75: 3 Things Top Brokers Do That You Probably Don’t

Welcome to the 10 Loans a Month podcast, where mortgage brokers become business owners. And now, your host, Scott Peckford.

Hey, Broker Nation. Welcome to I Love Motors Brokering Podcast. This is the short tactical podcast we produce every week. I'm your host, Scott Peckford. All right, let's talk about the top three things top brokers do that you probably don't. So as a broker, as a mortgage broker, I'm speaking as a mortgage broker here, not as a loan officer, but being a broker, we always talk about having choice. We've got to give our clients choice.

The thing that I've recognized about top brokers is they actually work with fewer lenders than you would expect. There is an inverse correlation between volume and number of lender partners. Like you'd think that having 23 lenders. is a good thing okay i got 23 options 23 clubs in my golf bag problem is some of those clubs you don't use too often and if you don't use them very often you're not so good with them but what i have found is that the producers who are doing

big volume typically have a small number of lenders that they work with. And usually it's under five and some of them are even as low as three. So I know one big producer that has three lenders that they work with and 95% of their business will go to those three lenders. If it doesn't fit in those lenders, it's all good. Why would they do this? Why would they have fewer lenders?

And why does this actually work? Well, a couple of reasons. One, they want to make sure that they have high funding ratios. So if you have high funding ratios and if you have high efficiency, that means lenders are going to love you. Lenders are going to love you. And that means they're going to give you more yeses.

More yeses means more clients are happy, means you get paid. Everything works better in that scenario. And so by having fewer lenders and you can increase your efficiency and make sure you have high funding ratios, lenders are happy. You also typically will get more compensation.

Lenders often have better comp for the more volume that you do with them. And because of the relationship is so much stronger and you're a big account to them, think of it this way. If you're sending $50 million to one lender a year, you call them up on an exception, they're going to help you.

And I have seen this happen time and again, where a broker who does maybe $5 million a year with a lender, they get said no and then a broker who does 50 million with them gets a yes and it seems like it's unfair shouldn't happen yes that's all true but ultimately we're still in the relationship business and relationships still matter and somebody still has to click that

approve button. If the people clicking the approve button like you and you have high funding ratios and you do a lot of volume with them, you're going to get exceptions that other people won't get, bottom line. If you're a top broker,

Why would you spread yourself across 23 lenders? Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? So what they do is they go, OK, I'm going to focus on three to five and I'm going to push all my volumes to them. And the truth is, is that you may be thinking, well, Scott, what about choice? Thing is, there's a lot of overlap. So the mortgage business. is a commodity ultimately, and you only need a handful of good lender partners to solve almost every scenario problem.

And so maybe there's going to be a few scenarios that you wouldn't be able to solve because you don't have that one lender. But the top brokers are like, I don't even want that file. Frankly, I wouldn't even want the file that needs that one exceptional. lender program that I don't want to do on a regular basis. That's the first thing that I've noticed about top brokers is they have fewer lenders than you would expect.

The second thing about top brokers that may surprise you is they say no a lot more than yes. They say no a ton, actually. They do this because, again, back to efficiency, they want to make sure they increase efficiencies. They'll look for ways to say no early in a file. You know, Jim Toluca is one of our coaches in the academy. Well, in that first seven to 10 minutes, he's trying to figure out a way to decline them.

Do I even want to work with them? Because if I don't, I'm going to tell them quick. I'm going to move on. And because I want to be able to serve the type of client that I'm ideally. situated and focused on serving dion begs one of our coaches in the past and he always say to me like scott i'll say no to one bad file so i can say yes to two good ones this takes a psychological

impact on you. You've actually got to be like, you're basically saying no to money. Yes, I could probably get this funded, but the return on my time, that's going to take me four times as much energy and effort as my ideal client. I'm just going to say no.

And so we're not saying you're just saying no to clients that have bad credit you can't get loans for. They're saying no to clients that can get done, but they're not going to do them because they don't fit their avatar client. And so this happens all the time. Ryan Wiley is one of our coaches. He has his business commandments. And so he has a whole bunch of.

things that he'll say no to like literally on that first call he's trying to figure out how can I decline this person and he'll always ask them hey have you talked to your bank Why haven't you talked to them first? Most mortgage brokers don't want to bring that up because let's not talk about the other woman, the other man, but he always does. He's like, why haven't you talked to them?

Because he's not going to lose that file at the 11th hour because the person's working with them and Ryan. And so if he doesn't think he's a good fit, he's like, go to your bank. Frankly, I don't care. You know, the next client is going to come along. So that's another thing that I find that they do is they say no frequently.

has his business commandments. We listened to my other podcasts. I love mortgage brokering. Sylvia Ho is one of our coaching clients. And so she doubled her volume from 25 to 50 million. And the biggest change she made to her business was actually creating a no-go list. So a list of clients she said no to, because all of a sudden...

sudden saying no to these clients and she'd been at the same volume for years like years and years it's funny hey one tweak there's a couple more she made but that was a major improvement that she made was by creating a no-go list and being like I'm going to say no to these people yes I could make money on it. Yes, I feel like I'd like to help them. But unfortunately, they're not my ideal client. So I'm just going to say no.

I'm going to say no to them. And I'm going to trust that by saying no to them, that extra time that I got, I'm going to use to go find more of my ideal clients. In her case, she doubled her volume, which is pretty freaking awesome. I see that happen routinely. busier brokers get is they make that no-go list gets longer and longer. And they actually do more volume, just like they have fewer lenders. They say no more and they do more business.

Okay. And the third thing that top brokers do that you probably don't is they actually make it harder for clients, not easier. So what do you mean, Scott? So I call this applying filters. So by applying filters to your business on the front end, you'll actually eliminate this goes.

back to saying no more. Yes, you have to say no, you do have to say no, but also sometimes your filters will say no for you, you'll actually eliminate people. And so for instance, Jim to Lucas, one of the things he does after that first call is okay, great, here's what I need from you. This is the application. Oh, and by the way, I need a credit card for the appraisal.

Even if he's going to use an automated appraisal, he always gets a credit card because if a person's not willing to give a credit card, they're not serious about working with them. And so it's a pretty high bar, actually, because a lot of times I find the two things people are the most reluctant to give you are their social insurance number, social security number, if you're in the US and a credit card. Those two things feel like I'm not giving you that. I feel like you could.

impersonate me and then with your credit card you could spend my money on stuff on amazon or whatever they think and so jim they'll put one of his big filters and one of the reasons he can do 700 mortgages in a year is because the only people getting into his whole process are very compliant. They're basically saying, hey, here's my credit card. Yep, I'm in.

And then it works significantly better. The other thing is that like another guy, Callum Ross, who's a big producer and his assistant before they'd even get to talk to Callum, if it was a B file, he'd be like, no, we don't do B files. And he wouldn't even refer them out.

So this kind of goes against like, well, why wouldn't you refer them out? Because when you refer them out, you still got to manage that relationship. You still got to make sure they're being taken care of. He's like, yes, I could make more money. I could forward those files out. But he's like, if I want to focus on my ideal client, which is helping people create wealth. using mortgages, then I'm just going to say no to these people that don't fit.

So it's counterintuitive, right? They've got fewer lenders than you'd expect, usually less than five that do the vast majority of their business. The second thing is they say no a lot more than yes. So they say no to opportunities. They say no to clients and it gives them time.

work with their ideal client. And then finally, they make it harder to work with them, not easier. They put filters on the front end that most people would be afraid to do. The filter that Ryan puts on is, have you talked to your bank? They don't ask that question. They're like, I don't want to ask that question. Right. And so that's a key thing that Ryan does. And that's it. So if you are a top broker, look at your list, see if this is true for you.

If you're not a top broker and you're like, hey, man, how do I get there? Go check out 10 loans a month dot com. We have an academy that we open up a few times a year. Some of the folks I'd mentioned, Ryan, Jim, these are top producing mortgage brokers who have. created a niche area where they coach on and can help you increase your business, scale it up and improve it. Like I talked about Sylvia and many other clients we work with. So go check out 10 months a month.com.

And thank you for checking out this episode. And yeah, it's counterintuitive. Some of these things are like, it's the opposite of what you think. This is the last point I'll leave you with is like in golf, if you've never golfed before, there is a inclination that to make the ball go high, you have to swing up on it, right?

but of course if you golf at all you know that's not the case if you want the ball to go up you hit down on it because of the shape of the club and it's the same thing in the mortgage business it's the opposite of what you think It's actually fewer lenders. It's more no's and harder to work with equals a busier broker. So check that out. And thanks again for listening to this episode. This is an I love mortgage brokering production.