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You are listening to Batting 1000 with Dale Vermilion, where heavy hitters from

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mortgage, Real Estate and Business share their secrets for lasting success with

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your host industry icon, Dale Vermilion.

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All right.

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Well, Garth, it is great to have you on, uh, the first episode of season two.

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I can't think of a person I would rather have than you kicking off this season.

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And I'm gonna, I'm gonna toot your horn a little bit here, if you don't mind.

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Um, you know, they've given the buy already, but I'm gonna give you a title.

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You're the OG of digital mortgage in the mortgage arena, as far as I'm

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concerned you're kind of the patriarch.

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Uh, you know, you and I met each other way back in the 1990s and worked together

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at mortgage.com when you ran that company and you took that thing and it

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was the first internet based originated loan ever in, in mortgage history.

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So, Man, you got some serious history and you've done amazing things since then.

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You know Stratmore Group is the premier consulting group and merger and

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acquisition group and information group in the industry, and I'm just honored

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to have you here, and not only that, we're we've good friends for a long time.

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It's just great to have a good friend and old friend and somebody that

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I've worked with for a long time.

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So welcome, glad to have you embed a thousand.

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Yeah, thank you.

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I appreciate that.

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I'm gonna have to live up to a lot because, you know,

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that was a heck of an intro.

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So I'd like to, I do a lot of public speaking, Dale, and if you don't mind

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just coming along and you could do the one minute intro, that's why people read

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from a bio, it's not that interesting.

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So you get up, say that, and then, you know, you can fly back to Florida.

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We're good to go.

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Anytime you want me to tag along, you just let me know.

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I'll be there.

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All right, cool.

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I appreciate that.

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So, Here's what I want to talk about, know, we, the reason I thought it was

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so vitally important to have you on, other than the fact that I just love

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you to death, is you are, you just spoke at the LendingTree Summit that

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you and I both spoke at, um, And you brought in an incredible presentation

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that I just absolutely love that talked about where the industry's at.

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We're in one of the tougher times we've seen in, you know, you've

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been in the business over 30 years.

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I've been in the business next year, be 40 years.

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So we've done this for a while, and we've never seen rates rise as fast.

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We've never seen these kinds of challenges, but and I'm gonna say

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it very clearly, You know, there's a lot of talk about the bad news,

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but there's an awful lot of good news in the mortgage industry too.

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There's a lot of opportunity out there if you know how to attack it and

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some of the things that you covered, I thought were just so spot on.

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The thing I've always liked about your presentation style is you just say it

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like it is and, let people, you know, understand what they need to do to succeed

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and I love that kind of transparency and just forthright approach.

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I just say it like it is with jokes.

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That's right.

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Usually do.

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So then once, once people, they laugh a little bit, then they

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suddenly go, Hey, wait a minute.

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That's not funny.

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That was painful, what he just said.

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So, you know, whatever you do.

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It's tough.

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Tough.

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It's tough to do jokes through a virtual thing, but I'll do my best.

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Yeah.

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Well, good.

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Well, let's talk about, I, I know there's six or seven points

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that you had talked about.

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In that session and I wanna start with the first one, and you know, we

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know this is a purchase heavy market and we know that consumer direct

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companies in particular have had a more difficult time in the purchase market.

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I know you've got some stats on that I'd love for you to share and I'd love to

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hear you gave a great analogy during the presentation as to why, loan officers

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are not succeeding and companies are not succeeding in the purchase world

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when they could share a little bit about kind of sure where we're at as an

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industry, where the purchase market is at, and then I want you to talk about

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how it's such an episodic business and really units are the key thing we

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should be looking at, not just dollars,

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cuz that was really important information.

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Yeah, well, I mean, we always read the headlines.

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You know, the NBA Forecast Training, Fannie Mae Forecast, Freddie Mac Forecast,

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Stratmore, we're in the numbers business.

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Yep.

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We look at all those numbers.

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I think the one number that gets missed when we talk about that we're

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gonna drop from a 4 trillion dollar market to a 2 trillion dollar market.

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I T, trillion is a big number, so it's kind of absurd how big that number

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really is, and you think, wow, that's a 50% drop if you actually look at

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it on a unit basis, which is really where the hand-to-hand combat has one

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loan officer beating another to try to help this family get into a home.

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It's even more acute because our average loan amount has gone up so much.

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So, that's really one of 'em.

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Last year there were 13 and a half million transactions, first mortgage

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transactions in our industry.

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Next year there'll be maybe five.

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Wow.

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So we're down a lot of units and it's way bigger than the 50% that you see in

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the dollar number because the average loan amount has gone up so much on the

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purchase side and, normally, refinance transactions are smaller than purchase.

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You take the smaller refis out, you're left with a lot of big loan amounts,

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but that means there's really, you know, 5 million opportunities to

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compete and last year there were 13.

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Wow.

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So you better be very sharp.

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Yep.

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And able to compete.

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And I think you were looting.

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One of the other stats I wanted to share is last year over 50%

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of refinance transactions units were done by consumer direct.

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So, you know, first let's pause, that's a big number, when I started mortgage.com in

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1996, Dale, that you know, it's all refi.

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We were referencing, we weren't anywhere near.

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Yeah, but we don't know.

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We're near 50%.

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That's right.

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So 50% of people last year who refinance their homes did it

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through a consumer direct operation

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and that's what created kind of a windfall year for the industry.

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The number on purchase is 15 percent.

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And once again, this is units not dollars.

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So, Uh, what that means is last year, in consumer direct, I'm looking on my

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other screen so I nail this number, um, there were 5 million refinance

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transactions last year and, um, you know, our total transactions rather in

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CD last year, this year there'll be 1.6

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wow.

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And that's assuming that the consumer direct lenders keep

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only doing 15% of the purchase.

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So really the challenge for CD, you can't do the 15%, you have to

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start stealing, share from retail.

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Um, you have to steal share from the other CD lenders.

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So it is really a function of competing at that level

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and by the way, I started as a retail loan officer and then became a call

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center guy, so I kind speak both angles and you know, you can do it,

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it can be done, but you have to have the skills that are very similar to a

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purchase lender, uh, loan originator while also, you know, leveraging the

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skills that the CD lenders have long perfected, you know, centralization,

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lower cost, strong technology.

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Um, but you know, a key part of it is those humans, those loan officers

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have to be able to sell purchase.

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So you had a quote on one of your slides that I absolutely loved,

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and the quote was, purchase is about life, not about loans.

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I love that quote.

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It's a quote, but I wrote an article and even the article

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doesn't, has a couple jokes in it.

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So that was August, 2021 and one of the analogies I put there, and I said this in

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the speech last week, said, I appreciate you bringing it up and you guys could

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share the article if you like, but if somebody, if you were at a cocktail

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party, you know, and somebody said to you, Hey, I'm thinking about buying a home.

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If you're a human being, what's the first question you say?

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The first question is, wow, statement.

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Why?

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And the reason is, the why is the motivation for the entire transaction.

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I'm expanding my family, my family's getting smaller, I wanna be closer

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to work, I don't care about being close to work cuz I now work remote.

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I want a better school system, my kids are older, I don't

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care about the school system.

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Uh, a bigger house, smaller house, uh, later in life, early in life.

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Move up.

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Move down.

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There's something going on.

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Yep.

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That's actually what they're pursuing and if you do not engage on that

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level, You are likely to lose it to a retail guy or gal because they do.

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So the natural inclination for a consumer direct lender because of the muscle

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memory from refi that we've learned is you just jump into the transaction.

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So you'll say, oh, terrific, you're buying a home.

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How much money are you putting down?

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Do you have a property yet picked out?

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How much money are you putting down?

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So the loan amount is okay, that's great.

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Um, you know, we, I can go ahead and qualify you for blah, blah,

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blah, and it's like, what are you, dude, that's way too fast, right?

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And so when you do that, the customer naturally gravitates to the only thing

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they have in common interest with you.

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What's your rate?

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Yep.

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And the shame of it is they can't have the rate anyhow.

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They can't lock it in, they haven't found a house, they don't yet

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have a contract normally, right.

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So it's like you literally put yourself on the least advantageous playing field

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that you didn't even have to play at.

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Yep.

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Because you weren't willing to engage with them on what really matters to them.

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So now you don't have to read the article, but you know it's a four

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pager and you probably should.

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Well, that's so incredibly powerful, and it's so funny because it jives so

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much with what we've taught at Mortgage Champions forever, is that yeah, you've

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gotta have conversation when you start that conversation with qualifying

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questions, which is the most common thing that loan officers do, by the way.

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What you're really saying to the borrower is, let me see if you're good

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enough for me to spend time with you.

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That's really the message you're relaying to them when you really

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think about it, and that is not the message I think we wanna relay.

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I think the message we wanna relay is, man, I wanna help you with that house.

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I'm honored to have the opportunity to work with you today.

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Tell me why you're moving into that house.

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Tell me what's going on in your life, and there you go, bam.

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You're in a conversation that absolutely works, and you're right,

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the, a lot of the retail guys that I trained, they're very good at that.

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Um, and many of the consumer direct guys who are top producers, All of

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those who aren't producing right now, it's because they're going back to

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either they're asking those qualifying questions or they're talking about rate,

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or here's the big one that I can't stand.

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Let me send you a link so you can fill out your information and I'll let you know if

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you qualify, I'll get your pre-approval.

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Wait a minute, hold on.

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You're, you can't, you cannot solve a problem for a borrower you don't

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understand, and if you don't talk to them, you don't understand them,

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an application isn't gonna tell you what you need to know about them.

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So you and I are on the same mindset about it, I think he, you

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know, you said in your presentation, the most important question we ask

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a borrower is the why question.

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I think that's so true and so wise.

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Yeah, and you can get, you can really, you know, obviously when they ask the

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rate question, they might be concerned about rate cause rates are really high

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and, rates are high versus before, but historically they're not that high, and

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by the way, if you figured out on an after tax basis, they're not nearly as

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high as people say, that's exactly right.

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Now you can get to that conversation, but you need to acknowledge they

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had just asked a right question and then start to counsel them on how

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to think about what the rates are.

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And of course, Over the next, from June of last year until June of next year, if

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the forecast holds the 5 million balloons that you're gonna have to fight for, a

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big chunk of them are gonna be refis.

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Let's say half of them are refis.

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That's two and a half million refis coming off a year, when in that same span

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where there's hardly any refi at all.

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So suddenly our market could suddenly get 50% bigger.

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As soon as rates start dropping and, you know, so as hard as you're willing to work

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to establish that relationship with that six and a half percent borrower right now,

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you're buying yourself that opportunity to help them at a 5% borrower next year.

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So it's worth the fight.

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Yep.

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It's just a lot tougher.

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Yep.

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Well, and, you know, the thing that I think a lot of times we forget to

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talk about in today's marketplace is the offsetting factors you just

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mentioned one of those tax benefits, that's a huge offsetting factor.

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You know, buy downs are a huge offsetting factor.

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Um, the fact that today, you know, you hear people talk, consumers talk today

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about, well, you know, it might not be a right time to buy because rates are high.

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Yeah.

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But wait a minute.

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Let's think about when rates were low, you had to compete with

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92 other people on that house.

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Yeah, that's right.

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And then you had to offer $40,000 over asking price in order to get it,

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so if you can get it below asking price and you're paying a higher

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rate at the end of the day, aren't you really kind of in the same boat?

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And many times you are, many times you're even better off at the end of the

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day, depending on how big that variance is so there's plenty of opportunity

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out there today if you look for it.

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Yeah.

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I mean, and if you can drop, you know, your sales price, By 10, 15%

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as the market softens where you can be in a position to do that.

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Yep.

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By getting pre-approved and being ready to pounce.

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Yep.

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Your monthly payment is dropping by virtue of the fact that

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the sales price is going down.

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So, and you should know those numbers, you know, so for every 25,000 it can

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drop your monthly payment as, you know, serve $150 or whatever the number is.

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You know, you know that and then they begin to say, oh, so run

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that by me again, boom, now you're having a quality conversation.

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Yep.

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So you made two statements and you had two bullets on your PowerPoint that Levy

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said, "pretend to be human" number one and second was "get used to not yet".

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So, talk about that for a minute cause I think that was a really important

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point that you covered at the summit.

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Yeah, I mean, a vast majority of refinance, I mean a purchase

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transactions, if you're buying leads or if somebody happens to call off

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your website, a vast majority of them have not yet written a sales contract.

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That's right.

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In some cases, they may not have even put their current house up for sale where

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they may not have even gotten their down payment together, and you don't want to

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jump into the qualification questions to figure that out, but you need to

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figure out where they are in the cycle.

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Yep.

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So the not yet means this is really an opportunity to spend quality

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time and develop a relationship.

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You're not gonna close them, right?

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It's an incremental close.

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I mean, a refinance is a close and you know, if you can't close them in

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a week or two, probably move on to another one, there's another opportunity

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and it's a wasted opportunity to treat it that way, but it's true.

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Yep.

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And by the way, last week we also had, um, Greg Olson spoke and, right

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before me, and by the way I just want everyone to understand Greg Olson is

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much larger than I am, but we got the same amount of time up there, so in

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20 minutes, one of the things that he said was, he said, you become your

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worst when things are the easiest.

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Yeah.

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And he didn't quite understand, I don't think, how prophetic that was

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for a bunch of people who come out of a refi bone.

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Yeah.

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I mean he was talking about how he reacted when, you know, he started making all pro

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as a football player, that type of thing.

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So, you know, go see Greg Olson.

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I can't paraphrase it, but I was like, man, you just nailed what our industry is.

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Yeah.

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This, the soft skills have gotten soft.

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They have, um, because we didn't have, you didn't have to do it as much.

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You worked a lot of hours, so, nowhere should someone listen

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to this and say, ah, this guy didn't get what I'm talking about.

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I understand you worked a lot of hours.

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Okay.

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I understand.

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It's stressful.

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It's extraordinary what we accomplished as an industry doing 13 million

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transaction, but it's a different skill.

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Um, by the way, I would say that pretend to be human, like if you're in a call

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center in a refi, you could almost watch, and I managed hundreds of these

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people you could almost watch when they thought they had a good one on the line.

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They'd lean forward.

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Yeah, and they begin to lean forward.

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They get their pen and they start doom boom.

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I think I can close it on a refi.

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It's almost like in a purchase you need to lean back because if you go

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too fast, they're gonna say, You're not hearing where I am in this cycle.

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Right.

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You're intimidating me with a bunch of jargon and my realtor

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kind of told me I should probably go with her friend locally anyhow.

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So you're almost creating your own objections.

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Just lean back Yeah.

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And let them tell the story because if you can become part of that story,

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you can become part of that solution.

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Slide nine that I sent you is that pie chart.

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Yep.

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And that pie chart is why are you buying a home?

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So the point I would make there is a loan officer,

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whether they hang that in their cube or put it in front of them

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or learn it, the customer they're talking to is one piece of that pie.

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They're in one of those buckets, maybe more than one, but if you don't know, you

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gotta know why you don't have the W H Y.

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That's exactly right and if you don't understand why they're buying,

Speaker: 00:16:35

you can't educate them properly.

Speaker: 00:16:36

And that, I think that's the biggest challenge that I see today is loan

Speaker: 00:16:39

officers just aren't educating because they don't really need to

Speaker: 00:16:43

think they need to because of 2020 and 2021 when it was just like people

Speaker: 00:16:46

lined up out the door for loans.

Speaker: 00:16:48

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:16:48

That's not the case when rates are six and a half or six That's right,

Speaker: 00:16:51

or seven or whatever the rates are.

Speaker: 00:16:53

You're always gonna get resistance to the rate, so what you've gotta do is be able

Speaker: 00:16:57

to educate that borrower on how it makes sense, how they can afford to buy this

Speaker: 00:17:02

home today, that they're looking at how they can qualify in a way that's gonna

Speaker: 00:17:06

get them the home that they want and, What their motivation is behind all of that.

Speaker: 00:17:10

I mean, you and I both are from that same background, we've come up through the

Speaker: 00:17:13

ranks over the years where we sold in high rate markets and you couldn't do it by

Speaker: 00:17:16

quoting rates, you did it by talking about what the motivation of your buyer was.

Speaker: 00:17:20

When I entered the mortgage business in 1987, straight outta college, it was

Speaker: 00:17:24

booming cause rates had fallen to 11.

Speaker: 00:17:28

Yep.

Speaker: 00:17:28

So, you know, late eighties, that crazy late eighties.

Speaker: 00:17:31

Uh, yeah.

Speaker: 00:17:31

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:17:31

When I started 1983, it was 17 and a half.

Speaker: 00:17:34

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:17:35

Well, I was refinancing several years.

Speaker: 00:17:36

I was in 87.

Speaker: 00:17:37

I'm refinancing your 17 and a half, so Dale, so that's exactly right.

Speaker: 00:17:43

All right, so let's talk for a few minutes you know, you talked about units A moment

Speaker: 00:17:47

ago you talked about focus on units

Speaker: 00:17:50

or don't focus on units, but when you do focus on families, not units,

Speaker: 00:17:54

so think of them in family terms.

Speaker: 00:17:56

I love that mindset that instead of thinking in units, we should be

Speaker: 00:18:00

thinking in this every time we help somebody with a transaction that's a

Speaker: 00:18:03

family that we're putting into a home.

Speaker: 00:18:05

That's a individual that we're helping change your life in a powerful way.

Speaker: 00:18:08

But you also talked about something else that I thought was important

Speaker: 00:18:11

and that is our obsession with basis points and how volume really

Speaker: 00:18:16

takes our focus off what matters.

Speaker: 00:18:18

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:18:18

Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker: 00:18:18

Yeah, so I mean, it's like anything, right?

Speaker: 00:18:20

You, uh, if you pay people a certain way, it drives the behavior.

Speaker: 00:18:24

So if you pay in basis points, you are saying the dollars more important than

Speaker: 00:18:30

the person because you're not paying them to close the Jones loan, you're

Speaker: 00:18:34

paying them to close a $300,000 loan, and I don't even want to get into the

Speaker: 00:18:38

distortion and incentives that are created by the fact that the $200,000 loan

Speaker: 00:18:43

isn't worth as much as the $300,000 loan.

Speaker: 00:18:46

So I'll give you one very interesting stat where we actually got an article

Speaker: 00:18:49

coming out on this in 2010, Dodd Frank came and changed our world and it changed

Speaker: 00:18:53

our world cause we said, Hey you need to change away from our compensation

Speaker: 00:18:58

model and you can't be paid on the terms of the loan, and the industry battled

Speaker: 00:19:03

and got the CFPB through Dodd-Frank to acknowledge and make an exception

Speaker: 00:19:09

for basis points for a loan officer.

Speaker: 00:19:11

And I'd literally come back and say, and now this is ancient history,

Speaker: 00:19:14

it was 12 years ago, but we almost screwed ourselves right there because

Speaker: 00:19:19

the average loan officer in 2010 was making $2,000 a loan in compensation,

Speaker: 00:19:25

and if you adjust that for inflation, it should be roughly $3,000 a loan.

Speaker: 00:19:31

Right now, the average loan officer is making $4,000 a loan.

Speaker: 00:19:35

So we are literally paying more because the average loan amount is so high.

Speaker: 00:19:40

By the way, retail's average loan amount is significantly higher than

Speaker: 00:19:43

consumer direct, partially because retail, brick and mortar, etc.

Speaker: 00:19:46

, chases big loans, so they, it's less competitive on the small loans.

Speaker: 00:19:51

So because of that, we don't, we just do away with any pay driven

Speaker: 00:19:57

on quality, it's basis points.

Speaker: 00:20:00

Everything's like the bigger the loan the better, and the more you do or

Speaker: 00:20:03

the bigger volume you do, the better.

Speaker: 00:20:06

So what I'm advocating for people, and this is not a popular concept, or people

Speaker: 00:20:10

will say, that's really interesting,

Speaker: 00:20:11

someday we should do that and let me just go ahead and keep paying

Speaker: 00:20:14

basis points in the meantime.

Speaker: 00:20:16

But to sit there and say, look, I'm gonna pay you a thousand dollars on a refi, but

Speaker: 00:20:21

$2,000 on a purchase, you're saying it matters and it's harder and I recognize

Speaker: 00:20:25

it's harder and I want to pay you.

Speaker: 00:20:27

I'm gonna pay you more,

Speaker: 00:20:29

if you do a fully verified, or I'm gonna pay you some of it up front, if you do

Speaker: 00:20:32

a fully verified pre-approval and make contact and develop a relationship with

Speaker: 00:20:36

the realtor, I'll pay you more for that.

Speaker: 00:20:38

I'll pay you more if your lock pull through is higher, because, you know,

Speaker: 00:20:43

that helps me from a capital market, you can literally just start paying for

Speaker: 00:20:47

the activity that you're trying to drive

Speaker: 00:20:49

and instead what we do through training and management is try to

Speaker: 00:20:51

drive the behavior and then pay them on something completely different.

Speaker: 00:20:55

So that was really the point I was trying to challenge people with is

Speaker: 00:20:58

saying, now's the time, frankly, as we're contracting, to really think through

Speaker: 00:21:03

what culture am I trying to create?

Speaker: 00:21:05

Focus on families, and how do I really want to pay people?

Speaker: 00:21:09

Maybe focusing on the unit part of the pay and customer satisfaction and all

Speaker: 00:21:14

the other elements that drive, you know, a better culture within your company.

Speaker: 00:21:19

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:21:19

You know, it's funny because I'm gonna go back all the way to 1983 to 1995,

Speaker: 00:21:24

the 12 years that I managed in this business, and, you know, I managed

Speaker: 00:21:27

up to as many as 900 loan officers at one point, and I had a common saying

Speaker: 00:21:31

that I said to my loan officers, it was this focus on units not dollars,

Speaker: 00:21:35

yeah.

Speaker: 00:21:35

Focus on units not dollars, focus on units, not dollars.

Speaker: 00:21:37

And here's why, because units create habits, dollars create elephant

Speaker: 00:21:42

hunters, that's what they do.

Speaker: 00:21:44

So I'm sure now from lenders who are watching this podcast right now,

Speaker: 00:21:48

they're thinking, Ooh, wow that's kind of radical that we're talking

Speaker: 00:21:51

about changing compensation, but it's gonna happen at some point.

Speaker: 00:21:53

That's right.

Speaker: 00:21:53

It has to, because of the structure of businesses today.

Speaker: 00:21:56

For the loan officers, you're probably like, Whoa, wait a minute.

Speaker: 00:22:00

I like my basis points.

Speaker: 00:22:01

I get it, and our advice is focus on units, do more of those.

Speaker: 00:22:04

Focus on who you're helping.

Speaker: 00:22:06

You'll make a lot of money down the road, but if you focus on the basis

Speaker: 00:22:10

point percentage, put simply, this is a saying I use all the time,

Speaker: 00:22:15

focus on your customers, not your commissions, and your commissions

Speaker: 00:22:18

will be much higher, right?

Speaker: 00:22:18

It's that simple, right?

Speaker: 00:22:19

It's all focusing on the end result of the consumer you're helping, the

Speaker: 00:22:24

family you're placing into that home, the people you're saving the money for,

Speaker: 00:22:27

that's what your focus has gotta be.

Speaker: 00:22:28

And the more you focus it on units, both as a lender and as a loan officer,

Speaker: 00:22:32

the more successful you're gonna be.

Speaker: 00:22:33

And I love the idea, I've always advocated this, just like you,

Speaker: 00:22:36

Garth, is compensation plan should be designed to reward for the activities

Speaker: 00:22:41

you're looking for, so if you're looking for higher conversion, you

Speaker: 00:22:44

should be compensating for that.

Speaker: 00:22:45

If you're looking for higher quality, you should be compensated for that.

Speaker: 00:22:48

If you're looking for your surveys to come back and you want customer

Speaker: 00:22:51

satisfaction, you should be given a spiff for that because now people will

Speaker: 00:22:55

work towards those things that are paid for, that's why incentives work so well.

Speaker: 00:22:59

Exactly.

Speaker: 00:22:59

And by the way, we see this in the retail side when we do analysis on

Speaker: 00:23:02

the retail side, we'll have banks in the south, mortgage companies in the

Speaker: 00:23:05

southeast and their are loan officers, average six loans a month, and then

Speaker: 00:23:09

you talk to somebody in their, during, you know, one of the big loan amount

Speaker: 00:23:12

states like California, Washington, DC up in the northeast, they do four.

Speaker: 00:23:18

Yep.

Speaker: 00:23:18

Duh.

Speaker: 00:23:19

And make a lot more money.

Speaker: 00:23:20

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:23:20

Well, well the four is because they kind of, you know, once again, I was a

Speaker: 00:23:24

loan officer too, so I was out pedaling rate sheets and chasing realtors

Speaker: 00:23:29

but you are, you know, at four, you're making a really good living.

Speaker: 00:23:35

So am I gonna fight hard for five and six?

Speaker: 00:23:38

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:23:38

And whereas down, you know, down south, and by the way, and if you get down into

Speaker: 00:23:42

the southeast where they do an average of six, they also have higher governments.

Speaker: 00:23:46

So it ain't like they're easier loans, it's like they're probably

Speaker: 00:23:49

harder loans than anything.

Speaker: 00:23:51

Well, and it's interesting.

Speaker: 00:23:52

I'm training people in today's marketplace in this high rate market,

Speaker: 00:23:55

I'm training a lot of loan officers across the country doing

Speaker: 00:23:57

20, 25, 30 loans a month still.

Speaker: 00:23:59

Yes.

Speaker: 00:23:59

In this marketplace, because they're doing the right things, they're a

Speaker: 00:24:02

hundred percent, they're building relationships, having proper

Speaker: 00:24:04

conversations, so on and so forth.

Speaker: 00:24:05

Yep.

Speaker: 00:24:06

All right.

Speaker: 00:24:06

Let's talk about efficiencies for a minute.

Speaker: 00:24:08

If we can and let's talk about the importance of creating efficiency within

Speaker: 00:24:13

your business and also talk a little bit about the cost of having people who are

Speaker: 00:24:20

not productive and what that looks like.

Speaker: 00:24:21

This is fun, and I know you talked about on the stage that I thought

Speaker: 00:24:24

was very beneficial to lenders

Speaker: 00:24:26

and I think there's a lot of value in here too, for any loan officers

Speaker: 00:24:30

who might be watching this to understand the importance of your

Speaker: 00:24:32

productivity and what that looks like.

Speaker: 00:24:34

Yep.

Speaker: 00:24:34

So I think what's really interesting here is in 2021, there was about

Speaker: 00:24:39

350,000 loan officers, a third of them did less than three loans.

Speaker: 00:24:44

I mean, that's so part-time, it's like, why?

Speaker: 00:24:47

Why would you do that?

Speaker: 00:24:48

Why?

Speaker: 00:24:48

How is that possibly worth it?

Speaker: 00:24:50

If you're managing a company, and I know that the theory is it's a variable

Speaker: 00:24:53

cost, but is it really you have to maintain their licensing Many times,

Speaker: 00:24:57

the part-time people are the ones, who are the least able to package a loan

Speaker: 00:25:02

together or provide the high level of service, they lose the muscle memory of

Speaker: 00:25:05

how to do the business if they're only doing a loan like every couple months.

Speaker: 00:25:08

So really think about whether that's really the right thing for you to have

Speaker: 00:25:12

some people that's small, that part-time when maybe the approach is put that

Speaker: 00:25:17

money towards the real producers and the real people focused on their career.

Speaker: 00:25:21

The other is 80% of the volume in our industry is done by 40% of the LOs.

Speaker: 00:25:26

So in the, so you get the bottom, you get the bottom 30, hardly do any,

Speaker: 00:25:31

but the next 30 doesn't do very much either, so at some point you're do

Speaker: 00:25:36

I really want so many low producers?

Speaker: 00:25:39

And I understand it is tough when we're in this climate, every

Speaker: 00:25:42

single loan is worth something.

Speaker: 00:25:45

Right, but in a consumer direct operation, isn't it another one of your loan officers

Speaker: 00:25:50

who's used to doing maybe 35 and now only doing 25, who could do the 26th

Speaker: 00:25:54

loan for you if you gave them that lead?

Speaker: 00:25:57

You know, maybe that's where you should think about instead of the approach that

Speaker: 00:26:01

a lot of lenders seem to be taken is, well, I'll retain all my salespeople

Speaker: 00:26:03

because they don't cost me anything, and they bring in extra business.

Speaker: 00:26:08

I just say, rethink that, are you sure they don't cost you something?

Speaker: 00:26:11

By the way, they're also the ones likely that have to negotiate lower rates,

Speaker: 00:26:15

maybe cause they're not as good selling or their locks expire, or they're a

Speaker: 00:26:19

little sloppy with the paperwork and the processor has to clean up behind them.

Speaker: 00:26:22

I mean, it takes real analytics to know the cost of this and we help lenders

Speaker: 00:26:27

do that, but, um, it ain't free.

Speaker: 00:26:31

Yep.

Speaker: 00:26:32

And it's interesting cuz you know, I trained so many loan officers across

Speaker: 00:26:34

the country along with leaders and lenders and all of that, and I have this

Speaker: 00:26:38

conversation with a lot of loan officers where I'll see them doing these 1, 2, 3

Speaker: 00:26:42

a month and I'll ask them the question, why is it all you're doing right?

Speaker: 00:26:46

And their answer's one of two things; well, that's all I need

Speaker: 00:26:48

to do to make what I want to make.

Speaker: 00:26:50

Yes.

Speaker: 00:26:50

Or, well, you know what?

Speaker: 00:26:51

There's other things that I want to do too, and if the first answer is,

Speaker: 00:26:55

that's all I need, I go, well, all right, think about this, you know, you

Speaker: 00:26:58

gotta make hay while the sun's shining right in, in anything that you do.

Speaker: 00:27:01

And if you can close five or six or seven instead of three

Speaker: 00:27:04

or 10, Why wouldn't you do that?

Speaker: 00:27:07

Because we have no idea what the, and we saw this year how much the market

Speaker: 00:27:10

shifted from 2021 to 2022, right?

Speaker: 00:27:12

So people are now looking back, going, boy, I wish I'd have done more in

Speaker: 00:27:15

2021 when it was really available and I wouldn't have given up so fast.

Speaker: 00:27:19

So that's a message for all loan officers out there but on the other side

Speaker: 00:27:22

of that equation is, look, if you're doing other things, this is an industry

Speaker: 00:27:25

where if you put a hundred percent of your effort in, you can be incredibly

Speaker: 00:27:28

successful and make an awful lot of money.

Speaker: 00:27:30

Why would you choose another side

Speaker: 00:27:33

gig, if you've got the opportunity to be successful in lending,

Speaker: 00:27:36

because this is the one industry that's always gonna be a need.

Speaker: 00:27:40

Home ownership will always be the American dream and people always need

Speaker: 00:27:43

money to refinance and money to buy home.

Speaker: 00:27:44

So I would encourage loan officers, if anybody's listening to this as a loan

Speaker: 00:27:48

officer and they're watching this, you want to tap out on every opportunity

Speaker: 00:27:52

you can within the marketplace.

Speaker: 00:27:54

And I know when people hear things like 25 loans in this

Speaker: 00:27:57

marketplace are like, Wait a minute.

Speaker: 00:27:58

What I'm doing, two or three.

Speaker: 00:28:00

Well, it, it's a process of understanding that is a product of your network,

Speaker: 00:28:07

your lead base, your approach, your style, all these things you and I

Speaker: 00:28:10

have been talking about will determine what that outcome is on your results.

Speaker: 00:28:14

It's not working longer that's gonna make you successful, it's working smarter

Speaker: 00:28:19

that's gonna make you successful in this marketplace, that's really what it takes.

Speaker: 00:28:21

And I think the key part of is honing the skills and so, you know, It's

Speaker: 00:28:24

having the right technology, sure, it's buying the right leads, great, but it's

Speaker: 00:28:28

also getting the training necessary to make yourself the best you can be

Speaker: 00:28:31

with every opportunity you're given.

Speaker: 00:28:33

I mean, we get calls all the time, we do some, you know, work around,

Speaker: 00:28:37

uh, lead management and CRMs and things like that, and we get called,

Speaker: 00:28:40

Hey, what's the best lead source?

Speaker: 00:28:42

I'm like, come on, it depends, and you know, it depends on what

Speaker: 00:28:46

you're buying, how you're buying it.

Speaker: 00:28:47

But by the way, That, that's the wrong answer because the, uh, the wrong question

Speaker: 00:28:52

because how good are you converting leads?

Speaker: 00:28:55

Right.

Speaker: 00:28:55

You know, and if you're not good converting pre-qual, um, purchase

Speaker: 00:28:59

leads right now, then it doesn't matter how good the lead is.

Speaker: 00:29:02

Because that's mostly the purchase leads that you're gonna get right now.

Speaker: 00:29:06

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:29:06

Not last year, but right now.

Speaker: 00:29:07

That's exactly right.

Speaker: 00:29:08

So focus on the skills necessary to convert those before you start worrying

Speaker: 00:29:12

about, you know, whether a particular lead source happens to be better or,

Speaker: 00:29:17

you know, different than the next one.

Speaker: 00:29:19

Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, one of the, one of the strategies that I've

Speaker: 00:29:22

been employed with every single lender I've ever worked with is you need to

Speaker: 00:29:25

have, uh, with every single one of your leads or your referrals that come in,

Speaker: 00:29:29

you need to have a secondary call process in that where, you know, if that first

Speaker: 00:29:35

loan officer can't sell that deal, there should be a second person talking to them.

Speaker: 00:29:38

Yep.

Speaker: 00:29:38

Sometimes just a different voice, sometimes you know may, maybe just a

Speaker: 00:29:43

different personality or a different approach is gonna get a deal, and

Speaker: 00:29:47

it's always been interesting to me how many times you'll have a loan

Speaker: 00:29:49

officer take a lead, they say, nah, there's nothing here this guy's not

Speaker: 00:29:53

gonna buy from me, won't pay our rates,

Speaker: 00:29:54

you hand it off to another loan officer and son of a gun if they don't turn

Speaker: 00:29:57

that thing in, you know, five minutes flat, they've got that customer

Speaker: 00:30:00

eating out of the palm of their hand because of the challenge that's there.

Speaker: 00:30:03

It's a process of understanding that if we educate properly and

Speaker: 00:30:07

do the right things, we're gonna get the results we're looking for.

Speaker: 00:30:09

Absolutely no question about it.

Speaker: 00:30:12

All right.

Speaker: 00:30:12

You had a quote, and I want you to kind of embellish on this, you said,

Speaker: 00:30:16

um, "Satisfaction is measurable, But not if you don't measure it."

Speaker: 00:30:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:30:22

So help the audience understand that.

Speaker: 00:30:24

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:30:24

So we do customer satisfaction research for the industry, we surveyed

Speaker: 00:30:28

about 300,000 consumers last year.

Speaker: 00:30:30

We do it for, wow, many of the top lenders on their behalf, and we do it, um, and

Speaker: 00:30:35

by the way, JD Power, you know, surveyed about 5,000 people last year, so it's

Speaker: 00:30:39

a very deep data set, um, some of the top performing customer satisfaction

Speaker: 00:30:44

lenders use the service and really the key is that it not only says, Hey, would

Speaker: 00:30:49

you give me a five star review as an example, but it asks about the process

Speaker: 00:30:53

and how they experienced the process and what they felt about the process.

Speaker: 00:30:57

It's really the full consumer experience, and I'll give you, we break down, there's

Speaker: 00:31:02

like seven major drivers of customer satisfaction, many of which do not have

Speaker: 00:31:08

directly responsible for loan officers.

Speaker: 00:31:12

So the challenges, how as a loan officer do I deal with it but the

Speaker: 00:31:14

other challenges as a company, how do I make sure customer satisfaction is

Speaker: 00:31:18

all the way through the process, not just make love on the phone up front.

Speaker: 00:31:22

So let's say you do the great why experience, W H Y, and you get it and

Speaker: 00:31:26

you convert them, That's amazing, so in consumer direct, in 2022 through October,

Speaker: 00:31:32

looking at my right screen, I should have this slide with you too, 46% of consumers

Speaker: 00:31:37

in our survey say they were asked for the same information more than once.

Speaker: 00:31:42

That's really frustrating.

Speaker: 00:31:43

So once again, pretend you're human to stop with thinking about, well,

Speaker: 00:31:47

the problem is the tax return or the second bank statement, or the missing

Speaker: 00:31:51

page of the bank statement, or all this arcane thing that we deal with in our

Speaker: 00:31:55

industry, the underwriter's fault, think about it as a human, you're asked for

Speaker: 00:31:59

the same information, more than once.

Speaker: 00:32:01

It's frustrating.

Speaker: 00:32:02

I already gave this to you, so, what do you do about it?

Speaker: 00:32:05

Our industry is rife with, Hey, if you have a loan in the pipeline as

Speaker: 00:32:08

a preapproval, you are gonna have to probably ask for another pay stub.

Speaker: 00:32:12

Or maybe the borrower didn't understand, or maybe they only sent

Speaker: 00:32:15

you their bank statement for their checking, but not their savings.

Speaker: 00:32:19

The point is, you have to communicate at their level to make sure they understand

Speaker: 00:32:23

and also you have to know that 46% of the time that they feel this happens,

Speaker: 00:32:29

you need to be prepared to overcome it so they don't think it happened,

Speaker: 00:32:33

and one way to do that is to not, once again, act like it's a transaction.

Speaker: 00:32:39

And the one that I'll do, I'll just give you the one example here, Dale,

Speaker: 00:32:42

I know we're running short on time, but if you, if somebody calls you and

Speaker: 00:32:47

says, I need a letter of explanation, or I need an additional piece of

Speaker: 00:32:51

documentation, that is already a failing conversation because nobody wants

Speaker: 00:32:56

to have to explain anything, right?

Speaker: 00:32:58

That's wife, parent, you know, that doesn't sound good, right?

Speaker: 00:33:02

If you have a conversation, hey, uh, wanted to touch base on a

Speaker: 00:33:06

couple things, um, you get your pay stubs every other week, right?

Speaker: 00:33:09

Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaker: 00:33:10

I got your April here.

Speaker: 00:33:11

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:33:11

Awesome.

Speaker: 00:33:11

So your, is your pay still the same or, you know, when do you get a raise?

Speaker: 00:33:15

It doesn't matter, I'm simply talking about their life.

Speaker: 00:33:18

Oh, actually, I might get a raise next year.

Speaker: 00:33:19

Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker: 00:33:20

Congratulations.

Speaker: 00:33:21

That's amazing.

Speaker: 00:33:21

You get 'em every two weeks.

Speaker: 00:33:22

You get 'em in your, um, you know, like a PDF in your email.

Speaker: 00:33:26

Oh, no, there's got a, we got a website.

Speaker: 00:33:28

We download 'em.

Speaker: 00:33:28

All right.

Speaker: 00:33:29

Could you just download a couple more of those for me?

Speaker: 00:33:32

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:33:32

Okay.

Speaker: 00:33:32

I'll hang on the phone, by the way, while you do it.

Speaker: 00:33:34

So how are things going anyhow?

Speaker: 00:33:36

I've just had a conversation and asked for two additional pay stubs.

Speaker: 00:33:38

That's right.

Speaker: 00:33:39

I didn't say I need two additional pay stubs, and the guy's probably

Speaker: 00:33:42

not gonna realize you asked for the same information more than once

Speaker: 00:33:45

because it was just pleasant.

Speaker: 00:33:48

So, you know, but credit inquiries, everything like that can be a

Speaker: 00:33:51

conversation if you think about what is, how's the consumer gonna decode

Speaker: 00:33:56

what I'm saying and how do I get on their side of the table, so to speak?

Speaker: 00:34:00

So I get passionate on that one, dale.

Speaker: 00:34:03

So this is what I love about you the most, Garth, is you've been in this business

Speaker: 00:34:07

like I have for a long time, and you started as a loan officer just like I

Speaker: 00:34:10

did, and worked our, you know, we both worked our way up through the business

Speaker: 00:34:13

and what you're really revealing to people today is the secret to success

Speaker: 00:34:18

in today's market; it's going back to the basics of, relationship,

Speaker: 00:34:22

conversation, we've mentioned several times, Be a human being, think like

Speaker: 00:34:26

a human being, Think about them as a human being, Yeah, quit thinking of it

Speaker: 00:34:29

transactionally, think of it relationally.

Speaker: 00:34:32

You know, Peter Drucker has a great quote that I love, he said, "The biggest problem

Speaker: 00:34:36

in communication is that we don't listen to understand, we listen to reply" yes.

Speaker: 00:34:41

That is such a true statement In today's world I watch loan officers every day

Speaker: 00:34:46

that are on the phone and they're thinking about the next question they're gonna ask,

Speaker: 00:34:49

they're looking at their computer screen, they're not even hearing what that

Speaker: 00:34:51

borrower's saying to them, and they're missing that golden moment of conversation

Speaker: 00:34:55

and relationship and connection and trustworthiness, it's so powerful.

Speaker: 00:35:00

Look, this business is not rocket science, we try to make it rocket

Speaker: 00:35:04

science, but it's really people are gonna buy no matter what the rates are,

Speaker: 00:35:08

that's right, and they're gonna pick from the person they like the most and who they

Speaker: 00:35:11

think is looking out for their interests.

Speaker: 00:35:13

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:35:13

So I, I think everything that we've talked about really goes back to

Speaker: 00:35:17

conversational tone, treating people like human beings, and understanding

Speaker: 00:35:21

that these are not transactions, these are not even units, these are families

Speaker: 00:35:25

and people we're dealing with, and we're changing our life in an incredible way.

Speaker: 00:35:28

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:35:29

And the, and you know, the purchase is so exciting, it's really

Speaker: 00:35:32

way more exciting than a refi.

Speaker: 00:35:34

So it might be harder, yeah.

Speaker: 00:35:36

But it's way more rewarding.

Speaker: 00:35:38

Um, you know, and of course if you do a great job on a purchase,

Speaker: 00:35:42

they're gonna tell people because you don't go to a cocktail party and

Speaker: 00:35:45

say, damn it, I had the best refi,

Speaker: 00:35:48

I saved $187 a month, how much did you save on your refi?

Speaker: 00:35:53

But you're gonna go to a cocktail party and say, I bought that new

Speaker: 00:35:56

home and the next human's gonna say, wow, why did you want a new home?

Speaker: 00:35:59

And if you're part of that solution, you've earned the right to be part of,

Speaker: 00:36:04

you know, getting a referral or whatever that next piece of business might be.

Speaker: 00:36:08

Well, and the purchase is so much more emotional of a transaction than a refi

Speaker: 00:36:14

is to the consumer cause this is the new house, it's the new thing, it's

Speaker: 00:36:18

where they're gonna create their future memories, there's a whole lot that

Speaker: 00:36:20

goes into that, it's really powerful.

Speaker: 00:36:21

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:36:22

Yep.

Speaker: 00:36:23

If you were to give one piece of advice to the people listening today to

Speaker: 00:36:28

succeed in, you know, the rest of this year in 2023, in a high rate market,

Speaker: 00:36:32

what would that piece of advice be?

Speaker: 00:36:35

Uh, empathy.

Speaker: 00:36:37

Um, and one is it's empathy for the people that you work with, some of

Speaker: 00:36:41

whom will probably need to have an opportunity to succeed elsewhere.

Speaker: 00:36:45

We're gonna go through a big contraction.

Speaker: 00:36:46

It's unfortunate.

Speaker: 00:36:47

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:36:48

Um, and I hate it when, you know, we're hired by people, a lot of mortgage

Speaker: 00:36:52

companies to tell them how to, you know, get more efficient and optimize

Speaker: 00:36:56

and I never forget that the spreadsheet of, you know, maybe you need to

Speaker: 00:37:01

reduce your expense in a department or people, so you need to be empathetic.

Speaker: 00:37:05

It's really, it's tough as it is for the loan officers trying to scrap

Speaker: 00:37:09

to get from four to five to six to seven to eight loans a month, it's way

Speaker: 00:37:13

tougher for the processor, the loan officer assistant, or the underwriter

Speaker: 00:37:16

who really is waiting for you to do enough business to justify their job.

Speaker: 00:37:20

It's a tough, that's tough.

Speaker: 00:37:21

That's right.

Speaker: 00:37:22

And the other empathy is it's a really tough purchase market and the customers

Speaker: 00:37:26

will act odd because they're under stress.

Speaker: 00:37:30

I mean, it's more expensive than it was a year ago, but let me help you

Speaker: 00:37:33

understand how much more it really is, and let's see if we can come

Speaker: 00:37:35

up with some solutions for you,

Speaker: 00:37:37

or it's more stressful for the realtor, there's a lot less deals

Speaker: 00:37:40

to go around, they're gonna act odd, you know, and frenzied about their

Speaker: 00:37:44

transaction, which might be, you know, last month's Jaguar payment.

Speaker: 00:37:48

So it's, you just have to have empathy for how difficult it is and be, you know, uh,

Speaker: 00:37:56

Somewhat satisfied or appreciative that you have an opportunity to have such a

Speaker: 00:37:59

meaningful role in it on an ongoing basis.

Speaker: 00:38:02

I love it.

Speaker: 00:38:04

Sage advice right there.

Speaker: 00:38:05

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:38:05

Let me close up my final question.

Speaker: 00:38:07

I'd love to ask all my guests.

Speaker: 00:38:08

I'm a firm believer that one of the keys to success for all of us is having mentors

Speaker: 00:38:12

in your life and people that you can learn from, can you give an example of or just

Speaker: 00:38:18

tell us in your words how important you think mentorship is for people watching

Speaker: 00:38:23

this podcast, and maybe you have an example of a mentor in your life who

Speaker: 00:38:26

made a difference that you wanna share.

Speaker: 00:38:27

Yeah, I think I've had a, I had a few, I mean, I certainly had one in the

Speaker: 00:38:30

production, um, uh, area when I came up.

Speaker: 00:38:34

I got promoted pretty quickly at Chase, I was a very high producer.

Speaker: 00:38:38

I kind of went from branch to regional manager very quickly, and I had a lot of

Speaker: 00:38:42

bad habits, and most of it was around a level of arrogance and a lack of humility

Speaker: 00:38:49

and I had a manager who beat that outta me, and he was

Speaker: 00:38:53

right at every step of the way.

Speaker: 00:38:55

Um, he's, and if he's watching, I'll send him a link cuz I've told him this myself.

Speaker: 00:39:00

Um, I've also had ones, you know, where I did a lot of mergers and

Speaker: 00:39:04

acquisition and strategy work at my latest job before we sold mortgage.com

Speaker: 00:39:09

and AB Amer got sold to Citi group.

Speaker: 00:39:11

I had a pretty meaningful job there and I had two very good mentors.

Speaker: 00:39:15

One of them really at his core as a production guide too, so we saw eye

Speaker: 00:39:19

to eye on a lot of things, but he was far more strategic and analytical.

Speaker: 00:39:23

And another who was really a finance guy and he was, um, you know, taught

Speaker: 00:39:29

me a lot of things that I hadn't really thought about at a very deep level

Speaker: 00:39:33

and he was a very good manager, tough manager.

Speaker: 00:39:36

The pattern for me, by the way, is it's the tough managers, uh, tough,

Speaker: 00:39:40

but empathetic I think is probably the best mentors that I've had.

Speaker: 00:39:44

Awesome.

Speaker: 00:39:45

I love it.

Speaker: 00:39:45

Well, think back to our coaches and our teachers.

Speaker: 00:39:48

The tough ones were the ones that made us the best.

Speaker: 00:39:49

There's no question about that.

Speaker: 00:39:50

That's right.

Speaker: 00:39:51

So, So, um, how can people reach out to you?

Speaker: 00:39:56

Tell us a little bit about Strat Moore.

Speaker: 00:39:58

I mean, you guys are such an incredible organization.

Speaker: 00:40:01

Um, you know, if, do you wanna share for just a minute?

Speaker: 00:40:03

Sure.

Speaker: 00:40:03

You know, what you guys do and how it can help the audience.

Speaker: 00:40:07

Um, we get a lot of people watching this podcast, so, uh, and what they,

Speaker: 00:40:10

how they would reach out to you if they wanted to get your advice.

Speaker: 00:40:13

Yeah, sure.

Speaker: 00:40:13

No problem.

Speaker: 00:40:14

Um, by the way, I'm blessed with a very, uh, Uh, not a common name.

Speaker: 00:40:18

So I'm like, you Dale, just go to LinkedIn and type Garth Graham and you'll pop and

Speaker: 00:40:22

I'll pop up or you can even Google me.

Speaker: 00:40:24

So yeah, I'd love to engage with people on that level.

Speaker: 00:40:27

Strat More really is a data-centric consulting firm, so really what

Speaker: 00:40:31

we are helping is the c-suite on how to invest and improve the

Speaker: 00:40:35

performance of their business.

Speaker: 00:40:37

We do a lot of M&A activity, we didn't talk about that either.

Speaker: 00:40:39

In fact, I'm kind of buried with M&A right now, but, um, really it's, you

Speaker: 00:40:44

know, whatever those challenges might be, we give, you know, strong insights back

Speaker: 00:40:49

by data and help people make decisions to improve their business, so that's

Speaker: 00:40:54

really the core of what Strat Moore is.

Speaker: 00:40:56

Um, and you see our stats that come out and if anybody wants to sign up on our

Speaker: 00:41:00

website, we send out a monthly insight that I think is pretty darn powerful.

Speaker: 00:41:04

Our databases, oh, 10,000 people get it in our industry, so we're welcome

Speaker: 00:41:09

to share our insights that way as well.

Speaker: 00:41:12

Well, Garth this has been great.

Speaker: 00:41:14

You've been such a great ambassador to the business for so many years.

Speaker: 00:41:17

I love when I get to see you at conferences.

Speaker: 00:41:19

That's generally when we get to see each other at conferences, but we're gonna have

Speaker: 00:41:21

to make a habit of making it more than that seeing we're both down in Florida and

Speaker: 00:41:24

we're not too far apart from each other,

Speaker: 00:41:26

love to get together for lunch or dinner or one of these, uh, things

Speaker: 00:41:29

pretty soon, but thank you for being on, Great advice, great, um,

Speaker: 00:41:33

information as always, appreciate you greatly and look forward to the next

Speaker: 00:41:37

time we get to see each other again.

Speaker: 00:41:38

Yep.

Speaker: 00:41:38

All right, Dale.

Speaker: 00:41:39

I appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker: 00:41:41

All right, Garth.

Speaker: 00:41:42

Thank you.

Speaker: 00:41:42

God bless you.

Speaker: 00:41:42

Thank you.