Episode 4

Creating superfans with author and sought-after consultant, Brittany Hodak

Brittany Hodak is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and customer experience speaker who has delivered keynotes across the globe to organizations including American Express and the United Nations.

She has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands and entertainers, including Walmart, Disney, Katy Perry, and Dolly Parton. She founded and scaled an entertainment startup to eight figures before exiting, and she is the former Chief Experience Officer of Experience.com.

Forbes said of her debut book, Creating SUPER Fans, “If you have customers, you need this book. Period.”

And on this episode of Batting 1,000, Dale picks Brittany's brain about lenders can create superfans who not only remain loyal customers for a lifetime, but share their experience with friends and loved ones looking for lender to trust with their homeownership needs.

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Connect with Brittany

Buy Brittany's book → amazon.com/dp/1774580780...

Hire Brittany to speak → brittanyhodak.com/speaking/

Listen to Brittany's podcast → brittanyhodak.com/podcast/

Read the superfans blog → brittanyhodak.com/blog/

Connect with Dale

LinkedIn → https://linkedin.com/company/daleverm...

Facebook → https://facebook.com/dalevermillionof...

Twitter → https://twitter.com/dalevermillion

Website → https://dalevermillion.com

Email → listen@dalevermillion.com

Copyright

Batting 1,000 with Dale Vermillion is a production of Mortgage Champions, a VCI company. The show is produced and edited by Jake Vermillion. Music is by Envato Elements.

Copyright 2023 © Vermillion Consulting, Inc., All Rights Reserved

Transcript
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All right.

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Hello everybody, and welcome to Batting a thousand where we talk with the big

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hitters, uh, in business and uh, in the financial services and mortgage industry.

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And man, today I've got a incredible guest that I'm so excited to,

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uh, to have with me today.

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Uh, Brittany Hodak.

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I had the great privilege to meet Britney for the first time.

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Uh, about, uh, a month and a half ago, we did a speaking engagement

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together, um, for a client, uh, down in Southern California, PRMG , uh,

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uh, who's both a client of both of ours and good friends of ours.

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And, I was, you know, I, I had the bad position of having

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to speak after Brittney.

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That was not an enviable position to be in, cuz she knocked

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it outta the park with her.

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Uh, her talk about creating super fans, which is from her book that is just

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doing, uh, incredible, uh, one that we recommend to everybody out there.

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And I, I'm gonna give you just a, a couple of quick credentials about her.

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But first, Britney, welcome.

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We're so glad to have you on Batting a thousand.

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Thank you, Dale.

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I am so thrilled to be here.

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I was honored that we got to meet each other and that I got to pick up some

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amazing tips watching you speak at the PRMG event, and so I was thrilled when

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you invited me to be on this show, and I'm really excited for our conversation today.

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Well, I am too.

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So just so the audience knows a little bit more about you, um, I, I was just

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mentioning to you when, when I saw your credentials, my, my jaw hit the

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floor because you've done some things.

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You are an award-winning entrepreneur.

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You're an award-winning author.

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You're award-winning at customer experience and, and helping people

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with that as a consultant and a speaker and all of those things.

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You've done keynotes across the globe, including American Express,

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the United Nations I wanna hear about that one for sure.

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What that had to be like.

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Um, and you've worked with some of the world's biggest brands and entertainers.

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Walmart, Disney, Katy Perry, Dolly Parton.

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Um, Amazing.

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You also founded and scaled Entertainment startup, uh, to an eight figure, uh,

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setting before exiting that you were the former Chief Experience officer

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for experience.com, uh, where we have friends over there that we, we love

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working with and Forbes said, if you have customers, you need this book.

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Period.

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I don't think they could've said it better.

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Creating superfans is really making a splash.

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I see your book everywhere.

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Uh, I love that.

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Um, I got a chance to kind of hear the book firsthand, which is good,

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and we're gonna talk about that book.

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But let, let's just start with, talk about how you got where you're at today.

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Tell us a little bit more about your background.

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Just share with us how you got to work with some of these incredible

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companies and people across the nation and across the world.

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Sure.

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Well, I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma and loved the radio because

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that was, you know, sort of pre-internet.

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That was the outlet to the outside world, right outside of this

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tiny little town where I lived and when I was in high school.

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School, I had the opportunity to go spend a day at the radio station.

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They had this thing called job shadowing.

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When you know, it was basically like a one day internship.

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You would pick what you wanted to do and then go spend a day there.

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And during that day I was like, please hire me.

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I will take any job you have.

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I just, I have to work here.

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Please, please, please gimme a job.

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And the station manager said, well, you look like you're about the right

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height for the mascot suit, how do you feel about being sting the bee?

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And I said, that sounds amazing.

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I would love to be sting the bee.

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Please, please, please give me a job.

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And so for the next several months I was sting the bee, this radio

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station mascot who got to go to every, you know, car dealership sale

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and furniture store, grand opening.

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And so I was doing that.

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I was sophomore, junior in high school and one day after about six months, I

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came into work and the station manager said, you know, I keep seeing ads on

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TV for this movie called Bridget Jones Diary, and my maiden name was Jones.

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And so she said, we've got a Britney Jones and it feels like we should do something

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along this like Bridget Jones diary thing.

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What could we do and call it your diary?

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And I said, well, you're always trying to get more people to you

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know, go to the radio station website.

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What if I just interviewed all the bands that came to town And that was my diary.

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You know, like what happened when Britney was hanging out backstage with this band?

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And she said, oh, like that other movie, that almost famous movie.

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Yeah, everyone's talking about that.

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That's probably gonna win some Oscars.

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Let's do it.

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Just make a list of all the bands you wanna see and we'll

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set it up with the record labels.

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And I said, are you kidding?

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Like, what?

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And she said, you know, HTML, right?

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And I was like, of course I know.

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Them.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Yes.

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And so I'm like desperately trying to remember those four letters

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so that I can figure out what in the world it is and teach myself.

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So as like a 16 or seven year teen year old kid, it became my job

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to hang out with rock stars and brag about it on the internet.

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Like that was literally what people gave me money to do, which ruined

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any chances of me ever having a, you know, quote unquote real job.

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So that was my start.

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That was my start in the entertainment industry.

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I took it so seriously.

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I was like, I'm a journalist, like I, you know, am, am a entertainment reporter.

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And so I did everything I could.

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I hustled to meet everybody I could to make every connection, introduction.

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I was begging for internships, um, begging at like every time I met somebody who

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was connected to a labels headquarters in New York or LA I was like, can I

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come intern for you when I'm in college?

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Like, let's stay in touch.

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So I just hustled my way through high school and college.

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Then when I graduated, I moved to New York.

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I worked for Warner Music Group.

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I worked for Sony Music Group.

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Um, and then I had, I had this idea of creating this product that was

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like a collectible for music fans.

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When an album came out, whether it was on CD or vinyl, I was like, what

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if there was a way to have a package that physically was as immersive

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of an experience as the music?

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And so I started learning about specialty packaging.

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I started looking for ways.

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To like make all these cool collectibles.

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And I eventually started my own company when I was 27.

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After a few years of working for different labels and agencies, I launched my

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first company and the very first client that I worked with, and the very first

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client that I pitched was Walmart.

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And so with Walmart as my partner, I was able to get a lot of people to answer my

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phone calls that probably wouldn't have otherwise done so and so I started an

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entertainment agency from the ground up and got to work with many of the largest

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entertainers and brands on the planet over the, you know, decade that followed.

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That is just such a cool story, and I love that here you are

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a 27 year old entrepreneur.

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And you just started small with Walmart?

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Yeah, I was kinda like, I didn't know.

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I didn't know what I didn't know.

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Like I didn't know how crazy that was because to me, Walmart was just another

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entertainment account and it made sense because I thought, well, if this is

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gonna work, I'm gonna need this scale.

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So rather than try to sell this in to a bunch of accounts, like 300

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stores here, 500 stores there like.

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Let's just ask Walmart, and they've got 4,000 stores, so if they say yes,

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then everything is that much easier.

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And so I didn't know about the percentage of businesses that fail.

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I didn't know how hard it was to be a female founded, you

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know, company with no capital.

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I, I just didn't know what I didn't know and that, that

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really worked to my advantage.

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And then several years, probably four or five years into the company, I had

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been very fortunate to get a lot of accolades, won a lot of awards because

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of the scale and the volume that we were doing without any outside funding.

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And so I got a call one day from a casting producer who said,

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Hey, I read about you in Forbes.

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I think your story's really cool.

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Do you wanna come on Shark Tank?

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And I said, yeah, that sounds like fun.

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I, let's do it.

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And so I went on Shark Tank, which led to a lot of other really cool

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opportunities that I never could have.

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You know, even dreamed of, wow.

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Working in other verticals like sports and Hollywood, and I started to get

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a ton of speaking requests, which is what sort of catapulted me into

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this new phase of my career that I've been doing for the past five or six

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years, which is speaking and writing.

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And again, something that I never would've even.

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Thought of as a potential career path, but it's been, it's been so fun and so

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neat to, to get, to take everything that I've learned in the entertainment industry

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and showcase the fact that that's really just customer experience under a different

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name and all the same things that help people have success in the entertainment

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industry can really separate people.

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From other businesses or other salespeople in commodity markets.

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So taking some of the, you know, razzle-dazzle and some of the principles

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from the world of entertainment and putting them into place for, you know,

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creating amazing customer experiences.

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I love it.

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So, um, let's fast forward now that you are now the author of Creating Super Fans.

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I wanna get to that for a minute, but you said something I want to key in

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on for a second that, um, I thought was just an absolute golden nugget.

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You talked about the whole I didn't know what I didn't know.

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And, and, and it's funny because, you know, in the mortgage arena where, where

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I work all the time, especially now in a, in a higher rate market, tougher market.

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I see a lot of people who fail because they know too much.

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And the ones that tend to succeed, don't I, I think about my own career.

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When I started in the mortgage business in 1983 , 40 years ago, and I, I came out of,

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you know, construction into selling pots and pans, door to door into being a loan

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officer, and my first district manager came to my office on the first day.

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I came there and I said, Mr.

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Finn, what do you expect me to do?

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He said, you better do 20 loans a month, or we fire you.

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And I thought, Okay.

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I didn't know any difference.

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So the first month I, I closed 17 loans and thought I was gonna get fired.

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He came in, he said, I'm gonna give you one more month.

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So I said, I promise.

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I hit 23.

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I hit 24 the next month.

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Got to 28 the third month.

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And, and then I've come to find out in the third month, all everybody

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else is doing two and three cuz I was the only loan officer in the branch.

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And, and when people say, well, how did you do 23, 28 when

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everybody was doing three?

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I said, because I didn't know what I didn't know.

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I was told to do 20 or I was fired.

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So I just, I didn't know any better.

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And sometimes that naive actually works to our benefit in business.

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When we just go in with freshened ideas, we don't think too

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much, we don't overthink it.

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We just literally try to do our best and give the best foot forward.

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So in that vein, let's talk about creating super fans.

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Let's talk about your book, because look, first off anybody who's watching this, if

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you want a great speaker, hire Brittany.

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She's fantastic.

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Um, Our friends of PRMG and Kevin Perio, KP, who we both love.

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Good friend of both of ours.

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I know he would attest to that too.

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Um, You really did a great job on that.

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But I wanna talk about the super fan idea.

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What, what, how you think, why you think this is important, um, how mortgage

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lenders can really create super fans.

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And walk us through, I love the, when you laid out your acrostic

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of super and what that stood for.

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I just thought it was a great template for any company to understand the

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importance and in today's competitive market, creating super fans has

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never been more important in my book.

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So tell us a little bit more about that.

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Well, thank you Dale for all of that.

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I will say, so in the entertainment industry, one of the things that people

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spend endless amounts of resources on money, time, um, is, is this idea of

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breaking new artists, helping somebody, you know, explode in popularity.

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And I think that there are just so many parallels to, like, you as that

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new agent who had no idea how many loans you were supposed to be closing.

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It's like you've just, you've just gotta, that's break through.

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That's, and a lot of times when I talk to people, whether they've worked

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in the financial services industry for a couple of years or a couple

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of decades, one of the things that they talk about is this idea of.

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I need more awareness.

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I need more people to know who I am, to know what I do.

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Yeah, like I've got an awareness problem.

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If I could just spend more money or if I could just come up with better advertising

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and almost a hundred percent of the time, it is not an awareness problem at all.

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Plenty of people know.

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They just don't care because you haven't given them a reason to.

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You haven't shown them why you are different from everybody else.

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It's not an awareness problem.

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It's an apathy problem, which is exactly the same in the music industry, right?

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It's like, yeah, you and everyone else in the world have a new single,

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unless I, in 10 seconds can tell why I should care because of what's in it.

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For me, it's just background noise.

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It's just like, yeah, okay.

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You'll go into the consideration set and so when you understand that what

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you're trying to overpower is apathy, that you've got to come up with a hook

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to make people care to connect your thing to their life in a way that says,

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this is why you need to know who I am.

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This is how I am adding value to you.

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And by paying attention to me, your life gets better in some

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meaningful, measurable way.

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That is not the ceiling, that is the floor, that is the cost of entry.

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If you wanna go from a commodity provider to a category of one in the minds of

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your partners and your prospects and your customers, you've gotta be able

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to tell them what's in it for them.

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Why should they care?

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Why does it matter?

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How are you different and better than everyone else who does

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exactly the same thing that you do?

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And when you approach it with that mentality, then

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you can start to say, okay.

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What am I the best in the world at?

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Or what do I wanna be the best in the world at?

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What am I willing to commit myself to working toward, to be able to say,

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when you work with me, this is what you get and this is why it matters.

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And when you have that mindset, then you can start to think about creating a.

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Super fans, but until then it's, you know, like one of the first things I always ask

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people is, why do you deserve superfans?

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What are you doing?

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And I define a superfan as a customer who creates more customers.

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It's someone who has such a great experience with you that they're going

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to become an enthusiastic advocate.

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They'll be back and they'll be telling their friends.

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And if you can't answer that first question, if you can't answer, Why you

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deserve superfans, why somebody should pay attention to what you're doing and

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give you their business as the exclusion of everyone else who's out there

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fighting for it, then that's a problem.

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Like you are going to have a very hard time separating yourself from the pack.

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So that's the first part, is figuring out what are you the best in the world at?

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Or what do you want to be the best in the world at?

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And why does that matter to the people who you're trying to serve?

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Uh, you, you just dropped so many incredible bombs

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there that were so powerful.

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I love that.

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Just a bunch of golden nuggets here.

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So let me, let me unpack a couple of those if I can with you for just a

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minute, because I, I, I love how you talk first about that first 10 seconds.

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You know, I, I, I knew when I listened to you speak, I'm like, yep, Brittney,

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I are th we think the same exact way about business because one thing that

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I've harped on forever with every client, every lender, every loan

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officer, every person I've ever worked with is, if you don't wow 'em in the

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first 10 to 15 seconds, forget it.

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The game's over it.

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It's, it's done after that.

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And you do that, and I love how you said this.

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You do that by showing them what makes you different, but not from a perspective of.

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Talking about yourself, but what makes you different in how

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you're gonna change their life.

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That's the key to even starting the process to get somebody to want to be a

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super fan for you, because you're right, everybody, we, you talked about radio

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stations was your first experience.

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I've done hundreds and hundreds of radio programs across the country and I, I've

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been in studio many, many times, and.

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Everybody listens to the same radio station.

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What's in it for me?

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WIIFM , It's all the same one.

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And, and you really articulated that well, you know, we, we teach a, a very simple

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philosophy in, at Mortgage Champions on the front end of every call with every

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customer, no matter what that call is, or every partner, you start with what

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we call the million dollar minute.

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You, you begin by, by telling them in one minute or less.

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Why they would choose you, what makes you special, what makes you great,

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and more importantly, what are the five things you're gonna do for them

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that nobody else has done for them?

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And you've got their attention instantly, and now you can move to that.

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So I love how you articulate it.

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Now that I does that stand for the first s in Super, which is your, your

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acrostic, which is start with your story.

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Cause I know you talk about story, know your business

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story, know your personal story.

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You talk about that a lot in your book.

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Is that, is that kind of the setup for that?

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It is and it isn't.

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So, um, start with your story.

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When I say start with your story, I don't mean lead with your story.

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I mean that everything has to originate from your story.

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So yes.

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Good.

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I think the first part is really understanding, you know, the enemy

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and, and that the enemy is apathy.

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People are so busy, they've got so much going on.

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There is a lot to care about.

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And so I think that's good.

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The first part is understanding that your job is to make someone care

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about you, to interrupt their day, to interrupt what they're doing.

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To say, this is why you should care about me and not think of me as just one

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of several people in your consideration set or several solutions providers.

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Even if there are other, you know, mortgage professionals that you

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work with, I am not like them.

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Like one of these things is not like the other.

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So yes, understanding that that's the goal leads right in to the first

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pillar of the supermodel framework, which is start with your story.

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And I like to describe the pillars of this framework.

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Almost like nesting dolls, every single one of them builds on the one before.

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So starting with your story, understanding your uniqueness in a way that is very.

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Um, relevant to the customer that you're trying to reach, understanding

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that it's not your job to apply to everyone, to to appeal to everyone.

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It's your job to create a uniqueness and ex.

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Exploit that uniqueness in a way that's going to be irresistible to

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those target customers who you want and forget about everybody else.

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Like you don't wanna work with everybody.

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You wanna work with the right people.

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So starting with your story gives you that north star of what you're gonna talk

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about, what you're gonna share to attract more of that ideal customer avatar.

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Okay, so again, I'm loving this interview by the way.

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I, I mentioned to you earlier, and I gotta mention to the, to the

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audience, uh, Britney's, my first guest out of our, our new cabin studio.

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So it's fun to have you as a kind of the, the, the entree to that.

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But I'm loving what you're saying because you said two

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things that are really important.

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First off, apathy huge.

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You know, in the, in the mortgage industry, statistically, a customer

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today who inquires for a mortgage from the time they inquire till

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the time they actually fund a loan.

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Somewhere between 100 and 200 times they'll be contacted by different lenders.

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That's a staggering statistic.

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I mean, you've got, you've got email marketing, you've got cell phone,

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smartphone marketing, you've got social media marketing, credit triggers.

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All these things are coming after these customers, so, You've got to be able

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to cut through all of that pressure, that competitive pressure where yes,

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they are apathetic at this point to like, why would I spend one second

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with you unless you say something that captures my interests about me?

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And the other thing you talked about was really knowing your customers.

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One of the, the common mistakes I find a lot, particularly in the, we

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call the retail side of the mortgage arena, is we're loan officers who

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work with realtors, for example.

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They don't understand the concept of, you've gotta work with

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people that are like-minded.

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They're like, I'll work with any realtor that'll send me business.

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No, there's realtors that'll send you business that are, that business is no

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good, and you'll waste your time working on a bunch of things that never lead to

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any true business at the end of the day.

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And you're never gonna create super fans doing that.

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So you have to know about their business.

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You have to understand and research them in advance of your conversation.

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So when you start that conversation of differentiation is, Hey, I've,

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I've done my homework on you.

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Here's all the things that you're doing that I'm just admire and I wanna tell you

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things that we're doing that I think will even help you get to that next level.

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And now you're merging the two stories together instantly into one.

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Does that make sense from the way that you think about building super fans?

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Oh, absolutely.

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And I always say that super fans are created at the intersection of

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your story and every customer story.

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So that Venn diagram of who you are.

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Who the realtor is, where that overlaps.

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And yes, you should absolutely be aligning yourself with people who understand

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the type of customer you want, who want a very similar type of customer.

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And understanding your customer is actually the second pillar

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of the supermodel framework.

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I said that, you know, they're, they're all kind of like nesting dolls.

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They all build on the one before.

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And understanding your customer story is about that clarity.

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Who do you wanna work with?

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What are they struggling with?

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What's the transformation that you can really help them with?

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Why are you the right person?

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Like why should they, you know, choose you over all of the

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other options that they have?

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So in the book, I talk about how to get further clarity on that and one of the

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things that, um, I think is, is like really relevant to the, the way that

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people approach understanding customers.

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Um, I tell the story in the book of the first time I saw one of my teachers

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outside of school and I think a lot of people like, remember that moment of

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the first time you've seen a teacher at outside school and you're like, what?

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And it sort of breaks your little brain a little bit because you've

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never thought about that teacher as existing outside of school.

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Or at least I hadn't.

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Right.

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Like I Right, right.

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You could've been like a, like a hologram for all.

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I knew that like never left that classroom cuz I just never thought

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about it and so many people.

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Especially in mortgage, don't think about who their customers fully are as people.

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They're just like, oh, it's another loan number.

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Rinse, repeat.

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Oh, it's another lead.

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Let me call and then call the next one.

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But if you take the time to truly understand your customer story, get

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to know who they are, get to know what they're struggling with, what they

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don't understand about this process, you can show up for them in a way that

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makes you relevant to their whole life.

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Like not just that mortgage that you're helping with them with, but to become

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a true partner to say, all right, you know, even after this loan is funded,

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like even after you've closed, I'm gonna still be here with you because

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you're gonna need somebody to, you know, refer an electrician or refer a

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painter or refer, you know, a gardener.

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And I want you to think of me and keeping that relationship alive.

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So of course that you get the referrals, you get the repeat

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business, but that all starts with.

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Letting your customers see that like 3D fully formed version of you.

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Not just like, hi, I'm so-and-so from x, Y, Z company here to help you with

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your loan and understanding who they are as a fully formed person, not just like

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that customer on the other side of that email address that you bought as a lead.

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That's awesome.

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Awesome, awesome, awesome.

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All right, so start with your story.

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Understand your customer story.

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The P is for personalized.

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I cannot wait for you to talk about this because I think this is such a center.

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I love that it's in the middle of super cuz it seems to me like the center of

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all success, as I've seen it in my 40 year career, is the more you personalize,

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the more you build relationship, the more you connect the, the more you

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can make things completely unique and different and custom to the person

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or the company you're working with.

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The more you really start to create those fans are like, whoa, whoa.

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And, and, and I love some of the examples you used when you were

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speaking, um, you know, and, and talked about so many companies

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that are really good at doing that.

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Share a little bit about what it means to personalize the P in your super.

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So I said before that super fans are created at the intersection

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of your story In there is.

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P is Personalize is where that all comes together, where those two

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worlds collide your world and theirs.

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By understanding both of your stories, you'll start to have all of those aha

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moments about the overlaps, the things that you can do to feel different, to

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make it appear that working with you is easier and better than working with

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anyone else out there in the world.

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And personalization takes a lot of forms.

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There's, there's high touch, there's high tech.

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I'm a believer that you need both.

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I was on a flight the other day, uh, flying United, and I was

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connecting through chicago, I think.

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Yeah, it was Chicago.

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And when I landed and I turned my phone back on, the first message

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that I had was a text from United saying, welcome to Chicago.

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You are landing in this gate.

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Your next flight to Atlanta is gonna leave in an hour and 16 minutes.

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It's gonna take you 14 minutes to walk from the gate where you're landing

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to the gate, where you're going.

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If you want step by step directions, touch here for a terminal map.

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And I thought, wow, what an amazing example of highly relevant.

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Personalized information, the right person, the right time, the right message.

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And when you can do that, you make an impact.

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You add tremendous value.

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Now, there are ways to create the sense of personalization without actually

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knowing who your customer is in that same airport as I was walking by, I noticed.

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That all of the restrooms had LED screens outside showing how many stalls were open

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and how many minutes of a walk in both directions it was to the next restroom.

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So as somebody who's walking by, that's really great information, right?

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Are there four open stalls or are there 14 open stalls?

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The next room, two minutes away, or 12 minutes away, like that is very helpful

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information at that moment in time.

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So use technology, leverage the technology that you have access to, to create the

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types of touchpoints that are going to wow your customers because customers

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aren't just comparing you to the best experience they've had getting a loan.

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They're comparing you to the best experience they've had anywhere, period.

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Or living in an experienced economy.

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It's no longer about just what is your product or what is the service.

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All of the, uh, all of the experiences are fair game.

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Like in a world where we know where our pizza is before it's delivered,

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or how many stops away our Amazon packages, we expect that same

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attention to detail and level of personalization and customization.

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Now I said it's not all high tech or high touch.

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Another example of personalization that I love is when I go and pick up, uh,

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an iced tea cuz I'm an iced tea drinker and the barista writes a little message

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for me on the cup or puts a message on the napkin when I'm gonna pick it up.

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There are things that you can do to show your customer that you're treating

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them not the way you treat every.

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Customer, but you're treating them as an individual.

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You're being authentic to yourself, but you're also honoring the way

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they want to be treated for those two worlds of yours and theirs to collide.

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Fantastic.

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Loved everything you just covered in that, that was gold again.

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Um, and, and you're absolutely right.

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You know, the little things, uh, Harvey McKay had a quote

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years ago that I was loved.

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He said, little things don't mean everything.

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Little things mean or don't mean, uh, a lot.

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They mean everything and they really do.

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The little things are the things that that customers remember forever.

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You know that little note on the napkin?

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I, I've said for 40 years, and this is old school, but if you're not

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sending a handwritten thank you note to your customers, you're missing a

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golden opportunity to connect with them because nobody does that anymore.

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It's not any longer that it's about the handwritten thank you note.

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It's the fact that nobody does that.

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Nobody takes the 14 seconds or two minutes that it takes to do it.

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It just shows you have a different level of care.

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And I love when you talked about high-tech, high-touch.

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That is a quote that I've used for years.

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Uh, I, I've been a partner with ICE who, uh, is, is ICE Mortgage Technology.

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I spoke at the conference the last two years or three years actually.

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And that was always the theme of the sessions that I had was, you've

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gotta be high tech, high touch.

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If you're only high tech, you're in trouble.

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If you're only high touch, you're trouble.

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You combine the two.

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You're right where you need to be within today's world because we live in a tech

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world, but we live in a world where people have been isolated through covid.

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We've seen all of the problems with that, and people want to

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have that personal experience.

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And, and the thing I love the most that you said was, and this is the biggest

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mistake I see in salespeople especially, is they sell price, product and program.

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That's so common.

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And, and, and I've always said, you saw price, product and program.

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You're dead.

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You better sell benefits and experience.

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That's what you're trying to create and, and that relationship that that sets the

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you apart from everybody else where they connect with you on a personal level.

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So I love how you gave some examples of that and some key things.

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What would you recommend?

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So today in today's mortgage arena, and I know you've done some work

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there, what would be some things that you would tell lenders?

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Here's ways you can create this personalized, incredible, super

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fan experience that they could utilize to really take their

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businesses to the next level.

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Well, I think taking the time to really educate your customer on the front end.

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I'm a huge fan of Dave Savage and the total cost analysis

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through Mortgage Coach.

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Yep.

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Because like I know when I bought my first house, I was clueless.

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All I knew about was the rates, cuz that was all anybody ever talks about.

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And so I didn't really.

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I didn't know what I didn't know.

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And so making sure you're taking the time to educate your consumer, especially

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if it's a first time home buyer.

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But even if it's not a first time home buyer, things are different.

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There are always going to be different considerations.

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People have equity that they didn't have last time.

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The market looks very different than it did.

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There might be different types of loan, um, you know, options

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available to them, obviously.

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Yeah, the conforming limits are different.

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Like everything is different.

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So not just taking it for granted that somebody knows.

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What they want or not just having, like when somebody says, this

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is what I want, you are doing a disservice if you don't say, well,

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let's talk about why you want that.

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Tell me why you think that's what you want.

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Awesome.

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And starting that conversation.

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You know, there's a great Teddy Roosevelt quote "People don't care how much you

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know until they know how much you care".

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So showcasing at the front end that you know you are not just looking

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for the fastest solution to them, you are looking for the right solution

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because this is going to impact them for years and maybe decades.

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So taking that time to have the care up front.

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Another thing that I think honestly is just a huge missed opportunity

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from my own experience, both with when I first got my mortgage and then I

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refied, um, people like pieced out.

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Like I, there was no ongoing correspondence and when I first

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bought my, the home that we live in now, After it closed and I started

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getting all of the notices in the mail from other mortgage companies,

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I was like, wait, are these real?

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Are these not real?

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Like they know my loan number.

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What is this?

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And then when my loan was sold in a couple of weeks, I was like, What does that mean?

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Did I do something wrong?

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Like, why is my loan being serviced by another company now?

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Like, what does servicing even mean?

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And then it happened again and I was like, all right, well now I'm just pissed

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because now I've lived in this house for two months and I've already set up three

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different like usernames and passwords.

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Like, is this Yeah, keep happening every month.

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What does this mean?

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And you know, we all know this statistic of, you know, what is it like four and

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five people don't go back to their lender?

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And I'm like, well, of course they don't because they don't even know

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who it is, they don't remember because they've been through so many

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different changes at this point.

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They're like, oh, my mortgage company must be the name of that company on the bill.

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So for any loan originator out there, I would say making sure that you establish

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yourself at the beginning and that you set clear expectations for your

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customer, not just through closing day, but what's gonna happen then on after.

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And that's why it's kinda like you said, Dale, like nobody

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writes handwritten notes anymore.

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Nobody is creating evergreen content to continue to share with your customers.

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That's so, if you've got a CRM, use it.

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Create the kind of evergreen content that you know that you can give to people,

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because everybody who gets a home is gonna like, need information around tax time.

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They're gonna need information about like how to winterize their home if you live

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in a cold place or you know what they need to know to like take care of their lawn.

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Create the types of content based on the expertise that you have, and then make it

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evergreen, automate it so that you're able to provide value without adding any work

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to your day without like adding more time.

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Because when you can do that, you're gonna set yourself apart because you're

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setting expectations and then you're exceeding them by giving your client the

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resources they need to be successful at each stage of their journey post-closing.

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Well, the reason I keep grinning, if you're wondering why, is because you

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just keep saying things that I've been teaching for so many years and I'm like,

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it sounds so refreshing coming from you.

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Cause I feel like I'm a broken record on these things.

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You, but, but, but you say it so articulately and I love that,

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you know, the, the importance of constantly making sure you're

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educating, educating and educating.

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I can't tell you how many times I've told loan officers your job is education.

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That first and foremost, that's the first job you have, especially today.

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In a world where mortgages are complex, people don't understand them.

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You assume way too many things.

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They understand that they don't understand, and you've gotta

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really articulate in a way that they really understand what

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you're trying to do with them.

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And, and I loved when you talked about that ongoing connection.

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I, I had the, on my last batting a thousand, I had a gal that, by the way,

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you two remind me a lot of each other, Kara Whitman superstar loan officer, she's

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a very powerful lady in the industry.

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She's been a, a, a a, scotsman's guide originator for the last seven straight

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years does over 700 loans a year.

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Powerful.

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And she said in, in that podcast, I wanna be the first person they talk to

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and I'm gonna be the last person they talk to because everybody remembers the

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first and last experience and I'm gonna stay in contact with them from that

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point through the rest of my career.

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And it's like, it's such a simple concept, but so few

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people do it most, you're right.

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Most people peace out, it's like, I got the sale, I'm done.

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I'm outta here.

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And the importance of an originator, especially to build

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that relationship, cuz you're right.

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You know, companies are gonna sell that product off many times in secondary market

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and there can be two or three servicers, but if the originator did an incredible

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job and they maintain that relationship, Even though the customer might be a little

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bit upset that that happened, if they have a trusted advisor, they can call and

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say, Hey, I'm kind of upset about this.

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And they go, you know what?

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I'm sorry, but they told 'em on the front end.

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They set those expectations you talked about it makes all the difference.

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Like remember I told you that could happen?

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Oh yeah, you did.

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You're right.

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And they've still got the relationship.

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It ain't going anywhere.

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When you do that, that that's how you get to the point of being those super fans.

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So great stuff.

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All right.

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Let's talk about the eat exceed expectations.

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Tell, tell us what that is in your book.

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So exceed expectations is probably my favorite pillar of the supermodel,

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and it's all about what I like to call intentional experience design.

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Mm-hmm.

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So I said before, mm-hmm.

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We're living in an experience economy.

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It's no longer just about products or services.

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It's how does it feel?

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What are people saying about you?

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So intentional experience design is looking at every phase of your

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customer's journey and saying, how do I want them to feel?

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And what am I going to do to achieve that objective?

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Before, during and after them actually working with me.

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And in the book I talk about this idea of slow elevators.

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So I was at Lego Land about, about this time last year,

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like almost exactly a year ago.

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For the first time I was staying at the Lego Land Resort in Florida.

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And my two sons at the time were two and four, and we were staying on the

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fifth floor of the Lego Land Hotel, which is right next to the theme park.

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And my kids just loved this elevator.

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There were floor to ceiling decals of like dancing Lego mini figs.

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There was a mirror ball, there were lights.

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Every time the door closed it would play like dancing Queen or uh oh fun.

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Skin alive.

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Like all this disco music.

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It was a party and because it was a small elevator, it was one family at a time.

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So my kids were just like dancing their heads off, right?

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Like having the best.

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Time.

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They looked forward to that elevator.

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They wanted to ride in it again and again and again.

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It was not until at least the third day of staying in that resort

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Dale, that I realized that was the slowest elevator I had ever been on.

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And like, not metaphorically speaking, because I was tired of the dance party.

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Like literally it took like two and a half minutes to get from the lobby

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to the fifth floor with no stops.

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Wow.

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Like the whole song Dancing Queen would play like it was so slow, but I didn't

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even notice it for the first like 15 times that I was on the elevator.

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And then once I noticed it, it didn't.

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Bother me because they had taken that slow elevator and turned it into an experience.

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It was a disco dance party that wasn't, you know it, I didn't

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mind waiting for it, and I didn't mind being in there a long time.

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And I tell this story, and I think it's particularly relevant to this idea

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of creating experiences and see and exceeding expectations because, you know,

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There's like not a lot traditionally that you look for in an elevator, right?

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And like, is it like safety and speed?

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That's it, right?

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Like, are you gonna get me where I'm going and how fast can you get me there?

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So at the Lego Land Resort, they did not say like, we're gonna just throw

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our hands up in the air because we can't make the elevator go faster.

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And like, oh, it's a slow elevator.

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That sucks.

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Too bad.

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They said, we are going to turn this into an experience.

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Experience right now.

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Every single originator listening to this, everyone working in the

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financial services industry, I promise you there are slow elevators for your

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customers and it is not your job to be like, well, elevators are slow.

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Sometimes I can't fix that.

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It is your job to say, how can I take those slow elevators

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and take the sting away?

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How can I make them feel like a disco dance party?

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Like maybe I can't make them go faster, but I can still.

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Impact that experience.

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And if you take that approach, if you take that customer centricity

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and that attention to detail to say, how can I intentionally architect

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and experience that you're going to enjoy and remember, I promise you,

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you're going to have customers who come back and tell their friends.

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I love that.

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That, that's a great analogy.

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I'm thinking of myself in an elevator that takes two and a

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half minutes to go five floors.

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I'd be hitting buttons, I'd be freaking out.

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I'd be thinking, we're jammed in this thing, especially a small elevator and.

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They completed an experience that just, you never thought about it.

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Three days, it took you to figure it out.

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That's a really cool story, and you're right, there's, you know,

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there are troubles that happen in mortgages a lot and you've gotta

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bring a really great experience to offset that with your customers.

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Even the application, nobody likes taking an application out.

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There's not a customer on the planet that says, yeah, I can't

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wait to take an application.

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They hate the process.

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You know what?

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I like more paperwork.

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That's right.

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Whatever's exactly what I want.

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I, I wanna, I wanna spend 35 minutes on the phone with some stranger to

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fill out all of the details of my life.

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Nobody wants to do that unless the person makes it.

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Fun.

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Makes it an experience, makes it relational, makes it

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collaborative, makes it interactive.

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All of those things become important.

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That's a great point in the mortgage business.

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So let's, let's, let's move to your final of the super, the repeat

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at the end because I, I have a, a closing question I want to ask you

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that I ask all my guests, but tell me about the R in super for repeat.

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So, the R in super is there to signify.

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That customer experience is not a set it and forget it.

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Like this is not a, I'm gonna solve this problem one time and be done forever.

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It is a day out, or excuse me, day in, day out obsession with creating

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amazing experiences for your customers.

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There's a quote that I love that I have in the book.

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From Elizabeth Arden, uh, when she was building her makeup empire, she

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said, repetition makes reputation and reputation makes customers, and

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it's the exact same for everybody.

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I don't care how new or how old, how big or how small your business is,

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repetition is what makes reputation and reputation is what makes customers.

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So you've got to do everything I talk about in the supermodel

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and you've got to repeat it.

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You've gotta do it again and again.

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Transaction after transaction, customer after customer year after year, to develop

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that reputation that makes people say, I am a super fan of that originator,

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or I am a super fan of that branch for that business, and I will be back.

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Awesome.

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So we have thousands of people who watch this podcast.

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Every one of them needs to buy your book.

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Where, where would they go to do that?

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How do they connect with you?

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Uh, I know, uh, a lot of our clients probably would love to speak to you about

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maybe speaking at one of their events.

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Tell tell us a little bit about that and well, how you do that.

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Well, thank you.

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I would say I would love to speak at your event.

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Uh, I, my email address is brittany@brittanyhodak.com.

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You can find all of the information about my speaking and everything

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else that I do at britneyhodak.com, and for anyone who's interested in

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buying the book, it's available in a beautiful, full color hardcover version.

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You can also get it as an e-book or as an audiobook that I narrate,

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and all of those are an Amazon.

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You can also find the hardcover wherever books are sold, so if you wanna support

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your favorite local bookstore or a chain like Barnes Noble or Books a

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Million, they're available everywhere.

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Books are sold.

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Awesome.

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Highly recommend it.

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All right.

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Let me, let me ask you the final question.

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I could talk for hours with you.

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I'm, I'm sad we only have an hour together because this is so interesting.

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You have given us so many great nuggets today.

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Brittany, I can't thank you enough for that.

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Here's the question I ask everybody.

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I, I'm, I'm a firm believer that to succeed in life and to succeed,

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certainly in business, you need mentors.

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You need people that.

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Can mentor you and coach you and help you get there.

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And you know, today one of the problems that I see in this, I can't understand

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this, is I see a lot of people who don't want to take advice or wisdom from

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people who've been down that road, done it before, and can help them to avoid

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a lot of problems and a lot of issues.

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And you know, I'm sure you were the same way.

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I was the same way.

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Jake, my son, who, you know, runs this thing.

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He's like this.

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When he was a kid, he'd, he'd sit on the grandpa's lap instead of going,

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playing with the kids cuz he wanted to hear and learn and grow and be mentored.

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So tell us about any mentors you've had in your life and what that

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meant to you and how that helped you get you where you are today.

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Yeah.

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Well, I would say the first mentor I had and, and the most incredible

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one ever, my life was my dad, Jody.

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Nice.

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Uh, he worked in customer service.

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I think it was his influence that made me sort of fall in love with the idea

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of customer service and what that meant.

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Um, he managed a Long John Silvers restaurant when I was a

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kid, and then he worked at a car dealership as their customer service

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manager, and I loved hearing his.

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Stories, hear 'em talk about like all of the things that he did to

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over-deliver for his customers and to, to get them to come back.

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Um, I, I just thought it was so neat some of the things that, that he implemented.

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Um, and so I would say my dad was, was my first investment mentor and then lovely.

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You know, I've been so lucky to have so many incredible mentors who've

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become friends in the, in this.

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Speaking industry in the customer experience industry.

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One of them is Shep Hyken, who is just brilliant.

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Yeah.

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And he's been talking about customer experience and customer

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service for a very, very long time.

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He was kind enough to write the forward to my book.

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Uh, it's actually a I saw that.

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Yeah.

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Story in the Forward.

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He talks about the world's oldest known customer complaint letter that

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goes back almost 4,000 years, what that means and how it was resolved.

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So that's a really fun story.

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Um, but he's just been incredibly gracious and kind with me to help me

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sort of understand all of the, um, you know, all of the moving parts around this

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new career that, that I've embarked on speaking and writing and teaching people

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to, to embrace customer centricity in a way that perhaps they've not thought

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about before or not been given the tools to really, um, succeed with before.

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Awesome.

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Well, Brittany, I cannot thank you enough for coming on our, our show.

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I know you're super busy and there's a lot of people that, that,

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that would love to have you on.

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I'm honored that you joined us.

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It's fun to be with you again.

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Really enjoyed hearing you speak, uh, down in Southern California

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and getting to meet you.

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That was really a delight.

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And, uh, I, I hope we can have you back for season three again and

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continue this conversation cuz there's so many questions I wanted to ask.

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I couldn't even get to, uh, for sake of time, but you knocked it out of the park,

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uh, to use a, a batting a thousand phrase.

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And we really appreciate you so much.

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Thanks for being here.

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Well, thank you Dale for having me.

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It was, An honor, the pleasure was all mine and I would love to come back for

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season, season three and talk even more about my very favorite subject in the

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world, which is creating super fans, which you're very good at, by the way.

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Well, thank you Brittany.

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Thanks again everybody.

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Thanks for being here for another Batting a Thousand.

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I know you got a lot outta this and enjoyed it and uh, we appreciate

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you and God bless everybody.

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About the Podcast

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Batting 1,000 with Dale Vermillion
Conversations with Real Estate's Heaviest Hitters

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About your host

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Jake Vermillion

As part of the Mortgage Champions team, I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to do what I love most: try something new every day. From improving our customer experience to influencing product development and positioning to overseeing our charitable arm, I'm fortunate to be steeped in every facet of our business's for-profit and not-for-profit impact.