podcast, the show where we flip the real estate status quo on its head and put loan officers into the driver's seat. We give you all the tools, strategies, resources, and mindset needed to modernize your mortgage business and thrive. My name is Luke Shankula, aka Long Form Luke, and this is the Loans On Demand podcast. going on? Welcome to the Loans On Demand Podcast, the show where we help loan officers flip the status quo on real estate agents and put loan officers in the driver's seat.
And today I'm excited because for the second time, we have Skylar Wallace. He is the co-founder of The Level of Lenders, all around badass, and a good friend of mine. Funny enough, we had him on the podcast roughly 60 something episodes ago back in November of Funny 2022. enough, we had him on the podcast roughly 60 something episodes ago back in November of 2022. A lot has changed. We've become great friends since that day.
So just wanted to bring it back on here and get a little update on how everything's going in the business, how things have changed, but also just to give a bunch of value. His team is growing in this market. So really excited to have him here. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, man. It's good to be back. Yeah, man, let's go, bro. I'm excited.
So, you know, for anybody who hasn't listened to that episode, and I do recommend going back and listening to that episode because Skylar does go a lot through traction, which is how they've built a lot of their business. There's a book called Traction, and they talk a lot about process and how they've done that. So I really highly recommend going back and listening to that episode. But give a little background for anybody who hasn't listened to that one.
Who are you? How long have you been in the business? All that fun stuff. And then we can jump into the meat and Yeah, for sure. Got into the industry full-time in 2019. I was in banking prior to that. I had a little mortgage background, actually got a job for Wells Fargo financial out of college, did mortgage for a couple of years, did some refi stuff, but nothing at all like what it is now. And then got into community banking.
So I did commercial lending and agriculture lending, a bunch of that stuff, and then moved over full-time to the company I'm at now, Flat Branch Home Loans. In 2019, my partner, Sam Hickey, recruited me and didn't necessarily want to build a great big team, but had a proposition. He said, I either want to work the same and make more money or work less and make the same amount of money. That was pretty much it.
I made a move over, just flat branch, had a lot more products than what I had at a community bank and just thought it would be interesting to learn more about mortgage. And so when I moved, the only rule was that I wanted to build everything intentionally on a system. And so that's where that traction came in. We get into details deep on that on the last podcast. But I started in June of 2019. We officially launched as a team, the Level Up Lenders in January of 2020.
And so that first year, I don't know, we funded 408 loans, I think, decided to start like recruiting and hiring other loan officers. And over time, have just been gradually chipping away at what it means to grow a team. Unfortunately, the market did what it did made it harder. But we've consistently grown by about 30% year over year since then. It's kind of a fun stat. When we started in 2020, we set a big goal. We wanted to close 300 loans in 2020.
And 300 was just like a random number we pulled out of the air. We, at the time we're reading Grant Cardone's 10X book that he had. And it's like, you know, like set these goals so big. And like, we're like, well, we did a hundred last year. So that'd be a thousand. And like, that was too big. Like we're not closing a thousand. So 300 was a good spot. And so like every year since then I've tracked when we close our 300th loan.
And like that particular year, we actually hit 300 at the very end of October, like October the 22nd, we closed our 300th loan. This year, we closed our 300th loan on May 14th, which is pretty long. So yeah, it's changed a lot. We've got 26 people on our team now. We've got 10 producing loan officers at different points in their business. We have very, very experienced folks that have been doing it for 15 years. We have brand new people that just started two months ago, all across the spectrum.
So still running on traction. We still have systems and processes in place. It's just getting harder as it gets bigger. Sure. new At a level, it becomes you're then managing the managers, right? At some point, right? Maybe you're not quite there because you're probably still managing most of the people that are in your team, but there's probably a point where there is manager. Well, maybe you do have, I mean, you probably do have managers on the ops Yeah, we do.
Our ops manager, she is impressive. In 2020, she actually started at FlatBranch then as well. And she was the receptionist, just sitting at the desk, answering phones. And we got so busy, we needed help. And so have you ever thought about being an LOA? And so like she was brand new to the industry. I think she joined our team in March or April of that year. And now she's running our operations department. She has, I think 11 people under her.
And so yeah, when a loan breaks now, I don't do anything. It's all her. I mean, if I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I could fix a loan anymore. It's been so And does all of that stuff now. So yeah. Yeah. So you guys, I mean, you guys are on pace to what close about a thousand transactions this year should. Yeah. We'll see how it shakes out somewhere between eight 50 and a thousand, depending on what happens. We've got this month volume wise will be our biggest, we have small loans.
So historically our average loan size, $161,000. We've got right now for June 85 units on the books for 17 and a half million. So it's not bad, not our highest unit month, not volume month ever. So that's good. and we're cruising along. So 85 units in California would probably yeah, be closer to like 45 million. 40, So bro. yeah, sorry, But you know, again, a ton of volume.
And I know you have a mission and a why behind that and why you guys do what you do and why you serve the communities you do. So I know you want to talk a little bit about that. Let's kind of walk through understanding. And I do think we touched on this a little bit in that first call, but I know things have changed since then. So what does that look like? And sort of like the new version of the why. bro. yeah, sorry, Yeah. So there's two versions of the why.
There's like your personal why behind what you're doing. And then there's like your like professional mission, like what is your team or even just yourself in your business trying to accomplish? And like for me personally, I can kind of hit on that first. There has been like a lot of soul searching. I had really great success like out of the gate. Like, I mean, I did in my first full year as an LO, I funded 150 units from nothing.
And so I could have kept going on that, but there wasn't a lot of satisfaction. Like I was making more money than I ever made. You know, it was all the things. And I was like pretty miserable, really. And so it caused like a lot of soul searching for me. And so like the personal why, I've gone through like a series of ideas.
And like it started off Jim Collins good to great has the hedgehog concept which is about businesses it got me thinking about internal whys and it's what can you be the best in the world at what drives the economic engine like you know how do you make money and what are you deeply passionate about and that led me down this like thought experiment of like what in in the world, you know, why am I not happy crushing it? Like, I don't understand.
And led me to a book, Victor Frankel's book, Man's Search for Meaning. I mean, it's kind of a hard read, you know, he was in a concentration camp and dealing with, and it's literally like his autobiography of that experience.
But out of that, he created something called logotherapyotherapy which basically digs into the primary motivation in life like he believes that as humans the primary motivator is to find meaning in what you're doing and so from there there's a japanese idea called like ikigai ikigai is cool i-k-i-g-a-i and it's this idea that there's a motivating force that gives a person like a sense of purpose.
And so I'm like reading all of this stuff and doing all this research and trying to figure out why am I closing all these loans and making all this money? And like, honestly, I was happier when I was making 55,000 a year working at the bank. Like it's a weird thing. And so ultimately I came up with this idea, ideal output, which is kind of like combining all these different things. And it's similar to hedgehog concept. But it's like, what do you enjoy?
Like, what are the types of work that you enjoy? What brings satisfaction to your life? So it's like, when you complete a project, you have like goosebumps, and it's like really, really gratifying. And the third is stability. So as I've gone through all of this, what are some skill sets that I've developed that provide a stable income for me? For example, sales, right? Having the ability to sell. You having the ability to market. Like you'll always be able to make money marketing.
That's a stable skill that you have. And so that a of where I figured out for me, what I love the most is when I help somebody else find success in this business. And so like my, you know, business life crisis is what I called it was like, okay, I got to get out of doing loans. And we got to go all in on this team, so that I can help support other people achieve greatness, because that's, for me, my ideal output is helping other people.
And so in order to do that, we have to look at the team and give people a compelling reason to come work for us. And so that's where the like professional why came in, is there's all kinds of loan officers. And when you join a team like ours, one of the things that you have to sacrifice is personal income, because along with our team comes with resources and resources cost money.
So LOs that join our team naturally make less than if they were working independently because they're giving up basis points basically to help pay for all the team that we This is on a per unit basis if they were to, you know, technically close equal. I assume they typically are closing more deals. And making I assume they typically are closing more deals. And making more money ultimately. That's the bet. Yeah. And so for us, it was like, you know, why do we want to build a
team? Like, what do we want to accomplish? And so we chose to focus on like making impact in rural America. And so when I was a community banker, I noticed that like I got to meet a lot of community bankers and got to know that industry really well, and they are not hungry to get loans closed. And so I started thinking like,
what does that do for a community? If the only outlet for people living in that community is the community bank and the community bank is not bending over backwards to get deals done, like, does that impact that community? And ultimately what I've started figuring out is that, yeah, it does. And communities whose only outlet is a small community bank have lower home ownership rates than communities that have more lending options.
And so that told me like, we need to figure out a way to bring a high quality, like professional mortgage experience to small towns. And if we can do that, then more people will have access to financing and then more people will become homeowners. And you push that homeownership rate up in a community, lots of cool things happen. The economy as a whole starts going up. The town gets cleaned up. People have pride of ownership.
Crime rates drop, employment rates go up, everything benefits from that. And so our why that we ultimately decided to do was number one, we want to bring a professional level of mortgage to rural America. And then in addition to that, we want to focus on wealth creation. And so I had a really hard time figuring out how to measure the impact that we're making. And so finally, I just did like basic math. Every time we close a loan, I was like, what happens to that person when we close that loan?
And so like on an average loan, it's open like six years. It's a little over six years right now. It's misleading right now because it's actually going up because everybody did all these 3% loans and 21 that they're holding onto. And so that's causing the average life of the loan to increase. But I look at over that six-year period, what's the amortization say on average? How much does that debt pay down? And so there's debt pay down.
And then at a 4% home appreciation rate, which is pretty conservative over the last five years, how much does that home go up over that same six-year period? And basically what happens for us on an average is every time we close a loan, that person or family generates about $95,000 of equity in that home. And so now we have a metric to measure wealth creation. And it's an average metric. I could probably employ some technology like HomeBot or something and get it exactly.
But it's more about the spirit of the goal, you know? And so we decided we're going to see if we can create a billion dollars worth of wealth primarily in rural America through home ownership. And now Level Up Lenders has a why. And so for me personally, like managing the team and empowering loan officers to do well, and also letting them be a part of a mission driven team in this industry. Like that is all for me, like my personal ideal output, like satisfaction and happiness has gone way up.
So the icky guy is, is good. Now I have a sense of purpose, right? But then the team, they all get to come together and all of operations and support and everybody gets to buy into that. And so they have a sense of purpose in what they're doing as well, because like we say, you know, every file's a family and every single person that comes across our desk is an opportunity to educate about how homeownership can impact a life, you know, it's a big deal.
And so for us, that's been the driving force. And I think it's probably the main reason why we continue to grow is because we have a mission. So it's a tough thing. Figuring out the why is not easy, both personally and professionally is really, really, really difficult to do. yeah, that makes sense, man.
And I think that's the biggest thing that allows you and the team to continue to grow is like knowing that, yeah, things are hard right now, or they're harder to get, you know, business or whatever it is, but you have a mission and you have a mission that's not just, hey, I want to make a bunch of money because if it's just about making a bunch of money, we've seen how many people like came in for the money and left because the money kind of dried weren't passionate about the
work they were doing. They were just like literally interested in the income that they were earning. And so like everybody is like out there chasing their passion, you know, you don't have to be super passionate when the paychecks are huge. And the money's easy, you know, but when it gets harder, that's the trick. Like Alex Ramosi has a quote, you know, people want to find their passion. But like passion isn't something that you find, like you create it by getting good at something.
And so that's the problem, right? Is that in order to have real passion about your work, you have to be good at it. But the only way you get good at it is if you do the work. And so it's kind of hard to get good at mortgage not easy. 100%. And there's a lot of things you have to be as a loan officer that is not just, you know, A, I'm going to go learn these guidelines. Because yeah, there's guidelines. And then there's marketing.
and then there's marketing and then there's sales and then there's taking a 1003 and then there's submitting files and then there's, you know, gathering conditions and there's having conversations. There's, you know, all this stuff that you have to deal with as a loan officer. It's not super like, you know, cut and dry. And I know you've talked about this before, but you know, a lot of people kind of, they're trying to fill these two roles that typically don't fall into one person.
I mean, you guys have the loan doers and the loan getters because of that fact that people typically aren't great at both sales and also the details that come along with, you know, structuring a loan. That was the big thing that we did differently on our team. And like I coach some now. And so like I was trying to coach people on how to build a team the way that we do. people on how to build a team the way that we And do. so I had to figure out like, what
do I call these split roles? Because a loan officer is kind of a unicorn because they're able to go out and sell and get business. But then they're also able to then reel it back in and be analytical and sit behind a computer and like crunch out the loans and do the business. And that person is pretty unique to be able to be good at both of those things. Because one of those is more of like an extroverted skill set. The other is very much an introverted skill set.
And so what we ultimately did is we split the role and I make things as easy as I can. And so I just called the people that go out and get loans, I call them loan getters. And then the people that sit behind the computer and actually work up the loans, I call them loan doers. And so we have loan getters and loan doers. And so we have loan getters and loan doers, and they're two separate roles.
And so yeah, our LOs go out and make partnerships with realtors or whoever, and they bring in the business, but then they don't then have to sit behind a computer and actually do the business. We have a whole ops team that does all of that. And it's, I think, easier to find talent that way. And it's cheaper. I mean, a great all-star LO makes a lot of money, whereas a great loan getter and a great loan doer make good money, but it's not the same. You know what I mean? Like those are more jobs.
They're less Just to kind I get into that whole idea of getting more agent partners and things like Obviously we're in a market where the majority of loan officers you So, Let's right. just Yep. call it I of, mean, real estate agents and loan I we are in a time where volume I think that. is down to levels in like the So and that's obviously are, population know, struggling. has So there is a limited that. amount mean, of transactions that are happening officers.
and there's mean, people that are still your team's still winning 1970s. Right. in this market. like, grown. winning. Obviously, So there is business to be had. a lot of people have exited the business as well. Obviously, And so that opens up some market share as well to be had. So I mean, obviously, I know a lot about what you guys do, but give a little sort of like synopsis as to like, how have you structured your business from a perspective to like go out and find more agent partners?
What does that sort of look like? So the trick that you have to consider with realtors that like, I kind of had an epiphany when I thought of this is that a lot of loan officers are going all in on getting business from realtors, which, you know, I get makes sense. But what if the realtors aren't
actually good at lead generation? So like, we're making an assumption that just because they close, you know, some units and have whatever it means to be a qualified realtor that they can continue to bring leads in. And so I started like thinking about that. I'm like, well, I've met some of these people and like, I don't really know how good they are at lead generation. And so when it gets harder, what if their business starts to dry up?
So a couple of things that we started doing to see is that the first one is like, we have started doing some door knocking campaigns with realtors. And the reason why we're doing that isn't to go out, you know, with a notepad, knock on a door and get an application. Like we don't expect to go door knocking and find a loan. but we invite realtors to go and we make co-branded door hangers to go. And really what's happening there is it's an audition for the realtor.
And I want to know, is this person actually skilled? Do they have the art of sales? Because it is tough and those home buyers are fewer and far between and the inventory is less. So if I'm going to trust this realtor to be able to go out there and get a deal done, I need to know that they can sell. So I want to see how they act when they knock on a door of a total stranger and see what they do.
And what happens from that audition is that number one, you find realtors that maybe they don't have the numbers on MMI, but they haven't been in it that long, but guess what? They can sell. Like, you know. I bet on that horse over time because they've got the skillset. They've got the gift of gab and they know what they're doing. Number two is if a realtor is willing to do that with me, that tells me they're willing to do what it takes to get leads.
It's naturally easier for a realtor to get a homebuyer lead than it is for a lender. They're just one step up funnel than we are, but you have to make sure that they're willing to hustle. That's a's a big thing that we do. But then from there, the conversation with a realtor, I actually bring it all the way back to this idea of ideal output. And if I'm talking to a buyer's agent, I make an assumption, but I will test that assumption on them is that I'll explain what ideal output is.
And I'll say, hopefully for you as a buyer's agent, you get enjoyment from just walking around and looking at houses. I'm going to assume that you got into real estate because you like houses. That's probably fair, right? I'm hoping that satisfaction for you is when you have a tough buyer and they've looked at 15 houses and you finally walk them into one and their jaw drops and they're like, this is it. This is the one. Like, I'm going to hope that you get some satisfaction from that.
Like that is probably in your wheelhouse. And the other is, you know, closing day with the first time home buyer. Like I'm hoping that that is what, you know, gets you out of bed. And number three is I really, really hope that you can sell like that stability skill. And so what we do is we talk to realtors that way. And we get them to see eye to eye that like, hey, your best use is to be showing properties to qualified buyers, right? Like, that's ultimately what you need to be doing.
And so we designed an entire process around taking as much off of your plate as possible, so that you can spend as much time as possible doing the ideal output work. So what that means, number one, is that you'll be happier because hopefully you're spending less time with the crap that you don't like doing and the parts of your job that you hate because our team's able to do a lot of those for you. But also you'll make more money because you spend more time doing the income earning activity.
And so that's kind of the value proposition that we make to a realtor is that we will do a lot of the busy work for you. We will sit down in front of a computer and make the weekly update calls. We'll call the listing agents and let them know what's going on. We'll call the buyers and let them know what's going on. We'll make sure that the title companies are aware of what's going on so that you can be focused on getting more leads and showing more properties.
Another thing that we'll do is we will pre-screen people. There's a lot of realtors that still think that the way that they secure a client is to spend time with them. And so they're willing to go show properties to people that they have no idea if they're qualified or not. And they're afraid to ask them because it's an awkward question if you ask somebody if they've been pre-qualified by a lender. So they'll just start showing properties to strangers.
And so we explain to them, number one, that's a waste of your time. Because what if they can't actually buy? What if they're three years away from buying? It's just not a good use of your time. And so we coach them through a process of how they can refer more of their leads over to us. And then we will screen those leads and we rate them and we let them know, hey, this one is ready to buy today, go show them property. This one is going to be three months.
If you have a drip campaign, put them in there. Otherwise, we will take care of the heavy lifting. And once they are ready to buy, we'll refer them back to you and then you can go show them property. So it's all about optimizing the realtor's schedule. That's what we're trying to do. And the right realtors that have business and understand that, appreciate it and send the business to Yeah, that makes sense.
And so obviously what you're doing is you're providing a bunch of value in ways that most loan officers are not doing. And I know one of your big principles as well is you have what, seven or eight guarantees, right? When I talk to loan officers on a regular basis, I mean, we've talked to 1000s of loan officers over the years. Most loan officers say one of the three things, right? I answer the phone, I have good rates, I close on time, like, you know, those types of things,
right? I work on the weekends, like that is the thing that people provide as value or like, oh, I've worked for this broker for 10 years. It's like, who cares, right? Like, no one really cares that you work for a broker. No one cares that you're local, right? They do care, right? I'm not saying they don't care about those things. Yeah. Yeah. But from the perspective of this is not valuable to gaining new business from these people, like that is the thing that most people fail at.
And so when someone's looking to go out and get more agent partners, like how do you structure your unique value prop? How do you structure your offer or what you do for them? Yeah. So everybody has a natural level of trust. And so some people, myself, I make a decision in life to just trust everyone on the surface. I do that because it's actually not as common as you think to get screwed over.
For the most time, people tend to be good and it makes my life more enjoyable, but not everybody lives that way. And there are some people out there that are highly, highly skeptical and trust has to be earned. And so every realtor has this trust level where when you achieve that amount of trust with that person, they will send you a lead. And so the trick is like, you know, it's the trust bucket. How do I fill the trust bucket up enough so that they will trust me with a lead?
Why are leads a big deal? If you think about it, if they're a buyer's agent, like what does that lead represent? Like it's their kid's college education. Like it's the money that pays for the roof over their family's head. Like it's actually, it gets really serious really fast. If you start thinking about the value of the lead that loan officers are calling up randomly on the phone and asking for, like, if you really think about what you're asking for, it's pretty wild.
Like it's Like it's that also Yeah. Here's the other thing too. It's like, yeah, you know, maybe that deal won't close because not every deal closes, but still that is their reputation. What you're asking them to do is put their reputation on the line for you, Mr. Loan Officer, you build zero trust with they don't have any idea how you work. They have no idea if you call the leads, you have no idea if it takes you 48 hours to answer the phone, like, we don't know any of those things, right.
And so by as like, a lot of times people like, you know, and obviously, we do the marketing, we go direct to consumer. And so like, a lot of times what loan officers will do is like, Oh, yeah, I got a referral for you. So like, I want all your business, you have to give me all your business. I'm like, Oh, you don't get to do that, man. Like it's not like you go with a real estate. It's like you give them a deal and you say, Hey, you know what? I am looking for a reciprocal relationship.
I'll take a deal back. Then we can figure out if we want to work together. Right. It's not going to like be crazy and like be super cocky about like, I'll give you one referral after you gave me 15. Like now you owe me all your business. That's crazy talk. Yeah. The problem though, is that occasionally a realtor will do that. And so there's these one-offs that then make people think, well, it's possible. So I'll just keep calling until I find those people.
The reality is that like trust is earned through small kept promises. And so the way that I create the value proposition is how can we structure this in a way where I can continually deliver these small kept promises over and over and over until they think, okay, this person's legit. And so the first guarantee that I encourage loan officers to make is a lead follow-up guarantee. The thing is, is that our lead follow-up guarantee is kind of intense.
So we guarantee to reach out seven times in four days. If you send me a lead, we will reach out to that lead seven times over the period of four days. If at any point along that we connect and get an application, we'll let you know in real time and we'll get you the initial decision within 24 hours. If we get to the end and we've done our seventh reach out, we will follow back up with you and ask you how you want us to proceed with that lead.
And so by doing it that way, what that tells them is that every single lead that you send to us will be worked to completion, whether we don't hear from them and we follow up with you and let you know, or we do hear from them and they tell us to buzz off, then we'll let you know, or we get an application, right? And so the mistake that people make is they hear me say that seven times in four days and they say, Ooh, that sounds good. I'm going to do that.
But maybe that's too much work for you right now. Like you don't have to paint yourself into this corner and make your life miserable. You could say, Hey, if you send me a lead, I guarantee I'll try to reach them three times that day. And guess what? Like that's a guarantee. And then if you do it and they send a lead over, you call them, you text them, you call them again, you don't hear back. And then you just let the realtor know, Hey, I haven't heard from him.
You know, you don't have to make these guarantees complicated. The reason why you're doing it is to start And And so realtor sends the lead, you do what you say, guess what? You just established trust, the trust bucket filled up some, right? And so from there, like the next guarantee we make is we'll give you the initial decision within 24 hours. So the application comes in, we let them know, Hey, we got an application. We're working on it within 24 hours. That's when we give our rating.
And so we're the level up lenders. So we have level one, two or three approval, or we have a mortgage action plan. So there's four outcomes. Level one is like, Hey, these people are ready to roll, you know, incomes verified. Everything's good. They can buy their approved conventional up to 400,000. Here we go. Level Right. two is like, these hey, people are ready to You roll. income's know, verified, everything's They good. can buy their approved conventional up to 400,000. Here we go, right?
Level two is like on the initial 24 hour period, if it's a level two, what that means is that this could take up to seven days for us to get this approved. So maybe there's variable income and we have to get verifications of employment. Maybe we need tax returns, you know, whatever it is, right?
And so when I call a realtor at the end of that 24-hour period, and I say, hey, this one's a level two, I have just bought myself seven more days to get this file approved because I've set the expectation that way up front. The next one is a level three. If it's a level three, it can take up to 30 days. So maybe we're going to do a rescore. Like they're going to pay a credit card down. We're going to rescore them. To do this loan, we have to have this credit score.
And again, when we call them up and say, Hey, this one's level three, the realtor partners trust us. Okay. Yeah. There's not a deal right now, but we just bought ourselves 30 days to do that. And so again, it's just doing what we said we were going to do 24 hours after the application, we're going to call you and tell you where we're at. And then if it's a level two, that means that in as long as seven days, I'll have this person ready to go.
And so we set all these expectations and we just, throughout the process, we just build those guarantees. And we've got, I think, 11 guarantees now that we make as we move through the process, but it's all designed to build trust. And so all our loan officers have to do, we do the presentation. We've got like a 45 minute long presentation that we give that walks through and does the guarantee stack. You know, we guarantee this, we guarantee that, we do this, we do that, blah, blah, blah.
Then we just do what we say. And that's literally it. We do what we say. And guess what? If you do what you say, now the realtor can manage their business because they know what they're getting out of your business. Right. And so now like we all have structured processes because we all approach things the same way. We're on the same page, right? The trust is there. And especially I'm in your program right now, learning how to become
a great online marketer, right? And the things that you guys do to get leads is amazing. And like the technology that you use and all of this work and all of this psychology and all these amazing things, literally all we do is we call a realtor, we give them our pitch, and then we do what we say. And we just do that over and over and over and it.
Yeah, but here's what I'll say is one thing that I think you're taking away from that is you followed the process, which was, again, we talked about this a lot in the traction book that we had talked about in the last episode, but what you essentially did, and you know, I'm going to use a little bit of marketing speak is you created an offer, which is, Hey, this is an irresistible offer, which gets people to want to work with you. And this is not an irresistible offer.
That sounds like everybody else. You sound different, right? And there's this concept of new opportunity versus an improvement offer, right? And so what most loan officers are doing is they're using an improvement offer. I'm marginally better at answering the phone. I have marginally better rates. I have marginally better service, right? Cool. Like you can close in one day less, you know, you answer the phone on the weekends or whatever it is, right?
Like you're just a little bit better, but most people are very resistant to change unless they feel like there's a new opportunity. And so a way to create a new opportunity is to create something that sounds completely different than everybody else. Now, does Skylar communicate? Sure. But instead of saying, Hey, we communicate well, he says, no, here's what we're going to do. Here's the plan. You know, we have a guarantee that we're going to follow up with you on whatever Monday, Tuesday.
I don't know what is. That's the pipeline guarantee. We guarantee an update before noon on Monday, every week for every deal that's active in the Right. And so that's again, so you've structured it in a way that's like, it sounds like a new opportunity because every single loan officer says I communicate well. Now, whether they execute on that or not, that's one thing, but we have a tangible way that Skylar and his team communicate.
And it's outlined in a way that's like, Hey, like this is what you're going to get. You don't have to guess as to what good communication means to this loan officer. What it means to this loan officer is that it's on Mondays by noon, you're going to have an update, right? Like regardless, you're going to have an update. Like that's how clear those offers need to be.
And so while, you know, I agree that all you do is this is like, it's because you have created it in a way that's actually, we call it sexy, right? It's a offer that makes people want to make a change. And a lot of times people go and they're banging their heads against the walls or they don't want to call agents because like, they've never sat down and thought, how can I show up in a different way than every other loan officer? Because it's hard. I mean, I get it.
Like I wouldn't want to call real estate agents on Mondays and basically say my job description, like that sucks. Like I understand why loan officers don't want to call agents, but it's really not that difficult. Like you said, like you have to create something that sounds different than everybody else and then deliver on it. it's That's exactly right.
Yep. And then the other thing to consider is that the best realtors, if their business is operating on all cylinders and they have as much business as they want and life is good, those are the ones that they aren't actually going to talk to you because they don't have any reason to, but the rest of them have something wrong. And so when I was in business school, I got an MBA with a focus in entrepreneurship. And so I had like a year of classes about entrepreneurship.
And at the start of every single class, we were launching fake businesses. And the key that our instructor would say at the beginning of every class is where's the pain. And so if you're going to launch this business, it needs to solve a problem for someone. So where's the pain? What problem are you solving? And so when you sit down with a realtor, the reason that they did take the meeting is because something in their business is broken and they have a pain point.
The issue is that they won't tell you what it is. And so our job is like, we kind of throw out like this giant net as we're going through the process and stacking all of the guarantees. Like, well, we do this and we do this and we do this, we guarantee this and that and whatever. And then at the end, it's like, so out of all of that stuff, is any of that interesting to you? And what we're trying to get them to do is to reveal to us, well, actually, I love that you do this thing.
Like, ding, ding, there's probably something there. I need to ask them more about why that matters. And the goal is to uncover the little piece of their business that's broken. Something's There's a reason that we're sitting across from each other having broken. coffee, like something is not great for you. Once I figure out what it is, I'm going to dig into it. And I'm going to agitate that pain point over and over and over and eventually convince them, maybe I can solve that for you.
We don't know for sure. And you're not a crazy person to just take me on face value and trust me completely. But if I can do what I say, do you agree that your business would be better? Yeah, of course. Okay. So send me one lead and let's find out. Right. Again. And that's the thing. And that's the thing is like people expect to get like all this business. Like I had a great conversation, like give me all your business.
Like, no, give me one And that's the suck and we and we hate each other, like perfectly fine. I have so much work that I have to do to build your trust to win all of your business, but give me a shot. Give me one. And if I can't do what I say, at least now, you know, you know, worst case I violate your trust. I waste a lead for you. I don't do what I say. So if you have a listing and see my pre-qualification letter come across the desk, you know, maybe that's not the right off.
Maybe you can advise your sellers, you know, I know him and he doesn't always do what he says. Right. So there's value there. At least, you know, my true character at that point. Right. And that's how it starts. And then when they send the lead, you do what you say. I love it. That's the key. Not easy, but super simple. Right. You just got put the in place. You got to make sure it's systematic. You got to make sure you deliver on it every single time. Yeah, there's a lot.
So yeah, so we've got now 10 loan officers. We're processing roughly 375 applications, you know, credit poll applications every month. We're in six different geographic markets across the Midwest, and we're executing 11 different guarantees on all of that. So if you start thinking about all the moving pieces and with a staff of 26 people total, so it's certainly not easy to do. It's a simple thing to do, but the amount of structure that has to go into doing that.
But if you're a one-off LO just doing your thing, then the only person you have to manage is yourself, which that's a whole other set of issues. That's why I tell people, like the best thing that you could do for your life is to create a lead guarantee and force yourself to stick to it. Because it proves that you can do something consistently over time. Because it Yeah, I love that, man. So real quick to just close out here.
If there was like one thing that you could do, I know there's a couple cool strategies that you guys have been doing recently. Like what's one way that you would go out and recommend someone in this market to go out and get some business, to build trust or any of those things, right? Really just get business. Oh, a unique value add that we've started doing that is working pretty well. So we wanna give value, right? We wanna create value.
And one really good way to do that is there is an entire inventory list out there that agents don't necessarily have access to. And it's becoming more common as technology makes it easier. I call them solo sellers just because it sounds cool, but for sale by owner, right? And so through things like Zillow, it's easier than ever to sell your own home. And so what's happening is that there's more of these properties that are popping up that don't appear on the MLS.
Therefore, realtors have to do a little bit of extra work to find those properties. And then what happens if those people aren't willing to pay? Like they don't necessarily want to show their buyers those properties. So what I've started doing is I pay a company to get me the data, but you don't have to do that. You can just put a setting up on Zillow and every single day that a new listing pops up in your little area, you can see.
And I call the for sale by owners and I make an offer to them completely free. What I tell them is that, hey, I run one of the biggest teams in this market. We're actively working with over 100 realtors. If you're open to the idea of paying a finder's fee to a buyer's agent that brought a buyer in to buy your home, I would be more than happy to send your property out to my list of realtors. I can help you market it for free, not asking for anything in exchange.
And then on the other side of things, I tell realtors, I am doing the legwork of building out access to this new inventory. And I'm pre-screening them to see if they're willing to pay some sort of a commission to you if you bring them a buyer. And if you're interested in that, I can put you on an email list and I can send those out as they come. So I have a software that I use that does it. And I get about two to three a week that come online. Takes me about 10 minutes to call those people.
So far, I've not had any people tell me, no, I don't want you to email my house to a hundred local realtors. Don't do that. The general consensus is that, look, I don't want to pay somebody to sell my house. Why would I do that? I don't have any problem paying somebody that brings me a buyer, right? Like they don't mind that generally. I stay out of the commission rates. I don't get into it. It's not my business. I just get them to say, hey, yeah, I'll pay a finder's fee.
And then I'm emailing those over to I just the get realtors. them to say, hey, yeah, I'll pay a finder's fee. And then I'm emailing those over to the realtors. So when I tell the realtor, hey, it's tough out there right now, we're doing all we can. One of the value adds that we do is we're trying to help you find more inventory for your buyers. How do we do that? Mail out these for sale by owner, you know, every single week. And then they consistently get those emails.
They open them, they read them. And so I'm staying top of mind in a way that is completely different from what everybody else is doing. Because I'm delivering real value two to three times a week to them. Hey, here's a three, two in this area. You know, they're wanting 195 guy says he'll pay if you got anybody like that's valuable to that realtor. It saves them a lot of time, right? They don't have to mess with it. And so it's a simple thing to do.
It's free to do if you invest an hour a day or set up some filters on Zillow to find them, but it adds tremendous value. It's just another way to prove that you're trying. And if you're the guy that says you're hustling and you want their business and you're doing that over and over and over and over, eventually they're going to believe it, right? Because what are the other lenders doing to try and help them? So that's a little thing.
That's just like one little tiny random thing that I've started doing. And it's actually pretty fun. Like I enjoy it and it seems to work and it actually gives you a reason to call realtors. Hey, I'm putting together this new thing, you know, for sale by owner list. Love to put you on the email list if you're Always having a reason to call someone is, I mean, again, that's why so many people don't make the calls is because there's no actual reason for the call.
It's like, oh, did you play or did you work this weekend? Like, that's a crappy question, right? Like, who cares? That's like, oh, do you, I want your leads, right? Like, that's basically what you're saying by that making that call is I want your leads. then getting to email them two to three times a week and not be a, you know, pain. Right. It's an email they're excited for because it's like, oh, I've been looking for, you know, this exact property.
I got these buyers that are pre-approved and I just can't find anything. Like it's a good email. It's a positive email. It's a good experience. It also, one thing I do is I remind them to save me in their address book so that my emails don't go to spam because these are valuable emails. So now I know that they're getting all my emails, right? I love it. So it's a little thing, but it does work.
Ultimately, just do what you say, like build a real process, figure out some ways to add real value, you know, through the process of doing a mortgage loan that solves some pain points for the realtors and then execute on Kind of crazy, huh? That's our whole secret. That's literally what we do. So that's wild saying what you're to do do. our whole That's secret. literally what we That's do. wild. Saying what you're going to do and then doing what you say you're going to do.
Yeah. That's the secret. I know. Love it. Anyway, Anyway, that's it. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate everything. My big takeaway from this is that you got to have a reason for why you're doing this, but also creating processes, man. I think there's a big missing hole. Coming from someone who's also not very process oriented, I've learned as I grew my business that not having processes is a pain.
Fixing bad processes is much harder than building it the right way the first time. So, you know, just kind of listening to what you talk about is like, hey, from the beginning, we built out processes.
That's huge, right? I do think that it's much easier to build processes as you're building than it is to not build processes or have kind of crappy processes when you start and then having to go back and fix all that stuff is a lot more work coming from someone who had to do that over the last couple of years has completely transformed the way our processes ran and, you know, still working through that. It's much easier to just start from the beginning and doing it the right way.
It is important. It is important. It does allow you to scale and grow and, you know, deliver on the promises you make, right? If someone's, you know, want to connect with you online, interested in learning more about what you do, or, you know, I know you do coaching as well. So how can people connect with you, learn a little bit more about doing? Pretty active on Facebook. It's public, you know, they can find me can send me an email as well. My personal email is fine.
If they want to connect and learn a little bit more, SKY8632 at Gmail. And I'm happy to connect and talk more. I run training classes. My classes are affordable. My coaching is not a commitment. It is the opposite. So I'm designing my program to be the complete opposite of commitment and I'm trying to make it as affordable as possible. So all my classes are only four weeks long and you pay per week. And if you don't like the content, then you just quit paying and quit going.
And that's pretty much it there. And I've got a number of different things that I coach on in that world. But if somebody just wants to connect, me up on Facebook. And it's Skylar with an A, S-K-Y-L-A-R, just so if you're looking up with an E. a very famous female softball player at the University of Florida named Skylar Wallace, unfortunately. And she's an Olympic level talent. And if you Google it, she comes up. So good for her. Man, you got to work on your SEO, bro.
You got to work on your SEO. to work on your SEO. I get crushed. Yep. Awesome, man. Well, appreciate your time today. And for anybody who is listening to this and is looking for some help on flipping the status quo on real estate agents, then go to flipthestatusquo.com. Thank you so much for listening and have a great day. Thank you for tuning into the Loans On Demand podcast on loansondemandpodcast.com.