieces of content and then I’m going to make you post them and tag me in everyone. Okay?So now we’re realizing the content is not the issue because it’s actually the fear of posting it and the fear of being vulnerable. Did everyone get bullied? I’m having this like weird, shocking, like realization. Did every human in the world get bullied? Where did this fear of rejection and insecurity originate because we couldn’t all have been bullied. Like my buddy Nema was bullied. I was bullied. Where is it coming from for you because for me, it was coming from that experience growing up. I have amazing parents and amazing family who were just pouring love over me. And I still walked into junior high and high school, a hot mess from a core down in insecurities. So we recognize contents, not the issue, fear is the issue. I just have to ask you, how did you overcome it the first time? Like clearly in mortgages, you’re doing loans. You wouldn’t be in this business anymore if you weren’t doing loans. So how did you do it? How did you do it? Because you did it once before.How do you do it again? This new world is proving more and more concretely that going online, creating a digital brand, putting your face out for people to see. I don’t think you have a choice if you’re in sales, you got to play the game you got to be in the water. It’s the new reality. Here it is. Are you going to be good at it or not?We’re talking about content strategies. Just talk about what your clients ask you throughout the week. By the way, you’re stealing my answer because that’s all I was going to do with anyone that DM me. What question did you clients ask this week? So thanks Sean, just ruin it. Now someone who’s going to DM me doesn’t need to anymore because that’s the reality.My encouragement for all of you guys, as you look at this as it’s a long game, it’s a long game. If you’re married, okay, how long did it take to get married? Did you just propose on the first date? You might’ve been in love, you might have had all those warm feelings, but what did you do? No. No, you did not. You formed a relationship over time through connectivity. You formed a relationship over time building trust. You formed a relationship over time through conversations, through face to face interactions, through text messages late into the night. Or if you’re like me and you had a pager, it was 143 or 823. Yeah. If you know what 823 is comment right now. Let’s see who really is the true, like borderline millennial, whatever that means. If you had a pager and you knew at 143 and 823 meant, you knew how to speak the language of love back in whatever that was, nineties? I don’t even remember.Yep. I know there’s a lag, so you haven’t heard my pager comment yet, but it’s good. I’m proud of it. I don’t have a note that says, talk about pagers. Oh, I’m getting comments. Oh Shane, I’m coming for ya. All right, we’re going to do some stuff. You made some comments so you’re going to get into the game.You didn’t get married on your first text. You didn’t get married on your first page. You built a relationship. So what are you going to do with social media to build that relationship going forward? What are you going to do to make an impact? And I’ll tell you right now, you got to start by being in the game. It’s a long game. It’s a long game. Go back nine years of doing videos with DriveTime with Alec. Nine years of that stuff followed up by building out my channel for years with content and live streams. Look at all this effort. This is work. I’m going to be totally honest, for those of you that are likes I got it together or whatever, or I’m killing it and blah, blah, blah.Look my Be There video, 11 views. I don’t care. I got a lot better. I developed content that now sits in my brain about things I care about and think about. And now I’m even better than before. So everyone’s like, Oh, look, My Potato Be Human, 17 views. I thought that was a great video, 17 views. Now I know, I’m getting a lot of views on LinkedIn and I get a lot of views live and I get a lot of views on Facebook. So it’s not all about YouTube channel. That’s correct. That’s totally true. But I’m playing the long game and I’m in the pool. Get in the pool. You’ll get better.Here’s the last thing I’ll give you as a tip and trick. One of the things that I found the most helpful for me in playing the long game is having perspective and it’s also following people that are already doing it. You know, the guy that works with me named Ivan put out a really great Instagram post about the 33% rule. And I’ll just share one part, it was 33% of your time should be spent with people who are ahead of you, who you think are driving into ways you want to play. And the reason you spend time with them is because they’ll pull you forward. They’ll make you feel uncomfortable. They’ll drive your thought process. Could not agree more. Most of the stuff I’ve learned and all of this technology and multi streaming and putting on bumpers and creating a YouTube channel and making it look pretty, all this stuff has been by following people and aggressively learning because I’m passionate about it and I know it’s the truth. A lot of you out there right now, know it’s the truth too. You feel it right here. You’re like, I know I need to be on video. I know I need to be creating some content. I know I need to be connecting humans.Let me break it down again. I’m a little bit sick and I heard myself say it. So I have to kind of pause and go back. I’m a little bit sick about just create content. That starts to feel buzzy to me and I don’t like things that feel buzzy. I like things that feel authentic. I’m not creating content by making these videos. I’m trying to create human connection to you guys, to the people in my ecosystem, to the people I want to influence, to the people I want to lead. I’m trying my best through this medium to create, I was going to say content again, no to create human connection. And that’s what I want you to do. I don’t want you to create content. I want you to create human connection.If you can play in that head space you’ll win. You’ll win long. You’ll have that. You’ll have the influence you want.Noble says good stuff. Thank you so much on LinkedIn.Yeah. You’ll create human connection, which is not done by reading a script. It is not done by having a hyper overproduced piece of content or video. Those are fun. And I geek out on them look, I love this stuff. I love making this little stupid thing and I can teach people how. I learned and I watch the videos and I like it. I enjoy this. It makes me happy.Go find how to be happy in a way to create human connection and you will have the absolute career of your life in any business, especially sales. So play the long game. Here’s the one more piece of advice, when you go live or when you put out a video, please remember the power is not in the moment. All right. Those of you that are joining me right now on YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook, we’re having a moment. This is cool. I’m loving this. I get live comments. And I get to look at it and be like, yes, I’m going to post that. I’m the Cajun lender. It feeds me. But I also know that this moment is going to be gone in five minutes. When I end the broadcast, this will be over. But this video and this and this experience will go on in perpetuity and have much more amazing impact.Right now on LinkedIn, there are 14 people watching me 14 on LinkedIn. You 14, we’re having a moment. But as soon as this is done, as soon as this ends, we all turn around and go about our day, I routinely get thousands of views on my videos because the content lives on, it keeps going. People keep talking about it. People keep commenting on it. Days after that’s the power of this stuff, is it moves forward. It doesn’t stay stagnant. It’s not a once and done experience. The more you lean into this stuff-Yes, Jeremiah, we’re going to do this live. Should this self-employed handyman jump in this pool. So Jeremiah first, a small story on this amazing human being. This guy was the first crazy maniac to walk into my garage like 13 years ago when I started a CrossFit gym at night. I almost killed him 16 times. I swear. And here’s the reality. He says, self-employed handyman. Should I be in the space. A thousand percent? First of all, let me tell you one thing I know about handymen. I’m terrified of hiring them. I never know if they’re going to show up. I’m always skeptical. I’m always like, who are you? I don’t know you. I found you on Angie’s list or Yelp and are you going to do a good job. Contractors, handyman pick a title in that home improvement or house improvement area.I’ll give you a great freaking example. My fence is deteriorating. Like I need a new fence. And I’m like, crap, how do I get a new fence? I started Googling new fences. I’m like, maybe I can build it myself. You know, go to home Depot. I’m quarantined. Maybe I figured this out. If you’re in that space right there, Jeremiah, we’re going to hang out, man. And here’s the other thing. If you lived around me, which I miss you and it’d be fun if you did, but it’s been a long time. But if you lived around me and I’m Googling this stuff, I would have been like, Holy crap, Jeremiah could do this. I totally forgot.Okay. This is like a pro tip. But I’m just going to say it. You’re not the center of the world. Neither am I. Everybody around you is not thinking about you all the time. I know shocker, super big shocker. You’re thinking about you all the time. I get it. I’ve been in the lending industry for, Oh my gosh, how long has it been? 17 years, 18 years, ish. And I’m damn good. I was the top 1% originator for every single year. I was the rookie of the year, my first year funding, 85 million. I ran mega teams across the country. I’m going to fund $6 billion this year in my division. I know how to do a loan and I’m damn good at it. And I know a ton of resources. People still don’t call me for advice. My friends don’t call me for advice. It’s not unique.How many of you had friends that have went out and got alone with somebody else? And you’re like, we’re homies and you didn’t call me. We’re not on everyone’s mind all the time. And in order to get on people’s mind all the time, you got to play the long game with social media, the long game with video, the long game on influence because you get better and better and better at it. And all of a sudden they go, Hey, you know what shit, Jeremiah, I forgot he lived down the street. The guy’s amazing. Look at all the projects he’s doing because all you have to do Jeremiah is document your projects and all the cool stuff you’re doing.How about giving tips and tricks so people don’t have to hire you. Ooh, isn’t that a good one? That one makes people really uncomfortable. This is what I love about do you follow [inaudible 00:25:47] on what’s a mortgage. Love this guy because he is just putting out what to do. And he’s never hiding his knowledge. He’s sharing it openly and for everybody about how to get a mortgage, how to navigate the space. And it’s like, well, you’re giving away all your secrets so they can go use whoever they want. Yeah, they could, they could go use whoever they want, but they don’t. They use him because he showed them how to do it with no strings attached. And this for you, for Jeremiah and handyman services, same thing.I had a sprinkler clicking in my backyard. Look, I’m good at many things. I’m very proud of how many things I’m good at. Handyman things, not good. Not good. Call me to fix your computer. Got it. I’m in the game. Sprinkler clicking, got nothing. Zero things. I got the Google and the YouTubes and I’m looking at it like, can I fix this myself? I’m like, I’m going to kill myself. I can’t, I can’t do it. I guarantee if Jeremiah had a video on how to fix your stupid sprinkler from clicking, it was shorting, I could have fixed it in five seconds and then he would have been my man.So guys, we all need to be in the pool. You need to be in the pool. All of you. Yes. In the pool. Miss you, buddy. It’s good to see you dude. All right. If you’ve got one more question, I’ll take it but as a series, for just my last question here, if I was going to do some live trainings, what do you want it on?I can do YouTube. I can do social media graphics. I can do, man, a lot of different things on just simple, how tos. If something that is interesting to you, let me know. Starting in the comments later when I end the broadcast is fine. I’ll still get it. I’m still going to hang out and talk to you guys, but I’m really happy to continue to dive in.Everyone’s going, if you want to hit up Paul’s comment in LinkedIn. I guess the real vote now is should I shave the beard to keep the mustache for the rest of quarantine? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.And remember everybody, it’s the long game. Get in the pool and start swimming because every time you put out a piece of video and create human connection, you build a foundation, you build more influence. You build and it stacks on each other like bricks in a pyramid. And before you know it, you’ll have one of the wonders of the world underneath you and you’ll be ready to kill it in your career. That’s all I got for everybody. I hope you guys have a wonderful day. Take care, buddy. And I’ll see you next week on LiveTime with Alec. Peace out.

Come hang with me and the President of Freedom Alliance, Tom Kilgannon as we unpack the purpose of this great Non-Profit and what they are doing to support our amazing veterans.

Your snippet of this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• All proceed of Alec’s Book Bypassed goes to helping vets.
• Find out how much Freedom Alliance is helping our troops and their families.
• Human connection is important especially during this pandemic
• How Freedom Alliance creates that human connection.

Episode Transcribe

Alec:What’s up Modern Lending podcasters?

Welcome back to another live episode of the Modern Lending podcast.

Today is going to be a little different. I’m really excited for the conversation though, because in the tough times we’re having right now, it is so important to land on a solid perspective. And there are so many people out there suffering, and there’s so many people out there doing amazing things to serve those who are suffering. Some of you know I wrote a book and when I was getting to the final stages of the book and deciding to release it, I [inaudible 00:00:48] Bypassed, A Modern Guide for Local Originators. It’s out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Kindle and audio book coming really soon, read by yours truly. So please give me some grace because reading your own audio book sucks. And I feel like an idiot, but it’s out there.And I decided that this would be a gift of mine to the industry that has done such amazing things in my life. And so 100% of the proceeds of my book, Bypassed, are going to an incredible organization called Freedom Alliance. And so I figured what better time than now to bring on the president of Freedom Alliance, Tom Kilgannon, to talk about what that amazing organization is doing to serve our veterans? I’m really excited for this conversation because it’s going to just open up, I hope for a lot of you, insight into this incredible organization and what it’s doing for our vets. So let’s kick it off and bring on Tom.Now we’re here. I couldn’t hear any of the music on that. So Tom, you told me it was going and people heard it. So we’re going for it live.Tom:It’s great music. I’m going to get it in my office.Alec:So thank you for joining us. I’m really excited for this conversation. For those of you that are tuning in, we are alive on LinkedIn, on YouTube and on Facebook hitting all the mediums. If you see me looking down, it’s because I’m looking at the comments on LinkedIn, but if you’re commenting on Facebook and YouTube, I’ll see them on the screen. Welcome, Tom. Thank you for being here. Thank you for everything Freedom Alliance does. And I’m excited for this conversation.Tom:Well, me too, Alec. It’s great to be on the program. Thanks so much. I really appreciate all that you’re doing. And congratulations on the book. I mean, I wrote a book myself. It’s a big lift. It’s a hard task. And I congratulate you because I think Bypass is going to be something that really speaks to a lot of people and helps them in their profession. And obviously what’s important to us is what you’re doing with the proceeds and donating them to Freedom Alliance. And that is just something that means a whole lot us. And it’s going to help us provide for military families, for heroes, for the children who have lost a parent in military service. And so thank you for all that you’re doing on that. I know that you use this podcast as a forum to help people in invest in homes. And today we’re going to talk about investing in heroes. So I’m looking forward to it. So let’s get started, man.Alec:Well, so just as a background for everybody, because there are some people for sure that are now frantically Googling Freedom Alliance and trying to find out what’s going on. So share with everybody. When did Freedom Alliance start, give them the history, give them the elevator pitch. If someone grabs you, “What do you do?” Freedom Alliance. What’s that? Share with everybody what it’s all about?Tom:Sure. Well, Freedom Alliance, we’re a military support organization. We’re a nonprofit. We were founded in 1990. So this year as we speak Alec, we’re celebrating 30 years, our 30th birthday this year.Alec:You got to be proud of that. That is so cool. I mean, 30 years is a legacy business, so that’s congratulations. First of all.Tom:Thank you. It really is. Not a lot of nonprofits get to that point. A lot of them fizzle out early, as you well know. So surviving 30 years, not only surviving, but thriving and doing good. So, it’s really been interesting because Freedom Alliance is 30 years old. I’ve been with the organization for about 22 years now. So much of the organization’s history.Alec:That’s a long time.Tom:Yeah, it is. It is a long time for me, 22 years is a long time, but it’s not unusual here at Freedom Alliance. We have many of our staff have long tenures here at Freedom Alliance, 10, 15, some 18, 19 years. And the reason is what we’re going to get into in a few minutes, the mission, the importance of the work that we do, the cause that we’re able to help people who put their lives on the line for this country.And that’s the way it’s been right from the onset. In 1990, the organization was formed and it was founded at a time just a few months before America’s military was deployed to Kuwait to expel Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait when they attack there. And that’s when it was founded and it was founded by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a man who spent 22 years in the United States Marine Corps, was decorated with a silver star, two purple hearts, the bronze star for Valor in combat, somebody that I consider a real American hero. Not only is he a hero, but to me, he’s a friend and a mentor, and somebody I admire a great deal. He founded the organization and he entrusted its daily operations to me and an incredible team of professionals that we have who are just so very dedicated.Alec:And so cool. So Barry [inaudible 00:05:51], he just donated to Freedom Alliance. Barry, that’s amazing, man. Thank you. See, I mean, just spreading the word is already getting people fired up about what you guys do. So Tom, before you came to Freedom Alliance, what were you doing?Tom:I was working on Capitol Hill. I was working for a member of Congress in the house of representatives and things were going well, I really enjoyed it. The member that I was working for, he was in the house and he had just started a campaign for the Senate in his state. And so the Senate campaign was going very well and I was an integral part of it. It was exciting. And in that time, Alec, I got a phone call and it was from Colonel North. And he said, “Tom, I’m looking for somebody to run the foundation Freedom Alliance.” And I said, “Well, that’s fantastic Colonel, let me keep an ear to the ground. I know a bunch of people.”Alec:That’s the nice way of saying, “Yeah, yeah, thanks.” He’s calling you. He’s like, “Hey Tom, come run this.” You’re like, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep a look out.”Tom:Yeah. I said, “I’ll refer some people to you. I’ll let you know who I come up with.” And he said, just what you said, Alec, “Tom, I don’t think you’re getting it. Hello. I want you to come over and run Freedom Alliance.” And I said, “Colonel, I am honored. That is fantastic. I really appreciate it. But the Congressman needs me, he’s running for Senate. Things are going well, I’m an important part of the equation for success. And I’m just not sure that I can do it at this time.” And he said, “Tom, I understand, I hear you. And I’ll see you in my office on Monday morning. Right?” And I said, “Yes, sir, I’ll be there.”Alec:He closed you. [inaudible 00:07:35] closed. That is incredible.Tom:[inaudible 00:07:36] greatest history. And it has really been a tremendous ride. And that was in 1998. And so that was just a few years before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Wow. And that was another milestone in the organization’s history. And it’s really from that point that we took some of those programs that were first instituted back 10 years earlier. And we refashioned them a little bit and we got them up and running for what was needed after 9/11. And for the last 19 years, we’ve been at it hard and fast taking care of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, taking care of their kids, sending them to college.Alec:Yeah. I want to break that down a little bit. So Tom, when you started, where were the funds going? I mean, in the nineties, right? Who are you giving money to? How were you deciding? Because there’s an evolution I know of this company over 30 years and I was just looking at some stats that I want to get into on how many people you’ve helped, but what did Freedom Alliance first start doing?Tom:The scholarship program was one of the first programs and it’s something that was always very important to Colonel North because Alec, he was been there that as they say, and he held his friends in his arms, he saw his friends die and he had the unfortunate task at times in his career of having to tell a widow that her husband wasn’t coming home. And so when he had the opportunity, he said, “What do we do? How do we make a terrible situation a little bit better?” And the idea of providing scholarships to kids who’ve had a parent killed or disabled in military service is something that has been done from the organization’s start. N.ow, as you know, we went into Kuwait, we expelled Iraq out of there. That war was very short lived. And so the organization was able to provide some scholarships to do that. It carried on through the nineties, but when it really took off was after 9/11. And since then, I can tell you, we have set a goal that in the 20 years from the attacks of 9/11 to next year, we are going to give away $20 million in college scholarships. And we are well on track to do that. And I know if more donations come in through this platform here today, we’re going to be able to do it without any problem. We currently, Alec, currently, we have 500 students on scholarship with us. Each of these students is the son or daughter of an American hero. They have had a parent who was killed or permanently disabled in military service, or have performed at the highest levels of heroism for our country. And each year now we’re giving out over $2 million to help them with their college education. As you know, the cost of college increase all the time. It’s one of the fastest growing costs for an American family and it’s harder and harder to meet that cost.Alec:Well, if I can dive into, I mean, in home lending, which we do, student debt is a crippling American problem. And that’s that sometimes is the only way for certain people to get through that college experience. And the ability for you guys, I mean, you said $2 million a year towards scholarships right now?Tom:$2 million a year towards scholarships.Alec:That’s incredibly amazing. And the goal is $20 million now?Tom:And yes, we will have given out $20 million by the end of next year. But Alec, here’s what’s even more important than that. I mean, our average scholarship is about $4,000 per student per year. And we will give out $20 million by the end of next year, but here’s what’s even more important. Each scholarship we give represents an American hero. Helps that student know that their parents’ sacrifice will never, never be forgotten by a grateful nation. And that’s what this is all about. That’s what the partnership between Loan Depot and Freedom Alliance is all about. That’s what the donations that are coming in through the program are all about is that we as an American community come together to ensure that those who are sacrificing, even if it was 20 years ago, we’re going to remember that and we’re going to help their families. Why? Because they entrusted us, their fellow Americans to say, “Look, if anything happens to me, please take care of my kids.” And that’s what we do.Alec:And I’m just going to say it, there are a lot of people right now suffering. A lot of industries and a lot of companies that are suffering under COVID right now. But the mortgage industry is helping a tremendous amount of people right now. And there’s a lot of our great salespeople that are making some serious, serious success, and they’re making some serious money. So guess what guys? Write the check. This is our time to step up too. It’s our time to step up too if you’re blessed enough to live in this great country and be protected. And you’re blessed enough to be in the mortgage industry now helping thousands of people, then you are blessed enough to cut a check to help the family and the soldiers that have been hurt and killed in defending us. So I’m just going to put it out there in a bold way. I think it’s time to step up in big ways. And Tom, but you guys go deeper than scholarships? And I would love you to share where that path started and how it originated and how you’re helping vets themselves, not just their kids?Tom:Sure. Yeah. I mean, we’re working not only with the students, with the children, but with combat veterans, with wounded service members, because obviously, those scholarships are going to kids who had a parent who did not come home, but many veterans do come home and some of those are eligible for our scholarship, but these guys, they’ve lost limbs, they’ve sacrificed greatly. And many of them, Alec, are carrying the emotional wounds of war, emotional injury. And that is really where Freedom Alliance’s big focuses is because I think one of the great disappointments, if you will, that was early in the war was the amount of media attention that was paid to the amputees versus those who carry the emotional injuries. [crosstalk 00:14:40] Anything away from the amputees.Alec:An amputee, it’s right in your face, you can’t ignore it. And so it’s natural, I think to just go zoom in on that and go, “Wow, what a tragedy,” but you’re right. The stuff that’s inside, and especially in a masculine culture where you’re like, “Shrug it off, no big deal.” It is a big deal. People are waking up to it.Tom:Because our combat veterans, they see the worst that humanity has to offer. And they witness it, they feel it, they experience it, and then they carry it in their heart and their soul and they bring it back home. And it stays with them for a really long time. It stays with them for years. And what we have to do is help them get through it, just to help people kind of put this in context or understand it, earlier this morning, I was just looking at the news and seeing what’s going on with all the COVID and everything like that. And I came across a picture of, I think it was a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York. And it was a picture of dead bodies that have been just kind of thrown about and not giving the dignity that they should.And it was a really difficult picture to look at, but I’m looking at it through a computer screen from a long distance. Imagine for a second that kind of thing that our troops are seeing up close. They have seen women and children tortured and beaten. They have seen their friends die, and it’s not just the visual, but the smells and the sounds that go along with it. And they carry that with them. And they’re not able to address it in a lot of cases until many years later. So that’s what Freedom Alliance does. We get them out. We get them on fishing boats and out in hunting and in the mountains. And we create environments where they’re able to have conversation with trusted friends and trusted allies so that they can work through it.Alec:This is something. So I’ve been preaching a lot, and preaching I think is the right word, about the importance of human connection, and sales right now, it’s radically changed. We can’t do what we used to do, we can’t meet with our customers face to face, not physically. We can’t go have a cocktail with our realtor partners. We can’t do what we used to do, but human connection is becoming paramount and more important every day. And so when I dug deeper into Freedom Alliance and what you guys do, I was like, “This is it.” You’re creating human connection with these veterans. And I’ve been very lucky to be around Anthony Shea. And that’s kind of how I found you guys was, his War Heroes on Water event with you guys, where the vets would come out, come together, get on these fishing boats and go out and just connect with nature, with themselves, with each other and get a message of love. And I’ve watched those guys come away totally transformed. And then I’m like, “Well, this is what Freedom Alliance is doing every day.” This is what you guys are doing every day. And do you have any stories? Do you have anything that comes to mind when you think of these experiences with these guys? [inaudible 00:18:06]Tom:Sure. All right. And you mentioned War Heroes on Water. It’s a fantastic event. And it’s the kind of thing that really helps us get veterans out. So in August we’re going to have our third annual War Heroes on the Water, and we’re going to have almost 100 combat veterans gathering in Southern California. 30 boats getting them out for a fishing weekend. But the fishing weekend is just the start of the magic that happens because you get these guys on the boat and they talk. And they talk to one another and they start to unburden themselves. As one explained to me a few months ago, you get on the boat and you’re out there for three days. Well, the first few hours you have the normal conversation of, “How’s the weather, where did you serve, and how’s all that?” And then you get down to the real conversation. “What’s going on man? What did you feel? What did you see? How do you deal with it?” And that’s where the healing takes place, because we need to be able to talk about it. We’re people, we’re social, and our whole model at Freedom Alliance has been to get veterans out of the house, put them in the company with so that they can begin to heal. So this COVID situation has thrown a little bit of a wrench into it, but we’re getting through it.Alec:That’s exactly where I was going to go, because now human connection’s harder than ever. We can’t get physical the way we used to get physical. And so how are you guys evolving and managing that with the veterans? Share some stories there. I think it’s a powerful tangent for us.Tom:Yeah. Our model, Alec, as I said, get vets out of the home and get them together. So we’ve had to create a personal relationship. One of the things we value most is the trust the veterans put in us, and it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of effort to earn that trust. And when we do, we hold onto it and we don’t let it go away. So I think one of the important things here is to distinguish between social distancing and social isolation. Social distancing, that’s what we’re all doing and it’s important. And it’s a healthy thing. That’s where we basically keep a geographic distance between each other so we’re not spreading the virus around, and it contributes to the public health.Social isolation is really what we’re trying to avoid with veterans. That is a destructive behavior in which they lock themselves in their home. They shut themselves off from others and maybe embrace destructive vices like potentially alcohol, drugs, or even self harm. So that’s why we need to keep them in the company of others so that they have accountability, partners, and mentorship, and they have a reason to work at their rehabilitation. And that’s what takes place at War Heroes on Water. On these boats where they go out and they fish, they find new friends, both fellow combat veterans and civilian. What I can tell you, in fact, what’s going to happen this afternoon at Freedom Alliance, we’re going to have two different virtual get togethers with combat veterans who were on the War Heroes on Water, who met each other through that event, and continue to stay in touch with each other and help each other through this very difficult content.Alec:That’s what really stood out for me in listening to some of these stories from War Heroes on Water. And I know from your other events, is these veterans come in from different branches of the military. They didn’t necessarily serve together, but they have a similar path and a similar history and a similar experience. And they come together and they bond and they do become friends. They do stay connected. And I think that’s a gift. I think that’s an incredible gift that money can’t buy.Tom:No, certainly not. The other thing I want to mention is the veteran community is not a monolith, so there are many out there who are struggling, who need help, and that’s what we’re addressing, but there are a lot of veterans who are healthy and are in a good place. And we are reaching to them, and we’re leveraging their expertise and their help so that they are connecting with their buddies, we’ve asked through a vet workers program, in a buddy check program, we have asked veterans who are feeling good and feeling healthy, “Hey, connect with five of your friends and make sure they’re doing okay. And if there’s anything they need, let us know.” So, those are the things that we can do with both healthy vets and those who are struggling and reach out to those five through that spectrum.Alec:That’s amazing. So what’s next, Tom? I mean, what’s next for Freedom Alliance? I saw your goal. That’s a huge goal. What does this look like in another 30 years? What are you envisioning?Tom:Well, it’s a great question. We’re just doing what we normally do. And that is to help military peacekeepers. And it’s a little bit tough to answer, because what we were doing 30 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, is different from what we’re doing now. We try to understand the veteran and know what it is they’re needing on a personal level and one on one, to remain aiding the one sided policy, so what we’re going to do, that works to a degree, but the rest is have real life changing impact, that we’re able to [inaudible 00:24:16] at a very personal level.Alec:Yeah. That’s fact. Not everybody can be served the same way. Not everybody needs the same thing. And so that’s one of the things too, I’m encouraging everybody who is tuning in to go to Freedom Alliance’s website and look at the different places that these guys play in. Look at the way they’re serving veterans the way they need to be served. I think that flexibility as an organization and that nimbleness is going to keep you guys relevant for a long time, Tom, because the world is changing and you’ve got to change with it to serve the people who need it.Tom:Yeah. We’ve got a number of great programs. We’re providing service members with new vehicles, so they can make up [inaudible 00:25:07] We’re giving them more recalls, [inaudible 00:25:09] for wounded veterans. But we also extend similar hours to married people who are struggling and who don’t want their marriage becoming another casualty of war. So we’re working with couples, to get them out, help them have kind of conversations so that we can make their marriage stronger, make them better at grieving, and that is really rewarding. When we have that kind of feedback come back, whether it be a single service member or married couple, to say, “What you did for us really changed our lives. You really helped us out in a time when we were struggling, on the edge of divorce, or on the edge of self harm. You turned it around, helped me to turn it around.” And Alec, when you get that kind of feedback, it’s easy to go home, and put your head on the pillow and know that you did your job. And that’s what really makes me proud.Alec:That’s incredible. And you’ve obviously had a long legacy there and hopefully a lot more to come. So, I mean, typically, a lot of people that focus in on my content are looking for inspiration on modern sales techniques, what’s happening in the mortgage industry. That’s kind of where my lane is and I kind of focus there, but would that kind of an audience, what would you share with them? What would you tell them? What perspective would you give them?Tom:I would, want your listeners and viewers to know, Alec, the kind of courage that exists in the military community. And when I say courage, I think the first thing we all think of is courage on the battlefield, the question that that exists. As a civilian, I have not had the opportunity to see firsthand that kind of courage. I know it’s out there, I’ve read the stories. I’ve heard the stories and they are incredible and they are admirable. What I can say from my personal experience, is I have seen other kinds of courage displayed by combat veterans, different kinds of courage, the kind of courage that it takes to overcome the wounds and the difficulties that they have, the new kinds of things that they have to learn.And it’s not just with them, but it’s with their family members as well. I’ll give you a quick story. Years ago, I was down in Texas at Brooke Army Medical Center, and I was going through the burn center down there. The burn center in San Antonio is the finest, the best burn center in all the world. They do incredible work. And if you’ve ever had the opportunity to visit a burn center, here’s what you take away. When you go in and you spend time in the room of somebody who’s recovering from severe burns, the room is very hot because it needs to be to keep them as comfortable as possible. The other thing is you’re in there for a very short period of time. My visits were two to three minutes at most because it’s just too much stress.So you go in and you make your point quickly. So on this particular visit, I went in and we’re in the hallway and you have to gown up, all the PPE and you put it on and you go in. The door to the room was open. We go in, I met a young man who has had about 70% of his body burned. A young lady was at his bedside. And we spoke for just a few minutes. It was incredibly inspiring. And then I had to go back out in the hallway and taking off all the PPE and what I did not know, I learned when I closed the door to the room. So the door, you had to pull it away from the wall and close it. And on the other side of the door was a single balloon and a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper with a crayon marking that said just married.And so what I did not know in the room was that these two had the courage. This young lady had the courage to give her life to this young man, knowing that it was going to be very difficult and very challenging. And you see that again and again and again. How many parents have I met that quit their job, that left their job in order to take care of their son or their daughter who was very severely injured. And as you mentioned earlier, our combat veterans, these are tough guys. These are A type personalities. And when they have those moral injuries, when they have brain injuries that deteriorate their motor skills, and they have to ask for help to eat, to button their shirt, to get dressed, when they display the kind of courage to be able to do those things, it is amazing. And it is so inspiring to see.Alec:I’m really grateful for this conversation today because we’re all having our own hard times. We were joking, Tom, for those of you that are listening. Tom and I were joking before we started about just, my small issues of my life, homeschooling kids, which is annoying. Not being able to go to the beach because they’ve closed it down. And all of us have our frustrations, all of us have our issues. And I’m just grateful for this conversation. And I’m hoping everyone that listens feels the same way because perspective lends so much strength to our hardships, to our micro hardships. And there are people who have given all and are still pulling through and still trying to live their life under tremendous hardship.And so, Tom, I’m blessed to know you, man. So excited to have this conversation today. I know that this is going to spread around the internet and more people are going to get exposed to Freedom Alliance and the great work you guys are doing. I’m just super honored to contribute in the smallest of ways, considering how much you’re going to give and what you’re going to do this year. And so man, if you have any final comment? That last bit, I’m shook, that was really fun to hear and a wonderful eyeopener for my own self today. So I know I’m going to have a lot more appreciation going about my day for sure after this, but anything else you want to end with Tom?Tom:Well, I just, I want to thank you Alec, for having me on the program and all you’re doing to bring attention to Freedom Alliance and the work that we do. It’s very inspiring. And the story I just told, I could tell a dozen of them and it’s one of the great honors of my life and my career to be able to spend it with people who put their lives on the line. And today is the first day of military appreciation month.Alec:I didn’t even know that. That’s how much I’m in my own head dealing with my own micro problems. So what a cool timing that ended up being.Tom:And I think we just want to ask everybody to give a moment as we go through these next 30 days and understand the sacrifices that our military makes. As you said, we’ve got these micro annoyances that we’re [crosstalk 00:33:01] to stay in our house. I mentioned at the start of the show, the troops who deployed to Kuwait back in 1990, think about what they did. They sat in the hot desert sun with that awful sand and they sat there for months and months and months before they were able to do their job. You have to remember those kinds of sacrifices that they make.Alec:Well, Tom, thank you for everything you do. Thank you for everything Freedom Alliance does. And this has been one of my most memorable conversations on this podcast because we went in a whole new direction and I’m just grateful for you guys and everything you do. And so for those of you that are listening and those who are going to be listening to the podcast later, this is an episode that I’m going to ask you to share and push out. This is an episode that I want you guys to just give to the world so that we can all get a new perspective. So thank you, Tom. With that, let’s end it out.

COO of  mellohome, Randy Hamilton is here to tell us how mellohome is transforming the real estate place and loanDepot Loan Professionals are finally helping our real estate partners with new customers!

Your snippet of this episode of the Modern Lending Podcast:

• Learn how mellohome is such an amazing addition to your business
• “Concierge service” is your new quarterback
• Embrace the change – Diversify your business strategy
• Be Proactive not reactive.

Episode Transcribe

Alec: What’s up Modern Lending podcasters?

We are back episode eight. Man, we’re going to unpack some crazy stuff today.

If you’ve been paying attention to any of the episodes or if this is your first one, you understand that the consumer is changing how we have to do business in real estate mortgage. The way they’re interacting, the way they have access to new data and social media and MLS on their phone, man everything’s changing. So, what’s loanDepot doing around that.Well, let me introduce you to Randy Hamilton, the COO of mellohome services, a sister company and a real estate company to loanDepot. Let me show you in the next 45 minutes how the consumer is transforming the space and how we’re transforming it right along with them, to help them find local professional realtors in their marketplace. Buckle up, episode eight, here we go. Oh, like, subscribe, share. Spread the message. Love you guys.All right, everybody here we are with Randy Hamilton.Randy Hamilton:Good morning.Alec: This is going to be a really fun conversation. So, for those of you that don’t know Randy, I’m going to let him introduce himself in a second. I’ll start with some baseline stuff. Randy is the COO of our mellohome services platform. Sister company to loanDepot real estate organization and, man, if you’ve been following any of the episodes, you know we’ve been talking about it. One major theme has danced through it all, which is the change in consumer behavior that has resulted in the mortgage industry, the real estate industry and all having to pivot and adapt to new technologies.The biggest being the MLS became public. I talked about this with Dan many episodes ago, that was like the first step in this total change and transformation of the industry when the MLS data became public. And then consumers could access everything on their phones and all of a sudden now, tons of stuff has dominoed and changed, et cetera.So, we’re going to go through what we’ve been doing and what mellohome’s been doing as a response to that, how we’re serving customers today that’s unique and different. I’m really looking forward to this conversation I guess it’ll be super fun.Randy Hamilton:Me too, yeah.Alec: So Randy, for a couple seconds, couple minutes, give everybody a download on your background, because some people don’t know who you are and let’s just let everyone get to know you a little bit.Randy Hamilton:Sure. Great and I appreciate you having me.Alec: Of course, man.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. So, I’m a mortgage guy at heart from the mid-80s back when you took everything on paper and sat down at the dining room table-Alec: Yup. Still had fax machines and yeah, pagers and all the life.Randy Hamilton:You got it. Yeah.Alec: So good.Randy Hamilton:So, it was in the 80s doing that, stayed in the mortgage business until roughly 2005 and got out and decided that I wanted to sit on the other side of things, because unfortunately I felt that with a business partner that the world was going to start coming to an end and believe it or not, it did.Alec: Yeah. No kidding.Randy Hamilton:I was called [Igor 00:02:58] By my wife-Alec: If you got out in 2005, you smelled what was coming down the hill.Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: Well, good for you.Randy Hamilton:I was at WMC. GE Money had just purchased it. Everyone thought that the rose… the glass was clear and we started saying this 80, 20 stuff and Domino’s making $40,000 a month stated this is not looking good-Alec: It’s not going to work.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. So, fast forward ahead, we spent roughly 10 years with business partner Pat Flanagan, who was our CFO-Alec: Our CFO, yeah.Randy Hamilton:Current CFO at loanDepot, buying distress debt.Alec: Oh, interesting.Randy Hamilton:For a large private equity fund. And then we did it on our own up until 2015. We dabbled with a real estate platform in that end. Built an actual alternative mortgage product-Alec: That’s super cool.Randy Hamilton:That put people in a house, that had come out of say-Alec: The crisis.Randy Hamilton:Bankruptcy or the crisis. They weren’t qualified yet. We would actually buy the house but instead of it being a lease to own, they actually were in contract to buy the house from us, but we gave them up to six years to cure their issue.Alec: So clever.Randy Hamilton:So, yeah.Alec: That’s super interesting.Randy Hamilton:That’s in 2015 and got back into mortgage in 2016 and I’ve been here at loanDepot in what was quietly known as next gen lending and took over-Alec: Now COO of mellohome.Randy Hamilton:Took over mellohome about fourth quarter last year.Alec: Let’s talk about what mellohome is. Some people don’t know. What is mellohome?Randy Hamilton:So, mellohome is a real estate service provider for loanDepot that connects home buyers and home sellers of loanDepot with expert agents in their area. So, consumer has a need… About 70% of the consumers believe it or not come to us and they do not have a realtor relationship. Or, they’re interested in interviewing realtors and they use us as a platform.Alec: This is such a fascinating change. So, for those of you that aren’t familiar with loanDepot’s platform, we’ll give a little pause and pull everybody up here and kind of explain what we’ve been doing from the direct side. Because people… we have a retail channel, we have a direct consumer channel, both are serving customers the way they want to be served. It’s a very important distinction.And so, from a high level, kind of a contextual understanding here, loanDepot aggregates leads, they make around a million outbound phone calls a day from a contact center. And that contact center’s job is just to reach out and touch people who have pushed a button online.Randy Hamilton:Correct.Alec: And so, they have questions, they want to know information, they push a button, the contact center… these are unlicensed employees. They call the people, they say, “You pushed the button. Do you want to talk to a loan officer what’s going on?” And they kind of qualify them. And then as they find out what they want, they direct transfer those people to the appropriate areas. Retail, direct, all over the country.And I think it’s fascinating how mellohome came into existence. Anthony has such an eye on what’s happening. And for him to understand that hey, 60 to 70% of these customers that we’re contacting, that have pushed buttons online are in this pre realtor state. They’re still kind of poking around. They haven’t decided who to work with. They probably know agents and are connected agents, but they haven’t decided who to use. They get pre qualified and are preapproved by loanDepot loan officers. And then, there’s this unique opportunity to say, “Hey, do you have an agent?” And there comes mellohome.Randy Hamilton:Right. And even if you do have an agent, are you interested in at least maybe exploring other opportunities with someone else? Get their view. We partner you up with somebody that’s an expert that we monitor along the way. That’s-Alec: I find this hysterical that mellohome is a real estate company with no realtors.Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: But because we network with them. Right?Randy Hamilton:Right.Alec: So, kind of go over the structure of that. So, how do agents get into the network? How do they become connected to mellohome and be able to raise their hand and get business from loanDepot loan officers? How does it work functionally?Randy Hamilton:Sure. If you think of it, there’s two paths. There’s the organic. So, mellohome was out in the marketplace, I’ll call it recruiting. And realtors are no different than consumers. They’re looking for ways to… how do they electronically get referrals.Alec: For sure.Randy Hamilton:Right? So, if you think of that, that was one avenue. The other avenue is loanDepot loan officers have realtor relationships-Alec: Absolutely. And they invite them in.Randy Hamilton:It’s about a 50 to 50. To date we have over 4,000 approved agents on the network today.Alec: That’s what I was going to ask. 4,000 agents.Randy Hamilton:Right. And that’s across all 50 States. And it’s probably a 50, 50 split. So, organically they’ve heard about us. They might have heard about us from an industry leader. They might have heard about us just from looking at how do I get referrals?Alec: So, 4,000 agents in the network.Randy Hamilton:Yep.Alec: How old is mellohome?Randy Hamilton:It’ll be two years, April.Alec: That’s super cool. Super cool. So, two years anniversary, congratulations. It’s a big milestone to crush that. And let’s hit some high number stats and then we’ll dive into the complexity of it.Randy Hamilton:Sure.Alec: How many referrals have been sent to agents across the country?Randy Hamilton:So, in dollar amount, it’s a little over $3 billion.Alec: That’s significant.Randy Hamilton:15,000 referrals that are out in the marketplace during that time.Alec: That’s awesome.Randy Hamilton:Right. We probably today have over a thousand that are shopping.Alec: So, active in the market, with agents.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. Pushing right around a billion dollars just in that as far as home buying. 90% just so we’re clear are home buying. But we do have home selling. And a lot of times someone comes to us they’ve pushed the button-Alec: Great point.Randy Hamilton:And all of a sudden it’s, “Hey, I still want to sell.” And that ends up being in a lot of cases two transactions obviously. Realtor loves it, loan officer is able to stay involved along the way. So, 4,000, there’s probably been around 400 million that have been purchased.Alec: You mean closed?Randy Hamilton:Closed transaction today.Alec: Oh, closed transactions. Awesome.Randy Hamilton:Yep. So, it continues to build.Alec: Obviously there’s momentum behind this. Obviously none of that closed in April in 2018, that was like the first referral ever sent out.Randy Hamilton:Right.Alec: But it’s amazing to see the momentum build up. And how does an agent get involved? How do they get into the network?Randy Hamilton:So, they go through a simple application process today, online, obviously. And then we have an onboarding team that vets them make sure that everything’s above board on their end. So, it’s just a simple approval process-Alec: They’re a real realtor.Randy Hamilton:Yes, real realtor, real stats, they have good ratings. We do the same thing that they do right? We look on the different review boards and we actually can see their stats.Alec: Oh my gosh. It’s so funny, the power of brand and Google and all that stuff. It’s like, “Yeah, we do the same thing everyone does. We Google them. We look them up online trying to see what they’re like.”Randy Hamilton:Right. In a lot of cases, it’s somebody that’s a part of a big team. So, it’s one agent but then what it does is it opens up the door for our loan officers to build further relationships with, one agent, but they’re actually connected to a team of 60.Alec: Well, let’s walk through the tactics of it.Randy Hamilton:Okay.Alec: So, if I understand it… as I understand it. Contact center makes a call, engaged with a customer who pushed a button. They want to buy in Georgia. So, the contacts and a person pushes that transaction out to one of our loan officers in Georgia, they get a chance to talk to the customer, find out what their needs are, hopes and dreams are.In your opinion or your experience, where is that customer in the buying process? How long… Are they buying today? Or are they six months out? What are you seeing?Randy Hamilton:I would say it’s a little bit of everything. We have a certain percentage that are already in contract. So, obviously they’re not interested in-Alec: They’re ready to rock and they just want to get a good deal.Randy Hamilton:Right. Or they have a deal and they’re bringing in-Alec: [inaudible 00:10:52] their deal.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. That’s the online customer today right? So, they’ve lots of choices. But I would say the majority of the folks are in this kind of three to four month window. That’s probably your biggest. So, if you were to stat it out there’s very little that actually closes same month right? So, the loan officer’s going to take a pre-qual, they’re going to find out what the needs are, they’re going to potentially… if that customer wants to be introduced to an expert in their local area, that’s where the mellohome comes in.But to get back to the broader piece of this today, we’re still funding loans from 2018. Our closing transactions I would say from referrals. It’s not the majority. The majority is in that kind of four month window-Alec: But they’re still long incubation.Randy Hamilton:That’s right. Longing incubation. There’s a big [tale 00:11:36] on purchase as loan officers now.Alec: So, the loan officer pre-approved the customer. Looks across the street they don’t have an agent. They go, “Fantastic”. It’s a loan officer’s dream. It always has been. Because even when I was originating and I would walk into a real estate office or open house for the first time to meet an agent I’ve never met before. They would always throw in the, “Bring me a buyer.” And I was like, “If I brought you a buyer, then you should just pay me. That’s your job.”And now, loan officers across the country are doing that. They’re doing that exact same thing. They’re saying, “Yeah, I’ll absolutely bring you this buyer.” And they’re sending it to the agents they want to work with in the mellohome network. And it’s crazy… I’ll give a quick kind of anecdote. There’s a loan officer here in Orange County that I watched all the time on the numbers on the screens. And they’re sending on average two to three transactions a month to their preferred agents in the mello network. And, I’m so shocked by it because that would have so transformed my personal origination business and it’s just shows how the changing world is pivoting.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. And the key with it and we can hit on this a little bit later too is that concierge service. So, when they push that button it’s not just going to the realtor, you’ve got now a partner. mellohome service provides this concierge service. So we can speak a little on that.Alec: So, tactically just to put a bow on it so everyone understands. Loan officer preapproves the customer, discovers they don’t have an agent. Says, “Hey, I have some of the best agents in the world in Georgia. I’ve been here for 20 years. I know who they are, would you like to be introduced to them?”. The customer says, “Absolutely. I’m interviewing agents.” And they push a button in our mello system right?Randy Hamilton:They do.Alec: They just go boop. And-Randy Hamilton:They’re connected with the concierge.Alec: Yeah. So, here’s the concierge. So, explain how this position got created, what it’s used for, how it’s positioned in the ecosystem.Randy Hamilton:Sure. So, the concierge is the quarterback that is there. As much as the consumer, the realtor and the loan officer may want to use them to help coordinate things. So, their first job is to do what you just said. They’re partnering them up with the agent.Alec: Yeah. If I’m the loan officer and I say, “Look, I need this deal to go to Susie. She’s one of the best agents in Georgia. I love her.” And after I push the button, the concierge goes, “Got it, sent it to Susie.”Randy Hamilton:And Susie has a text on her mellohome mobile app. She gets a notification.Alec: So, she has an app?Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: So, let’s break that down. So, the agents that get into the network and they’re part of the community, they get a mellohome app.Randy Hamilton:They do.Alec: And so on the app, what happens when they get a deal.Randy Hamilton:They get a text message that says, “Mrs. Jones is ready to be introduced to you.”Alec: That’s got to be a really good feeling.Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: A lot of people got to be like, “Oh, it is incredible.” So, the contact info comes over what else comes over?Randy Hamilton:Contact information comes over, and then what the realtor is able to do is get connected with that home buyer. And then from that point going forward they’re using the application to talk about the status. Like, “We’ve met, now we’re going to go out and start touring.”Alec: Oh, cool. So, they’re updating the app with where the customer is in the process. Alerting the concierge, the loan officer and what’s going on with the customer.Randy Hamilton:That’s right. So, it’s the hybrid in between while the loan is working on getting them approved and collecting their docs, they’re out in the marketplace with a realtor shopping and communicating along the way with this mobile app texts so we can-Alec: You know what I really love about this, it’s giving the customer this cool digital experience right? Because they’re getting connected all over the place without having to do anything. And that’s what technology seamlessly does in the background but we also like the concierge. They’re almost like a neutral helpful third party position right? And they’re staying in touch with the customer. And what I love about that is if the loan officer is dropping the ball, for whatever reason. Life gets in the way or the real estate professional is busy, can’t return calls as promptly or whatever’s happening there. That concierge is like a backdrop for that customer. And I’m assuming they get feedback all the time.Randy Hamilton:Well, right. And one of the things that they’ll actually do and let’s just face it, it’s a competitive world. So, the agent will say to the concierge, “This guy’s talking to three other lenders.” So, you get the signal and make sure that our loan officer is-Alec: Understands that they got to compete.Randy Hamilton:Right. [crosstalk 00:16:06].Alec: That’s incredible.Randy Hamilton:So, along the way that concierge right from the beginning is building that relationship and letting the consumer know like, “I’m here for you, but I’m not going to interrupt if you don’t want to talk, that’s great. But if you need [crosstalk 00:16:19] and if you need somebody to get connected to, I’m a text away, I’m a phone call away, however you want to communicate with me then we go from there.”Alec: And then they’re out, they’re going to go shopping, they go [crosstalk 00:16:29] the escrow and the whole thing happens.Randy Hamilton:That’s what the goal is. Keys at the end of the day. Get funded and get the keys.Alec: It’s a wild paradigm shift. What have you noticed is happening during this process? What are the customers experiencing? What key learnings are you experiencing managing this platform?Randy Hamilton:I would say that the biggest part is the communication between agent, loan officer and all the information that they’re getting. If you think about how these leads are originated, it’s a very competitive environment today. So, consumer has choices. They’re having other voices along the way. And so, what we’re trying to do is really meld the high human touch with high technology right? Because, you have this paradigm shift where people are ducking answering the phone, they want to be texted.Alec: This is so fascinating. Let’s just unpack that for a minute because you’re so right. And this transition from a customer who is a full digital customer. They’re on their phone, no human connection. Just kind of stay at arms length, I just want to shop for homes. I want to get it, I want to get quotes. And then when it has to go into the meat, they have to talk to people. They got to talk to a [inaudible 00:17:43]. They got to talk to a real estate agent and they prefer to text. I joke or I ask questions with a lot of our guys in the field and I go, how many of your transactions start with an upfront communication consultation and then transitioned into just text updates? And it’s the majority.They want the human connection. They want to know everything’s good. They want the comfort. But then they’re like, “Okay cool. Just update me. I got to go do my thing.” That’s wild.Randy Hamilton:And it’s all day every day right? So, if you think of the spectrum of customers, if they want to be left alone, we’re there. If they want high touch, we’re there. If they want that blend-Alec: And who doesn’t want a concierge? Let’s be honest. I would love one in my home buying process. Just somebody to call and be like, “I need help. I need information. And they can direct and assist.”Randy Hamilton:Yeah, and sometimes there is that, “I don’t want to ask a dumb question to my loan officer or my realtor. So can I ask you first?”Alec: Dude that’s gold. You’re right. What else is the concierge doing in your experience? What stories do you have about them and how they’re assisting customers? Do you have any fun stories?Randy Hamilton:I’m trying to think. You’re putting me on the spot on that one.Alec: I know. I just feel like they’re in the middle of getting so much, like the dirt. They’re the one that’s going to get the actual, “I’m really upset with my loan officer.”Randy Hamilton:Yeah. They’re trickling that information through. But that’s… They’re there as, and I call them the quarterback for the transaction. That’s what they’re… it’s a service, but at the same time it’s a support.Alec: Yeah. I got to go sit there and listen to them someday and just hear all the good stuff that happens. Because I’m sure they’re getting all the goods.Randy Hamilton:And a lot of it is text right? The consumer’s texting them back. They have a CRM system that pops up. They’re able to communicate back with the consumer. If the consumer says, “Call me right now in capital letters.” It’s no problem.Alec: And they’re texting out of the mello CRM system?Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: Oh, that’s awesome.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. So, it’s all there right at their fingertips and again, it’s really about human touch using high tech right?Alec: I shared this analogy and I think it’s so right. I ask people in our new hire orientation, “What did Amazon do when they came to market?” And everybody immediately goes, “They sold books, they sold books, they sold books. And I go… In my opinion what they did, was create a software system that connected a book seller and a book buyer.Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: And now you look forward and they connect everything. Even down to the driver. There’s Amazon trucks that are all over the place, right around this building that we’re in. Every time I come to the office, I see like 17 Amazon trucks just burning out to drop off something off instantly. And it’s all being seamlessly connected with technology.And then I watch what you’ve done, and what mellohome’s done to connect a customer to more people in the transaction seamlessly through technology and I’m like, “Man, it’s the same thing happening.”Randy Hamilton:Yeah. It’s a real estate marketplace.Alec: It’s connecting humans to resources, to local professionals to help them get what they want.Randy Hamilton:Right. Making it more efficient. Everyone’s time is busy right? So it allows you to not have to be on the phone, but you can get updated.Alec: Yeah. Now let’s kind of pivot for a second. I want to talk about the learnings we’re having for our loan officers. And then I think this might even translate to other loan officers that participate in digital customer acquisition strategies, whether they’re company provided or they’re buying them on their own or whatever they’re doing.So, functionally in our mello leads program, we send out live transfers to loanDepot fellows.Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: And, it’s been an interesting two years experience. Because I’m on the sales side, you’re on the home side. I mean, from your perspective, how’s it going with these leads? Where are we winning? Where are we not winning? What are we missing and not understanding? And maybe if you know it off the top of your head, what are some of the results that we’ve seen historically with loan officers answering their phone? All that stuff.Randy Hamilton:Well, the first key to it, and as you know is about adoption, is the leads only going to get to you if you’re able to answer the phone. So, you got to be logged in right? To participate.Alec: Yes.Randy Hamilton:So, that would be the first hurdle that is improving over time let’s just say.Alec: Oh my God. Two years ago it was… I’m like, “There’s a customer there, just answer the phone.” I was so mad.Randy Hamilton:Well, and just so the audience knows, the nice thing is there’s someone to catch it, but it kind of rolls from our retail division and then it’s going to go into the direct call center.Alec: For sure, the customer will always get served. Yeah. Which makes me so happy. When my people don’t answer the phone, it just makes me furious.Randy Hamilton:Exactly. So, the next learning is you are dealing in this space with somebody who has a lot of options. So in your typical-Alec: And to your point they’re four to five months, six months out.Randy Hamilton:Right.Alec: So, they’re going to massage this thing.Randy Hamilton:And they’re being braided at the same time. These leads are not exclusive for the majority of them. It’s a competitive marketplace. So, I think that the next piece is building that trust early on in the conversation that is all about, I want to be your trusted advisor throughout this loan process. Now, there’s a segment that are in contract and… “I just want my rate now. Tell me, can you beat it Randy or not? I don’t need any of this other stuff.” But the majority of the customers are what you said. They’re going to be there for the next two, three, four months needing a trusted advisor.So, it’s really about building the trust to where you can get somebody preapproved, because they’re going to need that in order to get out in the market with the realtor right?Alec: You know what I noticed too, and maybe you can validate it or say it’s more anecdotal but, my experience has been with these kinds of customers they do get attacked.Randy Hamilton:Yes.Alec: So, they get called multiple times from multiple-Randy Hamilton:Throughout the day.Alec: Throughout the day, and so they go, “This feels icky.” They kind of back off. Some back off and say, “I don’t need to deal with this.” And then what I’ve noticed has been amazingly effective for local retail pros is the subtle, nice, hands-off followup that says… even via text. Or even via text video, which I know has the best impact and just have a real human show up on their phone and say, “I’m sure you’re getting a lot of attention. I’ve been in Georgia for 20 years, and I’d love to help you if you’re not getting what you need, or if you need more information, or if I can just buy a coffee and help you navigate this craziness.” And, Oh my God, the customer goes, “Thank you. I’m so overwhelmed a little bit. And that sounds really nice.”Randy Hamilton:And everyone’s just asking me for my social security number-Alec: And everyone just wants to run my credit. And this is exactly what you said earlier. That transition from the digital customer to the human touch should be a very elegant, natural process and that’s where I feel like local pros just shine.Randy Hamilton:Yeah.Alec: Because if they come at it with that kind of grace and empathy that, “Hey, this person’s getting bombarded. And if I call them, I’m one of 17 calls that they got today. But if I get strategic and I figure out how to approach them from another angle, or maybe I look them up on social media because I got their contact information and I find out we have mutual friends.”I mean, that one actually is so underrated. Because if you’re in the local community and you get this customer’s information because they pushed buttons online and your ability to go, “Do I know someone who knows them? We live in the same city, maybe I do.” And then you could come at it from a whole new angle and say, “Hey, we’ve got a mutual friend in Johnny over here-“Randy Hamilton:Right. “I want to be your trusted advisor right now. I want to help you-“Alec: “If anything, let me just guide you through the process, give you advice, no strings attached.”Randy Hamilton:Exactly.Alec: What are the learnings that we have as going on in that process?Randy Hamilton:Well, I think the next step is the realtor itself right? That’s a whole other experience. So, I think that the professional loan originator today that is able to differentiate themselves by saying, “Look, I’m not just looking to get your social security number. If you want to give it and we’re going to get this going right away, then great if I already earned your trust. But I want to help you along the way. And by the way, I can also do this for you. I can provide extra services, right? I can partner you up with someone in your local market that is also in your neighborhood every day. Might live in your neighborhood for that matter.”And really just build that relationship. Again, that is no obligation. So, again everyone else’s pinging them from so many other angles, right? Like, we need this, we need that. And we’re here trying to take that, “I want to help you. I don’t want to be your customer. I want you to be my customer for life.”Alec: The other skillset that I know has just been hard for us is lead management. Because, it’s very clear a lot of these customers have a longer tale. And I’ll paint this in the picture of my past experience. Realtors would send me customers that are ready to go. And that was the game. I would help them, I’d go to open houses and do flyers and I would sit there and talk to customers and help them incubate customers, all that stuff for sure. But really the game was, the realtor was kind of the prospecting side of the coin, I would flay the fish. They’d catch the fish, they’d give it to me and I would help them get the loan.And so, I was used to talking to customers that are ready to transact. Well, this customer is not ready to transact necessarily in a majority or not-Randy Hamilton:It’s a new discipline.Alec: Now four to six months of lead management? Man, not a lot of retail loan officers or local pros are good at that. That’s not a skillset they’ve ever developed.Randy Hamilton:And the one thing that everybody should know is, to say it again, that’s where the concierge if you’re using-Alec: Concierge helps.Randy Hamilton:If you are a loan originator at loanDepot and you’re using that service, that concierge on that long tail, they have a CRM system. They’re working with that realtor. They’re touching-Alec: So, even if you’re failing as a loan officer they’ve got your back.Randy Hamilton:That’s right. That’s the key. And one thing that we do notice is the conversion at three months is 20 to 30% higher when they use the service. At six months, it gaps out to over 50%.Alec: Really?Randy Hamilton:Yeah. Closing percentage.Alec: It totally makes sense though.Randy Hamilton:Because again, loan officer your team is busy right? They are busy. I know they do have to have that discipline, but it’s not a hundred percent perfect art yet, everybody is transitioning like, “Jeez, I spoke to Mrs. Jones in March. She’s ready in August. And I forgot that she’s ready in August. But great, I’m using the platform. The concierge is talking with Mrs. Jones and the realtor.”Alec: And you can’t undersell that.Randy Hamilton:No.Alec: That’s an incredible partnership and you’re right. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little teamwork.Randy Hamilton:That’s right.Alec: But I will continue to drive on the LL, like get better at lead management. Learn the skill, learn it because you’re not good at it. And someone’s mad at me now like, “I am good at it.” Okay, you’re the exception but the most are like, “What’s a CRM? I don’t log in and I don’t know what’s going on.” And it’s a huge disadvantage because the way I see it as this evolution continues, lead aggregation and lead management are going to become such a differentiator of who is successful and who is not.Because, the ability to incubate leads with your real estate partners, with mellohome, with the leads coming through mello leads. The ability to take all that in… I always make the joke of, hey, if you walked into a real estate agent’s office and finally landed a meeting, and the first thing they said to you was, I’m so glad you’re here. I get around four to five hundred leads a month from my efforts. How can you help me convert that business? And I just imagined some loan officer deer in the headlights being like, “Just send them to me when they’re on escrow.” No dude, no. New strategic skillset.Because, the way I’m seeing mellohome kind of land in the marketplace is, and I’ll say this tongue in cheek and I don’t mean it so aggressively but, when I was originating and a lot of traditional local pros would still fall into this category, I was almost a vendor. Now, I had to have some skills. I had to have little package loans, walk customers through a complex transaction. I had to have some skills. I wasn’t just a vending machine you put a quarter in you get alone. But, at the same time, I was backing up the agent. I wasn’t organically creating my own business. It was coming in from my referral partners. I didn’t bring anything to the table unless I went back to my old database and did good customer relationship management and then got a new customer and could send it back to my realtor.But, the velocity was never dual. It was coming from them and I was maybe kicking one back over when I could. But I was focusing on loans.Randy Hamilton:It wasn’t 50% of your business.Alec: I think today, the reality of the evolution from a mortgage partner being a vendor, and I’m not trying to offend anybody. But changing that and watching them become strategic partners. It’s such a different conversation. It’s walking into a real estate professional shop and going, “Look, I have the chance to send x number of deals your way a year and you’re one of the best agents in the market and I want to be a strategic partner with you. I don’t want to be a vendor in your office. I don’t want to bring cookies every day.”I’m fine bringing cookies. I always crap on that, I brought cookies, delicious hippo cookies to open houses. They were amazing. But, that conversation shifting is just fascinating to me because-Randy Hamilton:I’m going to let you in to something that we’re actually doing that’s going to get released that… The secret sauce.Alec: See this is great because all four of my listeners right now are going to be just totally… Mike’s laughing.Randy Hamilton:So, if you think about that, the agents are in the same boat that as loan originators were all in right? We’re migrating and changing. So, you just gave a perfect story. It was maybe one tenth of your business where you might have served somebody back up because you touched base with them and they said, “I’m interested in selling my house.” Right?Alec: Totally.Randy Hamilton:And you’re like, “Holy cow, okay, I’m going to get you partnered up-“Alec: I had the golden ticket.Randy Hamilton:”And then we’re going to go help you buy a new one.” Right? So as agents are moving more and more on to social media platforms themselves because they need to get out in front of this audience. One of the things that we’re looking to do is a social media reciprocation program. So, you just mentioned walking in, I want to be your partner. Imagine at the same time loanDepot, mellohome is allowing them to connect with us in social media, and they like us, we like them and we start working together to build that brand.So, their individual brand, our brand and then at a loan officer level, ,you’re generating your individual brand at the same time. So, we’re going to be partnering up with you on that later in this year.Alec: That’s going to be incredible.Randy Hamilton:So, those four listeners just got some insight.Alec: Exactly. So, man, it’s fascinating. The battle for the consumer’s attention. This is a total pivot a little bit. This is kind of outside of mellohome, outside of… but just the conversation I think it’s so cool. The battle for the customer’s attention, to get in front of them, man, they are so… we, are also over marketed to.There’s billboards that change colors as you drive by, there’s your phone in your face all the time, there’s ads everywhere hitting you in the face. I joke to, when you do get your credit pulled in a transaction, that data gets sold and you get hit again by a bunch of people throwing noise at you. And just the race to curve through that is this beautiful combination of a national contemporary brand and a human personal brand coming together to meet a customer where they’re at. Digitally and locally. To build influence and say, “Hey, I’m the right choice for you.”It’s amazing. There’s Superbowl commercials, there’s so much noise and trying to cut through that and find… because at the end of the day the local pros are what’s going to close the deal.Randy Hamilton:That’s right.Alec: So cool.Randy Hamilton:Yeah. At the end of the day, you still… there is a way to probably buy a house. They’re no different than you can technically sell a house today like iBuyer. Call that growing market, but at the same time somebody still wants to talk. And they still need that local presence. So, you’re absolutely right. And it’s about cutting through that to say if I’m continually there with you along the way, we might be texting, we might be this, you have brands that are popping up on your phone all day long, but I was able to be there for you socially, also.So, you were able to meet me, you were able to talk to me, you were able to have one off conversations and then yeah, we do transition to text and stay away and go.Alec: So, we kind of went over a little bit of the stats for mellohome and kind of the velocity. Where’s it going? Where’s the velocity going? Obviously in April, two years ago, there was one deal sent out.Randy Hamilton:Well, if you think of… Well, it’s going with where your business is going too. As more and more of your loan officers are starting to move to serve digital customers that we’ve been talking about, we’re there along the way growing. So, I think month over month, as you have more and more loan officers that are working on our digital program, that is feeding that initial growth.Now, strategically we’re going to start doing some of the things that I said. How do we form better partnerships? Not just about referrals right?Alec: Yeah, great. That’s very cool.Randy Hamilton:So, how do we work with you locally? How do we work with you on social media? How do we work with you from education and really at the end of the day, it’s how does mellohome help partner with our internal loan officers to help them build their brand with their real estate partners? And then for the agents that are not currently working with loanDepot, we’re a great marketing arm to help open that door for our loan officer to say, “You’re a top agent in this area, but did you realize that loanDepot is a top lender in your area and let’s get serious.Alec: That’s fascinating.Randy Hamilton:So, I think we’ll be able to start seeing more and more growth just from that alone and just getting our brand out there in the market. And when I say brand, I mean loanDepot at the end of the day from that end.Alec: Yeah. Man, it’s been a fascinating conversation. So Randy, I kind of always do this as I close down and just kind of give you a chance to… You’ve had mortgage background, real estate background. For the modern loan officer out there who’s tuning in and trying to learn new things and leaning in, what advice do you have for them to kind of help their mindset get right. Maybe a skill set they should be paying attention to. How would you encourage them in this changing dynamic industry right now?Randy Hamilton:Well, I think first off by them joining loanDepot, they need to embrace change right? loanDepot’s trailblazing the change and the shift in consumer behavior. And I think while those days of relying on your agent to give you those referrals, you have to diversify. And we provide that tool kit-Alec: I love that comment.Randy Hamilton:And the platform to grow it right?Alec: Yeah. I had a great episode with David King and one of the things he talked about in marketing was diversifying how you market yourself. So, don’t just be a one trick pony. Don’t just post the same thing over and over again, diversify your messaging, diversify. And actually when I hear diversify, I feel like diversify your business strategies. Get the, what I call traditional business from your local pro real realtors. Great, get those referrals. But also don’t be afraid to lean into other things like mellohome and mello leads and figuring out how to manage that customer too. Because those are humans that want to be served just a different way.Randy Hamilton:Right. And that market’s growing. So, internally, other businesses that I’ve run before, it’s about being proactive versus reactive. Because if you’re sitting back and you’re just saying that everybody is going to walk over to me because Mrs. Realtor has always given me that business. Well guess what, she now has a lot more choices because now she’s out on social media. She’s diversifying, she’s being introduced to new lenders every day. So, you cannot sit back. You need to be proactive.Alec: You know what? I love that. I love that because the consumer is taking control. And we, and I’m putting myself in the consumer bucket, we always want control. That’s why Uber is so successful. We want control of when we order it, we want to see it, we want to see them getting lost, we want to rate them. We want that control.We don’t want to have to call a number and then stand outside like an idiot wondering when they’re ever going to show up. So-Randy Hamilton:And you are researching before that right? Because you can see their ratings before you go, “Oh no, that’s not something I want to use.”Alec: And then all of a sudden now you look at real estate and the same thing’s happening right? The consumer is taking control and you’ve got to go… I’d love to come and diversify, I’d love to becoming a proactive versus reactive and I think it’s right. I think it’s the right thing. It’s just be ready to embrace change. That to me is a message all of us should just curve into our skin.Randy Hamilton:And your loan officers as we’re building your sales force, that’s who needs to come here right? They’re realizing that and they’re going, “Where do I want to hang my hat?” Well, this is where you hang your hat because you’re going to have that ability to trailblaze.Alec: Absolutely. All right, dude. Thank you for coming on.Randy Hamilton:I appreciate it. It was fun.Alec: I think we hit so much stuff in such a short period of time. I’m sure we will probably have to do it again to get everybody to kind of unpack this more because the change in the consumer behavior, how mellohome and loanDepot are responding is really fascinating. And man, what a cool conversation. So, thanks for the time today.Randy Hamilton:I appreciate it.Alec: You’re the man. For all you listeners out there, thank you guys for hanging to the end. I appreciate you. Please share, like subscribe to spread the message. I appreciate you guys have a wonderful day. We’re out.